Chapter 23

chapter 23

CEPHARIUS

This time she wriggled with excitement—and I longed to put many more of my tentacles upon her. Every sucker that didn't touch a part of her felt bereft.

But I managed to contain myself. She was happier now, because of me.

I carried her slowly over the entire side of the structure, sweeping across it at an even speed, and I heard her counting along the way until we got to a place where there were no symbols at all at the very top.

"Why would they stop?" She put her hand to her helmet, as if it helped her think.

"Maybe they ran out of time?" I guessed. "There's more on all of the other visible sides, but your cable won't stretch that far."

She groaned. "I can't believe how limiting this is."

"If they'd crashed somewhere more accessible, you wouldn't be with me," I teased, and felt her stiffen. I was worrying I'd said the wrong thing, when she agreed.

"Is it possible they landed in the ocean on purpose? Something this large hitting the ground, it should've left a blast radius, but there's still deep cliffs on both this trench's sides. So maybe if they didn't crash. If they landed, did they come here to hide?"

I had no idea.

All I knew was I loved to watch her think.

She moved to stare up at me, blinding me with her lights. "If I give you a camera, how fast do you think you could film the other sides of the ship for me?"

"Very quickly."

"I'll snap one off of the other suits tonight for you," she said, then laughed. "I can't believe I'm going to ruin a five-million-dollar suit—but I think Mr. Marlow would agree it was for a good cause."

I didn't like the idea of her damaging any of her suits— what if she needed a spare?— but then I had a different question. "Have they not already taken pictures of them?"

I felt her confusion. "Huh? What do you mean?"

I took us to the ground and released her reluctantly. "Stay here."

I knew what remotely operated vehicles looked like. I went and scooped two of them up, holding them like children as my lower-arms jetted us back to her side.

She knew what they were the second I landed, too. "The tablet did have footage on it."

"How much?" I pressed.

"A couple of seconds' worth. Enough to make me interested, not enough to make my life easier?"

"Twenty of these litter the plain behind the ship."

She stared up at me, her jaw dropped. "Ceph—when were you going to tell me that?"

"I had forgotten about it, truly, until now. But these have your cameras on them, do they not?"

"They do, but—yeah, I don't know," she said, biting her lips together. "It doesn't make sense."

I set both of them carefully down. "Tell me more about this man who sent you here, the one who knows more than he is sharing. "

I saw a blank wall of panic in her brain. "Do you all . . . uh . . . how does your economy work?"

"Economy?"

"Oh no," she said, but I could tell she wasn't really upset. "In the air," she began, pointing straight up, "we have this thing called money that we pass around and exchange for goods and services, like places to live, and heating. Up there, we have to pay for everything."

I stared up into the blackness above us. "Why do you not share?"

"Because some people just are jerks and keep more than they need. And Mr. Marlow, the man who is paying for all of this—by some definitions, he's just the biggest jerk of them all." I saw her wince inside her suit. "Anyhow, in the air, sometimes when people have more money than sense they try to do things no one else can, or that no one else ever has. Like, admittedly, sending people into space. But I don't think that's the case here." She toed one of the broken ROVs with her armor-covered boot. "Why would he send so many? And what happened to them?"

I looked from her to the wall, trying to wrap my mind around things. "And what will he do with your findings when you share them with him?"

She inhaled and exhaled deeply. "That's...a really good question," she said and started pacing again. "This thing is definitely bigger than the two of us can handle, Ceph. I'm going to have to report in eventually, and then he'll send more people down, I'm sure of it."

"I do not want that," I thought at her quickly.

"Me either. But I don't know if it can be avoided. And I don't know that keeping this all to ourselves is entirely fair. I mean," she said, with a grand gesture up at the wall with both arms, "what if it's some sort of knowledge-containing device? Sent here to help us out when it's the right time?"

"You mean like you?" I wanted to think at her, but I didn't. She was busy looking at the wall, thinking hard, hopeful, scared, and wondering.

What I wouldn't give to have her feel that way about me.

Then she looked over her shoulder at me and smiled. "Let's go back to the ship and see if we can't harvest any local memory off of these."