Muses of Terra (Codex Antonius Book 2) (26 page)

“What about Kaeso and Ocella and Lucia? I should just let the Legions destroy them along with the vessel?”

“Once the warlords are united, we can come up with a plan, a
viable
plan, based on your ideas.
Vacuna
may just be the last ship in the universe with quantum way line engines. It would play a vital role in taking out that vessel.”

Gain access to all the Republic’s resources. But the price would be me—Muse-infected, possibly insane—as consul. Gods…

 
“When you restore peace to the Republic,” Aquilina went on, “you can transition Roma into something different. Perhaps even something like Libertus. What greater tribute to the ‘beacon of freedom’ in the universe if Roma should return to her Republican roots and adopt the Liberti system of government?”

“You make it sound easy.”

She raised an eyebrow. “That sounds easy to you? It’ll be the hardest thing any single human being has ever attempted. But you’re the only one who can do it. If you can’t, or won’t, then no one can.”

Cordus stood abruptly. “We’re going to a Liberti mining colony to get Blaesus some medical attention. We’ll be there in one hour. You have until then to give me those codes.”

She swallowed. “If I don’t?”

He turned to the command deck ladder and did not look at her. “I’m not above trying more mundane forms of persuasion.”

“Will you consider coming back to Terra?” she called out.

Without turning around, he said, “I’ve spent the last six years considering it. The answer is still no.”

29

“My grandparents have all your recordings,” Varo told Claudia as they walked through the endless alien corridor. His voice still sounded nasally from his broken nose. “Although I must confess it’s not my favorite style of music.”

Ocella didn’t know whether to smile or cry as she listened to Varo and Claudia. At times, Varo spoke to Claudia as if the golem really was her. Then the golem answered as if she were Claudia, only to remember she wasn’t. Ocella was glad they found something to talk about as they searched the endless corridor, but it was sad when they remembered their situation.

“What is your favorite style?” Claudia asked.

“Anything with lots of percussion. Nobody does it better than the African groups on Gwaza Primus.”

“I should think so,” Claudia said. “Gwaza Primus was founded as an artists’ colony. Many musical styles were born there. I studied there for—” She paused, took a deep breath. “Well. My memories say Claudia studied on Gwaza Primus just before her music became popular. Her time there moved her singing to the highest levels.”

Varo paused as if the spell were broken for him as well. They both walked along in silence.

It had gone like that for almost an hour.

The only room they’d found so far contained the same gelatinous ‘food’ the aliens had given them, along with a water basin. They had all drank their fill of water—even Claudia—and ate as much food as they could tolerate to keep their hunger pangs at bay. The room was only a few doors down from their prison and had taken minutes to find. It had only filled them with hope that they’d find more unlocked doors this time.

But they soon felt they were in a repeating holo as door after door stayed locked.

Kaeso walked ahead of everybody, trying each door with as much passion as a golem. He ignored Claudia and everyone else. Ocella thought he had come back when he pulled her off Varo, but Claudia’s appearance only flung him back into whatever pit his mind was trapped. Ocella wondered if he’d ever be the same…if they ever escaped this ship.

Kaeso put his hand on a door pad and it slid open. He flinched in surprise, then looked at Ocella with wide eyes. She and the others ran up to where he stood.

Inside the circular room, a large disc floated three feet above the floor, taking up most of the room’s center. Holographic images played above the disc with such stunning clarity that Ocella thought she was seeing real events. Two octopods floated in the air with their tentacles intertwined. Their movements were slow and tender, as if they were mating.

The holograms disappeared, and then Ocella noticed the octopods on the other side of the disc. And they were very real.

There were five, and they appeared to have entered the room from another hatch on the other side. They all suddenly stood on their rear four tentacles and raised their front four tentacles like a fan around their bulbous, gray bodies. One octopod rushed over, its tentacles raised and four tiny fingers wiggling at the ends. Hoots and whistles came from its beaked mouth.

Kaeso was about to slam the hatch shut when Claudia shouted, “Wait!”

He hesitated, but then glared at her and shut the hatch anyway. The hatch slammed shut before the octopod could get any closer.

“It was trying to tell us something,” Claudia told Kaeso.
 

Kaeso turned and walked up the corridor again.

Seeing she couldn’t get through to Kaeso, Claudia turned to Ocella. “I could understand it.”

Ocella looked sharply at Claudia. “How? Those things sounded like birds.”

Claudia shook her head. “I just could. It asked for our help.”

Varo glanced at the hatch. “Maybe they’re trapped here like us.”

“Or we’re the freshest meat they’ve seen in days,” Kaeso called out over his shoulder.
 

Varo ignored Kaeso and looked at Ocella. “Maybe we can work together. If Claudia can communicate—”

Kaeso turned around and strode back to Varo, his lip curled. He stood within inches of Varo’s face, his voice quiet, yet menacing. “First, this
thing
is not Claudia. Do not call it that again. Second, you’re a fool if you think you can trust a golem created by Muses.”

Varo was visibly intimidated, but he stood his ground. “Do you have a better idea? Or would you rather wander these corridors until you die of old age?”

Kaeso stared at Varo with venom in his eyes. Ocella stepped forward before Kaeso did to Varo what she had done earlier. She put a gentle hand on Kaeso’s arm. He glared at Varo a moment longer then stepped away.
 

“He’s right,” Ocella told Kaeso. “They may know things about this ship that we don’t.”

Claudia put a hand on Kaeso’s forearm. He acted as if it were not there.
 

“I know you don’t trust me,” she said. “And I don’t claim to be your daughter, though every part of me screams…” She exhaled sharply. “I want to help. The only way I can prove it is if you let me.”

Kaeso’s jaw moved back and forth. “Fine,” he said to Ocella. “It can talk to the aliens.”

Ocella nodded to Claudia. At this point, she was willing to grasp at any string of hope.
 

Claudia placed her hand on the door panel, and the hatch opened. The octopods had gathered in a group near the hologram circle on the side facing the door. When the hatch opened, they all flinched, then stared at Claudia as she hesitantly walked inside. An octopod skittered to Claudia, its top four tentacles held high, while it stood on its rear four. The bulbous head in the center of the tentacles had two black eyes, one on each side of the head, two slits for what appeared to be nostrils beneath the eyes, and a red beak for a mouth.

The octopod opened its beak and produced soft whistles and cooing sounds. Claudia stared at the octopod, her head cocked to one side. Her eyes went wide, and she nodded to the creature. The creature reached forward with two gray tentacles, and Claudia held her hands out. Gray fingers and human hands met each other, and she gasped. Tears dripped from her eyes.

“Can you understand them?” Ocella asked.

“Oh, yes,” Claudia answered. “They’re in the same situation we’re in. They want to trade information. They will tell us what they know, if we tell them what we know. Perhaps together we can get back to our ships and escape.”

Ocella glanced at the octopods behind the leader. They stood on their rear four tentacles, with the front four splayed above their heads in a fan pattern. Each one swayed back and forth as they watched their leader communicate with Claudia. “What did it say to make you cry?”

Claudia wiped the tears from her cheeks with her wrist. “This one is a golem, like me. Her family over there is having just as hard of a time accepting her as—” She frowned, then turned back to the cooing octopod. “It’s comforting to know someone else exists like me. Sad, but comforting.”

Kaeso’s low voice came from the hatch behind them. “Ocella,” he said.
 

He gave her a meaningful stare and then walked out into the corridor. Ocella followed Kaeso and met him a dozen paces from the octopod room.

“Kaeso, this could be our one opportunity to—”

“You assumed I would object?”

She eyed him warily. “Well…”

“Tell them anything you want. I don’t care.”

“Then why did you pull me out here?”

“Because someone needs to be the
numina
.” Then the cheek muscle beneath his right eye flinched in a half-wink.

It was all Ocella could do not to wrap her arms around Kaeso and kiss him like she had the last time they’d lain together. Her Kaeso was back. She wasn’t sure if he’d always been there or had just come to his senses. She wanted to ask him what brought him back, but she knew such a question would jeopardize their tactic.
 

Besides, it didn’t matter. For the first time in what seemed like weeks, she had hope.

“Being the
numina” was an interrogation tactic used throughout human history, though only Umbra referred to it as such. One interrogator took on the “Vestal” role—after the guardians of Vesta’s holy fire that protected Roma—and was friendly to the subject. Another interrogator became the “numina”—after the belligerent spirits of ancient Roma—and would threaten violence if things didn’t go his way. This made the subject more likely to give in to the reasonable Vestal, since opposition might set the numina off.

It worked even better if the numina’s own team feared him and acted that way in front of the subject. Ocella wasn’t sure if Kaeso was trying to fool the aliens in the next room, the vessel, or even Claudia. Whoever it was didn’t really matter since none of them could be trusted. Ocella
wanted
to trust Claudia, and
wanted
to believe her when she said she felt like the real woman, but this Claudia was a golem and golems could be programmed to say or do anything. Even if this Claudia was telling the truth, who knew if she’d eventually turn on them when dictated by her programming?

These thoughts ran through Ocella’s mind in seconds, and only her years of Umbra training kept her voice neutral. “I don’t need your permission to do anything. We are going to work with these aliens whether you like it or not. If you don’t like it, you can just walk the other way.”

Kaeso gave her the quick half-wink again, then let his face turn to stone. It was a frightening transformation that almost fooled Ocella. “Fine, talk to those things,” Kaeso growled. “But if they make one move I don’t like, I’ll rip their little tentacles off their bodies one by one.”

Ocella answered his comments with a scowl, then whirled around and went back into the octopod room. Claudia still held the golem octopod’s fingered tentacles and stared at its black eyes. Varo raised a questioning eyebrow at Ocella.

“He disagrees,” she said. “But we’ll do it anyway. What have they been up to?”

“These two have been like long-lost siblings. They can’t stop staring at each other and smiling. Or rather, she’s smiling. I don’t know what her friend is doing.” He then nodded to the four octopods on the other side of the room. “They’ve just been standing there with their arms out. Haven’t moved or made a sound.”

Ocella walked up to Claudia and put a soft hand on her shoulder. She turned to Ocella with a look of contentment.

“They are so much like us,” she said. “They have families they love.” Claudia glanced at Kaeso as he entered the room once again. “And hate. They’re scared, and all they want to do is go home. Are we going to help each other?”

“What have you told them so far?” Ocella asked.

“Only that we’re trapped here, too, and that I’m a golem.” Claudia’s smile evaporated, as it always did when she remembered what she was. The octopod in front of her cooed softly, and used its other two tentacles to caress Claudia’s hands. She turned back to the octopod and gave it a grateful smile.

“Ask them what this room is. The holo in the middle was showing their species. Is this where they’ve been kept?”

Claudia glanced past Ocella at Kaeso. “Is he going to glower at them the whole time?”

“Probably, but ignore him.”

“This is a bad idea,” Kaeso rumbled.

Ocella turned on him. “There’s the hatch. Leave if you want to.”

Kaeso’s jaw clenched and unclenched.
Very convincing, my love.
 

Ocella turned back to Claudia. “Ask them.”

Claudia looked back at the octopod holding her hands. Whatever way they communicated only took a second or two, and the octopod cooed and whistled. One of its tentacles pointed at the four behind it and then at the now-empty holo display. The family continued to hold their tentacles splayed out, as if trying to make themselves appear bigger before a predator.

“They remember the vessel pulling their ship inside it, and then they woke up in a different room,” Claudia said. “They left the room and wandered the vessel’s corridors which were built to look like their ship. They ultimately found this room and saw the holo device. Apparently it’s common on their world. They can control it with their minds and project images of their thoughts onto it. They were testing it and had only been here a few minutes before we arrived. They believe it is divine providence that we should meet like this.”

Kaeso grumbled, “A lot of gaps in their story.”

Ocella agreed, but didn’t want to acknowledge Kaeso and give up her Vestal role just yet.

Claudia said, “Now they want to know how we got here. I can give them my story, but I don’t know yours.”

Ocella shrugged. “Ours is basically the same. Our ship was captured like theirs, and then we woke up in our cell. We left to go exploring for a while, but came back when we didn’t find anything. Then you arrived, and we left again.”