Chapter 132

Chapter One Hundred Thirty-Two

Beyond the doorway Selen had jumped through, Connor’s lights didn’t penetrate far. He could make out a short passage, then another doorway, then what might be a ledge.

Cold air eased through that second doorway, as when an airlock hatch was left open to create equilibrium between a ship’s environment and a starport airlock.

He thought there might be some residual stench from Selen, a hint of the imprisoned monster’s taint that scarred the otherwise fresh air.

When he returned to the main chamber, Mosiah had the crates open.

Elise stood beside the crates, jaw dropped in awe at the contents.

The old man’s head was down, his attention focused on the alien relics. “I truly am sorry for your losses, Connor.”

“Apologies can’t bring the dead back.” Connor rolled the should that had gone numb earlier. Tingling still left his fingers feeling weak, but full sensation was slowly returning.

He wondered if his words were meant as a conviction of Selen’s corruption or of Mosiah’s complicity.

Worse, they could easily apply to Connor himself.

What had stopped him from challenging Selen earlier, when the team had asked it of him?

Pride?

Memories of love?

Some sort of blindness was the only excuse.

All that mattered was whether that blindness was involuntary and possibly forgivable or whether he’d shouted down his own suspicions.

He moved to the crates, where Mosiah was carefully pulling one of the relics from its shaped foam protection.

The old man held the treasure in shaking hands. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

Elise blinked. “It must be worth billions.”

“Any one of these could have set all of us up for life with the sort of wealth only a small percentage even dream of. Platinum, gold, rubies, diamonds—whether we sold them for the craftsmanship or the raw value of the gems and metals, the value would have been unprecedented.”

She reached a hand out tentatively, face turning to Mosiah. “May I?”

“You worry that the threat I spoke of might be contained in the objects themselves?”

The archaeologist nodded.

Mosiah seemed ready to chuckle—yellowed teeth showing through a thin smile. Then the smile disappeared. “Now that I think about it, there’s wisdom in a question like that. What would my life be today if I’d asked that question myself?”

He brushed his fingers across the glossy metal surface of the bowl-like item. No greasy streak, not even a fog from the heat of his skin remained.

The old man sucked in a breath. “The curse and the crime we committed—pillaging what wasn’t ours—are intertwined. That much I’m certain of.”

She took the artifact from him, the slight drop of her arms under its weight revelation of just how heavy it was. “This must mass fifteen kilos.”

“Gold is never light.”

“And the gemstones.” She licked her lips. “They merged form and function.”

Elise lifted the item higher for Connor to see.

He looked away. “It’s beautiful.”

“It’s not just the beauty, though. This is science and art come together.”

“All I care about is getting those back where they belong and sealing this thing back into its prison.”

She handed the treasure back to Mosiah and mouthed a silent thank you, then came to Connor’s side. “There’s an old saying that you can’t put a genie back in its bottle.”

“A what?”

“A genie. Thousands of years ago, before modern religions squashed ancient ones, people believed in spirits. One that became popular was the jinn—the genie. They might be imprisoned in a lamp.”

“How’s that have anything to do with…” Connor nodded to where Mosiah was wrapping the widest part of the bowl in foam.

“There was a lot of folklore around summoning those spirits for guidance. The stories focused on the risk of consulting those spirits, because they could be arbitrary and capricious or even malevolent. And once you let them out of their prison, they might not want to go back in.”

“You’re saying this technology might be so compromised that the artifacts might not be enough.”

Elise glanced at the dead twins. “Considering the level of influence this thing can already exert, I’d be concerned.”

Connor thought back to those who’d died. “We have to try.”

“Absolutely. I just want you to be ready for failure.”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

He headed back to where Mosiah was now cutting out a foam ring to protect the second artifact. If anything, this item—an urn by appearance—was even more magnificent than the first. Crafted from a glossy black stone like obsidian, the thing was a meter high and gilded with amethyst-embedded silver.

Mosiah put the two items in a black mesh bag and sealed it, then went to work on the next two relics.

As with the first two, each item progressed in beauty and magnificence over the last, until the last one seemed made of metals and gems Connor had never seen and even had a hard time being sure they were real.

That alone seemed a treasure. What would the scientific community pay to learn from synthetic beauty?

Consumers had spent fortunes pursuing it in the past.

Finally, the old man had three mesh bags thrown over his shoulder. His back bent under the weight, and muscles bulged along his jaw as he clenched his teeth against the strain.

Connor held out a hand. “Let me take one.”

“We need you free should she attack again.”

“You can’t bear that load, Mosiah.”

“I’ve carried this weight for years. Best I finish the job and return it to its rightful place.” The old man let out a strained laugh. “Atonement, they used to call it. Let’s consider it punishment for my crimes of avarice.”

There was no point arguing with the old man. Either he could handle the load, or he couldn’t.

Elise fell in beside Connor as he headed for the doorway and into the hallway beyond. She squeezed his wrist. “Connor, what you said to the twins earlier about humanity…?”

“Yes?”

“Do you believe that?”

“Don’t you?”

“I suppose.” She glanced back at Mosiah. “Then you believe Selen is still human?”

Connor looked back at the old man straining under his load. “I believe in redemption.”

Mosiah straightened his shoulders slightly, and some of the strain faded from his features.

Would the old man understand that redemption had to be earned?

Would Selen?