Chapter 140
Ripples washed out from the center of the giant pool, sending the thick, black fluid splashing over the sides. Each slap of the waves vomited enervating, diseased filth into the air, piercing his awareness.
Connor got to his feet and backed away.
Tremors rumbled from somewhere unseen, and he had the sense of some titanic entity roaring in joy.
Instead of ripples, whatever was inside the pool was now creating a wake, speeding along the edges of the pool and tossing waves meters out.
This wasn’t the imprisoned thing, but it might be something worse.
Connor looked to the ceiling. “Can you hear me? What do I do?”
If he’d hoped for a hologram of one of the lizard aliens and a patient explanation of the step-by-step process of stopping whatever it was that was happening, it didn’t come.
In fact, nothing happened.
The thing in the dark pool picked up speed. It splashed more of the disgusting slime onto the floor.
And Connor gave ground until he could feel a wall behind him.
He squeezed the hilts of the swords. Even crafted by a master craftsman, they should have reasonably been shattered long ago.
That meant the K’luuta were still watching over him.
But he had no armor, and he was bleeding. His thighs ached from Selen’s claws and the bruise he’d re-aggravated was throbbing now. It was worse where Selen had shattered his armor. Breathing came with effort, and it hurt.
Maybe he didn’t have cracked ribs, but they weren’t healthy.
Something vibrated against his leg.
He dropped a sword and dug into his pocket: his computer!
There was the proof he needed that the people who’d built the prison were still watching over him.
The face on the screen was blurry, but Connor knew who it was. “Vicente?”
“Boss!” The big man’s voice was weak, and it echoed as if he were at the other end of the galaxy—or another dimension. “Where are you?”
“You have to see it to believe it.”
Static hissed and contorted, like a buzzing bee caught in an electrical current.
Then the heavy weapons expert guffawed. “Okay. You got it tough, too.”
“What’s going on up there?” Even though Connor wasn’t sure up was relevant, it gave a frame of reference.
“Those scorpions are back. They’re massing. Lots of ‘em.”
“Keep them back. Don’t let them come at you.”
“Yeah. Kalpana’s dropped twenty already. But there’s some other stuff.”
“Other stuff?”
The static filled the connection again.
Toshiko’s gift was a growing fire in Connor’s awareness.
And the thing doing laps in the pool was moving faster.
Vicente was back. “Tentacle things. Flapping around somehow.”
“Kill them. Tell Lem they lay eggs inside people. We lost Tim and Tom to them. Their bite kills the skin. Elise was stung, too.”
“Oh. That’s no good. Is she alive?”
“If I can get her back up fast enough. I’m…not sure I’ll make it.”
The black water bubbled more violently, like it was boiling.
“You gotta make it back, Boss. Who’s gonna get me a raise, huh?”
Connor smiled, then he remembered Selen. “Selen’s wounded. She may lose her arms.”
“What?”
“This thing down here, it changed her. It’s a long story. If I live, I’ll tell you, but those artifacts? When Mosiah’s people stole them from here, they released something terrible.”
“Shi—”
The static washed out the big man’s connection, then it was gone.
Connor felt a change in the room, like a great pressure rising. The heat had him sweating, the salt of that stinging his wounds.
A pulse of pressure rolled out from the pool, where the swimming had stopped.
It took him a second to realize he’d been pushed against the wall.
He leaned against the pressure, signaling to the bully that he wouldn’t be cowed.
Then the pressure hit again, shoving him back with a painful slap.
There was nothing to see, nothing to strike against.
Mortality suddenly came to the forefront of Connor’s mind.
Fragility.
Frailty.
Even the greatest warrior was still a mere human.
Even the most skilled could be overwhelmed by a fortunate strike or a superior foe.
Vicente was a beginner in hand-to-hand combat, but he was a dangerous sparring partner because of his size and strength.
Yet he was nothing compared to whatever was in the black pool.
I can’t stand against this threat, Connor realized.
Everything that had come together—by design or good luck—to place him here, to be the champion to stop this thing from escaping its prison…
It had all been for nothing in the end.
He couldn’t fight it.
Not one man. Not a mere human.
A purple glow appeared over the boiling surface of the black pool. Lightning curled and writhed, then a globe took shape—black at its heart but a blinding violet along its edges.
The lightning spat out to the walls, forking and sparking until it was like a spiderweb coruscating and contorting.
That was the power he was up against.
That was the power Mosiah and his accomplices had unleashed into the galaxy.
What was it that had made Gu Li special to this monster? Why had it lured him here? What more was there to do than replace the relics?
In Connor’s mind, the security video played again.
Shadow distorted and amplified a small man before fading from sight.
Gu Li had smiled at the camera.
Had he known?
He’d gotten lost in a maze that he’d mastered. Was that even possible?
Lost for an hour—hadn’t that been what Mosiah had said?
And he’d come back with Selen to collect something he’d hidden on one of the abandoned ships.
Not the artifacts, but something he’d found elsewhere.
What could he have taken? The artifacts were the key to freeing the thing.
The black fluid splashed wildly, drawing Connor’s attention back to the pool.
Slowly, something rose from the depths.
A giant, pointy head with short, spiky horns broke the surface, and the oily fluid slid off of it, revealing a dozen—a hundred—
—a thousand bug-like eyes.
Foamy, yellow pus dropped in sizzling globs from a mouth easily ten meters across and filled with rows of jagged teeth.
Then Connor sensed the thing in his mind.
Whispering.