Читать книгу Prince of Time - Rebecca York, Rebecca York - Страница 9

Zeke roared down a gravel road on his rented Harley-Davidson. The countryside sped by in a blur of dark green trees, pink and yellow wildflowers and gray rocky hills. But his mind wasn’t on the scenery. This morning, after the incident with the stolen disk, he’d nosed around the café and the market trying to get a lead on the men who’d started the fight. Either they were outsiders, or the locals weren’t talking.

After steering the powerful bike off the road onto a rutted dirt path, he had to slow his speed to dodge a pothole that would have swallowed a tank. Around the next bend, he came to a sun-dappled clearing dominated by a mammoth granite boulder. For more than a thousand years, it had covered the mouth of a limestone cave. But infrared satellite analysis had yielded the secret of the interior, and reclusive billionaire Jacques Montague had quickly put together a team to explore the site.

A dozen small tents surrounded a large one that served as both dining hall and artifact repository. The living conditions in camp were Spartan, not that much different from a dozen other underfunded sites Zeke had worked. But Montague had supplied some pretty sophisticated equipment—everything from heavy construction machinery to a portable cellular communications system. There were all sorts of rumors about the man. According to one, he had a terminal illness and was determined to find something as important as the Dead Sea Scrolls before he died. Even Victor Kirkland from the State Department had only sketchy information about their eccentric sponsor.

The dig was usually bustling with activity. Today, it was quiet since few of the dig team had gotten back from town. Marie Pindel, the team leader, was hurrying toward the cave.

Zeke pulled up beside her and cut the engine.

She gave him a startled look. With her cap of dyed copper hair and large eyes, the petite Frenchwoman looked more like a fashion model in her designer jeans and knit top than a forty-seven-year-old anthropologist with two controversial best-sellers and three grandchildren to her credit.

“I didn’t expect you back so soon,” she said. “I was just going over to survey the damage. The local police have finally packed up their little meters and magnifying glasses and decided we won’t embarrass them by dying of carbon monoxide poisoning.” She shrugged expressively. “As if we didn’t have equipment ten times as sensitive as theirs.”

Zeke unsnapped his helmet. “You’re breaking your own rule about going in alone?”

“I won’t have to, now that you’re here. Let’s go take a look,” she called over her shoulder as she took off again.

Grabbing his tool pack from the motorcycle’s carry case, Zeke trotted after her to the cave entrance. As always, it was a tight squeeze through the narrow opening for his six-foot-three, one-hundred-ninety-pound frame, and he had to take it sideways all the way to the main chamber where they’d been working. While Marie adjusted the battery lantern and checked the air quality, Zeke trained a high-powered flashlight on the damage from the homemade bomb.

He grimaced as the beam played over the stone walls in the far corner of the gallery where only two days before he’d been transcribing picture script. Now much of the stone engraving had been obliterated by the blast. But that wasn’t the worst. A burial pit, which had yielded a decorative vase, a curved plow called a crook ard and several smaller tools forged from iron had evidently taken the brunt of the explosive. It was now black ash and rubble.

Marie’s eyes flashed with anger. “How could anyone do such a thing?”

“Who knows?” Zeke muttered. “At least we rescued some of the artifacts before the blast. And I’ll be able to work with the low light exposures of the wall script and the notes I’ve transcribed.” Disgustedly, he stepped closer to the scarred stone. The light beam caught on a crack that ran from floor to ceiling. Had the explosion caused that, too?

Starting at the bottom and moving upward, he felt along the break. It seemed solid. Relieved, he stepped back and inspected the surface again. The beam played down the limestone and up again, illuminating a strange mark a good foot above his head. At first, he thought it was residue from the blast. On closer inspection, he could almost make out a faint imprint.

“Qu’est-ce que c’est?” Marie asked.

“I don’t know.” Stretching, he pressed his palm against it. The stone seemed to warm. They both gasped as the hard rock split along a six-foot seam to reveal a small room no bigger than a walk-in closet.

“My God!” Zeke exclaimed as the flashlight illuminated the space inside. A large, finely engraved bronze box sat on a pottery tile on the floor.

Marie was by his side in an instant. “The explosion must have broken the seal on a hidden tomb.”

His pulse raced with excitement. Gently, as if working with the most delicate glass, he felt over the surface of the box until his fingers found a hidden latch. Inside were several perfectly preserved panels covered with writing.

“Well, I’ll be damned!”

Marie leaned over his shoulder, shining the light directly on the script. “Can you tell what it is?”

Being careful not to touch the material, he studied the characters. One panel resembled ancient Greek script, yet it appeared to be another language altogether. There was a picture, too. A naked man in a strange-looking capsule.

Tentatively he touched the surface. “This doesn’t make sense,” he told Marie. “Feel the covering. It’s almost like plastic.”

She touched the panel and nodded. “As far as I know, no one from the ninth century B.C. had anything like this. You think it’s a fake?” she asked.

“Do you?”

“I want you to check it out before we tell the others. We might be sitting on the most important discovery since the Dead Sea Scrolls. Or...”

“Someone could be playing a very nasty joke,” she finished for him.

* * *

TO HER EMBARRASSMENT, Cassie’s stomach growled.

Thorn said something in his own language and made eating motions.

She nodded. “I suppose there’s a kitchen somewhere around here,” she said in an artificially chipper tone. “But it may not have anything I’d recognize as a stove. And even if you’re willing to do the cooking, the equipment could explode in your face when you touch the controls. So why don’t I dig into my emergency supplies?”

Thorn leaned back and watched her, apparently very interested in what she intended to do.

The scrutiny made her feel self-conscious, and she lowered her eyes. She was coming to realize that in the confines of this room, the simplest actions had monumental meaning. Each thing she and Thorn experienced together was fresh and new. An adventure. A clue to understand each other. And more. A strand of the growing bond tying them to each other. Part of her was wary. The way she’d always been. Part of her longed to get closer to this man.

Ducking her head, she pulled some packets of dehydrated soup from her knapsack and handed them to Thorn. He shook them, listened to the dry grains rattle inside and shrugged.

“Just add hot water and you’ve got a meal in a bowl,” she announced, imitating a TV commercial. It was so much easier to make silly conversation he couldn’t understand than to cope with the confusion she felt.

In the bathroom, she filled two cups with hot water. When she brought them back, she found Thorn had torn open one of the envelopes.

After sniffing the contents, he dipped a finger inside and cautiously brought a bit of the dry mix to his tongue.

He made a face, then looked on with interest as she added the mix to the water and stirred with a plastic spoon.

“Chicken soup,” she informed him as she looked at her watch. “Good for what ails you.”

He took her wrist and examined the timepiece as if he’d never seen anything like it. She pointed to the second hand, made a circle around the watch face and held up three fingers. “It’ll be done in a jiffy.”

Apparently more interested in the instrument than her scintillating commentary, he slipped the expansion band over her wrist.

After studying the face, he grabbed her pencil and notebook and copied the numbers from the dial to a clean sheet of paper, writing them in a line across the page.

As he pointed to each, she gave him the name. “One, two, three, four...” Up to twelve.

He held up his fists and began to raise one finger at a time, reciting, “One, two, three, four, five...”

“Yes!” she exclaimed.

He went through the ten fingers and examined his hands like a magician who’s just made a coin disappear. “Eleven? Twelve?”

“Hmm,” she mused. “I guess I never thought about it. Our number system is based on ten. But the day is divided into twenty-four hours.”

Taking the pencil she drew a circle and bisected it. On the right she drew the sun; on the left, a crescent moon. Then she marked off twelve divisions on each side.

When she looked at Thorn expectantly he nodded and pointed to the numbers on the watch.

“Right. Twelve hours in a day.” She tapped the sun. “And twelve hours in a night.” She tapped the moon. “Give or take variations for summer and winter, of course.”

His face was a study in concentration.

“Understand?” she asked.

“Understand,” he repeated, nodding vigorously.

“Good.”

Snatching up the notebook, he flipped back several pages to the third drawing she’d made. Thorn lying in bed. Eyes closed. “Thorn...sleep...night,” he said slowly but distinctly.

A shiver went through her. He’d put together enough words to make a sentence in a language he’d never heard before today. Was he a genius or a trained linguist? “My God. Yes,” she whispered.

He looked pleased with himself. And eager for more.

“Okay. Try this.” She wrote, “2 + 2 = 4” and handed over the notebook.

He countered with “2 + 3 = 5.”

For the first time since she’d bumbled into never-never land, Cassie forgot to worry about her predicament. Instead, she was totally focused on Thorn. It was as if a door had opened between them. She was reaching him on a new level of understanding, and she wanted to go even further.

Cassie had no idea how long they sat there, close together, going over more complex concepts. But she did realize that he hadn’t taken his eyes off her; she felt her cheeks grow warm. For the last while he was looking at her differently, and she knew that in some subtle way his opinion of her had changed. She picked up her cup and took a swallow. Then she gestured toward Thorn’s.

“Eat your chicken soup,” she urged.

He nodded and sipped cautiously.

“Well? Good? Bad? Okay?” She accompanied each question with the appropriate facial expression.

“Chicken soup...okay.” He took several more swallows. Then, putting his cup down, he held out his hands in front of him, about two feet apart. Sawing the right one up and down he said, “Good.” For emphasis he imitated her previous smiling face. Then he repeated with “Bad.”

She took another swallow as he turned the “good” hand up and slanted her what she’d come to think of as his questioning look. At the same time, he moved his fingers in a gesture that appeared to indicate that he wanted her to give him something. What did he want? Then it dawned on her that in any well-developed language, there should be a lot of words for such important concepts as good and bad.

His eyes seemed to darken as he reached out and took her hand, squeezing a little as if to encourage her.

His fingers were strong and warm. Her throat was suddenly dry as he shifted his grip to bring her palm in contact with his. She fought to keep from dropping her gaze or pulling away.

“Uh, nice...” That was much too tepid for what she was feeling. “Enjoyable...pleasurable...wonderful...sexy...”

Cassie flushed scarlet as she realized where the chain of associations had taken her. Her embarrassment increased as he solemnly gave her back the words. Damn his phenomenal memory. She could picture him congratulating her with a slap on the back and a hearty, “Sexy job.”

More than that, she knew she’d given away too much. And it didn’t help to tell herself that he hadn’t understood the implications. He’d figure it out the way he was catching on to everything else.

She was about to pick up her cup when he slipped his hand under her chin and tipped her face toward his.

“I—” She didn’t know what she was going to say because he drove the thought completely out of her mind by stroking her jaw line. Her breath caught in her throat when his finger moved to her lips.

“Thorn...”

“Pleasurable...wonderful...sexy,” he pronounced, giving the words deeper meaning.

“Yes.” She sat very still as his fingers drifted to the side of her neck, feeling her pulse. It was already beating furiously. At his light touch, the tempo speeded up.

He held her gaze. Held her captive as surely as if he’d slipped a handcuff over her wrist and clicked the lock home. She forgot to breathe as his hand moved lower, brushing aside the front of her coat, gliding over the knit fabric of her shirt, over the swell of her breast. Her nipples tightened. And she knew he felt it. By the catch in his throat, by the way his blue eyes deepened.

He stroked her, murmuring something she couldn’t understand—but his voice sent an erotic current shooting through her body. For a yearning moment she swayed toward him, yielding to the physical contact and something more elemental. Deep in her subconscious, she felt as if this kind of touching, this response, had happened between them before. That they were renewing a previous and very intimate acquaintance.

Then she caught herself. What was she doing? More to the point, what the hell was he doing?

“No!” She pulled away from him, her eyes shooting sparks that told him what she thought of his behavior. The nerve of the man—taking that kind of liberty. And where had she gotten the wacky idea that it was safe to drop her guard?

He said something that might have been an apology.

She glared at him. Yet deep inside she knew it wasn’t all his fault. She should have stopped him.

But at what point? When he touched her jaw? Her lips? It was obvious he didn’t know the rules of her society. Or maybe he didn’t care.

Unwilling to look at him, she scooted away, putting several feet between them. She didn’t trust him. Or herself now. And she felt so confused, she had to blink back tears. For thirty years she’d avoided involvements. A few hours with this man and she was breaking every rule she’d ever made. She wanted to get up and make camp on the other side of the room. Instead she settled for turning back to her soup, eating as if her life depended on it, while she tried to fathom her own out-of-character behavior.

He said nothing. Instead he ate slowly. Cassie finished and was thinking about fixing two more cups when a change in the background hum of the station made her lift her head and sit very still. Thorn was also listening intently.

She saw a puzzled expression flash across his face just before the lights blinked. Then they went out, plunging the room into total blackness.

In the dark, she heard him bite out the word that she understood was a curse, “Klat!”

“What’s happening?” she asked in a shaky voice.

Thorn echoed the question in his own language. Reaching across the empty space separating him from Cassie, he found her arm and tugged her toward him. Her body went rigid. A clattering noise made his body tense for an attack. Then he realized her foot had hit an empty soup cup, sending it skittering across the floor.

He cursed again. He was jumpy as a bush stalker in heat. But why not, when he half expected armed men to come pelting into the room.

When Cassie tried to pull away from him, he gripped her shoulder. He understood why she might resist his touch. He knew full well he’d overstepped the bounds a few minutes ago when he’d cupped her breast, stroked her erect nipple. But when he’d felt her pulse quicken, he’d known it wasn’t out of fear, and some arrogant male impulse had urged him to find out how far he could go with her—even as he’d told himself he was simply conducting a sociology experiment. How would a female in her culture respond to advances from a strange male?

She tried again to pull away, but he held her tightly, unwilling to let her vanish into the darkness. Was the station under attack from hostile forces? Had the life-support system been damaged? Or was this simply a routine maintenance sequence, scheduled for the middle of the night?

He listened intently, prepared for any possibility. Silence reigned around them. The only thing his keen senses could pick up was that the temperature had dropped a couple of degrees.

Cassie kept trying to wiggle out of his grasp, growing increasingly agitated as she repeated a message he couldn’t decipher. “No!” he ordered in her language.

She answered with what sounded like a plea. “Please.” She’d used the word before, he recalled. When she’d been trying to get the medicine into him. He’d been near comatose, but his hearing had still been functioning. Was her present purpose equally urgent? A matter of life and death for both of them? Or had Lodar told her she’d better be at least ten feet from Thorn when the lights went out?

He sighed in the darkness, torn between paranoia and anger at himself. For the past hour he’d been seduced into a feeling of camaraderie with the very beautiful Cassie Devereaux. More than camaraderie, he admitted with a grimace. He’d been weak enough to fall under her spell. But he’d better remember that she could be the agent of his destruction.

The first order of business was to make sure she didn’t slip away in the darkness, leaving him sitting with his back to the wall. He found her right hand and laced the fingers with hers.

“Okay,” he muttered in her language, waiting to find out what she wanted to do.

Tentatively she leaned forward. He heard her carry sack slide toward them and wished he could see what she was doing as she fumbled with the contents. He was startled when she braced a cold, hard tube against their locked hands.

A weapon?

He snatched the cylinder out of her grasp. As his hand slid along the barrel, a beam of light shot from the end of the tube, slicing a path through the darkness.

“Flashlight,” she informed him.

He was glad she couldn’t see his hot face. The thing was merely a light source. But how long would it last?

The room was getting colder. Cassie pulled her jacket closed. As if by mutual agreement, they stood.

Willing himself to steadiness, he led her across the room to the door where she’d presumably entered. Playing the light down the dark tunnel, he breathed a little sigh when it proved to be empty. At least they weren’t being invaded. Yet. When he pressed the lock pad, there was no response.

“I need to check the main generator,” he told her, wishing she could follow what he was saying.

Cassie hung back as they approached the data analyzers. He reassured her with calm words before shining the light on the partition beyond. She nodded tightly as they skirted the machines that had given her the shock.

Although his manner was brisk as he reached for the access panel, she tensed.

They both let out a little sigh when the door came open without incident. Using the light, he examined the station controls and the specification charts. He could see from the schematic that there were three solar-powered units attached to electrical storage grids. Two were completely drained from a recent malfunction. The third was operating a few essential systems—like air purification—and automatically conserving energy for an emergency. Perhaps the damage to the power units could even explain the shock she’d gotten.

He pointed to the schematic and indicated the power source. “Sun.”

Cassie nodded vigorously, and he wondered if she really understood about solar collectors and electrical conversion.

He continued the explanation for himself, since he knew she couldn’t possibly follow. “The solar collectors are rapid recovery units. Let’s hope power is restored to something approaching normal when the sun comes out in the morning.”

She seemed reassured by his even tones. Or maybe she’d simply observed that he wasn’t dashing for an escape hatch.

He struggled to mask his frustration. It was one thing to play sexy little games with this woman. It was quite another to get some real answers out of her.

“How did you break in here? What is happening outside?” he demanded, wishing she could tell him what he needed to know as he pointed toward the door. Yet what did it matter what she said? He couldn’t afford to trust her.

“I guess were going to have to take a look,” he said in clipped tones, pulling her toward the door. They both shivered in the icy air wafting toward them.

“C-o-l-d,” Cassie said in her own language, giving the observation teeth-chattering emphasis he had no trouble comprehending.

He repeated the temperature appraisal. “Cold.” Next they’d be discussing the barometric pressure and the projected global weather forecast.

She darted back to the makeshift bed, retrieved a blanket and draped it over his shoulders. “Warm.”

“Warm.” Two brilliant new concepts, he congratulated himself, feeling ridiculous huddling under a shawl like an old woman. But he conceded the virtue of prudence. And dignity. If someone was waiting outside, he didn’t want to greet them looking as if he’d tottered from a sickbed. Opening a supply cabinet, he began to search for something more substantial than a technician’s coat. He was rewarded with a cache of silver knit pants and shirts—the expedition’s standard issue.

When he threw off the blanket and started to unbutton the thin coat, she turned quickly away. He’d forgotten about her ridiculous nudity taboo.

Stomping into the grooming alcove, he shucked off the coat and pulled on the pants and shirt. He followed with a pair of thermal socks, wishing he could add boots.

When he came out, she nodded her approval.

He didn’t want her approval. Ignoring her, he marched back to the entrance. Ice seemed to seep through the bottoms of his feet as he and Cassie made their way down the tunnel. The passage ended at a broken doorway that he could see had been camouflaged as rock.

When he started to shoulder through, Cassie said something that began with “Av—”

Ignoring her, he stepped through the ruined barrier. Almost immediately, he halted in surprise. He was in a long, narrow cave—so long that it swallowed up the flashlight beam. The wall from which he’d emerged was of dark rock. The facing one was made of snow.

So how had Cassie gotten in? He wasn’t about to let her start drawing pictures again. He wasn’t going to trust anything besides his own observations. For a moment he stood, listening to the utter silence. Then, doggedly ignoring the cold, he made his way down the tunnel between the black rock and the white snow.

Cassie kept pace with him, talking all the while. When he ignored her, she grabbed his sleeve and yelled, “Klat!”

The curse got his attention. He stopped short and turned. She gave him an exasperated look.

After a moment, she repeated a word she’d used before. “Avalanche.” First she pointed to the snow. Then rolling her hands in a circle, she swept them in a downward motion. Looking behind her, she pretended to run. Finally she put her arms over her head and huddled down, protecting herself from the onslaught.

“Avalanche,” she said again. “Understand?”

“Avalanche,” he repeated, finally picturing what had happened. Snow had come roaring down the mountain toward her, and she’d taken refuge against the rock face.

“Understand?” she asked again.

“Yes.”

“Good.”

It was their longest conversation. Too bad he was almost as articulate as an illiterate camel driver.

However, Cassie looked pleased. Taking a step back, she raised her arms and stretched, as if to dissipate some of her tension. Her hands slammed into the wall of white that hung over her.

Quickly she pulled them back. But the damage was already done. Recently settled snow began to tumble down on top of her so quickly that Thorn barely had time to gasp out a useless warning. One minute she was in front of him gesticulating. In the next, she had disappeared, buried under an enormous pile of freezing whiteness.