Honor Among Thieves (The Honors #1)(55)

Bea bounced a little on her feet. “That’s not grass. This isn’t air.”

I sucked in one processed breath, two, and took an experimental step. This was light gravity compared to Earth, so even with my weighted boots, I bounced like the dirt was half trampoline. A shriek escaped me as I came down, and then I heard Nadim laughing. Though I couldn’t sense his joy, just hearing it felt like eating an ice cream cone.

“This is amazing.” I shout-sang it.

For a while, we played, but eventually we got down to business and took our readings. Bea dictated detailed holos and notes on flora into her mini-H2 while I handled the mineral samples. We were supposed to collect these and log them, compare to stuff that had been hauled in before, with the goal of seeing how long it would take for the planet to return to the state they’d recorded before the war. Sounded boring, but I found some real interest in it; being an alien geologist pretty much rocked. Pun intended.

Now and then Nadim offered commentary on things that puzzled us, and our progress took us across an open field toward the ruins that rose like jagged teeth in the distance. With my eyes half-closed, I could almost, almost imagine the disaster that had shattered what might have been a temple or a coliseum.

We were nearly there when I heard it—the sound of footsteps behind us. I didn’t hesitate. In an instant, I had a weapon in my hand. Whirling, I took aim at the blur of motion.

“Don’t!” Nadim called out.

And I froze, caught between his urgency and my fight instincts. I’d never backed down in my life.





CHAPTER TWELVE


Breaking Silence


THERE WAS NOBODY behind me. Nothing at all.

“Please don’t discharge your weapon. You might disturb the native fauna.” Nadim’s tone all wrong, too anxious, too urgent.

But I knew damn well I hadn’t imagined somebody behind me.

The wind whispered through my skinsuit mask, tanged with the alien mix of gases. I scanned twice, once with my eyes and next with my equipment. No signs of life popped on the screen and I lowered the weapon. I didn’t put it away.

Beatriz patted my shoulder as she set off toward the ruins. “I never expected you to be jumping at shadows, Z.”

“You’re hilarious,” I mumbled.

In my mind’s eye, I tried to process what I’d seen, but it had happened so fast. Nadim said there was no intelligent life, but Earth-wise, the lines got blurry around whale and chimpanzee. Could be that Firstworld had some native creatures, big enough to shake me. Whatever it was, it didn’t want to get close to us, which did suggest wildlife. Yet—

“Nadim,” I said, low. “Come on, tell me the truth.”

“It was nothing.” Clearly he didn’t want to have this conversation dirtside. Damn, but I was getting tired of secrets. I wanted to trust him, but it was getting harder. Our connection couldn’t change the fact that I’d seen something, and he wasn’t going to talk me out of it.

My skin crawled the whole time we trekked through the golden grass; the suits we wore shifted to a lazy whisper of colors that blended perfectly, but I could still feel someone watching, and it wasn’t Nadim. I kept turning and scanning behind me, searching for any sign of trouble.

I didn’t see anything. Just the alien plants bending in the breeze.

I’d had this exact feeling in the Zone when somebody was trying to decide whether to start some shit or not. No matter which way I looked, I saw only alien landscape, painted in unnatural colors. And then it occurred to me . . . What if what’s watching us blends in too? Like our skinsuits? The thought pulled my muscles tight and my nerves even tighter. If there was something out here, I needed to be ready. I couldn’t let anything happen to Beatriz.

She pointed things out, and I kept nodding, but my attention was on the perimeter, scanning like a bot on patrol. Every so often, she paused to collect samples of plants. I did the same with minerals, but only because Nadim kept murmuring that I had a job to do. The dirt was an interesting mix of colors that probably told a fascinating story to somebody who knew more. I’d analyze it back aboard and let our equipment do the heavy lifting for some professor in Paradise to delight over once the digital information reached his desk.

It occurred to me that where humanity had, back in its late golden days, sent out machines to other planets to drill core samples and wander the landscape of another world . . . that was us now. We were humanity’s arms and legs and eyes, but only partly its brain.

I didn’t much enjoy the comparison.

Since the ruins were the only landmark, it was impossible to get lost. As we approached, the jagged stone teeth resolved into broken pillars, cut from some mineral that shimmered blue-black against the smooth surface of what might have been a raised platform. Red and brown earth filmed the steps leading up to the monument, but I didn’t miss the fact that there were lines in that dust. Not footprints like a human would leave, but some strange thing had moved through here, not long ago. That put me on guard, again, and I faced back out, watching for anything that wanted to come at us.

“Look at the carvings, the bas relief, and the . . . what is this? Is it writing?” Bea peppered Nadim with questions, breaking the uneasy silence. I glanced back at the pillar she was scrutinizing. It did look like writing, all swirls and dots, but it could just as easily be decorative.