Arrows of Time - Kim Falconer [101]
No one moved. They were transfixed, staring at her body.
What’s the problem now, Dray?
I think they’ve given up.
Everett cleared his throat, his voice a scalpel slicing the air. ‘Time of death…’ He paused to look at the clock. ‘11.07.’
That’s it, Dray. Let’s go.
Maudi?
My body’s dead. I can’t get back in.
Come to me, Maudi.
She focused her energy on her familiar and instantly was by his side. I’m here, Drayco. Can you see me?
I can’t see you, but I do feel you. He purred. Let’s go get Kali. This is salvageable yet.
But my body? The DNA. What will happen to it?
They put them on ice. It’ll be all right. We’ll get help and come back for it.
You know an awful lot about this place, Dray.
I’ve had nothing to do but watch and listen. This way, Maudi. We can find Jarrod too. If nothing else, he can teach you how to make a tulpa.
Good plan.
She focused on the sound of her familiar’s voice and shot after him. They travelled some way before she stopped.
Oh, crap. Drayco, I forgot about Fynn? Where is he?
Sorry, Maudi. They shot him. He’s gone.
Shot him? With an arrow?
With a bolt of lightning. Then they froze him.
Oh no. Her heart sank as she followed Drayco into the corridors.
‘How long’s she been down?’ Everett asked. The voice in his head had gone but he was having trouble shaking the sensation.
‘One hour and ten minutes. Even if you get her back, her brain activity is nil,’ a nurse said.
‘I don’t think the Donor unit will complain,’ he answered. ‘Clear again.’
After another twenty minutes of resuscitation, Everett looked at Richards. The attending looked shocked, but she gave a nod. He put down the paddles and snapped off his gloves. His team fell silent and the drone of the flat line warning sounded through the room. He cleared his throat. ‘Time of death,’ he said. His eyes went to the wall clock. ‘11.07.’ The heart monitor’s alarm was like a death knell, one that had not rung in over a century. ‘Turn that thing off,’ he said, letting his gloves fall to the floor.
A nurse flipped the switch and clamped the IVs. Another pulled a sheet over the patient’s head. ‘What do we do now?’ she asked as everyone stared at the corpse.
‘Call Cryo, stat,’ Everett said as he walked away. ‘This isn’t over yet.’
EARTH & GAELA—TIME: FORWARD
CHAPTER 22
‘What do you make of it, Teg?’ Kreshkali touched him on the shoulder. He’d been hunched over the chart all afternoon, taking notes and checking equations, getting reference books down from the shelves and bookmarking pages. There were stacks of them around him, like towers in a desert landscape. She’d watched his progress, flickering in and out of his mind, following his tracks as she worked on charts of her own. He was receptive, a quick study. The connection exhilarated her. He was every bit as astute as her last pupil, only there was something else—a charisma that kept her enthused no matter how long the tutorials.
It wasn’t that Teg’s magnetism was any more potent than Rosette’s—that girl was sunshine in a bottle. But Teg was not her daughter. He was male, through and through, whelped in the time of the Sea-goat. His energy was earthy and sensual, appealing in such a diffident way. Capricorn, the Sea-goat! Such depths.
She smiled. It was a complex and wily deity, the god of Capricorn. He could coincide with a rise to the heights of material ambition while simultaneously plumbing the depths of inner worlds and metaphysical thought—a mystic and a pragmatist embodied in one sensual, alluring and erotic body. Right now it was the erotic nature that intrigued her, though she knew better than to confuse the boundary between teacher and student, at least during the apprenticeship stage. She sighed. What made him enticing was his utter lack of awareness of her as a woman—either that or he had incredible control, an attribute also linked to Capricorn, but not known for its abundance in Lupins. Interesting combination. She laughed