Gateways 07_ What Lay Beyond - Diane Carey [9]
“Where do you think they’ll take the cylinder to analyze it?”
Luz drew away from him slightly. “I’m not telling you anything! I’m a loyal Petraw.”
“Yeah, so loyal they almost killed you.”
Luz closed her burning eyes. “That’s because Tasm came along and ruined everything! I would be the one accepted into the birthing chamber if she wasn’t here. Another cron and I would have been gone before you arrived!”
Luz put her hands over her face, curling into a ball. Kirk knew it would be useless to try to get information out of her right now. It was depraved the way these people lied and cheated, even their own crewmates, to get what they wanted.
He no longer felt sympathy for any of the Petraw. To think, this selfish greed was what had brought him so far from his own ship. Kirk turned away from Luz, propping his head in his hand. He almost wished he hadn’t rescued her.
Time blurred together for Kirk, with no way for him to tell when each day had passed. They snatched sleep in the tiny access tubes, leaving only to go to one of the cell blocks where Luz showed him the feedtubes deep inside.
Kirk needed to eat, but it was a strange experience. He had to pull on the strawlike tube until it straightened and dripped a golden liquid. It tasted tart and was rather thick and syrupy. According to Luz, it supplied the nourishment needs of the Petraw in this complex. He was thirsty enough to drink deeply every time he could, but after a while he wished there were some other flavor. He wasn’t used to eating the same thing all the time. Whenever they left the narrow access tubes, they saw scores of defenders, the bigger Petraw who were searching for him and Luz. At first Kirk thought he had made a tactical error by rescuing Luz, alerting the Petraw that he was on the loose. But Luz knew a great deal about the complex that enabled them to avoid the defenders.
At one point, the search teams were going through the access tubes meter by meter. Luz kept trying to dodge them. They were forced to keep moving or be caught.
“I didn’t want to do it, but I guess there’s no other option,” Luz finally said, huddled in the tube in front of Kirk.
“Now what?” It looked as though their time was running out.
“We’ll have to go into the web. That’s the network of tubes that link a block of cells close to here.”
Kirk had become more comfortable with the towering cells, but he wasn’t prepared for the tangle of access tubes that filled the space behind. He crawled after Luz, sighting workers here and there in the dim light. They kept making sharp turns, climbing up, then down to get away.
Kirk was exhausted from the climbing when Luz uttered something in exasperation. “They’re all around us.”
“I don’t see them,” Kirk protested, looking behind.
“I can feel it in the tube,” she said vaguely. “We’ll have to make a dash for it.”
“For what?” he asked doubtfully.
Luz didn’t answer, opening a tube above them and starting to climb even faster than before. Kirk didn’t try to talk to her, saving his breath for the effort.
After a long ascent, Luz finally paused. She appeared to be listening before she cautiously pushed on the wall next to her, opening the tube. Then she slithered through headfirst.
Kirk emerged into a much larger room. Without hesitation, he lifted his arms up, stretching as tall as he could. He felt as if he were turning into a scurrying bug that inhabited the woodwork.
Luz was kneeling over something. Another tube was opening up.
Kirk sighed, but when she pulled back so he could look inside, it wasn’t a tube as he expected. Below the hole in the ground, it opened up almost as large as the chamber they were in. About four meters down, there was a smooth flat floor. It was a deeper golden color and lacked the inner glow of the surrounding walls.
“Hold on to the edge,” Luz told him. “We’ll hang from here until they pass through.”
“What is it?”
“A nutrient sac, holding the nourishment for distribution to the cells.”
Kirk swallowed. How could he miss that smell of the sweet syrup they drank every day?
Luz swung over the