significance sooner.” Turning to Nic he explained. “Rhela’s parents met sometimes in the Archive where her father worked. The text implies that her mother used some sort of secret passage to reach it.”
“Secret passages sound promising,” Nic agreed. “Once you can find them.”
“It would be nice if we had a map to the Archive, but our ally here is out of commission,” Gavin said. “And from what we’d heard, it’s doubtful he’d ever been inside.”
“It may not be a map per se,” Kennet said. “But since you’ve left, I’ve repositioned two satellites over the city, scanning for anything that didn’t correlate with our previous knowledge of this colony.”
Nic narrowed his eyes. “Did I know about this?”
“No,” Kennet answered mildly. “But you’re seldom concerned about the details of my experiments. Only the results.” He pulled up an overlay of the city into the middle of the projected ready room. “It has disturbed me that the Council denied any knowledge of sending a message to the Alliance. Obviously, someone is lying.”
Zooming in on the map, he pulled in a heat overlay. “I have found a cluster of readings, all using a considerably higher level of technology then we were given to believe is the standard here.”
The power usage, the hidden technology.
The experiment that Rhela’s father had saved her mother from...
“Esme’s dream,” Gavin said. “The lab she described would’ve needed more power than this planet is supposed to be using. There’s no way she should have even been able to dream up such a thing if she hadn’t seen it.” Certainty settled in his gut. “That’s got to be where they’re keeping her.”
“I’ll send the coordinates to your personal devices now,” Kennet said.
“Good hunting,” Nic added. “And we’ll be there before morning.”
The holographic projection shut off with a snap.
“This time, we’re not waiting for passes. Let’s go.” Gavin shifted, his lion and Jormoi’s sand cat bounding into the night.
In seconds they’d reached the rooftops, and then the city lay before them, twisting streets and dividing walls became nothing more than broad avenues for them to travel.
Racing across the rooflines, from the warehouses to the merchants’ quarter, then they sailed up and over the wall that divided them from the Chosens’ central district in one easy vault.
Even as they ran, Gavin could tell the difference here.
The smallest of the districts, the ornate buildings followed a pattern, almost a template.
As if someone had decreed what was elegant, what was permitted, and all others had stumbled over themselves to fall into line.
And something else filtered through his focus.
Something strange.
Even the merchants’ district had the unmistakable odor of a civilization without easy access to running water and sanitation.
Here there was almost nothing, just the faintest scent of humans.
Strange, but not urgent. Not now.
And there in the center, just where Kennet’s map led them, stood a circular building, high dome almost glowing in the night.
The Archive.
It had to be.
Goal in sight, they put on another burst of speed, music and laughing voices echoed through the streets below them, faded away with the wind as they passed.
Walls.
Passes.
Districts.
It was a stupid system.
Caste systems never lasted for long, not on any of the worlds the Garrison had ever been sent to.
Sooner or later someone always broke the mold, decided they wanted all the advantages the other ranks took for granted.
It wasn’t Gavin’s problem. He’d never really cared before.
But despite the absence of the stench of a low-tech world, something was rotten here, something that had snared Esme, pulled her back into a living nightmare.
And if he had to tear this sham of a civilization to the ground to get her back, he’d do it gladly.
Slowing their breakneck charge, they circled the building, set slightly apart from its surroundings by a wide outer circle of lush grass, flowers set out in rigidly geometric beds with tall broad evergreen trees standing sentinel at each corner.
Perfect.
Gavin bunched his haunches and leapt, the coiled force pushing him, sending him sailing through the air until he tucked, shifting as he rolled on the ground, transformed again into a man in the shadow of the tree.
Before his second breath Jormoi was beside him.
“You know, it’s always amazing that for someone as big as you are, you can still pull that off.” The scout sounded vaguely miffed. “Seriously. That’s what they have me for.”
“I don’t smell anyone inside,” Gavin said, eyes fixed on the entryway.
Back to business, Jormoi checked the readings Kennet sent. “This matches up. Here’s the place.”
Well oiled, the heavy doors swung open silently and they