Fathom (Mermaids of Montana #3) - Elsa Jade Page 0,72
the long-lost ship could be used to prove Tritona’s sustainability to the intergalactic council. They’d known how much the Cretarni had manipulated them, but now to know that she personally was the target of their mission?
That didn’t bode well, not for any of them.
“What is a fire-witch?” When she said the Cretarni word, it flickered between the two meanings in her brain. Light switch?
Cinek gave her another look, as if he suspected she was toying with him. “The switch was our technology. Those dead-eyed spumers stole it generations ago.”
“Technology?” She shook her head. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“The waters were too vast to corrupt enough to drive out the Tritonans. So my forefathers created the switch to shock the waters, to kill the spumers where they hid.”
She kept shaking her head, trying to dispel the unease and confusion. She wasn’t any sort of switch or witch. Just a short-circuiting fuse, trying not to… She stiffened. “Wait, you mean, the switch…like, electrifies the water or something?” Not only was she not a switch or a witch, the extent of her electrical knowledge was changing a lightbulb, but it sounded as if he was saying the tech was some sort of malfunctioning toaster his people were going to toss into the Tritona tub to…fry all the fishes?
He made a hooting noise, although she couldn’t be sure if it was assent or amusement. “Salt water electrolysis had the added benefit of creating pure freshwater. Which we needed since the results of the chemical warfare had leached back onto land and the cleanup effort was destroying our economies.”
She grimaced. “You probably could’ve predicted that, considering—ya know—what it was doing to the rest of your planet.”
He made another noise, ruder this time. “We should’ve eaten them all when we had the chance.”
Eesh. “Okay, well, in case you hadn’t noticed, clearly I don’t have your missing tech on me right now.” She held out her arms to both sides to demonstrate her lack of pockets.
The other Cretarni leaped back, drawing their weapons.
“Put your hands down,” Cinek snapped. “If you fire, we will kill you where you stand.”
Because of her zaps. She was the stolen weapon.
Slowly, she deflated, wrapping her arms around herself and tucking her hands under her arms. It took longer for the soldiers to relax, and none of them holstered their weapons.
Although technically she couldn’t holster herself either, so maybe she shouldn’t blame them.
Oh, but she blamed them.
“Your ancestors did this to mine,” she whispered. “I never wanted this, never asked for power. You made me a monster.”
Whatever tension had left the soldiers swept back in like a returning tide. And for once, she welcomed the simmering fear and hatred that flooded through her like a toxic drug. If they wanted her zaps…
“No.” Cinek’s rejection made her pause. “I told you already. The Tritonans stole the technology, but it was the Tritonesse who converted it to a biogen weapon and deliberately infected their own. They are the ones who poisoned your blood.”
She wanted to stay mad, but that sounded exactly like the Tritonesse, the ones who’d created Titanyri like Sting to wage their war. Her own moment of malevolence faded, leaving only a stain of shame.
“Then they killed all of your kind,” Cinek continued inexorably. “Because even the Tritonesse spumers knew fire-witches were too dangerous. But one of your ancestors escaped on the exodus ship. And now…here you are.”
“Here on your ship,” she said warily. “Because you are taking me away.”
“No,” he said again. “On your ship. Where I will take away this power you say you don’t want.”
The sound reached her first: the ever-present hush of waves. In another few steps—the Cretarni soldiers lurking behind—they exited the nondescript corridor to a balcony overlooking the spire and wheel at the heart of the Atlantyri.
For a shocked moment, she gazed down the long drop to the churning waters below and swallowed hard. “What are we doing here?”
They’d known that the Cretarni had tricked them into finding the Atlantyri and that the Tritonans’ old enemies must’ve had reasons, but they’d never figured out why. Now she knew: they’d been searching for her.
Or not her exactly, but the weapon she was.
“We knew the Tritonans had sent away some of their most precious belonging on the exodus ship,” he said. “So we suspected they would’ve sent weapons as well. It wasn’t until recently, when we started receiving information from the Intergenetic Data Agency, that we realized there was a fire-witch.” His dull orangish gaze settled on her. “You.”