“Yes,” Khoth said.
Does he mean there will be an after? Or I’ll just be dead after? Why can I not really believe badly of him? Because Gehenna brought him to me? Because he seems… noble?
* * *
They had made it to the hatch. The hallway had ended in a shut door. The door reminded him of the ones in Star Wars that came together vertically. The door was completely impassable. There were no lifts that were working inside of the spaceship. The Osiris seemed dead. But Jace knew that it wasn’t. It was just waiting to wake up.
“Lean down. I need to--to touch the hatch,” Jace told Khoth.
The hatch was the size of a normal human door. It looked like one of the many insets in the walls. Khoth did as he was asked and Jace placed a hand on the center of the hatch. Blood stained it from his fingers. He closed his eyes and imagined the live wire that he’d seen when he summoned Metal Rain. There was the barest electrical burst from his fingers to the hatch. Or maybe he just felt the hatch turning on as it slid silently to the side revealing a shaft.
“We need to get to the bottom of the shaft,” Jace said as he slumped back against Khoth, exhausted beyond measure.
The shaft was angled just like the floor was, but this time it was to their advantage.
“We can slide down,” Khoth stated as he tightened his hold on Jace as he levered them both into the shaft.
Thammah called out, “Perhaps I should go first. See if it safe before you--”
“No, there’s no time. I can feel him… fading,” Khoth said and it seemed like there was a hitch in that cool, unemotional voice.
“Why don’t you just ask him where she is and be done with it? Don’t drag him down into the dark with you for his last moments,” Thammah stated icily. “Does the Rule of Duuskukeh require you to make him suffer? Or are you just afraid he won’t tell you what you want to know if you don’t bring him with you?”
But Khoth was already in the shaft with him and they were sliding down. Khoth braced his feet on the sides to control their rate of speed. Jace was so cold. He was so cold that he couldn’t even shiver.
He lay like a dead thing on Khoth’s chest, cradled in his arms, as they slid into the black bowels of the Osiris. Jace understood what Thammah was saying. Khoth needed him to get to Gehenna. He couldn’t risk Jace not telling him where she was. And maybe she was right. But Jace had to believe that Khoth would help him. He had no other choice but to think that or simply die right then and there.
Not dying. Not yet.
They reached the bottom of the shaft. There was another hatch. Jace tried to lift his hand towards it, but he only got halfway before his hand fell back. Khoth lifted his hand and placed it upon the hatch. There was a soft electric zing before the hatch opened into another hallway, but this one was different than the one above. This one had doors, many heavy secure doors, on each side of the hallway. Khoth stepped out into the hallway and simply stared.
There was a squealing sound as Thammah’s boots rode along the shaft’s sides then a thump as her boots locked onto the floor. She came out of the shaft then and joined them. She turned her body this way and that as she took in the hallway.
“Ah, this looks like…” She paused and then continued, “I believe these are prison cells.”
Jace pointed towards the one at the very end. The one that was even more secure than these others. “Gehenna… she’s in there.”
Intergalactic Criminal?
“Why would an AI need to be in a physical prison cell?” Khoth murmured.
“Forget that, Commander! Why would an AI be in prison at all? Is Gehenna some kind of intergalactic criminal?” Thammah asked, hands on hips, as she scanned their dark and foreboding surroundings.
Jace gave out a wheeze, which Khoth realized was actually a laugh, but he was so weak that it sounded more like a simple exhale of breath. Guilt assaulted him. The young man was near death. He could see the closing shadows in Jace’s gray eyes. He’d seen those same ones in Daesah’s.
I did not break the Rule of Duuskukeh to stop her suffering at the hands of the Khul! He reminded himself. I did not do it in a vain hope that somehow she could be saved. I did not do it because I couldn’t imagine a universe without her. Did I?
There had been no chance to save Daesah, regardless of what his Xi had wanted. Khul infected their prisoners the moment they were taken. Once the prisoners were on their ships, there was simply no chance for them. The only thing Khoth could have offered Daesah was to end her suffering and to stop the Khul from learning all she knew.
But there was a way to save Jace.
All he had to do was take Jace to Gehenna and not interfere. Not delay the completion of whatever this connection was. Not seek another solution that would allow him to have the best of both worlds. All he needed to do was to honor his word to Jace.
But, in doing so, he would be again violating the Rule of Duuskukeh.
He could almost hear his mother’s voice telling him that what would be best for the whole is if he used Jace to find Gehenna, but did not allow the connection to complete. His mother would remind him that Gehenna had the potential of increasing their knowledge of, not only Precursor technology, but the Precursors themselves, which was invaluable. What if Gehenna could lead them to other unknown Altaeth worlds with stockpiles of new weaponry and technology that could aid their way against the Khul? What if she could tell them the history of the war between the Altaeth and the Khul? What had started it? What could end it? What if Gehenna knew where the Altaeth were now? And how to reach them?
Allowing Jace to connect to Gehenna would mean that this information--if it existed--would be shared only with the humans. Unless, of course, Jace wished to tell others. The humans--though they seemed to understand the necessity of the fight with the Khul--might try to use access to this information to bargain their way into the Alliance.
