To her surprise, she discovered when she glanced at them that all three of the cyborgs were looking pleased—uncertain, but far from offended. It made her feel inexplicably bad for them. Poor things! They didn’t even understand that it was an insult!
The empathy didn’t last more than a moment, however. It was usurped almost the moment she noticed the faint smile hovering about Seth’s lips. He had a really nice mouth, she thought distractedly. That discovery sent an unidentifiable rush through her—unrecognizable because she refused to examine it.
* * * *
Xeno-12 was inhospitable at the best of times. In the dead of winter the few life-forms the planet boasted apparently all went into deep hibernation. Danika had had some hope when they set out that they might at least find some tracks since even the animals that hibernated on her home world did occasionally rouse and go out to hunt. Either none on Xeno-12 did or there were no dens nearby. They walked most of the day, searching hopefully, but even the cyborgs weren’t able to pick anything up with their infrared.
Circling back around toward the base as the sun dipped toward the horizon, they spotted Reuel and the men he’d taken heading back to camp.
As depressed as she already was, Danika’s mood dropped to an even lower level.
She supposed there was a chance that Lt. Brown had forgotten his earlier anger, but she didn’t think they could count on it. He tended to whip himself into a rage with little provocation and managed to hold on to it for an amazing length of time … sometimes for days.
“Lt. Brown sent us to find you,” she told Reuel when the two groups converged.
Reuel sent her a look that was both speculative and wary. “We were sent to patrol the perimeter.”
“I know that and you know that, butheapparently doesn’t,” Danika said wryly.
Reuel frowned. “The order came from Sgt. Hill.”
Anger flickered through Danika at the injustice of it. “And Hill seems to be suffering from amnesia. He didn’t say a word when the lieutenant demanded to know where you were.”
A muscle in Reuel’s jaw tightened. “You are saying that I am to be disciplined even though I was following orders?”
“Welcome to the world of humans!” Danika said tartly. “Where nobody takes responsibility for anything they say or do if it means getting their ass chewed.” She shrugged. “The lieutenant went into one of his rants. Hill’s a worm, in my opinion, for not manning up, but the guyisscary. I mean, just being in command is enough, but he’s bonkers to boot. I’m actually surprised he hasn’t suffered a ‘mysterious accident’. He’s totally incompetent—dangerously incompetent.”
Reuel looked pissed. That wouldn’t have surprised her if he’d been human. It should have surprised her since he wasn’t, but it didn’t—because there weren’t many cyborgs acting like her idea of the way a cyborg should behave anymore. Sympathy filled her. She struggled with it for a moment and finally shrugged.
“Maybe he will have forgotten all about it by the time we get back? And even if he hasn’t, I’ll back you up—I heard Hill order it. What can he do anyway? I mean you and the others are already doing all of the patrols and we don’t have a brig.”
* * * *
“Mutiny!” Brown roared furiously. “It’s sedition! Don’t you stand there and act stupid! Iknowyou’ve been trying to convince the men to revolt! I have eyes! I’ve had you watched! I know you’ve been plotting something! Every time you disappear from camp, half the ‘borgs or more disappear with you!”
Reuel studied him with a stony expression, a muscle in his jaw working as if he was restraining himself from punching Lt. Brown in the face with a great effort.
They’d barely entered the cavern when Lt. Brown had spied them and instantly surged to his feet, clearly in a towering rage. With seemingly no sense of self-preservation whatsoever, he had stalked right up to Reuel, tilted his head back, and spat the accusations in his face. As if it was a cue for everyone else, the men who’d loitered in the cavern all day, also came to their feet, forming a human wall behind Brown, although, unlike Brown, they merely stood, tensely clutching their weapons. They didn’t approach the cyborgs. They seemed desirous of keeping a good distance between themselves and the cyborgs.
The cyborgs who’d been sent out to patrol had arrived back at camp at roughly the same time that Danika and her squad and Reuel and his group had, and had converged before entering the cavern. Danika was keenly aware that she had nothing but cyborgs at her back and that, without any plan to do so whatsoever, the cyborgs and humans now stood in a nightmarish faceoff that made the hair on the back of her neck prickle.
She gaped at the lieutenant in stunned disbelief and dismay and then glanced around in hope of finding a voice of reason in what suddenly seemed a sea of madness.
She saw no one who seemed inclined to disagree with Brown at all, however. The expressions on the other soldiers’ faces varied from shock to fear to anger, but none seemed disbelieving and all of them seemed more inclined to shoot and worry about whether the cyborgs had been a threat afterwards if their grips on their weapons was any indication.
“Sir, they’re cyborgs ….” Master Sgt. Felton, who’d followed Brown and halted a few paces behind him, began soothingly, only to be cut off.
Brown rounded on him, so furious he was spewing spittle. “You’re against me, too!” He swung an angry glare around the cavern, scanning the faces of the stunned troops. “It’s a conspiracy! You’re all traitors!” He rounded on Reuel again. “Especially you! Hang him!”
Everyone merely gaped at him.
Felton cleared his throat. “Sir … uh … there’s nothing to hang him from or with.”
Brown exploded then, uttering every curse he’d ever heard—several times. “Then shoot him! He’s turning the ‘borgs against us all! They’ll kill us in our sleep!”
That was just too much! Despite her fear, Danika knew she had to say something.
Luckily, Seth clamped a hand over her mouth. She flicked a glance up at his face. He frowned, shaking his head slightly.
