Amaryllis looked around the small cabin curiously, but she knew it must be the cabin that had been assigned to him. Beyond a narrow bunk barely wide enough for one and a locker, the room contained little else.
“Facilities there,” he said, pointing to a narrow door on the back side of the cabin. “But this is shared by four cabins and only safe for you to use between shift changes.” When he’d explained the rotation, he moved toward the cabin door once more, but hesitated once he’d reached it.
“Give me your word that you will not leave the cabin.”
“Where would I go?” Amaryllis hedged.
His expression tightened. He shook his head slightly. “This is a dangerous game, Amaryllis.”
“Survival isn’t my idea of a game,” she retorted.
He studied her thoughtfully for several moments and finally left the door, advancing upon her. Surprised, Amaryllis backed away. She’d forgotten the bunk. The backs of her knees caught the edge of the frame. Her knees buckled. Before she could recover her balance, he was upon her, pinning her to the bunk. A brief struggle ensued for possession of her hands, but she was in no position to find the leverage she needed to escape. In moments, he’d subdued her struggles.
Shifting, he caught both her wrists in one hand, and then ripped the silky skirting from her garment, securing her wrists together with it. The sheer fabric was soft but chafed her wrists as she twisted her hands, trying to pull free, and she quickly discovered that it was far stronger than she would’ve thought.
When he’d finished binding her wrists together, he pushed her arms above her head and secured the binding to the head of the bunk. After tugging on it a couple of times to assure himself that she was secure, he rolled off of her and moved to the door once more.
“Asshole!” Amaryllis snarled at him as he reached it.
He hesitated and turned his head to glare at her. “I realize that you are handicapped by your human weaknesses, but you may wish to consider the consequences of making your presence known.”
Amaryllis gaped in outrage.
He’d called her stupid and weak! He thought she was inferior because she was human! “Bigot!” she muttered furiously. “It’s better than being a fucking machine!”
It was obvious from his expression that her shaft had struck home with a precision equal to his. For several moments he looked so furious that fear tickled at the base of her spine. Finally, he merely pulled the door open and departed, locking the door behind him.
A combination of relief and uneasiness washed through her when she heard the sound of the lock.
He was right. Shewasstupid or she wouldn’t have allowed her temper to overrule her head. Whatever else the company had told them about the cyborgs that might or might not be true, there was no doubt that they were unpredictable. Insulting the one cyborg who knew her dangerous secret was probably one of the least intelligent things she’d ever done.
She struggled with the bonds for a time but found that the more she tugged and pulled the tighter the knots became. After resting for a few moments, she began trying to move herself into a position where she could use her teeth to loosen the knots. An earnest effort failed to produce any results, however, and she subsided to rest again and consider her options.
Regardless of what he’d said, she thought she would prefer to take her chances on the planet than with the cyborgs. Whatever they had in mind to use to erase their presence here, she didn’t believe they would destroy the entire planet even if they’d had the weapons to do so, and she was willing to stake her life that they didn’t. If she could only free herself and escape the ship undetected, then cross the clearing to the wooded area beyond, she could hide herself until Robotics, Inc. sent ships to discover what had become of the mission.
That was a lot of ifs, particularly when he’d removed her locator—both locators. Mentally, she called up an image of what she’d seen before and since capture, both of the compound and the ship. The compound had been no more than crude wooden huts, but the entire area was surrounded by a wooden palisade built from the trees cut to clear the compound. That constituted a very large area to navigate undetected, ending with a wall that would be difficult, to say the least, to scale.
More immediately, there was the problem of getting loose and finding her way out of the ship. She didn’t think it had been locked down yet. The cabin where Dante had imprisoned her seemed to be a good distance from the workings of the ship, but she’d been hearing occasional movements that she thought must mean they were still preparing for departure.
The thought had scarcely entered her mind when she heard footsteps directly outside in the corridor. She held her breath, wondering if Dante were returning. The steps passed the cabin door, however, halting close by. In a few moments, she heard movement in the cabin adjoining the one where she was and then in the facilities. Her heart leapt in her throat and she craned to stare at the door Dante had told her led to the facilities.
There was no lock on it … which explained why he’d decided it was necessary to tie her even though he’d locked the outer door.
She lay perfectly still, hardly daring to breathe until she heard the cyborg leave once more.
When the last of his footsteps faded along the corridor, she studied her situation and began trying to work out a contortion that would bring her teeth within range of the bindings. She’d broken a sweat by the time she managed it. Every muscle and joint in her body was screaming at the unaccustomed strain. Ignoring the pain, she began gnawing at the knots.
She’d begun to think she was beginning to make some headway when she became aware of a vibration communicating itself through the hull, the frame of the bed and the mattress. She stopped, gasping for breath, hoping against hope that she’d imagined it and that it was nothing more than muscle fatigue.
It wasn’t muscle fatigue. The vibration rapidly became more and more pronounced. A whine joined it. Within a few moments the entire cabin around her was quaking as if it would disintegrate any moment.
They were taking off.
Mindlessly, she began tugging at the knots again.
A heaviness settled over her, pressing against her harder and harder until she could scarcely breathe. Abruptly, the heaviness vanished. She began to float upward. She’d levitated perhaps two inches from the bed when the artificial gravity kicked in and she hit the mattress once more.
She lay gasping for breath, staring at the shaking hull above her head while the vibrations slowed and finally subsided altogether.
