Xi had no clue, but his instincts weretelling him it was not good.
He had experienced a warming of hisown body and it was certainly not good. It had had debilitatingeffects.
Her body had holes from battle. Thatmade it seem more ominous. “The water will cool her,” he said withmore confidence than he felt as they reached the lower level—whichwas darker and cooler but required that he switch to a differentmeans of collecting light to perceive his surroundings.
In the end, though, it was the soundof dripping that helped him find his way.
He discovered a pipe. Contrary tologic, the liquid was coming up from below—not above where it’sappearance could be explained with gravity—filling a small tube andthen overflowing and spreading to drip down the square sides of thehousing.
Tau and Quan rushed toward it. “Do notdrink!” he exclaimed. “I will test it first.”
Relief filled him when he had testedit and found none of the contaminates the bodies they had takencould not tolerate.
Tau crouched with the female and beganto gather the moisture he could with one hand and to stoke it overher face and drip drops into her mouth with his fingers.
He seemed absolutely mesmerized by herefforts to suck water from his fingers.
Frustration rippled through Xi. “Thereis no way to gather the water.”
“No,” Tau agreed, hisvoice sounding strange. He cleared his throat. “Look to see whatyou might find. We will need a way to carry it if that ispossible.”
When they had all taken turns suckingthe water up, Xi left with Quan to search for something they mightuse.
Ultima settled to panting for breathwhen she’d exhausted herself trying to get enough water to quenchher thirst.
She was going to die, she thoughtdespairingly. It seemed they meant well by her, were trying tohelp, but they had no idea what to do. Clearly knew less than shedid.
She couldn’t entirely conclude whatthe facts were that she’d collected except that they seemed to haveno harmful intent and they were not enemy cyborgs—whatever theywere.
It brought to mind the precious thingthat had been entrusted to her—the implant that was the legacy ofmankind.
They had gathered together all thatthey could for safekeeping—to pass along if they had the chancebefore dying.
“Let me give you this,”she whispered a little desperately, grasping the fingers he wasusing to try to feed her water and struggling to move his hand sothat she could point out the implant.
He removed his hand from hers andstudied her face.
As much as he had enjoyed the feel ofher on his fingers, he had done little for her, he realized,struggling to think of something else he might try. Abruptly, itoccurred to him that he had a hole that matched hers, that he hadsucked water from the tube.
He could suck water for her, hethought, and give her more.
With that thought, he leaned over herand sucked up what he could and then matched his facial opening tohers and allowed the water to trickle into her cavern. She chokedand coughed and then matched her face to his and sucked the waterout.
“More?” he asked, usingone of only a handful of her words that he had gleaned.
“Yes,” shegasped.
And he repeated the process until itseemed she was less distressed. Her skin even felt cooler when hewet his fingers as before and stroked it over the heatedsurface.
She grasped his fingers with morestrength and that time he allowed her to guide his hand to the backof her head when she used the finger she held to trace an objectthat seemed foreign.
Wondering if it was a projectile, helifted her up to study it with the visualization organs that he hadinherited with the body and saw that it was a terminal of somesort—a port not a wound.
“What is?” he asked whenhe met her gaze again.
“Everything. Let me giveit. Please?”
He frowned, feeling a flicker ofsuspicion in her desperation, but finally he decided that he wouldnot come to harm even if his drone did.
