He wouldn't let her tell people. He needed her to be trustworthy in this, and if she wasn't...
Blowing out a breath, she nodded. "I won't say a word. But I don't think this is smart, Proteus. I think they need to know so they can prepare for whatever that is."
Her gaze strayed back to the screen. There wasn't anything there anymore. No snake creature. Just the trail it had left in the sands and even the sight of that made her skin crawl.
The undine were one thing. They were creatures of the sea. They made sense.
Whatever lived Above? A creature like that was unnatural.
Thirty-One
Proteus
Proteus could feel the disturbance between them. He'd told Ellie to focus on downloading all the data she could from this facility. Most of it would be useless, but if they could return easily and access the feeds, or access the feeds in the other facility, then it would be much easier for all of them.
He didn't enjoy returning to this haunted place. He swore that he could still hear the voices of those who had once worshipped here. The low humming used to drive him crazy, and he swore their spirits still sang through the waves.
Now, he waited for her to finish her work while watching the screens. He hadn't told her that the suspicious new species had returned.
Whatever it was, it was long, although not as long as an undine. Proteus paid particular attention to its body, trying to understand what the differences between this new beast and their underwater counterparts. It was strange to see that there was another being capable of adapting to this world.
The two males he could see—at least, he assumed they were males—were tall where they stood. He even tried to mimic their poses but found that he couldn't. How they were standing like that, he would not understand. Their bodies were made differently. Their tails, although it seemed impossible, were stronger than those of an undine.
With broad, flat chests, they looked very similar to the People of Water. But there were no gills marking their ribs, only the dotting of scales that disappeared into their tails. Those scales looked different from the ones on their tails as well. Almost as though they wore armor. When one turned, he could see that the scales went up their spines, protecting the area there that was susceptible to attack. He couldn’t tell if that was hair or a snake hood on top of their heads. The image was too small.
They seemed to converse, although they mostly spoke with their hands. The gestures were almost familiar in a way, as though if he stared long enough he could understand what they were saying.
None of it mattered. He would not tell the humans about the creatures that lived Above, nor was he interested in it pausing his plans. The humans would leave the water. He would foist them upon this new species, who had yet to see them.
They were intricately linked, after all. These creatures might not understand how linked they were just yet, but they were. The snake-like beings had come from the humans, and it seemed to him that the humans were more likely to be their problem than his.
"Proteus?" Ellie asked, her voice soft with questions.
He turned to her, softening his expression as he knew he had been staring at the screens as though he wanted to break them. "What is it, Sisu?"
She pointed at the screen he'd been glaring at. "I don't think they're going to let us go into their world. We're going to haveto tell someone. To talk to them. To let them know that maybe... maybe they can learn from us just as we learned from the undine."
"Do you remember what you read in that book?" he asked. "The journal from the scientist?"
"I know they were trying to splice human and animal genetics so they could create life. Obviously, they succeeded."
"But the journals never said they did. You read it to me. You said that all they created were more monsters. And that as far as those geneticists were concerned, none of the species they created retained human thought. They were creating beasts, not men. What makes you think those creatures are even capable of speech?"
He lied.
To her.
Something dark and ugly twisted in his chest because she didn't deserve that. Ellie had given him everything and more. She had always worked with him, not against him. Never once had she betrayed his trust or who she was. She had proven time and time again that she was valuable in his plans. In his life.
Lying to her about this betrayed the trust they had been building. And he knew it. She did too.
She stared at him with those pretty, pretty eyes, and he knew that she recognized what he was doing. Maybe she had seen the same thing he'd seen. Maybe she could tell that they were conversing with their hands as well. But all she could do was stare at him. Those pretty eyes boring into his soul as they willed him to admit that he knew more than what he was telling her.
But he couldn't. Not to her. Not to anyone. This plan had to go exactly as he wanted it to go.
Those creatures in the sands were an issue. They were a wrinkle in his carefully cultivated blueprint, which he had spent the latter part of two hundred years figuring out. He was the onlyone who knew how to save this planet, and he was damn well going to do it.
Even if that meant he had to lie to her.
