Swallowing, Carver tapped his PALM, scanning for files related to the kid. They would have sent those too, right? They had to have if his superiors had known what they were throwing him into.
But every file after that one had nothing pertaining to the kid.
A sick sensation swirled in his stomach. Even without having access to those particular files, Carver knew what would’ve happened to that boy.Dissected and analyzed.
The doctor stirred, and he touched his PALM, dosing her. She slumped back into a heap. Carver shook his head. She shouldn’t have been able to wake from that either.
The doctor continued to be full of surprises.
He hated surprises.
With a touch of his PALM, he watched the recording again. And again. He didn’t know what he was searching for, but studied every second of that video like his life depended on it.
Maybe it did.
Watching it for the tenth time, he became breathless when he realized there was a discrepancy. The time on the terminal when Archibald turned off the distress beacon didn’t line up with the time the CORE government received their call. They should have contacted the COREafterturning it off, but it was the other way around, the contact time an hour before the creation of the recording.
The tether cabin’s terminal beeped, pulling his attention away from the paused recording. Carver pushed off the bench to stride toward the primary controls. The cabin had broken through the stratosphere, and the trip was now counted in minutes.
He sent a communication to the administrator of the tether station, a list of requirements for their arrival.
A moment later, a communique from theCorvusappeared on his ocular implant—the first since he’d breached the atmosphere of this fucking planet. It demanded an update on his retrieval and the status of Doctor Wynn Lambdin. General Cazin’s personal insignia marked the directive.
Carver’s fingers hovered over his PALM, ready to deliver the recordings of his time on Earth.
Not quite yet.
He wouldn’t debrief until he got more answers. And the doctor had them.
Chapter twenty-six
The world hummed loudly around her. Wynn’s entire head buzzed with the noise, her temples throbbing. Stale air swirled up her nose.
She forced her eyes open and focused on a metallic deck. She didn’t remember getting here.Where is here?
The hum changed, the pitch lowering, and she tried to place the sound, knowing she’d heard it before. Wynn turned her head, and something tugged at her throat. She reached toward it.
“Touch that and lose your hand.”
The distorted voice came at her from the right. Wynn froze, her hand hovering near her neck. A chilling sensation crawled up her spine as she remembered the events of the past day.I’m in the tether cabin.
Those last few moments before she’d gone unconscious muddled in her head. She remembered seeing the two men fight, and the beasts soclose to her.Too close.She remembered the need to help Iax, but also to defend herself if the beasts neared.
She closed her eyes. Her last memory of Iax played against the back of her eyelids.
Her fingers twitched where they’d stopped near the throat of her UV-suit.
“They told me to bring you in,” Sawyer added. “They didn’t say it had to be in one piece.”
Nausea swirled in her stomach, realizing he must have attached a node of some type. What had he given her?
She dropped her hand and pushed herself to sit straight. The cabin spun in a never-ending streak of gray and black. Pressing her thumbs to her forehead, Wynn waited until the world stabilized before turning toward the voice. She found him near the main terminal clothed in his flight-suit, his helmet engaged.
What did a monster look like? She couldn’t decide if she wanted to know.
The main viewer in front of him revealed stars and the bright glow of nearby stations. The cabin’s humming lowered again as they slowed toward orbital level.
“Engage your helmet,” he ordered without looking at her.
