(eng) Jonathan L. Howard - Russalka Chronicles 01 by Katya's World

Author:Katya's World [World, Katya's]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

Mythical Creatures

“You did this deliberately!” roared Lukyan.

“No!” Kane looked in as much shock as the others. His eyes wavered around even as he tried to explain himself, as if he were trying to deal with the present and the future simultaneously.

“Dirty Grubber…” Lukyan wanted to say something so vicious that it exceeded even his vocabulary. Instead he reached for the sidearm he’d strapped on before they’d left the mining station.

“Hold on,” snapped Tokarov, grabbing his wrist. Lukyan glared at him as if to say he could be next if he liked, but Tokarov’s steady eye-contact gave him pause. “If you draw that gun, the Leviathan will kill you before you’ve even got the safety off. Calm down. It’s the only way we’re going to get through this.”

Lukyan slowly subsided, but the looks he gave Kane were still venomous.

“I’m sorry,” said Kane hopelessly to nobody in particular, “I’m so sorry. I forgot that I ever said such a thing. I was desperate, I had to get out. I’d have said anything. I did say anything.”

“Leviathan,” rumbled Lukyan, his fury suppressed but evident, “why was this man here, Kane, you said he was rejected. Why?”

The reply was curt, factual and unhelpful. “Interface misphasing.”

“What does that mean?”

Kane shook his head. “You’re wasting your time. It doesn’t understand language in the same way you do. It was never programmed to act like a thesaurus.”

Lukyan turned on him. “Fine. You tell me then. What the blazes is ‘interface misphasing’?”

“I don’t think this is the time or the…”

“It’s exactly the time and the place,” said Lukyan, darks threats in his voice.

“It’s not like we can walk out of here,” said Katya. “Please, Kane. If you were rejected, we need to know why. Maybe we can make it reject all of us.”

Kane heaved an exasperated sigh. “Simply put,” he said with a sideways glance at Lukyan, “it means the Leviathan couldn’t interface with my nervous system. It’s supposed to attach itself to nerve endings and the grey and white matter of the spine and brain for full interface. For some reason my nervous system rejected it, or it rejected my nervous system. I don’t know which. All I know was that the attempt was very painful.” He shuddered at the memory.

Tokarov looked cynical. “You don’t know why it happened?”

“No. I don’t know why it happened.”

“It just strikes me as strange that the Terrans should choose you to go with this extraordinary vessel…”

“I volunteered.”

“Were you the only volunteer?”

Kane’s lips narrowed. “No.”

“Well then, chose you from a pool of volunteers to be part of a vital mission and entrusted this astonishing craft, the Leviathan, to you. They did all this, gave you such a responsibility and never tested you for compatibility with it?”

“They tested me.” Kane seemed to be growing, in his own way, as angry as Lukyan under this inquisition. “I was fully compatible.”

“So what went wrong when it came time to do it for real?”

Kane’s voice was tight and Katya half expected him to refuse to answer or even to strike Tokarov.

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