"What about us?" Hanugar interrupted.
"You have your lives," Solum'ke said, a threatening tone laced into her
sultry voice. "Fifty-fifty means two shares-ours and the Quohog's." Her
pheromones backed up her threat, though the Corellians couldn't read them.
"Now, now," the Qwohog tsked, the noise sounding like an insect buzzing
in his vocalizer mask. "We might spare them just a little bit if they lend a
hand."
I grabbed a couple of glowrods, got in the sail raft, and helped Solum'ke
climb in.
She was curious like ajarencat, and despite my best efforts I couldn't
convince her to stay on the sail barge while I looked around. Sevik came
along, and Hanugar took a one-man sail raft.
"Wonder what we'll find?" Solum'ke mused aloud, as I steered the sail
raft closer. "Wonder what we'll find?"
"Maybe nothing," I said-again-as I tied the raft off on a rocky
protrusion.
Hanugar had already landed, and was heading into the largest cave at the
top, the one that seemed to look like a beast's eye. Let him have that one, I
thought, as I watched him scramble inside. If I were hiding a treasure, I
would put it in the least likely spot. And the least likely spot that we could
see tonight seemed to be the cave I noticed closest to the water, a narrow
crevice that looked like a big black wrinkle. It would be a tight squeeze. The
other caves were too small to even consider. It was possible there were more
caves beneath the surface.
Solum'ke nudged me forward. I hated enclosed places. And I hated treasure
hunts. Give me a handful of contracts on pirates, spies, and failed smugglers-
you'll get richer much faster.
Solum'ke passed a glowrod to Sevik. He still looked in sorry shape,
despite her ministrations, but his eyes gleamed like hers at the prospect of
wealth. Was I the only one being realistic about this? I wondered. Was I the
only one who knew we would be sailing away empty handed? Anything to humor
Sol, though. Anything to make her happy. I felt her thick fingers brush my
shoulder. She was right behind me. It was easy going at first, as there were
few jagged edges to bite into our boots. The decades beneath the waves had
smoothed the rocks' surfaces.
"Wonder what we'll find?" she whispered again.
I shrugged my broad shoulders and slid inside the crevice. The space was
small, making me uneasy, and the glowrod Solum'ke held behind me lit the damp
walls and sent shadows rollicking about the cramped confines. Our own
silhouettes against the rocks seemed eerie and added to my queasiness. Still,
I edged forward and down, following the natural shaft, then I stopped when I
heard something crunch beneath my boot. I looked at the stone floor and
blinked. Bones, humanoid ones from the looks of them. They were brittle with
age, but white, picked clean by melk I guessed.
"Thergu-Rea?" Solum'ke's voice was tinged with just a touch of
nervousness.
"What'd ya find?" Sevik called. He couldn't see anything around Sol's
pleasantly stocky frame.
"What's left of earlier treasure hunters," I replied. Maybe they'd found
the crevice on a Day of the Sepulchral Night decades ago and dallied too long,
became trapped inside and drowned when the eclipse ended and the water rose.
Or maybe something else had happened to them. I sped our course and wished we
would have thought to buy rebreathers before we left port.
We must have been more than a dozen feet below sea level when the passage
became tighter still and pools of saltwater swirled around my knees in the
depressions. No wonder the Qwohog was afraid to come down here. The water had
so much salt in it that even my thick skin was irritated.
To complicate matters, I felt trapped, like a caged beast. I almost
signaled Sol to turn back, but something sparkled ahead, quickening even my
doubting heart. I pushed myself between the shaft walls and cringed when my
shirt ripped on a rock. I felt the stone cut across my shoulder blades and
see to that-but the shirt wouldn't. And it was expensive, a gift she gave me
on our first night here.
"How much farther?" Sevik called.
I didn't know, so I didn't answer. I continued to squeeze through the
shaft and edge downward still. The walls were slick with moisture, and I
suspected the glowrod-light bouncing off the water was what caught my eye. I
ran my finger along the stone in front of me and brought a drop to my lips.
More saltwater. There must be cracks in the rocks someplace, letting a little
bit of the sea in.
"There's nothing here," I whispered to Solum'ke. "Let's turn back and
hope Hanugar was more successful."
I saw the dejected look on her face and read her pheromones that screamed
disappointment, then her expression and mood Instantly brightened. She was
looking past me. I craned my neck and followed her gaze. Red crystals. A
couple of shards sat on a ledge a little farther down. It was enough to make
me forget my concerns and my claustrophobia and press onward.
"We found something!" Solum'ke passed on to Sevik. He let out a whoop
behind her.
My boots crunched over more bones as I reached the niche with the
crystals. Beyond, the shaft opened-as did my mouth. Myriad multicolored
crystals littered the floor of a natural cavern, covering every bit of stone
and twinkling merrily like fireflies in the light of the glowrod. Some
crystals winked up at us from below the surface of small pools, making it
impossible to tell just how deep the wealth lay. Urns, miniature statues,
hammered metal idols, and more caught Solum'ke's attention. A large wooden
chest sitting amid the wealthy clutter caught mine. I let out a low whistle
and padded toward it, my boot heels clinking across the crystals. I quickly
knelt before the old chest. The wood stank, rotten with age.
"We're rich!" Solum'ke cried. "Oh, thergu-Rea, I knew there was something
to the legend. I just knew it! K'zk was right!"
I looked over my shoulder. She had set her glowrod down and was scooping
up crystals, letting them fall through her fingers and clink against the
floor. Sevik was busy skirting the edges of the saltwater pools. He started
unrolling the canvas sacks K'zk had given us and was deciding what to fill
them with first.
"These crystals are old, lover," Solum'ke said. She was holding one,
almost reverently. "We'll be set for the rest of our lives." Bits of rotting
leather were scattered here and there, remnants of the sacks that the crystals
had once been stored in. She brushed the leather aside and plunked the
crystals into her own sack. "This'll buy us our own freighter, a fleet of
them, maybe a moon somewhere."
I returned my attention to the chest. It had a large, primitive locking
mechanism that was rusted, as were the iron bauds that cut across the
discolored wood. An iron plaque on top had some type of inscription on it, but
it was in a language I couldn't read. I reached to my waist and retrieved a
Rodian throwing razor. Jabbing the pommel at th
e lock made a hollow sound that
reverberated around the chamber. The lock wouldn't give. But the wood was old,
and I redirected my attention to prying at it. It took me quite a while. How
long I'm not certain, but eventually I cut a hole in the top of the chest. I
reached for a glowrod, peered into the cavity, and sucked in my breath.
"Diergu-Rea, what'd you see?"
"Gems, crowns, the wealth of a prince, Sol," I answered hoarsely. My
throat had gone dry. "Crystals not quite as big as your fist, but big. We're
going to be very rich."
She squealed with delight and passed me a sack. I thrust my hand in the
chest's opening, my fingers closed around the gems, and I started pulling them
out. The light danced across their facets, and I enjoyed the view for a moment
before I dropped them in the sack. My arm worked faster, in and out of the
opening, retrieving sparkling gems as black as a midnight sky, pale blue ones
and more. I dropped a green crystal necklace over Sol's head, and returned to
scoopingjewels into my sack. I let my thick fingers play along the surface of
a large sunblaze, let myself get carried away.
I'm not sure how much time passed; time seemed irrelevant while there was
all this loot about. But I know it was enough time to let me fill my canvas
sack. I started stuffing my pockets full of the gems left in the bottom of the
chest. I wasn't going to let even one bauble escape me.
"I can hardly lift this," Solum'ke grunted. She was a formidable Weequay,
probably stronger than I, and the seams of her sack were threatening to split.
"If this planet were more civilized, we could've rented droids to help us
carry this."
"Not many droids on Zeios II," Sevik cut in. He was obviously strong,
too. He had two bulging sacks, each tossed over a shoulder. "In fact, there's
not many..."
His words trailed off when I waved at him. I cocked my head to the side
and listened. Water. "Something's wrong," I said. My pheromones told Solum'ke
I was worried. I shouldered my sack, took one of the glowrods, and eased my
way by Sevik and into the tunnel.
I'd made it to the narrowest part of the shaft when I realized something
was very definitely wrong. A rivulet of water was running down the rocky
floor, the source of the noise. At first it looked like a trickle, but as I
stared, the water spread out and was coming quicker, becoming a stream. It
rushed into the pools of water that were in the depressions of the tunnel-way,
then came out the other side like a miniature waterfall.
"Sol! We've got to get out of here, now! Grab what you've got and let's
go! Fast! I think the sea is rising!"
I heard Solum'ke scrabble across the crystals on the floor behind me. A
glance over my shoulder revealed that Sevik's feet were rooted to the spot,
his eyes transfixed on all the crystals we were leaving behind.
"Sol!" I shouted, nodding toward our guest.
She gave him a harsh nudge that seemed to snap him back to reality. He
brought up the rear of our little entourage, carrying his sacks practically
effortlessly. It was tougher going climbing the shaft. It was steeper than I'd
realized, and the floor was slippery. As we neared the opening, the water came
rushing in even faster, surging around our knees, then our thighs.
A moment later, my head poked out of the opening, and I balanced on the
ledge to keep from falling into the sea-which was lapping at my waist now. I
let the glowrod slip from my fingers-I didn't need it. The sky was lighter,
the eclipse ending, the tides rising quickly. I started scrambling up what was
left of the ridge, motioning Sol to follow me.
Hanugar's sail raft was heading toward the barge- - along the deck of
which all the Qwohogs stood. Our sail raft was ruined-there was a deep gash in
its hull where the repulsorlift mechanism rested. The mechanism was a useless
piece of history, shattered by being dashed against a sharp coral spike. The
sail raft still floated-but like a primitive boat-on the water, not above it.
And it was without any power.
A wave broke against my chest, threatening to push me under. The sea was
rising even faster now, and within minutes I knew we'd be treading water-or
drowning if we didn't drop the gems.
"When the sea gets a little higher, I'll bring the sail barge in!" K'zk
hollered. He called something else, but his words were lost by the crash of a
wave against the rocks around us.
The minutes seemed to crawl by as the sea rose up to our shoulders. We
watched Hanugar tie his sail raft to the rail and climb onto the barge.
Hanugar's raft was pulled up.
The raft! Our raft! My eyes searched about and locked onto our damaged
one. It was drifting away from us. It would do to keep us above the water.
"Hurry!" I yelled to Solum'ke, as I gestured toward the raft. I'd sighted
a couple of melk heads in the distance- - naturally heading in our direction-
and I desperately wanted to be out of their element, fast. I felt the sting of
the saltwater against my back where I'd cut it, and I knew my blood was
seeping into the sea. It would lead the melk straight to us.
"Where's Sevik?" Solum'ke shouted. She'd somehow managed to reach the
raft and tossed her sack into xs bottom. She hefted herself over the side and
started using her arms as paddles to drag the crippled raft toward me.
The water was up to my chin now, and I had to point my head toward the
lightening sky to keep my mouth above it. "There's no sign of him!" I
answered. "He might have drowned!"
Within a handful of heartbeats, she was tugging my sack and me into the
raft. I glanced at the sail barge, at Hanugar who was standing at the railing.
Then my mouth dropped open as I saw Sevik climbing up the side of the ship,
his two sacks still over his shoulders. It would have been physically
impossible for him to have swum so far with the weight of the crystals.
Unless... I looked closer, spotted a repulsorlift belt around his waist. "Why
you slimy excuse for a Nimbanese jowl preener..."
The rest of my words were drowned out by a wave crashing against the side
of our raft. I saw the sail barge hover higher and glide toward us.
"Throw us a line!" I yelled.
"The crystals first!" Sevik called back as he leaned over the side with a
length ofsyntherope.
"No!" Solum'ke and I shouted practically in unison. We clutched our
treasures.
K'zkwas next to Sevik, peering over the side, a blaster rifle trained on
Solum'ke's beauteous face. His voice cracked through the vocalizer mask.
"We'll take all of the crystals-one way or another."
Solum'ke made a move for her blaster. What happened to fifty-fifty? her
pheromones asked.
"The saltwater," I whispered to her.
I heard her groan. Our blasters would be useless, ruined by our dip in
the sea. I draped my arm around her shoulders, and she slumped against me, as
we gave in and watched our sacks of gems and crystals rise into the traitorous
Qwohog's sail barge.
"Just tell me," I call
ed up to K'zk, "Were the Corellians involved in all
of this? From the first? You obviously know them."
"Of course. Partners. Fifty-fifty," the Qwohog replied as he eased the
sail barge a few meters away from our crippled raft. "I'd received a message
they were marooned, so we had to pick them up before looking for the chine. We
were all looking-or Zeiosian's Chine-they on the skimmer and me with the
barge. Two ships would have a much better chance of finding it. They truly
fell afoul of the ridge, lost some of our mates in the process. Our captain
won't be pleased."
"But this should mollify him!" Sevik chuckled, as he held up a big
crystal.
"So why'd you need us?" I sneered.
"Insurance in case they didn't find the ridge," came the Qwohog's curt
reply. "Or in case I couldn't save any of my Corellian friends. Couldn't deal
with the saltwater myself, you know. Besides, you made fine extra pairs of
hands. Sorry to leave you stranded- - you were good sports about the whole
thing-even paid to rent the sail barge. But we can't have you turning us in to
the authorities before we've had a chance to get off-world."
"The corvette."
The Qwohog nodded. "Our ship. And we'd best hurry. The captain's waiting
for us. Thanks for your help!"
As the moons faded and the sun came out, chasing away all signs of the
eclipse, we watched the sail barge become a spot on the waves and then
disappear. Our little sail raft bobbed near the reef, still afloat, protecting
us from the melk.