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.No, he refused to believe that.Surely they could not have survived so much already, only to be lost in the bowels of Mandala.Alexa did not appear inclined to talk, and he allowed her that silence.Truly, he did not know what he should say to her.She had hit a little too close to the mark there with her probing questions about precisely why they had been the targets of the attack.He had told her the truth when he said those of his race could not lie, but that did not mean they wouldn’t dance around an issue when necessary.Yes, he had been carrying no sensitive papers with him when they were attacked, as those had already been delivered to the head ambassador on Eridani.Even so, he possessed knowledge that many unscrupulous souls in the galaxy might kill to get.Right now, it did really not matter why they had been attacked, whether such a thing had been deliberate, or whether they had simply been caught in the aftermath of an experiment that had nothing to do with them, as he had postulated to Alexa.The only thing that mattered at the moment was surviving.They could decides on the whys and wherefores once they reached the station.He looked down at her, saw how her steps had begun to slow, how her slender shoulders were drooping with weariness.Unlike her, he wore no chronometer, but he guessed a good five hours or more had passed since they had last eaten.There had been no signs of pursuit, no sounds of footsteps coming after them, and so he thought they were safe here underground.So far they had seen no creatures of any sort, and only a few clumps of oddly glowing fungus that shriveled as soon as the light from the lantern struck them.The likelihood of an attack was small.For the last few minutes they had been walking through a largish cave where the tunnel had opened up, and it seemed as good a place to stop as any.“Time to call a halt, I think,” he said.Alexa stopped at once and glanced around her.“Not a very defensible place, is it?”Well, that was true enough.The cavern was wider than it was long, floor and ceiling smooth, with no signs of the stalactites and stalagmites common in such sorts of caves.“At the far wall, then,” he said, pointing to the place where it narrowed down once more into the same sort of tunnel they’d traveled through to get here.“Sounds good.”He watched her carefully as she made her way over to the spot they’d chosen, but he could see no signs of a limp.Apparently the bandage was holding this time, probably because she’d done nothing more strenuous than walk in a straight line for the past few hours.“Blanket?” she asked, extending a hand toward the emergency kit.“This rock is damn cold.”“Of course,” he replied at once, and extricated it from the kit.She took it from him and settled it on the ground, then said, “Actually, better give me the other one, too.”He did as she requested, and looked on as she layered the second blanket over the first.It was chilly down here — or at least it would be chilly for her, in her knee-length skirt and plain jacket.The cold could not penetrate his heavy robes, and he wished he could offer to wrap her in them, hold her close so the temperature of the rocks underneath them wouldn’t affect her, but he doubted she would accept such an offer, even if he were brave enough to make it.Once again they shared the ritual of eating half a protein bar and drinking a careful amount of water.After they were done, he folded the wrappers and placed them back in the emergency kit, along with the water containers.He’d just begun to settle himself on the ground a few feet away from her when an odd glow at the far end of the cavern caught his eye.Pausing, he narrowed his eyes at the strange phenomenon, wondering if it were perhaps a particularly large clump of the phosphorescent fungus they’d seen earlier.But then he realized it was moving toward them.Alexa had obviously seen it, too, for she rose to her feet, saying, “Lirzhan — ”“I see it,” he told her.“What is it?”He began to respond by saying he had no idea, but the glow — whatever it was — had picked up speed, almost as if it had sensed them in some way.It came just close enough for him to see a ghastly green-white gleam, baleful black eyes on stalks, a long slug-like body trailing away from them.“Go!” he shouted, and Alexa scrambled toward the opening in the cavern that led to another tunnel
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