The cryogenic chamber seemed to stretch on endlessly. Row after row of frozen angels. Rachel’s breath misted the air as she walked through the hall for the thousandth time since she’d found this place. Six hundred years ago the angels had vanished without explanation, leaving mankind to their own devices. Some claimed they had returned to heaven now that mankind was safe from the Adversary. Some claimed they had traveled into deep space, beyond the Local Group.
All were lies.
They had frozen themselves in suspended animation.
Why?
These days, the Ark touched her mind even in her waking hours. It showed her the wonders of the universe—the birth of stars and nebulae, the death of whole planets as stars went nova. But it offered no answers for the question that burned in her mind, night and day.
Why would the angels freeze themselves?
The Ark supposedly held all the secrets of the angels, but after three weeks, she had yet to unlock even a fraction of them. She paused before a frozen angel. The creature looked human—almost. Cybernetics poked through her skin, including, most obtrusively, massive metal wings.
The First Commandment said, “Man Shall Not Alter the Form of Man.” That apparently didn’t apply to angels cybering themselves. What would the rest of humanity think when they learned angels were cyborgs?
Farther down the hall, she could hear Leah Suzuki examining one of these things.
Rachel wore a thick parka in here. Leah’s Sentinel suit seemed to keep the rahab warm enough. Rachel wasn’t quite sure what to make of the other woman. Apparently she was David’s best friend, except he’d never mentioned her, not that Rachel remembered.
Rahabim were humans whose ancestors were engineered by the angels for subsea mining. And that was fine. Rachel had no problem with any of the Races of Man—except for maybe the gog and magog.
What bothered her were Leah’s guarded but definite feelings for David. Whenever he was around, Rachel could feel that hint of jealousy coming off Leah, that whisper of a desire the rahab probably couldn’t even admit to herself.
As an empath, Rachel sometimes found herself privy to things she’d rather not know.
Rachel pushed her hair back under the parka. Had the two of them slept together? Best friends in the service … it shouldn’t surprise her if they had. It wasn’t like she and David had been together at the time.
Void, she wasn’t sure they were together now.
He’d rescued her from Sentinel custody—from torture under Captain Waller—and she could feel his love for her. But everything with David was so complex. The very history they shared made it that much more difficult to move on.
And so Rachel pretended it was just sex between them. He wanted more, she knew he did. David had always wanted children, and even this morning, the subtle pressures he put on her wore her down.
He talked fondly of helping raise his youngest sister on New Rome. After his mother had fallen in the line of duty, David had to help his father keep the family together.
Of course, she knew she was being unfair to him. Taking him into her bed and embracing him in the night, then pushing him away in the morning.
Like she’d done to Knight. She’d slept with him, then spurned him in favor of David. She had a habit of hurting those closest to her, but for the life of her, she couldn’t seem to break free of it.
How could she settle down with David when there was so much more to do? When humanity was still mired in its own self-delusion and ignorance?
She approached Leah and knelt beside the Sentinel. “Learned anything?”
“From what I can tell,” Leah said, “they’re basically human. Take away the cybernetics and possibly divergent evolution, and we could be related. I can’t get a proper genetic sample without opening one up, of course.”
“Can you do that?”
Leah shrugged. “I could probably wake one up, yes.”
“Wake him up? Void no!” Rachel stood. “No way in the holy universe do we want those … those things awake, Leah.”
“But they’re angels …” Genuine confusion wafted off Leah, which only made it all the more irritating.
“Exactly.” Rachel thumped the cryo tube with her finger. “These pricks saved us, right? And then used that as an excuse to rule us with an iron first for the next two and a half millennia. They indoctrinated mankind to believe only what we were told, and then they left us to our own devices. And now we are still, six hundred years later, mired in traditions enforced on us!” She thumped the tube again. “All the chaos and death in the universe right now, we can trace back to them. They gave Mizraim and Asherah a reason for war.”
Leah smiled, shaking her head. Damn her and her smug amusement, anyway. “He said you were like that.”
Oh, so David had talked about her, did he? He’d discussed her with Leah. It meant she’d been on his mind this whole time? Just like he’d been on hers. So why couldn’t she just settle down with him and move on? She couldn’t think of a single good reason for torturing herself. Except for her mission …
“So the angels are aliens?”
“I don’t know. I mean, they look a lot like us.” The rahab rose. “I can’t learn much more about them without opening a tube. And it’s your ship.”
Damn right it was.
“So I guess you should head back to the Logos.”
Leah hesitated, as if weighing something. “You’re a psych who’s been on a living ship for an extended period. Maybe I should examine you. We don’t know what effect extended contact with this alien being will have on you.”
It would have been easier to blow the rahab off if Rachel couldn’t sense genuine concern layered underneath the other woman’s jealousy. Sometimes being an empath made life too complicated. It was hard to hate someone who cared about you despite her own heart. “Thanks, Leah. But I’m fine. Tell David I’m fine. I’m sure he’s the one who put you up to this, right?”
Leah sighed and left, heading toward the hangar.
The rahab was loyal to David, and David was loyal to Rachel. To a point. But everyone was still going to want this ship.
Rachel didn’t have to be a prophet to know a storm was coming.
