Sebastian remained sitting there, cross-legged with his head bowed and his hood raised. She wondered what was going through his mind in that moment, and whether he would sleep. Maybe he was slumbering already. He was a cyborg, after all, very likely with a complete robotic body. If the latter was true, he could freeze his servos to assume any posture he liked, and meanwhile allow his brain to enter the sleep state.
She watched his blue-outlined, wireframe form for maybe fifteen minutes. And then the cyborg suddenly stood.
Rhea resisted the urge to shoot her eyes open and sit up as well. She stayed motionless, though she was ready to roll aside and unholster her weapon should Sebastian draw his rifle.
But the cyborg did no such thing. Instead, he walked toward the far side of the cavern, heading deeper into the tunnel system.
What do you think he’s doing? Rhea sent Horatio.
If I had to guess, I’d say he was sick of waiting, Horatio replied. He has chosen to abandon us. Let him go, I say. It’ll be a relief to have him gone from our presence.
Yeah, but what if he’s just looking for a spot to ambush us? Rhea transmitted.
Always the negative, Horatio said. Why would he bother? He’d have a better chance of attacking now, while you and Will were asleep.
Except I’m not asleep, Rhea sent.
But Sebastian doesn’t know that, Horatio told her.
Rhea remained silent, and when Sebastian’s wireframe form vanished round a bend of the cavern, she sat up. His indicator froze on the overhead map a moment later: he had passed out of range.
I’m going to follow him, she sent.
I’ll wake Will, Horatio told her.
No, she said. Let him rest. I just want to confirm whether Sebastian is leaving or setting an elaborate trap for us.
Gizmo can do that, Horatio said.
With Sebastian’s hearing, he’ll know the drone is following, Rhea told him. I can place my feet far more softly than those rotors, at least in this environment.
I doubt that, Horatio said.
Besides, I have a question to ask him. She started off.
I’m having Gizmo shadow you, Horatio told her. She was going to say no, but then the robot added: At maximum range. That way, as long as you stay well away from Sebastian, he won’t know the drone is present. And if anything goes wrong, I can have the drone return to fetch Will and myself.
Rhea sighed. Okay.
She set down her feet carefully, padding softly across the hard surface.
As she walked into the cavern, she switched to directional transmission mode, pointing it directly behind her. This way, location sharing wouldn’t announce her presence to Sebastian, while Gizmo would still receive her position. If the cyborg kept location sharing active, she’d be aware of his position well before he knew she was present. Then again, if the robot was planning an ambush, he would have probably disabled location sharing entirely by now.
The cavern narrowed as she reached the far side, but then it expanded once more as she advanced into a new chamber. This one had a lower roof than the previous, and stalactites hung from the ceiling, with no stalagmites on the floor.
She eyed those crystalline structures carefully. Worried that Sebastian was planning an ambush, she switched to LIDAR burst mode, which meant she was sending out scanning photons every five seconds, rather than one hundred pulses a second. It would still give away her position, but as long as she kept moving, Sebastian would have a hard time targeting her.
In this LIDAR mode, the room maintained its wireframe structure on her HUD thanks to data recorded in the last burst. Overhead, dark sections appeared as she passed underneath, areas located behind stalactites that had occluded them when her last burst transmitted, and they filled out only after the five seconds had passed. One might think that Gizmo’s mapping information would include such topographical data, but apparently the drone hadn’t recorded its surroundings to such precision.
Speaking of Gizmo… she glanced at her overhead map. The drone pursued at the very limits of comm range, around forty-five meters behind her, according to the HUD. Meanwhile, the dots representing Horatio and Will remained motionless, and not just because they were resting: their indicators had become a darker blue, which meant they had passed beyond comm range. This although Gizmo acted as a repeater behind her to boost the range.
It’s just you and me, now, she sent the drone.
She knew Gizmo could understand rudimentary English, thanks to the commands Will often gave the drone, but the machine could not itself speak or generate spoken words. It could transmit prerecorded messages and mapping data, and that was about all. She wasn’t sure why she was talking to it… mostly to reassure herself that she wasn’t alone, she supposed.
She crossed that eerie cavern, but no attacks came. As she neared the far side, Rhea noticed light coming from around a bend ahead, adding color to the wireframes generated by her LIDAR.
Warily, she approached. The light seemed to be sourced from yet another cavern adjoining this one. She disabled LIDAR entirely as she entered the new chamber, and instead relied upon the background illumination to light the way.
Overhead, the vaulted ceiling formed a dome that rose well above her. There was a pool of water near the center, several meters in diameter. Sebastian knelt at its edge, gazing at his reflection. He had lit a flare of some kind, which burned on the rock floor next to him. The source of the illumination. She couldn’t tell if the rifle was holstered on his back or not, because the positioning of his long, curving tail blocked it from her view. She slid her fingers toward her pistol and touched the stock but did not draw it.
She noticed that he had appeared on her overhead map
