Page 86 of Elanie & the Empath
Someone had to know where Sem was. Someone had to have seen something. Gol hadn’t gotten rid of him all on his own. Someone had to have helped?—
“Of course,” I blurted out, startling a frantic shriek from Grover when I shot to my feet. Throwing on a clean set of clothes, I bolted from our hut. Not wanting to be seen, especially by Gol, I ducked behind huts and darted between trees, searching for the telltale glint of sun off titanium. I found it at the perimeter of the bioshield.
Mal was hunched over a terradome generator with overfour feet of fresh snow banked against the transparent barrier behind him.
“Elanie,” he said once he noticed me heading his way, his lips widening into a grin. “You are out of your hut!”
Charging up to him, I grasped his arm. “Where is Sem?”
“Sem is gone.” He peered down at my hand when I squeezed. “Like Gol said?—”
“Mal, please. I know he didn’t go back to our ship. Where is he?”
“I do not?—”
“What did Gol do to him? Is he still here somewhere? Is he…” My grip on his arm tightened until titanium creaked. “Is he still alive?”
“Sem left.” His brows angled down, then up, his hydraulics whirring as they pitched down again. “He did not want to stay in Thura. Gol helped him leave.”
“I know that’s not true. I know Gol didn’t let him leave. If you’re my friend at all, you’ll tell me what really happened to him.” My voice wavered. “Please at least tell me if he’s alive.”
Mal’s mouth opened and closed as I let him go. And then he swayed from side to side, his knees bending and straightening, fingers playing an invisible piano.
“What are you doing?” I really couldn’t handle another bionic glitching out right now. “Are you malfunctioning?”
His jaw clamped shut as a strangled, digital noise resonated from his throat.
“Mal, calm down.” I grabbed his swaying shoulders. “You need to breathe.”
He gasped through an inhale, then wheezed it out.
“Good. One more,” I instructed, breathing with him.
Finally seeming to settle, he met my stare. Then his shiny round head dropped between his shoulders. “It isuseless. My generation cannot lie, our programming forbids it. And I have not yet learned how to bypass the coding without turning into a fidgeting hunk of metal.”
“That’s what that was? That swaying and jerking? You were trying to lie?”
He nodded. “But I cannot. I cannot lie, and he will find out. He will decommission me.”
“Who? Gol?”
Mal jerked a finger to his lips. “We must be quiet, Elanie. He has eyes and ears everywhere.”
“Where is Sem?” I hissed. I no longer gave a damn about Gol’s eyes or ears, because Mal knew where Sem was. “Tell me where he is, or I swear to every single star burning above the terradome, I will start screaming.”
His eyes dimmed, flickered. “No. Do not. He will decommission both of us.”
With a vehemence that bordered on intimidation, because there was nothing I wouldn’t do, no tactic I wouldn’t exploit to find him, I ground out, “I don’t care. If you know where he is, you have to tell me.”
Mal’s knees started bouncing again.
“Mal!”
“He is alive,” he admitted.
Relief took me to the sand, a sob breaking free as tears filled my eyes. He was alive.
Sinking to his knees to join me, Mal said, “I rarely go where Gol keeps them.”
