The translation of the boy’s words was not immediate, but the Mechanic did not care what he had said. He nodded brusquely that they should keep moving.
The boy made his way to the final door in the hallway, which he carefully unlocked and pushed open. The Mechanic followed him inside.
The boy busied himself lighting several hurricane lanterns. As they began to fill the room with soft orange light, the Mechanic saw that this was an apartment of several small rooms, each separated from the others by hanging curtains. The space was clean, or at least cleaner than the rest of the building. There were large, soft pillows lying around the floor, and blankets and shawls folded near them. An ornate hookah stood in one corner, and there were several gummy cubes of hashish laid out neatly on a small side table. The Mechanic’s eyes flicked over these without registering.
“Please sit,” the boy said, gesturing to the pillows.
The Mechanic paused for a moment as the translator decoded these words and conveyed them to his ear. He had roamed the streets for three days listening to conversations, giving the translator enough exposure to learn the local languages. There were several tongues being spoken in this city, but Arabic and English were the primary two, and the translator could now handle both of these with little hesitation. This boy, however, was speaking an English heavily influenced by some other language, and the translation came on a slight delay.
When the Mechanic understood the boy’s words, he took a seat, letting his backpack drop to the floor. He wore a gallibiya, the loose white cotton robe of the natives, with an over-robe of thicker wool that hung on him like a cape. His gray skin made him look sickly. He seated himself so his stunner knife, strapped to his ankle, was easily accessible. He had adjusted its dial and set it to human tolerances.
The boy gestured to the hookah and the cubes of hashish. “May I offer you the pipe?” he asked.
The Mechanic shook his head dismissively. The boy was used to his clients experiencing some embarrassment. To save the Mechanic the trouble of making the first move, he smiled and pulled off his tank top, then knelt in front of him. He brushed a hand across one of the Mechanic’s shoulders and whispered, “What would you like, then?”
The Mechanic was disgusted by the boy’s proximity. He smelled of some kind of oil, too perfumed and mingled with the smell of sweat.
The boy gently took the Mechanic’s left hand and kissed the palm. The Mechanic forced his lips into a smile and ran his hand behind the boy’s neck. The boy looked pleased. Then the Mechanic shifted his weight. In one motion, he unseated the boy and sent him falling backward onto the floor. With his right hand, he grabbed the stunner knife from its ankle sheath and flicked it on.
The boy was confused. He could not see the knife yet, and he was unsure whether the attack was foreplay or a serious threat. Then the Mechanic brought the knife up and lightly pierced the skin at the intersection of his jawline and cheek. The boy’s expression changed to fear as he felt pain shoot upward into his head. The fear melted into anger as he realized that he could easily overpower this man. He moved his arms to throw the Mechanic off of him, but his arms would not respond to his command.
The tip of the Mechanic’s knife had found the nerves of the boy’s jaw, and they had begun to overload them with small electrical signals directed at the central nervous system and the brain. The signals told the boy’s body to shut down his motor controls, to render him motionless.
The boy’s shoulders and hips twitched as he tried to move his limbs, but they were increasingly unresponsive. In moments, his body relaxed into limpness on the floor. His eyes stayed open, staring up at the Mechanic, but they were fading out of focus.
The Mechanic pulled his arm from under the boy and got to his feet. His heart was beating quickly, and he felt adrenaline fear in his veins. He had never been good at physical confrontation—how many times had he suffered in silence rather than face up to his tormentors? But the boy was immobilized, and the most dangerous part of this deed was over. He sheathed his knife and straightened his robes.
He looked down at the boy, lying awkwardly with one of his legs twisted and one arm tucked under his body. Seeing him helpless, the Mechanic became annoyed, and he kicked him in the side, just between his hips and ribs. “You won’t touch me like that again,” he said in disgust. He wiped his left hand on his outer robe to remove the boy’s smell from his skin.
Then he settled himself cross-legged on the floor and pulled his ancient first aid kit from the backpack. Inside were several dozen vials of ancient medicinals, and next to these were two new vials containing mixtures the Mechanic had compounded earlier that day. He took one of the new vials and poured it into a hypodermic syringe.
He turned to look at the boy as he screwed a large needle into place atop the syringe. He held the hypodermic up teasingly. “I have your future in here,” he said, squeezing the bubbles from the mixture. The boy’s expression did not change, of course, but the Mechanic imagined that he was silently terrified.
He knelt on the floor and inserted the needle into one of the arteries in the boy’s neck. Slowly, he injected all of the mixture. The boy did not move, could not move; his blank eyes stared up at the ceiling. But the Mechanic knew that the boy’s circulatory system was carrying the injection throughout his body. Through his capillaries it would reach the cells of his muscles and his organs, and when it did, it would create a great want in him, a want that only the Mechanic could fulfill.
The Mechanic removed the syringe and stood back. The stun of the knife would be wearing off soon, and the boy’s reactions would be unpredictable.
After several minutes, there was a twitch in the boy’s hand. Then his dark eyes blinked. Soon his arms and legs began to move. His motions were erratic as his body tried to regain control of itself. Then the boy let out a wail of agony, rolled onto his stomach, and curled himself into a ball.
The Mechanic’s mouth twitched. First stage of addiction, he thought. The body is drained.
The boy began to writhe, clutching at his stomach, his arms, his feet, his head. “Dear god!” he cried out in French, biting his hand to stop himself from screaming. “Dear god!” He turned his head to look at the Mechanic. “What have you done to me?” he cried.
“I have given you a disease, of sorts,” the Mechanic said, standing well away from the boy and holding his stunner knife at ready.
“Why?” the boy cried. “Why…”
“I need your help.”
The boy convulsed in another wave of pain. Then he forced himself up onto hands and knees. He tried to lunge, to rush the Mechanic, but he found that he could not. His muscles did not obey; they were cramped, weak, drained.
“What have you done to me?” he cried again, and his arms went to his abdomen, clutching it tightly. He rolled himself into a ball again and retched violently, but there was nothing in his stomach. A continuous low moan issued from his mouth.
After a few moments, the Mechanic said calmly, “I have the cure to what you’re feeling. I can fix you.” Despite the pain, the boy turned to him and gave him his full attention, and he noticed now that the Mechanic was speaking through a strange device on his jaw. On the street, it had been too dark to see his face clearly. “What do you call yourself?” the Mechanic asked.
“Jean-Claude.” This between clenched teeth.
“Jean-Claude,” the Mechanic repeated, pronouncing the name awkwardly. “You must pay close attention.” He knelt in front of Jean-Claude and then, with the deactivated stunner knife, prodded gently at the bottom of the boy’s chin, forcing him to turn up his face and look at the Mechanic. He held up another vial for him to see.
“In this vial I have the antidote to the craving your body feels. I have what it wants.” He shook it in front of the boy’s eyes. “I have only enough for one dose. When I give it to you, you will feel much better. It is possible you will feel better than you have ever felt. But this will not last. Within the space of one day, the want will be upon
you again, just as strong, perhaps stronger. Only I can mix you another dose of antidote. If you harm me in any way, you will never have that dose. Do you understand?”
The boy stared at the Mechanic through eyes that were bright with pain. “What do you want?”
“I want your help. Your service.”
The boy gestured at his body. “You can do whatever you want with me. I would have done it anyway.”
The Mechanic shook the boy’s chin hard. “Not your body, gutter rat! You will protect me. You will make sure that I am always safe. For if something happens to me, you will die a long death that will be unimaginably painful. What you feel now is only a small taste of the pain in store for you. Do you understand?”
The boy did not understand, not really, but he wanted what was in that vial. He wanted it with every fiber of his body.
“Tell me you understand,” the Mechanic said.
“I understand,” the boy answered.
“Good. Then lie back and hold yourself still.”
Jean-Claude did. The Mechanic poured the second vial into the syringe. He injected the antidote into Jean-Claude’s neck, nearly missing the artery in the boy’s jerking body.
As the mixture entered his veins, Jean-Claude felt instant relief. It was as though every cell within him had cried out for water and then a river had drenched him. No, not a river, a mountain stream, running with the purest water of early ice melts. A substance so clear, so perfect, that every cell cried out in relief. And after relief they sang to him in ecstasy. The injection vaulted him from pain to comfort to physical exhilaration within the space of a few moments. He felt his body filling with energy.
He looked up at the Mechanic, who now stood above him holding the stunner knife.
“Very good…” Jean-Claude whispered. And it was.
The Mechanic smiled. He had acquired his first slave. This one was to be his guard, his muscle. He would need one more. Someone skilled in the politics of this planet, someone to guide him through the negotiations ahead.
Three days later, Nate Douglas, a young consular aide at the American Embassy in Cairo, sat in Jean-Claude’s room with his hands tied behind his back, staring at the Mechanic. Jean-Claude stood patiently behind the Mechanic, watching the proceedings with detachment.
“The United States, England, France, Germany, China,” Nate was saying, his hands twisting against the rope, his body jerking in small spasms he could not control. “Any of the major industrial nations—”
“Which are…?” the Mechanic prompted.
“There are quite a few!” He stared at his tormentor. The man was wearing local clothing, but he did not look like a local. His skin had gray tones that Nate had never seen before. The cast of the man’s skin reminded him of an albino, but it was truly gray, not white. The man spoke to Nate through some sort of translation device mounted along his jaw. It was a technology the American had never before encountered.
He was asking questions that had obvious answers, questions that marked him as completely unfamiliar with the political structure of Earth, marked him almost as…a newcomer. This was a train of thought Nate could not follow at the moment. His body was experiencing a gnawing pain that consumed most of his attention.
He had known it was a mistake to follow the boy back to his room. There were easier and safer ways to indulge his urges, but he had been swept up in a momentary sense of adventure when he saw Jean-Claude standing on the corner. The boy was very fine looking, and Nate had given in to temptation. He tried to keep his homosexual encounters few and far between, but he could not always stop himself. Now here he was, a prisoner of a man whose business Nate wanted no part of.
“You will write down the names for me,” the Mechanic said.
“Yes, sure, I’ll write them down…Can I have some water please?”
“Not yet,” the Mechanic said with infinite patience. “What other countries?”
“Japan. Russia, maybe, but they have enough internal problems that I don’t think the government would be overly interested. You could sell whatever this is to them, but they would probably sell it again to someone else.”
“On what would a sale to one of these countries depend?” the Mechanic asked.
Nate sighed, twisting in his ropes. “Several factors. They would want to verify that the technology works, of course. That would come first. Then they would want to know that it will give them something others don’t have. If several countries are interested, that would increase the value, just as it would in any bargaining—a little water, please!” The words seemed ripped out of him. His throat was burning. He swallowed convulsively.
“No, not yet.”
Nate shut his eyes as a wave of nausea and pain washed over him. He would try to tell this man whatever he could. Anything to be untied and have a glass of water. “Of course, you should be careful,” he explained. “If you reveal what your technology is, there’s always the chance that they will be able to duplicate it on their own.”
“That won’t be a problem in this case,” the Mechanic said. “Even if they know this technology exists, it would take several centuries to approximate it—if ever.”
Nate’s heart sank. He should have been intrigued by this revelation, but all he could think was that he was in far over his head. This man was an unknown quantity. Possibly not even from Earth. Could that be? Could he be alien? A day ago, an hour ago, Nate would have scoffed at such a suggestion, but now? The translator at his jaw, the skin, the injection—all things Nate had never encountered before. And here he was, caught in this man’s web.
He pushed this from his mind. All that mattered was their present conversation. He must make himself useful to this man and then maybe he would get something to drink. “Will you tell me what this technology is specifically?” he asked. “Why it’s so valuable? Perhaps I can help you strategize.”
The Mechanic was filling the syringe again. “I will tell you soon,” he replied, leaning forward with the needle.
Nate began to struggle. “What is that? Please don’t!”
“Jean-Claude!” the Mechanic called. Jean-Claude moved forward and used his big arms to hold Nate in place. Somewhere in his mind, Jean-Claude perhaps felt the horror of what he was doing. He was making another slave for the Mechanic. But he was caught in the wonderful grip of his antidote, and he would not let such thoughts bother him.
“No!” Nate yelled as the needle pierced his throat. He tried to kick the Mechanic, but his legs weren’t working properly now. The pain was great, and it was becoming greater. He felt the energy draining from his muscles, and a terrible craving invaded him.
CHAPTER 19
Adaiz-Ari bent over the stream and brought up a handful of water. He could see the reflection of his face, copper-colored skin, and reddish hair. He had cut off his two long queues, and now all his hair was cropped close to the scalp. He doused his head, then dipped and doused again. He ran wet hands over his face and stood up.
His chest was bare, and he wore loose trousers that tied at his waist. On his feet were simple sandals with foam and rubber soles. This was the typical outfit of a Lucien civilian. Nearby was the loose, hooded robe he wore over his clothes. His body was beginning to recover from the deprivations of the ship.
They were taking a brief rest in a small depression between two low hills. There were sparse trees here and grazing antelope that fed on the short grass. In the trees were dozens of small monkeys that chattered incessantly to each other.
Enon-Amet was also kneeling at the stream. His silver hands lifted the water and poured it over the top of his head. Then his head and neck twisted in a quick motion, allowing the water to spill evenly in all directions. The movement reminded Adaiz of a bird, and he envied Enon for its fluidity.
Enon stretched his long arms, then stood up from the water, reveling in the sun on his bare chest. His skin was regaining some of its silver reflectiveness and was beginning to fill out over the articulated sheaf of bone that extended
from his waist to his shoulders and made him, like all Lucien, difficult to wound. This sheaf was crowned by a high collar bone that protruded upward several inches in a distinctive wide ring. A Lucien could lay his head down along one shoulder within the protection of this collar.
Enon had also been wearing a full-body hooded robe since landing on Earth, to cover his alien shape from human eyes. At the moment, however, they were concealed in the depression where they stood, and it was safe to be robeless for a little while. They had, in fact, encountered no humans yet.
“Here,” Adaiz said to his brother, holding out a canteen of water that he had treated to make potable. The canteen had a nozzle to fit the Lucien mouth.
Enon took the canteen and drank several gulps of it. “So good,” he sighed. “I had almost forgotten what a difference freshness makes.”
“This rivals the freshest water on Galea,” Adaiz said, “or perhaps it is simply my human taste buds.”
“No, it is wonderful.”
They spoke Avani to each other, but Adaiz had prepared for this part of their mission by learning English, the most widely used of Earth languages. He had become fluent while still on the ship, during the months when they were orbiting Saturn, watching Pruit’s ship as it orbited Jupiter. How easy human languages were for him after speaking a language designed for other mouths! His Lucien brother had learned some rudimentary phrases in English, but Enon found the speech quite difficult.
A monkey screeched nearby, his voice rising above the general cacophony of his cohorts. Adaiz and Enon turned to watch the creature’s incoherent diatribe as he swung about the tree. Enon flexed his antlers in the Lucien equivalent of a smile. There was wildlife in fascinating abundance here.
Lucien had little truck with animals in the current incarnation of their society. There were only a few tame species that lived as pets, and of course, fish in their growth tanks. It had not always been so. In the ancient times, when the Lucien still lived on their home planet Rheat, there had been oceans and forests and wildlife, and a Lucien population reaching into the billions.