“Yes,” Kebron said, “that was mine.”
As Si Cwan slowly pieced together his fragmented concentration, he saw that Kebron’s uniform was indeed quite a bit shredded. In fact, there were even a few chips in the supertough hide of the Brikar security chief.
“You survived it, then.”
“No, Cwan. I died. But Starfleet ordered me back to work.”
If Si Cwan had thought for a moment that he was hallucinating, the acerbic reply from Kebron put that notion to rest. “I saw your ship go up in flames, though.”
“It takes a bit more to dispose of me than that.”
But he was hurt. Si Cwan could tell. His speech was slower. Although he was endeavoring to maintain his standard, wry tone, nevertheless the effort it took him to do so was quite apparent. Furthermore, the toll the impact had taken on his body was becoming more apparent. The longer Si Cwan looked at him, the more cracks in his thick epidermis became apparent to him. And from those more obvious wounds that Cwan had first noticed, a thick black liquid that he could only assume was blood was oozing from them.
Kebron saw where Cwan was looking. “Don’t worry about that.”
“What do you mean, don’t worry. You’re bleeding.”
“No. I’m not.”
“But—”
“I’m not.”
“Kebron,” Si Cwan said in mild exasperation, “you don’t have to put on the stoic act with me anymore. You’re hurt.”
“No. You’re ignorant. Now get up.”
Si Cwan did so slowly, making sure that the world stopped whirling around him sufficiently so that he wouldn’t topple over, and making a mental note to himself not to bother ever again to express any concern about Kebron’s well-being. “Zoran,” he said with sudden urgency. “Zoran …”
“What about him?” Kebron was naturally quite aware of who and what Zoran was, since he had been with Si Cwan when Zoran had laid the ambush that almost killed the both of them.
“Zoran is here … was here … is here …” His head snapped around so quickly in an endeavor to spot his nemesis that he almost toppled over once more. One of Kebron’s large hands halted his fall. “There was an explosion … a bomb. The half-standing wall I got behind took the brunt of the impact.” He looked to where the wall had been but saw there was nothing left.
“A moment of silence,” Kebron said solemnly, “for the rubble that lay down its life for you.”
“Damn you, Kebron!” Si Cwan shouted as he turned on him. “You know who Zoran is, what he’s done. Lay aside your incessant sarcasm, for once!”
Kebron was silent for a long moment and Si Cwan had no idea what was going through the Brikar’s head. Then, very quietly, he said, “Perhaps the bomb killed him.”
“No,” Cwan said forcefully. “If I survived, he survived. We have to—”
“Over here!” It was Soleta’s voice. It was contrary to her long training, of course, to show any sign of emotion, but Si Cwan could hear the clear urgency in her tone. “There’s a survivor here!”
Immediately Cwan and Kebron were running toward her. The entire way, Cwan was hoping, praying, that it was Zoran. Perhaps he was dying. That notion brought mixed emotions to Si Cwan, for the passing of Zoran—particularly if Cwan was standing there to witness it—would be a glorious thing. But if it came to that, Zoran might very well die without telling Si Cwan that which he, Cwan, most desperately wanted to know. Zoran was more than capable of doing that, of carrying much needed information to his grave, just to spite Si Cwan. The thought of Cwan begging, imploring Zoran for information, trying to appeal to his nonexistent good side or to the friendship they once had … that was not something that Cwan was looking forward to.
Truly, it was a screwed-up universe when one didn’t know if one wanted an enemy to live or die, and might not be able to take true pleasure in either.
As they drew closer to Soleta, however, Si Cwan quickly saw that the question was moot. For it was not, as he had hoped, Zoran lying there amidst the rubble. Instead it was a woman, one of the Montosians. She was staring fixedly upwards, and Si Cwan knew immediately that she was not going to live much longer. Her eyes were already beginning to mist over. He wasn’t even sure if she could see Soleta looking down at her.
“Who did this to you?” Soleta was asking her. Si Cwan didn’t understand the question at first. Obviously, the explosions and devastation caused by the Dogs of War were responsible for leaving this woman half-buried under rubble. But then he understood as soon as he got a bit closer.
The woman wasn’t simply suffering from having rubble fall on her, although certainly that would have been enough for anyone. There were bruises, cuts all over her in a systematic pattern. The antennae on her forehead, characteristic of Montosians, had been severed, and there was dried blood from the incision all over her face. This woman hadn’t just been injured. She had been systematically tortured.
“Who,” Soleta repeated slowly, “did this to you?”
“Dogs …” the woman managed to say. Blood was trickling from the edges of her mouth even as she said it.
“Obviously, they wanted some sort of information from her,” Kebron said.
Si Cwan nodded in agreement. “Apparently, this little attack wasn’t as random as it originally seemed. But … why her?”
Kebron shrugged or at least tried to. He wasn’t really built for shrugging.
“Why? Why did they do this to you?” Soleta asked her. “What did they want to know?”
“Riella …”
The name meant nothing to Si Cwan, and he could see that it likewise rang no bells with the others. Furthermore, he could tell that they were running out of time. The woman was obviously fading fast. “Perhaps you can mind-meld with her,” he suggested. “You can—”
“No,” Soleta said quickly and firmly.
“Soleta,” Kebron said, “as much as I dislike agreeing with Cwan, it might be more efficient to—”
“I said no.” And it was evident from her tone that no further discussion was going to take place on the topic. She turned instead back to the woman and said, “Who is Riella? Why did the Dogs do this to you? Please …”
“Save … Riella …”
“We will,” Si Cwan told her confidently, although naturally he had no idea whom he had just pledged to save. Then, hazarding a guess, he asked, “Is she your daughter?”
She didn’t respond immediately, and when she did, her voice quavered as if she were exhaling some great secret. And when she did speak, Si Cwan couldn’t quite make out what she had said. “Inkso?” he asked, puzzled. “What is … Inkso?”
“She said, ‘Think so,’ ” Soleta told him, but she didn’t appear to understand the words any more than Si Cwan did.
Then there was a gurgling deep in the woman’s throat. Liquids began to ooze from her mouth, her nose. Her eyes had completely blanked over; she was no longer looking upwards, but instead into herself. And she said something so softly that Si Cwan missed it entirely. Then there was a rattle from her that he knew all too well … the last noise that a creature makes, which is surprisingly similar for a variety of races. She didn’t move, her head did not slump over at all. But even so, it was clear that she was gone.
Si Cwan sat back on his haunches, shaking his head over the utter waste of life. He glanced over at Kebron and then did a double take. The blood from some of Kebron’s wounds had crusted over and Kebron was calmly removing the scabs. Si Cwan couldn’t quite believe it. Under the departed scabs, the wounds were healed.
“I told you it wasn’t blood,” Kebron said calmly when he noticed Si Cwan staring at him. “It’s a special secretion that Brikar can generate that heals wounds.”
“I’ve never seen you do that before.”
“It is not … without effort. I felt it … necessary.”
“Were the wounds that severe?”
“Yes,” was all Kebron said, and Si Cwan could tell from the look of him that that was all he was going to sa
y on the subject.
Then Si Cwan felt slightly dizzy again. Frustrated at what he saw as annoying weakness, he nevertheless knew that continuing to stand was going to be problematic. So, trying to make the action appear as leisurely as possible, he settled himself back down to the ground, draping his arms over his knees and shaking his head in a discouraged manner. “What an exercise in futility. Soleta … did you see anyone else around? A Thallonian, perhaps?”
She shook her head. “No. Just this woman. I suspect that the Dogs came here first, captured the woman and tortured her while attacking the rest of the city … to amuse themselves, if nothing else.”
“But why? Why this woman? The things she said … ‘Riella,’ ‘Think so …’ None of it makes sense.” He sighed, and then asked, “Did you manage to make out the last thing she said?”
“I believe so. But it did not make much sense.”
“Well, what was it?”
“I believe she said, ‘Quiet place.’ ”
The moment the words were out of her mouth, all the fatigue, all the frustration, all the muscle aches, everything that Si Cwan had been feeling up until that moment, vanished. He was on his feet and he gripped Soleta’s shoulders with such ferocity that she actually winced. “Are you sure? Are you sure that’s what she said? ‘Quiet place?’ ”
“Reasonably, yes. What—?”
He released his hold on her shoulders and stepped back, obvious concern in his eyes. Soleta and Kebron were looking at each other in confusion, and then back to Si Cwan. “Cwan … what is it?” demanded Kebron. “Do you know this … ‘Quiet place?’ ”
Si Cwan looked at his allies levelly and said, “No. Never heard of it.” And with that, he turned on his heel and walked quickly away.
“Interesting,” Kebron said thoughtfully. “Who would have guessed that Si Cwan was that bad a liar?”
VIII
XYON HAD ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA what to make of her, particularly when she woke up screaming.
The pale-skinned girl sat up abruptly in the bed that Xyon normally occupied. Her eyes were wide open, but when he went to her and passed his hands in front of her eyes, she wasn’t focusing on him. “Calm down!” he shouted, but she didn’t seem the least bit inclined to do so. Instead, she just shouted and howled and struggled about. She did this so violently that the shoulders of her dress slid down. Xyon found that to be momentarily distracting, which in turn proved to be something of a mistake. While his attention was diverted, one of her arms whipped around and smacked him upside of the head. He fell back, his ears ringing, and he shook his head and tried to reorder his momentarily scrambled senses.
In the meantime, the girl was practically tearing at her own face. He couldn’t blame her entirely; he knew she had been through a lot and was frightened and disoriented. On the other hand, being whacked around on his own ship was not his idea of a good time.
Lyla’s voice filtered through the speakers that were omnipresent in the ship. “Are you having difficulty, Xyon?” she asked solicitously.
By that point, Xyon had managed to pin her wrists and immobilize her. She was still thrashing about, however. “What gave you that idea?” he grunted.
There was a momentary pause, and then Lyla said, “That was sarcasm, was it not? I’m still learning my way around that one.”
Xyon rolled his eyes; at that moment the girl started to sit up violently once more. She pulled one hand free, surprising Xyon with her display of remarkable strength, and then she clawed at his face. She managed to come into contact, raising a nasty welt on his cheek. By that point, Xyon had more than had enough. He hauled back and smacked her across the face, not out of desire to hurt or abuse her, but rather in the way that one customarily deals with a person who has totally lost control and fallen into a fit of hysterics: By hoping that the shock and suddenness of the slap would bring that person back to his or her senses.
This slap, however, had a far more profound and surprising impact than Xyon could possibly have anticipated. When he slapped her across the face … her antennae fell off.
He had not known exactly what to expect when he’d struck her, but certainly knocking a piece of her anatomy off had not been it. But that was exactly what had happened. The thing had just snapped off and clattered to the floor. Xyon stared at it stupidly for a moment. The girl, meantime, was still spasming in the bed, although the fits seemed to be subsiding somewhat. Xyon grabbed up the antennae and, in a move born of a combination of both alarm and chagrin rather than any reasonably thought-out course of action, he pushed the antennae against her forehead as if hoping that somehow the thing would adhere once more. This, naturally, did not work overmuch. He pressed firmly, released, and then watched the antennae fall off once more. Truly, he felt embarrassed over the incident. It was not as if he had tried, with some hostility, to remove the small forked things as some sort of retribution or act of sadism. It had just separated. Nor were Xyon’s efforts going very far to accomplish anything.
She was lying there and now the panic seemed to have subsided. Slowly, she sat up and her attention focused for the first time on Xyon. “Who …” She blinked once more. “Who are you?”
“I’m Xyon. I …” He shrugged. “I rescued you.”
“Oh.” She didn’t seem to know quite what to say in response to that.
“Are you all right?”
“Oh … perfect.” She eyed him suspiciously. “Am I a prisoner here?”
“What? Uhm, no. No, not at all.”
“Then I can leave.”
“Nnnnno. No, you can’t leave.” He shrugged. “Sorry.”
With mounting annoyance, she said, “If I’m not a prisoner, then I should be able to leave. One follows the other.”
“Well, then I guess one shouldn’t necessarily have expectations,” Xyon told her, making no effort to hide his annoyance with her attitude. “For example, I saved your life from the Dogs of War, at no small personal risk. Under ordinary circumstances, one would think that such an action would rate, at the very least, a thank you. One follows the other. But I suppose that would be expecting too much, wouldn’t it.”
She opened her mouth to reply, then closed it again. Her face softened slightly and she said quietly, “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be rude. I’ve been through more than you can imagine, and my head hurts so mu—”
She put her hand to her head to rub it … and felt the vacancy. Her eyes widened in shock. “My … my antennae! Where are … what … what happened to—”
A bit chagrined, he held them up. “I think you’re looking for these.”
Immediately the more conciliatory tone in her voice vanished, to be replaced by alarm and hostility. “What did you do? What did you do?!?”
“Nothing! I didn’t do anything! They just kind of … fell off”
“Kind of fell off! Body parts don’t just fall off!” She snatched them from his grasp and looked at them with growing horror. “You removed them! Why would you do such a twisted thing!”
“But I didn’t! I didn’t do any such thing!”
“Yes, you did!”
“No, I—” He put up his hands as if directing traffic. “Look … it really doesn’t matter whether you believe me or not. I know what I did and didn’t do. Your opinion isn’t really relevant. All I can tell you is that I didn’t, and I wouldn’t hurt you, and to be blunt, you’d better pray that I’m being honest with you. Because if I did want to hurt you, there isn’t a thing you could do about it.” He sighed deeply and reached out a hand to her. “Listen,” he began.
But she scuttled back on the bed, pressing herself against the wall, trying to get as far from him as she could, her gaze never wavering or leaving him for so much as an instant. This was sorely trying Xyon’s patience. He understood that she was confused and scared, and that all of this must be tremendously disorienting for her. By the same token, he found himself seized by a desire to just slap her … th
is time not as part of an endeavor to snap her out of a fit of hysteria, but rather because she was, frankly, getting on his nerves.
“I want to get out of here,” she said tersely.
“All right. Fine. Have it your way. The door’s right over there.” He pointed at it while making no effort to impede her path.
She looked at the door suspiciously as if she was anticipating a trick. But he could not have appeared more benign, sitting as unmoving as a stone statue. Within moments she was on her feet and then she was through the door.
Xyon still didn’t move. He stayed right where he was, listening to the sound of her feet as she ran down the ship’s single corridor which led to the fore section. Then she stopped running, which he had expected. After all, it wasn’t as if she could go much farther than she had. The ship wasn’t that big. Long moments passed; when no sound was forthcoming, he walked out of the bedroom with leisurely gait and headed for the front of the ship.
The girl was standing there, staring out the front viewport. Her mouth was hanging open, and she was so stunned that he was able to close her mouth by pushing up on her chin, and she didn’t even seem to notice that he had done so. Her gaze was fixed on the stars all around them.
“You see the problem with leaving,” he said.
She nodded. Then she leaned forward, as if that gesture would bring her even closer to them. “They … they don’t twinkle.”
“Of course not. Twinkling is caused by distortion of light through your planet’s atmosphere. Once you’re out in space, they shine steady, like beacons.”
“Out in space.” She spoke with such incredulity that it reminded Xyon, ever so slightly, of the wonder of it all. To Xyon, space was simply something to survive in. An airless, freezing and unforgiving vacuum that was a sort of ever-present opponent. One mistake, one slip in his vigilance, and it would crush his ship and him without even noticing. He would just be another bit of space-going flotsam and just as important. It had not inspired in him any sense of awe for a very long time. But seeing it through her eyes made him recall, ever so faintly, the first time that he had set off into space. He hadn’t been much older than she, as he recalled. Back then, it had all been a great adventure. In many ways, it still was. But these days he was more concerned with survival than anything else.