Part 7
In the Lion's Den
Odd, waiting to die is. You might think your life would flash before your
eyes, or that you'd start reminiscing. Not true. It's just like waiting for
everything else. Waiting to die is uneventful, it feels like forever, and
it's fairly boring. Maybe I could've talked to Ayo, if she hadn't been
unconscious. I suppose that the flight suit had taken me through something
that Ayo had been knocked out by.
To pass the time I thought about Amara and Naia: where they were going, what
they'd do. Maura'd protect them, wouldn't she? She was at least as tough
as I, wasn't she? I wished them all well. For me it was time to catch up
on sleep, seeing as I nothing to do.
A red button blinked on the left console. Intrigued, I tapped it, bringing
up an amazing collection of damage reports. Weapon systems were scrambled,
engines were outright destroyed, the com system was damaged, the auxiliary
sensors were on secondary backups, and the lifesupport was on final backup.
Operating at 5% efficiency. "Shit." So I didn't even get an exciting death.
At that particularly wonderful thought I realized that the air was becoming
thinner. Deeper breaths might have been in order, I supposed. They took too
much effort, frankly. Time seemed to slow down as I grew sleepy. I just closed
my eyes - only for a minute. Just a minute, no longer. But it felt so good,
so tingly and calm, that I let it slip into five minutes, then into fifteen,
then into an hour, then six hours…
---v---
"God, Aaron, you're pretty fucked up." Roe stood above me in a well-lit room.
"What'd you do this time?" Young Roe, maybe 16 or 18. When we were in school
together. We were in that dorm room that'd worried my parents so much. You
can't go and shack up with some pretty thing, they'd said, you have a life
to live. But we'd always been friendly, and our relationship ended up helping
our careers more than it hurt them. "Aaron? It's time to go to physics class.
Today's lecture is on spontaneous mass generation. Sounds creepy, if you
ask me. I hate it when adding dimensions messes with the normal laws of the
universe." Always that matter-of-fact delivery, always the interest in her
odd physics. She frowned, long black bangs coming down past her nose; she
brushed them back. "Aren't you going to get out of bed?"
Something was wrong. I glanced down at my body. Black Hrasi uniform. "Khos
Ahrn, let's go." A look up and Roe was Amara, those black bangs turned blonde.
"I love you." She smiled. "The others are waiting. Let's go!" Light shone
in a sudden burst through the walls, blurring everything, and Amara was gone.
"Help me!" A different scene now: on a carrier being attacked at Tycho. A
horrible memory about a corridor that had been hit. Me, a kid, watching a
ceiling beam come down on a fifty-year-old man, impaling him through the
stomach. Him lying pathetically on the floor, intestines exposed for all
to see. "Help me, young man! Please! I beg you!" An inferno bursting from
a pipe in the wall, roasting him alive. His screams echoing through the hall.
I turned to run, and on that side my fellow pilots screamed in agony when
the fire extinguishing system came on and sprayed them with hydrochloric
acid: someone's idea of a practical joke perhaps, or just bad plumbing. The
one above me had malfunctioned.
But that wasn't all. Oh no, there were more images: skin melting off bone,
blood boiling inside people's veins, people suffocating in airlocks, people
freezing to death outside starships, people bursting inside the giant microwaves
that are reactors, more and more of the death I'd seen in my few years. And
let's not forget the ships that had died under my gaze: shearing, ripping,
burning, melting, exploding, imploding, vaporizing, shattering, incinerating,
fusing, and just plain old being blown apart. Images that keep me up at night,
that make me vomit when I thought about them, that kill conversations with
civilians when they ask "so what was it like to be in the war?"
It all dissolved to nothing. Calm, black nonexistence. There's tranquility
in nonexistence: a sort of harmony in all-encompassing emptiness. This personal
purgatory of mine was disrupted, however, by a whine. It grew as I concentrated
on it and became a siren, static, growls, and finally something I absolutely
did not want to hear.
"I said get up, you worthless vermin," A completely detached, emotionless,
and mechanical voice uttered, but it was accompanied with angry snarling.
In the background of my mind a little warning flag went off - the voice spoke
English!
"What is this?" That fetched me a kick in the ribs. I was lying down, couldn't
see anything, and felt like hell, and that didn't exactly help.
"Do not butcher the noble Hrasi tongue. You are a human. Humans speak English.
You will speak English or you will be punished. That's one of my rules. Now
get up." Aching, I nodded as best I could and rose up to my feet. I wobbled
back and forth, scared to death, unable to see. There was a hiss behind me.
"It can barely walk," the voice spoke, "It is weak." Then there was a snort.
"What does it matter? Human. You are hearing a mechanical translator. We
will speak Hrasi common. You will speak English. It will translate. Do you
understand?"
"Who are you?" My hair was yanked backed painfully.
"You will not ask questions, human. You will follow us."
"I can't see!" Whoever it was yanked hard again.
"Then I will pull you. We're going."
The pain of being dragged by the hair was excruciating. Everything was so
dark, and there were screams all around me. We didn't go through the doors
as far as I could tell. For about five minutes the agony continued as I was
pulled in swerves, around loops, and through a dizzying series of changes
that assured I wouldn't remember how to get wherever we were going. After
what was five minutes but felt like five years I was roughly thrown forward.
Metal clanged behind me, then blood red lights around the ceiling and floor
came on.
We were in a metal room of rusty brown metal pillars and silver grates. Black
glass windows lined the top of the walls, but they were one-way windows.
A moveable tray rested across the room with several implements. There was
also something like a dentist's inclined bed in the middle of the room, as
well as an upright restraint bed on the wall and a rack next to it.
On either side of me a Hrasi advanced. Both were male: too tall and muscular
to be women. Both looked dangerous, too.
"I suppose you're the Haigh." The one on the left leaned forward threateningly.
He was missing a bit of his left ear. Even in that situation I couldn't help
but dub him 'notchy'.
"Is that a question I hear?"
"No. No question."
"Get on the table," The other Hrasi ordered. His voice was calm, but there
was an edge to it. An unspoken, dangerous edge. No question about him: he
was Authority with a capital A. I moved to the bed and jumped up on it, then
laid down as calmly as possible. Notchy came beside me and fastened restraints
around my stomach, wrists, neck, knees, and ankles. The right wrist restraint
seemed a little loose… "Get the other one," Authority commanded, and
Notchy bowed his head to walk out. A gray metal door squealed open as he
approached the wall, then dropped back into place after he'd gotten through.
"So," I coughed, "let's start the interrogation." Gritty, rough tenor chuffs
boomed across the room, surprising me.
"You've got a sense of humor, human." His friendly demeanor dropped instantly.
"I'll still kill you if you don't do exactly as I say. Listen carefully:
I have a polygraph signal on my forearm." He showed it to me; it was a small
gauntlet with a red light on it. "If you try to lie to me, there will be
pain. Lots of pain. Now tell me your name, your rank, and your former posting."
"I'm Major Aaron Sykes, formerly Commander Sykes. I was posted to the carrier
ICAS Sentinel, in command of the gold wing interceptor group." Authority
glanced at his forearm, then sucked in air and pursed his lips.
"Good. Why were you in a royal military ship?"
"It's a long story."
"I have time," he assured me. "Proceed."
"I was escorting a medical supply ship to a colony behind enemy lines when
I was attacked. My wing was ambushed; only the enemy leader and I survived,
both of us crashing onto the planet."
"What was the medical ship carrying? Did it survive?"
"Vaccines, and no. We kept one another alive on the planet with both distress
beacons going on the hopes that our people would rescue us both. We just
got her people. Out of personal affection she kept me alive until we could
try to defect to the Yusuurans."
That didn't settle well with Mr. Authority. He glared at his forearm as if
it was intentionally lying to him. Huh. So as long as I knew I was telling
the truth I could phrase it any way I wanted to? Interesting.
"Tell me what system the colony was in." Oh god, not that question.
"It's probably already been destroyed -"
"Answer the question." I gulped.
"The Wellington system." Pain racked through my body, making me scream outright.
My chest felt like it was being flayed open. "Alright, alright!" As quickly
as it started all pain ceased. "It's… It's…" I breathed raggedly.
"…the Orinoko system." A snarl and I shook, twitching in agony, my skin
suddenly feeling like it was being slashed open, like that open wound was
being burned with a welding torch. But those people on that colony might
have still been alive, and I couldn't betray them. After fifteen seconds
the torture ended.
"Pretty tough, Major." On cue the door opened up and Notchy came out of the
gloom, dragging another Hrasi. "But I've never believed direct pain was the
most effective method of interrogation."
"NO!" I screamed, realizing who the other Hrasi was. Blood dripping from
her clawed-up face, Ayo gurgled protest as Notchy threw her on the rack.
He clamped down her arms and legs, then pulled her tight over it.
"Now then, you were going to name the system with that colony?" Authority
inquired. Thank god Ayo didn't look at me.
"No," I replied, trying to force some resolve back into my spine, "I wasn't."
Ayo didn't say anything.
"Oh, I didn't think you could be so callous. The knife might change your
mind." He pulled a dagger from his back pocket and stalked over to Ayo. First
he slipped it into her chest above the top right nipple and drew it down
to her bellybutton, pulling up a thin flap of skin in a long line. Ayo whimpered
a bit, drawing Authority's condescending coos. "I'm sorry. It's that damn
human making me do it." She just mewled pain. "So, Major Sykes, ready to
tell me?"
"Don't!" Ayo cried out, then yowled for another reason: Authority had gripped
that flap of skin and begun to tear. Thick Hrasi hide didn't come off as
well as human skin, so Ayo was enduring much more than I had. Authority got
himself three or four square inches of hide off, then cut it away with the
knife.
"Now why did you have to say that?" he purred. Ayo mewled and snuffled back.
"A colony… has people. Human people, innocent people… I don't want
innocent people to be hurt." Pretending to understand, Authority nodded.
"Of course not. Innocent people shouldn't die. But you have to understand;
they are neither innocent nor people. They're human. And if your human will
just tell me where they are, I can stop hurting you." Ayo's eyes rolled back
in her skull as she growled. "Ready to talk, Major?"
"I can't. Ayo is one person. The colony is hundreds," I told him, disgusted
with myself.
"But we can cause your friend here hundreds of times the pain we'd give to
one of them," Notchy whined insidiously.
"No."
"Bad answer, Major," Authority purred. He pocketed the knife and bared claws.
"I'm sorry, miss. Blame your human." He dug claws into her collarbone and
she went ballistic struggling and screaming in horror as he pulled down her
torso, slicing deep troughs that welled up thick red blood and exposed the
gore underneath. I struggled against my restraints in fury.
"No you don't," Notchy laughed, coming to lean over me. That was my chance:
the right hand restraint. In one forceful turn I ripped away the restraint
over my hand and in the same move punched him in the eye. Before he could
fall away I caught his iris between my knuckles and ripped the outer-most
layer of his cornea away with a scream. Cursing, Notchy jumped back, and
Authority looked over in mild surprise.
Restraints were nothing. In a bout of physical overexertion I broke the
restraints off, ripping them away. Notchy tried to lunge at me, but his distance
was off and he came up short, falling to the ground. Before he could get
up I smashed my fist into the back of his head, channeling my anger and hatred
into a blow that shattered his vertebrae. To make sure he was dead I grabbed
his muzzle and twisted it in a 180, enjoying the snaps.
"That's enough." Authority had a gun aimed at my head. "Where do you think
you would go? Do you want to die? There's no way off this deck, much less
the ship. Give yourself up." I breathed for a minute, trying to calm down.
I couldn't, but it was stupid as hell to do anything but give up.
"Let her go."
"Fine." He looked up at the opaque windows near the ceiling. "Cancel the
alarm. Get another guard to take these two to their cell." Soon enough a
smaller female guard entered, toting a gun at her hip. I refrained from
nicknaming her just then. "Take them," Authority said, waving his hand in
a dismissing manner.
"Yes sir." She ignored Notchy's body and went to release Ayo, who'd since
lost consciousness. With a sigh she took Ayo's arm and hoisted Ayo up over
her arm. "Please follow me."
"I can't see in there." Authority smiled sourly, but the guard just hissed.
"Then you can hold my tail. If you try anything I'll kill you." Authority
laughed snidely.
"You'll let a human soil your tail with his hands?" The guard didn't respond,
but held out her tail and offered it.
"Don't disgrace my tail, human. Squeeze it and you die." I nodded dumbly
and we left Authority in his nightmarish cell.
Thankfully, this guard was friendlier than the other had been. That is to
say that she didn't try to rough us up outright. Ayo's breath was quick and
shallow, but she didn't wake or make any pained noises. I was led back through
the same baffling system in pitch black, but she slowed down the one time
I had to ask her to. At what I thought should have been the halfway or two-thirds
mark she whisked her tail out of my hands and dropped Ayo's weight somewhere
in front of me. I stood for a moment, then jumped as metal clashed down farther
in that direction. A minute after that bright yellow light flooded the room.
"I need light," the guard confided. She was across the room, past steel bars
that separated us. "Don't care what they say about light regulations." I
was in a bare cell covered in blood with Ayo at my feet. Our guard walked
out of sight for a second, then returned with a thick hard-backed volume,
a hand computer, and a pen.
"Give me some plasm," I begged, " or my friend is going to die." The woman
looked disinterested.
"Yes, she is. So why waste plasm on her? Be quiet, I'm trying to study."
Studying? What?
"What's a guard studying?" She looked up to scowl at me.
"I'm getting my basic engineer's certification so I won't have to keep watch
over you until my beard grays. This is complicated stuff; you have to think
about it. You wouldn't understand."
"I think I might," I countered, "and I can prove it, too. I might help you
advance your career if you'll give me some plasm. And your name." The guard
regarded me with a distrustful gaze.
"My name's Dahmai. Don't use it if you can avoid it: I don't like my name
being slandered by people who I don't trust." She watched me intently. "You
think you know this stuff, huh? Alright then, how do you find the amplitude
of a wave-front needed to convert any given ship to any given state of
conversion?" She didn't know even that? So they were a bunch of technical
terms strung in a row, but the equation Dahmai wanted was the most basic
of all...
"That's easy. You find the mass-energy output ratio of the given ship and
multiply it by the percentage of full conversion. Find the arctangent of
that, divide it by Hawking's constant, and you're done."
"What's Hawking's constant? Don't you mean Pari's number?" I shrugged.
"I don't know who Pari was, or what her number is used for. Hawking's constant
is the stress exerted on a time-space by a mass moving through it at a non-native
conversion state." Dahmai stared at me incredulously as she checked that.
I had the feeling that her mechanical translator was about to go into overdrive.
"Huh, you're right. They're equivalent. How… how'd you know that?"
"Basic physics. Everybody learns it."
"Everybody?" She frowned and penned in something to the book, did some
calculations on the computer, then penned in some more writing. "That's
impressive. Hrnnn, can you explain what space-time is?"
So I did. Then I explained wave-fronts, conversion states, conversion points,
fusion, and even nuclear fission. She didn't know any of it: barely understood
chemistry, in fact. For someone living in our time that was shocking.
Overshadowing that, though, was the fact that she kept asking questions and
wouldn't give me the plasm. The blood that began dripping from Ayo's cut
was starting to scare me.
"Now please," I interrupted after one question, "my friend is dying. The
plasm?" Dahmai sneered in annoyance as she did whenever I tried to change
the subject.
"No. I won't until you've answered all my questions. Now what's the relative
frequency of -"
"Enough!" I exploded, "My friend's bleeding to death and all you want is
tutoring on things you should have learned when you were twelve! Give me
what I need to heal my friend, now!"
Dahmai flicked her ears back, then pocketed her pen, snapped her book closed,
and stood up. Instantly I knew I'd screwed up. She didn't even grace me with
a response, but walked past my cell's line of view. "Hey, damn you! You can't
just let her die in here! Come back!" Nothing.
For a moment I sat there, despairing, watching blood leak from Ayo's chest.
In a moment of realization I ripped off my flight jacket, getting down to
my sweaty, stained shirt, ripping that off too. Most of the jacket was too
padded and elastic to make a good bandage, but the shirt was 100% imitation
cotton. I worked quickly to shred and knot the waist of the shirt into a
long bandage that I wrapped along the wound line like a sash. Ironic, I thought,
that I was bandaging a comatose cat woman yet again. History repeats itself.
As usual, I did my best, and as usual it wasn't very good.
After that was done I didn't have anything to do, really. For maybe fifteen
minutes I did sit-ups, focusing the mind by busying the body with repetitive
motion. Not much to think about except how to escape. There wasn't enough
light for me to explore the deck even if I could get out of my damn cell.
If the Haigh had any sense they'd have put cameras everywhere. My guess was
that we were on some sort of prison deck.
At somewhere around sit-up 550 the entire ship shuddered. With a moan Ayo
came around.
"Oh, my chest… That's going to [scar?]… Ahrn?" Furry hands dropped
on my shoulders and pulled. I looked back to her and saw that she was sitting
up now. She looked concerned. "You didn't tell them anything, did you?"
"No. I didn't. I won't, either."
"Good. Let them kill me, Ahrn, if that's what it takes. You can't tell them
where to find innocents. These people don't like innocents." She gulped.
"I hate these mechanical translators: they don't convey emotion. Speak to
me in Hrasi."
"Sure," I promised, switching over. "Anything I can do for you?" First she
shook her head, but then a moment later bobbed it.
"Where's your flight suit?" I pointed to the heap of shirt material in the
corner.
"But they won't make good bandages, will they?" She smiled.
"Watch." Ayo retrieved a wrist cuff and stretched it out in front of my eyes,
then let it snap into place. As she spoke I forced myself to ignore the English
translation from the walls and tried to make myself understand the old brute
force way. "It's [elastic?]. [Pressure?] stops bleeding." Oh, right…
That's why I'm not a doctor. I'm only good at killing people, not saving
them.
To the right of us the door opened and Authority strode through. He looked
really, really pissed off. This was bad.
"Guard, why are the lights on?" He snarled. Where I'd thought Dahmai was
gone, I found she was simply out view, as she walked out beside him and bowed.
"I… personal preference, sir. I'm sorry." He growled.
"This will not go unnoticed." Then a look at me. "Alright, Sykes. I've changed
my mind; I want to continue our session. I will leave this room with the
correct system or I will leave this room with one less prisoner." He pulled
his gun and waved to the guard. "Take the girl out." Dahmai nodded and moved
to our cell. Somehow the door knew to open, and she dragged Ayo out by the
ears. I would have tried to stop them if not for the gun trained on me.
"Don't hurt her."
"It's not a question of hurt," Authority hissed, "but one of life." He pulled
out his blade. "I will give you five chances; if you do not speak truth your
friend will suffer five ways before she dies. Guard, stand back." She did
as ordered, taking post next to the door. "Name the system."
"Go fuck your boy-partner, asshole." Without so much as batting an eye the
man pulled out a syringe and stuck Ayo with it.
"That's just to make sure you don't struggle," he explained with a menacing
calm, "You'll still be able to yell and feel pain."
"Don't, please," Ayo begged him, "I don't want to die!" No reply from Authority,
he just lifted her head up and positioned his dagger a few inches above her
eye. She went hysterical. "NO! Please! I'm begging you! I'll tell you anything!"
"If you have anything you'd like to see one last time…" Authority hissed.
"I'll kill you if I ever get out of here!" I swore, throwing myself against
the cell door. Ayo just starting screaming in raw, unbridled terror. No pleading,
just screams. Slowly, tauntingly, Authority bobbed the tip over her eye,
almost touching, then pulling back at the last minute.
Then he let it drop to graze her eye and Ayo started mewling, the most pathetic
of Hrasi sounds. Hrasi mewl when they know they're going to die, when their
loved ones die, when they're overcome by sadness and grief and fear. Ayo
mewled as Authority's knife sunk deeper and deeper into her eye, then gained
intensity as Authority slowly twisted his blade inside her socket, grinding
up her eye and scooping it up.
"Here, have a taste," he whispered, slipping the soiled dagger halfway into
her mouth. "Go ahead, lick it clean. It might cut your beautiful tongue,
but it'll save you some pain overall." She coughed, whining, then licked
her rough tongue over the metal even as blood dripped from it. "Yes, good…
Now the other eye." Ayo shuddered.
"Please. Please, I'll do anything! Just stop hurting me…"
"Sorry. Your friend is the only one who can stop it." I had to watch the
same thing happen to the other eye, cursing all the while. When he was done
Authority looked over at me placidly. "Had enough? Ready to talk?" Ayo lolled
her head back at me, staring with empty, bleeding sockets. I thought I saw
her shake it. If Ayo could hold out, then damned if I'd give in.
"No. Sorry, I can't. I hope you understand." He looked disappointed.
"I understand that this woman has to suffer some more." I looked pleadingly
at Dahmai, but she was staring at one of the lights with ears back. "Oh,
I know. I'll make you a better lover for your human friend. Humans only have
two nipples, you know."
He removed what was left of her shirt, then put his blade on her lowest left
nipple and started whittling it away. First the nub, then the surrounding
furless flesh, and finally he dug into the thin fleshy tube left under it.
Some whimpering from Ayo, but othewise she bore it well. After having her
eyes bored out… One by one he whittled away her chest until only her
top pair of nipples were left. "Ready?"
"I'll kill you, bastard."
"Will you? Such a nasty human. Your friend will have to suffer for that.
Why don't we de-claw her?" Suddenly Ayo began shaking.
"No, please! That's too cruel! You can't do that, I don't deserve that, I
haven't done anything that horrible! Please, mercy!" Authority shrugged and
held one of her paws up for me to see. Silently he squeezed her pinky claw
out, grabbed it between the claws of his other hand, and smiled. "Mercy.
Please. Please…" Authority shook his head, still grinning, then tore
her claw out in a single motion. The scream was terrible: Even Dahmai winced.
"Damn you," I yelled at him, "listen to me! You can't get anything out of
me by hurting her. Don't you understand? Why, why, why? Stop it, damn you!"
"No. If you won't give me what I want, I won't give you what you want. I
suggest you enjoy her death screams."
Yeah, I heard them. Each of the nine screams that followed when the other
nine claws were torn out and thrown at me. Then Ayo's mewling as her feet
were roughly chopped off, and, worst of all, her abject agony as that blade
cut open the entire length of each vein in her short-furred wrists. All I
have to say for myself is that I didn't name the colony. When he was done,
Authority sneered and threw Ayo face- down into the pool of blood and gore
that had collected under her. "Guard. Throw this back into the cell. And
don't give him anything until the carcass has begun rotting. If he wants
to live he can eat the body and drink the blood like the animal he is."
"Sir," Dahmai murmured. To her credit she seemed sick to the stomach, but
grabbed Ayo by the scruff of her neck and brought her to the door. As soon
as the door was opened enough Dahmai stopped it and rolled Ayo through, then
forced the portal closed again. "Anything else, sir?"
"Yeah," Authority growled. "Clean up the mess." Then he stalked out.
At the moment he was gone Dahmai moved out of sight. I seethed for a moment,
noticed I was crying. I don't cry much, but I did then. I've only come to
tears twice since, but those are each entirely different stories. What's
important is that a minute later Dahmai returned with hands behind her back.
"I'm sorry I didn't give you the plasm. You can have it, if you want it…"
She proffered a small metal can through the bars. "I hope it helps." Something
inside me went off. I grabbed her by the wrist and forced the can to drop
the floor, then pulled hard. She slammed into the door with a crack, opening
up a nice big gash in her forehead.
"You BITCH! She's missing two eyes, two feet, ten claws, six nipples, she's
gushing blood from the wrists, and you HOPE IT HELPS? Don't you think it's
just a bit TOO FUCKING LATE? I should KILL you!" My guard was opening her
mouth in pain. Dahmai screamed, yelled, and hollered in just as much pain
as Ayo had been in. I just yanked harder, near demonically gleeful, hoping
I could snap her neck. Her reprieve came from the last source I'd have expected.
"Let her go," Ayo coughed from the floor. I did, and Dahmai flew backwards.
"Ahrn," Ayo gurgled, "it's alright. She's not the killer." Frightening, eyeless
sockets watched me as a broken, bloody nose twitched. "Ahrn, don't hate anyone
for my sake. I don't. I'm glad." She hacked a little bit of flesh. "Glad
it was me and not Maura. Glad it wasn't one of our friends. Ahrn, will you
hold me while I die?"
"Who says you're going to die?" I demanded, picking up the plasm. Worth more
than gold to me, then. I spread it first on the wrists to stop bleeding,
then the nipples and ankle stubs, then filled in her eyes. But there was
just so much blood already lost, I didn't really expect her to live.
"I say I'm going to die. I'm a doctor, damn you, and I know how much
[punishment?] I can take. Please, just hold me. I'm so cold." Giving up is
hard, but I honored her wish and crossed my legs into a lap. If I'd been
her I would've asked me to keep fighting.
"I'll keep you warm," I promised, picking her up and folding her into my
lap. Across the room our guard was groaning as she tried to wrap her forehead
in bandages. It was more than dented: her forehead ran pure red from about
halfway down. That bitch had gotten out her entire medical kit.
"Are you hurt?" Ayo asked, raising her voice a little, "Did Ahrn hurt you?"
Dahmai breathed softly, shallowly.
"My head split." Ayo hissed in genuine concern. I couldn't believe she had
sympathy for anyone; to this day I've found her one of the largest-hearted
people I've ever met.
"I'm a doctor. Come here, I'll see what I can do. Have a bandage?"
"You can't even move your hands," I protested, "How are you going to bandage
her?"
"I'm a doctor. I help people, and I can [twitch?] my fingers. Wrap my hand
in bandages, Ahrn, so my blood doesn't [mingle?] with hers. Please put my
hand up to her forehead after you do." I shut my mouth and stuck my hand
through the grate to receive Dahmai's bandage roll: Ayo could spend her last
moments any way she wanted, and it would've been arrogant for me not to respect
that.
"Here," Dahmai offered, surrendering the bandages, "You can have them." White
gauze went around Ayo's paw six times until she told me it was enough.
"Put your wound up against my hand," Ayo ordered her, and the young woman
complied, wincing as the cloth brushed up against exposed flesh. "Hrrn. It's
[fractured?], I can feel the [ ]. Put some plasm on my finger, Ahrn." I did,
then she rubbed it in Dahmai's wound. "Ahrn, bandage it. I want…" She
stopped for a moment to get a breath. "Uh, I want it along the plasm line.
Try…" Ayo stopped again. "Losing my breath… Try four [loops?] around
the head: first over the ear, second under, third over, and last under. That'll
[secure?] it… Uh, [secure?] it down."
"Sure, sure," I soothed her, tearing off the appropriate amount of bandage
and reaching my hands past the grate to wrap Dahmai's head.
"Lucky I don't do what you did to me," Dahmai breathed, "I could, you know."
I didn't say anything, just did the job Ayo asked me to. "Thank you, doctor,"
Dahmai murmured quietly when I was done, "I'm grateful. And sorry." She looked
up to me. "We should have tortured you, not her."
Dahmai's silent retreat scared the hell out of me. What was going to happen
to me? Even as Ayo snuggled down into my lap and resigned to bleed to death
I felt myself growing cold. Normally an independent soul, I found myself
scared to death at the prospect of being alone. My new guard wasn't a friend
- that much was clear - but maybe she'd help. Otherwise it was just my sketchy
grasp of interrogation resistance and I against the Hrasi version of the
KKK.
"Ayo, I'm… scared." There was no reply but a sigh. "Ayo?" I looked down
at her and saw a happy smile on her face, otherwise disfigured past recognition
with blood. "Ayo? Ayo? Ayo?" No response. I just wanted to slit my throat
then, or maybe Authority's, but she stopped me with her words. Don't hate
anyone for my sake. So I didn't. Instead I forced myself to be entirely
pragmatic, because there wasn't going to be food or water for a few days.
Maybe I could speed the rate of decay by keeping it warm. Her pelt would
make a good blanket and her claws decent weapons. Once I was done throwing
up I picked out one of her forefinger claws and began skinning her corpse.
---v---
"Out, human." Blurred lines came to focus as prison bar doors. "It stinks
like hell and the doctor is rotting." Not true, I thought, she's alive and
well. She was wrapped around me. No, wait, that was just her fur. She was
dead. Had to keep from going crazy, had to beat them…
"I'm not leaving her." Dahmai snarled.
"I said get out! You ought to thank your own personal god that I'm still
your guard instead of somebody less forgiving. A human like you should suffer
for how you defiled her body. That was a decent woman, and supposedly your
friend!"
"You people said I had to live off her corpse until it rotted, so I've starved
myself for four days. Don't tell me I defiled her."
"You are sleeping inside her skin."
"I'm surviving, dammit. She'd probably be glad I'm trying to preserve my
life." Dahmai looked at me darkly.
"Just get out of the cell. I have to bathe and feed you before the next
interrogation session." Not another, I bemoaned myself. Authority quite
persistent with this. There was no real escape. On the other hand, I could
get a bath out of cooperation. Grumpily I rose to my feet and waited as the
door rose. "You're not taking that pelt with you, are you? I'll kill you."
"Then kill me, because I need her. You don't know what it's like to not have
fur. Besides, I'm taking it back to her partner."
"You're not getting off this ship alive, you know. Forget that idea." She
stared at me intently, trying to make that absolutely clear, but I remained
unfazed. I stared back with equal intensity.
"I could kill you at almost any time, you know. Remember that idea."
"So? You'd only be captured again, and punished. Ugh, st least fold that
disgusting thing. We're going to my quarters." To her quarters? Was it perhaps
not on the prison deck? I nodded slowly, feigning fatigue when she'd really
just woken me up.
This meant another trip through the dark tunnels holding Dahmai's tail. Something
different happened, though: what sounded like a door opened in front of us,
then we walked through, then it closed behind us. An airlock, I realized,
as a door in front of us opened up. Outside the prison deck the ship was
still shadows and red lighting. The Haigh seemed hung up on that coloring
style, and if it was meant to scare the living hell out of me then it worked
like a charm.
Obviously her quarters had to be nearby, but I didn't expect how much so.
Dahmai ushered me through the fifth door on the left, maybe two hundred feet
from the prison entrance. Inside was basic Hrasi décor: lots of metal
and no heed given to sharp edges. "Into the shower," she ordered gruffly,
pointing at a small door in the corner.
Water was such a luxurious thing. I didn't even bother stripping down, just
went ahead and jumped in. There was only a small plastic door to close for
privacy, and the shower was so small you could barely turn around in it,
but there was real water. The first few seconds of water went straight into
my mouth, then down my hair. Some soap gel lay in a bottle on the floor;
I lathered up with it to get the smell of death off me and tried to think
of a way out of all this.
There were probably few cameras in crew quarters. That wouldn't be acceptable
in a group obsessed with its member's freedoms, though I wouldn't put it
past ICA. So I could disable Dahmai without too much trouble. Then what?
I was still on an enemy ship.
While I was busy thinking my way out my predicament, the whole ship seemed
to ripple under my feet. Mmm? Were we docking? That opened up some possibilities,
except that I still needed to find a way to be outside the cabin without
getting caught. Maybe I could masquerade as a slave, or a Hrasi.
I opened the shower door enough to grab Ayo's hide and pull it in. Long gone
was the time when I couldn't look at it without throwing up, mostly because
there wasn't any food left in my stomach. From my back pocket I took out
the one of her claws I'd kept, a wickedly sharp stiletto in its own right.
Using broad, scraping strokes I went over the underside of the hide, scraping
away rotting meat and flesh until it really was bare of everything except
fur, and even that got a gentle washing over. Little bits of purplish and
green corpse fell down to swirl and clog in the drain, followed by even smaller
particles when I tried to use soap on the late doctor's skin. Now it sounds
horrific, I know, but you have to realize that that pelt was really damned
warm and that I was more than just slightly crazed from the torture and
starvation.
When I was done I removed my rags and washed the rest of the filth from my
body, then cut the shower and got out wearing nothing but Ayo.
"What, are you repulsed?" I asked when Dahmai had to look away and retch.
"That's sick. I hope you die in torment, human. You deserve every minute
of it."
"Really?" I walked up behind her. There was absolutely no sign of anticipation
in her pose, especially not after I chopped her neck and she slumped to the
ground. "Not much of a guard, if you ask me," I said wryly.
There were clothes in her drawers for the taking. Nothing fit very well,
but I at least managed some shin-length shorts and a vest. As for food, all
I could find was a small bowl of candied sweetmeats and a six-inch, still-waxed
cheese wheel. Both were immediately devoured. What was left of Ayo got rolled
into a cylinder, tied together, and placed under my arm. I knew the way out.
It was so blindingly obvious to me once I saw it. The air duct on the floor
just beside the door was huge. The Haigh might has well have included special
'prisoner escape' directions on every door. Not only did I find that I'd
easily fit through, but if it was a continuous system I could theoretically
get to a docking bay or fighter, and if not I could at least get to engineering.
They were probably getting antsy right about then. I briskly went to the
sink and grabbed handfuls of water to throw around the floor (hiding watery
footprints), then took Dahmai's gun and extra clips. Without a moment's more
hesitation I pulled up the ventilation grate and lowered myself in, then
slid the grate back over it.
I couldn't have asked for more. The initial vent shaft height was just above
my head, then I had to crawl through the real network. Honestly, I had no
idea where I was going, but figured that I'd better be somewhere before they
figured out how I'd escaped. Every ten meters or so there was another shaft
that I could look up into and see another room. Most were occupied cabins,
so I scurried on as quietly as possible. Eventually the rooms changed. First
there were science labs, then the security headquarters, then the medical
bay, on and on and on. None looked worth risking.
Voices caught my ear while I was crawling through the ducts. Both were Hrasi:
one male and one I couldn't really discern.
"Are you sure? We really need that shipment."
"Look, it doesn't matter how much you need it, I don't have the slaves to
spare. Besides, there's a reason they're my slaves. My personal retinue is
absolutely not for sale, and definitely not to sale to someone who plans
on eating them!"
"It's going to be months before we get to port again, maybe even a year.
You know that those royal prudes are becoming more numerous every day."
"Then I suggest you buy some grain feed and try breeding them yourself. My
humans are too beautiful of specimens to be abused the way you do to them."
My god, they were talking about humans as food! Damn all! The reasonable
part of me ignored that, of course. It was more interested in the word 'port'.
So we were at a station. Was that the connection to the station? I stuck
my head into the shaft to look up. The ceiling was pretty high. Could have
been a cargo bay.
"Wait!" the Haigh officer insisted, "Do you smell something? From the grates?"
Ah, shit, I thought, pulling back as the grate clunked. So now what did I
do? The answer was simple, but dangerous.
Let's do this, I told myself, what's the worst thing that could happen? You're
going to die anyway, right? I pulled out the pistol, turned off the safety,
stuck it into the shaft, and shot blindly upwards. There was one scream:
good enough for me. In the distance of that room were some shouts, but I
was more concerned with getting up. Once I'd gotten to a stand in the shaft
I saw a dead officer lying on the grate. Simply pushing wouldn't do it.
Terrified now, I ducked back down into the duct and crawled to the next shaft.
Shouting could be heard from there, too. As I looked up I realized it was
the same room. Of course: bigger room, more ventilation. I quietly pushed
the grate up and slid it aside, then pulled myself up for a peek. When nobody
shot at me I vaulted into the room.
Several uniformed Hrasi were encircled above the other grate with one
brown-clothed civilian. No problem, I'd just sneak out. Only problem: nothing
to hide behind. This really was a loading bay - one of the 'waiting to be
loaded' variety. That meant an emptied room. Oh, hell, I could see what was
obviously a station past huge, open loading bay doors. The lighting over
there was great, and the walls were beaten tan. It didn't matter; I'd never
get there alive. We all have try though, right? I began sneaking stationside.
"Hey, there it is! Kill it!" somebody cried. Screw it, I decided, let's be
creative.
"I love you!" I screamed, "Really!" They all stood stalk still, as did some
wandering pedestrians on the station. None of them went for their guns, they
were so dumbfounded. In fact, it took a good three seconds after I began
running before the officers gave chase. I guess they didn't want to second-guess
a crazy person with a gun; I'm still laughing about that today.
"Come back here! Catch him! He's our prisoner!" One of the Haigh yelled.
A pair of burly civilian Hrasi heard and actually heeded him, but by that
time I'd gained so much momentum that I just pushed straight through their
bulk and careened down the station's boardwalk, fast and free if nothing
else. And to tell the truth, nothing else seemed important.
End Part 7