“I’m researching,” Tray quipped, a smile creeping over his face. “Making a game based on our travels. It makes all the little archeological expeditions you go on more practical.”
“It’s raining. It’s raining everywhere,” Amanda moaned in Terranan, swaying through the halls of the lower deck. Her clothes were drenched, and she kept one hand on the wall, feeling her way.
“Oh, honey. What were you doing outside?” Danny crooned, sliding off the counter, catching her before she slammed into the wall. Her body bounced off his and her head whipped back.
“Taking a shower,” Amanda joked. She dry-heaved and gripped Danny’s arm.
“I will restore ventilation,” Hawk announced, bringing the conversation back to Trade. He pulled himself upright, then leaned on his elbows, dizzy.
“Nope,” Saskia said, grabbing the back of his shirt, hauling him back onto the bed. “You were hit by a stunner. You’re going to lie down right here and rest.”
“Saskia, with me. Let’s see if we can rig a battery tap to get our systems back. We can’t sit here in the dark,” Danny ordered. “Tray, Amanda, see what you can do about preserving food and medicine. Then gather everything that has a battery unit. Amanda…”
Amanda sank to her knees, wringing her wet clothes. “It’s not supposed to rain,” she whispered, flinching every the water dripped off her chin and splashed onto the floor. Danny chugged the bitter apple wine and looked at the empty bed in the corner. It called to him. The depression called, telling him to lie down, give up on today, and shut out the world. But then Tray started a song on his Virp and came out from under the bed. Amanda rose to her feet, still tugging at her wet clothes.
“Let’s find you something dry,” Tray said, leading Amanda down the hall to the laundry. Danny looked at the empty bed again, but Saskia crowded him out of the infirmary and closed the door.
“Hawk’s already restless,” Saskia said. “Let’s get started.”
Liza tucked Kerris into his bed, brushing his damp, blonde locks from his freckled face. Even in sleep, he dreamed sadness, but at least his dreams didn’t radiate into the outside world and shake the walls.
Going to the kitchen, she took down a crow, and ran her thumb over the plucked skin. She planned to smoke the birds and bring them to Oriana’s crew as a peace offering. They’d learned as they got older that it was easier to be adopted into new tribes when they demonstrated that they could feed themselves. Now all she had to do was find a way to block Hawk’s illness from her body so she could eat. Or heal him so that he could eat as well. If she did that—used her powers for good—maybe Hawk would help them.
Tapping Hawk’s mind, Liza took a moment to orient herself to the local language. She’d heard him speak it out loud on the street, and it was so confusing, she’d had no choice but to work with images in his mind. He called himself Douglas, though the others said ‘Hawk.’ His bubble was cold and icy, permeated by sadness and loss. The sadness started from boyhood, and she could hear a child whispering a prayer of remembrance.
She went to the newer memories, smiling when she saw Tray sitting next to her. Tray spoke Lanvarian, but because Hawk’s mind couldn’t comprehend, she had no idea what he was saying. The soundtrack in the background suggested they were watching a broadcast of some sort. Liza hadn’t seen a broadcast since she was five years old, but Hawk deliberately kept his eyes off the screen and on Tray. By Tray’s cleanliness, Liza guessed the memory was at least a few weeks old.
“Watch. This is the good part,” Tray said, pointing to the screen. Hawk’s gaze shifted, a flood of disturbing abuses rushing through his mind. Liza nearly backed out of his mind, but then she heard Tray’s pure, beautiful laugh in a tone that did not match the images. The images faded and the screen mellowed into a calmer scene. There was some kind of dinner party going on. Two of the characters fell on the couch, kissing. The walls burned and Liza was transported to another memory
She was in a bedroom. Bedroom was an overstatement. It was an austere room whose only feature seemed to be the bed. There were no windows and no decorations. The lights were dim, and there was a single door. By the fractures in her perception, Liza knew this memory to be much older.
She couldn’t take her eyes off the bed. There was a woman tied down, legs spread, naked on the lower half. Her body was pale and limp, her eyes open and dull, a glisten of drool falling from her parted lips. Kerris had fears like this. He’d warned her that the evil men who kidnapped her would do unspeakable things, to break her so that could mold her into a weapon of war.
“It is your duty. Get it done,” an old, gruff voice ordered, seeming to echo around the room, like a message from a god.
The woman on the bed tensed, her body straining with fear. She arched her back, contracting her body, but her bonds kept her in place.
“The gods will forgive you,” the god-like voice said.
“The gods have forsaken us,” Douglas said. He stepped into the memory, startling Liza. His eyes were deep set, his hair fiery red, and his skin glowing like gold.
The woman screamed, her cries echoing through the dark room. A figure appeared from the shadows and injected the woman with something, and she went limp, but her eyes stayed open.
“It is your duty and hers,” the shadowy figure said.
Liza’s heart felt like it’d beat out of her chest. She turned away, but the screaming grew louder, and it wasn’t just the woman. Douglas screamed, too.
Liza unfurled her wings, the force breaking the walls of the small room, cracking the fragile mind that kept the memory. Within a moment, she was back in front of her kitchen sink, the dead bird in hand snapped in half, and she screamed at the top of her lungs. Dropping the bird, she clawed at her face, wanting to scratch away the images of the woman tied to the bed. Three years ago, she’d nearly been raped by a band of marauders. They’d knocked her out and carried her several miles from the camp where she and Kerris had lived at the time. Were it not for their mental connection, Kerris would never have heard her screaming, and he’d never have found her in time.
“Liza,” Kerris shushed, wedging his way into her mind to find the source of her pain. He touched her shoulders, but the moment he found her fear, he knew not to embrace her—not to confine her.
“You shouldn’t be thinking about that. We buried that memory,” he said, rocking her. His arms were shaking, his voice raw with emotions. The incident with the marauders had traumatized them both so much that they’d tried to use their powers in the Spirit Realm to wipe each other’s memories. It was something that they’d vowed never to do again. She’d screwed up and put Kerris in a vegetative state for almost a month.
“It’s not my memory. Not all of it,” she said. “Hawk.”
“First he makes you sick, and now he stirs this?” Kerris grumbled. “I’ll kill him.”
“No,” Liza said, fisting her brother’s shirt. “He was a victim, too.”
“Did you kill him, Liza?” Kerris asked. “Is he dead?”
“I may have damaged him,” she confessed. “I couldn’t watch. I had to get out.”
Hawk’s skin burned.
He lay naked in his bunk, his sweat-soaked clothing scattered on the floor. He felt too woozy to stand, though lying on the bed kept the heat too close to his body for comfort. The air was dead still. In Rocan, it never got this hot. The city was surrounded by tundra and when it got cold, they turned up the heat in the houses—a process that almost inevitably resulted in a house fire and a loss of resources that led to immediately turning off the heat.
Hawk felt like he was surrounded by fire. His hair was damp with sweat. His tears felt cold against his burning skin. He tried not to think of home, because it only kept him awake, and he wanted desperately to sleep. The memory of his forced breeding kept cycling through his mind. Everything in Rocan centered around breeding, but out here in the open world, it wasn’t even a part of his life anymore and it haunted him, along with all the other ghosts in Bo
one.
The door to his quarters opened and Hawk covered his face with his arm, effectively undoing all his effort to sprawl and cool.
“Damn, it’s even worse in here,” Tray commented. He shook Hawk’s shoulder, and tossed a towel over Hawk’s naked body. “Hawk, are you still alive? I need you to come with me.”
“Where?” Hawk complained, kicking off the towel. The air was so humid and thick, he felt like he was suffocating.
“Downstairs. We have a plan to cool off. For goodness sake, cover yourself,” Tray said. Standing on the first step of the ladder, he reached over the top bunk and tucked an icepack under Hawk’s neck. The rush of coolness made Hawk shiver. The metal deck plates would be hot against his bare feet, and he didn’t want to get up.
“You’re not hot?” he asked Tray, noticing the long gloves and soft sleep pants.
“I have my alien superpowers to keep me cool. Where are your socks?” Tray asked, pulling open the drawers, deliberately averting his eyes from Hawk’s naked body.
Dazed, Hawk scanned the room, trying to remember which clothing article matched the Trade word ‘socks.’ He pointed to a pile of clothes on the floor next to the drawers. They’d soaked, rinsed, and dried the fabric, but they had no soap to clean it. When Tray found two stiff, mismatched socks, he beat them against the bedframe until they softened.
Hawk’s joints were swollen and the ice pack didn’t cool him down enough. He let Tray dress him, helping feebly, even though he didn’t want to be covered. It reminded him of home. Before his mother had been taken into asylum, there were nights he’d sit her on her bed, help her into her shoes, and then take her on a walk, parading her so that people wouldn’t know she was sick.
“Come on,” Tray said. Hawk moved quickly, not wanting Tray to use any of his alien powers to make things worse. Tray gave Hawk a push between the shoulders, guiding him out into the galley. Everyone was there, buzzing about, talking about cold showers and portable batteries. He could barely understand the conversations and every time someone patted him on the back, his skin ignited in blistering pain. They moved quickly until everything was a blur. Hawk stood next to the table, swaying on his feet, squinting at the bright lights, his awareness of his surroundings waxing and waning.
The room became quiet. The Captain pressed a chilled mug of cinnamon-smelling apple juice into Hawk’s hands, and Hawk realized the two of them were alone.
“We should have been keeping a closer eye on you,” Danny said. The world felt fuzzy, and the mug in his hands barely registered. Hawk touched his tongue to the cool liquid and cringed. What he wouldn’t give for a touch of gin. Placing a hand on the table for balance, he fell onto the bench, and waited for the fog to lift from his mind. The Captain hovered next to him, sitting too close for comfort.
“Can I lie down again?” Hawk whispered. He could feel himself swooning, like he’d been drugged. He wasn’t even sure he’d asked his question in Trade. The memory cycled again—being injected with drugs and forced to breed.
Danny guided the mug to Hawk’s lips, forcing him to drink. Then he tucked a cold pack under Hawk’s thigh and the breeding memory came back. Hawk whimpered and tipped forward off the bench, but Danny caught his arm and dragged him back up. Danny spoke to him in Trade, and Hawk had to concentrate to understand. All he could hear was the doctor’s voice telling him ‘do your duty.’
“We’re going downstairs. There’s a room we can seal off and keep cool. You can lie down again as soon as we’re there,” Danny assured.
Sealed in a room… Hawk’s mind flashed to his breeding partner.
“Can you walk?” Danny asked, linking his arm with Hawk’s. His voice was gentle—not like the breeding doctor’s. He waited and waited. “I can get Saskia to bring the stretcher.”
Hawk shook his head, feeling straps across his chest, tying him down to the stretcher. He rolled forward again, letting Danny catch his weight, leaning on him for balance as they walked slowly down the stairs. Hawk wondered why he was the only one affected, the only one swaying, and the only one so hot.
When they reached the room, Hawk could tell immediately that it was cooler, and the chill hurt his skin. A fan, powered by strung together Virclutches, created a dusty breeze. There were three mattresses lined side-by-side on the floor, five overlapping pillows, and single blanket over top.
“I guess you’ve never faced heat exhaustion where you’re from,” Danny commented, feeling Hawk’s face with the back of his hand. “You can lie down here. I think Amanda’s already under the blanket.”
Hawk’s eyes widened, realizing they intended him to share the bed with her. His vision swam and the memories of breeding and Geneculture flooded in. His throat tightened, and he shook his head, fleeing the room, plowing face first into the closed door. Danny caught him by the waist and guided him down onto the mattress. Hawk was so nauseated that the fall made him heave. He kicked feebly to get away.
“Non!” Hawk cried, feeling the dizziness overtake him.
“You’ll like this gadget,” Danny said, holding him tight. “The blanket regulates our body temperatures. It has enough charge to get us through the night. Then we have some figuring to do come morning.”
Gingerly, Danny removed Hawk’s shoes. Hawk could feel the coolness radiating off the black blanket and he pressed his toes to it. Tray made a snappy comment that Hawk didn’t catch and yanked the blanket out from under his feet. It was getting harder to process the conversations.
Keeping his arm around Hawk’s shoulder, Danny nestled them both under the blanket, pulling Hawk toward the center of the mattresses so the blanket covered them both completely. The blanket was as cold as the Rocan tundra against his boiling skin. Nightmares invaded his mind and he screamed until he couldn’t breathe. Danny’s grip became tighter and Hawk wailed at how quickly things had gone from confusing to terrifying. Hawk kicked until Danny let him roll off the side of the mattress. He wouldn’t be forced to share a bed, even if it meant he died from the heat. It felt like his body was on fire.
17
The refreshing feel of a good night’s sleep under the thermal blanket was short-lived. Within minutes of waking, Danny remembered their dire situation. He shifted slightly, side to side. It wasn’t exactly roomy in the bed, and would have been even more cramped if he’d kept Hawk next to him all night.
Feeling a hand on his cheek, he smiled dreamily and opened his eyes. Amanda traced his earlobe absently, her attention focused on a Virclutch on her lap. Her tongue poked into her cheek as she thoughtfully considered the projection before her. Saskia lay on the other side of Amanda. Tray sat in the corner, nursing a cup of apple wine, munching on a raw protein bar. It looked like he was still kicking himself for burning their fuel on a failed liftoff.
“What are you working on?” Danny asked Amanda. The twitch in her cheek told Danny she was hallucinating, but aware enough to recognize and separate the hallucination from reality.
“Writing down what I remember in case I forget again,” Amanda said, taking her hand off his earlobe and wiping it on her shirt.
Danny glanced at the scribbles on the page, surprised to find her writing long-hand, and not in any language he recognized. Her use of the Terranan alphabet suggested it was her own shorthand. The words circled a crude drawing of a dragon-like creature, shaded in blue. It had a pointed face and feathered wings, and it reminded him of the mythological spirit of the new dawn Oriana, for which his ship was named. “What’s that drawing?” he asked. He didn’t think the mythological Lanvarian pantheon was part of Terranan education, but perhaps she’d learned about it in Elysia.
“It’s the ghost,” she said, turning the projection to show him. The creature had sharp claws on one hand, and a locket around its neck. “It’s what she looks like when she’s not being human.”
“Pretty ugly,” Danny smirked.
“At least she can look human. Galen looks like this all the time,” Amanda said, pursing her lips. “He’s warmer, though.�
�
“Amanda, Elysians are descendants of humans,” Danny said.
“Who can travel through other dimensions and open magic portals on your ship,” Amanda countered. “I’m writing down what I remember, not what makes sense.”
“She’s wasting power. That’s what she’s doing,” Tray grumbled, closing the wrapper around the protein bar and knocking back the rest of his wine.
Pouting, Amanda shut down the Virclutch and crawled out of the bed, fishing out a raw apple from the bowl Tray had brought in last night.
“You didn’t want to share the bed either?” Danny asked Tray, patting the empty space beside him.
“I’ve only been up a few minutes,” Tray said, stretching his legs. “Wanted to see if the rain stopped.”
“Has it?”
Shaking his head, Tray crawled back under the covers, slithering into the space Amanda had vacated. He put his head on the pillow next to Danny’s, like he expected a hug. Danny wasn’t sure what to do, but then Saskia rolled over in her sleep and spooned behind Tray, and Tray seemed grateful. He should have just hugged his brother when he felt the invitation.
“What’s our plan if the rain doesn’t stop?” Tray asked, pressing his face against the pillow, unable to keep up the mask of bravery.
“Five more minutes,” Saskia murmured in his ear. It was better than any answer Danny had.
The door latch clicked, and Danny rolled off the bed. Amanda tugged the hatch open. “Honey?”
“Bathroom,” she said. “And food. And coffee.”
“Coffee,” Saskia echoed, springing out of bed, leaving Tray by himself. “Let me help.”
The two women disappeared down the hall, and Danny scanned the little room, surprised that no one had tripped over Hawk. The man lay half-dressed, curled in the corner, flush but not sweating. “Tray, let’s give Hawk the thermal for an hour,” Danny suggested.
Hybrid: A Space Opera Adventure Series (The New Dawn Book 4) Page 15
