by F P Adriani
Again I thought of my transporter controls on my wrists, the buttons there, but my hands were bound beside each other inside a rigid restraint—I couldn’t seem to move my thumbs to the proper spots—
“I have sent the Keepers a message throughout the universe,” Claudius said now. “I’m betting on that they value you.”
“Then you’ve made a mistake: they won’t risk anything for me.”
“Oh, but you are not just you. You are in one of their suits.” He nodded over at one of his men—or maybe not: there were women in the room now. One sat working at an electronic panel. There was a huge screen above her head, and an image of space materialized there now. As far as I could see, there was only the normal black and stars, but when Claudius walked up to the woman, they began talking in low voices, and he pointed at the upper right corner of the screen.
Either my eyes weren’t working well after everything I’d been through, or I was too far from the screen: I struggled to see details on it; I also struggled to stay focused on it. But no matter my struggling, I couldn’t see anything of value. Of course that didn’t mean something of value wasn’t there….
My heart soared a little: maybe the Keepers were there somewhere; maybe they would rescue me. I knew Claudius was in over his head. But, as I’d learned a bunch of times, the Keepers also weren’t perfect, and they really didn’t have control of the universes.
Maybe this time, they had really screwed up—and that meant that I was really screwed.
*
Moments later, something changed on the bridge; Claudius and his crew began speaking to each other heatedly in another language, their voices sounding quite irritated, too. I got the feeling the ship was having technical problems doing whatever Claudius wanted it to do.
Claudius finally growled something at his people, and then one of them unbound my ankles, unstrapped me from the chair and pulled me through a doorway into another room.
This one was much smaller than the bridge room, and there was nothing in this dank space except for a small broken table and a tall cabinet.
The thug in front of me growled at me, “Sit on the floor and don’t fucking move.”
He didn’t have an accent like Claudius had; this guy had an Earth accent. That he was on Claudius’ side truly sickened me. I couldn’t help pulling a face.
The thug now raised his gun in a threatening way. “The captain said not to hurt you—unless you act up. Don’t make faces, don’t talk, don’t move. Sit like a statue, or you’re dead.”
I swallowed, feeling my throbbing bladder wanting to give way. It had given way when I was with the Krin. Little did I know then that my Krin experience would wind up being a comfortable situation compared to the one I was in now.
*
I remained stuck in the dirty room with the Earth-creep for I didn’t know how long. Exhaustion pressed down on my shoulders. My wrists ached, because no matter the thug’s threats, I secretly kept trying to contort my arms and hands into doing something on my suit, which ultimately was a waste of time: I couldn’t get my worksuit to do anything that would help me. Maybe the suit had been damaged by however Claudius had captured me.
My eyelids began drooping; I let them droop….
…I woke to the Earth-thug ordering me, “Get the fuck up already.” He started to grab me, but then his eyes jerked down at my suit, as if he remembered something. He pulled back, jerked his gun toward me, then up at the air.
I had been slumped back against a wall, and though pulling myself up now when my hands were behind my back was a pain-in-the-ass maneuver, I managed to effectively use the pressure of my arms and side against the wall.
I wobbled a little on my still-tired legs, and when the guy said, “Move,” I walked toward the gray door.
He shoved it open and I walked through the doorway.
The bridge-room was emptier now—just Claudius and two other men. They were over by the front controls, but when the Earth-guy shoved me onto the bridge, Claudius came closer and pointed at a different chair from the one I was in before.
“Make yourself comfortable,” he said in a sarcastic voice.
I gritted my teeth as I moved toward the chair and then onto it. There was a cushion on both the seat and the back; I almost sighed in relief. But then one of the henchmen quickly strapped me into the chair. Thankfully, he didn’t bind my legs this time. I wondered if that was for show….
The big viewscreen was still on. I didn’t see anyone out in space—any Keeper ships. But they could have been there, and maybe Claudius had a line open to the interior here, so the Keepers could more clearly see he had me inside and that he hadn’t hurt me badly. Yet.
He was standing near me and in front of me, but his gaze was on the screen now. “I’ve sent out word to the Keepers again.”
I didn’t respond to his statement, but it didn’t seem like a good thing for him that he’d repeatedly tried to contact them, yet he apparently still hadn’t gotten a response. Unfortunately, that also didn’t seem like a good thing for me….
“You see,” Claudius continued, “I have nothing against you personally, Captain Zarro, even though you refused to do business with me on Cardoon Twelve, and then shot at my ship. But now, you’re a part of them.”
I squirmed a bit in my chair—and that made me remember how I had shifted myself up the wall in the other room. This chair’s cushioning was quite soft. Maybe I could use the back cushion to massage my suit-sleeves….
One of the women from earlier walked onto the bridge. She and Claudius said something to each other in that Reimark or whatever language of theirs; then she sat down at the controls and began manipulating them. The images on the screen changed, as the ship apparently scanned space at different angles.
“The real issue is,” Claudius said to me now, “I want one of their ships. The Monument. Did they tell you about it? Well, someone told me about it. It’s their most advanced ship. No single Keeper knows everything about it.”
“How do YOU know that?” I snapped.
He grinned at me now, but the smile never made it up to his dark eyes. “I’ve been doing my homework. Let’s just say that I’ve made it my business to find out more information from other alien species, and I got into contact with someone who knows a lot about the Keepers.”
“I bet not everything,” I snapped again, because I had no other way to strike back.
“A person does not need to know everything in order to do something. A person just needs to know enough. And I, Claudius, do know enough now.”
He was full of shit. It seemed he didn’t know enough about my suit—how easily I could transport using it, if I could get my fucking fingers on the controls. But no matter how many times I twisted my hands back there, I couldn’t reach the proper buttons or feel the proper ridges, and I was afraid I might activate something else and then confirm in Claudius’ eyes the power behind the suit….
“I also have enough to do what I want,” Claudius continued now. “As in, I have you, and I will trade you for what I want.”
The image on the overhead screen suddenly changed, and I finally saw the Monument’s immense shadow filling the dark space-night. I felt a tight pain in my heart—my friends, my ship—
“You see, Captain Zarro,” Claudius said, “I don’t want to be human. I want to be more than human. I want to be a god. And you are my ticket to that state.”
Claudius kept talking, but I only listened to his mania with half an ear. My other ear was listening to my own head, which was wondering why the fuck the Keepers weren’t sneaking on this ship to rescue me. In the past, they’d easily entered both the Demeter and one of Claudius’ ships—maybe even this ship, assuming it was the same one that had attacked mine months ago. I couldn’t see the outside of this ship, so I didn’t know where the hell I was trapped….
“So,” Claudius said now, “I keep sending my message, and they sit right there without responding.” He spun around and glared at me. “What does th
is mean?”
“I don’t fucking know,” I said, and I really didn’t know. Now my heart was jumping in my chest. Now I was worried about the Monument, about my lover and my friends.
“I asked you a question,” Claudius growled, stepping closer.
“I told you—I don’t know what’s going on. Maybe the ship isn’t working. Maybe it isn’t what you think it is.”
“Don’t bullshit me,” he said.
I didn’t respond. My eyes were on the viewscreen, and my wrists were doing a twist behind my back against the chair cushion, a twist I was hoping no one on the bridge saw.
Unfortunately, Claudius did see. “What are you doing back there?” His eyes went to the Earth-thug, who came over and shoved my back forward.
But the Earth-thug only shook his head “no” at Claudius.
“My fucking wrists are falling asleep,” I shot back at Claudius. “What do you think I’m doing? You bound them up tight with a metal clamp. They were hurting before. Now they’re numb. For all I know, I’ve cut them and I’m getting gangrene.”
“So much drama,” Claudius said in a snide voice. “I want to know exactly what your suit does. The red buttons on the chest.”
Apparently, he hadn’t learned that much from whoever had given him information about the Keepers.
I almost opened my mouth and said that to him now—that earlier he kept acting like he knew so much and now he doesn’t seem to know much of anything. But I only kept my mouth shut now and glared back up at him.
In one confident motion, he came forward and smacked me hard across my face. My teeth cut the inside of my mouth. I tasted my bitter blood, felt as if I would choke on it. If only I could reach the shoulder controls to medicate me….
I had tears in my eyes when I spoke, a.k.a. lied. “The red buttons let me transport to elsewhere—but, uh, I have a feeling that’s not what you want, is it? You want me to remain so you can beat me senseless.”
“I don’t want to beat you senseless. I want to beat you enough so that you see I mean business.”
So much for my theory that he didn’t bind my legs again because he didn’t want it to look to the Keepers like he was hurting me. He’d probably just forgotten to bind my legs.
“Wh—what do you expect me to give you?” I asked now in a shaky voice. “I know very little. I was working another job with the Keepers—that had nothing to do with you.”
“Everything has to do with me if I say it does. I will just remove your suit and test it myself.”
My fear went up a few more notches. I glanced at the woman at the controls, but she didn’t seem to care what the hell was going on behind her. Now I said, “I—I’m practically naked underneath—”
“Even better,” Claudius said in a smug voice. Then he motioned to one of his henchmen to move toward me. I saw my chance. To take off my suit without damaging it, they would have to free my wrists—
“If you try anything, you’re dead,” Claudius said in a matter-of-fact way, almost as if he’d read my mind. I really hoped no one had given him any technology for doing that, because my mind was pretty sure he was going to kill me at some point anyway, so what did I have to lose by making a move to get free? And, for all I knew, the Keepers and their technology had gotten my path wrong, and I was meant to die by Claudius’ hand now. If so, I certainly wasn’t going out on a whimper.
The henchman came up behind me and began undoing the clamp on my wrists.
Claudius pulled off the weapon attached to his side and lifted it at me, the barrel of the dark gun glistening beneath the overhead lights. “Remember,” he said.
The clamp was finally off of me, but my wrists were still numb; I grabbed onto each of them and rubbed and rubbed and rubbed. Then I lifted my right hand—my fingers going up to the collar of my suit, as if I was about to undo it. Instead, I slid my fingers along the collar and quickly pushed the transporter ridge on my shoulder.
I felt the shift in dimensional space begin, but Claudius was still visible to me: when he saw me start to fade away, he swore and fired his weapon. I could see the blast heading toward my chest just as a multicolored stream of dimensional matter began filling my vision—then I was floating, caught somewhere in a riot of shooting colors—I apparently hadn’t made the stream correctly—oh—Kostas! She was walking toward me and, behind her, there was Gary—tears fell from my eyes; Gary and Kostas ran closer to me in the chaos.
“How are you here!” I said as I ran into Gary’s arms.
“We were just about to transport you,” Kostas said, “when you started transporting yourself. I intersected our paths—no,” she suddenly said, confusing me and when I pulled back from Gary, she was frowning down in alarm at her silver device.
“What is it?” I said.
“It’s Claudius—he’s using yet another device he shouldn’t possess.”
My eyes widened in realization. “It must be mine! I totally forgot about it. I lost it somehow. I haven’t had it since the Krin.”
Kostas shook her head rapidly. “No, it is not your device. But he’s nevertheless located us and is interfering with this dimensional stream.”
“What the fuck does that mean!” Gary shouted.
“I can’t hold us here,” Kostas replied fast. “We need to drop out—”
“To where—” I started to say, but an instant later, we were standing in another space, an outdoor space.
It was a flat expanse of white earth with dots of golden green, but I could tell by the bumpiness in the distance that the earth here wouldn’t remain flat. There were peaks and drops that extended far into the distance; I wondered how I was able to view their topography so clearly when they seemed to be so far away. This earth apparently didn’t have any curvature, or maybe it had an infinite curvature that could let you see everywhere all at once.
“What is this place?” I asked now.
“This is The Error Universe,” Kostas said.
“What!” Gary and I both screeched at the exact same time, our eyes locking onto Kostas.
My lips shook as I spoke: “But you said this place is impossible!”
Kostas was still working her device. “Yes. We had no choice but to go here. I couldn’t safely reach anywhere else when Claudius’ signal was interfering with our trajectory.”
“But this isn’t safe,” Gary put in as he grabbed onto one of my arms.
Kostas was frowning now. “No, it isn’t. You can’t trust things here.” Her eyes gazed off into the distance, and one of her hands went to her other arm’s controls to bring up her readout. “Unfortunately, there’s been a large power-drain on my suit’s transporter function and probably on yours too. And my hand-held device has been damaged by Claudius’ interference, and now it, too, does not have enough power. It will take some time to power up from the surroundings here.”
“How much time?” I asked, my heart pounding very hard.
Kostas shook her head from side-to-side. “It’s impossible to tell. I do have enough power for some functions, though: I’m setting up a field to enclose the three of us. It probably won’t be strong enough to negate anything out there. But at least we’ll be able to trust what each other is doing—hopefully.”
Gary’s mouth twisted. “You’re not inspiring confidence here, Kostas.”
“Who said I had any? I have only been here one other time, and it did not go well.”
“Are you trying to frighten us even more?” I asked.
“I’m trying to tell you the truth,” she replied. Then she exhaled, on a groan. “These controls are useless for what else I need at the moment.” She straightened up and stuck her device into one of the pockets on her red suit.
“What about using my controls?” Gary said.
Kostas held out a hand to him. “Let me see it.”
Unfortunately, once she’d examined Gary’s gray device, she found it had the same problem as hers. She handed his back to him and said, “Yours is not a full worker device anyway, even
if it did have enough power. Let me check your transporters.”
She made us call up our readouts, and, sure enough, our transporters also had the same problem as hers.
She sighed hard. “Well, it seems we’re stuck here for now, dealing with whatever comes our way.”
“Kostas,” I said fast now, “do you have any weapons?”
Her head turned toward me, her mouth shifting into a wavy line.
“Fortunately,” Gary said in a louder voice, “I have mine.” He suddenly removed a small gun from the thigh pocket of his suit. I wanted to kiss him.
I moved to do that, but then I stopped when Kostas said, “Don’t count on that, Gary. It might not even work correctly here. Our brains are more important than anything else now.”
I could feel my face deflate. But then I remembered that Claudius hadn’t touched my belt over my suit; I tried using my communicator there, but of course it didn’t work. Fortunately, when I opened my belt now, I saw that my emergency food was still inside. My voice brightened. “At least I’ve got my food stash—do you, Gary?”
He nodded.
“Kostas?” I said, turning to her.
Her fingers were on the communicator-button controls on the chest of her suit. “Yes, I have a stash. Your idea to always keep some handy in our suits was a good one.”
I felt shocked that she had listened to my idea—shocked and a little proud. But those feelings wouldn’t help us here, that was clear: as we had been talking, the land had changed—there was steam coming off the ground now, a lime-green steam.
“What’s happening to the land?” I asked fast.
“This is an entry from everywhere else—the energy will almost continuously flow in from errors elsewhere. We cannot predict what—or who—will pop up.”
“Omigod—Claudius!” I said.
“It’s possible, but unlikely that we’d meet up with an error of him. Errors here are not connected by any logic. Anything can happen anywhere, so the odds of running into someone specific are extremely small. I can’t emphasize enough how enormous this universe’s dimension is.”
