Havoc

by Linda Gayle

  Well, that part of his experiment had succeeded at least, she thought bitterly. She didn’t think Kels or Elion thought she was anything but a lost, pretty girl with a harmless, scatterbrained goal that happened to intersect with theirs. She swallowed hard as the impact of her deception weighed on her. She’d put Elion in danger, and Kels too. Thank the Fates the Prime, or whatever it was, hadn’t killed Elion.

  Her hands shook as she stirred the rice. His kind, gentle eyes, his sober smile, gone… All because of her. Just thinking about it made it difficult to breathe. She couldn’t bear to think of Kels’s sorrow should his friend die. What an idiot she’d been to even conceive of this scheme. It’d seemed so simple: return to the Zone, attract Sorush’s attention, get close, kill him. End the suffering.

  Instead she created more suffering, not the least of which was her own. Who would have known she’d develop such strong feelings for Kels and Elion in so short a time? She’d been swept up in their energy, experiencing, for the first time in her life, real passion, and not just the physical kind. They’d taught her more about trust and friendship in a few short days than viewing every vidlog in the creator’s library had in years of study.

  The humor and love that made humans special and unique among all the creatures of the SenVerse tied them together. In her mind, she knew she had to stand outside it and be as coldly objective as a Prime, but her heart… It yearned to be part of their world and to give back to them a thousandfold what they’d given her already.

  She had until they landed at Savoonga Station to decide what to do.

  Her mind drifted back to Elion’s description. Who might the stalker be? Not Sorush, her creator, certainly. He would never leave the solitude of his ship. Neither was it likely to be Asheni, her tutor. Did another Prime search for her? What if one wanted her for his own designs?

  Sayal heard footsteps in the corridor and smoothed the conflicting emotions from her face. It was Elion, and she sensed something was wrong even before he thumped into the small kitchen. Distressed emotion splashed over her a second before he came in holding his ribs, frustration on his face, but it wasn’t his ribs that bothered him. She set aside her spoon and went to him. “Elion, what’s the matter?”

  “Just looking for some ice.”

  “Here, I’ll find it. Sit down. I know how to use the ice producer.” She indicated one of the chairs around the small table. “Kels showed me how everything works.”

  “I’ll bet he did.” He dropped his chin in his hand, his elbow propped on the table.

  He and the captain must have had words. She wondered what about, for it was obvious they loved each other very much. She’d die if they were arguing over her.

  He had a bump on his head where he must have hit it when he fell, and she took a cooking rag, ran it under water, and went to dab the blood from his skin. He started to wave her away but relented when she shushed him.

  “I can see it better than you,” she murmured, cleaning him up and subtly using her healing abilities to smooth over the broken skin.

  Finished, she set the cloth aside and ran her fingers through his short hair, searching for other hurts. He had a headache. It throbbed beneath her fingertips. She had this sort of connection only when she actually touched someone. Focusing, she imagined drawing the pain from his head, like pulling pins. As her fingers massaged his scalp, he groaned softly, and his shoulders slumped.

  “Saints,” he murmured. “That does help.”

  She smiled, happy she could do this one small thing for him. “I, uh, could help with your side as well. I’ve been trained in a special kind of massage that relieves pain.”

  “Really?” He gazed at her trustingly.

  “It would be faster than the ice.”

  “I already took a shot of Dimextrin, but if you think it might work…”

  She knelt before him, the position so reminiscent of when she’d sucked his cock, it made her body stir with desire. She slipped her hand up under his shirt to his warm, bare skin, feeling for the source of pain. His ribs were cracked, not just bruised. As she gently drew out his life force enough to allow the healing, his eyes slid closed. Pushing her own energy into him, she knit the bones, not completely, for that would raise suspicion, but enough that the pain would ease, and in a day or two, he’d be completely healed. Breathing out, she nudged his energy back into his flesh, and he opened his eyes.

  “Better?” she asked.

  He straightened, took an experimental breath, and rubbed his side. “Yeah, much. Thanks, Sayal. How’d you do that?”

  “Old Earth secret.” She pressed her finger to her lips, making him smile. He never would have felt anything odd about her touch. He brushed the backs of his fingers against her cheek, and his smile faded. “What’s the matter, Elion? You seem troubled.”

  “Eh, it’s nothing. Me and Kels bumping heads.”

  “Please say it’s not over me,” she said, sitting back on her heels, her palms on his thighs.

  “It’s not you, sweetheart. It’s that Keeva woman, as you so aptly called her.”

  Thank the Fates. “Keeva? Why?”

  “Because she’s a bitch, pardon my language, but the captain thinks he loves her.”

  “Come now. She can’t be that bad. How could he love a…a bitch?”

  He put his hand over hers and toyed with her fingers. “She is and beats me.” His cool eyes warmed with the quiet humor she was coming to adore. “How about you and me run away together and find a sunny planet to settle down on?”

  She smiled, wishing it could be that easy. “You would miss your ship and your friend.”

  He stared at their linked fingers. “I would, but there comes a time when a guy’s got to know when to quit.” He spoke quietly, clearly still sorting things through in his own mind. “Maybe I’ll rejoin the Terran Armada. The Primes will keep the Conflicts churning for another thousand years. At least it’d be a steady line of work.”

  She got up and sat in the chair adjacent to his. “The Primes don’t control the Conflicts.”

  “They brought them to Earth.” He rested his arm on the tabletop. “They nearly destroyed the planet, did a pretty fine job of fucking up human civilization.”

  Ah, here was a side of history she’d never heard. Eager for his insight, she said, “My tutor said they saved your planet.”

  “Did he now?” Elion shook his head. “I guess everyone thought that at first.”

  “But they gave you the technology to fight the Pakkat aggressors and to travel in space, isn’t this true?” She indicated the ship around them. “Is the Ash Nova not driven by Prime technology?”

  “It is.” At that very moment, the engines rose to a throb, and everything seemed stretched. Sayal grasped Elion’s hand. She hated this part of travel, the folding of space/time that allowed them to move swiftly from one side of the SenVerse to another. In a huge liner, the effect was negligible, but the smaller the ship, the greater the distortion. It passed quickly, and she let out a breath. It was also dangerous in small ships like this, as the slightest miscalculation would stretch the craft and its passengers into oblivion. It was a testament to Kels’s skills at the helm that the folding had gone so smoothly.

  Elion gazed about him as if checking that all was well, and gave her hand a squeeze. “No worries. Kels knows what he’s doing.”

  She nodded, then rose to resume tending the simple dinner of rice and duck. She put the food on two plates and handed one to Elion, then set one on the table for herself, along with sporks, which had to be one of her favorite human inventions. “My tutor told me that if the Primes hadn’t given humans the necessary weapons and machinery, the Pakkat Union would have destroyed them utterly.”

  “Was he a Prime worshipper or something? No one on Earth believes that.”

  Fates, if she weren’t more careful, she’d give herself away. Lying was a slippery, tiring business. She shook her head. “We were so far from the planet. I’ve never even seen Earth. I…I suppose he j
ust told me what he thought was the truth. What really happened?”

  “The Primes led the Pakkat to Earth. They forced us into the Conflicts.” Elion dug into his food. “You have to understand, Sayal. We were completely unprepared for the impact of first contact with alien life. It was 2012. We were still fighting our own wars. Humanity was highly religious, highly superstitious. Still is, part of it. Things weren’t helped by the fact there was an ancient prophecy about the end of the world coming that year.” He shook his head. “Right on schedule, these huge spaceships ringed the planet, demanding to speak to our leaders. What were we supposed to think? It caused a huge panic. People died by the tens of millions in riots and suicides. We weren’t ready.

  “Before we knew, the high aliens and the United Nations created the Terran Armada and drafted a third of the world’s population into it. Men, women, children to be raised in the military complex. That was about a billion people. Even more than that fled into space since the technology suddenly became available. Huge fortunes were made and lost in those first years. It was chaos.” He shrugged and pushed his rice around on the plate. “I suppose if first contact did do one thing, it put an end to our own wars. But it also gave rise to the EFC, the Earth First Council. The EFC controls the planet now. They’re religious cracks, call themselves the guardians of humanity.”

  “And you blame the Primes for your people’s reactions.”

  He reached across the small table and took her hand. “They’re your people too, even if you were raised in the deeps.”

  She closed her fingers around his. Fates, if only it were true.

  He let her hand slip and went back to his plate. “There were better ways for them to approach. And there were speculations afterward that they led the aggressors there because they couldn’t hold them off any longer. There aren’t many Primes left, they say—maybe ten thousand at the most. The aggressors were wearing them down, the SenVerse allies growing thin. They found a fresh new source of meat to throw at the Pakkat Union, buy themselves some time.”

  “That’s a terrible thing to think.” But even as she said it, she realized it could be true. The Primes were cold, emotionless, above all, practical.

  “It’s even been conjectured,” Elion said, leaning closer and pointing his spork at her, “that the Primes seeded the Earth, forced the evolution of humans millions of years ago just so they’d be able to harvest us later. It’s said they’re practically omniscient, able to mathematically calculate outcomes aeons in advance.”

  She shook her head slowly, putting it all together in her mind. “But I still don’t understand. How do the Primes benefit from the Conflicts? Why would they keep them going?”

  “Raw material,” Elion said grimly. “They’re inventors, creators first and foremost. I believe they seeded the planet. I believe they’re constantly tampering with life. Only the strong endure and thrive. I think they’re testing us, seeing if we’re worthy.” He pointed again, as bad as Kels. “While humans and other sentient beings live and die in the Conflicts, they sit back and observe the results of their grand experiment. I don’t trust ‘em; I don’t like ‘em. It’s not right they manipulate humans, and it’s worse that so many humans allow it, like they’re gods or something. Prime worshippers ran rampant over the Earth for a while before the EFC kicked them out. Still plenty of wingers out there who devote their lives to them for whatever reason. Don’t think the Primes really care.”

  A cold chill spread through her. Her mother had been one of those worshippers, until Omaya’s death. She’d never told Sayal anything but that they were the saviors of the SenVerse. Certainly the Primes considered themselves as such. Now this was another lie to hold against them. She could forgive her mother, for she had been a slave, but Sorush had manipulated Sayal, and her tutor had as well.

  “Sayal?” Elion interrupted her thoughts. “You all right? You’ve bent your spork.”

  She realized she’d been pressing it down so hard the handle had curved. She dropped it. “I hate the Primes.”

  Yes, hate. Another human emotion she’d embrace.

  Elion snorted softly, and one side of his mouth kicked up. “Good, then. We’re all on the same side.”

  “Yes. We are.”

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Chapter Eleven

  Sprawled in his chair watching the blue and red flow of space-time distortion rush past the viewing monitor, Kels slugged back another swallow of hool. Other than the muted hum of the life-support systems, quiet lay over the ship. El was in his cabin, Sayal in Kels’s presumably. Several hours earlier she’d brought him dinner and tried to prod him to talk, as she must have sensed something bothered him. She had even rubbed his dick a little, but he’d nudged her away with a kiss and a pat on the ass. The day he turned down sex with a beautiful bird was a sad day indeed.

  How had it come to this? And why? He contemplated the clear blue hool, the color of Earth skies and clean water, the color of Elion’s eyes, and scowled. Everything had been going okay, hadn’t it? Sure, he and El were broke most of the time, dodging blaster fire, running from creditors, getting randomly laid here and there. But it was an exciting life, a good life. Where’d it gone off the tracks so bad? He’d been hot and heavy with Keeva a couple of years earlier, and Elion had never squawked. Much. Who knew he’d object so strongly to Kels’s finally popping the question?

  Kels dangled his booted foot over the edge of chair and swung it idly. They’d work it out somehow, the three of them.

  His foot stopped swinging. Nah. They wouldn’t. Elion was right. He was always right. A drunken panic sloshed about in his head. He’d lose El for Keeva. Keeva with the fiery eyes and hot wit and hotter puss. But Elion… His mate. His best friend. And Sayal. Somehow she intruded into his thoughts, and he almost sobbed thinking of losing her too. Everyone was leaving him. He’d be alone again like he’d been after his family had been killed. Alone and lost, with no one to care about and no one to care about him. It was too awful to contemplate.

  Wobbling only slightly, or so he convinced himself, Kels rose and staggered down the narrow corridor to Elion’s quarters. He banged on the door with his fist.

  It took a moment, while he braced against the door frame. The ship appeared to be rocking for some reason. Then the door slid open, and Elion stood before him in loose, light pants. He ground the heel of his palm into his eye and frowned. “Do you know what time it is?” he asked.

  “No. Nor do I care.” Kels stumbled in, and the door shushed shut. “Mate, we need to talk.”

  “Crack and ruin,” Elion muttered. “You’re pissed.” He took the bottle out of Kels’s hand. “Have you broken into M’Tal’s stash? You have, haven’t you?”

  “Just a little. He can take it out of my pay.”

  El gave him his back and set the bottle down on a low table next to his pillow. “Go to bed, Kels.”

  With a tired sigh, Kels dropped onto Elion’s bed. His mate stared and shook his head. “No, none of that now. Your own bed. Sayal must be wondering where you’ve got to.”

  Kels stretched. Elion’s mattress was far firmer than his. Probably hadn’t taken as much abuse. “I thought she might be in here.”

  “You know she’s not.” Elion sounded cross.

  “Are you cross with me?”

  “Yes. I’m tired and sore, and I want to sleep.”

  “But I’ve been thinking…”

  “You can think tomorrow, when you’re sober. Off with you now.” He made a shooing motion with his hands.

  Kels moved over and patted the mattress. “I need your wise counsel.”

  “Why? It’s not as if you’ve ever listened to me before.”

  “I will this time. I promise.” He tipped down his chin and gave El the big, sad eyes he couldn’t resist.

  “Saints below…” Elion put his hands on his hips and scowled. Then he sighed. “All right, then, for a few minutes. But no monkeyshines.”

  Kels pushed the pillow he’d stole
n over for his friend and sulked. “I can’t believe you’d accuse me of such a thing. When have I ever shined my monkey around you?” He snorted at his own joke, but an angry glare from Elion made him pucker his lips quick. “My, you’re cranky.”

  Elion lay on his back, his arms crossed beneath his head while he stared at the ceiling. “Not everyone enjoys being roused in the middle of the night by a drunken captain.”

  “It’s always night in space,” Kels observed philosophically. He lay on his side with his hands beneath his cheek, gazing at Elion’s handsome profile. “You know, you’re a good-lookin’ bloke. I even thought that when you were all burned. I pulled you out of that wreck and thought, ‘Here’s a fine-lookin’ guy who’ll be my best friend someday. He’s worth savin’.’”

  “I’m sure you did not,” Elion said shortly.

  “Well, maybe not exactly those words.” His brain swimming with hool, Kels tried to latch on to a good way to start. It’d all seemed clearer out on the command deck. “Elion, are you going to leave me?”

  Elion squinted over at him. “What? What are you talking about?”

  Kels drew his knees up a bit. “I was thinking today. Keeva left; then Sayal told me she was going to leave, and then I made up my mind to find a way to make Keeva stay, and you more or less implied that you would leave.” It was a lot of words for his inebriated head. He closed his eyes and paused while his brain settled. A rush of emotion swept through him, and he bit it down as best he could before he opened his eyes again to look into Elion’s. “I don’t want to be alone. It’s my one great fear.”

  Elion still stared as if in disbelief. Angry disbelief. Then he muttered under his breath, “You always were a maudlin drunk.”

  “I mean it,” he protested. “Everyone’s bailing on me.”

  Elion reached over to his pack of cigs on the low side table and lit one. One arm crossed over his bare chest, he blew smoke into the air. “Keeva never loved you, Sayal hardly knows you, and I’m still here.”