Chapter 38: The Selok
Lightning ran through the primary body. Fire seared the boy-body on the Overlord’s throne. Hands clutched convulsively at chair arms. Faces grimaced in pain. On the floor of the throne room, dancers moved in intricate steps and musicians played on as the court moved through the ceremony of Joining. The Selok heard none of it, saw none of it.
"My Lord, are you well?" the major domo asked the Regent. Blue brocade robes rustled as the man bent over it.
The Regent body growled low in its throat.
"My Lord, are you well?" the high priest of Nish asked the Prime. Red robes swirled as the black mask bent near its face.
The Prime body moaned.
The words echoed in its selves. The Bolon body was dead, violently dead. It had set that host to hunt the renegade human and to find the Terran, and then turned most of its considerable attention to the ceremony of Joining. Now, both remaining host bodies quivered with pain and shock. It had lost control of the Bolon body, it realized. The child mind had grown beyond its control. But it hadn’t lost contact, not until the terrible pain flashed through it. Ruthlessly exerting control, the Selok examined the last memories it had received from the Bolon body. The host had found the abomination, the human called Jak. It had almost succeeded in killing him. Then, there was an attack that stunned the body. It remembered rising, the woman with the blaster in her hand, blue eyes burning as hot as the fire that ended that body’s existence.
Not now, the Selok thought, this couldn’t be happening to it now.
"My Lord?" said the voices. "My Lord?"
The Selok groaned.
Omniphage Invasion Page 38
