by Jenny Foster
“Hello, father,” I say and put all of my hate into my words. It is not easy, because his appearance is as familiar to me as that of my own hand. He is still much too skinny, because eating is not very far up on his list of priorities, and the circles underneath his eyes are still dark, emphasizing his gray eyes.
“Mara,” he says in a tone that would have felt like affection earlier. Now I know better. “Or maybe I should say SY002?” He gives the two men a signal to wait outside. He does not acknowledge Shazuul, but I didn’t expect him this, anyway. I flinch when he calls me by my rank number, and curse myself when I see him nod in satisfaction. Now he knows exactly what will hurt me the most. “What can I do for you?” Ruthiel carelessly puts the slide away. He was just getting ready to put it under the microscope, but now he sits down at his desk, instead. He crosses his arms behind his head and turns casually from side to side, just like a bored boss, who is being forced into a conversation by an annoying subordinate. “You said you have something interesting for me? Did you, by any chance, mean this Sethari?”
I nod. “Exactly. I have discovered a few abilities in him that will help you get one step closer to your goal of developing the perfect weapon.”
“What might these abilities be?” He grimaces in contempt. But now, it is paying off that he kept me as his own, small test subject at his side for so long. In his eyes, I recognize the spark he always gets when he is on the tail of something new.
I sit on the edge of the desk and swing my legs. I know he hates for his papers to get messed up, so I lean my left hand on the stack of papers that still need to be signed. The corners shift and his hands start to jerk involuntarily, wanting to bring order back to its former and flawless original state. Now I know I have him. “This Sethari has telepathic abilities. He can read minds.”
Ruthiel stares at me for a few seconds. Then he laughs, until tears run down his face. “The virus must have really attacked your brain,” he says, finally, and wipes the tears from his cheeks dramatically. The virus has done just that, of course, but differently than he thinks it has. This thought helps me to keep the anger out of my voice when I answer him.
“Why don’t we just test it?” I suggest, and lean forward until I am almost face to face with him. “Think of a number. Any number. Concentrate on the number, and he will tell you what it is.” I give Shazuul a kick that makes him fall to his knees. Hopefully, Ruthiel didn’t notice that I stopped myself at the very last second from hurting the Sethari.
“Fine,” the doctor says. He leans back, relaxed, and closes his eyes. Now I have to act quickly. I sneak over into Ruthiel’s head, see the number, and am out again in the blink of an eye. Shazuul has opened himself up, receives the number from me, and I am back to being myself again. “789,” Shazuul snarls, and my father sits up with a start. He looks at me suspiciously, then at the Sethari and then looks around the room thoroughly. I know that he is looking for clues that could have revealed the number to a clever observer, for instance, a file with the number 789 that he could have perceived unknowingly. He finds nothing.
“Again,” he orders, and concentrates on a longer number. Shazuul and I repeat the game. It is almost as if I am passing a ball to him, which he takes and shoots into the goal. We are a good team, the Sethari and I, I think happily. We repeat the whole thing two more times, and then I raise my hand.
“That’s enough for now,” I instruct my father, because I am starting to get a little dizzy from jumping back and forth. Anyway, it is disturbing to be in his thoughts, even if I am only there for a split second at a time. Feelings do not wash over me in his head. There is a complete absence of any emotion. That scares me much more than an overabundance of feelings. I can feel hysterical giggling bubbling up inside me when I realize that he is much more like a typical emotionless cyborg than I am. I push it back down and concentrate on the present. “Before I turn him over to you, you need to meet a few of my demands.”
“I do not need your permission to experiment on him,” my father remarks, correctly. He licks his lips.
“That is true,” I admit and allow myself a small smile. “But without my help, he will be of no use to you. I have injected him with a poison, and its effect will spread over the next 45 minutes. I implanted,” I look at him, and see his fingers move towards the red alarm button which would summon the guards from outside the room, “the antidote. So you can forget about ordering your men to search me. Only I know which spot on his body I need to push, to release the antidote into his bloodstream.” Ruthiel weighs his options. Of course, he could make his men work Shazuul over, until they had pushed every spot on his body. But the risk is too high. The antidote might not be released in time, or something might happen to the telepathic alien. 45 minutes are not long when you want to get your hands on a test subject, as urgently as the doctor wants to. He could torture me, or read the contents of my brain – I am sure of it. But this wouldn’t be fast enough, either, given the circumstances.
“What do you want?” he asks, cutting to the chase.
“I want an official contract as your assistant,” I respond promptly. “I have already drawn it up.” With a flourish, I pull out the paper and hold it under his nose. “All you need to do is sign it and send it to the notary. Immediately.” I have to give him credit. Once he has made a decision, he doesn’t hesitate long. He signs the bottom of the document, scans it in and, under my watchful eye, sends it to the officials. Now, it is valid in every earthly court. Of course, he thinks that he is just playing along for now, and that he will get rid of me later, so he can have Shazuul all to himself, but he doesn’t know that I will only be on board the Solarian for a few days. After that, will disappear again.
“I hope you put in a good wage for yourself into the contract.” He manages to make me look like an idiot by emphasizing his generosity. Ruthiel does not worry himself with details as long as he gets what he wants. At the moment, he wants nothing more than to get his hands on Shazuul. I have to take advantage of it.
“It has never been about money for me,” I deflect. It’s true. My best memories are of the times we worked on new projects together. I push these thoughts emphatically to the side. They will just make me go soft towards Ruthiel. I don’t even know if those are real memories or memories he implanted in me, so I would act the way he wants me to. “You know that it was always about knowledge for me. About research for the sake of research.”
“You are hardly recognizable, my child,” he ridicules and stands up. “I assume you want to be part of the testing on the Sethari?” I nod silently. “First, he will need to be in quarantine for three days,” my father determines. As much as he would like to start right away, he is careful when it comes to his other creatures. He will separate Shazuul from the other creatures until he is sure that he does not have any infectious diseases. This gives him a reprieve until the experiments start, and gives me the time I need to find out where Cassie Burnett is. I hope Johar and his companions can find her husband quickly.
“Ah, one more thing,” Ruthiel says, after the two guards have grabbed Shazuul between them and have taken him to the quarantine ward. I pause, and turn around to again look at the man whom I thought of as my father my entire life. “Make sure you stay away from the crew. They are not as tolerant as I am, when it comes to infectious diseases. It is entirely possible that one of them might think that you present an unacceptable risk.” He looks pointedly at the blue lines that make me an outsider. I realize that he is letting me know that my life is worth nothing without his protection. But I just turn the tables back on him.
“Are you telling me that you do not have your own people under control? Surely they wouldn’t take a valued employee out of commission without your blessing?”
He smirks. “Not, they wouldn’t. But an employee who forgets to follow through with her bluff, all the way to the end, is not especially intelligent.”
I can hear him laughing through the closed door, and it echoes even in my tears.
Chapter 6
After two hours, I finally stop blaming myself.
Ruthiel knew from the start that the story of the poison was just a faked maneuver. I should have pushed the “secret spot” on Shazuul’s body, from where the alleged antidote would be released, before the men led him away. The question is and remains, why did Ruthiel sign his name to the contract? I grow increasingly uneasy at the thought of him playing his own game again and me not being able to see through him. Would Johar have seen through him more quickly?
The longing for my cyborg is so intense, that tears come to my eyes and I am so restless that I cannot stay in my bed any longer. It is way too big without Johar and I am cold. Ruthiel had no objection to me moving into my usual quarters, right next to his, but today, the familiar surroundings feel oppressive. I get up, pace the room, sit down on the bed, all the time looking at my watch. When 3 o’clock finally arrives, I think the time is right for me to … have a little look around. Guards will still be moving through the ship, but since I have been accepted back into the fold, it should be easy to justify my presence in the lab. Of course, I would prefer that nobody catches me there, but what is the worst that could happen? Who could blame me for going to the quarantine ward and checking on my newly acquired test subject, to be sure that he is okay?
Poor Shazuul is probably lying in his cell right now, just as lonely as I am, but the difference is that I can walk out of this prison anytime I want to. That is exactly what the Solarian has become for me; a prison where everyone looks at me suspiciously. I cannot be who I really am here. It won’t be much longer, I encourage myself, and then Johar and I can start a life together. While I make my way through the halls towards the lab, without even trying to hide the noise of my footsteps, I dream once again about a rosy future at his side. He has undeniable skills as a bounty hunter, and could use these talents as a private detective, teaching me everything he knows. We would make a name for ourselves as the most honest and cunning detectives in the entire solar system. And then, when …
I slow down as an unusual sound reaches my ears. Someone is crying. It is a woman, and her heartbreaking sobs are coming from the guest wing. Carefully, I peek around the corner, but pull my head back immediately when I see what is happening there. A guard is standing in front of a door, trying to fend off a crying blonde. She is pushing and scratching him, going for his eyes. Surely, she must know that she isn’t strong enough to move the guard out of the way. He obviously has orders not to hurt her, because he is trying to evade her and to push her back into the room at the same time. Without much success, because the woman is quick on her feet, despite her enormous pregnant stomach. She is desperate, something the guard has obviously underestimated. She gives him a swift punch, between the legs, and he sinks to the ground, his eyes rolling back in his head. He barely manages to grab her by the hair before she can get away.
Time for me to intervene.
I rush to the pile of legs and arms, all of them clawing at each other, reach for the woman’s very thin arm, and help her to her feet. The guard, who is a pale, red-head, seems vaguely familiar to me. Sweat covers his forehead. His baby-blue eyes are glazed over, and when I scream at him that he should snap to attention and get up, tears of anger and humiliation come to his eyes. He staggers to his feet with great effort, and stands almost upright. “What is going on here?” I ask softly and stare directly at him. He is at least a head taller than me, but he knows exactly who I am and what I have been infected with. However, he doesn’t dare step back from me, when I, still holding on to Cassie’s arm. I get right up in his face. “I want to know right now what is going on here,” I hiss.
“She said the babies were coming, and when I tried to confirm this, she attacked me,” he whines and points an accusing finger at Cassie, in spite of himself. She looks miserable, but smiles with satisfaction when I smack the man’s fingers. He lets out a small whine. My thoughts automatically go to Johar. He would never in his life have let himself be humiliated this much by anyone, neither man nor woman, as this guy has. The smile that plays on my lips startles him more, and he even forgets to stare at the spot where my fingers smacked his bare skin. I must look horrible in the dim night light. My skin is white, almost see-through, and in contrast, my hair is so dark that it almost seems black. It is curling unkemptly around my face, and I imagine I must look like Medusa with her snake head, or like an ancient goddess of revenge, whose touch can make a man insane or deathly ill (or both, ha-ha).
Enough daydreaming. Back to the present. “I will take the woman to her room and examine her thoroughly. If this wasn’t a ruse to try to escape, you will notify Dr. Ruthiel, on my orders.” He pales when he realizes that the feared Dr. Ruthiel will find out about his unmanly and less than clever conduct. “If the contractions are just being faked …” I leave the rest of the sentence hand in the air, and the man eagerly goes for the bait.
“I … um … would be very grateful to you if you wouldn’t report this incident,” he stutters.
I don’t want to stall him any longer, so I nod curtly and slam the door in his face. I look closely at Cassie Burnett for the first time. The only thing round about her is her bloated stomach. Everything else is sharp and bony. “Are you getting enough to eat?” I ask her first, setting her down on the bed gently. Her whole body is shaking, now that her escape attempt has failed, and the adrenaline is still coursing through her veins. I put her under the covers and brush her damp hair out of her face. “I am Mara,” I say, and sit down next to her. Frantically, I try to figure out if I can risk telling her about the escape plan. Not only is she just skin and bone, but her nerves are raw, and I don’t know if she will give the secret away. On the other hand, I know from personal experience how unnerving it can be, if every important piece of information about survival is kept from you. “I work on board here, and am a trained physician,” I start carefully. I can hardly tell her that Ruthiel is my father, and that I assisted him with his experiments. “I am going to have a careful look right now, to see if the babies are okay.”
She looks at me for a long time before giving her consent with a nod. I must have passed some kind of test, because she relaxes just a tiny bit and bares her big stomach willingly. Gently, I feel for the children, evaluate their position and waiting for them to move. It won’t be long before they come into this world. They are big, much too big for petite Cassie. I am almost happy that she is on the Solarian. At least she will have medical care here if the babies need to be born via a C-section.
“The boys are both okay,” I assure her. “You know, as well as I do, that they will be born soon. Is there anything I can do for you? Do you need anything?”
“Yes,” she replies through clenched teeth, “I need my beloved, and I want to get out of here.” She laughs. I don’t like the sound of it. She sounds like someone who is close to going crazy. That tips the balance. I need to tell her that she and her children will be safe soon.
“Cassie,” I say, trying to get her to focus on me, “I am here to free you. But I still need to wait for someone, for two men who will help us make our escape from here. One of them is called Johar, and right now, he is trying to get your husband out of the caves.
She sits up abruptly, and grabs my hands with a strength I wouldn’t have expected from someone so delicate. “Swear that this isn’t a trick, to try to gain my trust,” she says and looks at me strangely. She closes her eyes, before I can say anything, and then I feel it. Someone is in my head. Cassie is in my head, and she is helping herself generously to the information she finds there. I suddenly feel the irresistible urge to talk, to tell her everything she wants to know. Not only can she read thoughts, but she can also manipulate people to do things against their will!
I am not sure how I reach this conclusion, but I can feel her digging around in my head. She reaches for something, pulls it out, turns it this way and that, and then turns her attention to another part of my brain. So this is how it feels to others when
I jump over to them, I think, and at that moment the woman in front of me stops. She retreats and looks at me, stunned. “You know Shazuul! And you can also read minds! How long will it take your beloved and this other man to bring Khazaar here?”
In just a few split seconds, she has accurately pinpointed the information she needs. When we get out of here, I absolutely need to ask her for help. With her and Shazuul as teachers, I should be able to learn how to control my new skills very quickly. “Your husband is Khazaar Drasurq?” Everyone, and I mean, everyone, knows the name of the man who chased the Sethari from Earth and took Earth women in exchange for his fallen warriors. In my mind, I can see the image that was all over the press at the time: Khazaar Drasurq, running ahead of his men, his dark hair wafting behind him, with his piercing gaze, his scales raised slightly, and sword in hand. No wonder my father really wants to get his hands on the twins that have come from this connection. The children are more valuable to science than any precious metal, since the Qua’Hathri is the father of one of them, and one who was perfected in my father’s lab is the father of the other. If they really are exchanging information and abilities in their mother’s womb, then they are priceless. I would love to know what special skills this other man had, and how it came to be that Cassie was able to conceive two children from two men. I am sure that she wasn’t intimate with both of them at the same time. This is highly interesting. I notice the scientist inside me coming to life, but I push her far away. Now is not the time for analyzing things. Increasingly, I have the urgent feeling that time is running out.
