As they drew closer to Soleta, however, Si Cwan quickly saw that the question was moot. For it was not, as he had hoped, Zoran lying there amidst the rubble.
Instead it was a woman, one of the Montosians. She was staring fixedly upwards, and Si Cwan knew immediately that she was not going to live much longer. Her eyes were already beginning to mist over. He wasn't even sure if she could see
Soleta looking down at her.
"Who did this to you?" Soleta was asking her. Si Cwan didn't understand the question at first. Obviously, the explosions and devastation caused by the Dogs of War were responsible for leaving this woman half-buried under rubble. But then he understood as soon as he got a bit closer.
The woman wasn't simply suffering from having rubble fall on her, although certainly that would have been enough for anyone. There were bruises, cuts all over her in a systematic pattern. The antennae on her forehead, characteristic of Montosians, had been severed, and there was dried blood from the incision all over her face. This woman hadn't just been injured. She had been systematically tortured.
"Who," Soleta repeated slowly, "did this to you?"
"Dogs..." the woman managed to say. Blood was trickling from the edges of her mouth even as she said it.
"Obviously, they wanted some sort of information from her," Kebron said.
Si Cwan nodded in agreement. "Apparently, this little attack wasn't as random as it originally seemed. But... why her?"
Kebron shrugged or at least tried to. He wasn't really built for shrugging.
"Why? Why did they do this to you?" Soleta asked her. "What did they want to know?"
"Riella..."
The name meant nothing to Si Cwan, and he could see that it likewise rang no bells with the others. Furthermore, he could tell that they were running out of time. The woman was obviously fading fast. "Perhaps you can mind-meld with her," he suggested. "You can-"
"No," Soleta said quickly and firmly.
"Soleta," Kebron said, "as much as I dislike agreeing with Cwan, it might be more efficient to-"
"I said no." And it was evident from her tone that no further discussion was going to take place on the topic. She turned instead back to the woman and said,
"Who is Riella? Why did the Dogs do this to you? Please..."
"Save... Riella..."
"We will," Si Cwan told her confidently, although naturally he had no idea whom he had just pledged to save. Then, hazarding a guess, he asked, "Is she your daughter?"
She didn't respond immediately, and when she did, her voice quavered as if she were exhaling some great secret. And when she did speak, Si Cwan couldn't quite make out what she had said. "Inkso?" he asked, puzzled. "What is... Inkso?"
"She said, "Think so,'" Soleta told him, but she didn't appear to understand the words any more than Si Cwan did.
Then there was a gurgling deep in the woman's throat. Liquids began to ooze from her mouth, her nose. Her eyes had completely blanked over; she was no longer looking upwards, but instead into herself. And she said something so softly that
Si Cwan missed it entirely. Then there was a rattle from her that he knew all too well... the last noise that a creature makes, which is surprisingly similar for a variety of races. She didn't move, her head did not slump over at all. But even so, it was clear that she was gone.
Si Cwan sat back on his haunches, shaking his head over the utter waste of life.
He glanced over at Kebron and then did a double take. The blood from some of
Kebron's wounds had crusted over and Kebron was calmly removing the scabs. Si
Cwan couldn't quite believe it. Under the departed scabs, the wounds were healed.
"I told you it wasn't blood," Kebron said calmly when he noticed Si Cwan staring at him. "It's a special secretion that Brikar can generate that heals wounds."
"I've never seen you do that before." "It is not... without effort. I felt it... necessary." "Were the wounds that severe?" "Yes," was all Kebron said, and Si
Cwan could tell from the look of him that that was all he was going to say on the subject.
Then Si Cwan felt slightly dizzy again. Frustrated at what he saw as annoying weakness, he nevertheless knew that continuing to stand was going to be problematic. So, trying to make the action appear as leisurely as possible, he settled himself back down to the ground, draping his arms over his knees and shaking his head in a discouraged manner. "What an exercise in futility. Soleta
... did you see anyone else around? A Thallonian, perhaps?"
She shook her head. "No. Just this woman. I suspect that the Dogs came here first, captured the woman and tortured her while attacking the rest of the city
... to amuse themselves, if nothing else."
"But why? Why this woman? The things she said... 'Riella,' 'Think so...' None of it makes sense." He sighed, and then asked, "Did you manage to make out the last thing she said?"
"I believe so. But it did not make much sense."
"Well, what was it?"
"I believe she said, 'Quiet place.' "
The moment the words were out of her mouth, all the fatigue, all the frustration, all the muscle aches, everything that Si Cwan had been feeling up until that moment, vanished. He was on his feet and he gripped Soleta's shoulders with such ferocity that she actually winced. "Are you sure? Are you sure that's what she said? 'Quiet place?' "
"Reasonably, yes. What-?"
He released his hold on her shoulders and stepped back, obvious concern in his eyes. Soleta and Kebron were looking at each other in confusion, and then back to Si Cwan. "Cwan... what is it?" demanded Kebron. "Do you know this... 'Quiet place?' "
Si Cwan looked at his allies levelly and said, "No. Never heard of it." And with that, he turned on his heel and walked quickly away.
"Interesting," Kebron said thoughtfully. "Who would have guessed that Si Cwan was that bad a liar?"
VUL
XYON HAD ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA what to make of her, particularly when she woke up screaming.
The pale-skinned girl sat up abruptly in the bed that Xyon normally occupied.
Her eyes were wide open, but when he went to her and passed his hands in front of her eyes, she wasn't focusing on him. "Calm down!" he shouted, but she didn't seem the least bit inclined to do so. Instead, she just shouted and howled and struggled about. She did this so violently that the shoulders of her dress slid down. Xyon found that to be momentarily distracting, which in turn proved to be something of a mistake. While his attention was diverted, one of her arms whipped around and smacked him upside of the head. He fell back, his ears ringing, and he shook his head and tried to reorder his momentarily scrambled senses.
In the meantime, the girl was practically tearing at her own face. He couldn't blame her entirely; he knew she had been through a lot and was frightened and disoriented. On the other hand, being whacked around on his own ship was not his idea of a good time.
Lyla's voice filtered through the speakers that were omnipresent in the ship.
"Are you having difficulty, Xyon?" she asked solicitously.
By that point, Xyon had managed to pin her wrists and immobilize her. She was still thrashing about, however. "What gave you that idea?" he grunted.
There was a momentary pause, and then Lyla said, "That was sarcasm, was it not?
I'm still learning my way around that one."
Xyon rolled his eyes; at that moment the girl started to sit up violently once more. She pulled one hand free, surprising Xyon with her display of remarkable strength, and then she clawed at his face. She managed to come into contact, raising a nasty welt on his cheek. By that point, Xyon had more than had enough.
He hauled back and smacked her across the face, not out of desire to hurt or abuse her, but rather in the way that one customarily deals with a person who has totally lost control and fallen into a fit of hysterics: By hoping that the shock and suddenness of the slap would bring that person back to his or her senses.
This slap, howev
er, had a far more profound and surprising impact than Xyon could possibly have anticipated. When he slapped her across the face... her antennae fell off.
He had not known exactly what to expect when he'd struck her, but certainly knocking a piece of her anatomy off had not been it. But that was exactly what had happened. The thing had just snapped off and clattered to the floor. Xyon stared at it stupidly for a moment. The girl, meantime, was still spasming in the bed, although the fits seemed to be subsiding somewhat.
Xyon grabbed up the antennae and, in a move born of a combination of both alarm and chagrin rather than any reasonably thought-out course of action, he pushed the antennae against her forehead as if hoping that somehow the thing would adhere once more. This, naturally, did not work overmuch. He pressed firmly, released, and then watched the antennae fall off once more. Truly, he felt embarrassed over the incident. It was not as if he had tried, with some hostility, to remove the small forked things as some sort of retribution or act of sadism. It had just separated. Nor were Xyon's efforts going very far to accomplish anything.
She was lying there and now the panic seemed to have subsided. Slowly, she sat up and her attention focused for the first time on Xyon. "Who..." She blinked once more. "Who are you?"
"I'm Xyon. I..." He shrugged. "I rescued you."
"Oh." She didn't seem to know quite what to say in response to that.
"Are you all right?"
"Oh... perfect." She eyed him suspiciously. "Am I a prisoner here?"
"What? Uhm, no. No, not at all."
"Then I can leave."
"Nnnnno. No, you can't leave." He shrugged. "Sorry."
With mounting annoyance, she said, "If I'm not a prisoner, then I should be able to leave. One follows the other."
"Well, then I guess one shouldn't necessarily have expectations," Xyon told her, making no effort to hide his annoyance with her attitude. "For example, I saved your Me from the Dogs of
War, at no small personal risk. Under ordinary circumstances, one would think that such an action would rate, at the very least, a thank you. One follows the other. But I suppose that would be expecting too much, wouldn't it."
She opened her mouth to reply, then closed it again. Her face softened slightly and she said quietly, "Thank you."
"You're welcome."
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't be rude. I've been through more than you can imagine, and my head hurts so mu-"
She put her hand to her head to rub it... and felt the vacancy. Her eyes widened in shock. "My... my antennae! Where are... what... what happened to-"
A bit chagrined, he held them up. "I think you're looking for these."
Immediately the more conciliatory tone in her voice vanished, to be replaced by alarm and hostility. "What did you do? What did you do?!?"
"Nothing! I didn't do anything! They just kind of... fell off."
"Kind of fell off! Body parts don't just fall off!" She snatched them from his grasp and looked at them with growing horror. "You removed them! Why would you do such a twisted thing!"
"But I didn't! I didn't do any such thing!"
"Yes, you did!"
"No, I-" He put up his hands as if directing traffic. "Look... it really doesn't matter whether you believe me or not. I know what I did and didn't do. Your opinion isn't really relevant. All I can tell you is that I didn't, and I wouldn't hurt you, and to be blunt, you'd better pray that I'm being honest with you. Because if I did want to hurt you, there isn't a thing you could do about it." He sighed deeply and reached out a hand to her. "Listen," he began.
But she scuttled back on the bed, pressing herself against the wall, trying to get as far from him as she could, her gaze never wavering or leaving him for so much as an instant. This was sorely trying Xyon's patience. He understood that she was confused and scared, and that all of this must be tremendously disorienting for her. By the same token, he found himself seized by a desire to just slap her... this time not as part of an endeavor to snap her out of a fit of hysteria, but rather because she was, frankly, getting on his nerves.
"I want to get out of here," she said tersely.
"All right. Fine. Have it your way. The door's right over there." He pointed at it while making no effort to impede her path.
She looked at the door suspiciously as if she was anticipating a trick. But he could not have appeared more benign, sitting as unmoving as a stone statue.
Within moments she was on her feet and men she was through the door.
Xyon still didn't move. He stayed right where he was, listening to the sound of her feet as she ran down the ship's single corridor which led to the fore section. Then she stopped running, which he had expected. After all, it wasn't as if she could go much farther than she had. The ship wasn't that big. Long moments passed; when no sound was forthcoming, he walked out of the bedroom with leisurely gait and headed for the front of the ship.
The girl was standing there, staring out the front viewport. Her mouth was hanging open, and she was so stunned that he was able to close her mouth by pushing up on her chin, and she didn't even seem to notice that he had done so. Her gaze was fixed on the stars all around them.
"You see the problem with leaving," he said.
She nodded. Then she leaned forward, as if that gesture would bring her even closer to them. "They... they don't twinkle."
"Of course not. Twinkling is caused by distortion of light through your planet's atmosphere. Once you're out hi space, they shine steady, like beacons."
"Out in space." She spoke with such incredulity that it reminded Xyon, ever so slightly, of the wonder of it all. To Xyon, space was simply something to survive in. An airless, freezing and unforgiving vacuum that was a sort of ever-present opponent. One mistake, one slip in his vigilance, and it would crush his ship and him without even noticing. He would just be another bit of space-going flotsam and just as important. It had not inspired in him any sense of awe for a very long time. But seeing it through her eyes made him recall, ever so faintly, the first time that he had set off into space. He hadn't been much older than she, as he recalled. Back then, it had all been a great adventure. In many ways, it still was. But these days he was more concerned with survival than anything else.
"I'm out in space," she said again. She shook her head. "You have... you have no idea... so many years... so many years, I wondered what it would be like.
.. and my mother, she said that only fools would... would ever leave Montos.
.. and I dreamed of other places, and the dreams frightened me, and I..."
''" He wasn't sure that he entirely knew what she was talking about. She was speaking so quickly, about so many things, and she didn't seem at all focused.
He put a hand on her shoulder, and it felt remarkably cool to the touch. He was also a bit surprised to see that she was looking a little more tanned than she had earlier. Her skin was darkening a bit, and he wondered why that might be.
As caught up in the wonder of the moment as she was, she still shrugged his hand off her shoulder. Talk about presence of mind.
"Riella..." he began.
She turned and looked at him hi surprise. "How do you know my name?"
"I have ways of learning things. Of learning your name... and learning of the
Quiet Place."
The effect the mention of those words had upon her was electric. She shrank back from him as if he had pulled out a vicious weapon and was about to gut her with it. "How... how could you... it... how..."
"You tend to do that quite a bit. Stammer out a series of barely connected thoughts. You might want to work on that."
"Who are you?!"
"I'm Xyon."
"I know that!"
"Then why did you ask?"
She put her face in her hands, and her fingers brushed against where her antennae had been. As if touching the now vacant area reminded her, she backed away from him while never taking her gaze from him. She was acting very much like a trapped animal.
"Shoul
dn't you be demanding that I take you home about now?" said Xyon, his arms folded across his chest. "I mean, that is where this is going, isn't it?"
"No. I..." She looked decidedly crestfallen. "I can't go home, I can't..." She turned and looked back at him as if truly seeing him for the first time. "What happened to those creatures? The ones who were chasing me?"
"I had a chat with them. They agreed to leave you alone."
She looked at him with a trace of the wonderment that she'd been gazing out at the stars with. "Who are you? I mean, yes, I know your name is Xyon. But who are you?"
Star Trek - NF - 07 - The Quiet Place Page 13
