by Roxie Ray
Surge moved in and out, in and out, his hips rocking against mine as I hugged him between my thighs. Our faces remained inches apart, and I released the pillow from between my teeth, allowing him to kiss me and nip at my lower lip with his fangs. The expression on his face was so blissfully unguarded that in that moment, I was certain I was seeing the real him at last. Even the Hakkas mask he wore couldn't hide the rapture in his eyes as he claimed me.
I could feel the ridge on his cock fanning out, pushing against my inner walls in all the right places. I dug my nails into his back and called out his name – his real name – as my climax tore through my entire body, hot and loose and burning, like the molten guts of a volcano blasting forth. A split second later, his orgasm gushed through me, cold and refreshing, putting out the fires that raged uncontrollably within me.
Then we were tangled in each other's arms, sweating and panting and groping.
After a few moments, I glanced at his face and saw that he was looking out the window of the exam room pensively.
“What are you thinking about?” I asked, nibbling at his earlobe.
Surge frowned. “The stars.”
“Well, that's certainly romantic.”
“Not exactly. I'm considering their patterns, and the meanings behind them. I've never believed in astrology, and I don't now, either. But Karaak clearly does, so the answers we seek regarding his true motives are there somewhere. I am unable to make sense of them, but there must be someone else here who can.” He thought for another moment, and then said, “Korkos has mentioned star signs several times. Now that I've bought his loyalty, perhaps he can tell me what I need to know.”
I pondered this for a minute, and then shook my head, getting up to put my clothes back on. Much as I wished I could remain in his arms for the rest of the day – or forever, for that matter – I didn't want to take the chance that Lozar might wake up... or that Karaak might pay another unexpected visit. “That's a risk I definitely wouldn't take if I were you. Korkos is obsessed with stars and horoscopes, and yeah, he is greedy enough to do just about anything you ask of him. But that's because he thinks you're some big-time Sive boss. You start asking about this stuff, he might suspect you're up to something in here that goes beyond running a gang. Which could spook him enough to report it back to Karaak.”
Surge grinned, standing up and latching the crotch of his coveralls again. “You have quite the tactical mind, Paige. Even Dhimurs would be impressed.”
“Who?”
He waved the question off. “No matter. If all goes according to plan, you will meet him soon enough. But then who would...?” His voice trailed off as his eyes lit up.
“What? What are you thinking?”
“What do you know about a prisoner called 'Boola?’”
I thought it over. “Not a lot, really. She's the only Lunian on the station, other than Karaak himself. They call her 'Mad Boola,' because she's supposed to be completely insane. Which isn't much of a surprise... from what I've heard, she's always been kept in the seg cells with the dimensional emitters cranked full-blast, which would be enough to drive anyone crazy. There are rumors that she might be Karaak's sister, but I don't know how true that is. The inmates like to amuse themselves by making up a lot of wild stories, as you may have noticed.”
“A Lunian... and perhaps, Karaak's own sister,” Surge mused. “Yes. She seems like the one most likely to understand and interpret these clues for me. I must go and see her. I will have Korkos take me there at once.”
“Here, hang on a moment.” I went to one of the medication cabinets and rummaged around, looking for a specific bottle of liquid with a dropper in the lid. When I finally found it, I handed it to him. “Boola's mind is so damaged from the disruptor fields that she barely makes sense most of the time, and you'll only have one shot at making this work. Give her a few drops of this when you see her. It should help stabilize her brainwaves. The effects won't last long, but...”
He held the transparent bottle up to the light with a smile and a nod. “Good thinking, Paige.”
As he left the infirmary, I said a silent prayer that all of this would be enough.
13
Surge
“Hey, look, buddy, I'm really not so sure about this.” Korkos licked his lips nervously, peering over his shoulder for what seemed like the thousandth time as he led me down to the seg cells. “I mean, yeah, the rulas are good and you seem like you know what you're doing...”
“I do,” I assured him flatly. “And if it's a question of more money, stop stammering and name the amount.”
“No, it ain't that,” he insisted. “Fact is, I'd give back a hundred rulas – two, even – if you say we can just turn around and forget about the whole thing right now.”
“I have no intention of doing that. I must speak with the one called Boola.”
“That's the thing, though.” He used the sleeve of his jailer's uniform to wipe the sweat cascading from his pockmarked brow. “There's no point talking to her, because nothing she says makes any damn sense. Her brains are mush, understand? Any time anyone opens her seg cell, she just moans and cries and babbles a bunch of meaningless crap. What the hell do you want to talk to her for, anyway?”
“She is still a Lunian, is she not? The moon-wizards are a wise and powerful people... presumably, even deranged ones still have valuable insights. Ones which might give me a useful advantage over my enemies in this place.”
“Yeah, yeah, you're a real smart guy and all, trying to play all the angles.” The closer we got to the lowest level of the prison, the more I could see that Korkos was noticeably trembling from sheer terror. “And I respect that, okay? Sure I do. But the thing is, Karaak... well, most of the stuff that goes on around here is beneath his notice, you know?
“Which prisoners get sent where, which ones terraform and which ones get assigned to other jobs, all that. Boola, though, that's different. That's a whole other thing. He specifically put her down here himself. He checks up on her now and then, just to make sure she's still locked away and drooling. If he found out I was taking you to see her...”
“Then you had better do everything in your power to ensure that he does not,” I commented simply. “Or it seems we will both find ourselves in a great deal of trouble.”
When we reached the entrance to the seg cells level, Korkos' key card shook in his hand as he tried to insert it into the reader. I didn't need my psychic abilities to tell me that he saw this as his last chance to change his mind and turn back.
“If it makes this decision easier for you,” I whispered in his ear menacingly, “you should know that I intend to double your payment next week if you do this for me... just as I intend to have your brother Vakos on Desnea Prime tortured and killed if you do not.”
His eyes widened with a mixture of shock, fear, and anger. I relished his response, silently thanking Dhimurs for providing that tidbit of information when I spoke with him before coming down here.
“You'll triple my payment,” Korkos said hoarsely, “and you'll never bring Vakos up again.”
I nodded placidly, gesturing to the lock.
Korkos took a deep breath, gulped... and slid the card into the lock. The console beeped, and the heavy door swung open like the hungry rusted maw of some metal giant.
The corridor was dark, musty, and filled with the howls and screeches of those who were being tormented inside the seg cells. Disgusting multi-legged vermin from half a dozen different worlds skittered and nested on the filthy floor, weakly lit by a series of dim yellow orbs above.
I'd heard a lot about these cells since my arrival, from hardened criminals and vicious monsters who still turned pale and terrified at the thought of being subjected to them, even for a single day. Each chamber was equipped with rings of field emitters that essentially transported the cramped spaces to grotesque alternate dimensions... some prowled and haunted by unspeakable cosmic entities, others filled with crushing nothingness that deprived all the senses
and left prisoners tumbling forever into the darkest voids of their own souls.
If I wasn't careful, I could end up in one of them.
Or even worse, Paige could.
For a strange moment, I found myself hesitating – tempted to turn back and leave it alone, to find some other way to get the answers I needed. I wasn't frightened for myself, but perhaps there was something I hadn't thought of, some approach that wouldn't risk as much exposure or put Paige in danger if I was found out. Now that we'd shared such intimacy, the thought of losing her so soon after I'd found her...
But no. Deep down, I knew that this was the quickest way to get the information I needed. And the sooner I did, the sooner I could take her away from all this.
Korkos brought me in front of one of the cells. Unlike the others, it had a covered observation window installed in the door. He looked around furtively one more time, mumbled something about how “B'Naaka always goes for his fifth snack of the morning around this time,” and punched the button that made the cover over the window retract.
At first, all I could see were swirling pools of darkness, punctuated by sudden crackling flares like purple lightning bolts. I briefly wondered what dimensional frequency the cell was set to – whether I might be staring through a glass into the stygian depths of hell itself.
Then Korkos hit another button, and the darkness cleared immediately, revealing the cell's occupant.
My eyes widened.
Just as it had been with Karaak, Boola was unlike any Lunian I had previously encountered. The inner glow her people were known for had clearly been snuffed out long ago. She was hunched over, and her haggard, ancient face was a roadmap of deep lines and old scars. Her prison uniform had been torn to thin shreds, revealing a body that was sagging and shapeless, muscles withered and atrophied from lack of use. She was covered in dirt, and the tips of her long fingers were scabbed over.
The state her cell was in, though, was even stranger – a testament, it seemed, to her madness.
She had ripped pieces from her clothes and unraveled them, using the threads and ribbons to make small spheres which hung suspended from the ceiling at various intervals. Several were color-coded with what looked like her own bodily fluids, plus the moisture and slime trickling down the walls around her. Every surface was covered with what looked like complex star charts, inked in her blood... which explained the gruesome condition her fingers were in.
I had never seen anyone so frail and pitiable in my entire life. What's more, I found the way she looked at me with her pale, cloudy eyes to be most... unnerving.
“Leave us,” I told Korkos.
“Yeah, sure,” he said uneasily, turning to leave, “but you've only got a few minutes, all right? Seriously, that's all I can allow, no matter what you pay me or threaten me with.”
He skulked off, and I stood there, staring at Boola without knowing what to say to her. How could I get any answers when I didn't even know how to frame the questions?
Well, first things first.
I removed the tiny bottle from the pocket of my uniform, lifting the dropper out of it. “Here. Take this. It will ease some of your pain.”
For a moment, it looked like Boola would refuse. But then her already-stooped shoulders slumped further, and she opened her mouth, allowing me to squeeze several drops of the solution onto her dry, cracked tongue. After a few seconds, she nodded, seeming to come to her senses a bit.
“I know why you have come,” she told me in a high, cracked, querulous voice. “Yes. You see his pattern, but you do not understand it. You would stop him, yes... but can a bat stop the moon from rising?”
My blood went cold. Why would she bring up bats? How much did she know about me?
“Maybe,” I replied carefully. “Bats may be small, but they're wily creatures. Get enough of them working together, you'd be amazed at what they can accomplish.”
Her brow crinkled... and slowly, she began to laugh. It was a wheezing, painfully rusty sound. “Boola likes you, Valkredian. Yes, she does. More than the one who came to me before, the fish-man. Your race knows the power of the blood. How it gives life and form and meaning to all things.”
I nodded, trying to encourage her. “He's using the blood of the prisoners, isn't he? Spilling it for some kind of ritual. But what of the star signs, Boola? What do they have to do with it?”
“Ritual. Yes. Stars. And the blood. The blood comes from the stars... the same atoms and minerals that were released at the beginning of all things. The signs, yes... more important than you know. They guide the ebb and flow of the blood throughout the universe.”
She turned in a circle, waving her damaged fingers at the patterns on the walls as though trying to connect the dots for me. “The right blood... shed upon the right stars... can alter the patterns of the cosmos. Draw them together into a ring of power. Of control.”
My eyes widened. “Do you mean… Karaak is using the for-profit prison business as a cover? Choosing the positions of the moons and planetoids he terraforms based on astrological charts, and arranging for specific inmates to spill their blood on the surface. So he can carve some kind of hex sign around the galaxy and channel its energies? By the Succubi, that's diabolical.”
“Once he has done this, his power will be greater than that of all Lunians combined. He will be a god, and all shall be his playthings.” She lowered her head, shaking it sadly. “Tried to stop him. I tried, I did, but... in the end, I could not destroy my brother. I held back, and he... did not.”
“No,” a chilling voice behind me said. “I did not.”
I whirled and saw Karaak standing in the corridor, holding Korkos up by his throat and leering at me nastily. I was amazed that he could sneak up on me like that – normally, no one could.
“I created the most ghoulish implement of torture I could think of,” Karaak went on, gesturing to the seg cells around us, “and I locked her inside forever, so her mind would be utterly broken and she would never defy me again. Then I rebuilt that same device, many times over, to imprison any others who might stumble upon my plans and attempt to interfere with them. I was certain it would happen eventually, and as it turns out, I was correct. However, I did not anticipate that one of my own jailers would facilitate such a discovery.”
“Please...” Korkos choked and gurgled. “Didn't... mean to...”
“Your motivations mean less than nothing to me, you greedy leech.” Karaak twisted his wrist, effortlessly snapping Korkos' neck and letting him fall to the floor in a heap.
Then the warden glided forward, putting one of his long fingers over the button on the console and clucking his tongue. “Perhaps another hundred years or so will teach you not to talk to strangers, dear sister.”
He pressed down, and the swirling horrors resumed inside the seg cell, cutting off Boola's scream before it could even escape her throat. Satisfied, the dark Lunian turned his full attention to me, wrapping his ice-cold hands around my neck implacably. I struggled to break free, but his grip was like iron – and when I kicked and flailed at his body, my strikes didn't seem to connect with anything, as though his robes were empty.
“Now then,” he began, his voice booming and reverberating in the shadowy hallway, “it appears I was so preoccupied with searching minds for escape plans that I neglected to keep an eye on the Sives. Of all the inmates who reside here, the Sives have always had the least inclination to break out – after all, why would they?
“They're spared terraforming duty, given preferential treatment, allowed to smuggle in whatever amusements they desire until their sentences have been served. They practically run my prison for me! As such, I am humbled to admit, you chose the perfect camouflage. Who sent you here, Valkredian? How much do they already suspect with regard to my machinations? What is your true identity?”
“Drop dead,” I spat. It was hard to summon the breath to say it – a little more pressure, and he'd crush my windpipe.
His eyes glowed with curdled yellow
light, and I could feel him trying to mentally push through the defenses of my psychic inhibitors. It was the same awful sensation I had during my first night of sleep here – that I was in a metal box, the walls crushing in around me as something terrible tried to smash its way in.
But the box held, and Karaak's face twisted into a snarl.
“It seems whatever technological trinkets your superiors bestowed upon you are strong enough to stand up to my powers. I suppose I could plunge my fingers into your skull and rip them out... but in doing so, the collateral damage I'd inflict might render you unable to speak or think at all. No matter. There are other ways to make you reveal your secrets to me.”
He dragged me down the hall to one of the seg cells, opened the door, and threw me inside with enough force to slam my head into the wall and make me see stars. Before I could scramble back to my feet, the door slammed shut behind me.
“We'll revisit these questions tomorrow, once you've had adequate time to fully consider your fate,” he growled. “Until then, enjoy oblivion – I have a very special dimensional frequency in mind for you... one that I'm sure you'll appreciate.”
I heard the sound of a button being pushed – and the seg cell fell away from me, turning my reality inside out.
Insects.
I couldn't see anything. The air around me was pitch black and horribly thick, pushing in on all sides. The gravity suddenly felt ten times stronger than I was used to, holding me down helplessly. My chest and throat were so heavy I could barely breathe.
But I could hear them. And feel them.
Their spindly legs and armored carapaces were creeping all over my body. Their antennae twitched in my hair and on my face. Their mandibles clicked and gnashed hungrily. Their larvae wriggled and squirmed against my skin.
A never-ending army of insects, wave after wave of them, roiling over me and exploring every inch of my body.
I was a warrior, and warriors didn't have phobias – they were weaknesses we couldn't afford. Even so, when I’d been young, I had always had an extreme distaste for insects. There was something about their beady blank eyes, the way they spread diseases, the way they crawled and insinuated themselves into every part of a home without being detected (until it was too late and they'd spawned hundreds, perhaps thousands, of offspring), that affected me on a visceral level.
