Endurance (40 page)

Can you hear me
? I crawled forward, and watched the goo shrink back against the wall.
Can you understand what I’m thinking
?

*don’t*have*to*yell*

“Great. Glop with a sense of humor.” I sat back and tried to control the intensity of my thoughts.
Can you understand me
?

*yes*

I had to find out where it had come from, how it had gotten through the quasi-quartz.
Are you a prisoner here
?

*pel*is*here*

It didn’t understand me.
Yeah, I know you’re here. Were you in a confinement pit? How did you get through the wall
?

It didn’t respond. I sat back down with a thump and pressed my hands to my head, which was starting to ache.
Strange, you feel just like the Lok-Teel
.

*lok*teel*
It seemed to think that over for a minute.
*pure*keep*all*

That’s all it does. Keep things pure and tidy. Including my patients, thank God
.

*keep*pel*tid*y*
A small stream of goo came out of the solid wall and joined with the larger blob, increasing the mass until it was equal in size to me.

You’re not hungry, I hope
.

*hun*gry*

The vibration had a faint intonation to it this time, an uprising change in intensity. Evidently the pel could pick up some of the nuances of human thought and make an echo into a question.
Never mind. You’re not big enough to eat me
.

*pel*big*
More streams of glop erupted from the wall and added to the massive blob.

I don’t need proof
! I had to chuckle. The sound seemed to mesmerize the creature.
Besides, if you fill up this space, I’ll suffocate, and they’ll shoot you or something. If they could tell the difference between you and the quasi-quartz
.

*quas*i*

It seemed to ponder that for a moment, then reversed, and slowly ran up along the cracked surface of the wall. I gasped out loud when I realized what it was doing—repair work. Whatever it touched solidified back into its former state. A few moments later, the wall was completely whole again.

You didn’t bust through the quasi-quartz, you ARE the quasi-quartz
.

*pel*is*not*pel*is*

An image of the sentient crystal that had saved two lives back on the
Sunlace
formed in my head. And I wasn’t generating it.
Is this one of your kind
?

*yes*pel*

How many of you live on this asteroid?

*pel*is*
It didn’t try to echo the last word. Instead, it swiftly formed a sphere, and solidified its outer surface into perfect, six-sided hexagons.

*pel*

The sphere split in half, revealing the center, swirling and undulating.

*pel*

This entire asteroid is pel
?

It resumed its blob form.
*is*pel*

If this entire world was actually a colonial mass of sentient beings—

Pel, we need to talk about a few things
.

It took time. The pel didn’t altogether grasp the intricacies of humanoid communication, and seemed to have a problem understanding certain ideas and phrases. It understood that its surface was occupied by other beings. It could even differentiate between species, but the contrasts made it think we were “impure”—covered in dirt, I realized.

Learning that the Lok-Teel fungi was actually a cooperative symbiot that cleaned and consumed impurities from the pel surprised me. Impurities …

Is that why your center is black? Because the Lok-Teel can’t reach it and purify it
?

*black*not*pel*

What is it
?

*tul*
The thought/vibration transmitted a deep ache into my limbs.

Of course, the physician in me responded at once.
Is tul a sickness? Is the pel sick
?

*tul*not*pel*

It didn’t understand me.
Why does it grow in the pel? Is it infecting you
?

*tul*kill*pel*

Maybe it was some kind of mineral parasite. Or enemy life-form.
So we’re not the only ones with problems
.

*tul*pel*
The glop settled for a moment.
*hskt*skt*slave*

I grinned and patted the blob.
That’s it. The tul is to the pel what the Hasktskt is to the slave
.

*lok*teel*kill*tul*
The glop enlarged abruptly.
*slave*kill*hskt*skt*

No, I had to backtrack. I thought once more of the separated chunk of crystal on the
Sunlace
, and felt a tremor of something odd.
Do you miss that part of yourself
?

*yes*mine*taken*

That’s what the Hsktskt did to us
. I formed a mental image of the NessNevat world, where the Hsktskt had nearly wiped out an entire race.
What the Hsktskt did to these beings
.

The clear glop suddenly shot out in a gleaming, sharp column, and smashed into the opposite wall. More shards sprayed all over me.

*pel*help*slaves*

Yes
. I resisted an urge to hug the glop.
We could use a little help like that
.

The pel stayed with me as I explained. Over the following hours, it slowly grasped more understanding of my thoughts, which allowed me to communicate exactly what kind of help the prisoners would need, once the liberation forces arrived.

I sent it back into the wall when I saw the hatch slide open, and the retrieval clamps lower into the pit.
Go now. Wait for me to contact you
.

*pel*wait*
The glop funneled itself into the wall and disappeared.

SrrokVar was waiting up top, and personally removed me from the retrieval unit.

“What’s the matter, Lord?” I tried to free myself, but he wasn’t letting go. “Get tired of harassing my patients?”

“Greetings, Doctor.” He stared down, then nodded his head. “As I suspected.”

My PIC had healed over, but that didn’t matter now that I was a member of the Faction. I told him that, too. Loudly.

“I neglected to mention your union with OverMaster HalaVar has been rescinded, didn’t I? No matter. We will make restoring your designation our first priority.”

P
ART
F
OUR

Insurrection

Table Turns

I made it to the crying chambers without pleading, but I fought the centurons every step of the way. Cold sweat ran down the sides of my face as they wrestled me into a suspension rig, then hoisted me off the floor upside-down.

“You’re not going to get away with this!” I shouted, trying to free myself, knowing it was hopeless. All right, Cherijo, calm down. It will all be over in a few minutes. “As soon as Reever finds out I’m here—”

“HalaVar will not be removing you on this or any other day, Doctor.” SrrokVar activated the laser array and targeted my right forearm. “You see, he believes you are still in solitary confinement.”

My heart rate sped out of control. Incongruously, time seemed to slow down. The beam flashed, then took forever to reach my arm. Scalding heat spliced my flesh, but it didn’t move. My throat locked when I realized SrrokVar had calibrated the laser to the lowest speed.

This wasn’t going to take a few minutes.

I fought the mind-scrambling panic. “No! Just do it and get it over with!”

“Calm yourself, my dear.” SrrokVar drew closer, observing and tapping notes into a data pad. “Or can’t you?” He peered at my face as I gasped for breath. “No, I don’t believe you can. You’ve been burned before, haven’t you, Doctor?”

The
Sunlace.
Trying to rescue Tonetka and the children. The fire between us
—

“Is that why you’re so afraid of the sensation? Have you been fighting those memories? Or reliving them?”

I couldn’t answer. Pain and hysteria descended, corroding my breath, my control, my sanity.

Before everything spun out of coherency, I saw the Hsktskt shake his head, heard him say, “Subject displays severe phobic reaction to …”

Strangling terror slammed a wall between me and my surroundings, leaving me imprisoned in an airless pocket of fire. I saw my fingers shred as I climbed over the rubble, felt the veils of flame drape over my body. Blackened, charred bodies, the memory of those I hadn’t saved, crowded the smoke-stained deck of the
Sunlace
. Bile surged up, but even that remained trapped. Nothing would unlock the frozen muscles of my throat.

I wasn’t going to save anyone this time
…. I
was going to burn and burn and burn
….

Before I could black out from lack of oxygen, a cruel hand forced an endotracheal tube into my throat. The now-familiar burn of pure oxygen billowed down into my chest, pushing my lungs out, keeping my body alive.

No
… I fought to dislodge the tube penetrating the swollen tissues of my throat.
Just let me die
….

Something stung the side of my neck. Drugs entered my bloodstream, speeding through my veins into my heart, which began hammering faster and faster. Stimulants. SrrokVar wasn’t going to let me miss a single moment.

There was no place to go. I tried to cower behind a mental wall, but the pain swelled over it and found me. In a haze of convulsive shudders, I heard someone calling to me.

Joey
.

I raced to find the path to the inner place.
Maggie, help me
! Yet the wall I’d erected had begun to close in around me, imprisoning me in a mental confinement pit. A pit lined with razor-sharp teeth.
Maggie, for God’s sake
!

The memory of my surrogate mother’s voice came to me with another, suffocating wave of torment—
He’ll keep at you for as long as it takes to satisfy his curiosity
—
and that’s endless
.

Endless. No. I couldn’t take this.

Maggie’s voice took on a beseeching tone.
Call him, Joey. Call to the one who loves you. The one who can save you
.

Two faces merged in my mind. Reever. Noarr. I loved them both, but only one would save me.

Reever
!

At the sound of his name, the walls collapsed, and agony began tearing me apart.

I don’t know how long SrrokVar worked on me. I didn’t care. The pain had thrust me into a tight, dark, airless chamber. No doors. No windows. Just me, agony, and the sound of my own screaming.

With or without SrrokVar’s special treatment, I knew I would scream in that chamber forever.

Yet eventually the pain stopped. It didn’t dwindle. It was there one moment, gone the next. Or perhaps my awareness of it had discontinued. I remained, huddled, terrified, my throat raw, my muscles unresponsive.

I really, really wanted to stop screaming. I just couldn’t. Slowly the darkness came alive with sound. At first a mere hum, passing through the unyielding walls to whisper against my hypersensitive flesh. I squeezed myself tighter, smaller, still shrieking mindlessly.

The hum became a voice. The voice called out a word. No, not a word. A name.

Cherijo
.

It knew me, it was coming for me, and it promised no more pain. A trick, I decided, and kept yelling without words, hoping, praying that would be enough to drive it away.

It wasn’t.
Cherijo, I am here
.

The chamber disintegrated, and I was left alone in the boundless dark, trying to fold in upon myself, fear stealing what little air remained. I didn’t have enough breath to scream anymore; all I could do was hope it wouldn’t find me.

Hands touched me, then came a coolness so soothing that I wept. And still I couldn’t unlock myself from that little ball of misery.

Look at me
.

No way was I doing that. If I did, I’d see SrrokVar. I’d see my severed hand dangling from the suspension clamp. I’d see the truth of where I was, what had put hands on me, and what was coming next.

“Cherijo.” A gentle caress on the side of my face. “Look at me,
Waenara
.”