H.A.L.F.: The Makers (11 page)

“Ian, wait,” Dr. Randall said.

“What?” He said it over his shoulder but didn’t stop walking toward the light. “Push yourself, Doc. We’re almost there. I think.”

“What about Tex?”

Ian stopped and spun around, whipping Xenos around as well. “Forget Tex. He betrayed us. I’m not risking my life – again – for that little two-faced Judas.”

Ian voiced the feeling that had welled in Erika too. Tex must have known that the Conexus weren’t going to roll out the red carpet for them. He’d done the mind-meld thing with them or whatever it was. He must have seen what the Conexus planned for them. Yet he’d been insistent that they get on the ship.

But this was all conjecture on their part. Erika had no way of knowing for sure until she was able to talk to Tex.

“I can’t just leave him here. He’s my son,” Dr. Randall said.

“You may not be able to leave without him, but I sure as hell can,” Ian said. He shoved Xenos again to force her down the hallway toward the light.

“Ian, stop. This isn’t you. You’re scared – we all are, including Xenos. But we can’t leave without at least finding out if Tex was in on the plan or not,” Erika said.

Ian let out a growl and kicked his foot into the crumbly path. “Dammit.”

“Don’t be mad at me,” Erika said.

“I’m … I’m not mad at you. Just pissed in general ’cause you’re friggin’ right. Okay, Xenos, do you know where they’re keeping the other human that came with us from Earth?” Ian asked.

She nodded.

“That’s something at least,” Ian said. “Take us to him, then.”

Before Xenos could answer or point them in the right direction, she was on her knees, gasping for air, and Ian was thrown away from her. He was pinned to the wall like a fly to flypaper. He kicked his feet and strained, but he was unable to free himself from the invisible force that held him immobilized.

Erika turned toward the direction they’d come from. Three small beings glided toward her. Behind the three Conexus was a taller being. It had the same huge, hairless head as the others but was more robust. It also had slightly fuller lips, and its lower lip appeared to be tattooed with purple vertical lines that met in a point at the tip of its chin. The larger being spoke. “Xenos, you have disobeyed the commands of the Conexus. You will be punished.”

Xenos writhed on the floor as she gasped. Her pale, smooth skin turned an alarming shade of eggplant purple.

“Stop!” Erika screamed. “Don’t hurt her. We forced her to bring us here. Ian had hold of her.”

“That is of no consequence,” the larger Conexus said. “Xenos disobeyed the will of the Conexus.”

“Please,” Erika said. “She – she did not disobey. Her job was to keep us alive, right? And she did. We told her that we’d die if she didn’t bring us here. She didn’t fail your commands.”

The Conexus were only a few feet away now. The larger one looked to Erika then to Xenos. She lay with her head twisted to the side, her mouth locked open in a silent ‘O’, the veins in her temples throbbing.

The Conexus regarded each other. It appeared that they were engaging in conversation though they did not speak out loud.

Xenos coughed and gasped. She slowly stood, her hands shaking. She took huge gulps of air.

Erika was about to thank the Conexus, but before she could get the words out, her whole body rose into the air. She was held aloft by invisible hands. She and Dr. Randall hovered in the hallway while Ian still hung on the wall like a trophy kill.

“Xenos, you will follow,” the apparent leader said.

The Conexus turned back in the direction from which they’d come, and Erika was pulled along behind them by a lasso she couldn’t see. She looked toward Ian and was glad to see that he too floated in the air behind her. His arms and legs flailed as if that might help him get himself back to the ground. It didn’t work.

The Conexus twisted down this corridor then that. Erika again tried to memorize their route, but it was no use. What little concentration she might have mustered was destroyed by the disorientation of floating in the air. Her stomach fluttered with the panicky feeling that she would fall out of the air. She knew they would not drop her, but she couldn’t help feeling that way.

The Conexus stopped. The one on the right waved its hand and a door swooshed open. A brighter light came from inside the room. Not as bright as she’d seen at the end of that hallway that led to their way out, but brighter at least than the corridor. A slight breeze wafted over her skin as she was hovered to a table. She was slowly lowered onto a hard, cold slab.

She was glad to be out of the air. No sooner was she aware of the hard surface against her backside when a bright, white light turned on over her head. The light pained her eyes. She tried to raise her hand to shield her eyes, but her arms were pinned to the table by invisible restraints. Her legs too were pinned to the table.

She could move her head, but with the bright light blinding her, she saw nothing but shadows beyond the cone of brightness. “Dr. Randall?”

He didn’t answer. Erika didn’t know if he’d been left behind or if he was passed out.

“Ian?” Erika yelled. “Are you there?”

“Yeah. I’m here. This doesn’t seem good, does it?”

“No. Not good.” It didn’t bode well that she was immobilized on the table like a specimen pinned to a board, awaiting dissection. “Ian, whatever happens … I’m sorry.” A tear welled in the corner of her eye. “I’m so sorry.” She snuffled.

“Don’t blame yourself, Erika. I chose to come. I’m not like Jack. I don’t follow you around like a dog.”

Erika laughed a dry, small laugh. But at the mention of his name, visions of lazy afternoons listening to Jack strum the guitar and sing and of curling up against him while they watched movies came to her mind. And that thought led to other memories of her life on Earth. A life that now seemed like it belonged to another person entirely.
Was that even me?
On the precipice of what could be the end, any anger toward her mom melted away like ice in a Big Gulp on a summer day in Arizona. Her life played like a fast-motion movie in her mind, and the memories her brain chose to recall were the happy ones – of laughing and cooking in the kitchen with her mom and aunts, of the wind whipping her hair as she rode her bike, and the feeling of hot sun on her face.

Out of the blackness, a metallic arm swung toward her. Beyond the halo of bright white, she saw nothing. The terminus of the arm was a set of dull, grey pinchers holding what looked like a needle. As the arm moved, the air in the otherwise silent room was filled with the low whir of a machine’s motor. The arm swung up and came slowly toward her midsection.

Erika’s pits were wet with sweat and her face wet with tears. The needle reminded her of her narrow escape from Dr. Dolan’s injection of death.

The needle plunged into her stomach. It was more alarming than painful, and an involuntary scream escaped her lips. She could do nothing but watch as the needle’s plunger rose and sucked blood out of her.

A second arm whirred into action armed with a small silver gun. Erika trembled, her head shaking uncontrollably.
This is it
. Though why they’d take her blood then shoot her, she had no idea. Questions no longer mattered. Answers would not be given. It was the end.

The gun did not shoot her but instead injected something into her abdomen. It hurt less than a vaccine shot. Relief flooded her but was short-lived. At first her core was cold as though filled with ice. She shivered as threads of ice spread into her veins. But the chill soon turned to an inferno as liquid fire wound its way through her entire system.

Erika writhed and pulled at her invisible restraints, but she couldn’t get up off the table. She was forced to lay and wait for the fire to consume her from the inside out. As she lay on the hard table waiting for death to take her, she wished her mom was there to hold her hand.

U’Vol quietly uncoiled himself from the arms of his first wife and slipped from their warm bed. Shree’ka moaned softly and rolled onto her back. Her belly was swollen with their child. It would be U’Vol’s twentieth. He hoped it would be a daughter. He already had twelve sons. More than enough to fight over the right to become head of the household and manage his growing holdings when he was too old to do so.

He donned a simple, everyday robe. It was red, as was the customary color for any captain of a Vree ship. Though it lacked any embroidery embellishments, it was woven from the fine, silky threads spun by the giant arachnids of Ghapta. It glided smoothly over his hairless skin and caught only slightly on the deep, silvery scar on his shoulder.

U’Vol’s long legs carried him quickly to the mach, where he relieved himself of the prior evening’s danx wine. He had only to push a button and a servant would appear to attend to him. He’d been born into the space-faring hunter subdivision of the Vree class known as the Vree’Kah. The Vree were respected, feared even, but not part of the ruling elite and did not have servants. He had ascended to captain of his own ship only four years ago, a wisp of time for the M’Uktah. He was still unused to the luxury of servants and disliked the practice of bathing and dressing attendants. He lived for years in space and on foreign lands, the head of a company of Vree’Kah. To them he was simply U’Vol Vree’Kah – Vol the Noble Hunter. Aboard his ship, the
Dra’Knar
, they did not stand on ceremony when bathing off the blood of the kill.

U’Vol tended his own bath and oiled himself. His fingers were slippery from the thick, pungent oil that Vree’Kah used to keep their hairless skin from becoming dry.

All too soon his legs would ache from spending days inside his krindor, but even after three years home he felt naked without it. While on hunting missions, Vree’Kah spent most of their time wrapped in the mechanized exoskeleton custom made for each of them. The graphene skin of the krindor bonded to Vree skin like a form-fitting glove and was powered by the wearer’s bioelectric energy. Vree’Kah skin was hairless so that it maintained the conductivity required to power the suit as well as the nerve impulses from his brain to issue commands to the armor. As U’Vol thought about wearing his krindor, his pulse quickened and his nostrils flared as if trying to open wider to catch the scent of prey.

U’Vol entered the dining hall of his compound amidst the cacophony of voices of his large family. The children argued and joked while two of his wives, Threka Tu’Vol and Ghozam Tu’Vol, huddled in quiet gossip. They spoke intently as though the fate of the Council of U depended on what they said. Likely their talk consisted of nothing more than chatter about the two wives not present at first meal that morning.

The lively noise died down as he entered the room. His family rose from their seats and the threkka, the lead servant serving first meal, clapped her hands and announced him.

“Welcome your badi,” she said.

U’Vol’s children, all nineteen of them, fell into line from oldest, Vrak Tu’Vol, at nearly eighty years old and soon to observe the rights of manhood, to Vij Tu’Vol, no more than eight and still suckling at night. U’Vol kissed the forehead and spoke the name of each child as was the custom each morning. U’Vol figured that the custom was created by an angry wife after a husband forgot his children’s names.

Once U’Vol pecked a kiss on each child, they waited for him to give the nod to begin eating. Sometimes U’Vol took his time with the morning procession, hovering over each child, speaking to them, catching up on their news. When he first came home from a hunting expedition, he cherished this time with his brood.

But he’d done this ritual every morning now for nearly three years. The children were as tired of his queries as he was bored with the mundane answers they gave him. And this morning he had no time to linger. He was due to speak at the Council of U by midday.

He nodded and over forty hands reached for their food. They dined on the mild, pale flesh of the phlegering, a feathered and winged beast that the Vree had hunted on Ghapta, a lush, watery planet teeming with game. The phlegering paired nicely with the tangy berries servants had foraged in the brambles that formed a ring around his compound.

U’Vol ate lightly and refused the danx wine offered. He needed to remain sharp for his meeting with the council. As was his custom, he used the relay implanted in his temporal lobe to pull up reports from the various department heads of the
Dra’Knar
. The implant fed the information directly into his optic nerves, allowing him to read the reports and daily news no matter where he was or what he was doing. These implants were required for all Vree class. Not only was it convenient, it was also the most secure way to send classified information. No one could see what U’Vol read except for him, and the council could impart a message to him directly if needed without the fear that anyone else would see or have access to it. To those around him, it looked as though U’Vol was staring blankly off into space. But his family knew he was, in fact, working, not daydreaming.

After eating his fill of the phlegering and suffering the small talk required to keep the two most talkative of his four wives happy, he left the dining hall to seek the company of his third wife, Eponia Tu’Vol. She had been uncustomarily absent from first meal.
Perhaps she feels unwell.
He had spent as many nights with her as he could without raising the ire of his other wives against her. The womenfolk often skipped morning meal when they were with child. U’Vol’s full lips curved into an easy smile at the thought that Eponia might finally give him the son she longed for.

He hoped she would not turn him away. U’Vol yearned to taste her lips, but he also desired her wise counsel. Though Shree’ka was a capable manager, deftly handling both the finances and politics of the household, Eponia had a wisdom of the world and its politics that was rare for a woman.

He had taken Eponia as a wife over a decade before, and she had yet to bear him a son. By custom, he should have cast her down to be J’Eponia, stripped of her connection to him and forced to beg for food for herself and her children. But Eponia, knowing the unspoken laws and customs of their people as well as anyone, found a way to be of value to U’Vol and his household.