Stranger King (11 page)

Chapter Eighteen

On the
fourth day, Maria returned to him. She was dressed as the others and approached him apprehensively. Her affection toward him felt diminished. He felt she saw him as a monster now that the others could offer her more than he had.

After his discussion with Elias, he felt that she might not be wrong.

This time, she had brought a soft piece of cloth, a bar of something she called soap, and a bowl of water. She indicated that this was meant for washing. It occurred to him that after days of captivity, his body was beginning to smell unpleasant. For a moment he thought he should ask to be freed, to call on his prior kindness to her.

Yet as he reached out for the supplies and she flinched back, he decided not to push this connection. He would rather she come back to his side of her own accord. She once felt safe with him. Perhaps he could earn that trust again.

Instead he asked quietly for something to read. When she looked at him in surprise, he explained that he merely wished to learn more of the written French word. He could see her think through her decision. Elias must have told them about their conversation, as Thegn had assumed he would. Without a word of acknowledgment, Maria nodded, leaving the room and locking the door behind her. Thegn sniffed the soap. It consisted of animal fat, but nothing toxic to his skin. It would be good to feel clean again.

*

It was only a few hours later when the door was opened again. Elias was before him, offering a hand to help him off the floor. Thegn did not need the assistance, but took it as a sign of trust.

Elias brought Thegn back to the artificial garden, and he sat down in the grass again. Once he was settled, he saw the male and female Toolas from before enter the room. They must be group leaders, but of how many, Thegn did not know.

The two of them argued again, the male leaving the room, throwing his hands up in the air while the female Toola ignored him.

She kneeled down in front of Thegn, her eyes fixed on him as she began to speak to him in choppy French.

“You’re going to need to learn English,” she said, not showing any sign of fear. “Maria will give you whatever materials you need. Mandarin will be good for you to know as well. Elias will have to coach you on that, but we have very little written material in it. In return, you will work with us and give whatever information you can on your people to use to our advantage. I don’t want to hurt you, but I want my people to be able to survive. Is that understood?”

Thegn nodded as best as he could as the female stared at him.

“Another thing,” the female continued, “We are not Toolas. We are humans. People. I don’t care what you call us, just don’t use their word for us.”

“You would prefer ‘human’?” Thegn asked.

The female nodded.

“You are the leader among them,” Thegn stated.

The female responded, “As much as anyone is, I guess.”

“What should I call you?”

“Lena,” she replied, stretching out her hand. Thegn remembered this gesture and took her hand, shaking it cautiously as to not hurt her. He saw her flinch as she felt his skin, but to her credit, her gaze did not leave his face.

Thegn practiced her name out loud. He was still having trouble with some of the vowels in the two languages. There were fewer breathy sounds in his language. She seemed pleased when he managed it and rose to her feet.

“You may not leave the compound, but you may explore it with a translator. Doctors Beverly-Anderson and Boulos will be conducting other tests on you, but nothing evasive. The better we understand your kind’s anatomy, the better…”

Lena let the sentence trail off, but the meaning was still clear.

As Thegn was brought back to his room, a brief thought passed through him that he might be a traitor. He knew there was nothing he could do except to try to learn as much as he could. That was his mission and he had found himself in an opportune spot. Yet he felt that he might be orchestrating more death if he helped them, and that was against his vow to the Septun, to the Council.

Within the hour, Maria came to his room with a bundle of reading material, volumes of paper, and a few datapads in her arms. As she handed them to him, she rested her hand on his. He looked up at her in hope and she replied quietly, “Your skin is too smooth. They think it feels like silicone, like plastic. It makes you feel unreal to them. That is why they flinched.”

“And you?” He asked quietly.

“I have had time to adjust.”

Their eyes met and Thegn could not speak as she left the room, closing the door behind her.

*

Thegn was allowed into the common space of the compound the next day. He understood vaguely as the two doctors pointed at various parts of his body, explaining functions as best they could with a bit of help from Maria. The humans watched him with a mixture of expressions. A small child near his feet seemed genuinely interested in the webbing between his fingers.

The child crawled up to touch Thegn’s hands and an adult reached out to pull him away. Thegn indicated it was acceptable and the child was allowed to come closer, its tiny finger investigating the long fingers and triple joints. It turned to ask the adult a question and the others in the room laughed slightly.

Another adult came closer, touching Thegn’s hands as he held them out. Others came, examining his body more closely. He felt slightly uncomfortable, but he wanted them to understand him, not to fear him. Now that they knew he carried no disease that would hurt them, there was no reason to be afraid any longer.

He looked up as he saw Lena kneel in front of him, her hand reaching out and exploring his fingers. He felt his skin pale and saw her skin redden and flush as their eyes met once again. He studied her face, a strange sensation moving through his blood. When she caught herself and pulled back, the others followed the unspoken signal, backing away from Thegn.

Thegn was brought back to his room by Elias, who gave him what the humans called a smirk. When Thegn inquired to the meaning of the expression, Elias merely said that he was amused. Thegn pondered this between his studies.

*

Two days later, Thegn was allowed to work on his language skills out in the common area. Between Maria and Elias, his French and English were improving greatly. They let him do quiet work by himself, having brought in a cushion for him to sit on the floor comfortably.

Occasionally, he would ask for clarification and they would answer in return for an answer to one of their questions. Since most of this was based purely on curiosity, he was more than happy to oblige.

“What does this dash in between the words mean?”

“It’s called a comma. It means you need to make a space between the words, take a breath so you don’t say them all at once,” Elias explained. “How old are you?”

Thegn pondered this for a moment, “In standard years, I am 40 years old. In your years, 24 or 25. Approximately. Calculations have never been easy for me.”

“How long does your kind live?” Elias asked.

“In standard years, 150 or so. It depends on the Mokai. 90 or so in your years.”

“Very similar to us then,” Elias commented, surprised.

“Of all the species we have encountered,” Thegn replied, “I believe humans are the most similar to us. Esthetically as well as functionally. Perhaps we had a common ancestor. Perhaps our planets are similar enough. I do not know. I am not a scientist.”

The male human leader walked in and said, “That’s too bad. Now that would have made a worthwhile prisoner. I said it myself when we captured you. We finally caught one of the bastards and he had to be a priest.”

Thegn paled slightly as Elias spoke softly, “Sometimes those are the most dangerous of all, Kozol.”

Kozol laughed darkly and Thegn tried to meet his eyes as an act of submission. He glared in return and said quietly, “I don’t care how much you play along. You’ve been here less than a week. Your kind has been killing us off for over two years. I don’t care if you’re the messiah, if you hurt one of my crew, I will kill you myself and leave your corpse for the bastards to find. Is that understood?”

Thegn nodded as Kozol left the room.

Thegn turned to them to ask what two of the words had meant, but both shook their heads in quiet response.

Elias patted him on the shoulder, “I think our lesson is over for the day. You should go back to your room. I’ll leave you some reading materials.”

For the first time, Thegn really felt like a prisoner.

Chapter Nineteen

Thegn was
woken roughly, dragged from his room by two others he had not seen before. He tried to protest, but was slapped across his face. He protested no further.

He was thrown into the medical bay. He had been here only once in the past few days, for a rather invasive test they were not able to complete in his room. His cell.

He saw Kozol looming over a human wrapped in thermal blankets and breathing shallowly. Kozol looked up at Thegn, the two doctors standing beside him.

“What did your people do to her?” Kozol demanded.

“I’m not a doctor,” Thegn protested.

“We need your help,” Dr. Beverley-Anderson insisted, “I’ve never seen this sort of injury before. She may die if we don’t figure out how to treat it soon. Please, do what you can.”

Thegn nodded and stepped forth, pulling back the thermal blankets while weapons were pointed at his head. He took a deep breath and looked down at the injured human.

It was Lena, shivering, and bleeding from her side. She looked up at Thegn with bloodshot eyes and his ghele softened, beating slower in a response of sympathy. He kneeled down to get a better look, sniffing the wound for traces of poison. He saw them then, the fragments of the metal embedded in her skin. He sniffed them to confirm his suspicions.

He came back to his feet, struggling to explain what the substance was. It was not local to Toola, a metal that was not even local to his home world. It broke apart when it hit biological material, slowly burning its way into flesh, seeking heat. It would make its way to a heartbeat, eventually stopping it.

As Thegn struggled to explain this, the doctors looked at each other in confusion. He could not understand all that they spoke back and forth to each other. Kozol spoke to another male hurriedly, no doubt about the material itself.

Janiya asked, “How do we stop it?”

Thegn paused. He did not know. He looked down at Lena again, her bloodshot eyes meeting his. She was a stranger to him, yet he felt a sense of responsibility. She had given him a chance. He wanted to return the favor.

“My body can expel it, take the toxicity and expel it as a harmless material. You can study it then, find a way to prevent this from happening in the future,” Thegn said finally. “We need to transfer it to me. You must have noticed if you try to remove the pieces with any tools, it simply buries further in. You need someone with a stronger heartbeat. Let it pass into me. I have two organs that process blood. I can survive if it stops my heart. My body will process it through my ghele and you can repair the damage in hers.”

“What if it kills you?” Kozol asked.

Thegn looked up at him with a smile, copying the priest’s smirk, “I think you would rather have her alive than I. What have you to lose?”

Thegn looked at the two doctors, raising his hand, “I’ll need an open wound. If one of you can slice open this vein, it will be enough to take the metal. She might have a slight reaction to my blood, but it will be not enough to hurt her further. She may have a … rash. The red marks on your bodies? Yes, a rash. If one of you would, of course.”

Janiya stepped forth, taking his hand carefully in her own. She brought out a scalpel and drew it across the vein in his palm. The pain shot through him and he thanked her for her assistance.

He kneeled down again, holding his bleeding hand together until he could line up his vein with Lena’s wound. He waited, feeling the metal embedding in his own skin. He tried to raise the beat of his own heart and ghele, tried to make them as attractive to the metal as possible. Her eyes met his as the first piece made his way under his skin. He winced and she breathed a slight sigh of relief.

“There’s four,” she whispered. “I can feel the other three still.”

He nodded, “Try to slow your heartbeat down. Relax and be calm. Slow your breathing. I will stay as long as it takes.”

Lena blinked, her eyes beginning to whiten again, slowly. She breathed slowly and deeply, Thegn losing himself in the sound as the second piece of metal entered his body. He let out a slight groan of pain, feeling the first move to his bloodstream. He felt his body cooling, a chill going through his very bones.

She watched him, slowing her breathing further, a weak hand touching his arm in kindness. He meant to tell her to move it, for it endangered her to expose a heartbeat to the metal. But it oddly helped his own organs to pump faster, her warming skin against his cooling one.

The third piece ripped into him easily now that the wound was growing bigger. His other hand dug into the bed, his skin perspiring.

Lena said quietly, “You don’t have to do this.”

Thegn tried to reply, but there were no words he could use to explain it to her in English. Instead his other hand moved to her leg, resting it there as he held on. Her hand stroked his arm as the fourth and final piece moved from her body to his.

Thegn threw himself onto the ground, and one doctor went to Lena’s side, the other moving toward Thegn.

He motioned for Janiya to stay back, waiting until the fourth piece was fully in his bloodstream.

“You have to mend the tear,” he said hoarsely, “Make sure they can’t get out. My body will process it and expel it on its own. I have to stay alive until then or they will still be active. She needs your attention more than I. My body can do this and you do not know enough of my anatomy to help me.”

Thegn lay on the floor, his body cooling quickly as Janiya stitched together the wound and wrapped his hand in bandages. She laid the thermal blankets on him and went back to Lena’s side, helping her fellow doctor as the non-medical staff left the room. Kozol watched Thegn carefully, but seeing he was incapacitated, left him shivering on the medical bay floor.

Thegn watched the doctors work on Lena’s injuries. Her eyes met his as she was given a mask. Her eyes started to close, but her heart beat strongly. He could see it on the monitor strapped to her. He watched those lines go up and down until he shut his own eyes and rested.

*

He woke strapped to a medical bay table himself. He looked blearily over for Lena, seeing her on the table beside him. He watched her chest rise up and down. She still lived. That was enough.

He felt himself be covered in another blanket as he fell back asleep.

*

When Thegn woke again, he felt Janiya’s hand against his forehead and he opened his eyes, turning to look at her.

She smiled at him and said, “Good to see you know your own body well. Your first heart stopped last night, but the other took over. It’s starting to recover now. You expelled all four pieces intact through your … orifice. I’m not sure what that is, just on your side. I ran an ultrasound; there don’t seem to be any fragments left. I sent them down to the lab. We’ll research it thoroughly.”

“Is she safe?,” Thegn murmured hoarsely. Janiya looked at him oddly and he realized he was speaking in Mokai. He tried again in English and she nodded.

“She’s stable now, resting in her own room. I’ll let her know you’re awake. She’ll want to see you, I’m sure.”

“Not now,” Thegn said quietly. “I need rest. But she is safe?”

“You saved her life,” Janiya said softly, with a smile. “You may have saved many more as well. Rest, Thegn. I’ll bring you something to eat for when you wake up. And Thegn … thank you.”

*

Maria brought Thegn to the artificial garden again, holding his arm to steady him as he walked, his tail bobbing slightly. She helped him kneel down on the grass and brought out a bottle of water for him to drink. Thegn drank it slowly, looking at her as she sat down beside him.

Thegn raised his head again as he saw Lena come in from the side of the room. She was out of uniform, wearing a simple blue dress. Thegn was pleased to remember the name of the garment. Maria had been eager to teach him of the different styles of human clothing. It seemed to be something she had a great passion for.

Lena seemed vulnerable this way, without the tactile white suit that many of her crew had worn. She came down into the grass, sitting as comfortably as she could, though he saw her wince from the wound.

She waved Maria off, telling her that she did not need a translator. Maria hesitated, but did as she was told, leaving them alone.

Thegn and Lena watched each other for a few moments, and Thegn waited for her to speak first. He did not know what to expect her to say, what to think of him. There had been a moment, a moment of understanding. He did not know if that had changed enough.

She said quietly, “Thank you.”

Thegn merely nodded his head.

“You did not have to do that. They told me we nearly lost you that night. You knew there was a risk, didn’t you?” Lena asked.

Thegn admitted, “I knew there was a chance, but it was not a large one.”

“But enough. You risked your life to protect me, to protect us. Why?”

Thegn thought for a moment and then replied, “You did not deserve to die when you could have a chance to live. The metal, the ghielsu, it is an unkind way to die. There was once a law against the substance, but the Council compromised. The ghelu voted for the law.”

“So it was an idealistic choice?”

“It was the only choice,” he said firmly.

Lena thought on this and said, “It is not one I would have made for you.”

“You are not ghelu and you view me an enemy. I know I do not have to fear you.”

“Do you not?”

“If you would have killed me, you would have done it already.”

Lena replied, “Perhaps I still will.”

Thegn said quietly, “It does me no good to think you will. If the Goddess wishes my death here and now, so be it.”

Lena looked away from him and said, “It would have been easier if I just killed you. My father would have killed you without a second glance. I thought for days that I had made a mistake. Kozol would have killed you. He and I argued for days about that. Even once we knew you carried no plague. You weren’t here when the bastards first invaded. You didn’t see how sick people were. How many died. We lost three, even once we were here and we had a cure. It didn’t always work, not after being infected for a few days. The infection changed, too; we suspected the bastards were changing it, trying to get us sick. But they took so many of us, to their compounds, to their ships … maybe that was just paranoia. No one wants a dead slave.”

Thegn did not reply and she continued, “You don’t understand. You don’t understand how hard it is for us. We watched your kind kill us, subjugate us, rape us, and enslave us. I can’t forgive you just because you did one good thing. I can’t see you and not see all of those things. I’m sorry, I just can’t.”

“I understand,” Thegn replied softly.

“Can you?” she asked darkly, “You think you can just observe from afar and think ‘oh, that’s so horrible’ and understand completely?”

He did not reply and she said softly, “I’m sorry. I should be more appreciative. But … you … I…”

Thegn said nothing.

Lena continued, her hand running through her hair, “I can’t hate them and thank you. I can’t… I can’t…”

“It’s hard to see us as more than the enemy,” he said quietly.

Lena looked up at him, water streaming down her face. He reached out to touch it and she shuffled away. He brought his hand back.

She wiped the water off. “I shouldn’t have said all this to you. I didn’t mean to make things more complicated. Please just take my thanks. I will call for Maria to bring you back to your room.”

“I can bring myself back,” Thegn offered. “I do not mean to burden her.”

Lena said quietly, “No, no I’m afraid I can’t quite do that yet.”

She called Maria back into the room.

“My father would have been wrong,” Lena said softly, as she rose to her feet.

Thegn watched her leave. Maria helped him to his feet and he asked her what the water on Lena’s face had meant.

Maria explained as they walked down the hall, “Humans cry. They shed water from their eyes, to express emotion. Usually sad, but it can be happiness, too.”

“But she was not happy,” Thegn stated.

“No,” Maria agreed. “No, she was not.”

Thegn stumbled slightly, his tail reaching down to balance him. Maria helped him steady himself and they kept walking.

“When I found out you were safe,” Maria said. “I cried a little. I did not want to lose you. Perhaps I was too harsh with you when we arrived here. I am sorry. I was scared of them thinking of me as Other. But I see now that I should have had more faith in you.”

“You do not owe me any faith,” Thegn replied gently, “I am your enemy.”

“You are my friend,” Maria replied.

Their eyes met and Thegn smiled. Maria laughed at the attempt and they spent those last few moments in quiet peace.