Metal Pirate (Warriors of Galatea Book 3)
Page 27
But her robe made a sound, whispering on the floor and making it evident that she was, in fact, physically here. She stopped as close to Claudia as she could get, and ran a hand over the shield.
"Alien technology," she muttered. She frowned through the shield at Claudia. "The importation of such things is not allowed. But then, what can I expect of common criminals?"
Skara jerked against Claudia's legs, shuddering through the tremors of a seizure. She pressed her hand to his shoulder, trying to comfort him. "Please, he's dying. We only came here to—"
"Steal another of our precious riders?" the woman asked. There was no sympathy in her tone. "Who are you—and more to the point, what are you? You aren't one of us, or any people I've heard of."
"Who are you?" Claudia countered. It wasn't a very good comeback, but it was all she had.
"I am the Prime Legate of the sanctuary network. You may call me the Legata." She tucked her hands into the sleeves of her robe and frowned at them through the green flicker of the shield. "And you are?"
Well .... why not? "I'm Claudia of Earth. You call it Birthworld."
The Legata's frown deepened. "Birthworld is a myth."
"No. It's very real. It's where I grew up." She rubbed Skara's shoulder as he seized again. "Please! He's dying."
"I can see that." There was no sympathy on the Legata's face. "What I don't understand is how he could have lost his rider—and how did you get one?"
"It's his," Claudia said. It wasn't like lying could possibly help at this point. "It chose me instead of him."
The woman's dark green eyes widened slightly. "How fascinating. It's been known for hosts to lose their riders in various ways. Sometimes the bond doesn't take. But I haven't heard of an already bonded rider choosing another host while the first was still living."
"Fascinating? It's killing him!"
"Some would say it is a fitting punishment for his crimes."
Skara arched in the grip of another seizure. "Please!" Claudia cried. "I know we have no right to ask you for help. But if you have any decency at all—listen, we can pay whatever price you ask."
"The riders are not for sale at any price. They cannot be bought or sold."
"I know you don't trust us," Claudia began desperately. "And I know we didn't respect your laws before—"
"It's not a matter of trusting you. Or of laws. You seem to have some very fundamental misconceptions about how the riders work. We do not choose their hosts. They do."
Claudia dropped back to sit on her heels, staring up at the Legata. "What do you mean? How ..."
But that was what had happened back on Earth, she thought dazedly. Why did she think it would be any different here?
"How can they choose?" she asked, seeing the already long odds of Skara getting a replacement—saving his life—stretching even longer. "They aren't ... intelligent like that, are they?"
The Legata sighed and crouched carefully, mindful of age-stiffened hips. She was near enough that, without the shield between them, Claudia could have touched her. "The riders choose. Anyone on Rhuad may potentially become one of the Conjoined; there is, in fact, not much that can be done to stop it. It is one of the reasons why we have a fairly peaceful history, as planets go. Oh, we have our injustices, certainly, now and in the past, but such things as war and slavery are largely unknown here."
"Good for you," Claudia said, "but Skara—"
"Would have become a host by now, if he was going to."
"No!" Claudia protested.
The Legata merely regarded her, face calm.
"There are other sanctuaries, aren't there? What if there's a symbiont somewhere that's compatible with him, but it's halfway around the world? There's no time—"
"Calmly, child. When enough riders are assembled in one place, as they are here, they all touch each other. Every unbonded rider on the planet can sense us here. If any of them were going to choose him, they would have already done so. He has been rejected."
"But, but ..." They couldn't have come so far, only to fail. They couldn't have. "He took the other one. At least he said so. What if we—"
"He might have thought so. But it would still choose its own host. It cannot be forced."
"So it chose him once. Doesn't that make it more likely for another one to do it again?" Her words sounded desperate and plaintive even to her own ears. Skara was limp in her arms. They couldn't fail, they simply couldn't.
"Not necessarily."
"There has to be a way! If he can't have a new symbiont, can't you help him, give him something for the withdrawal—"
The Legata shook her head slowly. "There is nothing we can do. The only thing that could have helped him would have been here."
Here ... at the mercy of these strange, glowing, alien creatures. Claudia looked up at the walls, with the tears in her eyes splintering them to a thousand purple fragments of light.
Could they be convinced? Tricked, somehow? Was there a way to fool a system like this one? Skara would surely think so. Skara was always looking for an angle, an advantage. It was the thing that had gotten him through his childhood; it was what had brought him here in the first place, to do the impossible, and then again to do the impossible twice.
Skara would never accept that there was no way to tilt the odds in their favor.
Wait a minute.
For an instant she was back on Earth, mere days ago, and yet a lifetime ago—listening to Skara explaining about the symbiont. He told her it had chosen her over him because of her Earth DNA. As soon as I came in contact with you, the symbiont recognized you as a superior host.
Earth DNA was special, Skara had told her.
Maybe some of her DNA could make Skara more appealing as a host.
She wondered how long they'd actually give her before they started trying in earnest to break through the shield once they saw what she was up to.
Well ... just have to be fast, then.
She whipped out the case and opened it.
"What are you doing?" the Legata snapped.
"I'm trying to buy him some time," she shot back. "This is medicine."
She hadn't used any of Skara's medical supplies herself yet, but she'd seen him do it on a dozen different occasions. She snapped the vial of blood into the injector, hesitated for a moment, then pressed it to his arm.
As the injector hissed, she worried that she might be simply hastening his death. Were their blood types even remotely compatible? How did alien blood types even work? But at least this way, there was a chance. If she did nothing, he had no chance at all.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, choking it out through her tears.
Nothing happened, at least not in any outwardly visible way. He shuddered again.
"Child," the Legata said. Her voice was almost sympathetic. "Lower your shield. Allow us to help you."
Claudia ignored her. There was one thing left in the case: the DNA collector. Claudia took it out and turned it over in her hands. Remembering Skara's instructions, she pressed it to the inside of her arm. There was a slight sting, and a green light blinked on the side. Okay, well and good. She turned it around and pushed it against Skara's arm, and pressed it again.
"This is ridiculous," the Legata said. She rose creakily to her feet. "Start trying to break through her shield. This is a waste of all of our time."
The shield flared with energy, but all Claudia's attention was concentrated on Skara. Come on. Please. This has to work.
He spasmed suddenly in her arms, his back arching.
"Skara!"
She clutched him desperately, willing him with everything in her to fight, to hold on, to—don't do this to me, Skara—
"Please," she begged him. "Please, don't die."
The light flaring over her shield abruptly died away. There were some murmurs from the gathered Rhuadhi guards, and a soft gasp from the Legata.
Claudia opened her eyes—she didn't even remember screwing them shut—and blinked away tears.
She'd been wrong.
Skara was glowing.
Violet light flickered beneath his skin, swirling from head to foot, outlining the tattoo-like markings with fire and licking delicately at his veins and bones.
It could only have lasted for a minute or two, but she was utterly captivated. She'd never seen anything like it. And then the light faded, and his body relaxed, sinking bonelessly into her arms.
"Skara?" she breathed, leaning over him.
It had worked. She couldn't believe it.
There was no doubt that something had changed. Already the lines of pain had begun to smooth out of his face.
And then she realized that green light no longer flickered over his features. In her distraction, she let the shield drop.
Shocked, she looked up just as a wave of pain hit her, and she plunged into darkness.
Twenty-Three
Claudia woke with a splitting headache, looking at a gray ceiling.
"Ow," she moaned.
She raised her aching head and discovered gently curving gray walls to go with the gray ceiling, lined with benches that looked like they were extruded out of the same material as the walls—stone, plaster, concrete; she couldn't tell what it was, just that it was dull matte gray. And lying on one of the benches, propped up on an elbow ...
"Oh, look who's awake," Kriff said, his cat eyes narrowing. If he'd had a tail, it would have been swishing. He sat up. "I hope your head hurts."
"Yes, it does," Claudia groaned. She squeezed her eyes shut; then they flew open again. "Skara!"
She sat up with unwise speed, clutched her temples through a moment of blinding pain, and discovered Skara crumpled on the floor beside her. He'd reverted back to his normal color and shape, but he was still unconscious.
"Skara ..." She crawled over to him, touched him all over frantically. His forehead was damp with sweat, but he felt like a normal temperature. He just seemed to be asleep.
"Don't bother calling for help," said a different voice, sounding disgusted. "As far as I can tell, they're leaving us to rot."
Claudia looked over her shoulder. Ilyx was sitting on another of the benches, with her Rhuadhi disguise gone; she was back to her usual purple skin and dark blue hair.
Aside from the two bounty hunters, and the benches, there was absolutely nothing else in the room. No windows. No doors. It was a gray room shaped like a drum, with curvilinear walls and a flat ceiling and floor. The light came from small ports in the ceiling. There were no blankets, no comforts, and as far as she could tell, no sanitary facilities either.
"Is this a prison?" Claudia asked.
Neither of the bounty hunters bothered to answer her. Claudia raised a hand and tried to make a portal. She already knew what was going to happen, and she wasn't wrong; the surge of migraine-level pain made her reel.
"Oh, come on," Ilyx said. "You think they'd lock us up in a prison you could just portal out of?"
Claudia hated that Ilyx was right. And now her head hurt worse than before. She massaged her temples. "How long have we been here?"
"Maybe a decatick, I'm not sure," Kriff said.
Different time measurements. Absolutely no help. As her headache began to recede, she realized she was achingly, desperately hungry. But even that didn't give much of a clue to the passage of time, because she'd been portaling all over the place beforehand. She was unsurprised to find that her cuffs and everything she'd been carrying with her was gone.
"Did they bring any food while I was out?" she asked hopefully.
"Not yet," Kriff said. Ilyx looked sullen and flopped down on her bench.
Claudia sighed, trying not to give in to the despair she felt. She gathered Skara's head into her lap and stroked her hand through his hair.
Why wouldn't he wake up? Their plan had worked—at least, that part of it had. They'd found him another symbiont. His color was better, but should he be out like this?
Maybe they'd miscalculated. Maybe someone couldn't host a symbiont twice; the Legata had said she'd never heard of a symbiont voluntarily leaving its host. Maybe Claudia had messed up with the DNA thing. Maybe—
Before she could get too deep into self-recrimination, Skara stirred weakly in her arms.
"Skara?" She kissed him. Either Kriff or Ilyx made a scoffing sound, but she ignored the peanut gallery. "Skara, can you hear me?"
"What," he mumbled. "Where." His eyes focused on her, and a slow smile spread across his face. "Hey there, beautiful."
"Well, I see you're still you," she said, half-laughing. "How do you feel?"
"I ... uh ... weird." He frowned. "Did we—did—"
"It worked," she said, and despite the desperation of their captivity, she laughed aloud. "You got another one. It worked."
"Really?" A wide grin broke across his face. Then his delighted look collapsed in a sudden full-body wince. "Okay," he mumbled, "bad idea."
"You just tried to portal, didn't you? Um. There's a block."
"I figured that part out." He grimaced, and struggled to sit up. Claudia helped him, supporting him with an arm around his shoulders. "Oh," he said, seeing Kriff and Ilyx. "You. Hi. Uh, we got caught, did we?"
"I knew working with you people was a mistake," Ilyx muttered.
Skara leaned into Claudia's embrace. His breathing was rapid, and it occurred to her that it was more than physical illness. He wasn't handling being locked up well.
"You okay?" she murmured.
"I'll be better once I'm out of here," he muttered back. "Also, I'm not sure if I can stand up."
"Why? What's wrong? Are you—"
"I'm better than I was," he mumbled into her hair, for her ears only. "But that doesn't mean I'm fine. I've been running on stimulants for the last week. I figure in a few hours, drug withdrawal is going to kick in, and then I really won't be fine."
"Skara—"
"And I'm telling you this," he murmured, "because I really need to get out of this cell, and back to my ship, where I have drugs to get me through it. Or, if I don't, you'll have to cover for me as best you can."
"Is it dangerous?" she whispered.
"Not really. It'll just be uncomfortable, and I won't be good for much."
It occurred to her how much trust it implied that he was willing to open up to her about this. She had already gathered how much he hated people seeing him weak or ill.
"What are you two whispering about over there?" Kriff demanded, swinging his legs off the bench.
"Making plans," Claudia said, looking over her shoulder at him.
"Without consulting us? We're in this together, sister. You planning to sell us out?"
"Aren't you?" she shot back. It was a low blow, but he threw back his head and laughed.
"You know," he said to Ilyx, "I kinda like working with these two."
"Shame they're completely useless at not getting caught," Ilyx retorted. She scowled at Skara. "You're looking better. Hey, you did it, didn't you? Managed to pick yourself up another parasite?"
"Symbiont," Skara said.
"But you did it." She brightened. "I don't suppose you managed to stash a few for the rest of us to sell when we get out of here."
"It doesn't work that way," Claudia said.
Skara gave her a puzzled look, and she remembered he'd been unconscious when all of that happened.
"You got one for me, though, didn't you?" he asked.
"Not ... exactly. It chose you. The way they explained it, you don't have any control over it at all. The other one must have chosen you because you were all that was available, and then ... I guess ... changed its mind."
"Hey, wait," Kriff said, ears flattening. "You mean that could happen to any of us?"
"Well, if you're going to be toting around bell jars of alien parasite, yeah," Claudia said.
"I want off this world," Kriff said. The fur along his shoulders and neck was standing on end.
"It would choose a host," Claudia said. "Who might be the person you sold it to, or you, or someone you met along the way. I don't think it's possible to really steal these things. They go willingly or not at all."
Ilyx made a disgusted sound.
"So what happened to you, anyway?" Skara asked, sitting up a little straighter. "I take it the sale didn't go as planned."
"It wasn't actually that," Kriff said. "They boarded the ship shortly after you left. They were searching all the ships on the dockside after they picked up an unknown shapeshifter down on the planet and ..." He shrugged.
"Oh, so you sold us out," Skara said.
"Hey! What am I supposed to do against a bunch of teleporters? It didn't really matter what I did once they figured out the con. All they had to do was connect the dots to Ilyx, and to you two."
"Which brings us right back around to never working with you two again," Ilyx said grimly.
Skara started to say something else, but fell silent when the wall opposite them began to ripple.
Like a silk curtain drawing back, the wall rippled and the Legata walked in. She was accompanied by several guards carrying blunt-nosed rifles. She stopped just inside the cell. The air in front of her shimmered, all the way across the cell. Claudia had seen enough science fiction to guess there was some kind of forcefield there.
"I see you're all awake," the Legata said.
"And getting out of here soon, I hope?" Skara said.
She didn't answer him. Instead, she said, "The council has been debating your situation. We cannot have you executed as long as you have a rider, because it might damage the rider. And there is no known way to intentionally force a rider to leave a host." She turned a cold glare on Ilyx and Kriff. "No such exception exists for you two, however."
The bounty hunters suddenly looked panicked. "Hey, listen, it was their idea," Kriff said.
"We were trying to bring them back here, but they overpowered us—"