I reached for the back pocket of my shorts. My phone was still there. I wanted to look at it—to see if maybe when they were reconditioning my clothes, they’d recharged my phone. But I didn’t want the woman to see me do that.
“I’m good,” I said.
The woman still wore an expression of deep concern.
“You’ve clearly been through a lot,” she murmured comfortingly. “Our intentions with all those changes truly were to help you heal. Psychologically. Spiritually. We find that typically more of a homey touch works wonders. . . .”
“I’m not typical, okay?”
The woman’s face softened with even more apologetic sympathy, but I regarded her with suspicion. I wanted to ask about the others—especially Enu—but I didn’t trust her yet.
I didn’t want her to know I had any weaknesses.
“If you aren’t really a human or an Enforcer, what are you?” I asked.
“Usually people can tell right away . . . ,” she murmured. “Of course I’m a Fred. A healer Fred. Many of us do go into the healing professions. . . .”
I’d always told myself that if I ever met a Fred, I’d punch first and ask questions later. But there was a sincerity about this woman I hadn’t expected. A . . . simpleness.
But maybe that was just more of the illusion.
“Show me,” I snarled. “Let me see your real face.”
“It’s really not part of our protocol, but under the circumstances . . . all right,” she said.
I wasn’t watching her hands, so I couldn’t see if she pushed any buttons or levers anywhere. She didn’t touch my eyelids like the Enforcer back on the spaceship had. But for an instant I saw a different face behind her human one—a face so kind and good and soft and fuzzy that I wanted to weep and giggle all at once.
And somehow I knew it was completely real.
No wonder that expression could never be captured in video or photos. Everything about it made me forget to analyze it or to count the eyes or debate with myself about whether the exact color of the woman’s fur was greenish-blue or more of a bluish-green.
“You’re . . . sincere, then?” I asked. “You Freds really do want to help?”
“Of course,” the woman said. “Sorrow and pain in any creature breaks our hearts.”
Could I actually believe her?
“Then why,” I challenged, “do you let the Enforcers—”
Before I could ask the rest of my question, Edwy, Rosi, and Cana bounded into the room.
“You’re finally awake!” Rosi cried. “Our Fred-healers promised to call us the minute we were allowed to see you. We’ve been so worried!”
She didn’t look worried anymore. All three of them just looked . . . healthy. Edwy stood tall and proud in new shorts and a large T-shirt that replaced the one he’d torn up for bandages. Could he possibly have grown during the time we were on Zacadi, and I’d never noticed? And Rosi and Cana were no longer the desperate children in tattered clothes that I’d known from the very first, when they were running from Enforcers out in the desert on Earth. Now their eyes glowed from clean faces, and they were wrapped in quilted robes that looked cozy and warm.
I couldn’t remember anyone wearing robes like that back on Earth. Maybe just as the healers had tried to comfort me by giving me an imitation of my room back home, Rosi and Cana were being comforted and consoled with clothes from their original homes.
From their Fredtown.
I glanced back at my Fred-healer, who was still gazing compassionately at me, even though she wore a human face again.
Was that how all the adults had always looked at Edwy, Rosi, Cana, and the other kids all the time back in their Fredtown? What was it like to be filled up with that much love and care, from birth on?
I didn’t know. It wasn’t what Enu and I had had.
Enu . . .
“Have you seen Enu?” I snapped at the younger kids. My voice came out much more harsh than I intended. “Is he okay?”
“They say he’s healing well, but we can’t see him yet,” Edwy said. He flicked his gaze toward the Fred-healer and back to me.
That was enough to remind me that he had always hated his Fredtown and resented the Freds who’d raised him.
I slid my legs over the side of the bed and stood up. I tried to pretend the motion didn’t make me dizzy yet again.
“Miss! Miss! You aren’t fully restored to health yet,” the Fred-healer cried. “Please, for your own safety—”
“You say you care about my sorrow and pain?” I asked. “Well, it’s only going to get worse until I know my brother’s all right.”
“I assure you—” the healer began.
“Yeah, well, I come from a place where you can’t always believe what adults tell you, so I need to see for myself,” I interrupted.
I was so weak she could have held me back just by lightly grasping my arm. I think she could tell that, but she let me slide past.
“He’s actually right next door,” she murmured. “If peeking in will set your mind at ease, then by all means, I’ll allow it.”
She followed me out the door, with Edwy, Rosi, and Cana close behind. We turned down a nondescript hallway, and by the time I reached the next door, the healer was in front of me. She gently eased the door open.
“See?” she whispered.
Enu lay propped up and lightly snoring in a hospital bed that could have been the twin of mine. He had been injured badly enough that I was sure they’d thrown his clothes away. The blood-covered strips of Edwy’s old T-shirt, which had covered Enu’s wounded shoulder for the past five days, were gone, replaced by a small, tidy square of gauze that barely showed above the neckline of his hospital gown.
“Is everything I’m seeing real, or is this another illusion?” I asked. “Is that all you’re doing for him? He was shot, and you only gave him one little bandage?”
“She told us they did really, really good surgery,” Cana informed me, even as she patted my hand comfortingly. “They know how to put veins and arteries and even capillaries back together. They gave him new blood.”
I decided not to ask, How many bullets did they have to take out? in front of Cana.
“But he’s still not awake?” I asked.
“He was,” the healer admitted. “But he was so agitated, we were afraid he’d injure himself again. We had to give him a sedative.”
Agitated? It was like this Fred-woman talked in code.
I shoved the door the rest of the way open and rushed over to Enu’s bed.
“Enu, you were ready to tell the intergalactic court what happened, weren’t you?” I grabbed his uninjured shoulder and shook it. “Wake up! Remember how you’re always telling me that sometimes injured athletes have to play hurt for the sake of their team? Well, now’s a time like that. Think of all the prisoners back on Zacadi. Think what the Enforcers might be doing to them while you’re snoozing and getting sedatives. Or what might be happening back on Earth. To . . . to . . .”
I couldn’t even speak the names of the people I was worried about back on Earth: Udans. Bobo. Zeba. Our parents . . .
My shaking got rougher. Enu did nothing but let out a pained groan. The Fred-healer all but flew to my side.
“Young lady, I must insist! You can’t disturb another patient like that!” she cried. “Don’t you know how severely injured your brother was, and how greatly his life was endangered by the long trip?”
“Yes, I do know,” I said. “I was there. I could very easily have been shot myself. That’s why we need to tell—”
“Don’t worry; the younger children already made a full report,” the healer said. “I’m sure it will be considered thoroughly. And we can get yours later. Once you’ve . . . calmed down.”
I looked back at Edwy, Rosi, and Cana.
“A man interviewed us,” Edwy said grimly.
“He was nice,” Cana offered. “But he kept saying we shouldn’t be scared. Don’t you think it was right to be scared, when
we were running away and people were being shot?”
“Has the intergalactic court taken any action because of that report?” I asked the healer.
“Oh, I can’t keep track of the court’s every decision, for every sector of the universe,” she said apologetically. “They’ll do what’s right. I trust them to take wise action when they need to.”
“I don’t,” I said. I pointed toward my chest. “Trust issues, remember?”
To my surprise, Rosi stepped up behind me, backing me up. It was almost like she was threatening the healer.
“We all need to know what the intergalactic court has been doing about the Enforcers on Zacadi and on Earth—and probably other places as well,” she said.
“I need to know too,” a voice said behind me. It sounded familiar, but when I turned around, I faced a teenage boy I’d never seen before in my life. And believe me, if I had seen him before, I would have remembered. He was a little too skinny, but it was easy to forget that while peering into his glowing green eyes, then casting my gaze over his perfect features, his flawless skin, his muscular frame. . . . I wouldn’t have thought anyone could make a boring hospital gown look attractive, but this guy did.
“Who are you?” Edwy asked.
“I save your life and you forget me two hours later?” the boy asked.
And suddenly I knew why his voice sounded familiar.
“Alcibiades?” I said.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
“Kiandra?” the boy said, sounding just as hesitant as I did. He looked back and forth between Edwy, Rosi, and me, as if he couldn’t tell us apart. “I—I never thought you’d look like that with tentacles. . . .”
“Tentacles?” I repeated stupidly.
“You see us looking like Zacadians, and we see you looking human?” Edwy cracked up. “This is really funny!”
“Um . . . ,” I began. Looking directly at Alcibiades was a little like looking directly at the sun.
It’s not real, it’s not real, it’s not real. . . .
“I always thought you were an old man!” I protested. “I mean, not that I knew anything about judging Zacadian ages, and I guess I never asked, but . . . I thought you’d been in that prison for eons! You acted like you knew everything!”
“None of our old people survived,” Alcibiades said grimly. “They had to pass on their knowledge before they expired.” Now a rueful smile teased at his mouth. “I hadn’t actually ever flown a spaceship before. I just had my people’s stories guiding me.”
“I’m kind of glad I didn’t know that six days ago,” Rosi murmured.
“What other choice did we have, except to trust Alcibiades?” Edwy asked.
“None,” Rosi said briskly. “But now we have lots of choices. And we need to make the best one. So—”
“Please wake up Enu, so we can all go talk to the intergalactic court,” Cana finished for her.
The healer pursed her lips and looked torn. Cana had a way of gazing up beseechingly that almost always worked on me, even in my darkest moments trapped in the Zacadi prison. Wouldn’t Cana’s secret weapon work even better on someone whose whole life purpose was empathy?
“All right,” the healer decided. “I’ll let you go talk to the officials over in that area, to get on their agenda. But Enu will need to stay in a wheelchair, and it’s straight back to bed if I think there’s any threat to his health.”
It took time to summon an orderly to move Enu to a wheelchair. I didn’t think the healer was delaying on purpose, but she was agonizingly slow consulting a wrist computer about the best way to rouse Enu again. I studied Alcibiades out of the corner of my eye while we all waited.
“Were your eyes green before and I just never noticed?” I asked him.
“Green?” He sounded surprised. “Of all the questions . . . Hmm. I don’t know. You may have noticed that there weren’t any mirrors in my prison cell. Why? Does it matter?”
“It doesn’t,” Rosi said firmly.
“But some people on Earth think it does,” Edwy added.
“Now, now.” The healer looked up from her wrist computer. “Arguments like that could get our patient too agitated again. You all are still under medical observation, and need to avoid challenging situations. Her blood pressure just shot up in a worrisome fashion. I can tell.”
She was pointing at me.
“We’re not arguing,” I told the healer. “And I’m fine. Have you never dealt with people who have been through really bad experiences before?”
“I’ve studied every medical possibility,” the healer said defensively. “I’m a fully trained healer. You needn’t worry that my care will be inadequate.”
“That wasn’t what I was implying at all,” I said. I was on good behavior—I didn’t roll my eyes. How had Edwy and Rosi survived twelve years in Fredtown, being around people like this?
I turned back to Alcibiades.
“I’m not one of the people who care about green eyes,” I said hastily. “I was just wondering.”
“How does it work?” Rosi asked the healer. “The appearance switching, I mean. If somebody was here who really hated people with green eyes, would they see Alcibiades’s eyes as brown instead?”
“Or blue or gray or purple?” It figured Edwy would want to complicate things.
The healer furrowed her brow.
“I—I’ve never thought to wonder such a thing,” she admitted.
Alcibiades clutched his head in his hands.
“You all look like you have tentacles, and you’re speaking Zacadian, but nothing you’re saying makes any sense!” he complained.
Just then a robot orderly slipped into the room. He gently lifted Enu from the bed and settled him into a wheelchair. The healer tucked a blanket around him and began rubbing a thick paste onto his forehead.
“By the time his skin absorbs this, he’ll be clearheaded and alert again,” she said. “But it should also give him a lingering sense of peace and calm.”
Enu’s eyelids fluttered.
“Where . . . am I?” he said groggily. “What’s going on? I dreamed . . .”
His eyes came all the way open. He stared confusedly at the healer bent over him. Then suddenly he shoved the wheelchair back and bolted to his feet. He waved his arms wildly, the way someone might panic and shove away imaginary spiders or snakes.
“The Enforcers are chasing us! We’re all going to die if we don’t fight back!”
I rushed to his side.
“Enu, stop it!” I cried. “We’re not on Zacadi anymore. You’ve been unconscious for days! We’ll explain everything, but—”
“Young man!” the healer interrupted. “Peace and calm! That was a double dose! You should not even be capable of swinging your arms like that right now!”
The healer reached for his bandaged shoulder, which, I saw, was starting to bleed again. But before she could touch him, Enu’s flailing fist smashed against the healer’s face and knocked her to the floor.
She didn’t get back up.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
Enu dropped his arms and stared down at the healer like he couldn’t understand what had happened.
“I—I thought she was an Enforcer,” he said. “My eyes weren’t working right. I . . .”
I was too frozen to do anything, but Rosi shoved past us both.
“Is the healer all right?” she shrieked. “We should call somebody! We should—”
Edwy ran over and clapped his hand over her mouth.
At the same time, the robot orderly rolled forward, a beam of light shooting from its head along the healer’s body.
“Subject is merely unconscious,” the robot reported in an emotionless voice. “No permanent damage done. Healing will occur while subject sleeps. Sending accident report and related request for—”
Before I could quite follow his action, Alcibiades dived across the room, grabbed the robot orderly, and slashed his hand down the robot’s back and front. Maybe its sides and head as well.<
br />
“—forrrrr zzzzzzz. Self-shut-down procedure begun.”
The robot orderly sagged to the floor as well, right beside the healer.
“You shut it off?” I accused Alcibiades. No way could he have acted that quickly using only two hands. He must have really used multiple tentacles, but my eyes hadn’t let me see it that way. “Did you manage to stop it before the accident report went through or after?”
“Hard to tell,” Alcibiades said through gritted teeth.
He edged away from Enu, who was still confusedly blinking and peering around, even if he’d stopped swinging his fists. Then Enu’s gaze locked on Alcibiades.
“Do we even know you?” Enu asked.
I stepped between the two of them, just in case Enu got any bright ideas about punching Alcibiades, too.
“He’s a friend,” I told Enu sternly. “I’ll explain later.”
Rosi and Cana slid a pillow under the healer’s head. To my surprise, Edwy pulled a blanket off the bed to cover her as well.
Alcibiades darted back to the door and peeked out.
“We have to go before anyone comes,” he said, glancing back over his shoulder at the rest of us. “Otherwise, they’ll want us to explain this”—he pointed at the healer—“and there isn’t time. Not if we have any hope of saving any of my people.”
I remembered the Zacadians falling before the Enforcers’ guns as we ran for the spaceship. How long had that gone on? How many Zacadians were even left?
How about the humans who’d been sent to Zacadi? Or the humans who’d been left on Earth under the Enforcers’ cruel siege?
Udans, Bobo, Zeba, Mom, Dad . . .
“Here’s what we should do,” I began. “Edwy, Rosi, and Cana, why don’t the three of you stay here and explain, while Enu, Alcibiades, and I go talk with the intergalactic court? Or—”
“We’re going with you,” Rosi said firmly as she rose to her feet. “The healer will be okay. And the intergalactic court needs to hear what we have to say too.”
I stood back, my hands up like I was surrendering.
“All right,” I said. “I wouldn’t try to stop you.”
“The hallway’s clear,” Alcibiades reported, waving a hand over his shoulder. “Come on.”
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