Beast of Dreams

by Cynthia Williams

  Karrick lay on an anchored gurney on the floor while Amanda sat nearby, keeping pressure on his neck. They were airborne for about five minutes before landing in a small glade in the forest.

  Alexander opened his door and stepped outside to slide open the rescue bay door. Several wolfan men ran up to help, two of them grabbing each end of the gurney and quickly striding with it into the heavily forested area to a large thatched hut. Two others helped roll the craft in the other direction, to an open bay where the machine was housed.

  As Amanda followed Alexander, she could see many thatched huts interspersed between the trees, realizing that it would be next to impossible to visually spot them from the air. Logan’s wolfan had hidden their existence quite well, she concluded.

  They entered a log cabin that looked like a small hospital inside, with one side allocated for examination and surgeries if needed, and the other holding five beds for patients. The two large wolfan gently transferred Karrick to the examination table. Amanda watched as Alexander cleaned the wounds on Karrick’s neck, flushing them with an antibiotic solution to which he added a small amount of painkiller.

  He glanced at one of the wolfan men. “Brull, can you get me the suturer?”

  “Yes. Here it is, doc,” he said handing it over.

  Alexander carefully applied the suturer, spending several minutes knitting the torn flesh back together. “Brull, I want to check his oxygen level to see how well he’s breathing now and check his blood loss.” Brull handed him a small jar of ointment and a medical testing device. This time Karrick stirred and started protesting.

  “Dammit, I’m not having a chunk of my fur removed just so you can verify what you already know. You know damn well I can breathe fine with your own two eyes!”

  “Karrick, this is more for your neck wounds and you know you need this on them. You have plenty of fur on your neck that will hide the bare skin of your wounds.”

  “Yes, but goddamn it, at least find a spot that won’t show for wherever you stick that testing device. That ointment leaves my skin bare for months.”

  The wolfan men started laughing and the other one, Murin, started making some suggestions. “How about the patch between your balls and asshole?” he said before he let out a loud “umph” from Brull elbowing him in the gut.

  Brull looked at Amanda apologetically and said, “I’m sorry you had to hear that.” He then grabbed Murin by the ear and said, “Knock it off, you moron. Not in front of the young lady, okay?”

  “Sorry,” he said, looking only just a bit contrite.

  “It’s okay,” Amanda said. “I think he’s much better now anyway, don’t you Dr. Logan?”

  Alexander looked at her and conceded that Karrick was probably just fine, but he needed to check Karrick over for the amount of blood loss in case a transfusion was needed. “Amanda, why don’t you wait outside a bit and we’ll call you back in as soon as we’re done.”

  Amanda saw the look of firm intent in his eyes and knew that he was going to treat Karrick’s neck and take his readings no matter what Karrick wanted. She smiled and patted him on the arm, showing her understanding. “I’ll just be outside, then.”

  Amanda stepped outside the large cabin and closed the door behind her. Not even a minute later, she heard a loud ruckus inside and Karrick yelling, “You know I fucking hate that ointment! I said I’m fine. I feel fine, dammit; I don’t want any of that goddamn ointment on me and especially by my privates!” She then heard Dr. Logan admonishing Karrick to hold still or instead of a couple of centimeters, the patch would be much bigger.

  After a few minutes of silence, she heard Dr. Logan express his satisfaction that Karrick wouldn’t need a transfusion but instead just a booster shot to help him manufacture more red blood cells over the next few weeks. She then heard steps coming toward the door from inside.

  Brull opened the door for her with a flourish and bade her to enter.

  She cautiously approached Karrick, and was secretly glad she had nothing to do with his vexation as she watched him bare his fangs at his father, and then at the other wolfan, Murin.

  She reached over and grasped one of his hands and held it between her two. “I’m so happy to see you looking better, Karrick. We were all so worried about you.”

  He shot another hard glare at his father before softening his features for Amanda. “Good thing I always carry my syringes,” he said, patting the area on his chest where his pouch usually rested.

  His father gave him a sharp look. “Actually, Shodan stole your pouch when he attacked you. Amanda saved your life by providing me with oxyandrin from a vial from her suit.”

  Karrick broke out into a wide grin, his earlier surliness forgotten. “Ah, the wonderful Remington 2380 All Terrain Environmental Suit,” he said.

  Alexander and the others looked confused, so Karrick explained, with Amanda’s help, the many life-saving abilities of the suit. Amanda enjoyed listening to Karrick’s enthusiasm.

  Karrick sighed and Alexander asked, “Are you feeling uncomfortable, son?”

  “No, it’s just that I had hoped that the allergen immunotherapy you were making me undergo would have worked.”

  “What makes you say that? It made all the difference in the world, Karrick. If you hadn’t already been tolerant of at least some of the spider dart toxin in your blood, your reaction would have been much worse. It would have been immediate and your air supply cut off in a few minutes. As it was, you were still breathing though it was much labored nearly ten minutes after the reaction started. The therapy’s working.”

  “What would have happened if I didn’t get the epinephrine?”

  “I think you probably had a twenty-five percent chance of survival.”

  “And a seventy-five percent chance of death, right?”

  “It would have been a one hundred percent chance before, Karrick.”

  Murin scratched his head curiously and asked, “What’s allergen immunotherapy?”

  “Basically, it’s just a series of injections that you give to someone if you’re trying to help them become less sensitized to an allergen. I’ve been giving Karrick weekly shots of diluted spider dart toxin.”

  “Holy shit, isn’t spider dart the stuff that can kill him?”

  “Yes.”

  “But why do it?”

  Alexander looked at him a bit exasperated and said, “Gradually, it will help Karrick to become desensitized to the point that spider dart won’t hurt him anymore than it does you, when you get scratched by it.”

  Murin nodded, finally understanding.

  “I think that’s a great idea, Dr. Logan,” Amanda declared, agreeing with his assessment. “I hope Karrick continues with the treatments.”

  “He will,” Logan said to Amanda. Turning to his son, he said, “You’re already seeing evidence that it’s helping, even if you’re too hardheaded to admit it. I’ve already started boosting up the concentrations so the treatment is more effective.”

  “God, I hope so. I feel like a damn pincushion,” Karrick grumbled.

  Karrick’s father patted Amanda’s shoulder affectionately, now that the crisis had passed. “We lost so many of our medications and lab equipment when the ship crashed and one of my deepest regrets is that we’ve had no oxyandrin to help Karrick when he’s exposed to spider dart. We use epinephrine despite its restricted usefulness, because with our limited lab equipment, that’s the only drug in the family of remedies that we’re able to manufacture. Thank god you had oxyandrin in the suit of yours. I’m not sure if epinephrine would have been enough.”

  “I have a few extra vials. I’d be happy to give them to you if you’d like. At least you’d have them on hand if the epinephrine isn’t enough.” She looked at Karrick worriedly for a moment.

  Alexander looked at her with speculation in his eyes. “By the way, please call me Alexander, Amanda. Your father and I were very good friends.”

  Karrick smiled, privately pleased that his father was hitting it off so
well with Amanda.

  * * * * *

  Alexander later escorted Amanda to a moderately sized hut, with simple furnishings and a shower and lavatory facilities fed by an aqueduct system.

  “It’s a pleasure to have you here, Amanda, and I want you to know that I’ll always appreciate what you did for Karrick, today.”

  “I just did what I had to do, much like you did when you arrived and saw what Shodan had done. By the way, there’s something that I need to tell you. I didn’t want to say this in front of Karrick because it would just agitate him and I didn’t want him to worry. The fact is I can’t find my plasma blaster.”

  “Ah, so that’s what started the fire.”

  “Yes, Shodan tried to attack us earlier and I shot at him but missed. It was while we were busy putting out the fire from the burning vegetation that Shodan sneaked up to us and attacked again.”

  “You’re sure you can’t find it?”

  “Yes. I think I know how I lost it, too. I put it in my pocket after Shodan attacked the first time and left my pocket open, since I expected I might have to use it again. Unfortunately, I think the blaster flew out when I was forced to defend us.”

  “Perhaps it just fell out into the brush. The vegetation there is pretty thick. I can have several of the adults go search for it. Is it made of metal?”

  “Partially…”

  “Good. I’ll tell them to bring the metal detector and with any luck, we’ll have it back shortly.”

  “Thanks. Be sure to tell them too that the safety needs to be reset on the blaster by sliding the black button on the left side to the back, toward the handle. Oh, and please tell them not to pull the trigger under any circumstances!”

  Alexander smiled. “I think they’ll get the idea when they see the hardened puddle of glass.”

  * * * * *

  Later, Bethan walked into the small hospital watching Amanda spoon-feed Karrick from a large bowl of soup. She shook her head to herself, knowing that her son was milking the situation for all it was worth. She wondered just how far the young woman would go to accommodate him and was quite glad to hear her tell Karrick that if his neck hurt that much to move, it would surely be at least a few days before he could visit her hut.

  Bethan cleared her throat to catch their attention and let them know someone else was in the room. Her son could save his monkey business for later.

  Amanda turned around with a smile on her face, which lit up further when she saw who it was. She was more than ready to get to know this woman about whom she had heard so much from her father.

  Bethan reached for the soup bowl and tugged it gently from Amanda’s hands. “That boy can feed himself. Why don’t you and I get better acquainted?” She handed the bowl to the disgruntled wolfan now sitting up under his own power.

  Bethan guided Amanda to a table and chairs on the other side of the room. “I can’t thank you enough for helping save Karrick’s life,” she said, softly.

  Amanda responded quietly, “We were lucky that I had the suit with me. It helped protect me when Shodan attacked and if it weren’t for the array of first aid medications it carries, Karrick might not have survived.”

  “Perhaps so, but you were quick to defend my son and smart enough to look for alternatives when his medication was stolen.” She sat down, and by pointing to the other chair, invited Amanda to do the same.

  Bethan placed some leaves on the table in front of Amanda and picked one up to show her. Bethan turned the leaf over in her hand and Amanda could see numerous small red spots clinging to the underside of the leaf. “This is a Janus leaf. The red spots contain a powerful hallucinogen. We think this is what’s causing Shodan’s erratic behavior. Alexander had the immediate area searched for Shodan and while we haven’t found him yet, we did find handfuls of these leaves next to an area where the grass had been packed down, as if he had been staked out there watching the two of you at the river. He would have had an excellent view from there.”

  “Do you suspect he’s been following Karrick for awhile?” Amanda asked.

  “Yes. He may have been following Karrick for several days, from the time you landed when Karrick left the compound. How did Shodan appear to you?”

  “He was very agitated. He reeked, as if he hadn’t bathed in a long time. I had to bite my tongue to prevent myself from retching.”

  “How did his eyes look?” Bethan asked.

  “Bloodshot. Really bloodshot. His eyes were a pale blue, and he might have been handsome if his eyes weren’t so red and he wasn’t so dirty. His behavior really scared me.”

  “In what way?”

  “After Shodan attacked Karrick, I went after him; angry that he’d hurt him. I did everything I could to incapacitate him. Nothing worked. I should have been able to knock him out at the very least but somehow he kept going…”

  “I’m not surprised. What you’re describing makes sense. The red spots on these leaves are a type of mold that produces a toxin. The toxin is a natural form of phencyclidine, a potent hallucinogen that produces severe psychological effects. On Earth, it used to be known as PCP, or “bliff dust,” before the late twenty-sixth century, when the Pure Life movement became widely popular and most drug abuse was eradicated.”

  “I think I’ve heard of it before. Isn’t that the drug that used to scare the hell out of law enforcement officials, because the users were so uncontrollable that even stun rays wouldn’t stop them?”

  “Yes. There are many stories about the horror of dealing with users high on PCP and of the damage it did to the user’s brain. I’m very afraid of what Shodan will do next. I think he’s completely under the control of this drug.” Bethan let go of the leaf and put it and the others into a small bag, which she placed in her leather pouch. She then reached out and grasped both of Amanda’s hands in hers. “Enough about Shodan. So, you are Jonathon’s daughter. You look so much like him, with your green eyes and your hair. It’s the same color as his when we last saw him. That was nearly thirty years ago. We were so sorry to hear of his loss.”

  “He was the one who told me to come here and find out what had happened to you all.”

  “Karrick told me about that. He also told me about your nightmares and that he was concerned for you. He asked me to send you a healing dream.”

  “A healing dream?”

  “Yes. It’s a kind of dream that helps someone resolve issues or to at least see things in a different light, aiding them to emotionally heal. I told Karrick that I couldn’t do it, at least not yet, until I had a chance to get to know you better.”

  “I appreciate the concern Karrick had and your willingness to do that for me. There’s no need for you to do that anymore, although I thank you for your concern. I think coming to Eridani has helped me put some of the things that were bothering me to rest.”

  Bethan stared at her with a small smile on her face, saying nothing. Something about her stillness bothered Amanda, and then it came to her.

  “Did you send me a healing dream anyway?”

  “No. But Karrick did,” she said with pride.

  * * * * *

  Karrick watched the two women walk away from him to the other side of the room. He tried hard to eavesdrop on their conversation but they were speaking too softly. Nonetheless, he watched their faces intently, hoping to read their facial expressions well enough to get an idea of what they were talking about.

  The sudden glance that Amanda sent him, and the look on her face, made him feel like he just got caught with his hand in the cookie jar. This had him shuffling off the bed, despite his neck pain, and heading over to the table. He trusted his gut feeling as a sure thing—the feeling of impending doom, which he had found to be quite accurate over the years. He knew the best way to handle the situation was to put his own spin on it as soon as possible.

  His mother was rather a fanatic about only using dream communication for ethical reasons. Using it to initiate dream sex was high on her list of highly improper behaviors, unless
of course the participants were already bonded in wedded bliss. He was worried Amanda might let slip the two or three instances of dream sex he had with her during the past few days.

  He moved in front of Amanda and put on his best ‘not guilty’ look. It consisted of making his face as blank as possible with a slight widening of the eyes for that innocent effect. His mother looked at him speculatively.

  “Karrick,” Amanda, her voice soft, said, “Did you manipulate my thinking and emotions during my dreams last night?”

  “What do you mean?” he said, his heart tripping a few beats.

  “About my feelings toward my dad?”

  Relief hit him and he fought to keep it off his face. This was not the topic he was so worried about. “No.”

  She persisted, “Did you send me a healing dream or not?”

  “Yes, and I’m not going to apologize for that, Amanda. But please don’t think I changed your memories or implanted new ones. All I did was assist you in looking at the facts surrounding your father’s death in a different light.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You had made an unconscious decision you were responsible for your father’s death and you were punishing yourself with nightmares. All I did was help you see things from a different perspective. You made the decision as to which course of thought was more valid.”

  “Tell me what you did, Karrick. I want all the details.”

  Karrick went over the steps of what he did and the decisions he made at each step to help the dream progress in a healing manner.

  When he was done, Amanda asked, “So this is what really happened? You just helped guide me to look at things from my dad’s perspective?”

  “Yes. I figured you two were very close and you would be more accepting of the truth if it came from him. You trusted him and knew what he would have thought and done.”

  “Come here.”

  He stepped closer to her and she stood up to put her arms around him. Amanda rubbed her face on his furry chest and hugged him hard. “That was a good thing you did for me, Karrick. Thank you. I remember that dream and I did feel so much better afterwards.”