by M. J. Kelley
“Please, just ask Master Zocht!” Her words sounded feeble and desperate, and she knew it but didn’t care. And yet, somewhere in the back of her mind, she must have suspected the truth. Maybe hope had blinded her, and maybe the truth was too painful for her to bear. Maybe she had created a reality where a happy ending awaited her and Kimberley. She shivered.
“No . . . No, it can’t be. No . . .” Samantha shook her head, unwilling to accept what she knew must be the truth, but her words faltered. Her tortured mind could no longer carry the lie. The weight of it was too much.
An icy calmness descended on her. It flowed through her like water cutting through ice.
“How did she die?” Her voice was clear and unemotional when she looked up at the alien. There was no fear in Samantha’s eyes. No pain. Just dark shiny pools of an undeterminable depth, and it caught the alien off-guard.
“It doesn’t matter, bellogan. It’s not important.”
“It is important!” Samantha jumped up and faced the alien. “It’s important to me,” she said more softly, suddenly calm again. “Please, tell me.”
Surprised, the alien had taken a step back. She took out the silver disk again, showing it to Samantha. “Sit down, bellogan,” she hissed.
Samantha didn‘t sit down. She stared at the alien, unmoved by the threat. Her heart was still. Her thoughts calm. Nothing mattered now but the truth. “Please tell me what happened to my sister,” she pleaded in a soft voice.
The alien didn’t answer. Instead, she pressed the remote, and electricity surged through Samantha. She fell to the floor, jerking as the current moved cruelly through her body, but she made no sound and took her punishment silently.
After a week, the Parhata returned Samantha to Master Zocht’s home. The soldiers had searched the place and not in a kind way, but Master Zocht, who had been released three days prior, had taken time to clean the mess and restore his home to order. He had also requested a personal audience with Madeer Valnia Alteiri to fiercely and officially object to his treatment at the hands of the Parhata.
The aliens told Samantha nothing, except to say that the situation had been resolved. Her master would explain things to her if he deemed it necessary.
Master Zocht sat at the dining room table when Samantha arrived, a light blue smear of a bruise over the bridge of his thin nose—the only evidence of what had happened to him.
Samantha, on the other hand, bore all the signs of her ordeal. Being a slave for as long as she had meant she did not receive the healing serum. Unlike five years ago when they had use for her and wanted to teach her a lesson, they were done with Samantha now. Her bruised face and short hair contradicted the smooth lines of the house and its clean interior. She seemed the alien.
Master Zocht saw Samantha and jumped up, kicking the chair over in the process, and hurried towards her, his arms outstretched. “Oh my poor girl! What have they done to you?”
He tried to embrace her, but she jerked out of his arms and stepped back, her expression strained under the weight of her anger.
“I’m so sorry this has happened to you. They thought I was somehow spying for the humans.” Master Zocht looked at her with a mixture of concern and shock.
“What happened to my sister?” Samantha’s lower lip trembled as she waited for an answer.
Master Zocht let out a long breath and rubbed his face with both hands, and then, lowering his hands, he said, “Sand—”
“Kimberley! Her name is Kimberley!” Samantha snapped.
“I apologize,” Master Zocht said quickly, realizing the dramatic change in Samantha. He continued more carefully, “Your sibling . . . Kimberley, was taken to The Great Barrier Island. That part was true, but she was never part of Guttor’s family. She was a test subject used in his experiments. I’m so sorry, Bol.” Master Zocht’s face was etched with sorrow.
“I have no idea what the nature of the experiments were, or, precisely, what kind of scientist Guttor is.” Master Zocht continued. “All I know now is that she perished within the first year she was there. That is what they told me.”
Samantha showed no reaction to the news, but her face was pale now. She stood there, impassively, her eyes shining like obsidian glass, hate and anger writhing and coiling under the surface like serpents readying to strike. The transformation shocked Master Zocht. His mouth opened and closed again.
“Why now? After so many years, why now?” Samantha’s voice was like ice, and she gave a step forward, her hands balled up into fists. She still wore her filthy tunic, stained by waste and blood. She had no shoes on, and her feet were black with grime.
Samantha had never seen an inlari cry. Although her experience with Master Zocht over the years meant she knew him very well and that excitement would spread to his face in an animated way when he was happy, his overall demeanor still bordered on stoic; and yet now, here in the entrance hall of his house in Half Moon Bay, in the aftermath of their terrible ordeal, Master Zocht wept silently.
“I wanted to surprise you, Bol. For your birthday. My intent was not to take you to the city, but to the island. I wanted you to see your sister.” Master Zocht sobbed.
It was now Samantha’s turn to be surprised, but she remained silent, her face a mask of impassivity.
“Every year I went to the ministry to ask for information about the Guttor family, and every year they gave me the same answer: That due to security precautions, no one was allowed to enter the island. No other information was forthcoming. But this year I filed a special request to visit the island.” Master Zocht wiped the tears from his eyes with the palms of his hands. “I guess my frequent requests must have raised suspicion. They use the island to experiment on humans. It is horrible. I did not know. Bol, by the Great Star, I did not know.”
Samantha felt a sudden urge to give him comfort, to let him know she believed him, but she could not force herself to act. A terrible anger burned inside of her. It was dark and furious and unwavering.
“I need to leave this place,” she said bluntly. “Lakarta, I mean. This isn’t my home.”
Master Zocht stammered, “But you can’t, Bol. It’s impossible.”
“I don’t have a choice. I can’t stay here anymore.” Rage flared in her eyes. “They murdered my sister and parents. I want to kill all of them. Every last one!” The words came out in a rush of bitterness.
“Every last one, Bol? Even me?” Master Zocht stared at her, his eyes still wet, shock etched on his face. “Even me?” He asked again, this time softly.
Samantha ignored his question. “Will you help me escape?”
“Oh, Bol . . . I can’t . . . I don’t know how. What about your collar? It can only be deactivated at the detention center. And even if you somehow managed to do that, how will you travel back to Australia? A submersible? A fishing boat? They monitor the waters, dear girl. And what about me? If I help you, they will kill me this time.”
“If you won’t help me, I’ll leave anyway.” Samantha’s lips were set in grim determination. Something cold had settled in her during her time in that stinking cell. She knew she would die if she stayed here any longer. Her mind was a storm of guilt and hate, and now anger fueled the flames of that hate, and it was a consuming thing that had overtaken all her other emotions.
“Please,” Master Zocht begged. “Don’t go. Give me a day or two to think about this. Your room is ready for you. I know you are tired. I can see it. Go rest, Bol. Give me time to search for options.”
Samantha’s face softened for a moment, and she saw the pain on Master Zocht’s face. Probably the only human alien alive, she thought. A great exhaustion overcame her then. She smiled. It was a tired smile, and she embraced Master Zocht at last. It made him weep again as he folded his arms around her. But there were no tears from Samantha, for she felt nothing except a lassitude that settled in her bones and made her head ache. And so she turned and went up the stairs to her room, fell on her bed, and was soon asleep.
Samantha slept
the rest of the day and through that night, waking early the next morning. Her eyes felt like they had sand in them, and her head was groggy. A light flickered on her tablet next to her on the bedside table, indicating a message waited for her. She checked it. Master Zocht had gone to work early and requested that she take it easy and not do anything rash. He asked her to wait for him. He had a plan. The message was an hour old.
Samantha sank back into her pillows and closed her eyes. She saw the faces of her family, of her mom and dad, of her little sister. She saw them as they were back then, happy and smiling. For so many years she had busied herself with thoughts of her sister—how she would look, what she would be doing, whether she liked the same food, and whether she was happy—and Samantha imagined how her face must be changing and wondered if her dimples would disappear or remain and whether her hair color would change. But now the nightmare truth had been revealed that her sister never even saw her fifth birthday. The aliens took her life, and they did so in the cruelest of ways. Samantha’s throat became thick with emotion, and she felt a sharp ache in her chest, but she willed the tremulous thoughts back down and locked them up deep inside her where no one would ever have access. She stared at the white ceiling and listened to the birds singing and chirping outside, the far-off low hum of traffic in that hated city, and the noises in the port below. Somewhere a dog barked, and the world sounded normal. How strange then, she thought, that such normalcy hid such evil. The aliens were an abomination. They did not fit with nature. They affected the balance of things. She now knew there was purpose to her life. That she had been made to endure such harsh cruelty by the hands of these scum for a reason. They had taken everything from her. And she would take everything from them. This would be her life’s mission. Once she got back to Australia, she would travel to Queensland and join her dad’s unit.
Samantha dozed for an hour more before she got up. She peeled off her dirty clothing and showered, pulling on a fresh tunic and pants before she went downstairs for breakfast.
It took almost a month, but Master Zocht managed to find a fishing boat to smuggle Samantha over the Tasman Sea to Victoria. But they had to travel all the way to the other side of Lakarta to a small town on the southwestern coast called, Opunake. The port there consisted of a single half-rotted jetty, and the inlari presence in the area was minimal. Master Zocht knew a like-minded colleague who owned a fishing trawler, though he used humans to skipper the boat and fish the seas. This was a strange arrangement, and the details were vague. There were also rumors that inlaris and humans coexisted peacefully in Victoria, and so Opunake, being only about 2,500 km from Victoria, made the most sense. She did not know the details of how Master Zocht had managed to get a boat or a willing skipper, and she didn’t care. She was going back home.
It felt sad leaving Master Zocht, who had been kind to her and who, in his own way, loved her, but Samantha felt no emotional tie, or if she did, it was lost somewhere in the tangled mess of her soul. He was the enemy. Only, he did not act like the enemy, and he had been there during her formative years as she grew under his tutelage. That just made things more complicated. A part of her loved him, she was certain of that. Because of him she hadn’t suffered Carik’s fate, or worse. Because of him she was able to escape New Zealand.
And escape she did. It was remarkably simple to orchestrate, once the boat had been secured. Master Zocht would certainly get into trouble when they discovered his slave had gone AWOL. There would be questions, maybe even an interrogation to understand how she had managed to remove her collar without the detention center’s knowledge and without it blowing her head off. But Master Zocht would simply explain his judgment had been defective. That he never thought Bol would flee. He would tell them how he had treated her kindly, and she had given him no reason to suspect betrayal. He would also explain how he had obtained special permission for Bol to travel to Wellington to accompany him when he delivered his speech on The Nature of the Human Species, a project he had been working on for many years. He was scheduled to appear in front of a gaggle of fellow scholars at a symposium on The Human Problem.
Of course, the range was too great for the collar to work effectively, and he had secured a special release order, so Samantha’s discipline ring had been removed. That was the only way for her to travel to Wellington safely and without incident. He would, of course, explain his embarrassment at what happened and how he feared his professional and scientific credibility may have suffered because of his slave’s betrayal.
In the end, however, Master Zocht’s status would save him from any permanent harm to either his career or his health, and he would continue his work unabashed.
She watched as Master Zocht waved goodbye from the dark rocky shore, a solitary figure on a half-rotten jetty, looking uncomfortable and out of place. Samantha did not respond and watched as Master Zocht grew smaller and smaller, until he was a mere speck on the moving horizon.
Waves crashed against the bow as the trawler pushed forward towards Victoria. Samantha stood outside the wheelhouse, enjoying the surf spray on her skin and the cool sea breeze playing through her hair.
She was going home. She was going home!
The fishing trawler was an old mess of flecked paint and rusted metal, and it reeked of rotting fish. It was called The Merry Sue, and her skipper was a free human male named Torry, who traded fish to the inlari.
Under his fisherman’s cap, Torry’s face was like tanned leather creased too many times. He was thick-shouldered, and tattoos decorated his muscular forearms. His filthy beard hid a cruel mouth, and his flat nose spoke of too many bar-room brawls. Torry’s piggish eyes had stripped Samantha to the bone the moment he saw her board his rust bucket. She should have been afraid, but she just shot him a baleful glance.
A bank of dark cloud rumbled low over them, turning the moody seas a dark cyan. The Merry Sue fought the rising swells as the sea breeze grew stronger and turned into icy gales.
“Hey, missy, you’ll catch a cold standing out there like that. Come join me here!” Torry shouted from the wheelhouse.
Samantha ignored him, but the cold wind cut through her and she shivered. She turned and ascended the bridge ladder, tossing her small backpack into the corner.
The wheelhouse stank of sweat and urine and old food, and it looked as grimy as it smelled.
Torry leered at her, his beady eyes shiny. He seemed not to have noticed Samantha’s scowl or the clear revulsion in her face.
“Why don’t you come closer, lass. Ol’ Torry’ll keep you warm.” He reached out to her with his calloused right hand, but Samantha slapped it away.
Torry gave a short laugh and shook his head. “You don’t want to be playing hard to get, missy. You’ll only get hurt that way.”
Samantha didn’t say a word and glared at him. A calm rage simmered behind her eyes.
“The way I see it, girl, you have two choices here. You can fight me and lose, and then I’ll give you back to the boneheads. Or,” Torry licked his lips, “you can just go with it, and I’ll have you in Port Albert come morning. What’s it gonna be, girl?”
To emphasize her non-choice, Torry lifted his thick jersey, and Samantha saw a short knife with a curved blade riding his hip in a leather sheath.
Samantha shuddered at the thought of what this guy wanted from her—what he wanted to take from her by force. So much had already been taken from her.
No more.
Samantha dove forward, reaching out as if to grab the knife on Torry’s hip. Instinctively, he jumped back, his hand automatically reaching for it, but the knife was not Samantha’s intended target. Next to the ship’s wheel, where Torry had stood just a moment ago, sat a tin cup steaming with dark liquid. Samantha swept the cup up and into Torry’s face. He yelped and swore and clawed at his face as the scalding-hot liquid burned him. Samantha shoved him back and plucked his knife from its sheath, but instead of jumping back, she attacked him. The silver blade glinted dully as it sliced down into Torry’
s groin. The fisherman’s hands shot down, and he grabbed his balls, exposing his face to Samantha. Again she sliced down, twice, crisscrossing Torry’s face, cutting it to the bone.
He fell back and lay crumpled on the floor of the wheelhouse, bleeding and sobbing.
Something dark had snapped in Samantha. She felt no pity and stared at the pathetic wretch in front of her.
“Please, no more,” he pleaded, blood drooling from his torn lips. “I meant no harm.”
“Meant no harm?” Samantha’s voice was colder than the icy gale outside. She wheeled around and grabbed the fourteen-inch priest hanging by a leather loop under the ship’s wheel. “And I do mean you harm.” She raised the club just as lightning crackled outside, illuminating the wheelhouse’s interior. Torry screamed as the club came down in a sickening thud, again, and again, and again.
Nature has a way of reclaiming everything.
It had been nine months since her escape from New Zealand. She would never call it Lakarta again. Samantha stood where her family’s cabin used to rest. Where once a wisp of smoke trickled lazily from the chimney, and where sounds of laughter came as naturally as the birdsong outside.
Bush and weed had now overtaken the site, and here and there she could still see charred pieces of plank and cabin that had been burned to stumps jutting from between the tall grass, and broken beams rotting in the soil. The chimney wall remained, standing guard over the ruins of the cabin, though crumbling and in a state of imminent collapse.
Samantha had dug through the rubble, hoping to find at least some sign of her parents, maybe their skeletal remains, so she could give them a decent burial, but she found nothing. Or maybe they were buried too deep. If that was the case, then this site would serve as a fitting grave. She had already gone to the woods, high up the slope where the berserker had chased her all those years ago. She had searched for her knife and, by some miracle, she had found it. Time had hidden the knife under dirt and leaf mold. The blade was rusted, but she would clean it and, hopefully, still salvage the steel. One day she’d find those aliens who had murdered her family and use the blade on them. The thought made her smile.