Exile's Throne

by Rhonda Mason

  “Ida also told us each of those had eventually succumbed to the brain damage,” Vayne replied. “She led us to believe that Itsy was the last of them alive.”

  “Show us the room they kept Itsy in.”

  This time Vayne passed the impressions along, though it killed him to communicate with any imperial in that fashion. He showed them the walls of Itsy’s cabin, words and mathematical equations scrawled up to the ceiling. The way the bed sheets were shredded and knotted into an archaic counting device, the different strands colored with urine and even feces. The rotting food piled up by the synthesizer, the broken desk, and over it all the terrible, terrible stench.

  “People go crazy in different ways, though,” Kayla said. “Itsy was sane enough in her own way to escape, avoid capture, and set the self-destruct on Tia’tan’s ship.”

  “The restraints, though?” Malkor asked.

  Vayne answered him. “Those would have been standard-issue restraints during a time of war five hundred years ago, I think.”

  “But these were used for more than just restraint, considering the severity of the burns we saw,” Tia’tan argued.

  “I can’t imagine people with dementia stemming from brain damage learn a lesson very well the first time.”

  “The locked door should have made them unnecessary, if they truly were just for keeping the crew members corralled.”

  Kayla spoke up. “A locked door didn’t stop Itsy, and from the footage I saw she was practically feral.”

  “Putting aside the issue of the sliding scale of their insanity for the moment,” Malkor said, “if they were being held purely for their own safety, why would the captain go to such lengths to keep their existence from us? Changing the status of that level to unpowered in the ship’s complink, restricting access via the lift, using a psionic screening device… She had to know, with all of us searching the ship, that they’d be found eventually.”

  “Maybe she thought it wasn’t any of our business,” Tia’tan postulated. “As captain, she intends to govern her crew as she sees fit, with no outside interference.”

  “Or to protect their dignity,” Kayla said. “Let them go crazy in peace.”

  Vayne frowned. “She doesn’t get to have that luxury. Not with other stepa running loose, stealing weapons. We’re risking our lives, we deserve to know what’s going on.”

  “I agree,” Malkor said. “I’m not keeping my team in the dark.” Even though he said it quietly, the man’s voice had the same kind of certainty that Kayla always spoke with.

  Vayne looked from him to Kayla. They wore the same focused, determined expression, had the same intelligent gleam in their eye. They even sat on the bench the same way: on the edge, back straight, feet shoulder-width apart with weight equally balanced—ready to spring into action.

  Grudgingly, he could see how Malkor might appeal to a ro’haar.

  “Do you think they’re in contact with the other stepa?” Kayla asked. “What were Officer Kendrik’s words? ‘When a rescue attempt is discovered?’”

  Vayne tapped his fingers on his thigh, uncertain. He’d been turning the strange conversation over and over in his head since this afternoon and he still wasn’t sure if there was something sinister going on, or if they were trying too hard to make sense of the ramblings of a crazy person. “The supposed rescue could just be taking place in their minds.”

  “None of them made a rush for the door either time that I opened it,” Tia’tan admitted. “Neither Gaar nor Enska showed any reaction to Kendrik’s mention of rescue, and they spoke of the captain visiting as if she came for tea, not in a jailer capacity.”

  “Kendrik seemed pretty lucid when mentioning the rescue attempt,” Kayla said, “and referencing a ‘fog’ in her head.”

  But no one really knew what was going on in the crew members’ ancient brains, and that was the problem. Anything Kendrik and the others said or did could be analyzed any which way and produce a dozen different outcomes.

  “We need to have Toble examine them,” Malkor said, and Kayla nodded.

  “Who?” Vayne asked, earning an immediate frown from Kayla.

  “The octet has been on board for weeks now, and you still don’t know their names?”

  He shrugged. Kayla’s look promised they’d “have words” later.

  “Toble’s our medic,” Malkor said, neutral as before. “He’s not a neuroscientist per se, but he’ll know how to evaluate them.”

  “That’s our next move, then,” Tia’tan said. “Can you wake him?”

  “Now?” Vayne asked.

  “It’s our best shot. I don’t know when Tanet’s code will change again, and we won’t be able to open the door without a current one.” Tia’tan looked at each of their faces. “Unless you want to confront Ida about it instead?”

  They all shook their heads. It was possible Kendrik and the others had been quarantined in the same corridor as Itsy originally, and then moved once Vayne had stumbled upon her. If they confronted Ida before they had all the facts, where would she then move them to?

  “Plus, no one will notice our absence tonight. Tomorrow we’ll be all over the ship, working in teams on who knows what, with the new rebels in the mix—it’ll be a lot harder to break away.”

  “Rigger and I are leaving for Ordoch in the morning,” Malkor added. He turned his gaze to Kayla and gave her a half-smile. “I’d like to know what new sort of trouble you’ll be in when I get back.”

  12

  They made the trip to the lower deck mostly in silence, with only Toble asking questions about the crew’s condition: things neither Tia’tan nor Vayne had known to look for, like pupil dilation or loss of coordination. Toble had his medical case in one hand, a datapad in the other. Malkor and Vayne both carried cases of medical equipment he had brought over from the Lorius as soon as he’d seen the rudimentary offerings of one of the Yari’s med stations. It seemed he now intended to set up a mobile lab inside the barracks.

  Kayla, following behind, carried her plasma bullpup at the ready. Keeping alert and tuned to any possible disturbance wasn’t a problem—she was still boiling from learning that her il’haar had walked into such a dangerous situation without calling for her first. She was no good to him as a ro’haar on the other side of the ship. And leaving Corinth’s wellbeing to strangers? She didn’t give a frutt how well trained those rebels were. If Corinth wasn’t with an octet member, one of his siblings, or Noar and Tia’tan, he wasn’t safe.

  She and Vayne would most certainly be having words later.

  They arrived at the barracks without incident. The lights were down, the bunks quiet. Hopefully, they were more sane than crazy, because the appearance of five strangers in their midst in the middle of the night would certainly set them off.

  Kayla tapped the lights by the door, bringing them halfway up. The bunks at the near end were all made up and empty, so she followed Tia’tan to the near silent room. Beyond Tia’tan’s shoulder she saw a woman pacing the narrow aisle that ran between the bunks. She wore a sleep shirt and nothing else, bare feet counting out seventeen steps in one direction before she turned and executed seventeen back toward them.

  “Not safe. Have to hide. Not safe. Have to hide.” The woman’s shoulder-length hair curtained her face as she kept her head down, focused on each step.

  “Hello,” Tia’tan called softly. The woman ignored them completely.

  “I haven’t met her yet,” Tia’tan murmured to Kayla. “She seemed semi-catatonic when I was here before.”

  “Well she’s certainly mobile now.” Kayla motioned for the others to keep back, then she approached the pacing woman. She stepped directly into the woman’s path and waited.

  Twelve steps, thirteen… Without even looking up, the woman sidestepped Kayla at a precise ninety-degree angle and continued on her way.

  “Not safe. Have to hide.”

  “I’ll wake Kendrik.” Tia’tan searched out the woman on the bottom bunk farthest to the back.

/>   Two men slept fitfully in bunks to Kayla’s left. She damn near jumped a meter when one cried out and half sat up, eyes wide and unseeing.

  His hand shot out, quicker than she could react, and clamped around her wrist. He pulled her with all his might and she stumbled down to one knee beside the bed, face to face with him. He had a sickly look, with blue lips, ashen skin, and clear fluid leaking from his nose.

  “Don’t let me sleep,” he pleaded. “Help me to stay in the waking.” His glazed eyes were wider than viewports and she wasn’t sure who he saw when he stared at her. “Please.” He squeezed her wrist as if she were his lifeline.

  “Tell me how,” she said, but already she was losing him. His eyelids fluttered, and he blinked mightily. “Stay with me.” She shook his shoulder with her free hand, but his eyes rolled back into his head and he collapsed on the bed with a sigh that sounded like surrender. No amount of shaking could rouse him.

  Kayla called for Toble to examine the unconscious man. “I’m not sure if he’s heavily sedated,” she said, “or if he passed out. Can you tell?”

  Toble opened his medical kit and got to work.

  Kayla rose and joined the others, but couldn’t shake the eerie feeling the man’s words had given her. What was happening here?

  Thanks to the images Tia’tan had passed along earlier, she recognized Gaar, Enska, and Kendrik as they climbed out of their bunks. Officer Kendrik introduced the woman who continued to pace as Airman Lopez.

  “Why this waking?” Gaar asked. Enska watched them with guarded eyes, saying nothing as he pulled a robe on over his sleeping tunic.

  “We would like our medic to examine you, if that’s all right,” Tia’tan said.

  Gaar gestured to the pacing woman. “Lopez being a medic of the Yari. Is not needed.”

  “I don’t think Lopez is up to a more thorough examination of your symptoms,” Kayla said.

  Officer Kendrik considered this a moment. She looked to Gaar and Enska, likely in silent communication with them. It was hard for Kayla to be patient when so much was at stake. Clearly Officer Kendrik was the lynchpin. Whatever she decided, the others would go along with. Kayla struggled not to shake the woman and demand she comply.

  “An examination again being acceptable to us,” Kendrik said finally.

  They all waited in awkward silence for Toble to finish examining the unconscious man. Once he did, he joined the group and organized Vayne and Malkor into setting up his mobile lab. He knelt in front of Officer Kendrik, who remained sitting on her bunk. With Tia’tan translating his Imperial Common for the woman, he asked a series of questions, some of which seemed to confuse her.

  Toble must have felt every eye in the room on him because he stopped. He shot an annoyed look over his shoulder. “First, you’re crowding me. Second, this is going to take a while so you might as well all get comfortable.”

  Not what she wanted to hear.

  Nonetheless, she, Vayne, and Malkor cleared out and wandered to the other end of the room. Gaar and Enska reclaimed their bunks to wait their turn for inspection.

  Minutes ticked by. More minutes. Kayla’s earlier edginess was quickly being replaced by fatigue.

  “What time is it, anyway?” she asked no one in particular.

  “I don’t know,” Malkor said, “but I’m going to grab some shut-eye while I can. We have a big day scouring the lower levels for foodstuffs tomorrow.” He selected a bunk close to the door and lay down.

  Fingers interlaced, hands resting on his stomach, one booted foot crossed over the other, he looked pretty comfortable for a man who was too big for the bed. She hadn’t realized the officer cabins were built more generously.

  Vayne and Kayla sat side by side on another bunk by silent agreement. They were still in sync on some level even after five years apart. The knowledge relaxed her.

  Vayne glanced at her from the corner of his eye. “Has the time of reckoning come? I can hear your lecture already.”

  He could probably predict every word of it, which made it all the worse, since he’d knowingly put himself in danger without her.

  But the night was late, and for the moment things were peaceful. Sitting beside him, knowing her il’haar was safe, being close to the twin she’d thought she lost forever, her heart just wasn’t in it. “I guess that saves me from having to say it.”

  “Consider me suitably chastised.”

  She snorted. “Unlikely.”

  They leaned together, arm to arm, and she tilted her head onto his shoulder. They had a clear view of Toble at work from where they sat.

  Vayne’s voice sounded in her head. ::Sleep. I’ll keep watch on them, and wake you if necessary.::

  With anyone else she might have argued it was her job to keep watch, but not with Vayne. The ro’haar– il’haar bond was an equal pairing, two pillars with different strengths, each supporting the other. She trusted him implicitly. And she sensed, more than ever before, that he needed her to trust in him and his abilities. He doubted himself in a way she never had, and he needed to know that someone believed in him.

  So she merely murmured “thank you,” and closed her eyes.

  * * *

  Sometime later—any hour in the middle of the night on a spaceship felt like any other hour of the night—Toble woke them to present his preliminary findings.

  “I was only able to examine Kendrik, Enska, and Gaar. Lopez wouldn’t leave off pacing, and Djittri and Windham remain unconscious.” Toble wiped his brow, looking weary and frustrated. “Cranial scans of all three show a low level of damage, akin to sustaining one or more traumatic mechanical brain injury.” His mouth twisted. “That, I’m afraid, is the good news.”

  Kayla rubbed her gritty eyes and sat up straighter, easing the kink in her neck. “What’s worse than traumatic brain injury?”

  “They’re being poisoned.”

  That had everyone scrambling to their feet.

  “They are being given an exotic cocktail of substances, some of which I can’t identify—likely because they don’t exist in the empire.” Toble looked down at his datapad, scrolling through his findings. “The two substances in greatest abundance in each patient are heavy sedatives. At such high levels, I believe these tranquilizers are responsible for most of the symptoms we’re seeing: the confusion, memory loss, inability to concentrate, impaired cognitive function, and of course, the heavy sleeping.”

  He consulted his notes again. “There is also a third drug with anti-anxiety properties, historically used to treat seizures. It was long ago identified as a carcinogen, though, and I believe that it is at least partly to blame for the brain tumors I’m seeing in each of them. Beyond that, they’re being given a herb of some kind, and at least two other compounds that my database can’t identify.

  “Best-case scenario, someone is drugging these people with the sole intention of making them easy to deal with.”

  Not at all what she’d expected. “How are they being drugged?”

  “It’s in their food,” Tia’tan said, and Toble nodded in agreement.

  “Each reports feeling extremely drowsy a short while after eating. They lie down to sleep, sometimes for as much as eighteen hours at a time. None of them remember being handed medication to take, or given injections.”

  “If they’re asleep that long,” Vayne countered, “they could still be given injections.”

  “It’s possible, but I didn’t find any signs on their skin of repeated puncturing.”

  Kayla snapped her fingers, remembering. “That’s why Kendrik’s so thin, and also the most ‘with it’ of the bunch. She figured out a correlation between the food and her symptoms, so she’s been eating as little as possible.”

  Toble nodded again. “Exactly. They have a food synthesizer, it would be as simple as someone dosing the calorie pack each time it was changed out.”

  “That’s low,” Vayne growled. He had one hand clenched in a fist. “We have to get them out of here.”

  Kayla laid her
hand over his fist. “We don’t know that someone is trying to harm them. None of the remaining crew are medics; someone might be trying to keep them from hurting themselves and just has the dose wrong.”

  Vayne gave her a look that said he doubted it.

  “Since Tanet’s code unlocks the barracks,” Tia’tan said, “we can assume that Ida and the crew all have access. But considering how well the stepa get around the ship, it’s possible that they have something to do with it.”

  “The way I see it,” Malkor said, “we have four possibilities.” He counted them off on his fingers. “One, Ida and her crew are jointly responsible for the overdose. Two, one of the five is poisoning these people in secret, and the rest of the ‘sane’ crew are unaware. Three, whoever is leading the stepa loose on the ship is overdosing them as part of a plan. Four, one of the crazy stepa is acting alone and no one on either side has any idea.”

  Kayla made a disgusted sound. “None of which we can determine with the information we currently have. How bad are the tumors?”

  “They’re small, for now. Still operable, at least in Enska, Kendrik, and Gaar’s cases. Assuming we stopped the drugs immediately.”

  But that was impossible. They had no way of knowing when the calorie packs were changed out, and with the psionic field dampener on the door, none of the crew could get word to them when it happened.

  And something else— “Tanet’s security code will reset tomorrow. Without that, we won’t be able to gain access to this room again.”

  “Then we take them with us tonight,” Vayne said, clearly ready to do just that.

  “No.” A small voice came from behind Toble. “We are to stay. This room being our pen for now, until it is time.” Barefooted, bare-legged Airman Lopez stood just beyond their circle, having snuck up without anyone noticing. Apparently she could stop pacing, but she still hopped from foot to foot, as if itching to get back to it.

  “Until what time?” Tia’tan asked.

  Lopez shook her head. “It’s not safe, have to hide. Not safe. Hide in plain sight. Hide in here.”