by Lucia Ashta
“You could’ve killed every single one of us!”
“It wasn’t as bad as all that—”
But Kai cut Aletox off, emboldened finally having someone else join him in outrage. “It was most definitely as bad as all that. You did almost kill us. I actually believed I was dead until the pain became so bad that I realized I couldn’t be. And then I wished I was.”
Ilara and Lila joined in with affirming choruses of hmmm-hmmms.
Aletox huffed then and swept a dark, unremorseful gaze around the small cabin that, now that my olfactory senses were working again and able to relay messages to my brain, reeked of bile and desperation. He held each of our wavering, bobbing gazes for long seconds before speaking again in a chilling tone that brought complaints to a temporary end. “Do you want to keep dragging this out with your whining and complaining? Or do you want to get out of this transport capsule?”
“Get us the fuck out of this thing,” Dolpheus said, his voice gravelly, but filled with conviction.
I nodded my agreement and immediately regretted it, my world was spinning all over again.
Aletox returned his attention to Ilara. “Then, Princess, where should we land?”
Ilara sighed with audible resignation. “Where do you want to go? I mean, what are your intentions? What do you want to find or whatever?”
I too had been wondering what Aletox’s true purpose for traveling to Sand was—before we actually traveled here, when my brain was still my ally and not a drum I couldn’t silence.
“If we’re here to verify whether there’s another holographic version of you on this planet, then we’d want to go wherever another version of you would be,” Aletox said.
“It’s been a long time since I stayed in one place for long. I was a storm chaser. I followed the storms. I’d only come back to visit my parents occasionally, for holidays and such. So I don’t think that’s a good gauge for where another version of me might be.”
I admired how Ilara could speak so easily of the possibility that there might be another version of her out there—as if it wouldn’t be the end of the world. I was starting to fear it would feel like the end of mine.
“Then where would the King have sent the Princess?” Aletox opened his question up to the entire cabin but still garnered no response.
He prodded, “The King wanted to get the Princess away from potential assassination. But the King always makes the most of every situation. He studies every angle and takes advantage of every opportunity.”
Aletox spoke as if he knew the King well, and I realized then how similar Aletox and King Oderon were.
“Come on,” Aletox snapped. “Use your brains. What would the King do? Where would he send his daughter to get her away from danger and use her time here to his advantage?”
“You have no right to insult us,” Kai said. The kid had some balls. As my brain came on board more with each passing moment, I remembered that Aletox was a man we should tread carefully around, regardless of our true feelings. Either Kai didn’t care or he was still too woozy to realize. “If we’re unusually slow to react and think right now,” Kai said, “it’s entirely because of what you just put us through.” He let his words sink in. “So back the fuck off, and talk to us with some respect.”
Whoa, go Kai! Dolpheus’ voice said in my mind. The true soldier in him is starting to shine. I would’ve smiled but every part of me still ached terribly. I only had energy for the most pressing concerns.
Aletox sneered dangerously. “Will you please get your fucking stringy orange ass the fuck up off the floor and get in your seat so I can land this thing already? I would most appreciate it.” He smiled with thin lips, and I doubted a smile had ever looked more dangerous.
Apparently, Kai thought so too, because he didn’t say a word. He half crawled, half dragged himself across the floor back to his seat. Then he pulled himself into it and buckled in with trembling hands. I couldn’t tell if his hands shook because of the jump or Aletox. Either reason would be understandable.
“Now,” Aletox said, returning his attention to Ilara. “Where would the King send you?”
“It’s not fair to make her figure it out,” I interjected. “She doesn’t even remember the King.” There were so many fears I was omitting from my words, principal among them was that Ilara hadn’t forgotten, that she never lived the memories to begin with.
He pinned beady eyes on me. “You know the King. You know him better than most of us.”
He knows I went into the King’s memories, I said to Dolpheus. How is that possible?
I don’t know, Tan, I really don’t. But he’s said a few things he should have no way of knowing. Unless we have a birdie among us, and that seems unlikely.
Before I gave away our ability to mind speak with each other, I jumped in with the first thing that popped into my addled mind. “The King would send her wherever she would benefit the King the most.”
“Yes, Tanus, I just said that. Maybe you aren’t my son after all. No son of mine could be this slow to catch on.”
I glared but otherwise ignored him. “What’s most valuable to the King on Sand? The pure sand that can only be found here. The pure sand that’s on the opposite end of the spectrum from our coarse, black sand. The pure sand that’s worth fortunes in roones, more than that, its worth can’t even compare to roones.”
Aletox arched one eyebrow. Again, I ignored him and those annoying black eyebrows that looked painted on his forehead.
“If the King sent the Princess to Sand, which he did, then he’d want to get some information about how better to harvest the pure sand and transport it back to O. So he’d send the Princess to wherever the purest sand is.” I’d heard this from the King’s own lips when I’d been a visitor in his memories.
Aletox said, “That’s right.” He turned back to Ilara. “So, Your Majesty, where is the purest sand on Sand?”
“Seriously?” Ilara said.
“Deadly,” Aletox said.
“The deserts or beaches, I guess. What’s considered the highest grade of sand on Origins?”
Lila answered her, words still slightly slurred. “The finer and whiter the grain, the purer it is.”
“Man, I don’t know. There’s what Oers would consider ‘pure’ sand all over the place. How am I supposed to know which of all the places has the purest and finest?”
“Guess,” Dolpheus said.
“Guess?” Aletox said and whirled on my friend. “You want her to guess where we land the transport machine?”
“Hey, asshole, do you have a better idea? If you’d said something of this before, maybe we could’ve figured something out. But you didn’t.”
“Do you have some kind of search engine? Internet, or something like it we could use? We could find the answer in seconds that way,” Ilara said. “From the blank looks on your faces, I’m guessing you have no idea what I’m talking about, so… I’m sure there are plenty of beaches that have pure sand. But the only place I can for sure say would have a shitload of sand and probably pure sand would be someplace like the Sahara Desert. But the Sahara Desert’s a big, hot, dangerous place.”
“Then let’s go to the Sahara Desert,” Aletox said, and they sounded too much like famous last words for my taste. “Where is it?”
“In Africa.”
“And where’s Africa?”
“It’s a big continent, er, land mass, kind of shaped like this.” Ilara drew in the air with her fingers.
“All right,” Aletox said. “I’ll find it. Now, make sure you’re buckled up. This could be a bumpy ride.”
Now those were famous last words. After what we’d already survived at the hands of this man today, I didn’t want to imagine how bumpy it could get.
I made sure my harness was tight as blood drained from my face. A quick glance at my friends confirmed that we were one scared crew, holding on for our lives.
Chapter 2
“You know, maybe we should talk about this some mor
e,” Ilara said at precisely the same moment the vunter capsule began to shake any coherent thoughts we’d managed loose again.
I’d wanted to agree that we absolutely should talk about our destination more before descending onto an alien planet in the middle of a continent that looked like a misshapen triangle from Ilara’s air sketch. I would have argued that where we touched down should take into account a great many more factors than Ilara’s guess. I would have accused Aletox of sloppiness and wondered why he was so quick to come to a decision when all of our lives hung in the balance—had he given me the chance.
But keeping my teeth from breaking and my insides from leaching into the cabin required all my attention. The shaking and lurching wasn’t as bad as it had been during the jump across the galaxy. That wasn’t saying much. During the jump, I’d wished for the mercy of death. Now I just begged for it to be over already.
By the time we crossed the gaseous threshold into the planet’s atmosphere, I didn’t give a flying fuck where Aletox brought us down, I just wanted to be free of this death trap. I swore never to take stillness for granted again.
My head rattled from side to side across the tight space between the headrest’s curved sides. Any attempt to keep my head still was useless. How on O had Aletox not added some kind of strap to keep your head in place when he designed this transport machine?
Then we went into a free fall. My stomach lurched upward into my chest cavity, where it didn’t belong, and all I could register was that the fall of death was quieter than I ever imagined it to be. Nothing vibrated anymore. The ride was finally smooth, but was plummeting us far too quickly toward the hard surface of the planet below.
At this rate, death would arrive swiftly. Hazily, while my ears popped painfully and darkness began to cloud the edges of my vision, I wondered if I’d become a good man before I died. Had I managed it? I knew I wasn’t a great man; perhaps that required a selfless temperament different from my own. But had I become a good man before death? Was I a man worthy of a great woman’s love and a loyal friend’s trust?
I didn’t arrive at any conclusion of my worthiness before the darkness claimed my vision and I could no longer sense anything, save one last groaning, gagging sound somewhere in the cabin.
Then, for the second time in an hour, there was nothing.
Chapter 3
When I came to this time, I knew right away I wasn’t dead. I was slumped forward in my seat over my harness, which cut severely into my flesh. My head throbbed terribly at my temples, and every part of my body scolded me for the abuse. A thin trail of saliva hung from the corner of my mouth to my thigh, but I couldn’t move to wipe it.
I waited, precisely as I was, because there was nothing I could do like this beyond mourn the fact that I’d decided to trust Aletox, the one man I knew with certainty wasn’t worthy of my trust, and I’d allowed those I cared about to trust him as well. It’d been a mistake, probably the worst in my life in a long line of bad mistakes.
As time, an objective witness to human agony, ticked on, I realized we weren’t moving anymore. I would have been relieved, but that was an unachievable state when you felt blown apart into a million fragments. Had a giant shoved me into his mouth, chewed for a while, and then spit me back out, I might have felt better.
Eventually, the tortured sounds of my companions began to pull me out of myself. It was a replay of our earlier attempts to recover from the jump across space. Only now we were beaten down and defeated. Alongside Dolpheus, I’d fought in battles, leading soldiers even, for days without rest. No foe or beast could keep me from barreling forward to accomplish my immediate purpose, even when I didn’t fully agree with my orders.
Aletox and his hellish device had elicited the surrender I’d never before given in four hundred forty-three years of life, most of which I’d spent fighting.
When he spoke, I wanted nothing more than to push his foul voice away. I wished to force him out of my reality, to never have to see his sharp, unyielding features again.
But he persisted. Damn him.
“You can exit the capsule whenever you’re ready,” he said as if nothing extraordinary had happened, as if the five of us regularly hurtled through space at astonishing speeds that our bodies proved they weren’t meant to withstand.
Aletox unclasped his restraints, ran agile fingers across a holographic board in front of him, then stashed it away. All transport functions shut down, deanimating the space machine into little more than a vunter can. One that I was desperate to be free from.
He avoided all eyes contact with the five of us. Even though I couldn’t turn my head to see my friends, I was certain they must be glaring hatred at him as I was.
Aletox stood, which on its own was astounding, and crossed the cramped floor of the capsule, nimbly skirting puddles of bile.
He’s not human, Dolpheus said, his words as wobbly as my thoughts. That explains a lot.
Aye, I responded. I can’t even understand how he’s standing, let alone operating complex machinery.
Aletox opened the multiple fasteners that held the door closed with sharp clicks. Each one pierced my head painfully, the clanks echoing through my brain until they dissolved into a ringing that seemed as if it would never end.
Aletox didn’t even ask if we were ready before he pushed the door open.
The moment he did, Planet Sand gave us an intense and wholly overwhelming greeting, especially in our weakened state.
The light was so bright it made my eyes water. Even as I tried to blink against the blinding white, a wave of heat slammed into me, making it hard to draw a breath. Then sand blew into the cabin as if it were as desperate to flee Planet Sand as we were to flee the vunter death trap. It whirled in on a wind, peppering my exposed face like thousands of little buzzers stinging my vulnerable flesh all at once. I couldn’t move my arms fast enough to shield my face from the onslaught, my reactions were dulled. So I scrunched my eyes shut and my face into a grimace as I took the pounding of several fortunes in pure sand.
It invaded my nose and my ears. I coughed, then gagged when it coated my mouth.
“By the oasis, man,” Dolpheus yelled, “close that damn door!” As soon as he finished speaking, Dolpheus began coughing so violently I was sure he must have inhaled enough sand to buy a family home on O.
My eyes and mouth were closed against the assault as I wished I could close every other orifice as well.
Finally, with several grunts more than he’d permitted himself when we were hurtling toward death, Aletox managed to pull the door closed. The wind of Planet Sand howled a complaint, yanking the door open again, showing Aletox how insignificant he was compared to its might.
Aletox struggled to pull the door shut again for so long that I wondered if there was any way I could get my body to rise so I could help. We needed that door shut before sand buried us inside this death trap. I refused to die in a vunter can. Better to die a warrior’s death in the maws of a mowab than this. But then, maybe we’d been doomed to that fate since we first stepped into it.
But as I was trying to wangle my body into some semblance of functionality, with a savage roar, Aletox pulled the door shut again. This time, he held on until he’d snapped three of the fasteners closed. Then he leaned against it, panting until he started to cough.
His coughs were drowned out by our own. We coughed until it hurt. I wheezed and tried to open my eyes. Sand scraped my eyeballs until I gave up, resigned to closing my eyes again.
A long time passed where there were plenty of the sounds of human beings recovering from the wrath of nature and stupid vunter design, but there were no words. A loud thud stood out against hacking and heavy breathing and then Kai said, “Holy hell. Aletox, are you okay?”
Was something wrong with the invulnerable Aletox? After he’d withstood space travel like a god, had the sand he’d likely come seeking taken him down? I had to see for myself, but my eyes burned and teared.
“Guys,” Kai said, “I t
hink we need to help him.”
“I can’t keep my eyes open,” I said. “Every time I try, they burn.”
Kai said, “Well, you might want to open them anyway, it looks like Aletox is dying.”
Usually a statement about someone dying would be more than sufficient to prompt immediate action and a sense of urgency. I couldn’t decide if it was our physical condition that prevented this kind of logical reaction, or if it was just that the man had pushed us all too far for us to care in the way we normally would.
I forced my eyes open. It was terrible, and I had to ignore every one of my body’s instincts that screamed at me to shut them. Tears streamed down my face as I watched Dolpheus stretch a boot toward Aletox’s body. “Aletox,” he said and nudged his body, crumpled into a heap on floor.
“Aletox,” Dolpheus said and nudged again. Nothing. No response. “Dammit,” he growled viciously and he unsnapped his harness.
Dolpheus was only in this mess because of me. I couldn’t let him deal with this alone. But there was a part of me that couldn’t bring myself to care whether the man lived or died. I quickly convinced myself it must be a part of me that felt the pain of a child abandoned by his father, because I didn’t want to explore whether the rest of me could allow a man to whither into death without acting, even if I’d wanted to kill him just moments before. After all, when I thought I was surely dying, hadn’t I wanted to think myself a good, perhaps even a great, man?
A great man wouldn’t allow another to just die at his feet. Neither would a good one.
“Fuck,” I managed through a cough as I unclasped my harness. Once I determined my body into motion, my first urge was to rub the crap out of my eyes. But I knew better than to rub the scratchy stuff that filled them. I stretched my head upward and forced my eyes to remain open, blinking only when I had to, the stinging still unbearable.
Another click told me someone else intended to help Aletox, too.
You can do it, Tan, I said to myself. Come on. You’ve stared down mowabs. You can get out of your seat.