by neetha Napew
“Things feel familiar here, but I don’t want to dance.” He grimaced as someone bumped into him from behind-a pair of young men, who grinned and went back to chasing each other and a hoverball. “Mtulla’s nephews.” He grinned. “I remember them. Tiilm and Fduuv.”
I scanned the room. “Are any of these people her kids?”
“I remember a daughter, but I don’t see her.” Dhreen turned and caught the hoverball. “Take it outside, boys, will you?”
We visited with Mtulla’s extended family and employees, who all seemed to have their symptoms under control. Several seemed a bit sluggish, but responded readily to whatever I asked them. We kept the conversation light and inconsequential. It was obvious that the Rajanukal commanded a good price for her services, and treated her people well, because everyone under her roof seemed devoted to her.
“Mtulla is the best handler on the planet,” a young woman confided as she passed around what equaled tea and cookies. She looked across the room at the Rajanukal, and smiled. “We’d be on Beggars Row, without her.”
“Are you her daughter?” I asked after I refused the treat.
The young woman nearly dropped the tray in my lap. “No, I am one of her nieces. Forgive my clumsiness; it is time for my Sensblok.”
Mtulla left us for a brief interval, and returned to inform us that the launch had been located, and the Rajanukal of Peddlers Row had sent a pair of representatives to speak with us. “If you want it back, you’ll have to bargain for it.”
“What do they want?” Reever asked.
She glanced at me. “Sensblok.”
The representatives met with us in one of Mtulla’s central row buildings, this one in slightly better condition than the others we’d seen. No conference table this time, only an older Oenrallian male and female dressed in clean but slightly ragged garments.
“Mtulla told us you were subjected to a ruse by some of the Players,” the man, who identified himself as Loaj, said. “We will not subject you to that. We are honest traders.”
“Indeed,” Xonea said. “Yet you stole our launch from Main Transport.”
“We acquired the space vessel to satisfy an existing debt,” the female said. “Under Bartermen ordinance, we were entitled to take it.”
“And now you want neuroparalyzer in exchange for it,” I said. The male nodded, and both looked eagerly at my sojourn pack. “We came here to try and help your people find a cure, not supply you with more drugs.”
“That is very commendable,” Loaj said, “but there is no cure.”
“Whatever rendered your population sterile is not being helped by drug addiction. If it continues unchecked, it will wipe out your species.” Both averted their eyes. “We’re willing to provide what assistance we can,” I added in a softer tone, “but we can’t give you more drugs.”
“Then we must settle the existing debt with what you do possess.” Loaj fumbled in his garment pocket before extracting a data pad.
“What debt do you refer to?” Qonja asked.
“Payment for services provided to Dhreen’s family while he was offplanet,” the female said. “A large outstanding balance still exists.”
“What family?” I asked Dhreen, who only shook his head, perplexed.
Loaj began reading off a list of supplies and services that seemed to go on forever.
I finally lost my patience. “Look, we don’t have time for bookkeeping right now. Why don’t you tell me where the nearest medical facility is, and we’ll go there and initiate a treatment schedule for the population.”
“The family member, Lkooy, is unable to settle the debt,” Loaj said. “Even when it is stripped down and sold, the vessel will not satisfy the account.”
Dhreen jerked back, bumping into me and Reever. “Lkooy. I remember him.” His face went pale, but his voice grew furious. “I left more than enough credits for his care.”
“Inflation has risen several hundred times since you departed our world, Dhreen. The Bartermen have been caring for Lkooy during your absence. You made yourself answerable for all his debts before you left, and you remain accountable for them now.”
Beside me, I heard Reever murmur to Xonea, “We must contact the ship and arrange for another launch to be sent down, Captain. Immediately.”
I was all in favor of that, but I had an oath to uphold. “Can someone just point me in the direction of a medical database? Because this is a complete waste of my time.”
The female shook her head. “That database now belongs to the Bartermen Association.”
My jaw sagged. “You sold your medical data to them?”
In the meantime, Loaj put aside the data pad. “Restitution must be made immediately, of course. The Bartermen have already been more than generous to allow the debt to exist for so long.” He turned as an immense alien wearing glittery, tight-fitting garments entered the room. “Bkof, you may remove your property.”
I looked from him to the officials, lost. “What property?”
Xonea grabbed me, and pulled me behind him. Qonja flanked me on the other side. “They’ve sold us to that slaver.”
“Hold on.” I refused to believe I’d just been sold into slavery. Again. To Loaj, I said, “We’re not for sale. You can’t do this. We came here to help you.” When no one even blinked, I yelled, “We’re not even citizens of this planet!”
Mtulla appeared, holding what had to be the biggest pulse rifle on Oenrall. “Sorry about this, Doctor. You two Jorenians, place your weapons on the floor, or die.” She turned her head a little. “I wouldn’t do that, linguist. I can shoot you in the back just as easily.”
I saw Reever, tensed to spring, and watched Qonja adjust his grip on the pistol he’d taken out. “Guys. Do what she says.”
“No one makes slaves out of my crew,” Xonea muttered as he enabled his own weapon.
Qonja was even more upset. His claws had sprung out, and he had that everybody-gets-disembowelled gleam in his white eyes. “Release us or die.”
“Captain.” Reever made a strange gesture, and Xonea nodded his head minutely. Then he glanced at me. When we do this, run.
You’d better be right behind me.
“Stay out of this, linguist,” my ClanBrother said, his lips peeling back from his teeth.
“There is no need for violence.” Reever stepped up to Xonea and put himself in front of the weapon.
The Captain gave him a shove. “Follow my orders!”
“Put it down.” Reever glanced at me, then punched Xonea in the face. My ClanBrother reeled back, then lunged at my husband. Somehow the slave trader got caught between them, and all three of them went down.
Something fired, and Qonja collided with me. He held on for a moment, then looked down.
Green blood began darkening the front of his tunic.
I jerked as Reever’s thoughts blasted into my head. Now, Cherijo, go!
“Come on.” I braced him with my arm and stumbled along half-supporting him to the entrance. Dhreen had already disappeared, I saw, and Squilyp was hopping over to help.
He grabbed Qonja just as the big Jorenian sagged. “We must take him to a medical facility.”
“We’ve got to get out of here first.”
Between us, we dragged him to the entrance. Mtulla, who was mesmerized by the three men now rolling and grappling on the floor, looked up just as we reached the door panel, and fired her weapon. A section of the wall vaporized as we stumbled through the entrance and hauled Qonja down the corridor.
“We’ve got to get to a relay station, signal the ship for medevac,” I panted out the words as we hurried to the street. “We’ll take Mtulla’s vehicle, out to Transport maybe, then-“
Waiting for us by the glidecar was Dhreen. He had a weapon trained on the entrance and was holding the door open with the other. “Get in! Cherijo, you drive.”
I slid behind the controls and started the ignition sequence. Squilyp plopped in the back with Qonja, then I felt something touch the back o
f my neck.
“Dhreen,” I said in a very soft voice. ‘That isn’t your gun I feel, is it?”
“Drive straight, four kilometers.” When I didn’t touch the controls the pressure of the weapon’s busi-ness end increased. “I know you can’t die, but do you want to live without a head?”
“If you harm her,” Qonja said, his voice thready with pain, “I will tear your limbs off, one by one.”
“Thank you, resident. Dhreen, I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m not leaving the others behind.” I sat back and folded my arms. “So go ahead and blow my head off. I’ll probably just grow a better-looking one.”
He moved the gun away from my head, then slid over and pressed it to Squilyp’s skull. “How about the Omorr? Do their heads grow back?”
Qonja made an odd sound as I jammed my foot down on the accelerator and took off.
Dhreen didn’t take us to Transport, as I’d expected, but forced me to drive deep into the heart of the city.
“We need to take Qonja to a medical facility, before he bleeds to death.”
“You can treat him where we’re going.”
“Really. And where would that be?” I asked as I avoided another happily manic group of Oenrallians dancing in the street. “Just drive, Doc.”
I drove. “I take it your memory has come back completely.” He didn’t respond. “Are we headed for another League troop freighter?”
“No. I’m finished with the League.”
“How comforting. Is it the Hsktskt, then?”
“I’m going to show you why I brought you here.” I knew there was something fishy about the planet-wide sterility story. “So now I get the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?”
“I didn’t lie to you. I didn’t remember until I heard Lkooy’s name.”
“Pilot.” Squilyp shifted, then winced as Dhreen jammed the weapon harder against the back of his head. “Whatever assistance you need is not going to be provided at gunpoint. Not when we must attend to this man’s injuries.”
“He will not live long enough to require anything,” Qonja muttered.
Our patient and hijacker made a rude sound, “When you see what the wanting is, you’ll change your mind.”
Dhreen instructed me to take a series of twisting turns. As I drove, I noticed the buildings grew sparser, and what there were seemed abandoned.
“This part of the city seems pretty dull,” I commented.
He made a harsh sound. “My people abandoned it decades ago.”
“Any particular reason why? Other than the lousy accommodations?”
“No one wanted to live here.”
“But you thought we couldn’t wait to visit.” I could have spit, I was so angry. “So what is this? More slaver houses? Brothel Row? What?”
He didn’t answer, and my attention was dragged back to the road as we came to an abrupt, dead end.
“This doesn’t look promising.” I stopped Mtulla’s vehicle beside the walled-in end of the road and shut down the engine. “This doesn’t look like a medical facility, either. Where’s the hospital, Dhreen?”
“Get out.”
I climbed out of the glidecar, and watched as Dhreen did the same, still keeping his weapon trained on my boss. “Look, Dhreen, we’re your friends. Don’t do this. Take us somewhere so I can get Qonja some help and signal the ship.”
“In there.” Dhreen pointed to a corner of the wall, where a small, narrow gap appeared in the masonry.
I eyed it, then him. “You really think we’re going to fit through that little hole?”
“Move.”
Between us, we got Qonja through. Squilyp muttered obscenities in Omorr as the back of his tunic tore on the rough edges of the hacked-out space. “This is ridiculous,” my boss spat out. “This man needs attention, Dhreen!”
“Keep walking and shut up.”
We walked in near-total darkness, toward a dimly lit interior chamber. Some old abandoned medical equipment sat in neglected piles on either side of a sealed entrance. A complex locking mechanism secured the panel on all three sides, and the floor had some kind of grid spread over it that didn’t look too friendly, either.
“You have the combination for this?” I nodded toward the lock. “Whatever this is?”
“It is keyed for Oenrallian DNA.” Dhreen went over to it, avoiding the grid, and stuck a finger in a slot. The lights changed color, and the heavy alloy bars screeched as they pulled back from the door panel. “This is Eternity Row.”
I had the feeling that we weren’t going to like the “Eternity” part of this place as soon as we crossed the threshold. Maybe it was the way the air felt-cold and dry, like the way old bones felt. Or the stillness, which was so complete our footsteps sounded like sledgehammers pounding against the floor.
“What is this place?” I asked again as we came to an intersection. “A prison?”
“You could call it that.” Dhreen pointed to the right. “That way.”
Squilyp hopped beside me, and nodded at my glance. I pretended to lose my footing, and swung around in front of Qonja. My boss slipped something into my tunic. “Sorry, resident.”
Qonja managed a smile. “Watch your step.”
“Pilot, is it your intention to incarcerate us here?” Squilyp demanded.
I put my hand in my pocket, and curled my fingers around the syrinpress. “Yeah, what crime are we guilty of, other than saving your life and helping you get back your memory?”
“No crime.” Dhreen only walked up to another, unsecured door and opened it. “This is why you’re here.”
Inside the door was what looked like a medical ward. One that smelled as if it hadn’t been sterilized in years. The sporadic lighting from overhead emitters cast deep shadows over everything, which made it hard to see, but I wasn’t concerned with my vision. I was too busy cringing from the noise.
Hundreds of voices rolled at us like a wave. All of them were, in various degrees, weeping or crying out with pain. From what I could make out, every single bed was occupied.
An epidemic ward?
“Squilyp, get Qonja out of here.” I looked at Dhreen. “He can’t be exposed to this-whatever it is.”
“He won’t catch it. Put him on that bed, over there.” Dhreen pointed.
Reluctantly, Squilyp and I got the resident over to the empty bed and, after shaking out the dusty linens, lowered him on it. A quick exam revealed he’d been shot high in the back, thankfully to one side of his spine. The exit wound on his torso indicated his liver was involved.
“We should run a hepatic special this month.” I straightened and looked at our abductor. “Dhreen, this man needs surgery. Right now.”
“You can do it in the operating room.”
“So this is really a hospital? What’s wrong with these people?” When he didn’t answer me, I strode to the nearest bed, on which lay an odd-shaped bundle of linens over a huddled body. Squilyp did the same thing on the other side of the room. I tried to pull the linens back, but the person beneath them wouldn’t let go. “Dhreen, what is going on here?”
A glance over my shoulder revealed that our abductor still stood by the doorway. He had gone a sickly color of yellow, and his weapon hung loosely by his side. “I can’t. I can’t look at them again.”
“Cherijo.” Squilyp stood over the other bed across from me. “You’d better take a look at this one.”
I debated on whether to wrestle the gun from Dhreen or sedate him, then found I couldn’t do it and went to join my boss. “What have you got”-my eyes widened-“here... ?”
The patient on this bed was very still, and did not protest as Squilyp drew the linens back. Mostly because the patient didn’t have a head, or arms, or legs. Even more bizarre, some form of skinseal had been applied to the points of amputation.
This wasn’t a hospital. It was some kind of a morgue.
“Why hasn’t this body been attended to?” I looked around. “Where are the people who work here?”
>
Squilyp lifted his membrane and touched the chest. “The derma is still warm.” He jerked back, then reached down and splayed his membrane flat against the patient’s chest. “Gods. I can feel a heartbeat.”
I had to feel that for myself. Sure enough, I felt the strong, steady pulse of life beating within the dismembered torso.
“Are they keeping it alive?” I looked for infuser lines, something to explain how the body was being sustained.
There was nothing but the bed and the linens.
“No.” I went to the next bed, pulled back the linens, and stared at the form under them. This woman had a head, and arms, but nothing else from the lower chest cavity down. Skinseal gleamed over exposed edges of organs. I stumbled back when the patient opened her eyes. “Oh, God.”
“Please,” she said, her voice so hoarse it barely rose above a gasp. “Make it stop. Please.”
“Dhreen!” I turned and ran to the door, and grabbed his tunic with my fists. “What have you done to these people?”
“Nothing, nothing.” His eyes avoided mine, and he was nearly hyperventilating. “Our doctors couldn’t help them. They tried-they tried everything-“
“Let him go.” Squilyp came over and took my hands away. “You’d better see the others.”
After making sure Qonja was stable enough to spare us, we made rounds of the hospital ward. Every bed contained a patient who had been horribly mutilated or injured in some way. Missing limbs, heads, huge gaping wounds in their torsos. Burn victims with no features left, and only charred, withered appendages. All of them were Oenrallian. Men, women, and children.
Worse, every single one of them was still alive, with normal body temperatures and strong, vital heart rates.
The only treatment given evidently was sealant to whatever portion of their anatomy that had been amputated or wounded. By the time I made it to the end of the ward, tears were running down my face. The ones who could talk pleaded and begged for us to help them. To end their pain. To stop whatever was happening to them.
The ones I couldn’t bear were the bodies without heads. The ones who could never plead or beg for anything again. And yet somehow they knew we were there. Their torsos moved. If they had hands, they clutched at us.