by Sara King
“Hundreds,” Stuart whispered.
Koff withdrew the knife and grunted. “That was a neat trick, zapping me like that. Couldn’t move a damn muscle.”
Stuart lowered his host’s forehead to the plastic.
“I guess I’ve got an obligation to kill you, but I don’t really feel like it.” Pete Koff pointed the blade at his face. “That another one of your tricks? Mess with my brain so I feel all chummy with you?”
“I don’t have the ability to alter emotions or memories.”
“Mmm.” Koff frowned at the knife. “I heard your apologies, you know. You’re one genuinely remorseful little bastard, aren’t you?”
Stuart continued to stare at the floor. He hoped Koff would do what he didn’t have the courage to do himself.
“Answer me,” Koff growled.
“Just kill me,” Stuart whispered to the plastic. “I deserve it.”
Koff grunted again. “Why do you bastards take human hosts, anyway, if you hate it so much?”
Stuart jerked. “Because you killed the harra!” he screamed, outraged. Then, his sudden fury subsiding with a surge of shame, he said, “Humans are the only things left.”
“What about dogs?” Koff asked. “There’s a lot of dogs on the colonies.”
“Would you want to be trapped in a dog?!” Stuart demanded.
Koff’s face darkened and he turned to look at Stuart, his face a thunderhead. “No, I was trapped in my own damn head, watching something else use my body like a puppet.”
Stuart had nothing to say to that. He dropped his head back to the floor, closing his eyes against the shame.
“At least you didn’t make me kill anyone,” Koff said. “I was real worried about that. Good ol’ Pete here went all the way through bootcamp utterly terrified of blood. Why I chose the Space Force.” He paused and gave Stuart a long look. “Not that that’s gonna save you, just sayin’.”
With his host’s wrists bound behind his back, Stuart let out an unsteady breath and tried to fight down the fear of once again being trapped in a dead body. In the background, Earl was laughing at him. Two’s company, ain’t it, pal? Maybe the corporal would be merciful and would drive the knife a few times through Earl’s brain, to put Stuart out of his misery.
For a long time, Pete Koff said nothing. Stuart could feel him watching him, the small hairs on the back of his host’s neck tingling under the pressure. Then Pete sighed. “I’m a wanted man, now. I go back, they’ll put me in a decontamination room for a few centuries for observation, make sure you didn’t lay any eggs while you were in there.” He gave Stuart a sharp glance. “You didn’t, did you?”
“No,” Stuart whispered. “There is no point.” As Stuart well knew, to live like this was akin to spending an entire lifetime dying.
Besides, he’d already failed the other suzait. He couldn’t stand the Karmic burden of replicating himself, only to leave them behind; uneducated, unaware, innocent…
…to be promptly caught by S.O. and ruthlessly ripped from the host Stuart had given them, then dissected under a microscope while surrounded by cold, dispassionate alien faces.
Corporal Koff seemed to digest that a moment. “So how long does it take you to die once you’re out of your host?”
Stuart stared at the floor.
“How long?” Koff snapped. He slapped the flat of the knife against Stuart’s shoulder.
Miserable, Stuart said, “Ten minutes, sometimes less.”
“Sometimes?”
“Depends on temperature and humidity,” Stuart whispered.
Pete Koff grunted. “Come out, then. I wanna see you. I wanna know what was in my head.”
Stuart cringed. “You don’t want that.”
“Do it.”
He’s serious, Stuart realized, in dismay. He looked up at Koff, panic worming into his soul once more. “Will you at least move back a bit? I won’t feel safe if you—”
“You’re one to talk,” Corporal Koff interrupted in a growl, “taking people’s bodies away from them. Get out here, or I’ll cut you out.”
“Completely?” Stuart whimpered. “But my host will—”
“This brute isn’t going anywhere. You’ve got ten seconds. I’ll hold his head still.” Pete took hold of Earl’s hair in a tight, unyielding grip. “You make me come get you, that’s the end of it. You ain’t goin’ back in my head, and he’ll be dead.” Then he started counting down. “Ten, nine, eight…”
Stuart listened in agony.
“Five, four—now, worm—three…”
At ‘two,’ Stuart reluctantly withdrew from his host’s brain. More terrified than he had been in his entire life, he lingered in the nasal passage, fearful of the dark, blurry shape moving on the other side. He had no sense of sound, no detailed sensory perception to tell him what Koff was doing or saying. It was more terrifying than finding himself in a dead host. All he wanted to do was burrow back into his host’s skull and embrace the warmth he found there, but he knew Koff would do as he threatened and dig him out, if he did.
Somehow, Stuart forced himself further out into the freezing air and searched blindly for a sign that Koff had seen enough. Earl’s head was steady, so Koff was still holding it down. What was the corporal doing? Why did he want to see him so badly?
The air was sucking his moisture away, drying out his skin. Above him, the huge blur moved and Stuart wondered if Koff was even then lowering the knife to slice him in half. Stuart felt something touch him and he fought panic at the uncomfortable pressure. Whatever it was, it was rough and salty, burning his skin where he was losing moisture to the unforgiving air. He waited, the horrible sensation of drying out clawing at his mind, adding to his ever-increasing terror that something hard was scraping against his body.
The massive, salty object squeezed, and suddenly Stuart was being pulled the rest of the way out of his host’s nasal passage. Panicking, he somehow forced himself not to squirm as the rest of his body was exposed to the brutal air, knowing that the sight of writhing tentacles would only alienate him further. To the delicate minds of humans, it would create disgust, revulsion. Right now, in his helpless state, those were two reactions he could not afford.
His skin continued to dry out, his body growing colder by the second. Ten minutes had just been a guess. It could be much less.
In fact, as Stuart grew numb from the loss of heat, he decided that he was badly mistaken. He gave himself another minute before his skin started to crack open.
Gods, Stuart thought, what’s he doing to me? Never before had he been so helpless and terrified. Against his good sense, he began to writhe, his delicate tendrils seeking out that moisture he needed to survive. Horrible vibrations suddenly rocked him and the large, blurry object moved, but Stuart continued to dangle. He could feel his appendages drying up, the delicate skin tightening, threatening to crack.
Yet the fingers that held him were as utterly unyielding as if he’d been put in a steel vice. Stuart’s fear ratcheted into an insane babble in his mind as he swung there, helplessly dehydrating between the corporal’s fingers.
Then the vibrations increased again and Stuart felt his body jolt. Gods, gods, what’s he doing? his terrified mind babbled.
To Stuart’s surprise, Koff set him back down on ridged flesh that felt overwhelmingly like a nose.
Insane with terror, Stuart scrabbled back into the nasal passage and burrowed inside. He couldn’t restrain himself this time—he was sure he caused damage on his way back to the brain’s center.
Once he was securely embedded, Stuart wasted no time in reconnecting with the sensory areas of the brain. He regained control of motor centers and stopped his host from thrashing. Then he slid a tentacle down to the medulla oblongata to make sure the damage he caused would not result in his host forgetting how to breathe.
When Stuart opened his eyes, Koff was sitting on the floor a yard away, watching him.
“Ugly little thing, aren’t you?”
Stuart
let out a sob of relief and lowered his host’s head back to the floor. Crying—and all other human reactions—had been a natural, learned response that a suzait instinctively absorbed from his host as a bonding measure, not merely an effort to blend in, as the S.O. liked to claim. He cried now, knowing Koff was watching, analyzing, judging, but he didn’t care. The capture, the transfers, the S.O. personnel, Koff’s disdain, the dry air, all of it had been too much.
“Scared you, eh?”
Stuart could only whimper, nodding.
Koff grunted. “Could you hear me talking to you?”
“No.”
“And those little black bulbs… Those were your eyes?”
Stuart nodded.
“I’ll bet you couldn’t see much more than light and dark, could you? I had the knife an inch away the entire time and you never even flinched.”
Stuart stared at the bloody plastic under his host’s nose.
“Could you have zapped me again when I was holding you?”
Stuart nodded.
“Hard?” Koff asked sharply.
“Not hard,” Stuart said into the floor. “I used up most of my energy on you and Sergeant Griffin. It will take weeks to recharge.”
“You couldn’t see, couldn’t hear,” Koff mused. “You’re a brave little parasite, I’ll give you that.”
Stuart looked up, put off guard by the compliment. “I was pissing my pants.”
Koff laughed. “I’m sure you were.” He got to his feet and moved out of sight behind Stuart.
Stuart miserably lowered his head and stared at the rug on the other side of the clear plastic barrier, waiting for Koff to drive his knife through Earl’s skull.
He heard the plastic crinkle near his side and Stuart felt a warm pressure against his host’s wrists.
His…wrists? Stuart lifted his head, craning his neck to see.
Koff was squatting beside him, knife in one hand, ropes binding his wrists in the other. He gave Stuart a long look.
Then Koff slid the knife between his wrists, freeing his hands. As Stuart tried to digest that, Koff did the same for his ankles.
Stuart let his limbs fall where they were dropped, then gingerly crawled to a sitting position a few yards away, facing Koff. He wanted to say a thousand things, had a million questions in his mind, fought with a dozen different emotions. First and foremost amongst them was hope. Could Koff be convinced to host him again, willingly? The thrill of that possibility was enough to lift him from the overwhelming despair that had been his last five millennia.
“Thanks,” Stuart managed.
“No problem.” Koff sat back on the floor and winced, holding his side. “Think you could find me a doctor?”
Stuart cringed with another wave of guilt. “Rabbit might know of one.”
“One who won’t talk?” Koff gave him a lopsided grin. Probably a damaged motor nerve somewhere.
Stuart bit his lip and looked down. “You could go back to the Utopia.”
“And have them put me in isolation?” Pete scoffed. “I don’t think so.” He tapped his chest with a thumb. “Pete, here’s, smarter than that.”
Stuart lifted his head, hopeful. “So what will you do?”
“I don’t know. I planned on retirement, put a few hundred credits away each paycheck, but I never planned on havin’ my brain taken over by an alien.” Koff gave him a sideways look and a nervous chuckle. “God, no offense to the poor bloke you’re riding now, but damn am I glad that’s over. Never again, man. I’d shoot myself first.”
The despair came back like the blow from a colonial freighter. Stuart glanced at his feet. If Koff had cursed him, cut him, or ridiculed him, Stuart wouldn’t have felt so bad. The corporal, however, merely seemed to take the whole experience as matter-of-fact and without much venom. It made Stuart feel as dirty as the criminal whose brain he occupied.
“You think he’s got something to eat around here?” Koff said. He grinned and patted his stomach, green eyes amused. “You forgot to feed me, boss.”
“We can ask Rabbit when he comes back,” Stuart said, feeling drained.
“Not the kind to take to people diggin’ around in his stuff, eh?” Koff glanced at the other half of the apartment room, then sighed wistfully. Getting up, he walked over and held out his hand. “I’m Pete.”
Stuart stared down at the man’s hand in confusion.
“Generally, when a man holds out a hand for you to shake, you do it before he gets all butthurt and socks ya one,” Koff said, green eyes dancing.
Stuart swallowed. “Stuart,” he said, taking the hairy hand. “At least, that’s as close as I can get using a human tongue.”
“A Stu, eh?” Koff said, giving it a good shake. “I swore you had the look of a Bill or a Travis.” Pete laughed and then groaned, hugging his side. “I really need a doctor.”
With awkward movements, Stuart lurched to the back door and pulled it open. Rabbit was leaning against the wall outside. He gave Stuart a startled look and then glanced behind him at Koff.
“He’s still alive?”
“Alive and kickin,” Pete agreed, grinning. “But I need a doctor.”
Rabbit glanced from Stuart to Pete and back. The little man seemed to realize the horrible position he had put Stuart in, for he winced. “I thought you killed ‘em when you moved on.”
“Just get him a doctor,” Stuart said.
“Hell,” Rabbit muttered. “Hell.” He stepped inside and shut the door. “No offense, but it’d save us a lot of heartache if we axed him and dropped him somewhere in the Snail District.”
“I saw his latest host,” Pete agreed. “And my goddamn ribs are killin’ me. Might be a blessing to put me outta my misery.”
“We’re not killing him.” The words came before Stuart realized he had said them.
Rabbit gave him an irritated glance. “I’ll get him a Doc. But I don’t want him singing to the Utopis about how I helped you. As soon as my man finds out where they ditched Athenais, we move. If I don’t trust him by the time we hop aboard my shuttle, he’s dead.”
“Q-4, 2112.23X, 6.001Y, -331.89Z off Spacepath 24335, C-Block.”
Stuart and Rabbit stared at Pete.
“What was that?” Rabbit demanded.
“Coordinates, I think,” Pete said. He twisted, lifted an arm, put his nose under his armpit, and sniffed. Immediately, he yanked his head away, wincing.
Rabbit took a step closer, his brown eyes narrow. “Whose coordinates, Utopi?”
“Ain’t a Utopi no more,” Pete said. “Got colonist blood in me anyway.” He glanced up and shrugged. “It’s what the navigator’s screen showed down in the lower right of the 3-D thingie in front of him when we were preparing to board.”
“Those are Beetle’s coordinates?” Rabbit snapped.
Pete grinned wider. “May have had a creepy-crawly in my head, but I still got a photographic memory. Any chance I could get a piece of cheese or something?”
Rabbit glanced at Stuart, then hurried inside and rustled through his desk for a personal datascreen, which he thrust at Pete. “Write them down.”
“I’m not gonna forget them.”
“Write them down.”
Pete sighed and took the datascreen. He entered the coordinates and handed it back to Rabbit. “Now’s the part where you shoot me and hide my corpse in the Snail District, right?”
Rabbit narrowed his eyes at the man. “That can be arranged.”
“We’re not killing him.”
Rabbit glanced up at Stuart. “It’d be the smart thing to do.”
Stuart thought back to the horrible terror of being held between Pete’s fingers and shook his head. “We’re not killing him.”
Rabbit made a disgusted sound. “Fine. But he’s your responsibility.” He tapped a slender finger in the middle of Stuart’s host’s chest. “He turns on us and I’m singing to the world that there’s still a suzait alive and well living amongst us.”
“In us,” Pete s
aid with a chuckle.
“Shut up.” Rabbit rounded on Stuart. “Those are my terms, parasite.”
Stuart prickled. “Fair enough.”
“I still need a doctor,” Pete reminded them.
Rabbit went to the front door and wrenched it open. Immediately, a din of drunken conversation flowed in from the bar outside. Rabbit called for Giggles and then shut the door again. He went to the wall infoscreen and entered the coordinates Pete had given him. Apparently satisfied, he flipped his handheld closed and stuffed it into his shirt.
“Whatcha want, boss?” Giggles stuck his head inside and gave Pete a curious look. He flinched when he saw Stuart alive and standing, with only minimal blood on the plastic. “Uh… You need some help wi’ the big guy?” he asked, eyes on Stuart.
“Get a doctor,” Rabbit ordered. “One who can keep his mouth shut. Send him to Aurora. You were right. Darley broke some ribs.”
Grunting, Giggles gave Stuart one last curious look, then backed out and shut the door.
On the floor, Pete looked disappointed. “I’m not going to a regen chamber?”
Rabbit scoffed as he moved around the room, collecting items. “Regen chambers are for legitimate medical practices and long-distance ships. Maybe Athenais will let you use hers.”
“So what’s a doctor gonna do for me?” Pete demanded.
“Give you a few drugs. Tell you to suck it up, most like.”
“Great,” Pete muttered.
“You can still take that trip to the Snail District,” Rabbit offered. “My treat.”
“No thanks. Never was a fan of escargot.”
Rabbit’s cold features cracked in a grin. “Stuart, help him up. We’ll meet the Doc at my ship.”
“We’re taking him?” Stuart asked, a little stunned. “I thought that was the whole reason I was changing hosts…”
Rabbit gave him a hard look. What little amusement he had gained a moment before was gone in an instant. “We’re certainly not leaving him behind.” He cocked his head. “And, if you’re feeling squeamish, you can always kill him.”
Pete laughed. “If you need me to come along to make sure I’m not giving you faulty coordinates, that’s fine with me. I’m looking forward to that regen chamber.”