People of the Sun

by Jason Parent

  “We could use him,” Milliken said.

  Tryst frowned and looked away, trying to maintain her composure. She wondered why he held so closely to the bond of crewmates they had once shared with their betrayer. Every step of the way, Milliken sought to foster Kazi’s return. Was he so quick to forgive the harm he caused them? Was he so quick to forget what had happened to Lenyx? A part of Tryst admired his compassion, but for Kazi, it was misplaced.

  “I’ll let you two think it over,” Kazi said, stepping away.

  Milliken moved closer to his commander, for the first time unresponsive to her will. “I can handle him,” he whispered. Tryst knew he truly believed he could. “No matter what he does, Kazi will never get the upper hand on me. I know he’s cunning, and I know you don’t trust him, but he’s one of us, a valued member of our team.”

  “Don’t,” Tryst said. “I forbid it.”

  “Your anger is blinding you, clouding your judgment. I can bring Kazi back into the fold. He can find us a way off this unreceptive planet. There’s never been a problem he couldn’t solve.”

  He turned his back to Tryst and headed toward the pool. Kazi watched with wide eyes. He moved to the opposite side.

  “Stop!” she shouted. “It’s not safe.” He’s disobeying me? She could hardly believe it.

  “It will all be over in a second,” Milliken muttered. With ease, he leapt atop the pool’s four-foot-high railing. It creaked beneath his weight. Kazi stood confident across the diameter of the pool. He stepped onto the tarp and moved to its center, beckoning Milliken to do the same.

  “Now you don’t follow orders either?” Tryst said, not loud enough for anyone else to hear. We’ve lost who we were. We aren’t becoming like them. We already are like them.

  Milliken focused intently on his adversary, one he’d still call friend. She doubted Kazi felt the same way for him or anyone.

  “See? It’s safe,” Milliken said. “He’s standing right on it.” From the railing, Milliken cast Tryst a reassuring smile. Then, he stepped forward.

  At last, Tryst realized what had sparked her suspicions about the pool. She didn’t know what it meant, but she knew Milliken was in for a surprise. He was about to get wet.

  “No!” she shouted as he stepped onto the tarp.

  “Oops,” Kazi said with a giggle.

  The tarp hadn’t been affixed to the sides. Nothing tied it down or held it in place, save for Kazi. The bastard had been stretching the tarp over the pool with his mind.

  Milliken’s foot made contact with the tarp. Then, it plunged into it. The canvas engulfed his leg, swallowing up Milliken’s entire body as he plummeted into it. Liquid splashed around him. Some displaced over the pool’s rim. In an instant, Milliken was submerged, tangled within the tarp. By the time Tryst thought to levitate Milliken, it was too late. Kazi hovered over the pool, laughing like a hyena.

  Not him. Not now. Tryst’s heart felt as though someone were squeezing her life’s blood from it. She ran to the pool, shirking caution, thinking to dive in after Milliken. He had yet to surface. Tryst feared the worst and expected nothing less from Kazi.

  As she reached the pool, Milliken’s head emerged not far from where she stood. His body soon followed. A giant smile filled his face. He spit out some of the liquid he’d nearly swallowed and laughed. Tryst let out a breath. Milliken appeared to be Milliken, healthy and unharmed.

  “Water?” he said amid chuckles. “That’s your devious plan, Kazi? Did you think it would make me lose consciousness a second time?”

  Kazi, too, was laughing. “It’s not water,” he said. His laughter trailed off. His face became stern. The gravity of his composure spawned disquiet within Tryst. Milliken frolicked in the pool, seemingly without a care.

  “Milliken, get out of there,” Tryst said, her voice shaky.

  “It’s okay, Tryst,” he answered. “I’m fine. It’s having no effect on me.”

  “Give it a minute,” Kazi said, backing away from the pool. “It’s hydrochloric acid. Your body is detoxing as much of it as it can right now, but I’m sorry to say that it’s fighting a losing battle. It should be affecting your internal organs shortly.”

  Milliken shrugged. “I don’t feel anything.” But Milliken wasn’t a fool. Kazi’s words had clearly unsettled him. He moved toward the rail, Tryst pleading with her eyes for him to hurry. Milliken lifted his leg horizontally, effortlessly sliding it over the rail.

  For a moment, Milliken lay atop the rail like a beached whale, his stomach pressed against it in an awkward balance. Then, he slid slowly toward the floor. His expression curdled. Tryst thought he looked worse than unwell, teetering on that rail as though it were the boundary between life and death. A moment later, Milliken’s balancing ended the only way it could have. He collapsed sideways onto the floor.

  “Milliken!” Tryst screamed, crouching by his side. In anguish, she reached out to him.

  “I wouldn’t touch him if I were you,” Kazi said, his voice calm and deliberate. “You know, just to be safe.”

  Tryst didn’t heed Kazi’s warning. She shook Milliken, gently at first, then violently, with no response. Every so often over the next few minutes, Milliken’s body would spasm involuntarily as if he were in the throes of a coughing fit, but no breath or sound came out of his mouth. Then, his jostling about was no more. Through a rainfall of tears, her voice fleeting and succumbing to agony, Tryst managed a few desperate words.

  “What have you done?”

  “What had to be done,” Kazi said. “Right now, Milliken is fully saturated with hydrochloric acid. Many of his glands have absorbed the liquid, trying to purify it and excrete the harmful byproducts from his body. But the amount he absorbed is too much for them. They are deteriorating as we speak. It’s hard to say how many of his other organs will be affected, but I suspect many. Once his endocrine system is completely overwhelmed, causing it to fail, his lungs, kidneys, liver and most of his excretory system should follow suit.”

  Tryst choked on her torment. Her breath escaped her; she felt as though she, too, might die. Kazi had beaten Milliken. He had beaten them both.

  She wanted to stand. She wanted to strike him, to throw him into his own deadly invention. But her will had left her. Tryst stared at Milliken’s body, lost, despondent. Kazi stood over her, looking down at them as he’d always done.

  “How could you?” Tryst eventually managed. “He was one of us. He was your crewmate, your friend. Is there no limit to your depravity?”

  “With him out of the way, you are free to take your rightful place by my side. Had you done so in the first place, perhaps his death could have been avoided.”

  Kazi’s words stung. They plunged deep within her, kicking her broken heart after it had already submitted. And with her heart’s suffering, her mind turned black, instilled with contempt for her former crewmate. How dare he blame her for his heinous actions?

  “That will never happen,” Tryst said, saliva spraying from her mouth as she fumed. Her strength returned with her vengeance. Before Kazi could defend himself, Tryst was grabbing him. With a primal ferocity, she lifted Kazi over her head, intending to throw him into the pool, to give him the death she knew he deserved. But as she hurled him into the air, he teleported back by her side. Her efforts were wasted.

  “Your attempts to best me are futile,” Kazi said, his voice void of emotion. “We were meant to rule this world together, you and I. I’ll give you some time to reconsider my proposal. We’re all that’s left now, Tryst. To join with me is your only logical choice. Think about it. I’ll be back for your decision.”

  Kazi teleported away. He left Tryst alone in her sadness, with no one to comfort her and with another dead Symorian to bury.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Connor had been waiting by the phone since 4:00 p.m. At 6:00 p.m., he heated up a frozen dinner, Salisbury steak with corn and mashed potatoes that tasted like cardboard with gravy. Connor ate it all regardless, then began grading final e
xams. Throughout the evening, his phone remained on the table beside him.

  His homework was slow going, his attention elsewhere. Where are they? Connor looked at his watch—8:12 p.m. Tryst still hadn’t called. For the second consecutive night, he stared at his cell phone, willing it to ring, not knowing why he expected it to.

  But that Thursday night, Connor was owed some kind of response. They should have been here by now. That was the plan he’d made with the Symorians. He had fulfilled his end of the bargain. He’d found them a place, but he couldn’t share that with them unless they called. Connor rapped his fingers against the table, his worry slowly creeping from the back of his mind to its forefront, its potency increasing as it travelled. Something terrible had happened. He could feel it, and there was nothing he could do about it.

  Connor tried to silence his urge to drive over to the warehouse. If Kazi were there, it would likely be a suicide mission. Then again, Connor was well aware of Kazi’s capabilities. He could appear out of thin air at any moment, whenever and wherever his whims set him, exacting his murderous will. No, Kazi wasn’t the real concern. Connor himself had been the only avoidable danger to Milliken and Tryst, bringing with him unwanted followers wherever he went. Patience was a virtue he lacked, but Connor wouldn’t let himself make the same mistake again. He moved on to another exam.

  At 9:45 p.m., Connor was halfway through his first batch of tests when he checked his watch again. Screw it. They’re already in danger. Besides, I found a place for them to disappear. If trouble comes with me, all they have to do is think it, and they’re there. Of course, I’d be left in a tight spot. He shrugged. So be it. Donning a baseball cap and grabbing his keys, he headed out the door.

  On the drive over to the warehouse, Connor must have checked his rearview mirror fifty times. He kept to the speed limit, trying to maintain a low profile. Every pair of headlights that approached drew his suspicion. A group of teenagers illegally passed him in a no-passing zone, flipping him off as they drove by. An elderly gentleman in a pickup truck made eye contact briefly as he passed Connor. A soccer mom in a minivan, her kids focused intently on television screens attached to the backs of the front seats, seemed oblivious to Connor as he passed them. But the less suspicious the other vehicles appeared, the more suspicious Connor was of them.

  He drove past the warehouse just in case anyone was following him. There wasn’t another car in sight. Just to be safe, Connor drove irregularly around the warehouse to lose his perceived tails. It occurred to him that his erratic driving might attract unwanted attention—the type of attention one breaking and entering into an abandoned property didn’t want to invite. Eventually, Connor decided he was being paranoid and turned his car toward the main entrance.

  Arriving, Connor scanned the parking lot for vandals and vagrants. He pulled his Outback beside a dumpster, partially obscuring it from the view of vehicles passing by on the road. He grabbed a flashlight from his glove compartment and exited the car. Staring at the warehouse, a massive rectangular structure, brown-bricked and cracked everywhere, Connor remembered the building; his father had purchased a lawn mower there when Connor was in his early teens. But the Sears location subsequently became a J.C. Penney, then a Marshalls, followed by a number of other uses about which Connor had long since forgotten.

  The building had fallen out of use at least a decade ago as best he could remember. Now, it looked like a shithole; even homeless people didn’t seem to take an interest in it. Connor’s cheeks flushed at the thought that he had sent Tryst and Milliken to live there, until he remembered that, at the time, he had no other place to send them. Demoralized, Connor stepped inside the unlocked warehouse.

  “Tryst?” he called softly from just inside the entranceway. He hoped her more sensitive ears could pick up his voice where human ears could not. Tryst? Connor called out in his head, trying to contact her telepathically. He felt like a fool.

  “Tryst?” he called again, this time at a normal, conversational volume. She didn’t respond. He began to wonder if she were there. His mood darkened. He hoped she was still alive. Had Kazi paid her a visit, as well?

  “Milliken?” he called. Still, Connor received no response. He clicked on his flashlight and shined it into the warehouse’s interior. The condition of the structure troubled him. When he’d suggested to Tryst that she and Milliken hide out there, he had no idea how run-down the place actually was. He’d never been inside it. From the outside, the warehouse seemed to be holding up. From the inside, though, it looked like a practice location for Timothy McVeigh. It was falling apart in every direction, yet somehow, the warehouse was still standing.

  The rays from his flashlight came across plenty of nasty-looking creatures living on the first level. Fortunately, they seemed as frightened of Connor as he was of them. But with all the pests that scurried by, none could be mistaken for Symorian. Connor ascended the staircase to the second floor.

  “Tryst? Milliken?” Connor called out again as he reached the top of the stairwell. As he spun his flashlight around to his left, its beam fell on the pale face of a Symorian not more than a foot or two away. Dark lines ran down the alien’s face as if the flesh had been clawed.

  Startled, Connor dropped the flashlight. It flickered as it hit the ground, but remained functional, casting its rays into an expanse of nothingness. Its cone-shaped light made a circle on the dirt-colored wall that resembled a harvest moon rising over the horizon. Connor dared not move to pick it up for fear of bumping into the alien. Then, the light began to move.

  Tryst shined the flashlight beneath her chin, illuminating her face. Connor lurched backward, again startled by the Symorian’s appearance. The glow it gave her wasn’t complimentary, casting her features into a ghastly portrait that reminded Connor of Edvard Munch’s famous painting. Her cheeks were stained by what looked like rust, the discoloration marking the tracks of her tears.

  “I’m here,” she said quietly, handing him the flashlight.

  “Sorry,” Connor said. “You scared me for a second there. Are you alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where’s Milliken?”

  “Dead.”

  The word exited Tryst’s mouth like any other, but its impact was hard felt. The news hit Connor like a solid punch to the stomach. That was where he felt it most, leaving a sickly, empty aftertaste. For a long time, he couldn’t find the words to express what he felt, to console Tryst or to even show a modicum of sympathy or support.

  “Milliken,” Connor murmured. He cast his eyes toward the floor. Even when he squeezed them shut, there was no stopping his tears.

  Connor had only known the group a short while, but he’d grown close to them, particularly Milliken. In spite of the alien’s ferocious appearance, Connor had met the gentle beast residing within him. He felt a kinship with the Symorian that he hadn’t felt with any human since his wife had passed nearly thirty years prior. Milliken shared his eagerness to explore a foreign culture and to learn from one another all they could. Connor thought they had become something more in the process. He didn’t hesitate to think of Milliken as a friend.

  And now he’s gone. He shook his head. Shame kept his stare downward. “It’s all because of me.”

  “No,” Tryst said gruffly. “Not you. Him.”

  Connor swallowed hard. He looked up. Rage and sadness warred across Tryst’s face. She was different than Milliken. Connor didn’t know what to make of her. But it hurt him to see her that way.

  Connor felt Milliken’s loss deeply, but he could only imagine how it must have been affecting Tryst. Two of four were now gone. Two men she’d held dear had been murdered, Tryst having been forced to witness each death, unable to stop them. And Connor assumed that the one who remained was responsible for her torment. He found no comfort in the fact that, at their cores, the Symorians seemed no different than humans. Each individual of either race had his or her own penchant for good or evil. As far as Connor could see, Kazi was turning out to be pur
e evil. Had he always been that way? Or had this planet made him into the monster he’d become?

  Tryst looked broken, hopeless, a fragile shell of the warrior she’d once been. Connor wanted to put his arms around her, to hold her so tightly that there’d be no room left for the pain to fester. But he lacked the words and was highly flammable. Tryst would only be consoled by herself.

  The two stood in awkward silence for what seemed like an eternity. At last, Tryst broke their silence. Her voice seemed strained, her throat hoarse, sounding as if she wanted to shout, but the pain reduced her to a whimper. “He’s over there,” she said. “I can’t bury him alone. Will you help me?”

  Her big, misty eyes and sullen, sunken lips reminded Connor of his daughter when they buried Tilden, their pet Dalmatian. It took Suzette several months before she rebounded from the loss. Connor was certain it would take Tryst far longer. She was alone, a forgotten traveler on a hostile planet. Her enemies were endless and her friends nonexistent, unless she’d count Connor as one. He’d do his best to show her he cared.

  “Of course,” he said, sounding fatherly. “Anything you need.”

  Without further discussion, Connor followed Tryst to where Milliken lay. The alien looked as though he were sleeping, so peaceful and content. It was hard to believe he was dead. Connor thought that at any moment, Milliken would open his eyes and greet him with that oversized smile. Connor hoped it would be so.

  But such false hopes are for children. Milliken didn’t open his eyes, not even when they struggled to lift his mammoth frame off the floor. Tryst hooked Milliken beneath his arms, while Connor grabbed his boots. He wondered why Tryst wouldn’t just teleport them outside, but he figured she had her reasons and said nothing. Instead, they half-carried, half-dragged Milliken’s body to the staircase. Once there, they thumped him methodically down each step, Tryst taking the lead, until they reached the bottom, where they took a short break. Tryst hadn’t broken a sweat. Connor found himself out of breath.