“And in turn they make you abandon others.”
He made a sound. It might have been “No.”
“How long are you going to let yourself be controlled by something you won’t even admit to? Acknowledge it and it has a tendency to go away... or at least fade to the point where you can see where it’s controlling you. Then you can decide when you want to follow in the same old tracks, and when you want to move in a new direction.”
He eyed her from between his wrists. “You’ve done this before,” he accused her.
“Like I said, I’m a priest. And a psychic. And I’ve read a bunch of self-help books. People come to me all the time with things like this. Londo, I really can help if you’ll let me.”
“We screwed ourselves. We got in way, way over our heads.”
“Marianis Trench deep,” Lina agreed. “So now it’s over. What do we do?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t know.”
Lina sighed. “God comes up and hits us with a cast-iron skillet.” She looked at him. “All I really need to tell you is that I’m not deserting you. I’m not abandoning you. We agreed before that things would have to end now. It’s not like I’m running out on you.”
“It sure feels like it,” Londo said. “I know it’s not your fault. I know it’s just damned nature. But god, it feels like it.” He fell onto his side, rolling into a fetal position. “God, why are You doing this to me?”
He radiated pure misery. Lina reached to hug him.
“Don’t!” he said suddenly as he froze. “I might crush you.”
She pulled back immediately. “Do you crush everyone?” she asked.
“I’m used to touching you as an equal.” He rolled out of his knot to support himself on his hands. “Not as I normally do people. I usually treat everyone very lightly, like you would, I don’t know... eggs, maybe. Or a newborn baby.” He looked at her and gave a sad smile. “That’s not the way I’ve been touching you lately.”
She agreed with a shake of her head. “So we can’t touch, we can’t hug... We can talk this thing through. Maybe if we worked through the abandonment issues, things would be easier.”
“Lina, I’ve been working on those for as long as I can remember—with professionals, guys with diplomas on their walls who send out big bills every month.”
“I’ve got a diploma on my wall. A few of ‘em, in art and in psychic healing. And I can send out a bill if you want one. Just give me an address to send it to. I’ll need one for the Christmas card anyway.”
That same sad smile stayed on his face as he shook his head at her. “What are your rates?”
“There’s a special today on poor, pathetic paraheroes. Where do we begin? How about you skip over your problems with sex —” he flinched, but she bulled on “— and tell me when you first realized you had been abandoned by someone?”
Chapter 15
Lina winced at the things he’d gone through but she asked only a few guiding questions and let him talk.
Londo could remember his mother. At least, he thought she was his mother; she was certainly the woman who’d taken care of him, who’d loved him. He’d called her Maman. She had straight dark hair worn a medium length, and brown eyes. Skin color hadn’t really registered for him, but he could remember doing a crayon drawing of her: brown hair, brown eyes. Maybe all he’d had had been a brown crayon. But she’d been the most beautiful person in the world. That he remembered well.
How had her voice sounded? He could hear her telling him, “Londo, nous irons à Toronto cet automne. J’ai des amis là-bas. Tu les aimeras bien.”
“Did you understand that?”
Lina nodded. “You were going to Toronto in the fall. She had friends there and you’d like ‘em. How old were you?”
He’d been three, maybe four years old. Those were the only words of hers that he could ever remember, but they rang in his mind through the years.
He knew he had a father. He could almost see him, a memory of a memory’s memory: a male face laughing with him. For this face he assigned a medium-pale complexion because he heard someone saying that this face was tanned today, and he’d noticed the coloring. Why hadn’t he noticed the features instead? Brown hair? Maybe. A dazzling smile. He remembered the smile, the strong hands, the echo of a laugh he heard in his mind whenever he himself laughed. Nothing else really.
Londo distinctly recalled playing one day in the living room with the TV on while his parents were in the kitchen arguing. They’d shout at each other, then calm down, then shout some more; it wasn’t the first time. While the fight went on, he hit the couch as if that could stop them, but it didn’t work. A squeaky door slammed and then his mother wept. He toddled into the kitchen to find her alone and comfort her. She took him into her arms, still crying, him crying too. He fell asleep on her shoulder.
Abandoned by father, Lina guessed.
Of course he could never forget the night they came to take him. He’d just been tucked into his bed. He loved his bed now that the railing had been taken down. It made him feel so free. Maman was reading him a story from an illustrated book. What book? He didn’t know.
How hot was it in the room? Not hot; there were just the sheets on the bed. The windows were open, and a warm breeze was coming through them.
Any smells? Londo tasted his memory. The soft but pungent smell of garlic hung in the air. They’d had some kind of soup and soft bread for supper.
Sounds? Maman had the radio on to a classical station. He didn’t know what the selection was, but there were a lot of violins, a bit of French horn, too. It made it sound distant against the story Maman read.
Claude the Magic Horse! That was what it was! He loved that story. He had Maman read it every night. He could remember some of the illustrations now: the rangy horse strolling around its farm, talking to the other animals before it found the magic necklace that let it fly.
The book held sounds and dialogue Maman would trigger. She’d let him touch the buttons, too. Claude’s voice was deep—like Mr. Ed’s. He remembered now. When he’d had the bed railing, he’d stand at it and make animal noises along with the book, pretending he was fenced up like them. Then when Claude found the necklace, Maman would lift him out of his cage and hold him up in the air as she skipped around the room. He pretended he was flying, and he’d laugh and she’d laugh...
Okay, let’s leave the book. The breeze through the window: can you see out the window, see what the landscape looks like?
I don’t want to look. That’s where they are.
Who?
They came before Maman could finish the story. She was just about to get to the part where Claude found the magic necklace. Lon loved that part best of all. He wanted to fly, too. He felt frustrated because he couldn’t.
A light brighter than a noonday sun suddenly shone into the window, eclipsing the room lights. Maman had let out a little shriek and reached for something on the nightstand. He didn’t know what it was, but then she dropped it and sat in the rocking chair next to his bed. She rocked gently and he shook her arm, but she stared straight ahead as if he weren’t there.
Then some strange men came into the room. They were tall, very skinny, and very white with triangular heads and huge, almond-shaped eyes. They pointed a magic wand at Maman and she went to sleep there in the rocking chair. They pointed it at him and he couldn’t move.
Off-balance, he sat down hard in the bed. They put a harness around his neck and shoulders, something that made him float—just like Claude the Magic Horse. He liked that. Maman must be proud of him for doing this. Suddenly he realized that he was being taken away from her.
Maman! Maman!
A big ship overhung the yard. It was a flying saucer, just like on TV, with colored lights and a long ribbon of pulsing white light running around it. More tall white men stood around, looking anxious as if perhaps they feared police might investigate. But no one did. The night was silent, and Lon floated into the ship. That was the
last time he saw Earth for years.
“Aliens!” Lina blinked in amazement. “I’ve never heard anything about aliens being the ones who abducted you!” She was about to add, “Are you sure?” but of course he would be.
Lon shrugged. “We didn’t want to alarm people. There’s enough hysteria about aliens as it is. Roswell, Area 51... Imagine what would happen if someone proved that it was all true, worse than true, worse than people imagined.”
“But... But...” Lina shut up and let him talk. So he’d been kidnapped by aliens. Abandoned by his mother, in effect, Lina noted. Maybe one could even call it being abandoned by the Earth.
They’d put him in a bed and he’d protested as much as he could since he was still stunned from whatever that magic wand had done. He wasn’t sleepy! He wanted Maman!
They shaved his head and roughly attached sticky patches all over it. Then they covered his body with the patches. The things looked like they were round band-aids and so he thought he’d been hurt. He began to cry.
His attendants glanced at each other at that, then at him, and from then on they put the patches on more gently, telling him through a floating button that translated their words into French that these weren’t band-aids, that he was all right. They patted him and told him he was a good boy. He should go to sleep. He finally lay back on the bed and closed his eyes.
When he woke his hair had grown out again, even longer than it had been before. This is why he noticed it in the first place—it was different than it always had been.
He seemed a lot bigger. He felt clumsy when he moved. The bed had changed. The attendants had changed, too, he thought. He looked down at his skin; it seemed pale, and he cried about that.
He thought he was sick. Was this a hospital? The attendants assured him that he had indeed been sick, but they were doctors in a very special hospital. Where was Maman? He wanted Maman! They told him that Maman was also ill, but she would visit as soon as she was well again. Maybe a few days. He must be patient.
There were a few tests they needed to do on him. Ouch! That hurt! The doctors told him that these tests would also help his maman to get well. He must be brave in order to help her. She had the same illness he had, and so they did these things to him to help her, too. That made sense.
He sobbed through more of their tests: needles and tubes that flashed red beams of light. They took blood—he didn’t like that at all. They poked him and listened to the interior of his body. They put things into every orifice he had. He cowered on the bed when they weren’t prodding him.
This will help your maman, they kept telling him. You’re saving her life. So he took it.
One day one of them brought in a real teddy bear, un ours en peluche. It was black and white with big brown glass eyes and a red ribbon around its neck. Lon grabbed Ours from the doctor and never let it out of his arms. The alien doctors learned that to ensure his cooperation they merely had to invoke Maman and not bother Ours.
Ours was Lon’s best friend. Lon told him everything, and the bear listened and sympathized. But as months, maybe years, went by Ours became tattered and raggedy. One morning—at least, it might have been morning; Lon never saw outside and the lights never dimmed—he awoke to find Ours gone. That was the same day they told him that Maman wasn’t going to come visit. First they told him that she had died. Another doctor told him later that she didn’t love him anymore and had gone home without him.
Londo was silent for a long time before he returned to the telling.
They let him out of the room every now and then, but he had to wear a special bracelet when they did. He had no idea why. There were stark white, curved corridors outside the room with many doors leading off them going to what, he didn’t know.
He was usually taken to a gym—a coliseum, after his small bedroom—with a track and gymnastic bars, even a round pool. He could exercise there, but only after they’d covered him again with those band-aid electrodes. They had to shave his head again, and he sat quietly while they did it, retreating inward to the stories he told himself to keep himself brave and distance the pain. This was the only place of security he had left.
Londo gave a small laugh as he recounted watching the aliens demonstrating how to run around the track, how to climb the bars, how to step into the pool to see how long he could hold his breath underwater. They looked ridiculous doing it.
Although he was initially weak and uncoordinated from his confinement, it gave him great pleasure to outrun them in their awkwardness, to learn to climb the bars like a monkey, to hold his breath longer than they thought he could.
And then one day when he went to the gym, another boy stood there. A companion, the doctors told him.
They looked at each other warily. It occurred to Londo that the doctors were a different species than he was. He’d gotten so used to them, he’d begun to think of them as being as human as himself. But this boy was about his own height, with charcoal black skin and a shaved head, covered in round band-aids.
They looked at each other and the boy said, “You aren’t wearing any clothes.” The floating button was translating whatever language he was speaking into French. This boy was human, but he didn’t speak the same language Lon spoke, and Lon couldn’t understand why.
“Neither are you,” Londo said defiantly.
“They took ‘em.” The boy nodded at the aliens. “What’s your name?”
“Londo.”
“Londo what?”
“What do you mean?”
The boy looked at him as if he were an idiot. “Everyone has more than one name. I’m Trip Golombek.”
“I’m just Londo.” He let the aliens finish fastening the band-aids onto him. They’d done it hundreds of times before.
“What is this?” Trip asked as his eyes darted from alien to alien, then around the room.
“It’s someplace to play. You run and jump, and these things—” Londo nodded at the bandages, “tell them how well we’re getting.”
“How well?”
“Sure. You’re sick, aren’t you? That’s why you’re here?”
“I’m not sick. They took me. I want to go home!” Tears suddenly welled up in Trip’s eyes. He sat down on the indoor track and covered his face with his hands. “I want my mama!”
Londo shook off the alien doctor and ran to Trip. He held him like he wished his maman would hold him. “It’s all right,” he told Trip. “They won’t hurt you.” He realized that he’d just lied, but he wanted Trip to stop crying.
They’d hurt Trip. They’d hurt him bad.
He and Trip had spent that day in the gym trying to play in spite of Trip’s enormous homesickness. Trip told him that their home planet was Earth and that this was a big spaceship.
Lon remembered how it looked from the outside. “A flying saucer,” he said, and Trip agreed.
Lon told Trip that these were all doctors, but Trip said that they weren’t. They were evil alien kidnappers, just like on TV. How long had Londo been here? Longer than he could remember. He told Trip about having his hair shaved, and then it growing out that long—he showed him how long it had been—and then it was shaved again. Trip didn’t know how long that would take, but he knew it was a long, long time.
They’d gone to their respective rooms that night, and the next day Lon had been taken to a new room, one not big as the gym, and crowded with electronic equipment that they’d had to weave their way through. The doctors—no, aliens—strapped Londo into a big chair there. He watched as Trip came in to be strapped to a matching chair, just beyond a bank of equipment.
The aliens stood behind a smoky glass wall as a wide, blue ray bathed the two boys. It had hurt. Lon closed his eyes and grunted from the pressure, the prickling needles that it seemed to press all over his body.
He heard Trip start to scream in fright, but Lon was used to being experimented on. He was used to needles. He was used to funny lights. He gritted his teeth and took it until it got so bad that he had to scream, too.
The lights stopped when he did that. Londo watched the aliens carrying the limp body of Trip out of the room.
He never saw Trip again.
There were others through the years, fifty-nine of them. He kept count on his fingers and toes, and he remembered all their names except for one. Nine of the children had spoken French. All of them were boys except for three. He’d wondered why the girls were so shy and figured it was because they were missing some important parts.
There were times when he almost didn’t introduce himself when another companion came along, but they were always so distraught, some of them hysterical with fear, that he had to let them know that there was someone else who shared the human experience. He comforted them as he could, never letting them know that they didn’t have much longer to live.
He tried to make them happy in the time they had. It made him feel like a traitor doing it, but it felt good to help them, too. He was their protector.
Now he called the aliens by their racial name, Lectori. If they were too harsh to the new companion, he’d come to their rescue. He’d demand the Lectori be more gentle, or he’d knock the Lectori’s arm away from where they’d grabbed the companion too roughly. Lon berated them in the Lectori tongue, for he’d learned their language. They didn’t have to keep the translator going when there wasn’t another human around.
It began to dawn on Londo that he could outrace the other children, speeding powerfully around the track when they had run to exhaustion. He jumped around on the bars almost as if he could fly. He stayed underwater long after the other had surfaced, gasping. When they held the laboratory sessions he tried to fake screams so that it wouldn’t last so long, so that maybe whatever the Lectori were doing to the companion wouldn’t kill them. But the Lectori were rarely fooled.
How guilty he felt to be alive! Why was he here; what were the Lectori doing? Back in his room, he’d bang his head against the wall just to get the frustration out of his system. Sometimes he’d cry, wondering if anyone were missing him. Did anyone in the universe love him? No one here did.
Touch of Danger (Three Worlds) Page 25