I considered. Surely there was no harm in letting him talk. Might even prolong the very few moments I had left.
“All right,” I said.
“Excellent. I will do my best to explain things in your limited tongue; it is difficult to use such constrained language.” He made a gesture with his tail. “But let me begin by asking you to forget anything you think you know about my species. I’m afraid there is a lot of misinformation spread about us.”
I knew I should be terrified—and I was—but his attitude angered me. “Most of my opinion of you has been formed by the fact that you’ve kidnapped me, threatened my life, and chased off my friend,” I fumed. “Oh, and that you destroyed a perfectly beautiful cabin. It has nothing to do with ‘misinformation’ I’ve heard.”
“I see. How unfortunate.” He paused, as if considering something, but then in a very human-like gesture shrugged, and continued.
“Well, then, let me begin by explaining to you why we so desperately need the watcher that your head was unfortunate enough to acquire. You see, while the Kema’dor have far more advanced technology than earthlings, we know there is still much to learn. We would be fools not to admit that. The Solamure evolved several million years before we did, and on a much more resource-rich planet. But the Solamure guard their secrets very selfishly, and refuse aide to all outsiders. They consider themselves observers, gatherers of information, and care for nothing else.”
He paused for a moment, and leaned forward. “For example, did you know that the Solamure have the cures for your specie’s diseases, ailments, and cancers?”
My heart stuttered for a moment. The Solamure could have cured my dad? But instead they’d just … left? Had Ronan known?
“I see that this is new to you,” Malsor continued. “Hardly seems fair, does it? They consider it… unnatural, to interfere with nature’s course. Regrettably, the Kema’dor are faced with a similar problem. Many earth years ago, a complex genetic mutation began showing up in our genes. At first we thought it was a manifestation of a more advanced evolution. But then, as the mutation began getting stronger with each generation, we began to see an alarming and ominous trend: our females were becoming less and less fertile, and our population began to decrease dramatically.”
He paused again. Even though I knew nothing about Kema’dor expressions, I could swear he looked forlorn.
“Our best scientists threw themselves into studying the trend. They discovered that, through our interactions with other planets, we’d acquired a –let’s call it a virus, for lack of a better word—that has infected our very DNA. It gets stronger with each conception, and soon we will have no fertile females, no way to reproduce, and we will come to an end. “
“That’s… unfortunate,” I said lamely. I really wasn’t sure how to respond, or what any of this had to do with me.
As if reading my mind, Malsor spoke again, saying, “That’s where you come in. We know the Solamure are currently working on a cure for our… condition. If any being will have the answer, it’s them. But even if—when—they identify the solution, they will refuse to bestow it on us. They seek only the knowledge, nothing more.”
He suddenly waggled his head up and outward for a moment and then settled himself deep into the couch. “We have managed, however, to apprehend one of their scientists—it was here on earth, continuing its studies. If we transplant the watcher from your mind to the Solamure’s, we can observe the research they are doing, and duplicate the solution once it’s found. The Solamure we have is currently in homeostasis, and will have no recollection of the transplant, just as you were unaware.”
“So you’re telling me this because… you want my permission or something?”
Malsor let out a crude sound, similar to a belch. I realized it was a laugh. “No, not your permission. We’ll need the counterpart to the piece in your mind—the portion that your friend Ronan possesses. It would be fruitless to have a watcher in the Solamure’s mind if we have nothing from which to watch. Therefore, we need you to summon him.”
The Kema’dor didn’t get him! Relief flooded through me.
Then, in a slow motion, Malsor reached into his brown robes and pulled out the Tarke. He held it out to me, flicking his grotesquely wide tongue up into his nostril as he did. I felt a stab of revulsion, and not just for Malsor. That Tarke had done nothing but cause me trouble. This was starting to seem unhappily similar to my experience with the CIA.
“This will only work for you.”
“What on earth makes you think I would help you?” I said, a little outraged. “I have absolutely no reason to trust you, and many reasons to not. And anyway, Ronan is probably watching this conversation right now.”
“He isn’t. We know where his equipment—where the counterpart of the watcher—is. We have stationed guardians there, but he hasn’t been seen. Without Ronan’s aide, we cannot gain access. Much like your bunker of last night, it is impenetrable to force.”
“But what makes you think I would help you?”
“Because if you do, we will not only use the watcher to help ourselves, but we will find and administer the cure for your father as well.”
They’ll cure Dad? I started to protest—saying there was no way I could trust him to follow through, but he interrupted me.
“We understand this is a gamble for you, but consider this: you are going to die either way. Wouldn’t you rather perish with the hope that perhaps your death could mean life for your father?”
He held out the Tarke again.
I stared at it sullenly. When I spoke, it was soft. “You’re too late anyway. The Solamure have left.”
Malsor blinked again. “I’m surprised what little information Ronan has shared with you. You see, the Solamure have both an individual and a collective consciousness, which means that what one sees and thinks, all can have access to. Sort of like your internet, but without any need for security or privacy. Having a watcher in even just one Solamure is just as beneficial as putting implants into them all.”
A collective consciousness among an entire race? And I thought having Ronan in my head was bad.
So I had to either summon Ronan, who might or might not show up (he would, a small voice whispered in my head), luring him into his enemy’s hands. If I did that, the Kema’dor promised to cure my dad. And I die.
Or I could refuse to call for Ronan, fight against the advanced alien race with—what, my fingernails?—and they won’t do anything to help my dad. And I die.
And what about the Solamure? Did I really care what happened between them and the Kema’dor? Not particularly. But, if the Solamure really did have the cure to my father’s sickness, and weren’t sharing, I felt a slight more regard for the Kema’dor, who at least said that they would help.
In exchange for my life.
Maybe—just maybe—Ronan might be able to find a way to rescue me and we could escape. He’d done it before. But I knew this would be harder—much harder— than escaping from the CIA. The Kema’dor could track me wherever I went, and were probably much better prepared for any plan Ronan might come up with. Most likely he would end up dead right beside me.
Essentially, the Kema’dor were asking me to choose between Ronan’s life and my father’s. In my gut, I knew the choice I’d make. Ronan, whatever he may think about me, was still a stranger. (A very, very nice stranger—and one I owed my life to.) But if not for him, I wouldn’t even be in this situation. There was no choice.
Still, the whole thing was maddening. I glowered at the creature across from me. “I don’t suppose you have a better half I could appeal to,” I said sarcastically.
Malsor continued to gaze at me evenly. “Your hostility is understandable. But think of the good you’ll be doing. Not only saving your father, but an entire progeny of sentient beings. Many hope for such a meaningful exit.”
“What about Ronan? What do you plan on doing with him?”
Malsor’s wide mouth widened even further, giving m
e a much-too-intimate look at the moist sponginess inside. “If he cooperates and gives us what we need, we will have no reason not to leave him be.”
That didn’t sound very promising. “Not good enough,” I said. “You have to guarantee that you won’t hurt him. Otherwise I won’t call him.” Since I was going to be dead, I was in no position to make demands. And the Kema’dor would promise me the moon if I asked, since they’d have no reason to follow through. But it made me feel just a tiny bit better to hear Malsor pledge not to harm Ronan.
“Okay,” I said, reaching my hand out for the Tarke.
He handed it to me and I looked at its smooth, curved shape.
“It’s thought-activated. Like a NeuralCom—except this has been personalized to respond only to you.”
I hesitated. I didn’t really want to do this. Ronan had been partly responsible for getting me into this mess, but he was so… totally selfless. He’d given up everything to save me. And here I was, about to betray him.
And he’d said I was kind.
Chapter 10
“We’ll know her location as soon as she calls for me. They can’t be far.”
“And this plan will work?”
“I can’t make any guarantees.”
“But you’ll consent to our demands, regardless of the outcome?”
“Yes.”
“Then you have a deal.”
I enclosed the Tarke in my fist and began thinking of Ronan fervently, asking him to come find me. The small device became warm in my hand and I felt a slight tingling sensation. Ronan had said to speak to it, but that was likely because he didn’t think I was ready to hear about psychic computers then.
Message delivered, a voice said in my mind.
“It’s done,” I said shakily. I set the Tarke down on the couch next to me. I hated it. I hated myself.
“Excellent,” said Malsor. “Then all that’s left is for us to complete the procedure. Please lie down.”
The stately room I’d been in suddenly vanished, replaced by something much more ominous. I gasped at my new surroundings.
It was a medical room—that much I could tell. The couch I’d been sitting on had become a steel metal table. The ceiling fans were suddenly bright, focused lights, and all sorts of pointy, silver contraptions. But the worst thing was that the room was filled with Kema’dor. At least nine or ten. No wonder it smelled so bad. I couldn’t even tell which one was Malsor, they all looked the same in their brown robes. Except that some of them had white plastic covering things on their “hands”.
One of them spoke. “We’re going to begin the procedure, so the hologram has been shut off. Lie down.”
Agreeing to let them cut into me was one thing in spirit, and something else entirely in practice. My body froze.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t rather wait for Ronan? He might demand to see me—alive.”
“I’m certain we’ll have no trouble getting Ronan to cooperate. Now lie down.”
I looked around desperately. All I could see were numerous thick bodies that blocked the path to the door. There was no choice. Feeling every bit the part of human-abducted-by-aliens-about-to-be-cut-open, I did as asked, shaking uncontrollably.
Four of the gloved Kema’dor moved in over me and began making quick actions—grabbing instruments, focusing lights, raising the table, shaving the side of my scalp, drawing on me with some cold writing tool. It was too much.
Instinct kicked in and since flight was out of the question, fight took over. I began thrashing violently—kicking, flailing—anything to escape the cold, mucousy hands that were tightening straps around my arms and legs. My eyes looked wildly about, and I screamed—over and over, I screamed.
A mask was suddenly pressed down over my face. I held my breath as long as I could, but eventually gasped, inhaling deeply.
Instantly, I felt calmer. More serene. More complacent.
“Fighting is futile, Miss Blackwood. You should accept that.”
My eyes swam around the room—seeing only a sea of colors, rather than objects. Then I found the Kema’dor that had spoken, and focused on him.
“Aren’t you going to… put me down? Before?”
“Our scientists will have a better understanding of how the watcher works if they first observe it in a living brain.”
“You’re going to… operate on me… alive?”
“It must be so,” he replied simply.
Despite the relaxing inhalant, a sense of dread flooded through me. “Painkiller?” I asked weakly.
A series of belching sounds filled the room. They were laughing.
“That would defeat the point. You see, we do so enjoy seeing tormented human beings pleading to us. Being inferior, you should be in agony in our presence. It’s only natural.”
I looked at him in horror. And suddenly, that’s when I knew. I knew the Kema’dor were every bit as abhorrent as Ronan had said. I knew they wouldn’t honor their promise not to hurt him. I knew that they wouldn’t help my father. I knew that they were going to make my final moments as horrendous as possible.
The mask was removed, and panic returned.
“Stop! Stop!” I pled, pulling and jerking against the constraints. One of the aliens finished shaving the left side of my head, and began dabbing a smelly, cold liquid over it.
“Please! Stop!” I screamed. A small part of me knew that I should hide my terror—it was exactly what they wanted. But I couldn’t stop.
A buzzing sound started next to my left ear; it sent me into absolute hysterics.
“Don’t! Please don’t!”
Abruptly, the sound stopped. The lights went out and the Kema’dor around me began hissing and gulping in some strange language to each other. I could just make out their broad gesticulations as they jabbed at the air angrily.
I went quiet, hoping they might forget about me in the midst of the power outage.
But their dialogue didn’t last long before they began scooping up all the equipment in the room. Including the table I was strapped to. We made a noisy, jangled procession out of the operating room, and into a larger, windowless warehouse.
The aliens’ garbled speak echoed throughout the sizable room. A few of the Kema’dor began shining flashlights around, and I saw that the warehouse wasn’t empty.
In the middle sat several large black vans. The kind that have no windows, except in the front. The back doors of one were opened and I was lifted and pushed inside, table and all, like a stretcher into an ambulance.
They shoved a few more things haphazardly in alongside me and then the doors slammed shut, leaving me to imagine what the garbled sounds the Kema’dor were making could possibly mean.
A few more van doors were opened and slammed shut, then it suddenly became quiet for a few moments until I heard a loud, human yell. The Kema’dor hissed loudly, and then the unmistakable sound of gunshots resonated throughout the storehouse.
Was this a rescue attempt? Could Ronan have found me so quickly?
The door of the driver’s seat abruptly opened and, based on smell alone, I could tell a Kema’dor had climbed in. It started the engine and the van’s tires squealed as we hastily accelerated.
We’d only made it a few yards before there was a loud pop, and we fell a few inches. The tires had been shot out. But the Kema’dor kept driving, despite the thump, thump, thumping protest of the wheels.
Suddenly glass shattered into the van. I screamed hoarsely at the same time the Kema’dor let out a loud wheeze, like some sort of horrifying duet.
The bonds pulled tight at my wrists and ankles as the van careened into a sharp turn. My chauffeur seemed to have stopped steering and we thumped along jerkily until suddenly the van slammed sideways into a wall. My table, along with all the extra stuff that had been shoved in, all flew into the side of the vehicle with a loud jangle.
Some shuffling, and then the driver side door opened again. A shadow of a man climbed over the front seat and hunched next to me. It wa
s too dark for me to see him clearly, but when he spoke, I recognized his voice.
“Bet you wish you’d cooperated with me now, eh?”
Nash.
“What are you doing here?” I asked as he began feeling around at the constraints that held me down.
Nash abruptly ducked as a loud, laser-like sound flowed across the span of the warehouse like surround sound. A blue-ish light—clearly the source of the noise—moved over the van from left to right, but passed over both my and Nash’s head.
More scuffling noises, then someone—human—shouted something I couldn’t make out.
Nash pulled out a flashlight and held it in his mouth as he began examining the straps that held me down. After a few tugs he swore under his breath, then pulled out a knife and began cutting away at them.
A few short moments later I was free enough to sit up and pull my legs out and off the table. I stood up and began massaging some blood back into my grateful limbs.
Nash opened the back doors—the front was filled with glass shards—and jumped down. I followed, and found myself squinting at the darkness around me, trying to get a hold on the situation.
Cylinders of light shot around the darkened warehouse as both men scurried about with flashlights.
I’d only been standing there a few seconds when I was sent stumbling forward as someone embraced me from behind.
“Thank goodness you’re okay,” a voice whispered in my ear.
“Ronan?” I turned my head. He pulled me around and hugged me tighter.
“Ronan!” I surprised myself by leaning into him, burying my head into his chest. A dam broke inside me and I began crying. He held my head with one of his hands and rubbed my back with the other.
“It’s okay,” he said. “It’s over.”
He pulled my head away and, looked intently into my face. There was just enough light from the roving flashlights to make me feel self-conscious about my undoubtedly bedraggled appearance. Not to mention my half-bald head.
Understanding the Stars Page 7