“Can you see in this kind of darkness?”
“She appeared unconscious for a second, but now she’s moving and sitting up.”The AI’s voice is so soft only I can hear. Vera doesn’t want me to talk and get zapped hard, so she guessed what I wanted and kept her reply to a minimum.
I sit down on the cold floor and try to get comfortable. Things have happened so fast that they’ve gotten away from me. This ship is in orbit around Khav, and I think Sigise is right that it’s me they want. So the ship was waiting for us and tricked us into docking with them.
It looks like I’ve just gone from the frying pan and into the fire, right into the Vyrpy’s claws. Which raises the question: What do they want from me?
It looks like Mareliux was right about one thing: space travel is dangerous now. But staying in that apartment of his was, too. If Nerox hadn’t come to get me, I would have been blown up.
Or would I? What’s really going on?
Whatever it is, things are looking bleak.
I twirl the Syntrix ring on my finger. The Vyrpy don’t want us using Syntrix. So maybe that’s exactly what I should be doing.
I close my eyes and try to feel the Syntrix, the vast ocean of power, just permeating everything all around me. It’s there, but it needs something to do. I focus on the bars to my cage. I can’t see them, but the Syntrix can. It latches on to one of them, and I pull at it with all my might.
There’s a metallic creak from the cage, but that’s all. I’m clearly not strong enough to break the metal apart. And the effort drains me pretty fast.
Instead I start to think of Mareliux. His face, his smile, his voice, his smell. His tendrils, uncoiling and standing on end when we’re making love, his warm touch, the intimate touch of his Syntrix…
“Help me,” I make the Syntrix say.
Then in my mind’s eye, I imagine the spaceship we’re in, the way it looks. It’s not a perfect image, but it’s the best I can do. There’s a buzzing that I can just about perceive, but it feels dirty and crackly, somehow. As if the Syntrix is being disturbed.
I repeat the process four times until I’m so exhausted I want to curl up and sleep. There’s no response in the Syntrix, no indication that Mareliux or anyone else sensed me calling.
Probably he’s too far away. Or he doesn’t care.
Time passes in the darkness. The intermittent zapping goes on, about one every thirty seconds, each time followed by a groan of pain from a prisoner. It makes my blood boil that anyone would treat someone like that, much less a whole room full of probably a couple of hundred prisoners. I haven’t been zapped yet, but I’m sure it will happen.
There’s not much I can do about it right now. But whoever is behind this, I will absolutely fight them the first chance I get. The Vyrpy took Sigise’s weapons and AI and armor, but they let me keep everything. Even my little knife gun. I will make sure they regret that.
I think I dip in and out of short naps, but it’s hard to tell in the darkness, and I don’t want to use Vera unless I have to.
The lights suddenly come on, and after a long time in darkness, they seem so bright I have to shield my eyes.
A group of Vyrpy walk over, open my cage, and drag me out. I kick and scream and wriggle, wanting to make it hard for them. But they’re probably used to those things, so they mostly avoid my kicks. I want to save my knife for a better time — these are only lackeys and aren’t worth it.
“Don’t tire yourself out,” Sigise says from her cage. “Keep a bright mind.”
The Vyrpy drag me back out of the terrible prison room, then through blue corridors until we’re at a double door that slides open. They Vyrpy push me in, hard. The doors slide shut behind me.
It’s a room filled with sunshine and plants. The air is humid and warm, smelling of hundreds of plants and flowers. A creek runs nearby, tinkling brightly among the plants. It’s a greenhouse in space, as idyllic as any garden.
I shield my eyes against the sharp light from above and look around.
A tall, thin person in dark robes is tending to a plant, calmly pinching off a leaf with their fingertips.
I check for my knife gun. It’s still there, easy to hand when I need it. And I think I just might.
“Umbra the Earthling,” the gardener says in a female Khavgren voice. “You’re a hard enemy to get rid of. “But perhaps there’s a meaning in that.” She turns around and comes towards me with a swishing of severe, dark robes. “What do you think the meaning is?”
I don’t answer, just lightly grab my knife. The cracking static in the Syntrix is really strong now, making me hesitate to reach out to it. I must be close to the source of that unpleasant, dirty-feeling static. I’m not surprised when I see who it is.
“Perhaps the meaning is that you can be helpful to me first,” Empress Juriniel says, giving me a barren smile. “And I would recommend that you start being helpfulnow.”
44
