OK, I had been holding this back until I had finished chapters 19 & 20, but I think if I do that you'll be waiting forever. Also, I'm not sure when I can update my site, so rather than post the update there, I'm going to put it here.
Are we all sitting comfortably?
**********************************************
Chapter 18
**********************************************
Chapters 1-17 here.
**********************************************
Cane padded quietly through the maze of freight containers. He knew perfectly well that his thoughts advertised his presence like a flashing light above his head, but he padded quietly nonetheless because it helped to sustain his mood. As I lay bleeding on the floor, I looked again into his mind and despaired. He was beginning to realise just how precarious his position was; unarmed, unarmoured, creeping around in the dark after a psychopathic psychic, but he padded onward all the same, clinging to his bitterness like a cloak on a cold day. To him it was as though the tingling, smouldering core of single-minded revenge he held so tightly could somehow protect him: As though it would enable him to shrug off any injury and plough on heedlessly, as long as at the end of it he could feel her die between his fingers.
Idiot.
Of course he was going to get himself killed, and he knew it. Reason, logic, self- preservation: These things nagged at him, but he pulled his cloak of stupidity over his ears and ignored them, his distraught and desperate mind taking the simplest route, the path of least resistance.
I tried to move the dead human pinning me to the floor, but with my newly inflicted wounds the pain of the exertion nearly robbed me of my consciousness. Better to remain immobile, if that was the price to pay for staying alert. I called out Cane’s name, the translator in my carry-pouch thankfully undamaged. I saw his mind register my voice, then decide to pretend he hadn’t heard it, and finally realise that I would see through his charade. All the same, he refused to respond. I called out again, this time adding a pitiful ”help” to the end. This time he hesitated, the realisation of his selfishness threatening to penetrate the shield he had drawn up around his hatred. His mind was a mess, and for the first time I realised just how young this Cane was. He had been utterly unprepared for the violence and betrayal now thrust upon him, and his inexperienced, shell-shocked reaction might be the death of us both.
“Damn you Cane, I’m hurt and she could be back any minute to finish me off.”
Fresh blood-lust flooded his thoughts, and I hurried to quell it.
“She’s already killed another of the crew and wounded me. What chance do you think you stand? She can see into your mind, Cane. She’ll know your every move like she did theirs and shoot you dead. Get me out of here and you can at least live to see her under arrest.”
There was a long pause, and then I knew that Cane was coming for me. He was struggling to free me from the dead human- who Cane woefully identified as Stevv- when gunfire and shouted human expletives erupted from elsewhere in the cargo bay. Cane stopped, and even without my sense I would have known what he was thinking.
“Cane, you’re not even armed.”
He looked meaningfully at Stevv’s blood-stained rifle. Stevv had been as intent on revenge as Cane after the murder of his colleague, Wilm. It was Wilm’s own weapon that had killed Stevv, although that intervention had undoubtedly saved my life.
She had been aware of my presence from the moment I found her, but had skilfully hidden that knowledge from me. Thinking myself undetected, I had given in to curiosity and tried to discern whether or not it was the same attacker who had been in the cargo container. With grim triumph I learned that it was, but she sensed that instant of distraction and bolted suddenly to cover. It only took me an instant to locate her thoughts again, but that was all she needed to gain the advantage. For her to see that opportunity and take it in such a tiny time frame, her psychic skills were impressive. For her to shoot me twice at long range with an alien weapon in an equally short window of opportunity was nothing short of exceptional. I admit to being somewhat in awe of her as I waited to die.
It was at that point that Stevv and Frasier had intruded on the scene. Stevv crouched to examine me and was shot. Frasier, enraged, pursued the murderess into the shadows immediately, leaving the engineer and myself in a bloodied heap. It was Frasier now making all the noise in the distance and I looked into his mind, knowing that she would be doing the same.
Without seeing him, I knew that Frasier was pressed up against a cargo crate not too far away, preparing to round a corner where he thought her to be. From inside his mind I could almost feel his exhilaration, smell the sweat gathering on his face. I wondered if she took some kind of perverse pleasure in observing those same sensations from her prey. Frasier was totally focussed on that next corner, and it occurred to me that he was not even considering the possibility of her being above him. No doubt she would be coming to the same conclusion and climbing to a higher position even now. He wouldn’t stand a chance.
Cane picked up the rifle and checked the ammunition chamber. He would have gone then to his doom, had I not sensed four members of the Endeavour’s crew nearby, drawn to the commotion. I called to them, and they rounded a corner to find us.
“This one’s dead.” I said, meaning Stevv. “She’s got Frasier alone.” I continued, weakly indicating the direction.
The commanding human nodded, and signalled his team to follow him. Cane fell in behind, and the officer turned to address him.
“We have this under control now, Sir.” He said. He raised the faceplate on his armour to make eye contact with Cane. “Mr Othaglot needs to be in the sick bay. I could have one of my people take him, but they would serve better down here.”
Cane dropped his eyes and shamefully mumbled some kind of agreement. The officer nodded formally and flipped his mask back down. With a brief gesture, the four of them moved efficiently down the corridor between the containers.
Without a word, Cane slung the rifle over his shoulder and roughly hauled Stevv’s body to one side. With only a little more care he picked me up and slung me onto his back, leaving two tentacles draped forward over his shoulders to hold me by. We trailed purple blood all the way to the sick bay, the pain lessening every moment with my diminishing senses.
The next thing I remember clearly is the sick bay. The Marilyn’s doctor was treating my wounds. His contact with doctor Ollaroo when Cane was injured must have been informative for him too, because he moved quickly and confidently, halting blood loss with some kind of gel and inserting tubes to administer liquids. All the while he was speaking to Cane in an angry tone I had not heard often among humans.
“…him in here like a sack of potatoes. Can’t you see he’s injured? A little more care might have made my job a lot easier.”
Cane didn’t respond. He simply looked sideways, directing his gaze absently down at one of the room’s corners. It was too much effort to hold my eyestalks upright, so I let them fall back onto the couch and once more examined Cane with my psychic sense. He was blank. Numb would probably be a better word, but the effect was the same: He had withdrawn into himself, unable to cope with the conflicting demands and emotions brought on by the day’s events. I found myself wishing he would put the rifle down.
“Are you even listening to me? Look, I could use your help here. Hand me that bottle.”
Cane’s mind had closed itself off to all outside contact, and so the doctor’s request just trailed across the surface, unable to find purchase. Eventually, it found its way into some reactive part of his mindscape, divorced from intelligence or questioning, and Cane picked up a bottle from an open cabinet and handed it to Singh. The doctor checked the label as he crossed the room for a syringe, and then looked up at Cane with concern. Naturally, I had assumed the contents of the bottle were meant for me but the doctor did not administer them. My treatment seemed to have been concluded. Instead, he spoke softly to Cane.
“Mr Cane, you are clearly in some kind of shock. You need to lie down. Why don’t you go back to your quarters?”
Cane stared, blankly. The doctor shook his head from side to side and walked to him, loading the syringe on the way.
“I need to stay here in case there are more casualties, but I can… hey, just a minute!”
I looked up, thinking Cane had gone after the killer again, but he was still standing there, immobile. Instead I saw the doctor leaving the medbay to pursue a member of the Endeavour’s crew who had just passed the doorway. Presumably, Singh had wanted to ask for someone to escort Cane to his quarters.
It was a tragedy of timing. No sooner had Singh left the room than there was a load, dull thump followed by a hideous metallic groaning. The doctor simply disappeared, leaving behind only a shrill scream that faded rapidly beneath a roar of escaping air, and for a fraction of an instant I glimpsed the corridor outside shearing away to reveal empty space. Before I even had time to process this input, the medbay’s pressure doors snapped shut. Papers, disturbed by the incomplete decompression, drifted lazily toward the door in the sudden silence. Their gentle, gravity-free rustling the only evidence that anything was wrong: That, and the inert body of Cane, who floated passively toward the ceiling.
[ February 11, 2003, 16:43: Message edited by: dogscoff ]
Re: Othaglot and Cane - Story Thread
Linear Mode
