Author: Milady Dragon
Disclaimer: You can't treat things the way I do and still own them.
Author's note: Is this fast enough for you?? I aim to please... : )
Chapter Twenty-Five
House didn't want to wake up, but supposed he really had to.
He groaned, the pain in his head drowning out the usual pain in his leg. The white light stabbed into his eyes like scalpels, making him snarl out a curse. He blinked to clear his vision, wondering vaguely what had made him feel this shitty.
The room around him was made of some sort of white stone, which mostly likely accounted for the light from the lamps on the walls reflecting that brightness around like mirrors. House was lying on a pallet that seemed to be spread out on the floor, he rolled over, groaning again as he went over onto the bad hip. Where in the hell was he?
The last thing he remembered was the pressure in his skull, and seeing those indistinct shapes coming toward him. Wonderful. Kidnapped by unknown aliens. Just what he wanted to happen at the end of the day.
He glanced around some more, spotting Danielle lying on a similar pallet against the opposite wall. House made his painful way toward her. If he was awake, why wasn't she? Certainly she'd be far more used to being knocked unconscious by telepathy! She should be able to bounce back just like that!
Her pupils were fixed and contracted, and her vital signs did nothing to inspire confidence in a quick recovery. Whatever it had been, had hit her particularly hard. That left House on his own, which wasn't usually a bad thing.
But there didn't appear to be a door in any of the walls. And the last time House checked, he needed help to jaunt.
He was well and truly trapped.
House slumped against the wall, his bad leg stretched out in front of him. "Hello!" he called out, on the off chance someone was eavesdropping on them. "Come out, come out whoever you are! Ollie ollie oxen free!"
All that met his shout were dead sounding echoes. It got better and better, didn't it?
Guess that meant he had to wait. Not something House was particularly good at, truth be told. He patted the pocket of his A-E suit; oh yeah, his Vicodin was still there. He popped a couple, one for his leg and the other for his head. They took his cane but left his drugs. Nice aliens, weren't they?
After what seemed like an eternity, but could have been just a few minutes, House began to feel like he wanted to bang his head into the wall. He glanced over at his companion. Danielle hadn't moved at all, and that lack of movement was beginning to concern him. What if that attack had somehow damaged her? There was no way for House to tell, without at least a CT of her head. And even if there wasn't anything wrong with her brain, she was still stubbornly unconscious.
Any way you said it, it meant he was on his own.
Well, time to do something about that, wasn't it?
"Hello!" he shouted again. "Look, I know you have to be listening in, so why don't you just show yourselves and we can get this whole prisoner/captor thing out of the way? Come on, all the bad guys like to rant! Hell, you can go on as long as you want, it's not like I can get away or anything! You know you want to!"
House stopped, waiting for any sort of response. Nothing. Damnit!
"Why don't you come and tell me what you want! Not like there's anything I can do to meet your demands, but at least I wouldn't be talking to four walls! Not that I don't actually do that at home, because I like to have an intelligent conversation every once in a while…come on, quit being cowards and show yourselves!" He threw his hands up in anger. "This is fucking ridiculous. Not even evil alien kidnappers listen to me."
"We are not evil."
The sudden voice about sent House flying off the floor in surprise. He found the source immediately.
It was an alien, all right. A female one.
She was short, and thin, and her skin was completely white. Her hair was also mostly white, but it had black streaks in it, making her look like a reverse punk rocker. Black eyes looked at him, with a mixture of fear and sorrow. Her hands were folded across her stomach, almost glowing against the black dress she was wearing. Did she have only three fingers?
And somehow she'd just appeared there. It must have been teleportation.
"Well, you could've fooled me," House scoffed. "Don't think the good guys attack people and hold them in rooms without any doors in them."
"You were trespassing on our world," the woman answered. "We have a right to defend ourselves."
"Your world?" House's mind wrapped itself around that. "You're Castalii? I thought you were all dead!"
Now, this was a turn of events he hadn't expected at all. Everyone had been so sure the Castalii'd been wiped out. Had there been solar flares at all? There had to have been, judging from the planet itself. But how had these people managed to survive?
House found himself asking that very question.
"We are deep underground, safe from the radiation above. And this is where we shall always remain."
Made sense, he supposed. "But why grab us? We had no idea you were even here."
"Your companion might have sensed us, and we could not risk that."
It hit House suddenly. "What are you afraid of?"
The woman's thin mouth curved up in what, for a human, would have been a self-deprecating smile. "Perhaps we misjudged who we should have been concerned about."
"What did you do to her, anyway?"
"We have shut down her mind."
House was shocked. "What the hell are you playing at? Do you have any idea what damage you could be causing?"
"We are familiar with mental powers; we know what we are doing."
"Do you actually have experience with a human mind?" Could Allison and John be here? Could that be how these Castalii'd known what to do to Danielle?
"No." The alien's answer sank House's hopes. "We have not had any dealings with her race at all."
"Then how can you be sure what you've done hasn't done anything to her mind?"
"We know." She seemed so certain; House knew he wouldn't be able to shake her confidence.
So he had to try another tack. "How long do you think you can keep us here without someone coming to investigate?"
"That is the problem." Now she seemed unsure. "We thought to modify your memories, to make you forget that you were even here. However, your mind will not take the modification. We are at a loss."
"What gave you the right to mess with my mind without my permission?" House was outraged. He levered himself up off the floor, limping heavily to tower over their captor. "You decide you can do whatever you want just because you're afraid to show yourselves?"
"We have no choice."
"And what would've happened if you'd gotten us to forget? Enough people know we're coming here! They would've realized something was wrong and come to investigate! Or do you think you're a match for the Galactic Federation?"
The woman froze. "You are from the Federation?"
"Duh! Didn't I just say so?"
She was chewing her lip, confusion furrowing her smooth brow. "Then perhaps we have made a mistake."
"I should say so!"
"I shall need to confer with our elders. You will stay here." Her eyes closed in concentration.
House knew she was going to teleport away. He did the only thing he could think of.
He grabbed her up in a hug.
The room faded out around him, replaced by another room, this one made of a darker stone. The moment he felt completely there, he released the woman, who was backing away from him in shock. "How dare you!" she gasped.
"I think I asked you guys the same question." He was just relieved that the woman could teleport with the two of them. It had been a risk, but he wasn't about to remain behind.
He looked around, seeing the room in more detail. Comfortable furniture and thick carpets filled the area, and the light wasn't nearly so overpowering. There was a door in this room, and House realized just how claustrophobic that cell had been without one.
There were other aliens in the room as well. Two women and a man stood there, staring at him in shock equal to his "rides' own. All three had the same white complexion and hair, but the streaks were different: the man was in green; one of the women was what House would have called indigo; and the second woman was blue. "Sorry about barging in like this," he said, by way of introduction, "but there was no way in hell I was going to let you guys decide my fate without saying a few words on my own. Besides, I was bored."
The blue woman acted first. Her eyes narrowed, but House felt the effects immediately. That pressure he'd felt outside returned, although not nearly as bad as before.
Before it could incapacitate him, House stomped toward her and slapped her in the face. "Don't even think about it, missy," he snapped. "I only want to talk." The pressure vanished.
The woman rubbed her cheek, her eyes wide in alarm. A red mark was blooming across the too pale skin, his handprint in her flesh.
The man stepped forward. He touched her face carefully, and in seconds the redness vanished.
House was impressed. "Neat trick," he complimented. He suspected he'd seen his first healer. Allison had told him they were out there, but were very rare. "Good thing you're not on Earth, you'd put me out of business."
"You are a healer?" the man asked, surprised.
"A doctor, yes. You mean you didn't find that out while you were poking around in my head?" He put as much rancor in his voice as he could. One of the things he respected about the Tomorrow People were their scruples about reading another person's mind without permission.
The man looked at the blue woman. She shrugged. "Yes, we did read that. However, we chose not to consider it important."
"Despite the council's ruling that all healers are to be cherished, since there are so few of us now?" The man sounded almost as outraged as House felt.
"This is a different case – "
"No, it is not, Tala. You cannot pick and choose what is and is not law."
"In this case we felt it was of no matter, since these two were alien and were endangering our people."
"How were we supposed to do that?" House demanded. "We didn't even know you were here, let alone still around and kicking."
"Then why are you here?" the man asked.
House explained everything; he felt he didn't have a choice. He told them about Allison's apparent death; the discovery that a clone had taken her place; and the evidence that had led him and Danielle here. He finished up with John's own disappearance.
The four Castalii looked at each other as he finished. "You are saying you found traces of one of our people in your investigation?" The blue woman – Tala – didn't seem to believe him.
"Of castalanium, I think I said. Are you deliberately trying to misunderstand or do you need your ears checked?"
The indigo lady snickered. Tala glanced at her witheringly, but that didn't stop the chuckle. In fact, it made it worse. "The only way for castalanium to get to your world is if one of our people created it there," she said lightly.
"And you would know this entire tale from looking into his mind," the healer retorted, not at all amused. "Yet another thing you did not think mattered?"
Tala didn't even pretend to look bothered by his anger. "You are not of the council. You do not know our business."
"Back this up a bit," House interjected. He pointed to the woman who'd made the claim about the castalanium. "Just what did you mean by that?"
"I meant exactly what I said," she replied, serene under the storm of his curiosity. "It can be a bi-product of some of our talents, depending on the material affected. I am Larha, by the way."
House acknowledged the introduction with an absent nod, his mind already turning over that piece of information. And of course it came to the obvious conclusion. "Then the Castalii took my friends." He included John in that category, just for simplicity.
"That is not possible," Tala snapped. "Our people have not left our world in many years."
"Oh yeah? And just why are you hiding anyway?" House suspected it had something to do with this mystery, and he was determined to make this piece fit as well.
"You have no need to know – " Tala began.
The green man said something the translator refused to give up, making House wonder if it was some sort of particularly nasty cuss word. The tone sure made it sound like it, and Tala's flush confirmed it. "We have been living in fear for so long the council no longer think beyond it," he said. "It cannot do any harm for him to know, Tala."
The blue alien seethed, but remained quiet.
"I am called Loran," he went on, " and Larha is my sister. And you have already met Carela, our teleporter." The woman being introduced nodded. "Please, be seated."
House was glad to do so, his leg was protesting even past the Vicodin he'd taken. "Look, I know the story: there were solar flares." The chair was patently made for the smaller Castalii; he had to stretch out to be comfortable.
"That is correct." Loran sat beside him, in another chair. "However, what you do not know is that we, ourselves, caused them."
That was quite possibly the last thing House had expected to hear. "You mean you did this to yourselves?"
"We did. And before you think us mad, you must know that we did it for a very good reason."
He couldn't imagine a good enough reason to do something like that, but motioned the man to continue.
"As you might be aware, we were offered membership in the Galactic Federation several times, but each time we refused, thinking our people self-sufficient enough to not need their aid. We were proven wrong, to our shame."
Carela handed House a glass of some clear liquid; thinking it was water, he took a large swig. Then promptly choked on the sharp taste of some sort of acrid juice. The teleporter thumped him on the back to clear his throat. He thanked the woman, wiping the tears from his eyes. His next sip was smaller, and he could savor the taste. It was extremely tart, and yet sweet, almost like the strongest orange juice imaginable. He wondered vaguely how it would taste with vodka. "Got to get me some of that!" he gasped. He motioned Loran to continue.
"We welcomed the Magestrin with open arms. We traded with them, thinking them friendly. But after several years, they betrayed us and stole away hundreds of our people. We do not know why."
"So what? You decided to hide from them, instead of confronting them?" Yet another piece of the puzzle, but House wasn't exactly sure where that one fit.
"We were afraid they would come back, so our elders developed the plan to make them think we were all dead."
"But you left your own people with the Magestrin. Not much brotherly love there." House was disgusted. These aliens were the biggest wimps in the galaxy. "You should've done something to save them."
"Like what?" Tala asked sharply.
"Like…maybe going to the Federation?" Were these beings intentionally thick, or was it congenital?
"What would they have done? We did not have any sort of treaty with them. They would not have done anything."
"You people are so stupid!" House couldn't take it anymore. "You didn't even try, did you? You ran and hid while other members of your race were taken away to whatever fate awaited them. Did you even care about them, or were you just too interested in saving your own skins?"
"That is unfair!" Tala cried.
"You're right; it is." He wanted to slap her again, this time hard enough to knock some brain cells loose. "It's unfair to those poor souls you let rot in some Magestrin hell because you were too scared to do anything to help them. You people live down here in fear while the beings who stole whole big swadges of your population get away with it. This is sick, you do know that? Do you have any idea if they're even still alive?" House paused, as another piece of the mystery puzzle slotted itself into place. "Oh, shit… of course they're still alive. They're the ones who took Allison and John." It was the only thing that made sense.
But that was about the only thing that did. The big question was: why? For what reason would these expatriate Castalii kidnap two Tomorrow People and put clones in their places?
This would mean that Allison and John were most likely prisoners of the Magestrin, whoever they were. That was assuming that the Castalii they'd taken were still being held captive…yes, that fit, simply because the rest of the galaxy was still assuming that all the Castalii had been wiped out. House doubted the Magestrin would want the Federation finding out they were using a psionic race for…what? Slave labor? That would make the most sense, although just how were they keeping them captive escaped him at the moment. Maybe some sort of dampener? He had first-hand knowledge of them, from the Intellex affair.
Which meant, logically, that Allison and John were being used in the same way he Castalii were. "I have to get out of here." He stood unsteadily. "Where the hell is my cane?"
"We cannot let you leave," Tala said, smiling darkly. "We cannot let you take the knowledge of our existence out into the galaxy. The Magestrin might return."
"You really are stupid, aren't you?" He bent over, getting right into her face. "The Magestrin are holding my friends. I won't leave them the way you left your own people. And if I can save what's left of them, I'll do that too. You can stay and rot down here for eternity. I could care less. Now, are you going to turn Danielle back on and show us the way out, or do I have to go through the lot of you? Because don't doubt for a moment that I won't, and to hell with the lot of you."
Tala's blue eyes bored into his. House wasn't about to back down. Not for her; not for anybody.
And he didn't pity the ones who got in his way.