Chapter Two
Harper landed on the gravel ground with a painful *thud*. He hadn't misjudged the distance from his prison's window to the ground, but he had misjudged just what shape, exactly, his body was in to absorb such a fall. His leg fell at a funny angle and he cringed, taking a long time to get his shaky, pained breathing under control.
"Oh my God..." His voice broke a little and he spent a lot of time hunched over, staring at the ground. His right leg was eerily numb, and felt...off. Great.
Logic wasn't exactly prominent in Harper's fevered head as he wrapped his damnation-toga around himself tighter and propped himself up on one broken leg, bruised, emaciated, and shaky, staring out into the forest that lay between him and his beloved ocean.
Harper drew in a sharp breath and started limping out there, sick of the hostility that Tyr that showing towards him, his present ignorance, and his present incapacitation. He refused to be brought down, he refused to be effectively chained to a bed doing nothing, especially when an unspoiled- sounding ocean lay just past the forest.
He stopped to lean against a tree and realized just how big it was. If we were up for trying, and he wasn't, he wouldn't have been able to put his arms all the way around it. Dylan wouldn't have been able to put his arms all the way around it.
Oh, god, Dylan...
Harper stared harshly at the bark on the tree, which was dark, moist, and rough. His small, pale hands were in complete contrast with the stark toughness of the tree. He looked up and up and up and branches of it stretched on forever, spreading slightly purplish leaves over him in a canopy, protecting his already ruined pale skin from the harshness of the beating sun.
This planet had to have a particularly big sun, Harper thought to keep his mind off his crewmates as he limped carefully over giant roots. Either that or it was close to it's sun, but he knew there were calculations to determine such a thing- he just couldn't remember what any of them were right now, in his state of fevered forgetfulness. He wondered fleetingly if he had tried to escape his room the other two times he'd been lucid, and smiled devilishly at the thought. That would show Tyr!
...Until the Nietzschean got sick of it and killed him.
Which, let's face it, hasn't happened yet, so Harper's chances were still pretty good.
If Harper had been paying attention he would have heard a slight rustling in the foliage behind him, but as it were, he was dizzy and aching and narrow-minded on his goal of finding the ocean, which was much further away than he thought. Many hours' walk, for a healthy person, at least. A few more excruciating steps over roots and bushes and he stopped to rest on a fallen log, pulling the once-clean white sheets around himself in the growing heat, the sheets sticking to his sweating, bruised skin. Even the thick canopy provided by the trees did not protect him from the sun's oblique rays, cutting down sharply through molecules.
He was about to fall asleep, when he was pushed over roughly from behind, and tumbled off his log in an unruly heap.
"-The hell?" He managed to get out before someone kicked him in the stomach.
"Trying to escape again, eh, boy?" The same someone said. Harper struggled to breathe, struggled to make out forms in his dying vision.
"No, I..." He couldn't get anymore out. About four men, all tall and dark and strong, stood around him, glaring, uniformed, weapons in hand.
"Shut up," One of them said, and slapped Harper sharply in the face. The blow sent Harper down again, and he let out a choked cry when his broken leg was jostled by his fall. Then they descended upon him with fists and bludgeons.
"What the HELL is going on?" Someone roared, and the four young, dark, tall strong men turned to look in surprise at Representative Okasha, staring menacingly at them, Tyr at his elbow.
"Represent-"
"Shut up!" Okasha yelled back. The young man flinched and looked at his feet. "Were you not instructued to inform General Anasazi of his slave's actions?"
"We did, he-"
"Be quiet!" Okasha's voice revealed that he was a little closer to loosing his patience this time.
Harper turned over a bit and coughed up some blood.
"That boy was already in delicate condition when our guest arrived," Okasha went on.
"But, sir, we-"
Whatever the young man was going to say was cut off yet again, as Okasha went on and on, leading the four back to the villa in one ashamed line.
"Tyr," Harper managed to cough out. Tyr was haughtily pulling the bloodied sheets tighter around Harper's vulnerable form.
"Be silent!" Tyr hissed.
"I-" Harper squeaked when Tyr hoisted him up painfully onto one hip.
"Not another word!" Tyr did yell this time, his voice tinged with a bit of a growl, and Harper shut up, gazing longingly over Tyr's shoulder in the direction of the ocean...
Tyr strode resolutely towards the white villa, not caring when Harper's chin bounced painfully on his thick shoulder.
"I cannot believe you," Tyr's voice was deceivingly soft. "Are you incapable of following even the smallest of orders?" They were closer to the villa now, closer to people who were milling around, seemingly lost and pointless.
"Yes," Harper said vindictively.
Tyr actually pinched him! On the soft, tender flesh right above the back of his knee. It fucking hurt! "Ow!" Harper cried out. No one even turned to look.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" Tyr asked dangerously when they got back to Harper's prison cell of a breezy white room. He threw the boy painfully onto his billowy pallet, where Harper cringed, his bloodied sheets gripped painfully in his hands.
Tyr threw a look around the room, where the girl with the unattractive green eyes and several other young people like her were milling around, putting the non-existent furniture back in order, clearing away the tray left for him. They all resolutely didn't look at Tyr, but they were still there.
Tyr raised a hand and before Harper knew what was happening he smacked the boy, sharply, near the same place he had pinched him.
"Ah! What the fuck?" Harper screeched. Tyr continued his punishment, raising his voice a little louder than necessary for the benefit of the eerily pale children in the room.
"What part of don't. Do. Anything. Don't you understand?"
"Tyr!"
"The next time you fail to do as you're told, boy, you'd better believe I will flay the SKIN off you!"
The door closed and faded into white on white. They were alone. Tyr let out a heavy breath and covered his face, maybe a little ashamed at what he had done, and sank to the floor to sit.
"You fucking asshole!" Harper cried, and lashed out at Tyr with his good leg. Tyr caught it easily and let Harper try to beat out his frustration at the absurdity and inherent unfairness of his situation.
"Ow, ow, ow," Harper cut in short, curling up on his side as pain spiked through him.
"Shh," Tyr soothed, helping arrange Harper so he was a little more comfortable. He slowly (gently?) felt Harper's right leg, the broken one, prodding carefully.
"Jesus fuck..." Harper's voice was still a pained whisper, a ghost of the rambonxious, boyish voice he used to have.
"I'm sorry I had to do that," Tyr said softly.
Tyr? Was apologizing?
"Why..." Harper managed to get out, closing his eyes against the ringing in his head.
"If I didn't, they'd suspect us," Tyr went on. "Harper...you have to trust me. You have to listen to me, there cannot be any confusion between us."
Harper leaned his head wearliy to the side a bit, regarding Tyr through reddened, jaundiced eyes.
The door opened again and the girl with the unattractive puke green eyes came back in, her impossibly pale hands contrasting starkly with the blackness of the chains she carried. She also carried a bundle of sticks and gauze, and handed these to Tyr. Tyr tried to take the chains from her as well, but she was a little reluctant to let them go.
"I don't need you," Tyr said forcefully. "Leave us." At this, the girl dropped her gaze, relinquished her hold on the chains, and left, giving Harper what appeared to be a smug smile.
"What? No way!" Harper choked out as Tyr manacled his good ankle, not harshly.
"It wasn't my idea," Tyr easily subdued Harper by simply pushing him back on the pallet. "I wouldn't..." He let it hang.
"Then who's idea was it?"
"Okasha's. He suggested it." Tyr said as he lead the chain to an indistinct white ring hook in the wall, and fastened the other end there. "I was afraid if I didn't take his advice it would be...incriminating."
Harper narrowed his eyes- Tyr was afraid? Then where the hell did that leave Harper?
"Let me fix your leg," Tyr said softly, taking the sticks and gauze.
"No way," Harper said snarkily, drawing back.
"Harper, please." Tyr suddenly looked very old and very tired. "I don't trust their...healers."
Harper took in a shaky breath and reluctantly let Tyr set his leg, cringing and wincing now and then.
"We'll be fine if you trust me." Tyr went on, softly.
"Where are we?"
A long hesitation. "We're in the summer home of Lord Amasai. The land is called Casiija."
"What planet?"
"They don't...they think their sun revolves around them, Harper." Tyr said simply.
Oh.
"I see," Harper said, trying not to panic. He cringed a bit as his leg spiked in pain. "Wh...what happened to us?"
Tyr still didn't look up. He sighed again, like he was about to go through something he was hoping he never would have to again. But, eventually, he did.
--
They had been going through Slipstream, after the state affair had wound down and Harper lay, incapacitated and probably lumbering towards a killer hangover, on the floor of the Maru. They had a distress call on one of the newer signatory worlds, a natural world disaster had rocked the planet and thousands were already dead. It was a particularly harsh leap, lots of twists and gut-wrenching turns. Beka was loving it, laughing maniacally, twisting the Andromeda to her will through the beautiful bluish green tunnels of the slipstream.
Then came something...horrible.
There was a tear, it seemed, or an eddie or a whirl... heard was a great *crack* and the Andromeda seemed to have been pushed from behind. Bright blackness and great nothingness.
And Trance gasped, a horrifying, scared little gasp. Beka heard the gasp and a shiver of fear ran through her, one so powerful it nearly floored her. She turned her head, painfully, and saw Trance staring up at the vidscreen in trepidation, her eyes wide and ethereal, and Beka was fucking terrified.
Then there was general confusion, and Beka was thrown from her seat, and everyone was cursing, and all three of Andromeda's voices responded with conflicting emotion, and Beka heard what sounded like metal ripping and puncturing and imploding.
And then she woke up.
"Oh, I'm sorry," Someone said, and Beka looked over to her right, still in the same cot that she had fallen asleep in, still in the same hospital type room where she had been left. "I wasn't supposed to wake you." The girl said softly, carefully rolling her wheeled bucket across the lab floor.
"No, it's all right." Beka said, wearily. She cleared her throat. "It wasn't you."
"Another nightmare?" The girl, Casey, didn't look up from her silent mopping, her pale skin a little burned from having been out in the sun all day.
"Yeah," Beka sighed and threw an arm over her head. The lab was dark, mostly, except for a few lights on the sides over the desks, where papers were haphazardly strewn.
"They'll go away," Casey said with conviction. "Eventually." She looked up at Beka, kind brown eyes softened. "Hey. You were telling the truth, weren't you? About the fire in the sky?"
"Yeah," Beka's voice was exhausted.
"I'm sorry my boss has you cooped up like this. It's just been so long since we've have contact with anyone from offworld. They wanna-"
"Make sure I'm not a terrorist. I know," Beka managed a weak grin. "I've been through stuff like this before. You guys are taking care of me, at least. It could be worse."
"Yeah," Casey agreed, smiling jovially. She slopped her mop back into the wheeled bucket carefully, and wiped her hands on her bland grey custodian uniform. "Get some sleep, hey?"
"Yes, mom," Beka quipped weakly, and turned over and buried her face into her flimsy pillow more, exhausted. She didn't hear it when Casey turned off the rest of the lights, and locked the door as she left.
---
"We were.attacked," Tyr said, setting Harper's leg gently with the splints.
"By who?"
"We never found out. Some other force. Something.greater than anything I could put a face on."
"I see," Harper sardonically. "Everything's so clear for me now."
"Don't try my patience, boy," Tyr almost-growled. "I have had to put up with you for five days since we crashed here. Don't make me kill you know when you're progressed so much."
Harper backed down and shut up, glaring up at Tyr through his dark blonde hair, plastered to his bruised, sallow face with fevered sweat.
"There were explosions.and.confusion," Harper could tell that Tyr's ignorance was disturbing him, too. Tyr wasn't used to not being in control. "The first thing I did was run for the Maru and get off ship, out of the slipstream. I found you there after I got out into space."
"Gee, thanks," Harper grumbled.
"The slipstream tunnel imploded on itself," Tyr spoke slowly, like he was trying to make sense of his memories. "It was fantastic and. beautiful in a horrible sort of way."
"Did you see the Andromeda?" Harper tried to keep it neutral, tried to keep the anxiety out of his voice.
"No," Tyr sighed. "But the shape the ship was in when we left it.and that explosion."
"It's pretty safe to say, huh?" Harper closed his eyes to Tyr's nod, trying not to think about the crew, and the ship he had brought to life.
"The Maru was very badly damaged, as well," Tyr went on. "I lost control of it. And we crashed here, about two days' journey from this place, in the woods. Almost created a forestfire, but the storms put it out. You very nearly did not survive."
"Then why did you bother with me? Why didn't you just leave me there?"
Tyr looked up at him, the same, heartbreaking, disturbed sort of look he had. "I am not without honour," He said. "I do not leave behind a comrade, much less a child," He spat the last word out. Harper flinched and felt hotly ashamed. "Besides which. I'm on a strange planet, unknown. When we landed I didn't know if there was any life here at all, much less a civilization I could communicate with. It was important for my psyche that I have someone.familiar with me."
It was probably as close to a compliment as Harper was ever going to get from Tyr. The boy smiled faintly, as Tyr tightly bound his leg and gently placed it on the bed, propped up with a bundle of extra sheets.
The breeze rustled around in the stucco white room and the ocean rolled in peacefully in the distance.
"How come they're being so nice to us- or, you, anyway? How come we can understand them?"
Tyr was slowly unwrapping the bloodied sheets from around Harper, his eyes softening at the bruised, emaciated body before him. "When you are better," He said, "I will take you to the ocean and show you what I think of that. And.well, they are speaking a sort of.obsolete vernacular. It took me a while to get used to. I think you got used to it as well, from when you were lucid before, and you just don't remember when you couldn't understand them."
"Thanks. That helps."
"Boy." Harper shut up again.
Tyr was wrapping Harper up in newer, cleaner sheets now. "I'm hungry again," Harper complained softly.
"Good. Perhaps you'll start gaining weight."
"Why did you tell them I was your slave?" Harper asked bitterly.
The hands on the sheets around him stopped for a moment. "I didn't," Tyr said simply. "They assumed."
"You couldn't have said I wasn't?"
"No."
"Why the fuck not?"
Tyr was standing now, stubbornly staring out the window and not at Harper. "If you want the truth, it's a colour issue."
Oh.
"I see," said Harper, staring at the ceiling.
Harper landed on the gravel ground with a painful *thud*. He hadn't misjudged the distance from his prison's window to the ground, but he had misjudged just what shape, exactly, his body was in to absorb such a fall. His leg fell at a funny angle and he cringed, taking a long time to get his shaky, pained breathing under control.
"Oh my God..." His voice broke a little and he spent a lot of time hunched over, staring at the ground. His right leg was eerily numb, and felt...off. Great.
Logic wasn't exactly prominent in Harper's fevered head as he wrapped his damnation-toga around himself tighter and propped himself up on one broken leg, bruised, emaciated, and shaky, staring out into the forest that lay between him and his beloved ocean.
Harper drew in a sharp breath and started limping out there, sick of the hostility that Tyr that showing towards him, his present ignorance, and his present incapacitation. He refused to be brought down, he refused to be effectively chained to a bed doing nothing, especially when an unspoiled- sounding ocean lay just past the forest.
He stopped to lean against a tree and realized just how big it was. If we were up for trying, and he wasn't, he wouldn't have been able to put his arms all the way around it. Dylan wouldn't have been able to put his arms all the way around it.
Oh, god, Dylan...
Harper stared harshly at the bark on the tree, which was dark, moist, and rough. His small, pale hands were in complete contrast with the stark toughness of the tree. He looked up and up and up and branches of it stretched on forever, spreading slightly purplish leaves over him in a canopy, protecting his already ruined pale skin from the harshness of the beating sun.
This planet had to have a particularly big sun, Harper thought to keep his mind off his crewmates as he limped carefully over giant roots. Either that or it was close to it's sun, but he knew there were calculations to determine such a thing- he just couldn't remember what any of them were right now, in his state of fevered forgetfulness. He wondered fleetingly if he had tried to escape his room the other two times he'd been lucid, and smiled devilishly at the thought. That would show Tyr!
...Until the Nietzschean got sick of it and killed him.
Which, let's face it, hasn't happened yet, so Harper's chances were still pretty good.
If Harper had been paying attention he would have heard a slight rustling in the foliage behind him, but as it were, he was dizzy and aching and narrow-minded on his goal of finding the ocean, which was much further away than he thought. Many hours' walk, for a healthy person, at least. A few more excruciating steps over roots and bushes and he stopped to rest on a fallen log, pulling the once-clean white sheets around himself in the growing heat, the sheets sticking to his sweating, bruised skin. Even the thick canopy provided by the trees did not protect him from the sun's oblique rays, cutting down sharply through molecules.
He was about to fall asleep, when he was pushed over roughly from behind, and tumbled off his log in an unruly heap.
"-The hell?" He managed to get out before someone kicked him in the stomach.
"Trying to escape again, eh, boy?" The same someone said. Harper struggled to breathe, struggled to make out forms in his dying vision.
"No, I..." He couldn't get anymore out. About four men, all tall and dark and strong, stood around him, glaring, uniformed, weapons in hand.
"Shut up," One of them said, and slapped Harper sharply in the face. The blow sent Harper down again, and he let out a choked cry when his broken leg was jostled by his fall. Then they descended upon him with fists and bludgeons.
"What the HELL is going on?" Someone roared, and the four young, dark, tall strong men turned to look in surprise at Representative Okasha, staring menacingly at them, Tyr at his elbow.
"Represent-"
"Shut up!" Okasha yelled back. The young man flinched and looked at his feet. "Were you not instructued to inform General Anasazi of his slave's actions?"
"We did, he-"
"Be quiet!" Okasha's voice revealed that he was a little closer to loosing his patience this time.
Harper turned over a bit and coughed up some blood.
"That boy was already in delicate condition when our guest arrived," Okasha went on.
"But, sir, we-"
Whatever the young man was going to say was cut off yet again, as Okasha went on and on, leading the four back to the villa in one ashamed line.
"Tyr," Harper managed to cough out. Tyr was haughtily pulling the bloodied sheets tighter around Harper's vulnerable form.
"Be silent!" Tyr hissed.
"I-" Harper squeaked when Tyr hoisted him up painfully onto one hip.
"Not another word!" Tyr did yell this time, his voice tinged with a bit of a growl, and Harper shut up, gazing longingly over Tyr's shoulder in the direction of the ocean...
Tyr strode resolutely towards the white villa, not caring when Harper's chin bounced painfully on his thick shoulder.
"I cannot believe you," Tyr's voice was deceivingly soft. "Are you incapable of following even the smallest of orders?" They were closer to the villa now, closer to people who were milling around, seemingly lost and pointless.
"Yes," Harper said vindictively.
Tyr actually pinched him! On the soft, tender flesh right above the back of his knee. It fucking hurt! "Ow!" Harper cried out. No one even turned to look.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" Tyr asked dangerously when they got back to Harper's prison cell of a breezy white room. He threw the boy painfully onto his billowy pallet, where Harper cringed, his bloodied sheets gripped painfully in his hands.
Tyr threw a look around the room, where the girl with the unattractive green eyes and several other young people like her were milling around, putting the non-existent furniture back in order, clearing away the tray left for him. They all resolutely didn't look at Tyr, but they were still there.
Tyr raised a hand and before Harper knew what was happening he smacked the boy, sharply, near the same place he had pinched him.
"Ah! What the fuck?" Harper screeched. Tyr continued his punishment, raising his voice a little louder than necessary for the benefit of the eerily pale children in the room.
"What part of don't. Do. Anything. Don't you understand?"
"Tyr!"
"The next time you fail to do as you're told, boy, you'd better believe I will flay the SKIN off you!"
The door closed and faded into white on white. They were alone. Tyr let out a heavy breath and covered his face, maybe a little ashamed at what he had done, and sank to the floor to sit.
"You fucking asshole!" Harper cried, and lashed out at Tyr with his good leg. Tyr caught it easily and let Harper try to beat out his frustration at the absurdity and inherent unfairness of his situation.
"Ow, ow, ow," Harper cut in short, curling up on his side as pain spiked through him.
"Shh," Tyr soothed, helping arrange Harper so he was a little more comfortable. He slowly (gently?) felt Harper's right leg, the broken one, prodding carefully.
"Jesus fuck..." Harper's voice was still a pained whisper, a ghost of the rambonxious, boyish voice he used to have.
"I'm sorry I had to do that," Tyr said softly.
Tyr? Was apologizing?
"Why..." Harper managed to get out, closing his eyes against the ringing in his head.
"If I didn't, they'd suspect us," Tyr went on. "Harper...you have to trust me. You have to listen to me, there cannot be any confusion between us."
Harper leaned his head wearliy to the side a bit, regarding Tyr through reddened, jaundiced eyes.
The door opened again and the girl with the unattractive puke green eyes came back in, her impossibly pale hands contrasting starkly with the blackness of the chains she carried. She also carried a bundle of sticks and gauze, and handed these to Tyr. Tyr tried to take the chains from her as well, but she was a little reluctant to let them go.
"I don't need you," Tyr said forcefully. "Leave us." At this, the girl dropped her gaze, relinquished her hold on the chains, and left, giving Harper what appeared to be a smug smile.
"What? No way!" Harper choked out as Tyr manacled his good ankle, not harshly.
"It wasn't my idea," Tyr easily subdued Harper by simply pushing him back on the pallet. "I wouldn't..." He let it hang.
"Then who's idea was it?"
"Okasha's. He suggested it." Tyr said as he lead the chain to an indistinct white ring hook in the wall, and fastened the other end there. "I was afraid if I didn't take his advice it would be...incriminating."
Harper narrowed his eyes- Tyr was afraid? Then where the hell did that leave Harper?
"Let me fix your leg," Tyr said softly, taking the sticks and gauze.
"No way," Harper said snarkily, drawing back.
"Harper, please." Tyr suddenly looked very old and very tired. "I don't trust their...healers."
Harper took in a shaky breath and reluctantly let Tyr set his leg, cringing and wincing now and then.
"We'll be fine if you trust me." Tyr went on, softly.
"Where are we?"
A long hesitation. "We're in the summer home of Lord Amasai. The land is called Casiija."
"What planet?"
"They don't...they think their sun revolves around them, Harper." Tyr said simply.
Oh.
"I see," Harper said, trying not to panic. He cringed a bit as his leg spiked in pain. "Wh...what happened to us?"
Tyr still didn't look up. He sighed again, like he was about to go through something he was hoping he never would have to again. But, eventually, he did.
--
They had been going through Slipstream, after the state affair had wound down and Harper lay, incapacitated and probably lumbering towards a killer hangover, on the floor of the Maru. They had a distress call on one of the newer signatory worlds, a natural world disaster had rocked the planet and thousands were already dead. It was a particularly harsh leap, lots of twists and gut-wrenching turns. Beka was loving it, laughing maniacally, twisting the Andromeda to her will through the beautiful bluish green tunnels of the slipstream.
Then came something...horrible.
There was a tear, it seemed, or an eddie or a whirl... heard was a great *crack* and the Andromeda seemed to have been pushed from behind. Bright blackness and great nothingness.
And Trance gasped, a horrifying, scared little gasp. Beka heard the gasp and a shiver of fear ran through her, one so powerful it nearly floored her. She turned her head, painfully, and saw Trance staring up at the vidscreen in trepidation, her eyes wide and ethereal, and Beka was fucking terrified.
Then there was general confusion, and Beka was thrown from her seat, and everyone was cursing, and all three of Andromeda's voices responded with conflicting emotion, and Beka heard what sounded like metal ripping and puncturing and imploding.
And then she woke up.
"Oh, I'm sorry," Someone said, and Beka looked over to her right, still in the same cot that she had fallen asleep in, still in the same hospital type room where she had been left. "I wasn't supposed to wake you." The girl said softly, carefully rolling her wheeled bucket across the lab floor.
"No, it's all right." Beka said, wearily. She cleared her throat. "It wasn't you."
"Another nightmare?" The girl, Casey, didn't look up from her silent mopping, her pale skin a little burned from having been out in the sun all day.
"Yeah," Beka sighed and threw an arm over her head. The lab was dark, mostly, except for a few lights on the sides over the desks, where papers were haphazardly strewn.
"They'll go away," Casey said with conviction. "Eventually." She looked up at Beka, kind brown eyes softened. "Hey. You were telling the truth, weren't you? About the fire in the sky?"
"Yeah," Beka's voice was exhausted.
"I'm sorry my boss has you cooped up like this. It's just been so long since we've have contact with anyone from offworld. They wanna-"
"Make sure I'm not a terrorist. I know," Beka managed a weak grin. "I've been through stuff like this before. You guys are taking care of me, at least. It could be worse."
"Yeah," Casey agreed, smiling jovially. She slopped her mop back into the wheeled bucket carefully, and wiped her hands on her bland grey custodian uniform. "Get some sleep, hey?"
"Yes, mom," Beka quipped weakly, and turned over and buried her face into her flimsy pillow more, exhausted. She didn't hear it when Casey turned off the rest of the lights, and locked the door as she left.
---
"We were.attacked," Tyr said, setting Harper's leg gently with the splints.
"By who?"
"We never found out. Some other force. Something.greater than anything I could put a face on."
"I see," Harper sardonically. "Everything's so clear for me now."
"Don't try my patience, boy," Tyr almost-growled. "I have had to put up with you for five days since we crashed here. Don't make me kill you know when you're progressed so much."
Harper backed down and shut up, glaring up at Tyr through his dark blonde hair, plastered to his bruised, sallow face with fevered sweat.
"There were explosions.and.confusion," Harper could tell that Tyr's ignorance was disturbing him, too. Tyr wasn't used to not being in control. "The first thing I did was run for the Maru and get off ship, out of the slipstream. I found you there after I got out into space."
"Gee, thanks," Harper grumbled.
"The slipstream tunnel imploded on itself," Tyr spoke slowly, like he was trying to make sense of his memories. "It was fantastic and. beautiful in a horrible sort of way."
"Did you see the Andromeda?" Harper tried to keep it neutral, tried to keep the anxiety out of his voice.
"No," Tyr sighed. "But the shape the ship was in when we left it.and that explosion."
"It's pretty safe to say, huh?" Harper closed his eyes to Tyr's nod, trying not to think about the crew, and the ship he had brought to life.
"The Maru was very badly damaged, as well," Tyr went on. "I lost control of it. And we crashed here, about two days' journey from this place, in the woods. Almost created a forestfire, but the storms put it out. You very nearly did not survive."
"Then why did you bother with me? Why didn't you just leave me there?"
Tyr looked up at him, the same, heartbreaking, disturbed sort of look he had. "I am not without honour," He said. "I do not leave behind a comrade, much less a child," He spat the last word out. Harper flinched and felt hotly ashamed. "Besides which. I'm on a strange planet, unknown. When we landed I didn't know if there was any life here at all, much less a civilization I could communicate with. It was important for my psyche that I have someone.familiar with me."
It was probably as close to a compliment as Harper was ever going to get from Tyr. The boy smiled faintly, as Tyr tightly bound his leg and gently placed it on the bed, propped up with a bundle of extra sheets.
The breeze rustled around in the stucco white room and the ocean rolled in peacefully in the distance.
"How come they're being so nice to us- or, you, anyway? How come we can understand them?"
Tyr was slowly unwrapping the bloodied sheets from around Harper, his eyes softening at the bruised, emaciated body before him. "When you are better," He said, "I will take you to the ocean and show you what I think of that. And.well, they are speaking a sort of.obsolete vernacular. It took me a while to get used to. I think you got used to it as well, from when you were lucid before, and you just don't remember when you couldn't understand them."
"Thanks. That helps."
"Boy." Harper shut up again.
Tyr was wrapping Harper up in newer, cleaner sheets now. "I'm hungry again," Harper complained softly.
"Good. Perhaps you'll start gaining weight."
"Why did you tell them I was your slave?" Harper asked bitterly.
The hands on the sheets around him stopped for a moment. "I didn't," Tyr said simply. "They assumed."
"You couldn't have said I wasn't?"
"No."
"Why the fuck not?"
Tyr was standing now, stubbornly staring out the window and not at Harper. "If you want the truth, it's a colour issue."
Oh.
"I see," said Harper, staring at the ceiling.