Chapter Four
"Fine. We'll go over this again." The menacing, dark, well, let's face it, bitch said with a sigh.
Barrister Wilkinson answered with his own long suffering sigh. "We won't go over it again. We've been over it a thousand times already. You're not going to get any more new information right now."
"That's exactly the problem, isn't it!" Beka thought that the tall, angry woman was supposed to be a prosecutor of some kind. The blonde pilot's lip curled up a little as she cocked her head. What a bitch. Really. "If your client isn't offering us any new information, this is a complete waste of time." Ms. Fowler, the prosecutor, started gathering up her papers and files in a flurry. The lab technician who had hired her rolled his eyes and got up from the table, ready for their swift departure.
"You had better get your story straight," The prosecutor glared acidly at Beka, "Or they are going to put you away for a long time."
Beka only looked up at Ms. Fowler serenely, sucking slowly on the small malt chocolate candies she had been sneaking from the shared bowl on the table.
With one last huff, Ms. Fowler left the room, the lab technician trailing in her angry wake.
Wilkinson sighed, a heavy, weighted sigh. Beka snuck another malt chocolate.
"I'm sorry for that," The barrister said, looking older than she was told he was. "She's impossible. Had a hate-on for me since high school."
"No worries," Beka said, flicking her hair slightly. She blinked a little, forgetting momentarily about the heavy bags under her eyes, about the nightmares that plagued her.
"We're going as quickly as we can," He went on, his eyes still closed to the soft, polluted light that fell in sideways through the shuttered window. "To get you out of here. Out of that lab. It's horrible conditions to hold someone."
"I've been through worse," Beka said casually. Wilkinson opened his eyes and regarded her. "Seriously, I have. I'm tough." She narrowed weary blue eyes slightly. "Don't you believe me?"
"I believe you." He said, soft brown eyes unblinking. "I have to. Don't I." It wasn't a question.
Beka smiled weakly as he opened the door and waited for her to exit before him. The guard was still standing outside, sullenly, waiting, not particularly big or heavy. He had, however, some impressive weaponry hanging from his belt, and Beka's neck still stung from it's tease on her neck at her first escape attempt. She had tried twice after that, despite her knowledge in it's futility. She was stubborn.
Beka suddenly missed Harper very much, and a familiar deep ache nestled into her stomach.
"I have a room set aside and everything," Wilkinson went on as the light handcuffs were fastened around her wrists again. The plain, loose white plastic garments nestled stiffly around her as they walked down the long, plain corridors to her lab cell. "A few more days, I promise. I know it's taking long, but I have to get the papers in order. They're.they're not being cooperative."
"I know," Beka said, unsmiling, as she stepped inside the door of the lab. "I.it's fine. Don't stress about it. I don't have anywhere to go, anyway."
Wilkinson smiled sadly and held out one weary arm, stopping the door before it the guard could shut it. "Three more days. Tops. Then you'll be in a real room with real meals and everything."
"Sounds like heaven." Beka smiled again, and it didn't reach her eyes, and she shifted uncomfortably, her bare feet cold against the lab floor. "You.could they find.what I asked for?"
The last time Beka had seen Dylan, he had been impaled on a large shard of one of the slipfighter's broken seats. Then they had stormed her and taken her away. And here she was.
"I have the ashes," Wilkinson said bluntly, not unkindly.
Beka blinked and looked away. "He.they're."
"When you're out of here, would you like to have a ceremony for him?"
"Yeah. Yeah, thanks." Beka looked up again, trying to smile, the uncertain little girl long gone.
Barrister Wilkinson smiled and nodded again, closing the door ever so softly. "Everything's going to be fine, Beka." He said. "Get some sleep."
With that, he closed the drab grey door and Beka could hear his soft footsteps down the hall.
The lab was dark again, with only a few lights on the sides over desks light up, glowing eerily in the corner of Beka's eyes. Well. At least she had windows, even if they were small.
The windows were low in the wall, dirty, the glass cold to the touch. The lab was located in a skyscraper, hundreds of stories off the ground- at least, that's what she could gather. She spent most of the day huddled in one corner, ignoring the technicians as they went about their work ignoring her, trying to suppress the uneasy quivering in her stomach, trying to forget the sound of Trance gasping and the horrifying beauty of her last slipstream jump. Beka would stare down at the city, big and dirty, at the thousands, millions of hovercars that sped past in an hour, the changing billboards and neon ads, scrolling words in a kanji system that looked vaguely familiar.
It had taken her a long time to get used to the accent and.offish vernacular that these people spoke with. She reacted with violence, at first, of course. They had just as hard a time understanding her, so they locked her up in this lab until they figured out that she really was sort of harmless, outnumbered and without weapons. They still wanted to make sure she wasn't part of some bigger external threat.
The city now was dark, black, light up on the edges by neon lights and flashing billboards, headlights and taillights and reflective clothing. It glowed from the center, and when Beka couldn't sleep she would huddle in the same corner and stare at the glowing center of the massive city, far below her, until she got lost in it's murky yellowness and snapped back, suddenly engulfed with the same fear that had spiked in her when the Andromeda was.
There was a glass mug on the counter, the counter that was usually spotless and immaculate. A scrap of paper lay next to it, scribbled with a message in a runic, almost ancient looking script. Beka could read it, anyway.
Missed you today, Bek. It read. Thought you'd be done by the time I got in, but I guess those suits are even longer-winded than I imagined.
Beka allowed herself a genuine smile. At least, in Casey, she had one honest friend here.
Barrister Wilkinson is awesome, tho, Casey went on in her note. He's gotten me out of more trouble than you can imagine being in. Believe me. I hope I'll get to see you tomorrow, we can chat then. I left you some herbal tea, it'll help you sleep. Use the Bunsen burner to heat some water. Later- Casey.
There was a small blackish teabag inside the mug and Beka filled a large beaker with water, turning on a small flame and allowing it to boil. She stared at the flame and wrapped her skinny arms around herself, let out a long, shaky breath, and tried not to think of the Andromeda.
---
The stucco white corridor and courtyard outside his room looked so much more spectacular now that he wasn't so fevered. A small smile almost graced Harper's face when Tyr carried him out into the open hallway, a light breeze caressing his not-too-sweaty hair, ruffling through his breezy white slave garment.
"Remember what I told you, boy," Tyr almost growled.
"What?" Harper retorted, irritated.
"About being humble. Not making a scene. You're already making a fool of me."
Harper scowled and, without realising it, rested his head against Tyr's shoulder, still perilously tired. "I'm still sick, you know." He said softly.
"I know. But we do what we must to survive." He propped Harper up a little, more violently than was necessary, and Harper bit back a complaint. "That is Lord Amasai," Tyr pointed quickly at a man standing in the centre of the group of dark people congregating in the center of the courtyard, a plethora of pale ghosts lurking in the shadows, literally. "He is the people's elected leader of this country." Tyr said the sentence with disdain, like the mundane politics of such a primitive planet were beneath him. "Casiija has several enemies, mostly to the north. Which, incidentally, is where they raided all their slaves from." Harper would've flinched if he had the energy. Tyr sounded more and more angry every minute he had to spend in this distasteful rule of slave-master, and he sounded like he was trying very hard to keep a tight rein on it.
"Elected leader?" Harper tried to keep up. After his exhausting breakfast with Lim, he wasn't up for an entire day of waiting around on Tyr. Bleugh.
"There is a King, who lives in a palace in the town not far from here. He is only a child." Surprisingly, Tyr didn't spit it out this time. "Somebody has always had control of the land in his lieu, since he was a baby, when his father died. It was another lord before Amasai. A few months later, he was murdered. And Lord Amasai has been leader ever since."
Oh.
"How is that elected?"
Tyr sighed and, if it were possible, rolled his eyes. "Don't even bother worrying about it. It's none of your concern."
Harper's lip curled a little at this. While it was true that the inner scandals of politics were probably the last thing he should be concerning himself with - especially when he still forgot not to look his betters in the eye - he hated to be treated like such a simpleton.
Tyr stopped and stepped towards the edge of the corridor, leaning so that Harper was almost sitting on the banister overlooking the courtyard. "That is Lady Geeia." He said, pointing again at a tall, elegant lady in the centre of the proceedings. "She is Okasha's twin sister. She is very much.like him."
"She likes you," Harper said with just a hint of teasing in his voice.
Something that could have been a sigh left Tyr's body. "So the slave gossip has already reached you," He said wearily. "It's.purely physical."
Harper laughed. "What the hell else did you think it was?"
Tyr glared up at Harper. "She's not going to hinder our leaving this place." He said with conviction.
"I know," Harper said softly, dropping his gaze and staring at his splint and swollen foot. "I was just.having some fun."
There was a long, weighted pause. "Good," Tyr said, eventually, and Harper wondered what that could mean.
There was an outside staircase that they took down into the courtyard, huge, green, ethereal blossoms coming up to greet them, pink and yellow flowers blooming and fragrant and lighting up the courtyard with colour.
The sky was a staggering blue and went on forever, and endless stretch punctuated only by the quivering white sun high in the center.
As soon as Tyr stepped out of the shade of the white stucco walls, Harper felt like he was going to die. Sunlight hit his skin directly and he screwed his eyes shut, burying his head again, unashamedly, into Tyr's dark shoulder. His entire body spiked out in gooseflesh in the heat, hot shivers, he stared sweating almost instantaneously and he honestly didn't know how long he could hold out. He had gotten used to the heat radiating off the shaded white stucco, but this was unbearable.
It was the sort of heat you could see rising off the ground and on the skin of others, the heat you could breathe into your body and wear on your back. Drawing from experience, Harper knew if he spent more than five minutes in this direct sunlight, he was going to be felled for a long time coming.
"I know," Tyr said comfortingly as Harper whimpered unconsciously. He turned quickly and Harper found himself in the starkly cool shade, sighing contentedly. "Remember to stay out of the sun. In your condition, it will harm you greatly."
Harper almost gave Tyr a snide remark, but he looked at the older man's weary, commanding face and bit the inside of his cheek. He sighed and carefully leaned against the cool white wall so he didn't fall right over.
"I know you are tired," Tyr continued. "I want nothing more than for you to heal properly so we can leave this godforsaken rock. I do not want you to exert yourself too much while we are out here."
"Well, if that's the case, couldn't you just-" Whatever Harper was about to suggest, it was cut off when Tyr clamped a hand down over the boy's mouth.
His eyes were wide with warning as he muttered: "What did I tell you? Silence."
Tyr dropped his grip of Harper's mouth and the boy bit his lip a little, and then dropped his gaze, if only to stop staring into those troubled dark eyes, trying to forget the feel of the Nietzschean's hand splayed across his face.
Representative Okasha had come up behind Tyr at some point, with is sister Lady Geeia. He made a big show of introducing Harper as "The General's spoilt little pet," and the Lady absolutely loved it.
"Oh, he's adorable!" She said, pinching Harper's cheeks. Pinching! Harper, at Tyr's pantomimed cue, smiled weakly and tried to look away as quickly as possible. "And how do you like your master, little one?"
"He's shy," Tyr supplied again, thankfully.
"Aww.leave it to you, General Anasazi, to take such a shy little thing under your protection."
Oh, this was too good. Harper risked a glance through lowered lids at Tyr's uncomfortable reaction.
"That's.kind of you to say." Tyr took one involuntary step back from the wealthy woman's gaze.
Representative Okasha broke up the uncomfortable scenario when he laughed heartily and presented Harper with a crude crutch he had just cut down from one of the trees in the courtyard. He made a show of the bruises he obtained on his arms and back when he fell out of the tree, amid his sister's giggles.
"This is so you no longer have to burden your master carrying you around like a black prince," He said, jovially, not realising just how much his words offended the engineer.
"Th-thanks," Harper said slowly, remembering that he was supposed to be shy, looking determinedly at the ground and not at the Representative's face.
"Polite, albeit spoiled." Okasha said with laughter in his voice. "Come, Tyr, the Lord Amasai wishes to speak to us." He said the state leader's name with just the slightest hint of bitterness. Harper barely heard it, so intent was he with studying the green, green grass that stuck out from under his flimsy sandal.
Tyr gave Harper one last warning, not unfriendly glance, and followed the Representative and his sister slowly to where Lord Amasai was seated near a grove of trees with several other highly decorated individuals.
Lord Amasai was the colour of rum in coffee, and his skin shone in the heat but did not gleam with sweat. He was by no means a big man, but emanated a power in his slenderness and impressive height. He was just as tall as Tyr, if not taller- Harper couldn't judge from this distance.
Panga, her black-black hair swept back into a loose half-ponytail, was laying a wide chart over a table on the grass. So pale was her skin that Harper couldn't tell where she ended and her slave garment began. She looked like a little pearl rolled in from of the ocean, nestled into the green, pink, and yellow courtyard, outnumbered and dwarfed by her dark counterparts in their lavish costumes.
She looked up, as if she felt Harpers eyes on hers, and looked back at him for just a second. He almost thought she was going to give him a friendly smile but there was something else there- pity? -and then she turned back to her work, working her jaw unconsciously like she had just seen something that disturbed her.
Then Harper made the mistake of letting his gaze wander to the whisky eyes of Lord Amasai.
So startled was the skinny Earthen engineer that he didn't realize he was committing the previously proclaimed grave offense of looking directly into the nobleman's face. Lord Amasai smiled faintly, his eyes hard and bitter, and a shiver ran down Harper's spine. It wasn't until Lord Amasai blinked, almost laughingly, that Harper realized what he had been doing and dropped his gaze to the ground, again.
It occurred to Harper that he had a crick in his neck from staring at the ground. He sighed miserably and rubbed his neck ineffectually.
"Hey!" A friendly voice spooked him out of his already spooked reverie, and he looked up to see Lim in the shade next to him, playing with his fingertips in the same way he had half an hour before. "What are you doing right now?"
"Standing here talking to you, why?" Harper was suddenly very tired, if it was possible on top of the exhaustion he felt before.
Lim rolled his eyes melodramatically. "Don't be a smart ass. I mean does your master need you for anything? Because I'm done with the dishes and there's something I want to show you."
Harper hazarded a glance back to the small congregation near the grove of trees, and thankfully the Lord with the hard whisky eyes wasn't looking at him this time. "I don't know," he said truthfully. "I'm still sick. I'm just supposed to stay here."
"Oh, where's the fun in that?" Lim went around to Harper's left side, where the crutch wasn't, and took his arm the way Beka sometimes walked with Trance.
Out of blue, Harper was very homesick. He closed his eyes and only opened them again when he felt Lim's tug on his arm.
"Come on, it's totally wicked," Lim said, and he took Harper towards one of the inconspicuous entrances in the courtyard wall.
When Tyr had a chance to look up from the charts and check to see how Harper was doing, the boy was gone, and Tyr wondered when he would realize that Harper never obeyed instructions.
--
Harper was tired and aching, but it didn't matter how many times he protested, Lim didn't stop leading him up and down through the estate's impressive kitchens until they had found Panga, who had gone back to her own quarters and was looking sadly out the window when they entered.
Then the excitable boy had led both of them, arms linked, one on each side, out the estate on the opposite side of the forest and ocean, opposite of where Harper had tried to escape earlier. He simply walked out of the building nonchalantly, chattering constantly the entire time.
The heat affected Harper almost instantly, and he saw the sweat drenching down the slave garments of his companions. He started to lag almost right away, and when he did gather the strength to look up at Panga, she rolled her eyes and jerked her head at Lim, and stopped walking.
"Lim, slow down. Zay's still too sick for this."
"Oh, what?" Lim turned around and scowled, crossing his arms. "Come on, Zaymus. You can fool your master but you can't fool me."
"Who's fooling? I'm seriously sick." Harper scowled. "It's fucking hot! How can you stand it?"
"Come on, Lim." Panga went on like Harper hadn't even opened his mouth. "Let's just go back. We're going to get heat fever."
"Oh, come on, you guys, you have to see this! Please? It'll be totally worth it!" Lim actually stomped his foot at the beginning of that sentence, clasping his hands and looking up at Panga with soft, impressionable eyes. "I promise, when we get back home I'll make you both coconut ice."
"Fine," She had said, and Harper had sighed, but while Lim skipped ahead, still talking on and on about nothing, she lingered back with him.
After a long while, she said: "Do you need help?"
"With what?"
"Walking. Can you use that leg at all?"
"No."
"No, you can't use that leg, or no you don't need help?"
"No to both," He smiled up at her, but the effect was lost with his sweaty, red, still-bruised face. "I have a crutch, I'm fine. It's just..it's hot. Is all."
"It gets hot during the day, we're not..we shouldn't be out this close to noon. I'm going to burn." She sighed, and Harper looked at her sidelong, but it wasn't a pouty, self-centered sigh. "My mistress is kind, though. She won't care. Will the General?"
"Huh?" It took Harper a while to remember he was supposed to be playing the part of slave. "Oh. Well.I'm sick. So."
"Yeah," Panga undid her hair and ran her hands through it a little, and Harper was struck by the void blackness of it, and she quickly straightened it did it up again, all without taking her eyes off the beaten path in the grass before her.
The rolling fields stretched on forever in all directions. On the horizon, one could see the low homesteads of farmers, and their fenced off chunks of land. On the other side, behind them, was Amasai's impressive estate and beyond that, glimmering, past a small forest of dark green trees, was the ocean.
The vegetation on this side of the estate was sparse, sandy, sharp blades of grass here and there, and very low shrubby bushes. A low, twisted, misshapen tree spotted the land here and there, and Harper thought he saw a pride of golden animals in the distance, but it was too far to tell. The heat rising off the land made everything wavy. Harper lagged behind even more.
"Come on, you guys!" Lim called from where he knelt by a low tree a distance from them. Eventually they caught up and Lim wrung his hands giddily, staring down at the little hole dug in at the base of the tree.
It was full of four, scrambling, mewling little animals, something that looked but didn't quite sound like kittens.
"Oh." Panga let out a low sound, barely audible, and probably not voluntary. Harper collapsed in the tree's shade and sighed, not caring about the little animals at all.
"Aren't they cool? I found them last night when I went looking for my ball." Lim held one up to Panga, and she took it in her hands, her unattractive green eyes unblinking.
Harper watched the kitten scramble about on Panga's undelighted hand with disinterest, too tired and hot and sick to care.
"Do you think my master will let me keep them? In the kitchen or something?"
"I don't think so," Panga said, not unkindly. "They must have a mother or something."
Their mother was mauled by the bigger cats out here, Harper heard a familiar voice. He looked up, snapping his eyes open, confused. Trance?
Geez, it was hot! He must be mental-miraging or something. He was tired.
"I think their mother must've abandoned them," Lim said. "Well, I don't care. I'm taking at least one." He looked up at Harper. "Do you want one, Zay? I bet your master would let you have a pet."
Harper was going to answer, but instead, he coughed. He curled up a little in the shade and thought about having a nap here.
"Are you all right, Zay?" Lim asked, but he was more concerned with the mewling kitten in his hands.
"M'fine," Harper said tiredly.
"Well, if you guys are taking one, I'm going to take one," Panga said, and Harper managed to crack his reddened eyes open to look at her. "I think I'll name this one Kusmin."
You could name yours after me! Harper could almost hear Trance say, and he almost smiled, until he realized just how delusional that was. He struggled to sit up, but right after he saw the most amazing thing- Panga smiling gently at her kitten- the heat got the better of him and he passed out with a hard *thud*.
---
When Harper woke up, he was cradled in Tyr's arms, hot beyond uncomfortable, and whimpering like mad. It felt like his skull was imploding. He wanted to die.
"Disrespectful, stubborn," He barley heard Tyr rambling. He saw the dizzingly blue sky spinning above Tyr's dark head. In the distance, Lim's protesting voice could be heard backgrounding Okasha's angry reprimands. The world refused to stop whirling. Harper almost retched but he really didn't want to do that all over Tyr.
Tyr grumbled something about impossible companions and ridiculous expansionism, but Harper couldn't follow his train of thought. His quarantine room was remarkably cool and breezy, and Harper sighed audibly when they got inside there, the oppressive heat of the outside finally lifted. His skin was already blistering anew. He was having a hard time keeping his eyes open.
Tyr undid the complicated ties of Harper's garment and sandals, and helped him out of the virgin white gown with surprising gentleness, laying Harper's abused, burned body down in the pristine sheets, propping his splinted leg up again. He was about to go off on another tirade of verbal abuse when he realized Harper had already fallen into a fitful sleep.
The Nietzschean rubbed his face and leaned his elbows on the billow white pallet, and allowed himself a moment to rest and think and listen to Harper's laboured breathing. Then they would be expecting him in the dining hall for the noon meal.
He gaze Harper one last lingering, almost protective, gaze before he closed the door on the cool white room. He almost stepped on the underfoot slaves who were waiting outside.
The boy, Okasha's servant, stuttered and wrung his hands nervously. The girl, Geeia's servant, who was holding a small bowl full of what could have passed as ice cream, rolled her eyes and looked right up into Tyr's eyes, defiantly.
"Lim promised that he'd bring Zay coconut ice," She said, simply.
Tyr didn't respond right away, there was something in her unattractive green eyes that demanded his full attention. "He's asleep." He said, finally. The girl nodded. She tugged at the boy's gown a little and they scampered off, silently.
Tyr took another moment to gather his thoughts, curse his luck, and then he walked down to the dining hall.
"Fine. We'll go over this again." The menacing, dark, well, let's face it, bitch said with a sigh.
Barrister Wilkinson answered with his own long suffering sigh. "We won't go over it again. We've been over it a thousand times already. You're not going to get any more new information right now."
"That's exactly the problem, isn't it!" Beka thought that the tall, angry woman was supposed to be a prosecutor of some kind. The blonde pilot's lip curled up a little as she cocked her head. What a bitch. Really. "If your client isn't offering us any new information, this is a complete waste of time." Ms. Fowler, the prosecutor, started gathering up her papers and files in a flurry. The lab technician who had hired her rolled his eyes and got up from the table, ready for their swift departure.
"You had better get your story straight," The prosecutor glared acidly at Beka, "Or they are going to put you away for a long time."
Beka only looked up at Ms. Fowler serenely, sucking slowly on the small malt chocolate candies she had been sneaking from the shared bowl on the table.
With one last huff, Ms. Fowler left the room, the lab technician trailing in her angry wake.
Wilkinson sighed, a heavy, weighted sigh. Beka snuck another malt chocolate.
"I'm sorry for that," The barrister said, looking older than she was told he was. "She's impossible. Had a hate-on for me since high school."
"No worries," Beka said, flicking her hair slightly. She blinked a little, forgetting momentarily about the heavy bags under her eyes, about the nightmares that plagued her.
"We're going as quickly as we can," He went on, his eyes still closed to the soft, polluted light that fell in sideways through the shuttered window. "To get you out of here. Out of that lab. It's horrible conditions to hold someone."
"I've been through worse," Beka said casually. Wilkinson opened his eyes and regarded her. "Seriously, I have. I'm tough." She narrowed weary blue eyes slightly. "Don't you believe me?"
"I believe you." He said, soft brown eyes unblinking. "I have to. Don't I." It wasn't a question.
Beka smiled weakly as he opened the door and waited for her to exit before him. The guard was still standing outside, sullenly, waiting, not particularly big or heavy. He had, however, some impressive weaponry hanging from his belt, and Beka's neck still stung from it's tease on her neck at her first escape attempt. She had tried twice after that, despite her knowledge in it's futility. She was stubborn.
Beka suddenly missed Harper very much, and a familiar deep ache nestled into her stomach.
"I have a room set aside and everything," Wilkinson went on as the light handcuffs were fastened around her wrists again. The plain, loose white plastic garments nestled stiffly around her as they walked down the long, plain corridors to her lab cell. "A few more days, I promise. I know it's taking long, but I have to get the papers in order. They're.they're not being cooperative."
"I know," Beka said, unsmiling, as she stepped inside the door of the lab. "I.it's fine. Don't stress about it. I don't have anywhere to go, anyway."
Wilkinson smiled sadly and held out one weary arm, stopping the door before it the guard could shut it. "Three more days. Tops. Then you'll be in a real room with real meals and everything."
"Sounds like heaven." Beka smiled again, and it didn't reach her eyes, and she shifted uncomfortably, her bare feet cold against the lab floor. "You.could they find.what I asked for?"
The last time Beka had seen Dylan, he had been impaled on a large shard of one of the slipfighter's broken seats. Then they had stormed her and taken her away. And here she was.
"I have the ashes," Wilkinson said bluntly, not unkindly.
Beka blinked and looked away. "He.they're."
"When you're out of here, would you like to have a ceremony for him?"
"Yeah. Yeah, thanks." Beka looked up again, trying to smile, the uncertain little girl long gone.
Barrister Wilkinson smiled and nodded again, closing the door ever so softly. "Everything's going to be fine, Beka." He said. "Get some sleep."
With that, he closed the drab grey door and Beka could hear his soft footsteps down the hall.
The lab was dark again, with only a few lights on the sides over desks light up, glowing eerily in the corner of Beka's eyes. Well. At least she had windows, even if they were small.
The windows were low in the wall, dirty, the glass cold to the touch. The lab was located in a skyscraper, hundreds of stories off the ground- at least, that's what she could gather. She spent most of the day huddled in one corner, ignoring the technicians as they went about their work ignoring her, trying to suppress the uneasy quivering in her stomach, trying to forget the sound of Trance gasping and the horrifying beauty of her last slipstream jump. Beka would stare down at the city, big and dirty, at the thousands, millions of hovercars that sped past in an hour, the changing billboards and neon ads, scrolling words in a kanji system that looked vaguely familiar.
It had taken her a long time to get used to the accent and.offish vernacular that these people spoke with. She reacted with violence, at first, of course. They had just as hard a time understanding her, so they locked her up in this lab until they figured out that she really was sort of harmless, outnumbered and without weapons. They still wanted to make sure she wasn't part of some bigger external threat.
The city now was dark, black, light up on the edges by neon lights and flashing billboards, headlights and taillights and reflective clothing. It glowed from the center, and when Beka couldn't sleep she would huddle in the same corner and stare at the glowing center of the massive city, far below her, until she got lost in it's murky yellowness and snapped back, suddenly engulfed with the same fear that had spiked in her when the Andromeda was.
There was a glass mug on the counter, the counter that was usually spotless and immaculate. A scrap of paper lay next to it, scribbled with a message in a runic, almost ancient looking script. Beka could read it, anyway.
Missed you today, Bek. It read. Thought you'd be done by the time I got in, but I guess those suits are even longer-winded than I imagined.
Beka allowed herself a genuine smile. At least, in Casey, she had one honest friend here.
Barrister Wilkinson is awesome, tho, Casey went on in her note. He's gotten me out of more trouble than you can imagine being in. Believe me. I hope I'll get to see you tomorrow, we can chat then. I left you some herbal tea, it'll help you sleep. Use the Bunsen burner to heat some water. Later- Casey.
There was a small blackish teabag inside the mug and Beka filled a large beaker with water, turning on a small flame and allowing it to boil. She stared at the flame and wrapped her skinny arms around herself, let out a long, shaky breath, and tried not to think of the Andromeda.
---
The stucco white corridor and courtyard outside his room looked so much more spectacular now that he wasn't so fevered. A small smile almost graced Harper's face when Tyr carried him out into the open hallway, a light breeze caressing his not-too-sweaty hair, ruffling through his breezy white slave garment.
"Remember what I told you, boy," Tyr almost growled.
"What?" Harper retorted, irritated.
"About being humble. Not making a scene. You're already making a fool of me."
Harper scowled and, without realising it, rested his head against Tyr's shoulder, still perilously tired. "I'm still sick, you know." He said softly.
"I know. But we do what we must to survive." He propped Harper up a little, more violently than was necessary, and Harper bit back a complaint. "That is Lord Amasai," Tyr pointed quickly at a man standing in the centre of the group of dark people congregating in the center of the courtyard, a plethora of pale ghosts lurking in the shadows, literally. "He is the people's elected leader of this country." Tyr said the sentence with disdain, like the mundane politics of such a primitive planet were beneath him. "Casiija has several enemies, mostly to the north. Which, incidentally, is where they raided all their slaves from." Harper would've flinched if he had the energy. Tyr sounded more and more angry every minute he had to spend in this distasteful rule of slave-master, and he sounded like he was trying very hard to keep a tight rein on it.
"Elected leader?" Harper tried to keep up. After his exhausting breakfast with Lim, he wasn't up for an entire day of waiting around on Tyr. Bleugh.
"There is a King, who lives in a palace in the town not far from here. He is only a child." Surprisingly, Tyr didn't spit it out this time. "Somebody has always had control of the land in his lieu, since he was a baby, when his father died. It was another lord before Amasai. A few months later, he was murdered. And Lord Amasai has been leader ever since."
Oh.
"How is that elected?"
Tyr sighed and, if it were possible, rolled his eyes. "Don't even bother worrying about it. It's none of your concern."
Harper's lip curled a little at this. While it was true that the inner scandals of politics were probably the last thing he should be concerning himself with - especially when he still forgot not to look his betters in the eye - he hated to be treated like such a simpleton.
Tyr stopped and stepped towards the edge of the corridor, leaning so that Harper was almost sitting on the banister overlooking the courtyard. "That is Lady Geeia." He said, pointing again at a tall, elegant lady in the centre of the proceedings. "She is Okasha's twin sister. She is very much.like him."
"She likes you," Harper said with just a hint of teasing in his voice.
Something that could have been a sigh left Tyr's body. "So the slave gossip has already reached you," He said wearily. "It's.purely physical."
Harper laughed. "What the hell else did you think it was?"
Tyr glared up at Harper. "She's not going to hinder our leaving this place." He said with conviction.
"I know," Harper said softly, dropping his gaze and staring at his splint and swollen foot. "I was just.having some fun."
There was a long, weighted pause. "Good," Tyr said, eventually, and Harper wondered what that could mean.
There was an outside staircase that they took down into the courtyard, huge, green, ethereal blossoms coming up to greet them, pink and yellow flowers blooming and fragrant and lighting up the courtyard with colour.
The sky was a staggering blue and went on forever, and endless stretch punctuated only by the quivering white sun high in the center.
As soon as Tyr stepped out of the shade of the white stucco walls, Harper felt like he was going to die. Sunlight hit his skin directly and he screwed his eyes shut, burying his head again, unashamedly, into Tyr's dark shoulder. His entire body spiked out in gooseflesh in the heat, hot shivers, he stared sweating almost instantaneously and he honestly didn't know how long he could hold out. He had gotten used to the heat radiating off the shaded white stucco, but this was unbearable.
It was the sort of heat you could see rising off the ground and on the skin of others, the heat you could breathe into your body and wear on your back. Drawing from experience, Harper knew if he spent more than five minutes in this direct sunlight, he was going to be felled for a long time coming.
"I know," Tyr said comfortingly as Harper whimpered unconsciously. He turned quickly and Harper found himself in the starkly cool shade, sighing contentedly. "Remember to stay out of the sun. In your condition, it will harm you greatly."
Harper almost gave Tyr a snide remark, but he looked at the older man's weary, commanding face and bit the inside of his cheek. He sighed and carefully leaned against the cool white wall so he didn't fall right over.
"I know you are tired," Tyr continued. "I want nothing more than for you to heal properly so we can leave this godforsaken rock. I do not want you to exert yourself too much while we are out here."
"Well, if that's the case, couldn't you just-" Whatever Harper was about to suggest, it was cut off when Tyr clamped a hand down over the boy's mouth.
His eyes were wide with warning as he muttered: "What did I tell you? Silence."
Tyr dropped his grip of Harper's mouth and the boy bit his lip a little, and then dropped his gaze, if only to stop staring into those troubled dark eyes, trying to forget the feel of the Nietzschean's hand splayed across his face.
Representative Okasha had come up behind Tyr at some point, with is sister Lady Geeia. He made a big show of introducing Harper as "The General's spoilt little pet," and the Lady absolutely loved it.
"Oh, he's adorable!" She said, pinching Harper's cheeks. Pinching! Harper, at Tyr's pantomimed cue, smiled weakly and tried to look away as quickly as possible. "And how do you like your master, little one?"
"He's shy," Tyr supplied again, thankfully.
"Aww.leave it to you, General Anasazi, to take such a shy little thing under your protection."
Oh, this was too good. Harper risked a glance through lowered lids at Tyr's uncomfortable reaction.
"That's.kind of you to say." Tyr took one involuntary step back from the wealthy woman's gaze.
Representative Okasha broke up the uncomfortable scenario when he laughed heartily and presented Harper with a crude crutch he had just cut down from one of the trees in the courtyard. He made a show of the bruises he obtained on his arms and back when he fell out of the tree, amid his sister's giggles.
"This is so you no longer have to burden your master carrying you around like a black prince," He said, jovially, not realising just how much his words offended the engineer.
"Th-thanks," Harper said slowly, remembering that he was supposed to be shy, looking determinedly at the ground and not at the Representative's face.
"Polite, albeit spoiled." Okasha said with laughter in his voice. "Come, Tyr, the Lord Amasai wishes to speak to us." He said the state leader's name with just the slightest hint of bitterness. Harper barely heard it, so intent was he with studying the green, green grass that stuck out from under his flimsy sandal.
Tyr gave Harper one last warning, not unfriendly glance, and followed the Representative and his sister slowly to where Lord Amasai was seated near a grove of trees with several other highly decorated individuals.
Lord Amasai was the colour of rum in coffee, and his skin shone in the heat but did not gleam with sweat. He was by no means a big man, but emanated a power in his slenderness and impressive height. He was just as tall as Tyr, if not taller- Harper couldn't judge from this distance.
Panga, her black-black hair swept back into a loose half-ponytail, was laying a wide chart over a table on the grass. So pale was her skin that Harper couldn't tell where she ended and her slave garment began. She looked like a little pearl rolled in from of the ocean, nestled into the green, pink, and yellow courtyard, outnumbered and dwarfed by her dark counterparts in their lavish costumes.
She looked up, as if she felt Harpers eyes on hers, and looked back at him for just a second. He almost thought she was going to give him a friendly smile but there was something else there- pity? -and then she turned back to her work, working her jaw unconsciously like she had just seen something that disturbed her.
Then Harper made the mistake of letting his gaze wander to the whisky eyes of Lord Amasai.
So startled was the skinny Earthen engineer that he didn't realize he was committing the previously proclaimed grave offense of looking directly into the nobleman's face. Lord Amasai smiled faintly, his eyes hard and bitter, and a shiver ran down Harper's spine. It wasn't until Lord Amasai blinked, almost laughingly, that Harper realized what he had been doing and dropped his gaze to the ground, again.
It occurred to Harper that he had a crick in his neck from staring at the ground. He sighed miserably and rubbed his neck ineffectually.
"Hey!" A friendly voice spooked him out of his already spooked reverie, and he looked up to see Lim in the shade next to him, playing with his fingertips in the same way he had half an hour before. "What are you doing right now?"
"Standing here talking to you, why?" Harper was suddenly very tired, if it was possible on top of the exhaustion he felt before.
Lim rolled his eyes melodramatically. "Don't be a smart ass. I mean does your master need you for anything? Because I'm done with the dishes and there's something I want to show you."
Harper hazarded a glance back to the small congregation near the grove of trees, and thankfully the Lord with the hard whisky eyes wasn't looking at him this time. "I don't know," he said truthfully. "I'm still sick. I'm just supposed to stay here."
"Oh, where's the fun in that?" Lim went around to Harper's left side, where the crutch wasn't, and took his arm the way Beka sometimes walked with Trance.
Out of blue, Harper was very homesick. He closed his eyes and only opened them again when he felt Lim's tug on his arm.
"Come on, it's totally wicked," Lim said, and he took Harper towards one of the inconspicuous entrances in the courtyard wall.
When Tyr had a chance to look up from the charts and check to see how Harper was doing, the boy was gone, and Tyr wondered when he would realize that Harper never obeyed instructions.
--
Harper was tired and aching, but it didn't matter how many times he protested, Lim didn't stop leading him up and down through the estate's impressive kitchens until they had found Panga, who had gone back to her own quarters and was looking sadly out the window when they entered.
Then the excitable boy had led both of them, arms linked, one on each side, out the estate on the opposite side of the forest and ocean, opposite of where Harper had tried to escape earlier. He simply walked out of the building nonchalantly, chattering constantly the entire time.
The heat affected Harper almost instantly, and he saw the sweat drenching down the slave garments of his companions. He started to lag almost right away, and when he did gather the strength to look up at Panga, she rolled her eyes and jerked her head at Lim, and stopped walking.
"Lim, slow down. Zay's still too sick for this."
"Oh, what?" Lim turned around and scowled, crossing his arms. "Come on, Zaymus. You can fool your master but you can't fool me."
"Who's fooling? I'm seriously sick." Harper scowled. "It's fucking hot! How can you stand it?"
"Come on, Lim." Panga went on like Harper hadn't even opened his mouth. "Let's just go back. We're going to get heat fever."
"Oh, come on, you guys, you have to see this! Please? It'll be totally worth it!" Lim actually stomped his foot at the beginning of that sentence, clasping his hands and looking up at Panga with soft, impressionable eyes. "I promise, when we get back home I'll make you both coconut ice."
"Fine," She had said, and Harper had sighed, but while Lim skipped ahead, still talking on and on about nothing, she lingered back with him.
After a long while, she said: "Do you need help?"
"With what?"
"Walking. Can you use that leg at all?"
"No."
"No, you can't use that leg, or no you don't need help?"
"No to both," He smiled up at her, but the effect was lost with his sweaty, red, still-bruised face. "I have a crutch, I'm fine. It's just..it's hot. Is all."
"It gets hot during the day, we're not..we shouldn't be out this close to noon. I'm going to burn." She sighed, and Harper looked at her sidelong, but it wasn't a pouty, self-centered sigh. "My mistress is kind, though. She won't care. Will the General?"
"Huh?" It took Harper a while to remember he was supposed to be playing the part of slave. "Oh. Well.I'm sick. So."
"Yeah," Panga undid her hair and ran her hands through it a little, and Harper was struck by the void blackness of it, and she quickly straightened it did it up again, all without taking her eyes off the beaten path in the grass before her.
The rolling fields stretched on forever in all directions. On the horizon, one could see the low homesteads of farmers, and their fenced off chunks of land. On the other side, behind them, was Amasai's impressive estate and beyond that, glimmering, past a small forest of dark green trees, was the ocean.
The vegetation on this side of the estate was sparse, sandy, sharp blades of grass here and there, and very low shrubby bushes. A low, twisted, misshapen tree spotted the land here and there, and Harper thought he saw a pride of golden animals in the distance, but it was too far to tell. The heat rising off the land made everything wavy. Harper lagged behind even more.
"Come on, you guys!" Lim called from where he knelt by a low tree a distance from them. Eventually they caught up and Lim wrung his hands giddily, staring down at the little hole dug in at the base of the tree.
It was full of four, scrambling, mewling little animals, something that looked but didn't quite sound like kittens.
"Oh." Panga let out a low sound, barely audible, and probably not voluntary. Harper collapsed in the tree's shade and sighed, not caring about the little animals at all.
"Aren't they cool? I found them last night when I went looking for my ball." Lim held one up to Panga, and she took it in her hands, her unattractive green eyes unblinking.
Harper watched the kitten scramble about on Panga's undelighted hand with disinterest, too tired and hot and sick to care.
"Do you think my master will let me keep them? In the kitchen or something?"
"I don't think so," Panga said, not unkindly. "They must have a mother or something."
Their mother was mauled by the bigger cats out here, Harper heard a familiar voice. He looked up, snapping his eyes open, confused. Trance?
Geez, it was hot! He must be mental-miraging or something. He was tired.
"I think their mother must've abandoned them," Lim said. "Well, I don't care. I'm taking at least one." He looked up at Harper. "Do you want one, Zay? I bet your master would let you have a pet."
Harper was going to answer, but instead, he coughed. He curled up a little in the shade and thought about having a nap here.
"Are you all right, Zay?" Lim asked, but he was more concerned with the mewling kitten in his hands.
"M'fine," Harper said tiredly.
"Well, if you guys are taking one, I'm going to take one," Panga said, and Harper managed to crack his reddened eyes open to look at her. "I think I'll name this one Kusmin."
You could name yours after me! Harper could almost hear Trance say, and he almost smiled, until he realized just how delusional that was. He struggled to sit up, but right after he saw the most amazing thing- Panga smiling gently at her kitten- the heat got the better of him and he passed out with a hard *thud*.
---
When Harper woke up, he was cradled in Tyr's arms, hot beyond uncomfortable, and whimpering like mad. It felt like his skull was imploding. He wanted to die.
"Disrespectful, stubborn," He barley heard Tyr rambling. He saw the dizzingly blue sky spinning above Tyr's dark head. In the distance, Lim's protesting voice could be heard backgrounding Okasha's angry reprimands. The world refused to stop whirling. Harper almost retched but he really didn't want to do that all over Tyr.
Tyr grumbled something about impossible companions and ridiculous expansionism, but Harper couldn't follow his train of thought. His quarantine room was remarkably cool and breezy, and Harper sighed audibly when they got inside there, the oppressive heat of the outside finally lifted. His skin was already blistering anew. He was having a hard time keeping his eyes open.
Tyr undid the complicated ties of Harper's garment and sandals, and helped him out of the virgin white gown with surprising gentleness, laying Harper's abused, burned body down in the pristine sheets, propping his splinted leg up again. He was about to go off on another tirade of verbal abuse when he realized Harper had already fallen into a fitful sleep.
The Nietzschean rubbed his face and leaned his elbows on the billow white pallet, and allowed himself a moment to rest and think and listen to Harper's laboured breathing. Then they would be expecting him in the dining hall for the noon meal.
He gaze Harper one last lingering, almost protective, gaze before he closed the door on the cool white room. He almost stepped on the underfoot slaves who were waiting outside.
The boy, Okasha's servant, stuttered and wrung his hands nervously. The girl, Geeia's servant, who was holding a small bowl full of what could have passed as ice cream, rolled her eyes and looked right up into Tyr's eyes, defiantly.
"Lim promised that he'd bring Zay coconut ice," She said, simply.
Tyr didn't respond right away, there was something in her unattractive green eyes that demanded his full attention. "He's asleep." He said, finally. The girl nodded. She tugged at the boy's gown a little and they scampered off, silently.
Tyr took another moment to gather his thoughts, curse his luck, and then he walked down to the dining hall.