They were milking him like a stinking cow.
Just the concept made Rhade feel ill and he probably would have been if hadn't done that already. If he'd thought he couldn't sink any lower before, now he'd discovered a whole new basement level that these people were only too happy to drag him down into.
He was lying on his left side, facing the wall of a smallish hot room that smelled of rot and decay and tied into place on his cot with copious quantities of rope and leather straps. From the little he could see and the much he could hear, there were three or four more cots, some of which were occupied by others in the same predicament. He was fully aware that his arrival had meant the execution, or perhaps it had been a mercy killing, of a man who was at death's door, simply because they didn't need him anymore.
For the longest time, the fire in his arms had blinded Rhade to anything else that might have been going on, but then they'd given him a pick me up. As the pain had become a little more manageable and adrenaline had surged through his system increasing his awareness, he'd thought it was to counteract the sedative, but he'd since been enlightened as the shaking throughout his body now attested.
He'd been stripped to the waist, for which he'd been initially grateful as it helped with the heat, but in fact it was to make room for the tubing that had been inserted into his flesh somewhere above his right kidney. That they wanted him alive was clear in their endeavours to wrap his broken and bloody arms in rags that had been dipped into a pungent disinfectant.
He tried not to think what that might mean in the long term, for those blades were far more than just in-built weapons. If he was lucky he'd be dead long before the long term came about, but for the moment, he tried to concentrate on keeping his arms perfectly still, keeping the fire banked, under control, even though that was becoming increasingly difficult as the shock wore off and he began to lose any hope of controlling his own body.
Sweat poured off him as the shakes grew in intensity and he could feel the strength in his muscles growing with the familiar angry high that he normally used to serve him in a fight. But unlike those fights, he had no control, and there was no coming down because the second line that ran to his neck, was feeding him the drug that was stimulating the adrenaline they were harvesting.
XXXXX
Beka sighed and leaned back, taking the Maru up through the atmosphere. "I'm giving up, this is getting us nowhere; we've covered the entire planet and it's just a waste of time."
"I agree," said Dylan coming into the cockpit from the living area with Trance. "We need to go back to basics, find out what made Althazar believe Seefra 6 was the place to look and get more information."
"What?" argued Beka, "You're still going to continue this crazy quest? I'm with Harper, grab the junk and pay him for it later." She shook her head, "All this for a lump of worthless metal."
"Which will help get us out of the Seefra system," Dylan reminded her.
"So you keep saying," Beka muttered as she steered the Maru on her way.
XXXXX
His arms screamed in agony at every twitch, hot and cold sweats alternating suddenly and violently, muscles cramping from head to toe, heart pounding in his eardrums and blood fizzing through his veins. Rhade could virtually feel his enhanced immune system trying to heal him, but it simply couldn't keep up.
With only the wall to look at and no response from anyone in the other cots, there was almost nothing to distract him from his suffering, other than the occasional ministrations of a young boy. To avoid ghosts and unwanted thoughts he tried to recall poetry and literature from home, silly rhymes and little ditties when the pain was too much to concentrate on the epics or the philosophical. Sometimes he didn't know whether he recited them out loud or not, but when he knew he did, they came out in harsh bursts of breath, halting and raw with neither tone nor rhythm, and often broken by a bitten back scream.
The boy smiled sometimes at some of the simple rhymes, and Rhade tried to make him laugh when he was able to form any thought. It seemed that the boy's job was to keep applying the disinfectant to his arms, and the kid took great pains to do so carefully, seemingly fascinated by the remains of his blades. In one of his more lucid moments, he tried to strike up conversation with the boy, but only received a scared look and a whispered, "shhh!"
Periodically, the man with the staff, Lord Barle, he overheard once, would come and change the little collection vial and check his eyes and teeth. Rhade kept trying to bite Barle strictly out of principle rather than any real hope of doing damage and every time, Barle would calmly press down on the splintered remains of his bone blades until the pain couldn't be held inside.
As soon as he'd gone, the boy would immediately tend him, trying to pick out splinters and dab away the blood.
Any conception of time skipped away from him, but he had to keep fighting constantly. His jacked up system would not let him do anything but fight or give up and he already knew what giving up in spirit was like, to give up in body was unthinkable.
XXXXX
Alec Althazar was a serious looking older man of tall and stocky proportions, basically quite fit although the cane supported a heavy limp. Bryal was his only son and although he openly admitted that he and Bryal often disagreed, they were close; had been ever since Elspeth Althazar had passed away, leaving them with only each other. Bryal never went more than a few days without at least a short message to say he was doing well and ensure his father was all right.
One of their disagreements, however, was Bryal's decision to join the repo cops. Alec liked technology and thought that it could have many applications that would ease some of the suffering in the system. Bryal disagreed, opining that whilst technology could be good, in the wrong hands and the uneducated majority, technology was just too dangerous.
At the time of his disappearance, Alec believed Bryal to have been involved in something, an investigation perhaps, but had no idea exactly what. He was certain it would have been above board because Bryal had always been a good boy and had always wanted to be a hero. Alec was, however, disapproving of Bryal's work partner, a young man by the name of Lan, who seemed nice enough, but entirely too reckless for Alec's peace of mind.
Bryal had been out of touch for nearly a month now, and when Alec had contacted the repo cops all they'd said was that Bryal and Lan had gone AWOL with one of their flight craft. The last message that Alec had had from Bryal was that he was going for a trip to Seefra 6, hence his assumption that this was most likely.
"We can't search the whole damn system," Beka objected. "It would take forever!"
"I know," nodded Dylan, "But we really need that coil. We could sweep Seefra 6 again, but I'd be lying if I said there was much hope."
Althazar nodded with a sigh. "I understand. You tried, and for that I thank you. I will have the coil delivered to you tomorrow."
"Well," Dylan was caught by surprise, already planning his next words in order to try and barter for the coil. "Uh, thank you. If we find anything, we'll be certain to let you know."
"Sure," Althazar replied without any conviction, and turned to walk away.
"You know," remarked Dylan, "I think that man could be the only genuinely honourable person I've met in all the nine planets."
"Maybe," said Beka. "Or maybe he's got an ulterior motive, or maybe he's a mug. Most likely though, you're the mug. Ten to one that coil won't get delivered."
XXXXX
Elsa sighed as Jason tried to have her come with him to work today.
Her grandson had been trying to get her to come to the caves with him everyday for the last couple of weeks, telling her she absolutely had to see one of the patients in the clinic, something about the man being like Jason was. She was quite certain that she knew what Jason as getting at, but did not want to be involved in the local politics any more than she already was.
She never went to the caves, as she wasn't welcome, although Jason tended to be fussed over by the people there. Mostly, she suspected because he was, in principle, Barle's son. Elsa was certain that Barle suspected otherwise and knew for a fact that her daughter had conceived by another man. Fortunately, Barle had not been there at the birth, or he would quite possibly have destroyed the boy then, not only for killing his mother, but also for the freak he was. Elsa had spent the past eleven years caring for Jason and ensuring that no one ever discovered his little secret.
She was, however, aware that the secret must out some time, but hoped that he would grow into manhood enough that he could find himself a new life before Barle found out. And the important thing was that, with no other offspring in sight, Barle at least gave Jason employment food, and status as his son, if not any semblance of love.
With a natural talent for healing, Jason's job was normally to look after the patients in Barle's clinic overnight, and although she knew that it was usual for patients to go in whole and healthy and came out drained and dead, it was none of her concern. The fact that she disapproved had forced her exile and she counted herself fortunate that Barle had needed her for Jason, or she would have been drained and dead by now.
Jason was becoming more insistent now, emphasising his urgency with sharp choppy motions. "Please grandma, you need to see this man!"
Finally, she capitulated, nodding her assent and was rewarded by Jason's bright smile. Hoping that she wasn't too easily recognised, Elsa wrapped a cloak around her and accompanied Jason to the caves.
It was an hour's walk through the sunset and dark when they arrived. Jason lead the way into the cave system and, although she knew the route perfectly well herself, into the clinic.
The clinic was simply a term used for the laboratory and its attached patient room, and at the time of their arrival, there was no one there, no doubt gone to get food and Rush from the communal cave. Barle would be there too, dishing it all out.
They entered the patient room where there were only two occupants. One was almost a corpse, wrapped in blankets and clearly emaciated. The almost empty vial connected to the tube that disappeared under the blanket was dusty and probably hadn't been changed in some time. It was the other patient that Jason was urging her to see though. Shaking and feverish, this man was not nearly as far down the path as the living corpse.
"How long?" she asked Jason, as the boy unwrapped the bandaged arms.
"A couple of weeks," he replied.
She nodded, her suspicion almost confirmed. She checked the man's eyes and teeth, jumping back as he suddenly tried to bite her, snarling when he missed. If he were a normal human, he would have been suffering from mouth ulcers and swollen veins in his eyes by now. With a life expectancy of 6 weeks, this patient was remarkably healthy, although she was quite sure that he didn't think so.
Jason directed her to the unbound arms, and through the badly healing mutilation, she see where there by all rights have been bone blades. She hadn't known there were any Neitzcheans in the Seefra System and had only heard rumour of one in the ten years since they had been there.
Back in the days before Seefra, Barle had been her laboratory assistant and they'd run a small chemical research laboratory for commercial sectors. When they'd tried live experiments, Neitzcheans had always yielded far better results.
She caught Jason looking at her just then. He was touching his own wrists, tugging gently at the long sleeved shirt, and she knew what he was trying to say. "No," she tried to tell him. "Please don't ask me to do this, honey."
But Jason's big blue eyes beseeched her. "I need to know," he said quietly. He looked like his mother just then and she remembered the last words her daughter had said, begging her to make sure her baby survived, that he knew who he was. She'd forgotten about that last part over the years, but here was an opportunity and Jason wanted to know, deserved to know.
"All right," she said, "But no one must ever find out. Go and fetch some painkillers from the laboratory, the strongest you can find."
As Jason disappeared into the other room, Elsa clasped the patient's head between her hands, looking at him upside down and slapping his face until his pain filled eyes slitted open. "Listen to me. Do you want to live? Do you want to survive?"
The slight nod had to be good enough.
XXXXX
"I am so sick of this planet," Beka grumbled. "Sand, sand and more sand."
"Same as all the others," Harper remarked as he concentrated on a reading one of his gadgets was throwing up. "Here's a residual trail!"
Beka noticed that even Harper's natural ebullience was lacking with the sheer fruitlessness and boredom of what they were doing. "Going in," she sighed. "And if this another bush hunter that's going to get uptight with us trampling all over his hide, I will personally ram that inductor coil where it won't be of any use to anyone."
"Aw, boss, you're such a caring and giving kinda gal," Harper grinned as they landed.
Within half an hour, they were both back on board the Maru with another bush hunter hurling abuse at them.
XXXXX
The journey to wherever he was now had been mostly in haze. Rhade knew he'd lost control sometime after his legs started working again. He'd done as the old woman said right up until they'd left the room and entered the place with all the tubes and bottles and generators. It was all processing fluids milked from his body and it was obscene and he hadn't been able to stand it, attacking it all with uncaring disregard for anything other than the need to destroy and vent just a tiny bit of all that pent up anger.
No one had come though and the boy and the old woman had both urged him to come with them. The boy had found a cloak and thrown it over Rhade, for what reason he wasn't quite sure at the time, but was grateful for through the long trek to wherever they'd come to. He wasn't supposed to feel the cold but somebody had forgotten to remind his body of that fact, and the desert was very cold once the sun went down.
It had been a monumental effort to keep upright and move one foot in front of the other, but both boy and old woman kept telling to him to keep going. They tried to half carry him, but neither stood a chance of being strong enough. Only once they entered the threshold of the hut did the boy and old woman let up and let him fall to the floor.
Instinctively he sought the nearest corner to give him protection at his back, sitting as far into that corner as he could and raising his arms defensively. The shocked sight of his ruined flesh and bones though, was enough to send him spiralling back into the flames of agony.
TBC