Having given up entirely on the bad job that was Seefra 6, Harper and Beka had returned to Harper's bar for some much needed R&R. As Harper poured himself a drink, a very luscious blonde lady leaned over the bar, "Excuse me, you're one of Rhade's friends, right?
"Not so much friends, but maybe I like the guy sometimes, and I definitely know him, or at least I know where he hangs out mostly. How can I help you?" Harper asked, beaming his best charming smile.
"Wonderful," smiled the blonde coyly, "I was wondering if you might know where that might be."
"Right here," Harper nodded leaning further forward and looking deep into her big… blue eyes.
She looked around. "He's not here right now," she pointed out.
Harper kept staring at her… eyes. "Nope, you're right, perhaps I could help you."
"Er," the blonde raised an eyebrow, "I was really hoping to see Rhade. We started something a couple of weeks ago, and as we've just returned to town I was kind of hoping for a repeat performance but he's not been around the last few days. I was just wondering if he'd come back with you."
"Nope, no idea," Harper said, still beaming and staring at her hopefully. "Are you sure I can't help?"
The blonde leaned forward until they were cheek to cheek and said softly, "I'm afraid you're just too, too much for me."
Harper's grinned broadened even further and he blushed, "Well, if I do say so myself I – "
The blonde interrupted as she stood back upright. "If Rhade shows up, just tell him that Anna and Sabrina's door is open anytime," she winked and left the bar, leaving Harper in a happy daze. At least until he'd worked out exactly what she'd said.
"Hey, Harper!" Beka called from her table, "You got one of those saliva drinks!"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, you going to pay for it this time?"
"Why of course," said Beka, "Just as soon as I've won some money from these fine gentlemen." She indicated the two ragged characters at her table.
"I know, I know, put it on the tab." He took the drink over to her. "So, anyone seen our resident Neitzchean?" he asked as it occurred to him that he'd not seen Rhade since before they'd gone to Seefra 6 the first time. There was a slight twinge of guilt, but then again, they weren't Dylan's crew anymore and with the exception of Trance, they each had something approximating lives to attend to. He and Doyle watched out for each other, and Dylan and Trance watched over each other, but Beka and Rhade were always each off on their own, sometimes for weeks at a time and often without telling anyone.
"Not me," said Beka as she shuffled a deck of cards. "Ah, he's either off beating up clients, sleeping around or sleeping it off. Why?"
"Because I've not seen him since he disappeared with those two luscious ladies a few weeks ago and one of them just came looking for him; apparently he hasn't been in here for days," replied Harper. "And by the way that is so unfair. Why do they always go for the big heroic type, even when said heroic type is a self-destructive alcoholic. Do you think maybe it's because they all think they can be the one to fix him? Hey, yeah, maybe, maybe I should drink myself into unconsciousness and then some gorgeousness will come along and tuck me up in bed… oh, hi, Doyle, I didn't see you there."
"Obviously." Doyle replied, smiling sweetly. "Funny you should be talking about Rhade. One of his not so nice clients just asked me where he was. He wanted to know why he's avoiding him. Apparently there was supposed to be a meet a few days ago, and Rhade didn't turn up and the clients were furious."
"You told them you didn't know?
Doyle nodded, "I did, and they wouldn't listen."
"Did you make them listen?" asked Beka.
"Of course," smiled Doyle.
Beka thought for a moment. "You know, Trance made some cryptic comment ages ago about someone trying to kill Rhade. I didn't pay much attention though; you know how Trance likes to talk in riddles and it hurts my head to think about what she says too hard."
"Well, much as I don't like him, I hope the big guy is doing okay," said Harper, "He's starting to grow on me."
XXXXX
Rhade was not doing okay at all, his mind elsewhere as he huddled in a corner of Elsa's kitchen.
Elsa hummed to herself as she stirred a large vat of desert rat stew. Jason was at the caves cleaning up the mess the Neitzchean had made of the laboratory. It seemed that the patient had escaped by himself, as far as Barle was apparently concerned. He'd decided that Jason had left the captive's bonds a little too loose and that had been all the Neitzchean had needed and he had no reason to think that either Jason or herself would have had anything to do with the escape.
Barle believed his captive to be wandering somewhere in the desert and had sent patrols looking for him, which made Elsa very happy imagining Barle's frustration. After all, her son-in-law had no doubt thought the Divine was smiling upon him when one of the crews brought the Neitzchean in. A source of raw material that would both outlast a normal human and yield a far more potent harvest would have been a dream come true in this armpit of the universe.
Of course, Barle had somewhat destroyed his treasure by mutilating him, but that was Barle's fear; he could not stand those that he perceived as stronger than him. Neitzcheans by their very nature were a threat to him and in the years before Seefra, while their experiments on Neitzcheans, among other races, were less than ethical, she'd turned a blind eye to what she had noticed was a particularly sadistic streak in her assistance. From the ragged look of them, he'd had one of the gangs bludgeon the Nietzsche's blades off and dig them out by the root, probably on the pretext of quite literally disarming him.
She looked around at her house guest. He was too big and heavy to move, and with his head so screwed up he was in no fit state to move himself, so she'd decided to leave him where he was. That he was in her kitchen was slightly worrying, but she'd hidden all the knives and sharp objects away. The healer side of her nature wanted to mend his broken bones, but compassion was something she'd long ago learned to squelch. She was only interested in letting him come down off the drugs that Barle had been feeding him for the moment. The painkillers she'd given him had no doubt done more damage, but hopefully the man would become lucid enough for her to educate Jason.
The stew was ready, so she decanted it into a large dish and stored it away, putting on fresh batch. The Nietzsche would be ravenous once the drugs were purged, and she was stocking up. The last thing she needed was a hungry, angry and in pain Nietzsche rampaging about the place.
While the pot was heating up for another go round, she considered her guest. He looked a little better, the violent shakes muted to a constant shivering, and the feverish sweat poured off him in hot waves she could virtually feel, but he was no longer oscillating so wildly between hot and cold. A lot of this was infection setting in, but she couldn't do anything about that until the drugs were clear; the work that needed to be done would be too dangerous while he was unstable, if she even decided that healing was the right thing to do. Currently she didn't think she could restore him to full health and she didn't care, but Jason might want to try and she would assist her grandson if that was what he wanted.
The mumbling noises the man had been making almost continuously were becoming clearer, sounding like bits of verse in between harsh pleas for forgiveness. Elsa went near him a couple of times to test the water, but that only resulted in him snarling like an animal and trying slash at her with his broken blades. When she pulled away he would retreat back into his corner, huddling into himself and muttering to no one. Once, he opened his eyes properly and although they were still glazed, the mind behind them was showing through.
"Louisa?" he'd asked her softly and she'd shaken her head. "Gillian?" he'd asked more plaintively. Again, no and he'd subsided into the most heart rending howl of grief she'd ever heard.
XXXXX
"What's he doing all the way over there?" Beka asked Andromeda from the command deck.
"I cannot speculate," Andromeda informed her, "I can only confirm that Lieutenant Commander Rhade's communicator is sending a signal from that location."
"It's likely he would have clients or suppliers on the backside of Seefra 1," Doyle suggested.
"You're right," Beka said, "It's not like he's a child that needs checking up on, even if he does act like one sometimes. We know where he is and Dylan can go pick him up if he wants him. Not my problem."
"Who are you trying to convince?" asked Trance walking onto the command deck.
Beka sniffed and paused before answering. "So do you think it's necessary for someone to go and drag our resident drunk back home? Since he's not answering his communicator, he's probably not capable."
"Do you?" returned Trance.
"No," said Beka, perhaps a bit too quickly and examining the board in front of her which wasn't showing much of anything.
"Necessity depends upon one's perspective," Trance said, "but to drop by and see how someone is would be a just a nice thing to do from any perspective."
"I don't do nice things unless the money's good," muttered Beka.
XXXXX
"I have no idea why we're doing this," Beka grumbled as she landed the Maru outside the mines. "If he's propping up some bar I'll take the cost of my fuel out of his hide, I swear."
"Well, we'll find out soon enough," Doyle replied, "because according to my sensors he's right around the corner.
They left the Maru and walked around to the mine entrance where a couple of dilapidated shacks leaned against each other. There did not seem to be anyone around, so they opened the door to the shack where Doyle thought that Rhade should be. Inside was devoid or Rhade or anyone else, simply an old battered desk, an old cabinet, and dusty flexi's strewn everywhere.
"O-kay," said Beka, "Well, I can't help being nosy." She opened the desk and cabinet, rifling through technological odds and ends that she was quite certain would have had the anti-tech repo cops down here faster than a speeding Trance. Among them was Rhade's communicator, quietly poling for a signal. "Right," Beka said, "at least we know we're getting somewhere."
"Beka, we have company," Doyle warned, a second before a thin, pale man with dark circles under his eyes stepped through the door.
"Who are you?" he demanded, "And what are you doing?"
Beka smiled at him through clenched teeth. The man was already winding her up and he hadn't done anything yet. "We're looking for a friend of ours. We think he might have gotten lost."
"We don't have strangers around here often." he said, but there was a light in his eye that Beka didn't like.
""Well, we know he's been here because we found this," Beka replied holding the communicator. "Have you seen him? Tall, dark and desperately in need of a good barber?"
"Haven't seen no strangers here," the man repeated, "but I'll take you into town. Maybe there's someone there who's seen him and I know Lord Barle will be very interested in you." The man beamed at them but it seemed forced, as if his face wasn't used to smiling.
"After you," agreed Beka. As they walked away from the mine, Doyle leaned in to her.
"Here's an interesting little fact," she said in a low voice. "According to those flexi's, guess who owns this mine?"
"No idea," said Beka. "Do tell."
"One Alec Althazar."
"Really?" Beka's eyebrows both hit her hairline. "Coincidence do we think?"
"Only one way to find out."
XXXXX
It was hard work trying to remember anything. On one level Rhade was aware that he was wedged into a corner somewhere, and on another he was aware that foreign chemicals were running around his bloodstream. However on another level, the level he was currently living at, he was being deluged by memories and fears that he normally kept carefully hidden or cocooned in a comfortable layer of alcohol, all crashing down on him in chaotic confusion.
He remembered feeling like this the first time he'd been critically injured defending Terazed and flinched at the remembered tearing of flesh. The medic had fed him stimulants and painkillers then to keep him leading his unit through the fire fight; none of the raw recruits knew that they were being lead by a walking dead man until he'd collapsed at the end and very nearly hadn't made it. The worst of it was that it had been the coming off the drugs that had been worse that the injury itself and he'd missed the birth of his eldest because of it and Gillian had been so strong, like Louisa…
Sometimes someone stood over him, and the hope that lay chained in its carefully hidden prison deep within his psyche raised it's head a little. "Louisa? Gillian?" he'd asked, but predictably it never was. And how could it be? They had been one and two lifetimes ago, in a time when he'd been proud to know that he always did his absolute best at whatever he turned his hand to.
Hand.
His hands, his broken hands, his only weapons to protect him against the rats, giant rats that scurried in the darkness, waiting to nibble him to pieces.
No, wait, they were already nibbling, they'd eaten away the skin and meat of his hands, his arms, pulled his bone blades out by the roots and were nibbling away at the bleeding cavities. He tried to shake them off, but the giant rats were the ones shaking him.
XXXXX
Beka and Doyle were shown into a small cavern where they were introduced to the Lord Barle. A man who was slim and healthy, not having the white, sick look of everyone else they had seen so far, stood over a scared looking boy who likewise had a healthy pallor.
The boy said nothing, but Doyle noticed one pin among several on the collar of his jacket. One belonging to the repo cops. She tried to ask him about it, but Barle told her to save her breath.
"Jason is my son," he explained in a hard, bitterly disappointed tone. "He's rather stupid and has a dirty little habit of picking up bits off the ground and hoarding them as treasures. No doubt someone passing through dropped it. Go on boy, and finish cleaning up that mess before I take a stick to you."
"Fine," said Beka before Doyle could decide to teach Barle some manners. "Now we were wondering if anyone had seen our friend…? Like's frequenting bars and saloons?" she reminded him what they were there for.
"Yes, a Neitzchean you said." He scowled. "There's only ever been one of those here, and he was nothing but trouble."
"Sounds like ours," Beka said. "That was recently, right?"
"The past couple of days in fact," Barle informed them. "He came into town, had a fair bit drink and fell over. A couple of my people took him to a bed in the clinic to sleep it off, he woke up and took it upon himself to smash the place up before disappearing to who knows where. Good riddance to bad rubbish, I say."
"I'm sorry to hear that," said Beka not sounding sorry at all. "You didn't happen to see which direction he went in, did you?"
"No," replied Barle, "but if I see him first, I warn you, I shall be taking appropriate retribution for the damage he did."
"Could we have a look?" Doyle said suddenly. "At the damage our friend did?"
Beka had no idea what Doyle was on but helped her out. "Yeah, you know, we might be able to help fix it."
"Certainly," said Barle abruptly and nodded to the man behind him.
The man ran at them as Barle stepped forward. But they had not reckoned on Doyle's speed and agility. Both men were on the ground and reinforcements still on their way to the cave when the two women were sprinting towards the Eureka Maru.
"Now, is it just me," said Beka breathlessly as she shut the Maru's door, "or does Lord Barf remind you of a human bloodsucker?"
XXXXX
A small bleeping sounded from the grille by Elsa's door and stepped over quickly to check it. It was simply her proximity alarm, but it paid to be cautious.
It was too early to be Jason and she wasn't expecting anyone else so she cracked open the door to peek out in some apprehension. The concern mounted when she saw it was a group of four of Barle's slaves on patrol and she took several deep breaths as she tried to fight down her panic.
Fortunately they only wanted to check if she'd seen any strangers, either the Neitzch or two blonde girlie types. She told them no and sent them on their way, closing the door with long sigh of relief.
She wondered if the girls were friends of the Neitzch's, and decided that she needed to know if anyone was likely to come looking. She wasn't certain if she'd give the Neitzch up if anyone did come looking, but it would be better if she knew whether he would want to go with them or not. And there was the fact that the only Neitzchean she had ever heard of in the Seefra system was the one that was Tomas' enforcer before running with the Hunt crowd, and she wasn't to happy at the prospect of either paying a visit.
XXXXX
"It was really weird, Dylan." Beka told Dylan from the cockpit of the Maru. "I was all ready to buy into Barle's story, right up to the point they tried to jump us."
"You think that something's happened to Rhade?" Dylan asked from Andromeda, his face showing concern through the static signal.
"Hard to say. Either that, or they wanted something to happen to us. And the repo cop's have definitely been around but he seemed really cagey about that. "
"And there's the fact that Althazar owns the place; it's all too coincidental."
"And the people, Dylan. If we were back in the universe, I'd say they were all on Flash. They don't have the eyes, but they're all thin and white and got that look their eyes…" she trailed off uncomfortably. This was not an area she cared to delve in too deeply even though her own addiction was history.
Dylan paused. "Interesting," he said finally. "I think I should take a look. I want you both back on Andromeda to help Harper."
"But what about Rhade? I could make some low level sweeps - ?"
"Beka, I appreciate that, but I'd rather have you here. Trance and I can do more effective sweeps from a slip fighter, and you're both known to this Barle character."
Beka stared hard at Dylan, preparing to face him down, but then Doyle observed, "We don't know if Rhade's even in any trouble."
"You're right!" Beka snapped, "He could have just gone off to find himself." Dylan and Doyle were both looking at her with matching raised eyebrows and Beka realised that these days, the depressed Neitzchean could have done exactly that. She rolled her eyes, "I'm coming home," she said and switched Dylan off while she muttered under her breath, "And he better hope he finds himself because if he's not in trouble I'm going to kick his ass so far into the next galaxy he'll never find it again."
XXXXX
"Talk to me, Neitzchean," an old crone was whispering in his ear and he tried to push her away. "No you don't, you idiot, I'm not the enemy. I need to know, do you have friends that might come looking for you? Do you have any friends?"
"Friends?" he asked her, not quite comprehending the question.
"Yes, friends. Who are they?"
"Friends," he replied letting the words roll around. There was someone, his commander, except he was the commander, the Admiral of all of Terazed. But that wasn't right either. There was Hunt, Dylan and sometimes he was a friend, but mostly he was a friend to his great, great, great whatever grandfather, and always looked at him like he was expecting him to betray him or be his ancestor, except he wasn't. And Rommie, Andromeda, none of them ever trusted him. They all looked at him and saw Gaheris, not Telemachus. Harper never made any pretence regarding his hatred of Neitzcheans, which was actually refreshing, and Trance was on her own planet. Sun. Whatever the hell she was. Doyle was cold and Beka was colder.
Didn't one of the great philosophers say that no one could love you until you learned to love yourself? He laughed at that thought. He didn't love himself, in fact he hated, despised himself as a failure. So logic following on, if he hated himself, then the rest must also hate him and… "'… man continued walking and falling until his blood stopped circulating and he collapsed. He uttered a terrible sound . . . the voice of a soul who encountered the hollow face of Death . . . a voice of dying youth, weakened by man and trapped by nature . . . a voice of the love of existence in the space of nothingness.'"
"Neitzchean! Answer me! Do you have friends?"
Rhade rolled his head back against the wall and squinted up at the old crone. "Nope," he said, "no friends here," and he laughed, thinking what a joke it all was. But then he got distracted by the rats nibbling again.
XXXXX
Lord Barle had himself a serious problem. With only the dying boy left in the clinic, who was virtually past harvesting, he only had a limited stock of Rush.
Without the Rush he served out daily to his people, they would likely turn on him in their bid to find more. He'd sent out the hunting group to bring in fresh patients, but none had been successful so far.
He cursed himself for getting so over enthusiastic about the Neitzchean. He shouldn't have relied on the extended durability of the subject and he should have sent the group back out to hunt. Instead, he'd kept his promise and let them have first shot at the Neitzchean Rush which had tripped them out for days.
The two strange women would have been perfect, but he'd been stupid there, momentary anger at the destruction of his laboratory causing him to act in haste. He could have offered them a nice cup of refreshment, slipped in a sedative and installed them in the clinic.
But he hadn't, so he needed to find fresh blood elsewhere.
XXXXX
After Elsa had sent Jason off to work for the evening, she turned her attention to the Neitzchean and was surprised to find him calmly watching her, no longer huddled but sitting against the walls, legs splayed in front of him and holding his arms carefully in front of his chest.
"So," she folded her arms and stood looking down at him. "You've decided to rejoin us."
The man blinked slowly, clearly taking his time to form his thoughts. "Um, about that," he started hoarsely, "where am I? And… do I know you?"
"You can call me Elsa," the old crone said, "and you're in my home. How much do you remember?"
The man closed his eyes and frowned, shaking his head slightly as he tried to recall. She could see that he was by no means well, but at least the drugs seemed to have been purged. "Not much," he said at last.
Elsa nodded and busied herself heating up a bowl of her stew. "Suffice to say I was persuaded to get you out of the abattoir Barle laughingly calls his clinic." She put the bowl and spoon on his lap. "But just so you know, it wasn't my idea."
The man awkwardly manipulated the spoon with swollen fingers. "Um, thank you anyway."
It took all of his concentration to get the stew in him and Elsa had to prevent him from eating too much too soon. "If you want to throw it all back up, be my guest," she told him. "Just remember you'll be the one lying in it."
He nodded and stopped to rest his head back against the wall. "How long…?"
"My, full of questions, and not even the courtesy to share your name."
Grimacing, he wiped his mouth on his shoulder. "Rhade," he said, "And this is good. Uh, is there any more?"
"Yes, well, Mr Rhade, you've been lying on my kitchen floor for two days now and I'd appreciate it if you moved yourself somewhere out of the way. Over there preferably." Elsa pointed to the living area. He started to try and pull his legs under him. "Not now, stupid. After you've finished eating. I've gone to the effort of making this stuff for you and I don't want you spilling it all over the floor."
"Yes, ma'am," he replied with a half smile, settling himself back down as she refilled his bowl. There was silence for a while other than the slow scraping of the spoon in the bowl, and soft swipe of cloth as Elsa cleaned furniture that didn't need cleaning.
Part way through his third helping, Rhade stopped and pushed the bowl away on the floor. "So," he asked finally, "who conned you into saving my ass?" he finished the sentence with a self-deprecating laugh that grated.
"I want you out of my kitchen," she said abruptly. "Stand up."
Rhade laughed again in the same tone and turned his head away. "I feel like a pig," he muttered as he tried to get his legs under him.
"You smell like one," Elsa told him and, though she only came up to his elbow, put herself at his side to use to lever himself up. At first he refused, trying to push himself upwards using the wall. "Stupid, arrogant pig too," Elsa sniped pulling one arm around her shoulders and not really caring if it meant she pulled on his broken arm.
He bit back a cry but made it to his feet, albeit leaning heavily against the wall. He took a deep breath to steady himself, before bowing slightly at Elsa. "I thank you for your very kind hospitality, old mother," he said, slurring very slightly, "but I feel I have overstayed my welcome and will depart these premises-"
Elsa snorted and grabbed him by the waistband of his pants, pulling him towards the living area. "Noisy pig fall down over here." Rhade obliged, falling onto the pile of rugs that seemed to have been laid there especially for him.
"Has anyone ever told you that you are a very rude old woman?" Rhade asked as he propped himself up on his elbows.
"Has anyone ever told you that you are a very sad excuse for a Neitzchean?" Elsa replied.
"Frequently," Rhade replied wryly.
"Exactly," Elsa grinned. Despite herself, she was actually thinking that she might enjoy the company of this Neitzchean. Still, it could be too dangerous to keep him around, so she would see what Jason had to say on the subject.
TBC