Deep in the bowls of Andromeda, Harper tested the coil in situ. Nothing happened and he cursed. He'd already tested the coil separately, but it wasn't fitting in to Andromeda's slipstream drive even with his modifications.
He took it back out with the conclusion that it needed to be opened up and tweaked a little more. There was no doubt an energy differential that needed to be compensated for, which he thought he'd done with the power converter, but perhaps there were some more adjustments he could make to the coil itself.
After he'd prised open the casing, he stared at the mechanics inside. He could see exactly the adjustments that needed to be made. He could also see exactly where the coil had come from.
"Where's Beka?" he asked Andromeda who flickered to life on the view screen. Dylan was off somewhere with Trance, probably Seefra 1.
"On the command deck," Andromeda told him and switched view to Doyle and Beka deep in conversation.
"Beka, I think we have a problem," Harper's voice caught Beka's attention.
"What's up?" she asked.
"This coil," he hefted it up so the camera could see it, "is from a repo cop shuttle."
"So?" said Beka. "Althazar could have had access to spare parts through his son."
Harper sighed. Sometimes it was hard work being a genius. "No, no, no, remember how I said that Andromeda needed a highly specialised coil? These don't just fall out of passing ships, they don't even hang around ship shops or storage rooms. Besides, what reason would Althazar have for keeping a spare that no one would ever use? This had to come from a ship, which means that either Althazar keeps a repo cop ship in his garage, or he's salvaged one, or he knows where one wrote itself off, or…"
"I get the picture," Beka said raising a hand. "Now I wonder what businesses Althazar runs."
"Well let's find out shall we?" Doyle said.
XXXXX
Rhade surveyed Elsa's home, noting the chaos of bric-a-brac that littered the place. It was small, albeit managing to boast three rooms plus bathroom, however his own sprawled form took up the majority of the living area. Elsa herself was old and gnarled and tiny, but with a commanding voice although the sparse grey hair worn long and loose gave her the look of a madwoman.
The grandson Rhade remembered seeing as part of his hallucinating dreams, and thought he was child bordering on manhood, perhaps twelve years of age, blond and blue-eyed. His memory was born out when the boy came in from work, but those blue eyes were far older than they should have been.
"Jason, this is Rhade," Elsa said. "Perhaps you'd like to see to his wounds. You'll need to prepare as I'm sure you can see the patient has an infection."
The boy nodded and Elsa explained, "Jason is a healer, very talented, but still young and learning, and those arms of yours need seeing to. He doesn't know enough about your physiology though, so you're going to have to help."
Rhade wiped at the sweat dripping down his face and pushed greasy strands of hair out of his eyes. "I'm not sure how much help I'm going to be," he said, blinking through a sudden bout of double vision.
"Your loss," Elsa shrugged, and for the first time, Rhade really considered the damage to his arms.
"My loss, my sorrow," he muttered to himself and then drew up his best grin for Jason as he came in with a bowl of hot water. "Let's see the damage," he said jauntily, belying the dread building in his stomach as he held his arms out.
Jason was deft and thorough, needing little guidance from either Elsa or Rhade. What help he did need was prompted by Elsa with Rhade answering in monosyllables as the full extent of his wounds was revealed.
That all six blades had been snapped off was not news and wasn't much different from snapping a fingernail, barely felt. Blades were often lost in both love and war, and quickly regrown. That the bones in his arms were not broken was a pleasant surprise. However, the severe bruising and lacerations around the blade areas was only the outward manifestation of fact that the roots of the blades had been gouged out. The pain he'd been suffering was that of fingernails or teeth being brutally ripped out, except on a much larger scale."'He called for help and then stood silent, shivering in the cold night. He had slim hope, withering between great despair and deep sorrow. He was like a bird with a broken wing, who fell in a stream whose whirlpools carried him down to the depths.'"
He watched detachedly as Jason pulled all the splinters from his skin, cleaned the shallow bloody sockets of accumulated pus and dressed his arms. The sweat felt ice cold now, and his vision was dimming, his stomach rebelling against the food that filled it.
A bucket appeared by his head just in time, and the force of his nausea dulled his vision altogether.
XXXXX
When the very tall and well built Dylan Hunt came to the caves, Lord Barle was over come with gratitude to the Divine and greeted the Captain and his strange companion with the utmost charm and hospitality.
Barle led Dylan and Trance into a curtained off area that was, whilst modest, significantly more comfortable than the rest of the cave system.
Using his staff as a pointer, Barle bade his guests sit on the floor cushions as he himself did around a low metal table.
"Water?" he offered a pure crystalline jug with clear water.
"Oh, thank you," breathed Trance with a bright smile, reaching for it. "Shall I be mother?" She poured water into Barle's glass and her own, but then the jug slipped, cracking the jug on the edge of the table and shattering it, water spraying everywhere. "Oh!" Trance, wide eyed, put her hands to her mouth. "Oh! I'm so sorry! I'm so clumsy, I'm sorry, that water must have been so expensive and I'm – I'm so sorry!"
Barle looked outraged for a moment, but his charming smile was soon back in place. "That's quite all right my dear," he leaned towards Dylan. "Such a beautifully unusual child," he said. "Here, have mine."
"No," replied Dylan, "I couldn't. Please."
"I insist."
"No, really, I mean it, I couldn't. But thank you, your hospitality is appreciated and I would be insulted if you pressed the point."
"As host, I would think it was I who should be insulted." Barle offered the glass once more.
Dylan took it and put it on the table. "Maybe later."
Barle looked for a moment like he'd eaten something sour before smiling again. "To business then. You say that you're here on behalf of Mr Althazar?"
"Yes," replied Dylan. "As I'm sure you're aware, his son seems to have disappeared and we're making enquiries on his behalf."
"Ah, I heard. Went off to arrest some tech outlaws and vanished as I understand it." Barle's expression was of sincere concern.
"Quite, but Mr Althazar wants all the loose ends tied up, you understand. Have there been any strangers around here?"
"I'm sorry, I don't quite understand where you're going with this?" Barle looked vaguely suspicious.
"And I'm sorry too," replied Dylan. "I can't divulge my sources, but suffice it to say, I have my reasons for asking these questions. Mr Althazar wants us to be quite thorough. So have there?"
Barle appeared to think for a moment. "Yes, yes there have. Two girls were here yesterday. They came looking for a friend who passed through here a couple of days ago. Other than that, no one, I'm sorry."
"What about repo cops?"
"No, we never have any of those here. Why would we with one of their own being the owner's son?"
"That's all I needed to ask you," Dylan said, "but would it be possible to look at your facility? Mr Althazar suggested it might be a good idea for me to do a spot inspection while I was here."
"Certainly, certainly," Barle said, getting to his feet. "Come right this way."
He led them through the communal hall where Dylan was surprised to recognise the people that had tried to attack him in the alleyway.
Being a medic, Trance asked to see the medical facilities but Barle declined on the grounds of contagious patients. Eventually, they came to the last part of the tour; the mines. They were poorly lit and filled with crevasses, mostly crossed by short rickety bridges, and the tunnels were held up my ragged planks of wood and metal.
They passed through many caverns with Barle pointing out the digging sites, where they washed the minerals out, the hoist system that got everything up to the surface and so on.
Somewhere in the bowels Barle was leading them through a particularly narrow tunnel when it all fell extremely abruptly on Dylan's head.
XXXXX
It was well into the night that Rhade groaned his way free of the shocked stupor that had gripped him, but he wasn't left in peace to sort through the implications of his predicament as Jason virtually pounced on him the instant he moved. It was unnerving to have the blue-eyed boy gazing so intensely at him, especially as Elsa had apparently retired to bed.
He needed to get out of here, away to somewhere he could think, away from those piercing eyes. "Okay, well," Rhade awkwardly clambered to hi s feet, and took a moment or three to steady himself against the dizziness. Then, "as I was saying, you'll excuse me, but I have to leave." He eyed the doorway on the far side of the kitchen. If he focussed on that, he should be able to make his way over there eventually.
"You can't," said Jason, firmly. "I need you to help me." As if that explained everything.
Rhade looked down at the boy who was suddenly standing stubbornly in between him and the kitchen. The Neitzchean didn't recall seeing Jason move, but wasn't entirely certain whether that was Jason's speed, or his own failure to see him.
"Need…? Don't talk stupid. Just let me go." Rhade felt his temper building. He didn't need to ask a kludge to let him past, much less a child and he wanted to knock the brat aside. But then, the boy did something that made Rhade sit down again, quite abruptly.
Staring at Rhade with increased intensity, verging on the pleading, Jason rolled back his sleeves and unbuttoned the tight, long sleeved undershirt to reveal small, underdeveloped, but still neat and distinct, bone blades. "I need you to help me understand who I am."
XXXXX
"One mine, two bars, two vehicle repair shops, a textile factory and he sponsors a doctor's surgery." Doyle announced.
"Impressive," said Beka.
"Thank you," Harper replied and Doyle shot a hard glare his way.
"I meant Althazar. He's made a bit of a career out of this pit."
"Vehicle repair shops sound promising," Doyle said. "But we could always just ask Althazar where he got the coil."
"We could," agreed Beka slowly, "But I think knocking a few heads is more fun."
"True," replied Doyle. "Do you think we should inform Dylan of this development?"
Beka thought for a second. "Probably. Dylan? Dylan?" Beka paused, waiting for a reply. "Trance, are you listening?" Still nothing could be heard. "Andromeda can you find Dylan?"
There was a slight hesitation. "No, I cannot," she informed Beka. "The signal was lost when they entered the mine."
XXXXX
Elsa didn't mean to eavesdrop, but she couldn't sleep and had to know what was going on. For the longest time there was silence and she eventually gave in to her curiosity and peeked into the living area.
Jason was in one corner, his bladed arms hugging his knees, uncertainty in his eyes while Rhade sat cross-legged, staring at Jason with that cold calculating look she had long associated with Neitzcheans.
Her daughter had lain with a Neitzchean, only the once, and for reasons Elsa had never known, other than her daughter had seemed to care for the Neitzchean more than she did her own husband. Whatever the issues between his parents however, Jason had not deserved to be abandoned by them and Elsa carried the guilt of them all.
She was taking a gamble here she knew, but she was confident that whatever kind of man Rhade was, the fact that he was Neitzchean would drive him to give Jason what he needed. She remembered her daughter telling her that Neitzcheans valued children like no other race. She knew a little of the Neitzchean culture herself, knew that Father and Husband were the two titles that every Neitzchean male aspired to, and hoped that Rhade would recognise that Jason needed the guidance of a father figure, a mentor, alpha or whatever the correct Neitzchean term was.
That hope soon crashed and burned.
"Go to bed," Rhade commanded Jason softly and the boy obeyed, his eyes not leaving the Neitzchean until he passed Elsa to go into the bedroom. "Elsa," Rhade acknowledged her before she realised he knew she was there. She stepped around the doorframe to see brown eyes, unfathomably hurt and angry, looking at her. "I can't be what you want."
"What do you think I want?" she asked cautiously. She was on new ground now. Before, she had been the one in charge; now, he was the one who commanded his audience, even with the sweat and pallor of sickness.
"Jason already has a father," Rhade told her in clipped tones.
"A selfish dictator who barely acknowledges him," Elsa retorted. "Barle doesn't even know Jason isn't his son."
"Better that Jason has a father who is what he is, than I." Rhade replied. "I need to leave this place. Before Jason wakes up."
"He's not asleep yet," Elsa replied, "he's used to working nights and this is the middle of the day for him. I've no doubt he's listening to every word."
"No doubt," Rhade agreed. "But the fact remains that I must leave."
"And where will you go?" asked Elsa folding her arms as she felt the balance shift again.
"It doesn't matter." Rhade wouldn't meet her eyes, but she saw the look in them and the realisation dawned on her.
"You want to go and find somewhere to die," she whispered. "But, how can that be? Survival is everything."
"I do not want to go and find somewhere to die. That would be non-productive." Turning his face away from her, Rhade explained, "I have no blades. Without roots they will not regenerate. A Neitzchean without his or her blades is… isn't…" he stuttered to a halt and took a deep breath. "A Neitzchean without blades can never be an Alpha. Or even a Beta. It is almost unheard of that such a thing would happen, but it is… accepted, that such a mishap be rectified in a glorious death. An early glorious death."
Elsa raised an eyebrow. "And how exactly do you plan to do that here? No glory in this pit."
Rhade glared at her. "Vengeance. I shall take down those that did this to me."
Sighing, Elsa stood in front of the Neitzchean, drawing herself up to her full diminutive height. "And how will you get there when even my front door is a thousand miles away for you right now? I'll make you a deal," she said. "You teach Jason everything you can about his Neitzchean heritage and in exchange and I will help you towards your glorious death."
Rhade laughed without humour. "You drive a hard bargain old mother, and I am certain your words are double edged. But for now, I accept."
XXXXX
Dylan shook his aching head clear of the cobwebs. There was a lump above his right ear and when he touched it, his fingers came away sticky and red in the dim light that filtered through the rock fall.
He looked around and it only took a moment for him to spot Trance. She was just a few feet away, lying on her back, her face serene. Pulling himself over to Trance, he could not see whether she was still alive although with her unique physiology, 'dead' was a relative term.
Forcing himself not to worry, Dylan explored his surroundings. The glow coming through the fallen rocks came from one of the wall torches still alight just on the other side of the cave in.
He called for Barle, but there was no reply and, without knowing how long he was out for, had no way of knowing if Barle had abandoned them, or gone for help, or was even buried under the rocks.
He looked at the rocks speculatively and considered whether his heavy-worlder strength might get them out of there.
XXXXX
So the big question is," said Harper as he and Doyle made their way into the first of Althazar's vehicle repair shops, "does Althazar know where that coil came from?"
"Harper, we don't know that it came from his own son's ship," cautioned Doyle.
"I know that, but come on, coincidence, much? I mean it's not like the repo cops actually let people go around salvaging bits of their ships, you know."
"Well, let's find out shall we?" Doyle smiled evilly before leading the way inside.
"I love a woman that takes control," Harper sighed wistfully and followed her in.
Ten minutes later, Doyle stepped back out dusting herself off with Harper hot on her heels, his hands and pockets stuffed with bits of machinery that he thought could be useful.
"Unhelpful bunch of sub-humanoid guano masticators!" he called back to the occupants of the shop.
"I thought they were very helpful," countered Doyle. "We now know that the coil didn't come from here."
"True, but that does not make them helpful," Harper disagreed as he examined some of his finds. "I mean not one of them helped me find all these parts, I had to do all the work myself. As usual."
"That's called stealing, Harper." Doyle said.
"I call it liberation. After all, what use are these babies going to be to those brainless Neanderthals? They belong to someone who will use them for purposes over and beyond what they were designed for."
"Sure," said Doyle, noncommittally.
Harper rolled his eyes. "Come on, we've got a ways to go to get to the other place."
XXXXX
The following morning after breakfast, when emotions were less fraught than they'd been the night before, Rhade began to tell Jason about his Neitzchean heritage.
He explained about the survivalist culture. He went through the different Prides. He shared some of the key philosophies and laid out exactly how important it was to reproduce. He did not hold back, telling the boy how and why the Neitzcheans' were superior to all other races, how a half-breed could never be an Alpha and would never likely be acknowledged, as he did not have pure genes. And in a suspiciously flat voice, he explained that winning was everything and that to fail, was to become nothing.
Jason took it all in eagerly, asking questions here and there and considering everything Rhade said with much thought.
Rhade took pains to emphasise that he was only giving the boy an overview, barely scratching the surface of what it was to be Neitzchean, and Jason in turn assured Rhade that a basic understanding was all he needed.
Elsa of course disagreed; muttering about the boy needed a firm hand to guide him and chuckling when they both turned similarly petulant glares upon her.
XXXXX
Hands bleeding from the rough rocks, Dylan cursed Barle, Althazar, Rhade and anyone else he could think of for getting Trance and himself into this predicament. He was so focussed on tunnelling his way out, that he almost missed the supporting brace. The piece of wood that held the ceiling up, which would logically have snapped or perhaps slipped. Yet, it was nowhere near the point of support.
The only possibility was the one he already suspected; Barle had pushed the support out of the way. Presumably it had been set up at some unknown point in case of fire or some such disaster where it would be a quick job to save the rest of the mine. But Barle had put it to a much more murderous use. The only question was, why?
One more large rock hauled out of the way, and Dylan was free. He went back for Trance who lay exactly as he'd left her. He didn't even know if he could touch her, let alone carry her out of the mines and in any case, debated moving her in case of aggravating any injuries.
But, she had come back from the dead before, and did not seem to obey any of the normal rules of biology. Tentatively, he touched her neck and despite the fact that there were no signs of life, her skin was pleasantly warm to the touch. He lifted her in his arms, wincing as his blisters and abrasions scraped across cloth. The hot and heavy air in the mines increased the throbbing in his head, but by taking it slowly and steadily, he made it to the top.
It was there that he met Barle and some of his men making their way back down. Barle's face was a picture of surprise. "I, ah, I was just bringing a team to dig you out!" he exclaimed. "Such an unfortunate accident, I'm so sorry."
Dylan did not believe him for a moment, but he decided to go along with the pretence. "My friend is hurt," he said. "I have need of your medical facilities."
Barle's face broke into a genuine smile. "Of course, of course. We had an accident in the clinic, but if you'll excuse the mess, I'm sure we can help."
"I'm sure you can," Dylan murmured as he followed the other man.
XXXXX
When Jason went to work that evening, Rhade insisted on helping Elsa about the place. He was healing swiftly now that he was receiving proper care, his enhanced immune system having almost eradicated the infection, and while his arms still bore the wounds where his blades once were, they were basically sound, enabling him to do some of the lighter heavy work. When Elsa asked why he wanted to help his reply was that it was not to help her, but to ensure his own fitness did not suffer.
Elsa, for her part, used his strength to get chores done and listened quietly when he talked with Jason. She was pleased that her grandson was coming out of the quiet shell he'd been living in and felt that, through pure chance, she had found the right Neitzchean to teach him.
She knew very well that while it seemed that Rhade was sharing everything Neitzchean, he himself was not of the same culture that he spoke about. A real Neitzchean would not have allowed a kludge like her to speak to him as she did. A real Neitzchean may have demanded obedience, but would never have simply accepted help. A real Neitzchean was full of arrogant pride; Rhade was full of self-destructive anger. But from the point of view of Jason's education, that all gave the boy a more rounded view as to his father's people.
There were many more differences between this Neitzchean and those she'd encountered before, and the scientist in her was curious as to the reasons. She would find out sooner or later.
At that moment, Rhade was taking a break from reinforcing the back wall, standing and staring out at the sunset horizon. Elsa noticed him absently rubbing at the bandages on his arms.
"Have Jason look at those again," she told him. "You've been doing that a lot." He seemed startled by her presence and frowned at his arms.
"They just ache," he shrugged, "it's nothing." He paused, and then turned to look at her. "I'll be leaving soon."
"I'm surprised you stayed so long," Elsa replied.
Rhade smiled. "Only long enough to repay the debt."
"Jason has a lot to think about. I'd rather you stayed until he sorts it all out. I wouldn't want him doing something silly."
"Like what?"
"He's virtually a teenager," Elsa sighed. "He's wise for his years, but it all has to come out one day and the raging hormones of puberty could be… interesting."
"It'll be an… interesting… time for him in any case," Rhade told her. "And I have things to do."
"Like go and get yourself killed?" Elsa said sharply.
"Were you not listening when I explained it all?" Rhade shook his head. "There is no tolerance for failure."
Elsa thought she'd misheard. "You call having your bones involuntarily ripped out being a failure?"
Rhade laughed bitterly. "If I hadn't been dr… if I'd been as strong as I used to be, I would have been able to prevent that. I should have been able to prevent that. And it's just the last in a long line of failures."
"How so?"
Rhade looked at her, the pain in his face raw and she knew this was something the man had been carrying alone for far too long. Why he now chose to tell her was something she would never know, but perhaps it was because she had already seen him weak and therefore could not think any less of him.
"Once upon a time," he said, looking back at the setting sun, "I had a wife and I had three little children. There was an accident that I survived, and they did not. Later, there was another who chose me, who would have taken me as husband. She died in my arms. There was even someone when I first came to Seefra. She was murdered while I was held down and made to watch. Three times I have failed to protect those who would be my family."
Rhade raised his hands to each side of his head in a gesture symbolic of blocking the sound of screams. "I didn't – with no other Neitzcheans in this system, I couldn't see how to, how to thrive, but even in the darkest times I held on to the hope that those whom I had called friends before Seefra would provide escape back to the universe. And eventually one of them did come, but he couldn't escape this place any more than I, and I realised then that the one hope I'd carried had been a fallacy, that there was nothing for me here. And now, with these," he thrust his bladeless arms at Elsa, "even if I got back to Terazed, to the real universe, no Neitzchean woman will ever choose me. I, I am in my prime, yet these tell the universe that I am… emasculated." He spat the last word out with revolted vehemence.
"How about a plain human woman?" Elsa asked, expecting derision, but needing to know for Jason's sake.
"You don't understand," Rhade growled. "Unenhanced women cannot normally bear part Neitzchean children. That Jason was conceived is unusual, that he survived is a miracle. Not unheard of, but so rare as to be almost mythical. It ensures the purity of the genetic line, and the continuation of that line is paramount. Perhaps I could find love again, but if I cannot reproduce, then there is no point to my continued existence. I can only live in shame, or die with honour."
TBC