49. Dark Echoes

Cold, dark echoes seeped into the lonely, over-bright nightmare world that trapped Zemma. It had once been meant to be a place of safety and security, but the simple parkland with its yellow sun and blue skies, a place Zemma had never seen in living memory, had become an alien landscape filled with suppressed memories, fear and untapped power that left her dizzy and nauseous.

Or it might simply be motion sickness.

Zemma realized she was lying on a cold, hard surface – no longer moving against her will, no longer suffering that giddy sense of flying. Human voices buzzed around her, bouncing off the surfaces of an enclosed space. She had no idea how much she missed the sound until it enveloped her. It meant walls surrounded her again; sunlight no longer burned against her eyelids… she was safely inside somewhere.

She nearly sighed with relief, nearly opened her eyes to affirm what her ears were telling her, but caution was ingrained in her.

She wasn't immediately aware that she was counting her heartbeats, anymore than she was aware that she'd been calling for her father again, or even the nature of the nightmare that plagued her whenever she had to face the world outside the metallic confines of a ship. No more than her mother had been aware of how alien and frightening 'outside' would become to a woman who had never stepped outside a ship in 32 years.

As she calmed herself of all the vague anxiousness, and took stock of her situation, pain throbbed into her consciousness. She felt bruised and battered over every inch of her body. Memories of her most immediate past flooded in as well: fear and blood, the crushing shock of being hit by the sonic weapon…and for just a moment her mind leaped sideways, wondering what made a sound rifle works but only because she didn't want to picture Hypatia's face, her words: 'Tell Jack I have the old man…'

Riddick's voice flooded her memories next. His Captain Cooper voice was not so unlike his own that it would fool anyone who had actually met Riddick. To the strangers, though, Captain Cooper sounded just slightly drunk, mostly astonished, and generally cooperative. To Zemma, however, his tone spoke volumes beyond his few words. Tight vocal control radiated anger that Zemma wasn't sure was aimed at her or not. She could guess that it was; she's gone directly against Riddick's orders by leaving the ship.

She remembered Riddick's anger at jack for doing the very same thing. Like Jack, she'd put herself in harm's way, and played right into Hypatia's clutches. Yes. She could imagine Riddick was furious with her now.

Now. The Now...

The voices around her were becoming clearer than the voices in her head. Two voices debated what to do with her. Others, further away, seemed entirely focused on tasks unrelated to her. Some words impacted her more than others. She heard the word 'prisoner' several times and the implication, which had quite gone over her head when she had been focused only on Riddick's voice for clues about what he would do and what she was meant to do, finally sunk in.

She was in prison, likely the one Riddick felt sure Jack had gone to in order to elude both him and Hypatia. Hypatia must have known it as well. 'Tell Jack I have the old man,' she remembered and had to suppress a shudder. The next moment dawned a new thought: Riddick had just let her be taken away to prison!

He'd taken on hordes of Mongers, been surrounded by them and had no compunction about starting and ending any physical confrontation that presented itself. But he had not broken character to take on the less than a dozen poorly motivated, and likely poorly trained, port guards to keep her. He'd let them take her away.

She found herself counting again, eyes still closed to her surroundings, as a shocked truth settled into her. Riddick had let them take her away! Riddick had not tried to save her from her own folly. He most certain was pissed at her, but more or less angry at her than Don, or at Jack?

They'd all been foolish in some way. Hypatia had Don, dead or alive was not certain but probably alive…hopefully alive. Jack's list of the foolishness was too long to list in Zemma's mind and still it did not stop Zemma from wanting her back. Only Riddick was still free and now reduced to taking on Hypatia alone. Zemma wanted to pound her head into the cold, dirty floor under her cheek. Yes. Riddick had good reason to be mad.

So mad that he'd let them take her away.

Guild, anger and confusion warred for supremacy in her thinking. He couldn't have been intimidated by the number of guards. Had Hypatia wounded him again? Was he punishing her for breaking her promise to be careful?

More than that, sweetie, you'd promised not to even leave the ship.

That she was now thinking clearly enough to argue with herself was not a comfort. She couldn't escape the voice of truth for long.

Think things would look up if you talked yourself into believing he has a plan for you to contact Jack in here?

He could… He could want me to find Jack…

Yah. That was the plan all along, the snide voice replied.

But was he mad enough at her to just let them take her away? What happened to Don, did Riddick even know?

The voice was silent on these topics.

The other voices, the outer ones of the guards, had finally come to come conclusion by their tone. She heard a creak of a door open and boot steps come close. The kick was unexpected. She thought she felt something give along her ribcage as all the air was forced out of her. Her body convulsed and she thought she must have made some sound.

"Now she needs hospital," said a voice over her head.

Zemma couldn't help coughing, which made the pain in her side worse. She thought she might throw up. She had a hard time catching her breath. None the less, a string of Furian expletives seemed to find their way out of her mouth.

"What the fuck is she sayin'?" said the guard a few feet away.

The one standing over her head delivered another kick by means of a reply. This time the crack from her ribs was audible, causing the other guard to exclaim, "Hey, watch it!"

The man over her didn't even laugh in embarrassment for his sadism. "She killed one of ours," he snorted. "Bitch."

Zemma couldn't catch her breath even to curse him, the dry heaves causing the broken rib to poke painfully against one lung. She kept her eyes squeezed tightly closed, her jaw clenched shut to hold back the scream.

"Yer awake now, huh?"

Zemma couldn't answer if she'd wanted to, but then he didn't seem to need an answer. He hauled her up with one massive and calloused hand, the other grabbing her face by the chin.

"You speakee Standard?" he almost bellowed in her face while she risked opening her eyes a bit.

He was huge, unshaven and his breath was foul. She felt her gorge rise again, the involuntary movement shifting the rib painfully. She closed her eyes again to prevent tears from spilling down her face. She kept her mouth clamped shut.The guards fingers dug painfully into her armpit, as he continued to breathe into her face as if, this time, he expected an answer. He squeezed her jaw, trying to force her mouth open as she clenched her teeth tighter, unwilling to give him any satisfaction by her reaction.

Min would be of no help here. He might delight in trying to make her cry. Zemma was unprepared to deal with the situation. She couldn't be herself, the idea was appalling, but she didn't have anyone else she could be either. She simply froze, her silent resistance her only armor.

When he spat in her face she didn't consciously choose to react, but her hands came up anyway. A spearhand to his throat so fast he never saw it cause him to finally let go of her and stumble back gagging. Zemma's eyes flew open as her feet touched the floor again. She was in no shape to fight her way out of there but she seemed bent on trying anyway. The other guard's eyes bugged out when only one step towards him was enough to launch her in the air at him, her foot catching him in the solar plexus. Her ribs screamed protests at the impact but he went down with a surprised grunt and she was leaping over him, searching desperately for a way out.

She was in a cave, unfinished but full of busy people. She was standing in front of an open, barred cage. Bright sunlight streamed in to her left and she bolted for it, knowing it was useless but determined to try. Voices shouted above her, a P.A. system blared to life, a vehicle started sluggishly, all while Zemma's mind screamed 'No!' and her legs propelled her forward anyway.

Running hard, broken rib stabbing into her lung repeatedly and shortening her breath, she could see her goal outside: a dirt road in a barren landscape of dirt and rocks. She couldn't see the sky yet, so panic had not quite set in, she just charged forward. Then the first bright rays struck her face and Zemma closed her eyes as she exited the cave. Shouts and jeers followed but the din was immediately swallowed by the vastness. Zemma ran forward blindly, panic rising in her. She was outside!

She had to open her eyes, she was stumbling over rocks. She could hear a vehicle approaching. She tried to keep her eyes on her feet, to not look up, but she had to see where she was going. Seeing blue sky caught her breath in her throat. Her feet slowed. She tried to take a deep breath. She tried to move her feet faster. She tried to look away from the early morning sun straight ahead of her, sitting like a bright orange plate just off the horizon.

The colors were all wrong, but the sight still made her heart leap into her throat. What might have happened next, if she could this time in a burst of panic and adrenaline beat the looming nightmare, was made moot by the stun stick that hit her. Darkness ruled.

She woke as she always did, eyes still closed and listening to the room around her. She didn't immediately remember where she was, familiar scents were absent and she couldn't move her arms and legs. Her broken rib pained her. Memories flooded back.

Prison. Her failed escape into the face of the sun. Then nothing. Now she was tied or strapped down in some way to a bed.

The guards had wondered at her speech and now she wondered about those they called The Squatters. Zemma didn't hear any other voices in the room, let alone Furyan voices.

Just because they don't understand doesn't mean they'd recognize Furyan, her rational mind pointed out, and Zemma didn't argue. Any language they heard other than their own mind sound alike to them. Zemma had heard many languages over the years. Her nueanced ear could pick out difference in rhythm and syntax easily. Furyan words ran consonants together, sometimes even whole words for emphasis. Probably any language that sounded mush-mouthed sounded the same to these men.

She decided to continue to play dumb. Min was too innocent for this place but a foreigner might be spoken in front of almost as freely as an imbecile.

Zemma realized suddenly she was not alone in the room anymore when a change in air pressure indicated the opening of a door. The footsteps that echoed across the room were decided female, light quick steps of a woman's high heels. Zemma kept her eyes closed, and regulated her breathing to mimic sleep. The footsteps stopped at the endof the bed Zemma occupied. A fine clicking sound vibrated minimally through the metal frame. A woman's long fingernail tapping?

"Do you understand the words I'm saying to you?" asked a calm, authoritative feminine voice.

Zemma declined to answer or even open her eyes.

"I know you're awake now. Even if the monitors hadn't shown the change, you've been talking in your sleep."

This startled Zemma. She opened her eyes to take in the woman and the room they occupied. The woman was tall, olive skinned and dark eyed with long dark hair. She was handsome rather than beautiful and Zemma thought that part of it was the woman's bearing. She held herself very tall but so relaxed that the posture had to be carefully cultivated. She was a person of power who wielded it very carefully. Zemma was very familiar with her kind. There were bold and thoughtless Mongers and there were clever, more subtle Mongers. This one was subtle, and that made her dangerous.

The room was more obvious, an infirmary with barred windows where sunlight streamed in. She avoided looking there. Otherwise it was clean, white, and barren of anything but chain adorned beds and a massive, locked no doubt, steel door. Black glass bulbs in the corners did nothing to hide the cameras that monitored the room from the ceiling.

"Are you one of the Squatters?" the woman asked mildly.

That word again. Zemma was starting to get very curious now. She had a vague understanding of that the word meant. They all thought she was part of a group of people who didn't talk like the rest. Still, Zemma ignored the woman. There was too much she didn't know and feigning even more ignorance than she had seemed the only way to learn more.

The woman turned to a camera. "Send him in." She turned away from Zemma but glanced back over her shoulder at the bed as if to verify Zemma couldn't escape it.

Zemma tested the strength of the bonds that held her in the bed. The straps were solid and she didn't think she could break or slip them. She turned herself a little, feeling for leverage. Her broken rib ached from even the small movement but didn't seem to be poking her in the lung any longer. They'd probably given her nanos. Lucky. But she had no means to take advantage of her luck. She simply could not move enough. She closed her eyes to think and felt sleep stealing up on her.

Another voice woke her sometime later. Zemma hated that feeling of having lost time, even a few minutes, and tried to center herself, listening with her eyes closed again.

"Could you understand her?" the authoritative woman asked softly.

A soft grumble was the reply. "I already told you, I don't recognize her," a low bass voice said with some agitation. "I can account for all my people."

The soft slip of a shoe on polished floor told Zemma he was standing at the foot of her bed and turning away.

"When she was talking in her sleep, did you understand her?" The woman's voice was irritated, she was used to being obeyed, and yet Zemma could hear a forced respect as well. Perhaps she knew she could not intimidate the man and needed to wheedle his cooperation? Or perhaps she just always spoke so.

"Who understands the dream talk of another?" was the dismissive, philosophical reply.

"I think you did." The politeness was gone from the woman's voice, though she still spoke softly. Some open ended, oblique threat hung in the air.

"What does it matter?" The stranger's voice implied he might share one secret for another.

Eyes still closed, and hoping she was feigning sleep well enough not to be noticed this time, Zemma shivered mentally. What had she said in her sleep? Could the man really have understood her? She dismissed the thought as outlandish.

"She's not chipped," the woman's voice was reasonable. "She isn't on the rolls. Who is she and why did she kill one of my men?"

Her tone was almost too reasonable. Zemma thought she was hiding behind a truthful lie and suspected Jack was the source of it. Jack really could be here somewhere as Riddick thought!

"She's not one of mine. Our contract is still valid," the man said dismissively.

"But you know what she said," the woman almost purred. It was no longer a question and Zemma felt a cold sweat break out over her skin. Who she was and the language she spoke had been Zemma's greatest secret her whole life.

His pause, a heartbeat longer than necessary seemed like a dismissive shrug to Zemma's well trained ear.

"She was calling for her father," the man's voice echoed off the far wall, tension in his tone showing that he did not care to divulge even that small thing to the woman. He liked to keep his secrets as well. But Zemma's eyes flew open even as she dared a shred a hope she had no business having. She had to see this man. He was not suggesting a guess but a fact. He had heard her speaking mumbled Furyan in her sleep and understood it!

Zemma saw through lowered lashes the back of a tall man with silver hair. Nothing of his dress told her more than his voice. The woman, however, was facing Zemma and caught something. She smiled. It was not a nice smile.

"She's awake," she said brightly, but as always in that soft, measured tone.

The man turned slowly, first just his head, as if he might still dismiss the issue, but the woman was looking at him expectantly now. Almost shrugging he turned to face Zemma, strapped to her hospital bed.

His face was hard, like a statue or a fresco, he showed nothing of what he might be thinking. Zemma let her eyes open all the way and studied him right back, trying to hold her face as still as his, but her teeth were clamped together and his eyes flicked from hers – had he been expecting the blue shine of her lenses?- to her jawline and back again. Was he as good at reading the little tells on a person's face as Riddick?

Zemma took in a slow deep breath, counting by threes and grasping for the calm center of the Now and stifling the questions she wanted to ask.

"Do you understand me?" He asked almost as if he didn't expect to be answered and was impatient to leave with the silence intact.

Zemma debated the answer a thousand times in the next second. Riddick used quiet like a club. Jack filled any still moment with fearful babble that was meant to sound bold. Zemma thought of her tigers and sought their strength. Her teeth were locked together and now her lips pressed into a thin line. Would he read her answer in her face, she almost hoped so.

A tiny upshift of his head acknowledged her: 'I understand but I will not speak,' she'd said to him in her way. 'I accept that,' he'd said back to her.

The man turned back to the woman without another glance at Zemma, dismissing her very presence. He was obviously not shocked as she to hear another Furyan voice and that sent more questions through Zemma's mind. He was willing to leave her to her fate for reasons of his own.

"She is not one of mine and she won't talk. If she can understand Standard is your best guess. Now if you have no further use…"

"No." The woman cut him off. She had never taken her eyes off Zemma's face and perhaps she too could read between the silence. "She understands you." The woman leaned onto the curved metal bar that was the foot of the bed. "I want to know what she is doing here."

The glance she gave the older man punctuated the finality of her words. She would be obeyed and she had some power over him to see to it. The man never wavered on his feet, never moved a muscle to show he accepted her authority over him. He was as good as Riddick in telegraphing only what he chose to.

Zemma kept her curiosity on check with only the greatest willpower. She could not answer any question without knowing more herself. There was politics being played out in front of her here and she did not know if she could safely ask for his aid. She did not know how he came to know Furyan and could not hope what was implied, and what was impossible to believe.

Trusting once before that just being Furyan meant a man was her ally and nearly gotten her killed. There were too many variables involved here.

"Ask her where she came from. I want to know why she's here." The woman's voice was so deceptively calm, so controlled. Dame Vakko had nothing on this one.

The stranger who spoke Furyan turned just fractionally Zemma's direction. "You heard her," he said in Furyan. "I can't imagine you've gone thirty years off planet without learning a lick of Standard. Can you tell me why I should cover for you with her?"

Was he offering her some way out, or just trying to draw her out? What would… that was simple enough, really, Riddick would tell him to go fuck himself and take on the whole prison alone. Zemma didn't think she could do that. She needed information, and an ally.

"I came searching for one of mine," she told him. The word she used couldn't translate well into standard. Like Don, Zemma was claiming a kind of kinship to Jack that required certain obligations of her above all other considerations. If the man was truly Furyan, and not just a clever linguist, he would understand. She waited to see what he would tell the woman.

He nodded once, his eyes never making contact with hers but seemed to be casting all around, searching for a clue to a believable lie to tell. If the woman had looked at him that one unguarded moment she might have read it from his face but she continued to bore holes into Zemma with her stare.

"Pirates," he said simply, and once again his face was a mask of bronze and silver. Zemma kept her astonishment in check. He was lying for her! He had to be Furyan, and an ally!

"Her family was gypsy, I'm guessing," he went on. "She said they were attacked by pirates."

"And she escaped to… here?" The woman seemed dubious but apparently had no reason to distrust the man. She felt she had complete control of him. "Ask her how she ended up here."

The man did not give her away by not repeating some question. They were just his own now. "Did you kill that guard?"

"No," she answered simply but needed to say more to cover the false answer the woman was looking for. Zemma had to trust the man to know more about escaping from pirates than she did. "Someone is trying to hurt my girl…" Zemma stammered, trying to boil down the truth to a few sentences. "She may be hiding here. The one seeking her thought to send a message through me that we could not escape by hiding here. That one killed the guard."

He had to hear in her voice that it was more complicated than that, but she hoped he would see the truth there too.

"She escaped the pirates and has been stowing away from ship to ship. She says she didn't kill your man."

"Of course she says that," the woman sneered. "I have nothing but innocent and falsely accused girls in this prison. Obviously she killed him when he caught her trying to get onboard that freighter. Ask her if the Captain gave her permission. I don't trust him. Pretty girl like that could make a better deal for herself than hiding in the hold if she wanted to."

Zemma saw the trap and hoped he did as well. If she had made a deal with the captain then she could speak standard.

"Do you know the captain of the ship where you were found?" he asked her.

"He barely speaks Furyan," Zemma told him and there was some surprise in his eyes this time, a slight cock of one eyebrow. But the cold distance never left his stance. He couldn't let this woman know he was the least bit interested in Zemma's predicament.

"She can't talk to the captain of anyone, which is probably why she stows away." He sniffed. "You will find some of mine will never speak Standard even though they've been around it for years. We are a proud people. If they can't speak it well they won't speak it badly."

"So she might understand some of this?"

Zemma cringed inwardly.

"Maybe."

The woman seemed to be settling comfortably into the man's lies now that her own opinions were being confirmed. It was a risky thing but often the only way to sell a lie was to make it sound like the truth someone wanted to hear.

"Get her name. I need something for the records." The woman seemed ready to dismiss him now. She had what she needed and Zemma did not fit into whatever fears she kept so well hidden under that well modulated voice. Zemma nearly sighed with relief.

"What's your name, girl?"

Zemma didn't startle at the word 'min' coming from him; he didn't know it had any special meaningto her. Anything Zemma answered here would be taken for her name by the woman and Zemma didn't want her true name falling from the lips of this woman any more than from Dame Vakko's. What to tell him? Her lips pressed into a thin line again.

"Gypsies are very private," he said by way of explanation.

"Secretive, you mean." The woman seemed not to care too much on this point. "Hiding their criminal activities, no doubt." The jibe did not affect the man at all. "It doesn't matter, then. She'll only be a number here anyway."

The man still looked at Zemma, wanting her name for himself. She could not give him Min, she would not give herself. She had no face to hide behind yet. The woman turned and looked at the man expectantly, ready to lead him away from the prisoner of no significance. Zemma was suddenly filled with dread. Her only possible supporter was leaving her and she had so many questions, so much left to say despite not being able to say any of it. She kept her teeth clenched. He only glanced at her once more, unreadable as the other Furyans she'd met and more of a mystery. The pair turned to walk out.

"Wait!" Zemma could not let this one thing go without being said. His reaction might tell her anything.

They stopped, and the man turned fractionally her way.

"The Death Seekers have been destroyed. We can return home." Zemma kept those words calm as she could, wondering the impact they would have on him.

The woman looked only mildly curious now as she looked on the man to tell her what was said.

"She wants me to take her out of her," he said with as much composure as Zemma had ever seen.

"She isn't one of yours," the woman used his words without even understanding why they meant so much.

He nodded once and turned away. She could read nothing. He was cold to her words.

Zemma closed her eyes. What did it mean? There were other Furyans here but did they even know or care that Fury itself had been destroyed and their people wiped out thirty years ago?

But why were they here? Had they fled the attack? Furyans were fighters, yes, warriors in nation and breed, but the first rule had been 'survive!'.

Zemma had to focus on that now. The strange man and stranger circumstance of finding some of her people hiding out on this tiny, dingy planet would not help her in the Now. She had to survive, she had to find Jack, they had to get out of here. That was all she should be thinking on… and the last thing on her mind.