STORIES

TWENTYONE

When the lights came on and someone did finally enter the room John was moderately surprised because he recognized who it was. (Room, John had decided, was as good a term as any. Chained there in the dark he had no idea of the space's size or even its location. Was it still on Erasmus? Perhaps it was on another planet? Or on a ship? Or perhaps it was in subspace? Maybe it didn't exist at all except in his mind; stranger things had happened. Nevertheless, he seemed to be chained securely to a solid wall within some sort of enclosed area, so room it was).

"Ecba?"

"Captain Hart."

"What's going on?"

The Halikaarn looked a mess. His clothes were in tatters and his face haggard. His hair was wild, but not so wild has his eyes which stared into the space above John's head without seeming to register anything.

"I'm here to kill you."

John's eyes were still adjusting to the light but he noticed that Jaad was holding something in his hand. It looked small but also sharp, nasty. It glittered.

"Why?"

"Our captors have so ordered it." The opaque eyes would not meet his.

"Who are they?"

The answer took a while to come. As the silence stretched on, John furtively glanced around the vicinity in which he'd been confined. He didn't identify anything interesting. Or potentially useful.

"Demons of air and darkness. Smooth-surfaced, sharp-edged creatures. I have not seen them. They make their wishes known through other captives, from other planets, who have turned and now do their bidding. These sycophants are despicable and unfathomable in their own right. But do not doubt that their masters are here and that they are watching us, even now."

"Ecba, what did they do to you?"

With a trembling hand the Halikaarn reached behind his shoulders but then pulled his arm back quickly as if it had been burned. "Something painful has been inserted into my spine; I am made into one of their puppets… And you are one of their diversions, an amusement."

Jaad took a deep breath and for a moment met John's eyes. John tried to hold his gaze but it was not to be.

"Their surrogates tell me these beings are made of matter so fundamentally different that you normally can't really see them, you can't really hear them, can't even really smell them. They are incomprehensible and yet they know everything and see everything. They take corporeal form in order to move about our universe, manipulate its physical laws, and achieve their untold desires. They are everywhere. They are all-powerful."

John recalled the conversation back on Grasshopper – it seemed like eons ago now – when The Doctor had first described the Aedui. He'd had trouble believing the stories then and he was having the same trouble believing them now.

"Nightmares and waking horrors. Demons and succubae," John snarled.

"No!" Ecba caught his eyes and this time held them. "They are not nameless tales. They know you. They recognize you. You are familiar to them, John Hart. You have even been useful to them, perhaps more than once. They had intended to eliminate you at some time in the past, maybe several times, but here and now they find you once again. You intrigue them. Make them curious. Excite them. This is why we were separated out for special treatment while the rest of my planet burned to death beneath lava and ash." He grimaced, shuddered, and reached as if to snatch at something behind his back.

"Impossible!" John insisted but in reality he knew it could be true. The beachhead… And before that, on the Newhope… And maybe even before that… Could it be? Gray? Could it really be? His mind started spinning uncontrollably.

"Ah!" There was madness in the Halikaarn's eyes. Madness and other dank, black things, too. "I see on your face the look of remembrance. Perhaps…" He took a step closer, "Perhaps you brought them here with you?" His tone was accusatory, suddenly angry.

John flinched. In some ways Ecba was right, but in other respects he was wrong. So very wrong. John did not have to lie, although if it had suited his purpose he would've effortlessly, without a second thought. "No, we did not bring these creatures here, neither to this universe nor to your planet. They did not follow us. We did not lead them. We do know about them. They are a most ancient and terrible evil. And I have met them, but only indirectly, through their tools, as have you, Jaad. Just like you."

Ecba seemed off-balance for a moment. But like a fencer, he had a riposte. He was striving for a justification, searching for someone to blame. It was becoming clear that the Hallikaarn believed he'd found that someone. "You claim you had nothing to do with it and yet you directly preceded their arrival, foretold their coming, warned of their immense power."

"I am not lying to you, Jaad. We knew we could not successfully fight them; we only came to try to help. That was all we could do. We tried and we failed. I take responsibility for that failure. And I accept the consequences. I knew that one such consequence might be my death. But Ecba, I never thought it would come at your hands."

John shook his head, "I have no power to dual with the past. All I can do is speak the truth and hope it might be heard by a friend."

Ecba blanched again, this time more pronouncedly than the last, and he seemed to teeter backward before catching himself. Then he moved forward, now so very close to John, their faces only inches apart. "They come from the darkness. We have nothing in common with them," he said as he held the weapon he'd carried into the room against John's neck; John felt its sharp razor-like edge slicing into his skin and shivered, although the blade itself felt hot, scorching. "No shared experiences, no common culture. No mutual frames of reference. They are assassins and annihilators that swarm out of the darkness only to extinguish all light. They consume the light. They consume me. They consume everything. And I am sorry, John. I am so sorry but all that remains, all that is left to me, is this foul ending." He leaned in closer, his breath warm on John's face, their bodies touching, pressing almost as if they were lovers.

John shut his eyes, and heard the horrific, all-too familiar sound. A sound you never forget once you've heard it the first time. But oddly, bizarrely, there was no pain… And he was still conscious. Yet he could feel the hot blood running down his chest. Such awful, unreal confusion! Opening his eyes again, he saw a sight that he couldn't believe. A sight that would stay with him for the rest of his life: Ecba had slit his own throat.

Through unbearable pain the Halikaarn was able to softly whisper – it was barely audible – "There is a surrogate in your midst." Then, somehow, God only knows how, with a delicate, gentle touch, he tucked his weapon harmlessly into the waistband of John's trousers. After that, his throat bubbling furiously, his eyes unseeing, his fingers grasping at John's clothing and finally releasing their grip, Ecba Jaad, the Halikaarn of Erasmus, fell dead to the floor.

As John stared down in amazement at his lifeless friend he saw the bright flash of a transport beam and in an eyeblink Ecba was gone.

Jaad's blood, which had soaked through John's shirt and been so warm, turned cold.