Chapter 19
Yeah, I know it hurts, yeah I know you're scared
Walkin' down the road that leads to who knows where.
Don't you hang your head, don't you give up yet,
When courage starts to disappear, I will be right here.
Everybody cries, everybody bleeds
No one ever said that life's an easy thing.
That's the beauty of it, when you lose your way
Close your eyes, and go to sleep
Wake up to another day.
When your world breaks down
And the voices tell you turn around.
When your dreams give out,
I will carry you, carry you.
When the stars go blind
And the darkness starts to flood your eyes
When you're fallin' behind,
I will carry you.
- Clay Aiken
00000
Beside Dylan, Harper stumbled and went down in the dirt, and the captain hurried to grab his arm and pull him back up before he could get dragged again; and before the Uber behind them had a chance to bring out his riding crop once more.
It had been a very, very long day - one of the longest days of Dylan's life.
It was dark when they arrived on the planet. Dylan and Harper had been taken from the ship and thrown in a black, dungeon-like stone cell for the night. The moment their Nietzschean guards were gone, Harper had literally collapsed with pain and exhaustion, both physical and mental. He barely managed to choke down a little of the moldy bread and stale water that was left for them before he fell into a restless, fevered sleep.
Worried, but knowing there was nothing he could do, Dylan drifted to sleep as well.
Morning had come quickly and harshly. They were kicked awake and dragged from the cell, giving Dylan his first real look at where they were. It had been too dark and he'd been too preoccupied with helping Harper the night before, but now that the sun was shining, Dylan took the moment to look around.
It was a docking town, full of ships, with Nietzscheans and humans milling around. But what had struck Dylan as odd was the conflicting levels of technology he could see. The town itself resembled the pictures he'd seen of Ancient Earth around the 1940's, Old Earth Calendar, but at the same time, the streets were filled with horse drawn carts and people either on foot or riding bicycles.
Moments later, reality had crashed down around him again and he was forced to leave the pondering for later. He and Harper were pulled over to a convoy of what looked like supply wagons and their hands were attached to the back of the last wagon by light chains fixed to their wrist shackles. Nietzschean guards rode on horseback with the wagon train, but apparently slaves had to walk.
And walk they did.
They walked for miles and hours while the sun beat mercilessly down. Not even an hour out from the city, Dylan sadly noticed that Harper was leaving a trail of bloody footprints behind him on the dusty, gravel road as he stumbled along. The captain also thought it particularly cruel that he was being pulled along by his abused hands. They weren't going exceptionally fast and Harper did his best to keep up and not trip on the deep ruts in the road and the chains around his feet that he couldn't see, but his broken hands were still constantly being tugged forward, the shackles rubbing and jarring painfully. Harper didn't utter a complaint, however, and that itself told Dylan exactly how much he hurt. He walked with his head bowed and his sightless eyes closed, his face tight with the constant struggle to hide the pain and fever that Dylan knew radiated from his whole body.
So, Dylan talked.
He whispered softly at first, afraid of the response from their guards to idle chatter, but his voice grew in strength as he soon realized they could care less what he said as long as he kept moving and didn't help Harper too much. Blows from the riding crop rained down on both of their backs whenever Harper would stumble and fall or Dylan would try to physically guide him along, but apparently the Uber guard behind them was too busy with his own thoughts to care if they were quiet.
So Dylan tried to fill in the silence and help distract Harper from his pain the only way he could. As the long hours crawled by mind-numbingly slow, Dylan talked them away, and even though he gave little indication of having heard, Dylan knew his young friend was listening.
He told Harper about the city they were slowly leaving behind in the distance and the sparkling ocean that stretched out beyond that. He described the flat, lush farmlands they passed through, green and gold fields filled with crops, some familiar, some alien. He told Harper about the people they passed: ordinary, every-day humans who looked as though they could have come straight from the pages of Earth's history books as they worked the fields with animals and by hand. However, he didn't tell Harper of the thin clothes they wore and the gaunt, haunted expressions on their faces. He didn't mention how they bowed their heads in submission as the Nietzscheans and their wagons passed by, or the pitying, sorrowful looks they threw his and Harper's way.
As the day wore on, they continued to pass through farmlands and small villages. They also waded through several rivers and streams and moved through long empty meadows and plains covered in grass and brush and, strangely, often littered with broken, crashed ships and odd, mangled machinery that stuck up from the ground like weathered bones.
Dylan described all these things to Harper even as his own mind filled up with questions. For the most dreaded mining planet in Dragan space, Rellim was sure picturesque. Most slave planets, Earth included, had been reduced by the Dragans over the centuries of occupation to grim, slag heaps with nothing of beauty left. Rellim, if you could disregard the Nietzscheans leading them around in chains and the worn look of the inhabitants, appeared almost as an untouched paradise. The scenery was slightly intoxicating; he could almost lose himself in it and forget about the cruelty of the Nietzscheans, but not quite. All he needed for a reality check was a simple glance at the young man trudging silently beside him, locked in his own personal darkness that no lovely scenery could penetrate, and he was reminded that all the beauty in the world couldn't cover up the ugliness of the Dragans.
He was also confused. The broken ships and machinery spoke of technology, yet they were being dragged behind a horse-drawn wagon and forced to march to their destination. Except for those broken fragments, the moment they had left the city gates, all signs of modern technology had vanished. None of it made any sense, but for now he kept his questions to himself.
The walking had continued, hour after hour, with never a break or a slack in the pace. He could tell they were headed in the direction of the blue-green mountains towering in the distance, but, as if they were taunting them, they never seemed to get any closer. Eventually, even Dylan began to tire and his words had trailed off, now only speaking to offer verbal guidance for his friend to help him avoid the pitfalls of the trail that he couldn't see.
It hadn't helped much.
By the time evening rolled around, Harper was so far beyond hurt and sick and exhausted that he could have been walking on flat ground and he still would have stumbled. Every time he'd gone down, it had taken him longer to find his feet again, but that didn't mean the wagon they were attached to slowed in the least. Dylan had quickly thrown Harper's "not touching" rule out the window in the effort to keep the boy from being savagely dragged behind the wagon by his ruined hands.
Yes, Dylan thought as he once again pulled Harper back to his feet in the growing gloom of twilight, it has been a very, very long day.
"Stop! First camp here!"
The throaty voice of the Nietzschean wagon master floated back down the line to Dylan and Harper's position. As soon as their wagon lurched to a stop, Harper simply sank to his knees in the dirt.
"Harper?" Dylan asked softly, crouching down beside him. "You okay?"
No answer.
"Come on, Harper, stay with me here," Dylan urged, ignoring his own exhaustion and lightly touching his friend's arm.
Head still bowed, Harper finally nodded.
"Good. Because I have it from a reliable source that I'm not cut out for this kinda thing. I can't do this by myself, remember."
He still said nothing, but a miniscule, weary smile tugged at the corners of Harper's mouth. Dylan smiled back, forgetting he couldn't see it.
Silence descended for a while as they sat in the dirt of the road, still chained to back of the wagon and apparently forgotten for the moment.
"Boss?" Harper asked after several minutes, his voice weak and shaky.
"Yeah?"
"Next time I stow away, just shoot me."
The comment was so unexpected and out of the blue, Dylan couldn't help but laugh out loud. Harper never ceased to amaze him. Teetering consistently on the edge of the "mostly dead" category, he somehow managed to hold on to that snarky attitude and sense of humor and crack a joke.
"I try not to shoot crewmembers, Harper," Dylan teased gently. "It tends to look bad on my record."
"Well, just let Beka do it then. I'm sure she won't mind. I mean we did lose her ship."
Dylan laughed again and Harper joined with his own tired smile, but it quickly slid from his face.
"Do you think they're looking for us?" he asked quietly, almost desperately.
"I'm sure of it," Dylan told him firmly. "If I know Beka, she's probably tearing up the universe right now, trying to find her engineer, Trance and Rommie hot on her heels. We just have to hold out until they get here."
Harper waited a long time before replying. When he did it was in a barely audible voice. "I'm not sure I can last that long…"
"Yes, you can, Harper," Dylan said quickly, placing a hand on the young man's knee. "You've survived everything the universe has thrown at you; you can survive this as well. And I'll be right here to help you. You just have to promise me you won't give up. Okay, Harper? Promise me that!"
Harper sighed, but nodded. "All right, Boss, I promise."
"So, what are they doing?" the engineer asked after a few minutes.
"What are who doing?" Dylan replied, confused.
"The Ubers. What are they doing now that we've stopped? I can hear 'em moving around, but I can't tell what they're doing."
"Oh," Dylan said, realizing that Harper wanted him to continue describing their surroundings. "They're setting up camp. They've got a fire going and they're putting up tents and tending to the horses. We're the only slaves chained to a wagon and being forced to march, but I don't think we're the only slaves here. There's a woman cooking dinner and at least three other human men roaming around. Then again, I'm not sure, they aren't dressed like us."
"Personal slaves," Harper explained tiredly. "Their masters probably brought them along to do the work of the trip. They wouldn't be dressed like prisoners, not if they work in the Ubers' homes. On Earth, if the slavers grabbed you, you'd pray to become a personal slave. It's degrading and humiliating, but at least it meant you'd probably get fed and clothed."
Dylan listened sadly, knowing Harper's words were probably laced with personal experience; if not his own, at least from others he had known. It seemed the stress, the pain, and the never-ending darkness had loosened the walls on Harper's carefully hidden memories and his tongue. Everyday, Dylan was learning more about the young friend he thought he'd known.
"Never been camping before," Harper continued in his tired voice, attempting to change the subject with a small smile. "What's our spot look like?"
Dylan felt something tug at his heart. It was good that Harper was adjusting, but at the same time it killed the captain to see him accepting his blindness so quickly. The quiet requests for descriptions made while Harper's clear, blue eyes stared vacantly ahead filled him with such sadness it was hard to keep it out of his voice as he gave Harper the information he wanted.
"Well, we're in a small grove of trees. They look kind of like the quaking aspens that used to grow in the mountains on Earth, but their leaves are red. And there's a stream just up ahead. I think that's probably why we stopped here, for the water."
"Yeah, I can hear it just a little," Harper said. He listened for a moment more, trying to get his other senses to start picking up the slack and filling in the hole left by his useless eyes. "If I listen really hard, I can hear the breeze blowing the leaves on the trees, too."
Dylan didn't get to finish verbally painting the camp for Harper since the Nietzscheans finally seemed to remember their prisoners. One of the guards came striding over, his face a blank mask.
"Get up," he ordered as he undid the chains tying them to the wagon. Dylan obeyed silently, then turned and helped Harper back up on his torn and bloody feet. The conversation had distracted him, probably Harper's intention all along, but as he helped the kid up once more, he again realized just how bad of shape Harper was in. The heat literally poured off his skin, and he was pale and shaking.
The Niet used the chains as a leash and pulled them over to a metal post that had been pounded into the ground near where the stock was tethered for the night. He undid the leading chains from their wrist shackles and told them to sit down. The long chains were then attached to the pole at one end and their ankle shackles at the other, effectively tethering them just like the horses.
From his jacket he pulled two dry traveler's cakes and a plastic water bottle that he tossed at their feet. A thin blanket followed and then he turned around dismissively.
"Enjoy your night," he called with a leering grin as he walked away.
"Hope a snake bites you," Dylan said at his back when he was out of earshot.
Harper smiled for real. "Why, Boss, I've had a bad influence on you!"
"Nah. You're just getting a glimpse of Dylan as opposed to Captain Hunt. I was a regular pain in the posterior before the High Guard tried to weed it out of me."
"They didn't do a very good job," Harper muttered, and Dylan laughed with him. All things considered, what else could they do; they were at the point of laugh or fall apart.
Getting as comfortable as they could, they ate their meager dinner in silence while the night descended with a chill and the Ubers settled around their warm fire, laughing and telling jokes. As Harper once again succumbed to exhaustion and fever, Dylan tucked the blanket around him and continued his observations. The human slaves had retreated from their masters, forming their own circle away from the fire while they ate their meals and talked softly. Apparently, they were trusted enough or scared enough not to need chains or a leash. As he watched, Dylan couldn't help but notice that one of them, an older man with wild gray hair, kept glancing his and Harper's way. Finally, he seemed to come to some sort of decision and rose, approaching one of the Niets with a groveling bow.
Dylan tensed, not sure this was going to be good for anyone, but the slave simply backed away after a few moments of hushed conversation with his master and disappeared in the direction of the stream.
Eventually, the exhausting day caught up with him, and he forgot all about the other slave as his eyes drifted shut. Consequently, he was startled when a hand touched his arm, jerking him from his deep sleep.
"Sorry! Calm down, my friend," a soothing, soft voice said when Dylan jumped slightly.
Dylan blinked his eyes a few times to clear the sleep from them and finally managed to focus on the gentle face of the grey-haired slave kneeling before him, a hand on his shoulder. Beside him, he noticed that Harper didn't even stir, his sleep deep from fever and exhaustion, and his breathing shallow and labored.
"What do you want?" Dylan asked grumpily. He had never been the most pleasant person to wake up, especially when he woke up to remember that he was chained up as a slave. "The Nietzscheans make a rule against sleeping now, too?"
The man actually smiled, his brown eyes twinkling faintly in his pale face.
"No. I'm not here at the request of my master, or any of the others. I'm here of my own accord; to help you."
"Help us?" Dylan asked, sitting up straighter, fully awake now. "You mean help us get out of here?"
The man shook his head sadly. "I'm sorry but no. I have no way to do that." He gestured pointedly to the chains that bound the two friends. "And even if I did have the means to set you free," he continued quietly, "I wouldn't. Not here. There's nowhere to run. They would find you again in minutes, and I doubt your young friend would survive the punishment."
"Well, if you're not gonna get us out of here, exactly what kind of help are you offering? We hardly need a subscription to Joe's Outdoor Equipment right now," Dylan grumbled, running a tired hand over his face and through his hair.
The slave shifted slightly and for the first time Dylan noticed the pail of water beside him and the dumpy, brown bag he carried.
"The boy is injured and ill, is he not?" the man asked.
"Yes," Dylan agreed reluctantly, still not sure where this was going.
"In another place, a lifetime ago, I was a physician," the slave explained. "A pediatrician, to be precise. When he's in a pleasant mood, my master sometimes provides me with limited medical supplies and allows me to tend to my fellow slaves. I convinced him the boy wouldn't last the trip to the mines in his current condition, and he's given me permission to aid your friend; but sadly only a little."
Finally, some good news! Dylan's mind screamed.
"May, I?" the ex-doctor asked, gesturing toward Harper's sweaty, sleeping form.
"Yes, of course!" Dylan answered quickly.
The man moved to Harper's other side, sadly noting the slave collar.
"He's been a slave before, I see. And he must have made his master exceptionally mad. I have only ever seen one other slave fixed with a collar like this," he said, frowning as he placed a cool hand against Harper's hot forehead. "But I somehow gather you're new to the slave experience," he added, nodding to Dylan. As he spoke, he worked quietly, gently examining Harper's face, hands, and feet.
"Yes, to both," Dylan replied. "Captain Dylan Hunt of the Andromeda Ascendant," he said extending his hand in greeting, despite the shackles. The man looked startled by the offer, but eventually reached out and shook his hand.
"Bartholomew Kesler, one time doctor and now full time slave. It has been a long time since someone offered to shake my hand," he explained. Neither man asked for the story behind how they ended up here, on this planet, as slaves. It was as if there was some unspoken agreement to leave the past where it should be, in the past. "And who is your friend?"
"My engineer, Seamus Harper."
"A very sick engineer," Bartholomew said, his face clearly worried. "These wounds are painful and crippling, but I see nothing here to cause the fever I'm feeling."
"I know he has other injuries, more serious ones, but he's refused to let me look at them or even touch him."
The doctor sighed. "We should wake him up," he said reluctantly.
"Why?" Dylan whispered. "He hasn't had much sleep lately. I hate to wake him. Can't you just keep examining him as he sleeps? He'd probably sleep through the whole thing."
"Not likely," Bartholomew said with a wry smile. "If he really has spent time as a slave before, the moment I started tugging at his clothes to tend his injuries, he'll be fully awake and probably terrified. Besides, I must ask some questions that only he can answer."
"Such as?" Dylan prompted, still not wanting to rouse his sleeping friend.
The other man sighed again and reached into his bag, withdrawing three hypos. "I have here a very, very small batch of nanobots," he said, holding up the first hypo. "I'm not even supposed to have it. My master threw the hypo away as empty, but I scrounged it and saved it. The dose is so small, however, that it cannot even begin to heal the boy's injuries. It might be of help to your young friend's crippled hands, however. Applied directly to one of the injured hands, it could heal it enough to give him back limited mobility. Sadly, I don't have enough to fix both of them, so he'll have to choose. I wouldn't even presume to make that decision for him."
He set the medication down carefully on the blanket then continued explaining, holding up the other two hypos. "I also have a small dose of both a fever reducer and an antibiotic. It should be enough to break his fever and help kill the infection I'm guessing is the underlying cause of his sickness, but unless the wounds are thoroughly cleaned it won't do him much good; hence, the rags and the water. Now, I might be something of a doctor but I'm betting your friend would be far from comfortable with me doing that. As much as he may deny it, he would probably still rather have you be the one to take on that task. So, after we wake him and I give him the injections and tend to his hands and feet, I will leave you with the water and withdraw to let you clean and care for his other injuries."
Seeing the wisdom in his words, Dylan nodded.
"Harper," he called softly, "Harper, you gotta wake up for a minute."
Harper moaned in his sleep but didn't wake up. Dylan wished he could shake him lightly but knew that would hurt him more.
"Come on, Harper. Up and at 'em."
Harper groaned a little louder this time. "'M up, Beka. Jus' give me five more minutes…" he slurred incoherently, not waking at all.
"His wife?" the doctor asked with an amused grin.
"First captain," Dylan replied. "It's a long story." Not bothering to explain, he continued urging Harper into the land of the living. "I know you're tired and hurt, but you've gotta wake up for just a bit so we can help you, Harper," he coaxed.
Finally, Harper started to stir. He moaned a few more times and then his fevered eyes slid open.
"Lights, Rommie," he muttered, forgetting where he was. "And why do I feel like I got plastered by a freakin' transport?"
"Harper, Rommie's not here," Dylan reminded him with a heavy heart. "And I can't turn the lights back up."
Dylan knew by the expression on his face exactly when all the memories of the last week crashed into him.
"Crap," he cursed quietly, closing his eyes again.
"Harper," Dylan went on quickly. "There's someone here with a few medical supplies that can help you, but you're gonna have to sit up."
The engineer didn't reply, his face scrunched up tightly.
"Harper," Dylan said again, more sternly.
"Yeah, I know, Boss. Just give me a second, okay? I'm still not used to waking up to the dark…"
Bartholomew watched the exchange with confusion. "He can't see?" he finally asked.
"No," Dylan said shortly.
"For how long?" the doctor asked.
"Three whole freakin' days," Harper told him bitterly. "And who the heck are you?"
Their chains rattling sharply, Dylan helped the young man painfully sit up while Bartholomew introduced himself.
"And you can help me?" Harper said skeptically. "The Ubers will let ya do that?"
"A little," the other slave told him kindly.
"Can you fix my eyes?" the young man asked after a moment, his voice very quiet.
The doctor took a deep breath. "No," he said regretfully, and Dylan had to look away. "But I can fix other things." He quickly explained about the fever reducer and antibiotics, and Harper gave his consent to the injection, starting to feel the affects almost immediately after he heard the hiss from the hypo in his neck.
"Thanks," he said gratefully.
"I'm glad I could help you, even a little bit. Now let me have a look at these feet."
The doctor took Harper's poor, abused feet and gently peeled Dylan's blood-crusted, makeshift bandages off, tisking under his breath and shaking his head. The lacerations from the wires had been irritated horribly and more cuts had been added to them from the sharp gravel Harper had been forced to walk across all day long. The man cleaned them carefully and re-bandaged them, Harper bearing it all in silence.
"Now, let's check those hands."
"Do you have to?" Harper whined, remembering the agony the last time they were bandaged.
"I'll be as careful as I can," Bartholomew assured him. With a sigh, Harper held out his broken hands and the doctor gently unwrapped them. He carefully washed the holes, examining the bones and tendons while he worked and explaining the choice to Harper, who listened with gritted teeth.
Harper was torn as he absorbed the doctor's words. The man had nanobots that could possibly cure his hands but only enough for one of them, and he had to choose which one. Harper never thought the day would come that he'd be forced to choose which hand had to remain crippled!
"Whichever hand you choose, I doubt the recovery will be complete," Bartholomew's voice reached through Harper's thoughts and the engineer realized he was speaking to him again. "The damage is too great for the small amount of medicine I have, and the injuries are too old. They've already started to heal incorrectly. The injection will probably return most mobility to the affected limb, but it will likely still remain painful and stiff."
Harper closed his eyes to think even though it made no difference now; old habits die hard. His left hand was by far the most damaged, the fingers stiff and unresponsive and the bones and nerves a mess. If he chose the left hand, he would probably get limited mobility in both hands once they healed. However, he was right handed. He relied on that hand far more than the other. If he chose the right hand, it was possible the nanobots could heal it almost completely since the damage was less to begin with, Felix's spike having mercifully missed most of the bones and tendons as it was driven in. He would be left with one useless hand but one mostly functional hand as well.
He made his decision.
"The right hand," he told the other man firmly. He winced as he felt the painful pressure of the hypo on the back of his hand and then it was done. Bartholomew carefully wrapped both of his hands back up in clean bandages, and then Harper heard him replacing his supplies in his bag.
"Thanks again, Doc," Harper said, already feeling slightly better. He was still tired and sore beyond anything he'd ever known, the ex-doctor having nothing to give him for pain relief, but he could feel his fever dropping and that was no small blessing.
"You're welcome, my friend. Now, I'm going to leave, but your captain is going to tend to the wounds that we both know you're hiding under that shirt."
"Hey, no way!" Harper said forcefully, his head jerking up with anger, having been caught off-guard by the statement.
"Mr. Harper, I've just given you the only dose of antibiotics I have. It will be enough to slowly fight your infection, but it won't do you a bit of good if the wounds stay the way they are. You are a slave now, and I know you're familiar with the implications of that. You're in no position to refuse help when it's offered because you know it won't be offered again. Pride is a grand thing but slaves have no room for pride; it only gets them killed. Now, good night, Dylan, Harper. I have duties I have no choice but to attend to."
The other slave's words struck painfully at memories Harper would have liked to ignore forever. They also rang with truth. He hated it, oh he hated it, but what the man had said was true.
"Should we get this over with?" Dylan asked him, knowing Harper was upset but determined not to let him squirm his way out this time.
Harper sighed in defeat. "Yeah, sure, whatever…" He reached for the edge of the thin shirt he wore, struggling to pull it over his head, having to tug it away from where it had stuck to the skin of his back. He heard Dylan drag the bucket of water closer, and then the captain sucked in a sharp breath and there was utter silence.
Dylan stared in open shock at the sight before him, completely speechless. The wounds from a whip lay red, raw, and bloody across Harper's back, more marks than he could count. They oozed yellow puss and the heat that radiated from the infection was alarming. Dylan's blood boiled. The monster had whipped him! On top of everything else he'd done to the boy, he'd also whipped him, and that wasn't all. The new injuries ran across layer upon layer of stripes, some scars old and white with age, others newer and still puckered and tinged with red. As if that weren't enough, his friend's back also bore scars from what looked like knife wounds and even some burns.
A collection like this would have taken years; Dylan had never seen anything like it and both the sight and the implications of it sickened him. Hot, angry tears filled his eyes, but he wouldn't let them fall. Harper would never want to be pitied, even if he couldn't see it. Still, Dylan was frozen by the horrible image, unable to move, the dripping cloth forgotten in his hand.
Harper kept his head bowed as he turned his back to Dylan. He could feel the thin fabric of his shirt bunched around his wrists where it was stopped by the ever present manacles, but the rest of his upper body and arms were bare, and his skin bristled slightly against the chill in the night air. The metal slave collar was heavy and cold against his naked skin as he waited, but no sound or movement from Dylan penetrated his dark world. Harper knew what was happening: he'd dreaded this day since the moment he set foot on the Andromeda. In a way, it was a blessing to have his secrets revealed now, in this way; he was too tired and in pain to care.
"Dylan," Harper said softly without lifting his head, "You can touch me. It's okay. I'm not gonna yell at ya this time."
His words seemed to break the spell that had settled over Dylan. The captain uttered a small curse, and then Harper heard the rattle of Dylan's own chains and felt the soft movement of a cloth on his back, the water both cooling and stinging at the same time. Even though the touch was extremely gentle, Harper couldn't stop a sudden, sharp intake of breath as the movement caused the injuries to flare back to life.
Dylan swore again.
"Harper, what happened?" Dylan's voice asked after a moment, and Harper knew he wasn't referring to the wounds he was currently tending.
"Earth happened," he said tiredly, "Almost twenty years of it."
Dylan continued speaking while he worked as gently and as quickly as he possibly could to clean the dirt, dried blood, and puss from the lacerations on his friend's back.
"How long were you a slave?" the captain inquired quietly, figuring that was how Harper got his collection of scars and now seriously wondering if Harper had been a slave most of his life.
"About a year and a half," Harper answered through pain-gritted teeth.
"But these marks are…" Dylan's voice trailed off, and Harper realized he still didn't understand. He had no frame of reference to grasp the concept of a way of life that allowed this kind of continuous pain, and his eternal optimism refused to believe it.
Harper sighed tiredly. "When I was seven I stole half a loaf of bread from a dumpster outside the Uber barracks. There was no food in the shack; Dad had been sick for weeks, and my baby sister was dying because none of us had eaten for days and Mom had nothing left to nurse her with. So I went out and stole the bread to keep us alive, only I got caught. And stealing stale, moldy bread from the trash was such a heinous crime I had to be punished accordingly. The Ubers strung me up to a pole in the middle of the ghetto so everyone could watch, and I was given fourteen lashes, two for every year I'd dared to stay alive. Then they cut me down, broke my arm, and sent me home; my first taste of Nietzschean justice. Between that event and when Beka pulled me off that rock, I did a lot of things that carried much heftier penalties than stealing half a loaf of bread."
Harper finished speaking and Dylan had nothing to say in return. A story like that would have left him struggling for words at any time, but to hear it told in Harper's pain-filled voice while he was chained to a post with him and trying to clean the horrible wounds on Harper's bruised and scarred back left Dylan once again speechless. All he could do was finish the awful task in silence and try to find a place in his mind for the terrible things he'd just learned and seen.
"I'm hurrying," the captain assured when Harper couldn't hold in a hiss of pain. "I'm sorry I'm hurting you more, but this has to be done. I'm almost finished with your back."
Dylan cleaned the last few inches of Harper's back and shoulders, and then moved on to his arms. There were deep rope burns around both forearms and healing bruises splashed up and down both of them, but very few open wounds he needed to clean up. He also washed the damaged skin around the engineer's dataport, noting that the deep burn had thankfully already started heal. It would leave a nasty scar, however.
"All right, now turn around and let me look at your chest," Dylan ordered.
Harper complied wearily and Dylan got another shock.
Harper's chest and stomach were also kaleidoscopes of healing bruises and electric shock burns, but the horrifying injury that angered him most lay right in the center, just below the clavicle bones. Branded into the boy's chest in two inch high letters that oozed and ran was the word servi, written in English characters.
"You would have thought the slave tag and collar were enough, wouldn't you? But Felix was never one to do a job halfway," Harper spoke, sensing what was drawing Dylan's attention. "At least he covered the old brand with the new one, even if the new one is ten times bigger."
Still, Dylan said nothing, his thoughts recalling words Felix had thrown out so dismissively in their short conversation. Furthermore, he is my slave. I bought him, I marked him, I own him! Now he knew with dreadful clarity exactly what the Niet had meant.
When Dylan remained silent, Harper ducked his head again in shame. "It's Latin for slave," he explained softly, embarrassed. "If you haven't noticed, Felix has a thing for the classics; Ancient Rome and Greece and all that stuff. I'm just glad he decided to stick it on my chest instead of on my forehead like they used to do with runaways a lot back then. And don't worry if it don't clean up nice; the last one took months to heal."
Harper shivered in the cold and Dylan saw his flesh prickle, reminding him of his unfinished task. He rinsed the rag out in the cool water and brought it to Harper's chest, washing the horrible word clean but more infection oozed out as soon as he was done.
"Our wonderful Commander Felix really needs to get some new hobbies, if you ask me," Dylan said angrily, washing the rest of Harper's injuries. "I mean, runaway slaves in Roman times were also crucified. What's he gonna do next, start stringing…"
The captain's words trailed off as a realization so awful it took his breath away struck him. An unassuming wooden post stuck in the floor flashed through his mind, blood smeared at its base, another beam lying innocently behind it. The sound of Harper's agonized screams jarring the stillness of his cell, and then almost three days of horrible silence. The rope burns on his forearms, the unexplainable wounds on the young man's hands and feet…
"Oh… Oh, Harper, he didn't…"
Dylan couldn't get the sentence out but he didn't have to. Harper's reaction to the word was confirmation enough.
"Harper, I'm so, so sorry."
"I thought I was gonna die," Harper admitted, struggling with the words. "I mean, I'd seen it happen before, many times. I even knew that's what would be waiting for me if I ever managed to get caught by him again, but I never really thought it could happen to me. Then suddenly it was, and I was up there on that cross, and I was so scared and tired and hurt. Then he came in and told me it was all just a little joke; that the six inch nails sticking through my hands were just for fun, and he pulled me down, yanked them out, and blinded me instead."
Harper's words were raw and naked, filled with more emotion and honesty than Dylan had ever heard him express, and the rage that had been boiling near the surface since this whole insane experience started finally ran over.
Forgetting that they were still in chains, tethered to a pole, forgetting that they were sitting in the dirt outside, waiting for morning to come to resume a forced march to a prison camp, forgetting even that he should keep his voice down, Dylan squared his shoulders and looked straight at his young friend.
"Harper, I don't know when and I don't know how, but I promise you, some day he will pay for what he did, even if I have to hunt him down myself."
Harper simply shrugged sadly. "Thanks, but it really doesn't matter now; it's all over and done with anyway." He smiled resignedly. "You done with the doctoring, Boss? Can I put my shirt back on? It's getting kinda cold and I'm not sure I can stay awake much longer…"
"Yeah, here, let me help you."
Dylan pulled the thin, dirty shirt back down, hiding the wounds once again, just as Harper hide the emotional and physical pain behind his carefree mask. Extremely careful of where he placed his hands, the captain helped the boy lie back down, shifting his chains and covering him with the blanket before lying beside him.
A sudden random thought struck him before he could drift to sleep and he voiced it without thinking.
"Almost twenty years?" he asked, picking that slip up for the first time.
"Yeah…well," Harper mumbled, "So I rounded a little. I told Beka the truth later; I just didn't want her to leave me behind!"
"How old were you really when Beka picked you up?"
"Eighteen."
Eighteen? Dylan frowned. "Harper, how old are you now, and no rounding?"
"Twenty-three, almost twenty-four."
Harper's voice showed exactly how tired and hurt he still felt so Dylan dropped the conversation, knowing they had precious few hours of sleep left anyway.
But he couldn't stop thinking about it, along with everything else that he'd learned today. It only fueled his rage. His friend was only twenty-three years old and already words like starvation, slavery, and torture were a huge part of his life.
The universe most certainly was not fair.