Chapter 35
Each time I see the Upside-Down Man
Standing in the water,
I look at him and start to laugh,
Although I shouldn't oughtter.
For maybe in another world
Another time
Another town,
Maybe HE is right side up
And I am upside down.
- Shel Silverstein
00000
"Jack jumped off the beanstalk and rushed into the tool shed. He could hear the giant Uber's thunderous laughter behind him, feel the ground shaking as he stomped down the big plant after the boy. Jack knew he had to hurry! Desperately, he pulled boxes off the shelves and threw them to the ground, looking for something to chop the stalk down with. Finally, his hand closed on his trusty nanowelder. He grabbed the tool and raced back to the beanstalk, firing it up as he ran…"
00000
"Hey, Dylan?"
Harper's voice rang across the crowded barrack. Dylan looked up from the cards in his hands and back toward their sleeping spot where the young engineer was. As much as Harper relied on his help now and wanted him close, he also knew the young man sometimes tired of his hovering, needed his space. When they were "safe" in the barrack, Dylan occasionally left the boy to his own thoughts in an attempt to give him a small measure of privacy. But he was never out of sight or ear-shot, and Harper knew that.
"Yes, Harper?" Dylan answered, wondering what was wrong. So far, Harper had never called him back, knowing he would return soon enough as it was.
"Come over here for a minute," Harper said.
Dylan promptly gave his cards to Twig who had been "helping" him, and told the boy to take over as he climbed stiffly to his feet.
His engineer was sitting on their pile of straw, the blanket in his lap covering his crippled hand. As the captain approached, the boy turned his head, listening for the sound of Dylan's chains.
"What's up, Harper?" Dylan asked, purposefully trying to make his voice sound normal. It was all they had these days, this little game of vocal charades.
"Why did you take my blanket back from Twig?" Harper asked, his voice confused and a little angry at the same time. "I gave it to him. The kid needs it more than I do!"
Dylan's eyebrows drew together in confusion, and he crouched down next to Harper. "I didn't take it back, Harper. Why do you think I would?"
Wordlessly, Harper held up two blankets.
Dylan scratched his head. "Where'd you get those?"
"They were laying right here, in the corner where you always put our blanket," Harper explained.
"Are you sure you didn't grab someone else's by mistake?"
If he could have, Harper would have skewered Dylan with a glare. "My eyes are broken, Dylan, not my brain."
Dylan held his hands up. "Sorry, just asking! So where did it come from then?"
"Did Twig try to give it back?" Harper asked.
Dylan called the boy over, but Twig was just as confused as they were.
"Simon?" Harper suggested next, but it wasn't the Wayist's either. Further inquiry left them totally stumped as Ethan, Peter, and Dakin all successively denied having anything to do with the mysterious extra blanket. Finally, Dylan lay down beside Harper to sleep, both on their own blanket again for the first time since the little game of catch.
"Apparently, our prison grows blankets," Harper murmured to him.
"Guess it could be worse. Better blankets then spatulas."
Spatulas? Harper raised an eyebrow. Wow, slave life was really frying his captain's brain, he thought as he drifted to sleep, mystery still unsolved.
00000
"Hey there, handsome…"
The flaming red-head sashayed up to the Nietzschean, hips swaying seductively in her tight, leather skirt. "I got something I wanna show you…" she drawled, winking.
The Nietzschean leered. She was human, but he couldn't hold that against her. Genetics had still been kind to her, very kind, he thought as his eyes swept up and down, taking it all in.
"Yeah, what do you want to show me?" he asked, expectantly. His job was extremely boring; he could use a nice distraction.
"Come over here and find out…"
The Uber moved two steps away from his post and she stepped up to meet him, wrapping her arms around his neck and pressing her mouth to his.
Ewww! Yuck! Beka's brain screamed. It was all she could do to keep from gagging, but as she watched Rommie slip silently through the doorway and into the computer maintenance room, her smile became real. Bingo. Step one down, only three hundred and seventy six to go.
She turned her attention back to her "guest." He was getting a little too friendly and she had to bite her lip to keep from decking him as she played along.
Rommie, you'd darn well better hurry in there…
00000
"Hey, Boss."
"Hey, Harper."
"How was work today?"
"Oh, you know, same old, same old… You?"
"Ugh, the same. The lighting sucks, though. Gonna put in a complaint to the Uber division of Work Place Safety."
"Let me know how that goes…"
"Sure thing, Boss."
00000
Rommie glanced over her shoulder one more time but, thanks to Beka, the Nietzschean guard was totally preoccupied. Trusting the pilot to keep him that way, Rommie turned back to the computer panel in front of her.
This drift was by no means the crown jewel in the Dragan's collection, but then again, that was why they'd chosen it. It was rundown, disgusting, and literally falling apart, but it was still a Drago-Kazov drift and as such was connected to the Dragan's main intelligence network.
It was all part of the plan. The universe was a very large place and Harper and Dylan just small, fragile humans. Without a method to their searching they might as well just stand on an asteroid and shout their names, hoping for a reply. So, Rommie had done something she hated herself for but knew was necessary; on a hunch she'd violated Harper's trust and privacy and overrode his security locks. Her suspicion was correct, though. Buried far back in a stack of personal journals (who knew Harper kept a journal!) was a large, encrypted file on one Gaius Felix which included a "Do Not Vacation Here – EVER!" list. All these years and Harper was still running, still afraid. It made her incredibly sad and angry at the same time. Apologizing to her absent engineer and friend, Rommie copied the list word for word.
Still, it was a very long list, over 250 planets and drifts included. It was a start, but they needed more than that to go on. They needed information, any information that might give them a place within that list to begin. So she and Beka had agreed a little computer hacking was long overdue, and trust the former freighter pilot to have just the plan. The fact that Beka already had the outfit hanging in her closet told Rommie this wasn't exactly a new plan, and she decided she didn't really want to know how many times Beka had pulled this stunt with Harper filling in the role she was currently playing. But then again, it might be fun to hear, and as the ship's avatar she really should know as much about her crew as…
Focus, Rommie she chided herself, even though her musings had only take .004 of a nanosecond, every nanosecond counted! She placed her slim hand over the access portal and slipped inside the computer mainframe.
00000
Harper squirmed slightly as he sat next to Dylan on their straw.
After the third or fourth time, the captain must have noticed.
"What's wrong, Mr. Harper?" the man's voice cut through the darkness around him.
"Nothing, Boss…" Harper murmured, even as he squirmed again.
"Harper…"
Harper sighed. He knew that tone of voice. That was Dylan's "captain voice," and he knew better than to not answer, but still… There were some things a man didn't like to discuss with his boss!
"It's nothing really, and I'm sure you're having…um…similar issues…" He trailed off but Dylan's silence told him his answer wasn't satisfactory. "Okay, look, Boss. Let's just say that the "au natural" approach to living coupled with the water-conservation practices around here have started to cause certain problems under there… You know, with the underwear. I hope you like new life forms because I think there's a colony starting in my shorts."
"Oh."
Dylan didn't say anything else for a long time. Harper wished he could see the blushing; it might have made the chaffing worth it. "Hey, at least we don't need any starch," he offered with a resigned grin as he fought the urge to squirm again, and lost.
00000
"No."
"Come on…"
"Absolutely not! I will not permit myself to be seen in such a ridiculous get-up, and I would advise you to stop pestering me or I may not go to this stupid meeting at all!"
"Tyr, you have to. Beka's counting on you, the Bix Tan are counting on you, and mostly, Dylan is counting on you. He would do it."
Tyr eyed the golden girl with disdain. "Of that I have no doubt. But just because the great Captain Hunt is willing to shove all pride and self-respect aside in order to get every pathetic back-water planet and rock into his glorious Commonwealth does not mean that I, Tyr Anasazi, am! For the last time, no!"
The large man turned to exit Command but Trance moved around him lithely and blocked the door. She help out the rainbow colored garment that looked suspiciously like a bathrobe one more time.
"Tyr, it's Bix Tannien custom! As the one who is bearing all six stones, you represent their highest deity! According to their writings, wearing this robe is the highest honor bestowed on their planet. Refusing will be seen as a personal insult."
"I don't care. I will not wear that clown suit!"
Trance planted her feet. "Let me put it this way then, Tyr. You will go down to the ceremony this evening and you will wear this robe. If you do that, all will be well with the universe and you'll live long, have many children and be the founder of a great Pride. However, if you do not wear this robe and go down to that ceremony, you won't live long, you won't have many children, you won't be the founder of anything, and I'll have a nasty mess to clean up. I do so hate cleaning up messes, don't you?"
For just a moment the harmless girl was replaced by something colder, something slightly wicked. Her eyes flashed with the same light that glinted off the knife Tyr could suddenly see strapped to her thigh. The air of Command seemed to drop about ten degrees.
"Well, if you put it like that…" Tyr took the robe. "Your wish is my command, milady," he bowed slightly.
Trance giggled and the coldness vanished, leaving Tyr to wonder if it had ever been there. "Why thank you, Tyr!"
Gathering up the offending garment, he marched past her but stopped after a few steps. Without turning around, he spoke. "Whatever you are, you are no harmless child. I liked you better when you were purple."
Trance's answer floated back to him as he walked away.
"So did I."
00000
Beka walked out of the Maru's fresher, her hair still damp. She was wearing loose sweats and a tank top and gargling the strongest mouthwash she could find. She swished it around a few more times then stepped up to the small galley sink and spat it out.
"Ugh! That was vile, and nasty, and inhumane!" she said with a shudder to the android that was sitting calmly at the Maru's counter. Wordlessly, Rommie handed her a fresh mug of coffee.
Beka took the peace offering but still pinned the other woman with a glare. "I swear you took longer in there than you had to."
"Well, I will admit to finding your distraction tactics somewhat fascinating…" Rommie easily ducked the fuzzy slipper that sailed her way, "…but seriously, I just wanted to make sure I hadn't missed anything."
Beka sobered instantly. She straddled one of the stools and placed her elbows and coffee mug on the table. "Did you find them?"
Rommie sighed. "Did you know that there are currently forty-three registered Drago-Kazov slaves that go by the name of Seamus? And twenty-seven Seamus's in Dragan prisons. Who knew it was such a popular name?"
"What about the name Harper?"
Rommie shook her head. "Nothing."
"Dylan?"
"I found no record of a Dylan Hunt in any Dragan prison, but," she shrugged, "most of their top-security political prisons don't list the names of prisoners."
Beka's shoulders sagged. "So, basically, that was a waste of time and good lip-gloss."
"Not necessarily," Rommie countered. She brought out the flexi with Harper's list on it. "Claiming the top five slots on Harper's list are Earth, Sommer's Drift, a prison planet known as Cooper, some planet I've never heard of called Rellim, and the infamous prison slash torture facility known as Hades."
"Charming name," Beka muttered.
"Isn't it," Rommie agreed. "Now, we're relatively certain they aren't on Sommer's," Rommie crossed one name off, "and Felix doesn't seem like the kind to send his most important prisoners to an unknown, washed-out dump, so Rellim is probably not the best place to start looking, either." She crossed off a second name.
"What about Earth?" Beka spoke with apprehension. She hated to think of Harper being stuck back there, right smack in the middle of all his worst nightmares.
"Well, I haven't ruled Earth out. If Harper is a slave again, as you seem to suspect, then Felix sending him back to Earth wouldn't be completely out of the question, but there are no political prisons on Earth, just the filthy dungeons the Dragans built to control their unruly slaves. I don't think Dylan would be there. Since we hardly have the resources to split our search, I suggest we operate for the time on the assumption Felix has kept them together and cross that other bridge later if we have to. Besides, if Harper is on Earth, he probably has a better chance of freeing himself than we have of getting in, which is another reason I think Felix would avoid that plan. You don't send an important prisoner to his old stomping grounds; that's just asking for trouble."
Beka nodded. "Okay, so that leaves Copper and Hades. Did you find out anything about them?"
"Both have had prisoners transferred there within the last two weeks…"
"Why does that not sound like a positive statement when you say it?" Beka asked.
"Because so have fourteen other prisons or Dragan strongholds on Harper's list," Rommie conceded. "Records did indicate that Hades received exactly two prisoners, both placed in cells with the highest security," she added, "but no names were listed and they were not sent under Commander Felix's orders."
Beka heaved a sigh and ran a hand through her damp hair in frustration. "A cosmically big haystack and we're looking for two little needles." She fell silent, studying the depths of her coffee as she tried to sort out her thoughts. Eventually, she raised her head. "Is there any way to track the path of Felix's ship?"
"I've already tried. I can extrapolate a rough route based on known dockings in the last three weeks, but the margin of error is quite wide since we don't have a record of all the places he stopped and at least ninety-eight of the planets and places on Harper's list fall within the resulting range…"
Beka sighed again. This just got better and better. Finally, she spoke. "All right, here's what we'll do. We'll take the bait and hit Hades first, but this screams trap to me, or at least decoy, so I think we should be extra cautious. If we don't find them there, we work down Harper's list hitting all the prisons that you said have received convicts recently. After that, I honestly have no idea, but I'll think of something. They're out there, I know they are, we just have to find them. And if I know either of them, they're trying their hardest to make our job easier. If there's any way for them to send out a red flag, they'll jump at it, so keep your eyes…er sensors open, even for smoke signals."
"I've been performing five extra scans a day, on all frequencies in use and most that aren't, since the moment we realized they were missing," Rommie admitted with a slight blush.
"Good, keep it up. Now, as much as I hate to do it, I've got to crash for a few hours before I try slipstream again. Try and think of a plan for breaking into Hades that doesn't involve us getting either killed or captured, 'cause I don't think the guards there will fall for the scam we just pulled, and I don't think my lips could take it even if they would."
"Harper says you like dangerous men," Rommie said with a small smile. She ducked the other fuzzy slipper.
"Harper also says you sing Sinatra in the shower…"
"Harper talks too much," Rommie said firmly, folding her arms.
"Agreed. So, anyway, wake me in three hours and try not to let anyone shoot at my ship while I'm asleep?"
"Can I shoot at them?"
"Rommie, I know you're a warship, but we have got to find better ways for you to deal with boredom. Try watering Trance's plants or something." She shook her head and hands in frustration and went into the crew quarters. With a tired sigh, she threw herself down on the bunk below Harper's and closed her eyes.
"Hello haystack, here we come…"
00000
Harper limped heavily from the mines with the rest of the slaves, his eyes pinched shut and his face wrinkled up in pain. Unable to go any farther, he broke out of the throng and hobbled wearily to a rock at the mouth of the cave and sank onto it to wait for Dylan.
He didn't have to wait long.
"Harper?" he heard Dylan call, the worry at not finding his engineer in their usual meeting place evident in his voice.
"Over here, Dylan," Harper called out quietly. A few seconds later he felt the other man by his side.
Harper's face was tight with pain and even paler than usual, and he was cradling his right foot in his good hand. Dylan took all this in as he stepped over to his friend and his worry skyrocketed.
"What's wrong, Harper?"
"Stepped on something sharp a couple hours before the second break," Harper admitted, knowing there was no way he could hide this. "Think it cut my foot up pretty good."
"Let me see," Dylan ordered, taking the limb gently in his hands and turning it so he could see the bottom. A nasty, ragged gash ran across the already abused sole, easily cutting through the few rags that remained wrapped around the poor foot. It still oozed blood and the skin around it was already red and inflamed.
Dylan closed his eyes against the panic rising inside him at the sight. There was no way Harper would get medical treatment for this or even a day's work reprieve, and it was impossible to keep the wound clean and free of infection in this death camp, especially considering the boy didn't even have any shoes. He did thank his lucky stars that the instant Beka and her crew had agreed to sign on with him, Rommie had marched them down to med-deck and pumped them full of every vaccination she had on board, especially Harper. If she hadn't, Harper would have been dead weeks ago of tetanus, or typhoid, or diphtheria, or another of the thousands of germs swimming around this camp. But those shots wouldn't protect him from random strands of bacteria, or those diseases that had no vaccination. Something as simple as this cut could kill the boy.
Taking a deep breath, Dylan opened his eyes and tried to school his voice to be calm and normal.
"Yeah, that's a pretty nasty cut but it's mostly stopped bleeding. Here, lean on me and let me help you over to roll-call. Afterward, I'll see if I can scrounge up something to wrap it with."
Harper nodded and got slowly to his feet, Dylan holding his right arm for support. Slowly, they made their way over for evening roll-call, Dylan's heart heavy with dread.
It hit him as he stood there that evening, stealing glances at Harper's pained face while they waited for the Nietzscheans to finish inspecting their property; Harper was dying. Not today, not tomorrow, probably not even next week, but that didn't matter. Despite his casual words and flippant jokes, Harper's body was giving up, shutting down, throwing in the towel. It might be weeks, it might even be months, but Harper would die and Dylan was powerless to stop it.
He breathed deeply to quell the panic that again threatened to rise. This was too big for him, too much for him to handle on his own! He couldn't get them out, not without help. For the first time in a very, very long time, Dylan bowed his head and closed his eyes. And then he sent up a silent prayer to a deity he wasn't even sure he believed in anymore.
Help me please!