Captive's War 1: The Mercy of Gods

Eleven

She can’t actually think it’ll work,” Else said. “I mean… can she?”

The dim orange glow erased all the flaws and imperfections in her skin, and Dafyd thought it made her look both younger and exhausted. They were huddled, the four of them, in the corner that they’d made home. Synnia was off, probably with Ostencour.

“It’s insane,” Jessyn agreed. “Even if they make it out of this room, then what?”

“Then they die in a slightly different room?” Campar murmured. “Don’t ignore the siren song of not dying in the same room as the shit-covered mat.”

Dafyd felt himself bristle at the joke, but Else smiled so he swallowed it. Campar’s sense of humor was a source of relief and irritation in almost equal measure, depending on how much sleep Dafyd had been able to get and if he’d been able to force himself to eat.

“They’re not thinking,” Jessyn said. “Of course they’re not. Everyone in here is crazy. We’re crazy, they’re crazy. How could we be anything else?”

Campar sighed. “True. But not everyone is planning to get themselves killed.”

“Not them. Us,” Dafyd said. “All of us.”

Else narrowed her eyes and pointed at him like they were back in the labs on Anjiin. “Expand on that.”

“We already know they’re willing to kill us. It’s what they did instead of a handshake. They put us in this… kennel. If I were doing what they’ve done, it would be because I didn’t actually care much if the prisoners lived or died. If we start acting up, lashing out, killing them? I’d vent the air and record the results to show the other prisoners to keep them in line.”

Campar’s voice was weary. “Would you really?”

“If I were the kind of person that would make the choices they’ve already made? Then yes. Wouldn’t you?”

The first days in the cell, if they were days, Dafyd had been almost calm in a way that had probably just been shock. As he came back to himself, as he rediscovered his situation again and again, every time with a sense of surprise and awe that all the things he’d suffered were still real, he also started seeing the degradation taking hold in the people around him. People’s clothing turned to rags as fabric was scavenged for washcloths or bandages or pillows that tried to keep the constant, grinding cold from seeping up into their heads as they slept. Some people had given up and were essentially nude, squatting on the floor with arms curled around legs to stay warm if they could. Along the far wall, near the shit mat, someone had put together a rough infirmary. It was nothing more than a place for people to lie down when they needed help getting food or water or walking to the mat to relieve themselves. It was a tiny bit of self-organization, and it gave Dafyd what passed for hope. But Ostencour’s little militia was self-organizing too, and it only added to his despair. Wherever they were going, however long the journey was going to be, not all of them were going to see the end of it. People were going to die in this room. Some of them sooner than later.

It would have been easier, he thought, if they hadn’t been who they were. If the invaders had taken the inmates out of the prisons at Jaumankay or Haurbor, there would have been less of a shock. More of what the administrators called inertial knowledge. How to be still, how to suffer humiliation, how to be debased. Instead, the experience was new to them, and they were about to make some mistakes they couldn’t afford.

“I’ll go talk to Ostencour,” Else said.

Campar raised his eyebrows. “And say?”

Else didn’t answer, but she stood and walked through the press of bodies toward the front, and hopefully Synnia and her new friends. The three of them that remained shifted in toward each other, closing the circle and keeping their backs to the others. It felt like self-protection.

“She’ll take care of it,” Dafyd said, trying to sound more certain than he felt.

“She’d better,” Jessyn said.

Campar stretched and groaned. “If we get back home, I am going to take a bath that lasts three days. I’ll eat in the tub. Turn on the warm tap to keep it cozy while I sleep. Scrape myself with soap and a soft cloth until I’m down to the quick. Even then, I’m not sure I’ll ever feel clean again.”

“We’re not going home,” Jessyn said. “Even if we made it back to Anjiin, what do you think it is now?”

“Something different,” Campar agreed with a sigh. “I expect it is something different now.”

They lapsed into silence. The room muttered and wept around them, the voices of dozens of other conversations that rose and fell with no clear logic or pattern. Someone near the center of the room started shouting, and Dafyd felt his back tensing like it was expecting a blow. But the anger faded away without sounds of violence.

Sometime later, Synnia emerged from among the others. Her lips were thin and tight. She sat with her side to them, and when Jessyn shifted, silently offering her a place in the circle, she didn’t react. Anger radiated from her like cold from ice. Else arrived later, standing between Jessyn and Campar and stretching like she was getting ready to exercise until she only sat back on the floor, her feet tucked under her to keep her thighs from touching the chilly metal floor. Dafyd caught her eye and lifted his chin in unspecific query. Else shook her head once. Whatever the conversation with Ostencour had brought, it wasn’t something she wanted to talk about.

He hoped it had been enough.

At the other end of the cell, the spill of white light across the ceiling that came and went. Synnia tensed, but didn’t move.

“It’s all right,” Else said. “It’s going to be fine.”

Then a voice barked something Dafyd couldn’t make out, and Synnia jumped up and pushed through the crowd, heading for the light. Dafyd followed her, not sure what he meant to do if he caught her. The bodies of his fellow captives blocked his way, shoving him as he tried to get by. Voices rose in a roar of alarm and confusion. Something screamed, and he didn’t think it was human.

The crowd grew denser, arms and chests pressing together until Dafyd felt like he was being crushed. He’d heard stories like that. People trapped in groups so tight they could lift their feet off the ground and not fall. People who fell and died there. It would be a stupid way to go. But executed in reprisal for a doomed prison break was bad too. He turned his torso to the side, led with an elbow, pushed through people that a year ago he’d have been intimidated to speak with.

The crowd had an edge like the wall of a hurricane’s eye. Dafyd broke through, stumbling out into the ad-hoc pit where the violence was already happening.

One of the Soft Lothark was on the floor beside the sewage-stinking mat, pinned by six people kneeling on its long, thrashing limbs. Urrys Ostencour straddled the thing’s chest and punched down. The knife in his hand had probably been a support from someone’s boot. It had pale blood on it now. Synnia was on one of the thing’s arms, her teeth bared in animal rage.

Dafyd felt himself shouting Stop it! but he couldn’t hear the words. The alien shrieked—a high, tight sound like a machine failing—and the people screamed their rage and bloodlust. Dafyd stumbled.

The alien thing tensed into stillness. Its shriek seemed to widen, like the sound was coming from its whole body, not just its mouth. Dafyd was close enough to see the thin arms and stubby body pulse once, like it was a balloon someone had pushed a breath into. Ostencour’s face shifted from rage to alarm, and the alien erupted. Its flesh expanded, popped, and spewed whitish liquid up and out. Dafyd felt a warm, wet splash of it land on his arm. Synnia and the rest of the attackers were coated with it. It smelled like acid and overheated iron.

The crowd went silent except for one of the attackers saying What the hell was that? Someone gagged. Ostencour stood, shaking his head slowly from side to side like a punch-drunk boxer. He started to say something, but stopped. His eyes went wide, and he stumbled. Synnia screamed, clawing at her mouth. A few seconds later, more of them started screaming with her.

Dafyd’s eyes stung enough that they watered. It was hard to see where he was or who was around him. The spot on his arm felt like it was heating up. Like he was starting to burn. He pulled off what was left of his shirt, wiping desperately at the pale goo that clung to his skin.

A wave of nausea bent him double. The crowd had pushed back, away from the caustic mess that had been their jailer. Dafyd rose, took two slow, unsteady steps, and dropped to his knees again. The chamber seemed to be rising and falling like a ship in heavy waves. Ostencour was leaning against the door, his shiv forgotten at his feet. The others, Synnia included, were writhing and wailing, trying to crawl away from the mess that had been alive minutes before. Dafyd turned his back to it, started to crawl, but the nausea came again, more powerfully, and he lost himself in it. He knew he was vomiting, but the event itself seemed distant. He heard voices, but he didn’t know what they were saying.

A spill of light brought him back to himself. He was splayed out on the floor, his cheek against the bare cold of the metal. He didn’t remember how he’d gotten there, but not much time seemed to have passed. One of Ostencour’s people—not Synnia—was beside him, weeping and struggling to move. The smell of acid and iron overwhelmed everything.

Two Soft Lothark lumbered in, indistinguishable from the dead one, their long limbs and compact bodies silhouetted against the brightness until the door closed behind them. Dafyd thought, They’re going to kill us.

He was wrong. Instead, they looked around the floor like investigators at a crime scene, then lowered themselves to all fours and began slowly, methodically eating the corpse. Dafyd pulled himself up to sitting. The hold spun, and he had to press his palms into the floor to keep from falling back over. As he watched, the two aliens licked the floor with wide, dark tongues or tentacles, lifting bits of their fallen companion into wide slits of mouths. A memory of something horrible flickered and vanished. The human prisoners were pressed back away from the nightmare scene. An older man with a bald patch on the back of his head and a wide belly was dragging Synnia away, and Dafyd felt a faint echo of relief. She wasn’t dead.

When the last of the corpse had been consumed, the aliens turned to the mat, rolling the shit-covered foam up like a carpet, then carrying it back to the door. The light came and went. A transporting sense of illness pressed Dafyd back down against the floor. He was aware of a Soft Lothark—a third one, or else one of the earlier pair—unrolling a fresh mat. Someone put a hand on his shoulder. He didn’t want them to touch him. They were going to kill him. He wanted them to do it soon.

After that, his consciousness came apart. He stopped being Dafyd Alkhor and fell into free-floating experiences of misery and fear, suffering and nausea, nightmare images and physical distress and the constant dissolving heat of fever. Time became a permanent now, with no past to bring him here and no future before him.

Now went on for a very long time.

The first coherent thought was that the water had gone into his lungs. He coughed and rolled to his side, and by doing that remembered that he could cough, that he could move his body. The light was the same dull orange. He felt heavy and weak, like someone had turned up the gravity. When he rolled back, Else was there, sitting beside him with a wet cloth in her hand. She looked down at him like he’d done something stupid and brave. Exasperation and affection mixed.

“Hey there,” he said.

“You’re back.”

“I,” he tried, then took a breath. “I think so. Where was I?”

“Poisoned,” she said.

“By the…” He waved a hand.

“Campar and Jessyn have been debating since it happened. Jessyn thinks it’s a defense mechanism. Like a butterfly making predators sick. No help for the one that gets eaten, except that the predator won’t go after its children or siblings. Inclusive fitness. Campar says the aliens aren’t brightly enough colored for that to be true, but he’s probably just being obstinate so they’ll have something to talk about.”

He tried to sit up, and after a moment, managed it. They were in the span of wall used for the infirmary. Four others were stretched out beside him. His shirt was gone, and his pants had been replaced with what looked like someone’s old nightgown laid over him like a blanket. Else saw his confusion and smiled. She was beautiful when she smiled. She was always beautiful.

“It’s been a while,” she said.

“A while?”

“A few days, as far as we can tell. Hygiene got to be tricky, and this seemed like the best solve.” She held up the damp rag in her hand. “We’ve been taking shifts to keep you hydrated and clean. Cleanish.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It wasn’t just me. Or just us. Everyone’s trying to help.”

“Everyone was cleaning me up and dripping water in my mouth until my pants were too disgusting to leave on me. Doesn’t actually make it better.”

She pushed a lock of greasy hair away from his eyes. Her fingertips felt warm. “I think we’re past shame here.”

“Vague embarrassment?”

“Fine. If it’s important to you.” Her smile faltered. “We were worried. We’ve lost a couple.”

“Reprisals?”

“No,” she said, crossing her legs and resting her elbows on her thighs. “One of Synnia’s friends reacted worse than the rest. He stopped breathing. Another one seemed like she was getting better, but she also had a heart condition and no medication since we left home. Ostencour had the worst exposure, and his fever broke yesterday. He’s been sulking and keeping to himself. I don’t think we need to worry about a second attempt. Not now, anyway.”

“Synnia?”

“Took a heavier dose than you, and recovered sooner. I don’t think she’s doing well in other ways, though. I don’t see how she… I don’t know. Otherwise, nothing changed. They come and clean things away. The food is food. The water is water. Nothing changes here. It just… goes on. Like we’ll be here forever.”

Dafyd pointed to the cloth, and Else handed it to him. It was cool against his lips, and when he sucked the little bit of water out of it, he realized how thirsty he was. The idea of walking the few steps to the water trough seemed like a trek across a desert, though. He’d do it, but later.

“I keep waiting for the punishment to come,” Else said. And then, “You’re shivering.”

“I’m mostly naked. And I’ve been sick.”

She shifted up against him. Her body was warm. He rested his head against her shoulder and hoped his body was exhausted enough that it wouldn’t react to her. For a long time, they didn’t speak. Else ran her hand along his back like she could warm him by simple friction. When he closed his eyes, he felt exhaustion pulling him down. After a while, the shivering stopped.

“Thank you,” he said.

“For what?”

“Being here. Thank you for… You mean something, you know? To me.”

“Shh,” she said. Her palm caressed his arm. The sound of skin against skin. “Let’s talk about that later. You should rest.”

“I was wrong,” he said.

“About what?”

“What they’d do. How they would act. What they are. I was lying there and watching them eat their dead. I remembered something, but I didn’t know what.”

“Do you now?”

He nodded against her. Her hand shifted to his back, moving more slowly. “One of my junior tutorials was biological systems,” he said. “The tutor sacrificed a water beetle at the end of the term. She had named it Little Dot at the beginning of that term. Little Dot was a fixture in the class for weeks. We fed it sometimes.”

“She named a beetle?”

“For a reason. She put the image on all our screens, and then cut its abdomen open with a razor. Everything just spilled out. I remember someone actually started crying. It was Little Dot, after all. And then the beetle started eating its own spilled fat bodies.”

Dafyd rested for a moment, exhausted by the memory and the effort of speaking. Else’s voice was disapproving. “I don’t remember sadism being in the curriculum.”

“Her point was that we were all anthropomorphizing the insect. Thinking that it was like us. Thinking that when it was dying, it was afraid. But it was just a network of reflexes. When it noticed a high-energy food source, it ate. We knew what was happening, and we were horrified. Maybe Little Dot was more conscious than a clockwork toy, maybe it wasn’t. Either way, it did things a human being would never do because it wasn’t one.”

Her chin shifted, rested on the back of his head. “Vivid.”

He wanted to put his arms around her. Be closer to the warmth of her body. It was too much effort. “It was a warning. I put myself in the other person’s place. It’s what I do.”

“Your pathological move?”

“My pathological move.” He heard his words starting to slur, but he wasn’t willing to surrender to sleep. Not yet. “I think, What would I do if I were them? Or If I was doing what they did, why would I be doing it? It works more often than it doesn’t. I thought there would be punishment because I thought they were like us. But there wasn’t any, and I don’t know why.”

“Yes, you do. You just said it. Because they aren’t like us. They aren’t like beetles either. But they aren’t like us.”

“I don’t understand how they think, and that’s terrifying.”

Else shifted, and he was afraid she was leaving, but she only kissed his forehead and settled back against him. It made his heart ache a little. “Rest now,” she said. “We’ll figure it out.”

Synnia lay on her side. Every now and then, she turned. It was as close to catatonia as Jessyn had seen without quite being motionless. When Jessyn brought handfuls of the nutritional muck, Synnia swallowed them. When she brought wet rags, Synnia was willing to suck the damp out of the cloth. Now and then, Jessyn escorted the older woman to the public mat, and then back again when she was done. It was excruciating.

Campar took turns sitting with her too, which Jessyn appreciated, even though there was really nothing to do with her “break” from nursing Synnia. The hours before were like the hours after. The light never changed. The temperature never changed. The subtle hum of the ship remained eternally constant, until her brain discounted it and it became its own kind of silence.

Campar was sleeping when Jessyn made another trip to the water trough, cloth in hand, and found Urrys Ostencour waiting for her. The Soft Lothark’s poison had taken a toll on him. Or else the internment. Or both. Or everything. His cheeks and eyes were sunken. Jessyn imagined that his skin was the color of ash, but in this light, who could tell? He pushed himself up to standing when she got close, and when he spoke, his voice was rough and phlegmy.

“How is she?”

“Not great,” Jessyn said. “Not dead either. So I don’t know.”

“I’d like to talk with her. You’re her friends. If you’re angry with me, I understand. But I’d like to talk with her.”

He raised his chin, and Jessyn imagined what he’d looked like as a child on the school playground performing bravery. Part of her wanted to tell him to stop posturing and go sit down, but most of her was too tired to care. She got the water, headed back to Synnia and Campar, and let Ostencour follow her.

When they reached the corner, Ostencour motioned to Jessyn for the little water sop. She handed it to him, and he crouched down at Synnia’s side.

“Hey there, soldier,” he said. He had a voice like warm flannel when he wanted it.

Synnia’s eyes focused on him. He held out the fabric, and the older woman heaved a sigh, sat up, and took what she’d been offered.

“How are you holding up?” Ostencour asked.

“I’m sorry. I am so sorry.”

“No, no, no. Don’t be. You didn’t do anything wrong. This was my mistake, but we learned from it. We know more now. We lived to fight another day.”

Some of you, Jessyn thought, but didn’t say. It didn’t seem like the moment to be acid.

“I thought we could… I thought even if we didn’t, it would at least be over,” Synnia said. “I thought it would be over.”

“It isn’t over,” Ostencour said. “And I know right now it doesn’t feel like that’s a good thing, but it is. Listen to me, soldier. We’re not defeated. This isn’t over.”

The way he said it, Jessyn even believed it a little herself.