Captive's War 1: The Mercy of Gods

Twenty-Two

Tonner tried not to notice, and the effort was a kind of failure. Else was her own person. When they’d been together, it had been understood that the relationship was secondary to the work. If she’d gotten a more promising opportunity, they would have parted ways without anger or recrimination. It wouldn’t have been a betrayal of anything. He hadn’t proposed some kind of permanent pair-bond, and she hadn’t expected him to.

The truth was, he hadn’t considered why she was with him. It just seemed natural at the time, and he’d gone with it. There were some ethical issues, yes. He was team lead, and she worked for him. But he hadn’t used the fact to manufacture willingness that wasn’t there. He didn’t think he had. But now she’d slipped down the hallway and into Dafyd Alkhor’s room, and he wasn’t perfectly certain of anything. Maybe this was some kind of revenge she was exacting on him. Maybe he’d done something to deserve it. Maybe it didn’t have anything to do with him, and his work now was to understand that he’d always been a minor character in her story. And that maybe she’d been only a small part of his, however it had felt at the time.

The tightness at the base of his ribs, the ache in his cheeks where he was unconsciously frowning, the uncanny pull that the hallway had, drawing his gaze anytime he let his focus slip: They were annoyances. The sting he felt, remembering how recently he had cried himself to sleep in Else’s arms… Well, he had more important concerns than making peace with humiliation.

Still, part of him wished that the lab hadn’t been taken apart and moved here. Back at Irvian, he could have dealt with an empty apartment by abandoning it. He could have walked through the streets in daylight or by night, made his way to his labs, and lost himself in the work. If the Night Drinkers hadn’t screwed things up for him, he could have done the same here. But that was what made prison prison. He couldn’t leave when he wanted to. His best option was to cultivate a focus so intense that it drove out the awareness of emotion, even where it couldn’t exorcise the emotions themselves. If he hated Dafyd Alkhor, if he resented Else for shifting her affections, at least he could be oblivious about it.

The little not-turtle scrabbled in its box, exploring the space with its blunt beak-like nose. It was the fifth specimen they’d had. Three of the others had starved to death because the Carryx didn’t provide food for them. The other one, Tonner had tried making a mash of the berries’ silicate pulp, figuring that it was better than feeding the little animal nothing. It had violently emptied its digestive tract and died within half a day. He was going to let this one starve. It was bad luck for it that he had more pressing concerns than making food. The centrifuge hummed to itself, the readout on its side counting down the seconds that remained in the run and estimating the density and separation of molecules in the column. Outside the window, the sky was starting to reach toward dawn. Another night gone without sleep.

There was a word he’d come across once that meant the joy that someone took in self-destroying behavior. Like the fraction of pleasure that came from drinking that would be lost if the alcohol didn’t harm you. It applied to work too. He didn’t remember what the word was, though. Only the idea behind it.

“Breakfast time. Can I make you anything?” Campar asked as he ambled out of the darkness, his hair still slick from the shower.

“Coffee,” Tonner said.

“Alas, there is no coffee.”

“Tea.”

“Last of the tea was two days ago.”

“A stimulant of some kind.”

“Do you find oatmeal stimulating?”

“Fine.”

Campar rattled the pans in the little kitchen area. The seconds counted down on the centrifuge. Tonner’s attention slid toward Dafyd Alkhor’s bedroom door and then got yanked back away. His eyes felt gritty and dry.

“Sleep at all?”

“Napped between assay runs,” Tonner said. “I’m fine.”

The centrifuge chimed, the hum deepening as the mechanism slowed and going silent when it stopped. Tonner removed the column. The band with active agent was red as a cherry and about as thick as his fingernail. It would have to be enough. He grabbed a needle from the sampling kit and drew it off until the redness was almost completely gone, then added it to a glass where a half ounce of bright red fluid already waited. From the kitchen, Campar gestured to the crimson liquor with his chin.

“Jessyn. Should be enough for three days at her old levels,” Tonner said, answering the unspoken question. “I’m not sure about uptake, though. There are some other things in that same layer of the soup, but purification based on something besides specific gravity is a pain in my butt. Hopefully it works, doesn’t do anything worse than give her a little gas, and we can call it a win.”

“Impressive,” Campar said.

“Yeah. Well. I’m good at what I do.” He poured the leavings of the spin into the waste container.

“And are you all right?” Campar’s voice had a depth to it. A gravity he didn’t usually employ. It was enough to tell Tonner that the subject had changed, and what it had changed to. Campar was standing in the kitchen, waiting for the water to boil, his expression calm and also oddly implacable. With the curly beard he was growing, he looked like a loving father who was insisting that the uncomfortable conversation happen, and that it happen now.

“Should I be?” Tonner asked.

“I’m not passing judgment. I’ve been accused of being fickle myself. I’ve had a lot of love affairs end. And it’s always different. Often messy. Rarely easy.”

“Am I being an asshole about it?” Tonner heard the challenge in his voice, the I dare you to tell me this is my fault that echoed the irrational sense that he’d done something wrong.

Campar added a dash of salt to the water. “You’re pouting, but I think I would too, in your position.”

“Are they being assholes, then?”

“Yes. But also I don’t know how they could be more discreet, given our living situation. The etiquette books I’ve read don’t cover sex in a prison camp.”

Tonner walked across the room, the window at his back and Campar before him. He felt the weariness in his joints. He was going to have to rest soon. He couldn’t imagine going to sleep. “I don’t choose to feel hurt. If I could just decide not to, I would absolutely just decide not to. But it’s not up to me. My brain is doing a million things without asking me first. That’s normal, and usually it’s fine. Right now, I hate it. And hating it doesn’t change it either.”

“Can you imagine what it would be like if we were in control of our hearts?” Campar said. “If we could decide not to be angry or possessed by lust or afraid.”

“Yes,” Tonner said, surprised by the insight. “Yes I can. I imagine it would make us ideal servants. I wonder if the Carryx—”

The wide door to the hallway shuddered and clanked like something had fallen against it. Tonner stopped talking and went toward it by reflex. He had only started to crack the door open when the attackers flooded in.

Small, fast bodies covered in feather-like pelts, and the screams of the Night Drinkers as they charged. Tonner jumped back, stumbling over the power cables and falling onto his right shoulder hard enough to numb the arm. Campar was a shout off somewhere to his left, and one of the Night Drinkers leaped at him. Tonner kicked, struck the softness of a body, and pushed it back hard.

The creature dropped something round and soft as a balloon filled with liquid, but the color and texture of paper. Tonner scrambled to his feet. Half a dozen of the animals were in the common area and kitchen, all of them with teeth bared and the strange little orbs in their hands. A dark-pelted one larger than the rest took position on the dining table, screamed a high, trilling shriek, and threw. The orb flew through the air, just missing Campar’s head, and splashed open along the kitchen wall. Acid, Tonner thought, they’re throwing acid at us. He grabbed the nearest thing he could find—a length of unused power cable—and whipped it at them. The rooms were a chaos of bodies and movement, and he shifted and struck out without plan or strategy. All he cared about was violence. Hurting the things that were trying to hurt him. He felt himself shouting, but he didn’t hear it.

One of the attackers jumped on the centrifuge, its leg knocking against the cup where he’d put Jessyn’s medicine, and Tonner grabbed it by the leg, ripping it through the air, hammering it into the resonance scanner. Something bit the back of his thigh, tiny teeth clamping deep into the muscle, but he slammed the animal in his hand down two more times before the pain in his leg dropped him to his knees. Before he could grab it, the little bastard moved, letting go and jumping away.

With a lightning-fast grab, Campar snatched it out of the air and hurled it at the wall. It was a sign of his strength that the creature smashed into the wall and crumpled to the floor like a sack filled with wet rags. Campar was shouting too, the veins standing out in his neck. His eyes wide with terror. Tonner tried to get up and slipped back down onto his butt. There was blood all over the floor, and he realized with surprise it was coming out of his leg. He was about to ask Campar for help when something hit his shoulder and splashed across his neck and face. They got me. I’m dead. There was a kind of relief in the thought.

Jessyn barreled by him, a crowbar in her hand, and her hair streaming out behind her like she’d become a human pennant. Rickar was there too, and Else, and Dafyd. A clump of the Night Drinkers backed away toward the open door, their teeth bared.

Then Jessyn shouted, a wordless battle cry, and rushed at the little bastards. They scattered, but not quickly enough. Tonner caught one by the leg as it darted past him. He raised it over his head and thrust it down to the bronze-green metal floor. Two more orbs struck him, splashing the noxious gel on his shoulder and injured leg.

And then the Night Drinkers fled, disappearing into the corridor. In Tonner’s hand, the monkey he’d managed to grab spasmed, shook, and went still. Campar turned in a circle, a pry bar out before him like a policeman’s baton, ready for violence. The liquid, whatever it was, glistened on his arm and belly where he’d been struck.

“Are you all right?” the big man asked, and sound returned like God had turned the world’s volume back on. The voices of the others were a cacophony, everyone talking over everyone else. High, indignant shrieks came from the corridor, growing more distant by the second. Tonner grabbed the edge of the counter and hauled himself to his feet. Dafyd slammed the door closed so hard it seemed like it might break the housing. Jessyn stood facing the closed door, air hissing through her teeth and the whites showing all around her eyes, fists clenched like a dare that anyone try to open it again.

“Showers,” Tonner said, already limping his way toward the back. “Anyone who got this on them, strip and shower. Do it now!”

His room was farther, so he ducked into Irinna’s and didn’t take the time to shut the door behind him. The gel adhered to his skin, cold and burning at the same time. He threw the water tap open, and stepped in as the red goo that always came before the water sprayed out. He should have thought about that. Who knew what chemical reaction mixing the crimson cleanser with the Night Drinkers’ weapon might have. Too late to do anything about it now. He stripped his clothes off as the spray became hot water sluicing over him. Was the chemical in his eyes? Was it going to blind him? Was his skin starting to melt and slough away? He rubbed his skin vigorously in the hot water and tried not to imagine the flesh coming off in his hands.

The panic started to fade. He stood in the flow of water for a slow count of a hundred, then another one, then he shut it off and stepped out. The skin where the gel had stuck was red and raised, but only a little painful to the touch. Not worse than a sunburn. He waited, watching for blistering or weeping, but nothing came. When he pulled on a fresh tunic, one that Irinna had left behind when she died, it hurt. He pulled it off again and made do with just trousers.

They were stupid. They should have drilled a spyhole in the door. They should have made rules about opening it. A stronger latch. A lock. They were at war, and they had treated the rooms like they were safe. Like violence wouldn’t spill out from the cathedral. And they knew better. They all knew better.

He knew better, and he hadn’t done anything about it. Too focused on other things. On Jessyn’s medicine. On Dafyd. On Else. He sat on the bed. There was old blood on the sheets. In a different part of his life, he would have gone to Else now. He would have unburdened himself to her and taken whatever comfort she had to offer. Instead he sat, fingers laced together, body bent forward, and waited without knowing what he was waiting for. He was tired. He was exhilarated. He was frightened.

The knock at the door was gentle. Almost apologetic. Synnia looked in, her expression concerned. “Are you feeling all right?” Has the aliens’ balloon goo killed you? she meant.

“Everything’s fantastic,” he said. He tried it as a joke, but it came out meaner than funny. He hauled himself to his feet. “I’m fine. Thanks. How’s Campar?”

“Skin irritation. A little blistering where it’s worst, but it doesn’t seem to be progressing.”

“Let’s take a look.”

The common area looked slightly less organized than it had before the violence. Someone had jammed one of the chairs into the wide door’s track, barring it. Dark stains marked the walls and floor where the gel sacs had ruptured and spilled. The pan Campar had been using for his oatmeal was on the floor, the water spilled around in a puddle. Something stank like compost and blood, but he didn’t figure out what it was until he saw the others crowded around the dining table.

Campar had also opted for going shirtless. The skin at his chest and belly was swollen, and half a dozen small white blisters were forming to the left of his navel. Else, standing beside him, looked up at Tonner. Her eyes met his, and she shifted her weight like she was about to walk toward him. Tonner shook his head once. You don’t get to worry about me. She shifted back. If there was a little shame in her eyes, that was fine.

On the table, one of the Night Drinkers lay. The stink was its blood. Jessyn had begun with textbook cuts, pulling back the skin and tacking it to the tabletop. Unmade, the thing looked less like a monkey. Instead of a bony rib cage, there was a sheath of what looked like yellow cartilage with interleaved sections that could slide against each other. Its abdomen was taken up by a single, undifferentiated gray mass, but its chest underneath the cartilage sheaths was as complex as anything Tonner had ever seen.

“Look at this gas exchange system,” Jessyn said, lifting a pinkish organ with a fork. “That’s got to be a gas exchange system, right? Look at it.”

“Unidirectional,” Rickar said. “Either they have a terrifically inefficient metabolism, or they’re used to a low-oxygen environment.”

“What reeks like last week’s salad?” Tonner said, stepping up to the table. The Night Drinker’s blood had run over the edge of the table.

“Its gut contents make it look like an herbivore,” Jessyn said. “Which, weird, I would’ve thought those were obligate carnivore teeth.”

Tonner scratched his chin. He was a little dizzy. Maybe tired. Maybe bottoming out after his adrenaline rush. Maybe reacting to whatever noxious chemistry had been in the gel sacs. But along with it, he felt a rush of amusement and affection. The enemy had come, bent on murder. They’d broken into their home, assaulted them, and the first impulse of the team was to see what they could learn from it.

If they survived this alien hellscape, it would be because of this. Because in the face of trauma and violence, what they wanted first was to know, to understand. He stepped away, found the cup. The red fluid hadn’t spilled. When he gestured to Jessyn, she came over reluctantly. Her attention was on the dissection. When he put the cup in her hand, she frowned her confusion.

“Once a day,” he said. “I’d probably take it with food, at least at first. I think the rest of it’s inert, but might want to give it a cushion all the same.”

Understanding went through her slowly. Tears welled in her eyes, but she only nodded once and said, “Thank you for this.”

“Back on your feet in no time,” he said, and they both chuckled at the absurdity of it all.

“Tonner? Have a look.” Campar had moved away from the table—probably not the dining table anymore, not after this—and to the kitchen sink.

“How are you?”

“I itch,” Campar said. “I’ve itched before. As long as my skin doesn’t all necrotize in the next day or two, I’ll call it a victory. What does this look like to you?”

In the sink, nestled beside the drain, one of the gel sacs lay. It reminded him of when he’d been young and dissolved all the calcium off a duck’s egg by soaking it in vinegar. All that was left was the membrane, thick enough to hold the egg together and thin enough to see through. That wasn’t what Campar meant. It took a few seconds to get to the thought the big man had already had.

“It’s a berry,” Tonner said. “It’s one of the berries.”

“I think it is,” Campar said.

“That’s not a surprise, is it? They’re the rival team. They’re going to have a bunch of the same things we do. Or things that are analogous. The specimens are going to match up.”

“Yes, but where we made it into a little pharmaceutical printer, they made a bioweapon.” Campar’s smile was wide and slow. He was waggling his eyebrows. Tonner didn’t get it.

And then he did.

He looked at the pale little blob. When Night Drinkers thought of something deadly, something to erase their enemies, they made bombs. When the bombs weren’t enough, they made this. They made it out of the same raw materials that Tonner had, and they’d left a sample.

“All right,” he said. “Jessyn? When you’re done poking through that mess over there, throw it out, and come check the sampler and the imager. We may have knocked them around a little. If they’re out of true, we’ll need to tare them again.” He took a breath. Steeled himself. “Dafyd, if you and Campar could gather up as much of the gooey crap from the walls and floor as you can get. We may not need it, but we also might. Else. If you could take this sac and prep what’s in it for the imager. I had a couple runs I’m going to need to put on ice. We have three projects now. Turtle food. Pharmaceutical production. Weapons testing. We need to run them simultaneously, so I hope you all enjoy juggling.”

To his surprise and pleasure, they chuckled. Even Synnia, who didn’t take joy in much anymore. Even Else, who had been his lover once, and wasn’t anymore. Dafyd had the good sense not to push back with a counterplan of his own. Maybe Tonner was being paranoid that he’d assumed that he would.

“How long has it been since you rested?” Jessyn asked. It took Tonner a couple seconds to focus on her. He really was spent. But…

“I wouldn’t be able to,” he said. “Let’s get to work.”