Chapter 3
Varsul has made a mistake, and I bet he doesn’t even know it.
Like a drowning person, I cling to this certainty for the next few hours. I shower for about three hours until I feel clean again. For once in my life, I don’t care about wasting valuable resources. My skin is burning, and my fingers and toes are all shriveled, but I am myself again.
I lie in my bed and stare at the ceiling, trying to ignore Varsul’s cinnamon stink. It still clings to the bedding. There are exactly two things right now that are preventing me from losing it completely. Khazaar is alive. I heard his voice. Second, I now know that not only can I float bodiless through the ship (provided I can somehow get out of this damn room), but I can also slip into someone else’s body and force him to do my will. Showing me how to do this was a mistake. A mistake that will cost him his life, I swear to myself. His arrogance will be the death of him.
I hash out plans, then discard them again, and then dream of revenge. And of a reunion with my beloved, who is being held prisoner somewhere on this ship. There must be a way to find him and set him free! What I will do after that rescue, I have no idea. The plan I finally settle on is not especially sophisticated. But at least I have a plan, I console myself, before I fall into a restless sleep.
When the door opens the next morning, I am awake and ready.
Before I slip out of my body, I give quick thanks to a distant God who may, or may not, have forgotten all about me. I give thanks for the regularity of my daily routine. The Sethari who brings me my daily ration of food and drink is an exceptionally hideous specimen. Apparently, they don’t consider me to be particularly dangerous, for he is not the sharpest tool in the shed. His eyes are dull, and he perceives little that doesn’t pertain directly to his chores. He doesn’t speak to me. Instead, he sets the tray down on a small table by the door. He is my chance to get out of this cage.
When he turns his back to me to leave, I move my spirit towards him. I force myself to get as close as possible to him, even though I loathe his hideous form. I only have a few seconds to figure out how to get into his body. I have replayed the moment when Varsul slipped into me over and over again in my head. It was his willpower that gave him access to my body.
I am so desperate that I literally go for broke and throw myself on him. For a second, I can see and feel what it looks like inside him. The shock of being in the brain of a Sethari, though just for a split second, throws me right back out of him.
As I am lying on my bed, gasping for air, the door closes and he disappears, as if nothing had happened.
The shock turns into a feeling of triumph, and I savor every drop of it. Tomorrow, I will be better prepared, I tell myself. I can do this. This thought alone makes everything else tolerable, even the wait for the door to open, and for Varsul to appear again.
The next day can’t come soon enough. I spare myself the nightly ritual of trying to escape my room, and instead gather my strength for my second attempt.
This time, when I slip into the Sethari, I am ready. Instinctively, I hide in a dark corner of his brain, and make myself invisible. When the door closes behind my keeper, I want to shout my triumph from the rooftops, but that would be a mistake. I can feel the alien’s dull consciousness squirm. He even smacks himself in the head a few times as his feet trot down the hallway. He is weaving back and forth, as if he were carrying something unusually heavy. One of his mates comes towards us, and says something in the click- and hiss-sounding language of the Sethari. I understand him! He orders Shazuul, that is my Sethari’s name, to bring food to the prisoners, and to empty their fecal buckets. I can feel Shazuul’s dull resentment, just like he can, and I can feel his disgust at the thought of having to move human waste from one place to another. He wonders if he couldn’t get one of the women to carry the buckets in his place.
This is my chance. Softly and almost tenderly, I whisper to him what a wonderful idea that is. After all, somebody like him, such a strong Sethari, shouldn’t have to do the work of a servant. Then I pull back into my hiding place and concentrate on not getting sick. It’s not that easy in an ungainly body like his. He staggers back and forth, as if he were on a ship at high sea, and moves deeper into the belly of the huge spaceship. The further I follow my pack mule into the interior of the ship, the darker it gets. The air stinks of urine and worse. I know that we are nearing the wing where the prisoners are being held.
It is deadly silent. The cells are small, and each one is jam-packed with women and … the servants of the Qua’Hathri. Varsul used them and then betrayed them, it seems to me, otherwise why would his accomplices be behind bars, too? I tuck this thought away, until a time when I can use it, and wander further down the hallway with Shazuul. Every now and then, one of his flabby limbs swipes at the bars, and the prisoners who are awake, shrink back as far as possible. All of them avoid his eyes, hold their heads down, and make themselves as small as possible. This tells me more than I ever wanted to know about how they are being treated.
At last we reach the end of the hallway. We cast a glance into the cell at the end, and I feel Shazuul’s satisfaction – no, it’s more than that. He is shouting for joy inside at seeing the Sethari-killer chained and helpless.
Khazaar. My heart jumps so hard that it almost throws me out of this unfamiliar body, but I manage to hang on to my pack mule with considerable effort. His exuberant feeling of triumph makes it easier than I would have thought to stay invisible. Everything in me draws me to the man whose face looks dead in the sparse light. He is pale and his cheek bones protrude sharply, as if he hasn’t eaten in several days. The blue-green shadows under his eyes and the deep wrinkles at the corners of his mouth proclaim as clearly as if someone had said it out loud, that he is not doing well.
At that moment, he opens his eyes.
Shazuul makes a noise that is something between a howl of fear and a sardonic laugh. For a split second, Khazaar’s pale gold eyes meet mine, and he shakes his head imperceptibly when I try to move towards him. Even though it is incredibly difficult, I obey. Shazuul snakes one of his arms through the bars, and punches Khazaar in the ribs. I can barely stand the dull smack the pliable Sethari-arm makes against Khazaar’s body. Khazaar jumps up and in an instant, he is as close to the bars as his shackles will allow. His eyes flare with rage and reveal that even an imprisonment as miserable as this will not be enough to break him.
Soon, he whispers in my head. You need to find another vessel. This one here doesn’t have a key to my cell. My proud warrior has already sunk back onto the blankets that serve as his bed on the cold floor.
I make myself small, as Shazuul turns back, highly satisfied with himself. You are a strong warrior I whisper in his head. You did that really well. Nobody else holds a candle to you when it comes to courage and bravery. He puffs out his chest, and gets a spring in his step. He focuses his attention on the other side of the hallway. I recognize several of Khazaar’s warriors. They are lying unconscious on the ground without moving. I suspect they have been drugged. The Sethari and Varsul must fear them more than they would like us to believe.
Shazuul decides on an amazon-like blonde and a redhead to do the nasty work with the feces for him. To open the cell doors, he has to enter an eight-digit code. After two times, I have it memorized. Brutally, he pulls the women out and shows them, in no uncertain terms, what is expected of them. They understand quickly what he wants them to do. The amazon hesitates for a second before getting to work and pulling the overflowing bucket from her cell. I can plainly see her thinking about opposing the alien. At the same time, I know that Shazuul feels this, too, and is looking forward to it. His superiors have strictly forbidden him from feeding on the prisoners, but if she defied his orders … well, a small energy nibble would surely go unnoticed, and she is practically crackling with suppressed feelings…
Before I can react, everything happens at once. The blond amazon flings one of the buckets at the Sethari. He dodges it gracefully. I have never seen an alien of his race be that graceful. He releases his sucking snout. While the stinking contents of the bucket pour out on to the floor, he bores his snout into the woman’s unprotected neck and drinks like he never wants it to end. She falls on her knees, and her eyes flare in victory.
She wants to die. She has given up all hope.
In vain, the redhead tries to remove the sucking snout from the blonde’s soft skin. I would have never guessed that she would have that much courage. She creates the diversion I need to suggest an enough to Shazuul. I don’t know if I am doing the amazon any favors. The sight of her reminds me, more clearly than ever, that we all need to flee this place, and as soon as possible.
The feces have been forgotten, and Shazuul burps, satisfied. He orders the redhead to carry her fellow sufferer back into the cell. When they are both back inside, he re-enters the code, and the doors close.
One thing gives me cause for concern.
While the doors were open, none of the other women tried to escape.