Juno was a large-vehicle restricted world, which meant they had to land at the spaceport and walk from there. Before they left the ship, Shad handed her a large, pink pill and a squeeze-bulb of flat-tasting water to wash it down with.
“Translation bacteria,” he explained when Harper looked at it dubiously. “So you can understand what people are saying, even when they’re talking in a foreign language.”
“What about you?” she demanded. “Are you going to take one too?”
He shook his head. “Don’t need it.”
“You can speak all languages in the galaxy with no help?”
“Most of them.” He shrugged. “I’m Kindred.”
As though that explained everything.
He also gave her an oversized black t-shirt—obviously one of his.
“Put it on,” he said gruffly. “You’ll attract too much attention in that.”
Harper looked down at the thin red dress, the silky material molding itself to her full, braless breasts, and blushed a little. Then again, why should she feel ashamed? He had given her this to wear himself, after forcing her to strip off the perfectly modest sundress and cardigan she’d been wearing at the beach. It wasn’t her fault the clothes he’d picked were too sexy.
Still, she pulled on the t-shirt without comment. It was far too big, of course. She knotted it on one side, trying to make herself look less like a rag-bag.
Shad pulled on a t-shirt also, as well as a battered leather jacket. Then he reconsidered and took off the jacket, handing it to her instead.
“Here—it’s supposed to be cold out there.”
“How cold?” Harper asked. “Because that is way too big for me.”
“Just put it on,” he said roughly. “Don’t want you getting sick on me.”
It didn’t seem worth fighting about. Harper put on the jacket and tried her best to roll up the sleeves. It weighed about a ton and smelled like him—the same dark, masculine spice she’d been surrounded by in the strange flash she’d had. Harper tried to ignore it—the scent seemed to do…funny things to her insides.
“How far are we from the, uh, forger’s shop?” she asked. She didn’t mind walking—it was her favorite form of exercise and the little black ballet flats he’d given her to wear were reasonably comfortable. But she hoped it wasn’t going to be miles and miles of trudging through a big, dirty alien city.
Then again, what did she know? The city might be beautifully clean and gorgeous. But considering the impossibly tall smokestacks which belched both orange smoke and pink and purple sparks and the dense smog they’d flown through during the landing, she doubted it.
“It won’t be far if we can get a ride on a v-copter,” Shad said, frowning. “That shouldn’t be hard—I’ve got plenty of credit—all that was left in the Mother Ship’s interstellar account after it blew. It’s getting out of the space-port without paying the tax to the Controller that’s going to be tricky.”
“But if you have plenty of, uh, credit, why do you want to avoid paying the tax?” Harper protested.
“Let’s hope you don’t have to find out,” Shad said darkly and refused to say more. Instead, he opened the door to the small ship and motioned for her to step out. “Just stay close to me,” he told her sternly when they were both standing on the smooth, indigo platform where they were parked. “Remember, Harper—the past resists change. I’ll protect you with my life but if there’s a way for you to die, the forces of inertia will find it.”
Harper nodded and swallowed.
“I understand.” She might have taken offense at his man-splaining, but she had no wish to die again, even though she couldn’t remember all the other deaths he’d described.
Their landing platform was located high off the ground—as were the others Harper could see around them. They radiated out from a central hub, like spokes on a giant wheel. Spaced evenly around the round inner platform Harper could see space craft of all kinds, from tiny ships that looked no bigger than a smart car back home to vast behemoths as big as mountains.
Their own platform, a single spoke in the giant wheel, stretched out over an endless void and there appeared to be some kind of elevator located at the end of it, beyond their ship. Harper expected they would head for it but instead, Shad led her further down the center strut of the landing platform, toward the middle of the vast wheel.
“Come on. The taxation officers will be waiting at the bottom of our transport lift. So we’re going to work our way around the central hub and try to come out with the crowd. That way we have less chance of getting taxed.”
Harper still didn’t understand why he wanted so badly to avoid paying the parking tax. If he really had unlimited credit, what difference would it make, no matter how expensive it was? But there didn’t seem to be any use in arguing. Silently, she followed him down the long spoke, which narrowed to only two feet wide, as they got closer and closer to the center.
She tried not to look down because they were extremely high up. She normally had very good balance—she’d had four years of gymnastics at her mother’s insistence before she’d given it up in high school to do drama instead—but she didn’t like looking down and seeing how far away the crowded space port was. She couldn’t even see what kind of people were down there—it was all just a colorful blur.
Shad kept a strong grip on her wrist which she supposed was probably a safety precaution, although it made her feel more like a naughty toddler who might run out into traffic than Harper liked to admit. She wanted to shake off his hand and tell him she was a grown-ass woman and could take care of herself. But the dizzying height they were at kept her from it.
They were almost to the hub of the wheel, which had a much larger elevator-looking thing in the center and was crowded with strange looking people and aliens, when Harper’s foot slipped, seemingly for no reason. It almost felt as though someone had tripped her or yanked at her ankle but there was nothing there.
That didn’t matter, though—whether she had a reason for it or not, she was still falling.
“Oh!” Her excellent balance deserted her and she felt herself tilting over the edge of the narrow indigo platform. A breathless scream left her lips and everything seemed to happen in slow motion.
“Harper, no!” Shad’s grip on her arm tightened until she felt the small bones in her wrist grinding together and then there was a jolt and she was hanging over the void, suspended by one arm. Her shoulder ached fiercely but that was the least of her problems right now.
The big Kindred was flat on his stomach, splayed out over the length of the long strut, holding her up with one hand.
“Shad?” She looked up at him, her heart racing with fear. Panic choked her like someone had shoved sawdust down her throat and she couldn’t seem to get a deep enough breath.
“It’s all right. I’ve got you. This is why I wanted to keep hold of you in the first place.” His deep voice was steady and reassuring. “Just stay still—I’ll pull you up.”
Harper wanted to ask if he could actually do that. After all, she owned her curves but there was no doubt she was a Big Beautiful Woman. Most of the men she’d dated wouldn’t have been able to lift her at all—let alone pull her out of the abyss with only one arm while balancing on a narrow platform over an endless void.
But Shad began lifting her easily enough, the biceps and triceps of his right arm flexing impressively as he raised her back up to the indigo spoke. Harper was just scrambling back onto solid ground when a thick, burbling voice that sounded like someone blowing bubbles through a straw spoke behind her.
“Sooo…I thought I felt a trip alarm go off.”
Harper turned so quickly she almost fell again. Only Shad’s hands on her waist steadied her.
Standing behind them—or rather floating—was a…something. It looked like an amorphous blue blob to Harper. It hovered in mid-air and bulged and twitched, its sides in constant motion.
“Trying to avoid paying the pain or pleasure tax, were you?” Little bubbles of red strobed through the dark blue blob as it spoke, as though they were a visual representation of its words. “My, my…I’m afraid the Controller won’t like that. Not a bit.”
“We weren’t avoiding the tax,” Shad said, sounding completely sincere. “The transport-lift at the end of our landing platform is malfunctioning. We were headed to the central hub to go down that way.”
“Well now you’ll go down this way,” the blob-being said.
Suddenly parts of its blue, blobby body broke off and two large blue bubbles floated towards them.
Harper gasped as the cold, slimy bubble enveloped her. She wanted to run but where to? The blob-guy (was he some kind of a customs agent?) was blocking their way to the middle part of the hub. And she certainly didn’t want to run on this damn slippery metal spoke. Not after almost plunging to her death just moments before.
“Shad?” she asked tightly as the bubble finished surrounding her and she felt herself lifted off the ground, her feet leaving the solid surface of the spoke for the second time in as many minutes.
“It’s all right,” he growled. “We’re just being transported, that’s all.”
“That’s all?” Harper exclaimed as the blue bubble surrounding her floated to one side and then began to drift slowly between the long spokes of the landing wheel and down into the colorful void below.
“Just don’t struggle. I’ll deal with the situation when we reach the bottom,” she heard him say and then their bubbles floated apart and she was completely alone.
The sides of the bubble were thin enough to see though—though Harper wished they weren’t. She didn’t like the feeling of floating downwards, supported only by the bubble. It was like falling in slow motion. Also, what if it popped? She didn’t like that idea one bit. She closed her eyes tightly, trying not to look.
Maybe this is all a dream. Maybe I’m actually back at the beach and I just fell asleep for a minute. In a little bit I’ll wake up and shake the sand off my skirt and go back to my car. I have to get back to work tomorrow. That Stevens account isn’t going to fix itself…
But deep down she knew it wasn’t a dream. It was too real—too vivid. When had she ever had a dream this crazy? And what about Shad? In her wildest imaginings, she couldn’t have made the big Kindred up. She wished they were in a bubble together. Even though he didn’t want her touching him, she felt sure he’d be willing to let her at least hold his arm through this frightening experience.
This last thought made Harper mad at herself.
Stop being such a damsel in distress, she lectured herself angrily. You’re an adult—you can take care of yourself. So act like it.
She forced herself to open her eyes again and look out the transparent blue side of the bubble as it floated gently downward. They were passing over a huge crowd of people all moving in more or less the same direction—maybe the space port exit? But “people” was definitely a relative term
There were plenty of humanoids—people who didn’t look that different from herself and Shad. But there were others too—other creatures? Beings? Harper wasn’t sure what to call them. Aliens maybe. Anyway, they were all shapes and sizes and colors. She saw several who looked like massive walking trees, their branches swaying as they moved with long, ponderous strides. Chattering and scampering from bough to bough, like lice living in a person’s hair, were tiny pink creatures that looked like a cross between a monkey and a raccoon.
At first she thought the tree people were in charge, but then she saw all the pink monkey-creatures hop on one particular branch and chatter in unison. Ponderously, the tree-creature they were on turned in that direction. This caused Harper to re-evaluate the situation.
Hmm—so the monkeys are in the driver’s seat. Interesting.
But there was much more of interest to see.
There were also people who seemed to be made of yellowish mud. They left a dirty trail behind them as they walked but small creatures with five legs and wide mouths filled with long wispy bristles followed at their heels, sucking up every last crumb of dirt and smear of mud as they scampered by.
Wow—vacuum cleaner dogs, Harper thought. Vacu-dogs. Weird.
Scattered throughout the strange crowd were more of the blobby entities. Were they security guards? Customs agents? Harper still wasn’t sure exactly what they were, but they drifted here and there, occasionally singling people out and bubbling them up, as she and Shad had been bubbled. The bubbles drifted away, apparently directed by the blobbies—which were all the same dark blue as the one who had caught them.
Harper wanted to stop the bubble and stare at the strange people and creatures—she could swear she saw someone with a man’s body and the head of a gorgeous moonlight-colored unicorn—but her bubble drifted up again, over a tall wall which separated her from the seething crowds, cutting off her view.
She was in darkness now, which made her nervous. Darkness lit only by occasional beams of light, like spotlights, although Harper couldn’t make out what they were fixed on. From the corner of her eye she saw one of the lights flicker over a blue shape—Shad’s bubble was moving in tandem with her own. Good—at least wherever she was going, she wasn’t going there alone. But when and where would this weird bubble ride end?
Her question was answered when the bubble around her burst abruptly, spilling her onto a hard, slick floor that felt like it might be made of glass.
“Oof!” She landed on her side, on the shoulder where Shad had cut out her Hive tracker and licked her afterwards. It had been nearly healed—perhaps by some agent in his saliva? Could Kindred heal like that? But now it opened again and Harper felt the warm trickle of blood running down her arm under the black t-shirt and heavy leather jacket Shad had given her to wear.
Great—just what I needed. Where am I anyway? And where’s Shad?
“Harper?” His deep voice calling out of the darkness was a welcome sound.
“Here!” She groped for him and found his muscular arm under her hand.
“Stay with me and don’t move.” He took her by the wrist again but Harper shook free.
“Stop that! Can’t you at least hold my hand this time? I’m not some naughty child you can drag around by the wrist or the arm,” she exclaimed.
“Fine.” Shad took her hand in his but he didn’t entwine their fingers, only firmly gripped her palm in his much larger one. Harper couldn’t help feeling like he was holding her hand in the most impersonal way possible—as though he could barely stand to touch her. What was wrong with him? Why did he dislike her so much? And how did his attitude fit with the strange flashes she kept having where he was entirely different?
There was no time to answer any of her questions because the floating blue blob who had captured them in the first place suddenly came into view as a spotlight from above was trained on it.
“Well now, Verlex number nine-seventeen,” a deep, somehow muddy voice spoke from out of the darkness. “What have you brought me today? It had better be good.”
“Fugitives trying to escape the pleasure/pain tax, oh Controller,” burbled the blob and Harper thought his voice sounded like someone blowing bubbles in milk with a straw.
“My, my…let’s just see what we have.”
Suddenly a brilliant white spotlight was trained on Harper and Shad, blinding them. At least Harper felt blinded. She gasped and shaded her eyes, which had almost gotten used to the dim lighting, wincing against the painful brilliance.
“Well, well…interesting. Very interesting,” the thick, muddy voice mused. “A Kindred and a female of undetermined origin.”
“I thought they would be to your taste, my Controller,” the blob burbled. “And thus should pay the tax.”
“Indeed they are. Kindred, I thought most of your kind were dead,” the voice said.
“Some of us yet live,” Shad growled. He was standing half in front of Harper, shielding her protectively while keeping her hand firmly in his.
“And this female…she is quite lovely. So…exotic,” the thick voice went on. “Where are you from, my dear?” he asked Harper.
“A planet called Earth,” Harper answered, not knowing what else to say. “Uh, you’ve probably never heard of it.”
“No, but if it produces beauties like yourself I may need to learn more about it,” the voice of the Controller said. “So—which one of you will pay the tax?”
“Well, I don’t have any money,” Harper began. “But—”
“Oh, credit is not what I require,” interrupted the voice of the Controller. “No, what I want is to taste you—to taste your pain or pleasure. In your case, my dear, I assure you it would be pleasure.”
Something came out of the darkness then. Something long and slimy and horribly agile. Before Harper could duck out of the way, it slid up the side of her face, leaving a light coating of slime on her cheek before sliding away into the darkness.
“Ugh!” she gasped and scrubbed reflexively at her cheek. She felt the same way she would have if a big, hairy spider had just walked over her flesh. Disgusting!
“Delicious,” the Controller murmured. “I cannot wait to taste you more…deeply, my dear.”
“Do that again and you die.” Shad pushed her behind him and stood with his legs braced, glaring into the darkness. “Harper is mine—I will not allow anyone to molest her.”
“If you refuse me the pleasure of tasting your female then I fear I must taste you instead, Kindred.” The muddy voice of the Controller had grown hard. “And I promise you will not enjoy that.”
“Show yourself!” Shad demanded. “You make threats while cloaked in darkness like a coward!”
There was an angry hissing sound from the darkness and suddenly all the lights came on at once.
Harper gasped and blinked. Looking around her, she found she was in a huge, square room with ceilings that were cathedral-high. She and Shad were standing on a glossy black floor about ten feet by ten feet which was surrounded by deep channels that formed a kind of square moat around them. Flowing through these channels, on all four sides was something bright green that shimmered and pulsed. It looked to Harper like living Jell-O.
But the Jell-O moat only drew her attention for a moment. In front of them, across the nearest channel, was a mountainous creature which seemed to be made entirely of brownish-black slime. It had wide yellow eyes as big as softballs and it was lying reclined on some kind of couch while the blue blobby customs agent who had brought them there floated nearby.
This must be the Controller.
As Harper watched, it opened a yawning, toothless mouth, and something black and slimy wiggled out, like a snake or a worm seeking blindly for prey. The thing came to a blunt point and dripped slime on the shiny black tiles as it extended easily nine feet from the Controller’s lipless maw.
It’s tongue—that’s what touched me! What slimed me!
Disgust so deep it nearly nauseated her twisted her stomach into a fist. For a moment Harper honestly thought she might be sick.
“Ugh,” she gasped again, her hand curling into a fist inside Shad’s. “What is it?”
“The Controller is the supreme being—the keeper of the gateway from the space port to the rest of Juno,” burbled the blue blob. “If you wish to enter the city and partake of the many delights our planet has to offer, you must pay his tax.”
“Verlex number nine-seventeen speaks the truth,” the Controller snarled in his thick, muddy voice. “And my tax must be paid now!”
Suddenly Harper felt something at her back. Turning her head, she saw that a thick pole, the same color and consistency of the shiny black tiles beneath their feet, was shooting up behind her. Before she could exclaim, the top of it had reached the vaulted ceiling overhead and small, shiny black tendrils began to grow from the pole’s sides. These curled like vines around her wrists and ankles. Her hand was torn from Shad’s grip and her arms were fixed above her head in an unbreakable grip. At the same time, her legs were dragged apart and more of the shiny black vines started lifting her dress.
She gasped as her dress and the t-shirt she wore were pulled up to her chin, leaving her naked and struggling, pinned to the cold black pole behind her. Her thighs were spread wide and since she had no bra or panties on, everything was completely on display.
“Now, my dear,” the Controller burbled in his slime-choked voice. “Simply submit to my tasting for a few moments and the two of you can go and explore the city. I assure you, I will bring you only pleasure when I part your nether lips with my tongue and stroke inside you.”
“The hell you will!” Harper shouted, fear and rage lending strength to her voice. “Keep away from me, you bastard! I don’t want any part of you anywhere near me!”
Her protests did no good. The Controller only gave her a wide, yawning grin and the horribly long, slimy tongue slid out of his mouth again. Black and dripping with unspeakable ooze, it headed right for her.
“No!” All this time Shad had been trying to free her. But though his muscles bulged, he was unable to break any of the shiny black vines holding her to the pole. To Harper, they felt like some kind of solid, living metal.
She felt something slimy against her leg and shrieked breathlessly. Looking down, she saw that the blunt, dripping tip of the Controller’s tongue was sliding up her inner thigh.
“Seven Hells!” Shad growled. He abandoned his quest to free her and reached down to seize the dripping tongue instead, no doubt meaning to yank it away from her.
But the moment his fingers made contact, there was a sizzling sound and he shouted and jerked away. There were red marks on his hand which looked like they’d been made by a hot iron where he’d touched the slimy thing.
“You see?” The Controller sounded smug, though how he could talk, let alone sound like a smug asshole with his tongue hanging out of his mouth, was beyond Harper. “My taste-touch gives pleasure to those whom I deem worthy…and pain to those who deserve it. Now step back, Kindred, and allow me to pleasure your female. In just a moment it will all be over—your tax will be paid and you can leave.”
Harper felt sick with disgust. Was this her fate? To be tongue-raped by this slimy bastard while she was tied to the black metal pole, spread-eagle and helpless?
“No!” she shouted. “No!”
“Don’t worry, sweetheart.” Shad faced her and pressed himself against her, his broad chest crushing her bare breasts as he wrapped his arms around the pole she was pinned to. One leather-clad knee came between her thighs, pressing hard against her open pussy and blocking the slimy tongue from licking her exposed sex.
“Ah!” Harper gasped at the unexpected contact. It was uncomfortable but she had to admit it was about a thousand times better than letting the oily tongue of the Controller penetrate her.
“Be still,” Shad growled, looking down at her, his opalescent eyes burning. “I won’t let him taste you—I swear it, Harper. Trust me.”
“I…I just…” She shivered and shifted her hips, but that increased the pressure of his knee against her clit, shooting a bolt of unwelcome pleasure through her entire body.
“Be still,” he repeated and there was a look of grim determination on his face.
There was an angry hiss and Harper looked over the big Kindred’s broad shoulder to see that the Controller’s huge eyes, formerly yellow, were now shaded an angry reddish-orange.
“You will regret this, Kindred,” he declared. “One of you must pay the tax and if it is you, I swear it will be a tax of pain and not pleasure.”
“Do your worst,” Shad growled over his shoulder. “I don’t fear you.”
“You should!”
The tongue whipped out suddenly, landing like a lash across the big Kindred’s broad back.
Shad grunted and stiffened and Harper saw a wisp of smoke rising from the place where the tongue had struck across his shoulders. The tongue lashed out again…and then again… Shad’s black t-shirt was in the way but that didn’t seem to matter. The acidic slime of the Controller’s tongue was burning its way through the fabric to reach the vulnerable flesh below, making him jerk with each blow, though he never left his post.
“Shad!” Harper exclaimed when she realized what was happening. “Oh, no—oh no, no, no!”
“I’m…fine.” Shad seemed to force the words out. His jaw was clenched and his eyes were slitted in pain but he bore the beating stoically, though beads of sweat popped out on his forehead.
For me—he’s doing this for me, Harper realized. He’s taking the pain so I don’t have to let this slimy bastard lick me all over.
She was simultaneously grateful and horrified. She wasn’t tall enough to look down his back and see what the damage was, but from the rising wisps of smoke and the scent of burning flesh, she had a sinking feeling it was going to be extensive.
“Shad,” she whispered. “Shad, please…I don’t…don’t want you getting hurt like this for me.”
“Fine,” he ground out. “I said…I’m fine. Over…in a…minute.”
Harper hoped so. As big and strong as he was, she wasn’t sure how much of this he could take. For a moment his eyes rolled up in his head and then he shook himself, making a visible effort to return to consciousness and remain at his post. God, this was horrible!
“Stop it!” she shouted over the big Kindred’s shoulder. “Stop it, you slimy bastard—you said your tax was pain, not death. You’ll kill him if you keep this up. Stop!”
She found that she was crying but she didn’t know when she had started. How had the situation gotten so desperate so quickly? Was this another symptom of the past refusing to be changed? If either of them died the time-loop would reset, at least according to Shad. Was that about to happen now? But this was their last chance—he’d said so. Was this going to be the end of their effort to change history right here and now?
But at last the Controller seemed to get tired of his literal tongue lashing. With a snap, he rolled the long, slimy tongue back into his mouth and the beating ceased.
Shad gave a groan of relief and sagged against her.
“Gods,” Harper heard him mutter. “Gods.”
“Your tax is paid.” The Controller didn’t sound very happy about it but at least the living metal vines which bound Harper’s arms and legs relaxed their grip on her. They let her go just in time for her to catch Shad, who was sagging to his knees.
He was too heavy for her to hold up. Quickly, she lowered him to the floor, pulled down her dress, and bent to examine his back. What she saw made her bite her lip to keep from cursing or crying out.
The black t-shirt was in shreds and tatters, singed almost completely away as though by a hot branding iron. The skin of Shad’s back was a mass of criss- crossing burns and welts that looked like they’d been made by a fiery whip. There was no blood but in places his flesh had been burned nearly to the bone—the wounds cauterized by the terrible heat.
Harper stared at him in pity and horror. Why would he endure this for her? When he didn’t even like her? If the Controller had licked her instead of Shad, it would have been disgusting and she would have felt violated but she wouldn’t have come out of the experience half-dead with third degree burns.
I shouldn’t have let him do this for me, she thought, filled with remorse. Shouldn’t have let him sacrifice himself like this.
Guilt and fury filled her and she glared at the evil being who had inflicted such pain on the big Kindred.
“Hey, asshole!” she shouted at the Controller, who was still reclining on his couch, looking smug. “You can’t just do this—can’t just scar people like this for life! What gives you the right to permanently damage him for your fucking tax?”
She was really angry—she usually tried not to drop the F-bomb. Her mom hated it. But it slipped out when she was pissed off and right now Harper felt like she would happily strangle the slimy bastard with his own disgusting tongue if she got a chance.
“Who said anything about permanent damage? I only tasted his pain.” The Controller ran out his oily black tongue and licked his lipless mouth, as though to capture the last faint traces of Shad’s agony.
“Look at him!” Harper exclaimed. “He’s out cold! You gave him freaking third-degree burns all over his back, you big slimy asshole!”
The Controller looked bored. “The healing t’xl gel in the channels around you will take care of any damage. Use it if you wish but hurry—I have others waiting to pay the tax.”
“Healing what gel?” Harper demanded.
“Here.” The blue blob Customs Agent the Controller had called Verlex number nine-seventeen, had floated silently to one side during the whipping. Now it flew past her and hovered over the bright-green Jell-O looking stuff which flowed in the square moat that surrounded them.
Harper made certain Shad was still breathing and then went over to the edge of the moat.
“You want me to put that stuff on his back?” she asked, looking down at the thick, twitching gel.
“If you wish him to heal.” If blobs could shrug, this one did, only it was more of a ripple which ran through his blue, blobby body. Clearly it didn’t matter to him if Shad was healed or not.
Of course he doesn’t care. He’s not a Customs Agent or a guard—he’s just a pimp who goes out and finds people he thinks the Controller will like to pay his fucking tax.
Well, it mattered a hell of a lot to Harper. It was on her account that Shad had been so horribly wounded in the first place. Carefully she drew back the arm of the too-large leather jacket, which she was still wearing, and dipped her hand into the bright green gel.
The sensation wasn’t at all what she expected. Rather than being slimy and wet, like the Controller’s tongue, the green Jell-O stuff felt powdery and dry in the palm of her hand. It came away cleanly without making drips or drops and she carried it carefully over to where Shad lay sprawled, face down on the floor.
“Just…put it on his back?” she asked, talking to the blue blob rather than the Controller. She had no more to say to that sadistic dick.
“Yes,” Verlex number nine-seventeen said with another rippling shrug.
“Will it hurt? Will it sting?” Harper asked anxiously. She didn’t want to give Shad even more pain on top of the awful agony the big Kindred had already experienced.
“Doesn’t matter… if it does.” The deep, hoarse voice surprised her. She looked down and saw that he was conscious, his jaw gritted with pain.
“Shad?” she asked uncertainly.
“Just put it on,” he instructed. “Can’t hurt…worse than it already does.”
Harper would have liked to dip a finger in the gel and try a little out first but when she tried, she found it was impossible. The bright green glob in her hand seemed determined to stay together.
With a sigh, she decided there was nothing else she could do but just put it on, as Shad had requested. Wincing in sympathy for his pain, she lowered her hand and tipped the contents gently onto the center of his broad back.
She was prepared to spread it gently over his back with the tips of her fingers but she didn’t have to. The green gel at once began spreading over Shad’s wounded and charred flesh of its own volition, covering every area which had been hurt or burned.
Looks like bright green jelly being spread by an invisible knife, Harper thought, half-hysterically. The thought made her want to laugh but when she opened her mouth, a sob came out instead. She clamped her lips closed, not wanting to hear that sound come out of herself again.
Shad gave a low groan but when she looked at him anxiously, she saw it was a groan of relief, not more pain. To her surprise, the green gel seemed to be healing him instantly. The charred, burned lines on his back began to knit together until the flesh was smooth except for a few white lines that looked like years-old scars.
At last the green gel finished its job. Then, as easily as it had spread itself out, it gathered itself into a ball and rolled off Shad’s broad back. Harper watched in surprise as it rolled across the black, shiny surface of the floor and plopped back into the moat that surrounded them. Apparently it felt its job was done and, looking at Shad’s now-healed back, she had to admit it was right.
“Ahh…” The big Kindred sat up, flexing his shoulders experimentally.
“Better?” Harper asked anxiously. “It certainly looks better. Although I’m afraid you’re going to have scars.”
“Feels better too. And I don’t care about scars.” He nodded and got to his feet. “Ready to go?”
“What? Just like that?” Harper was still angry—spoiling for revenge. She was ready to jump the green moat and kick the Controller in his balls—if she could find them under all that slime, that was.
Shad seemed to understand her feelings because he shook his head.
“Nothing we can do—we had to pay the tax,” he said shortly. “If you try to get revenge, he’ll only do something worse.”
Harper could hardly imagine anything worse than the beating slash burning she’d just witnessed but at last, reluctantly, she nodded.
“All right. How do we get out of here?”
“This way. All who pay the tax are given free passage out of the space port.” Verlex number nine-seventeen floated towards them and once more they were enveloped in transparent blue bubbles.
Here we go again, Harper thought. She wondered where they would end up next and hoped it wouldn’t be as awful as what they’d just been through. Although she had only had to watch it—Shad was the one who had actually borne the pain.
Why had he done it? Why had he taken her pain when he disliked her so much he only touched her when it was absolutely necessary and he seemed to have almost nothing to say to her? Letting the Controller lick her wouldn’t have reset the time-loop so it couldn’t have affected their mission. So why would he bother?
Harper still had no answers and considering how closed-mouth the big Kindred was, she didn’t know if she would ever get them.