Chapter 9
Ruthiel is standing at the window, looking out at the dark universe, deep in thought.
He doesn’t even try to acknowledge my entrance into the lab. He just keeps staring out the window. The next thing I see, is Johar’s lifeless body lying on a stretcher. He is covered by a white sheet up to his neck. His facial expression is peaceful, which just makes him appear to be dead even more. It takes all of my strength to keep myself from running to him, and pushing the button on his neck, again, that will turn him back into my beloved. Right now, he really is just a mixture of a shut-down machine and organs that have been put to sleep. I love him more than ever, but I need to pull myself together, if I am going to save him. I can’t show any weakness in front of my father, and need to be careful. For that reason, I pull the sheet up so it covers my cyborg’s face, too.
“What do you want?” I ask my father, and stand next to him.
“You,” he answers, and turns his eyes away from the answers he was looking for in the universe, but couldn’t find. “You are, after all, the one with the telepathic abilities. It isn’t your little Sethari friend who can read minds. Tell me, was it the virus?”
I just nod. “How long have you known?”
He waves me off with a casual gesture that enrages me. “Immediately, basically. You aren’t the only one who is playing both sides. I may not have a beautiful body that I can use to drive up the price, but I have money. And most men will do anything for money.”
“I didn’t sell my body,” I defend myself, appalled.
Ruthiel raises his cushy eyebrows. “Oh, no? Are you telling me you didn’t seduce Johar in order to reach your goals?”
“No,” I burst out, “it wasn’t like that.” But Ruthiel can hear the doubt in my voice, and a narrow smile appears on his face.
“It’s okay, Mara,” he says. He sounds like a tolerant father, forgiving his daughter a youthful indiscretion. “I wanted to see how far you would go, and you just went further than I would have thought possible.” He grins and his face looks like a skull covered in skin with crazy, flickering eyes. “You did well.”
“Everything went according to plan,” I say flatly. “Everything. From beginning to end. You tested me, and you tested Johar’s loyalty. And now, you also have Cassie Burnett and her children.”
“There can only be one winner,” my father says patronizingly. “Don’t worry about it. If you pick the right side, then you can still have a future.”
“What will happen to Cassie and her children?”
“They will remain in my custody,” he answers without any emotion in his voice. “That is non-negotiable.” I listen up. If the woman’s fate isn’t negotiable, as he put it, then there must be things, in contrast, that are.
“What will you give me in exchange for my full cooperation?” I know what working with Ruthiel means for me. I will have to submit to an endless series of long tests, and I will be cut open. He will take my blood, scan me from head to toe, and examine my brain. When Ruthiel finds out which part of my body is responsible for being able to read minds, then he will reproduce that part and implant it in others, in hopes of raising an army of telepathically capable warriors and spies. I think of Johar. And Shazuul. Of “Justice for all.” And know that I will never be able to stand by and watch my father use them and then get rid of them.
“I want freedom for Johar and Shazuul,” I demand. “You will drop them off on Earth, together with a functioning space ship. You will let them go wherever they want to, and won’t stand in their way.” I close my eyes and jump right into my father’s head without stopping. I want him to know that I am there, and dig around in his thoughts with abandon. Before I put myself in his hands, I need to be sure that he is being sincere. I feel like I am wading in mud, because Ruthiel’s thoughts are tough and sticky. I can’t find what I am looking for, and after a while, I am overwhelmed by a suffocating feeling. I tear myself away and slip back into my own head.
“No problem,” Ruthiel says. “I see that you didn’t mention Hazathel, so you know that he is my informant.” That explains why Hazathel prevented Johar from finding Cassie’s husband. I wonder if he knew that he was also sealing her fate by doing so? I don’t think my father would have gambled with her life that recklessly – at least not until he had examined her every atom.
Ruthiel is looking at me with an absurd pride, when I finally look up at him, but I also notice something else. Why has he not mentioned that I was just reading his mind, even if they basically consist of impenetrable slime?
I repeat the procedure again, for a second (I won’t stay longer than three seconds, this time), but the result is the same. He just keeps looking at me expectantly. He didn’t notice that I was reading his mind! I command my heart to stay calm, in light of the possibilities that come to mind. There has to be a solution to all of my problems, one where I can put this new information to good use!
Back to the present. My thoughts are racing around in my head. “You will drop them off on Earth tomorrow morning,” I demand. “After that, I am yours.”
He thinks for a moment, and then shakes his head. “Surely you don’t think I’m that gullible. First, we will do one test run, no – three test runs, during which you will demonstrate your abilities. Should the results meet my expectations, I will fulfill your demands.” Ruthiel looks at me. At this moment, I am almost thankful for two things: first that I have spent so much time at his side. He is hiding something from me, and I can see it clearly on his face. And second, I am also thankful that he doesn’t know how I apply my telepathy. I sneak over to him, and there is his plan, hidden under a pulsating layer of dirt. I see what I theoretically should have known, even without reading his mind: he isn’t going to meet any of my demands. My hatred for him threatens to overcome me, when I find something that makes my breath catch. I dig deeper, reach for his thought and pull it out.
My father is a sneaky bastard. He himself created the mysterious organization, to which Johar and the other “resistance fighters” committed themselves. It was nothing other than a pitiful experiment with which he hoped to find out how suppressed creatures develop, as soon as they get a sniff of freedom. In this way, he was able to observe, in a controlled setting, how they changed. The pleasant side-effect of being able to test his employees’ loyalty, was, of course, an added bonus.
At this moment, I blow all of my fuses. I can’t explain it any other way, but I get so furious that the world around me bursts into flames. I stomp, scratch and bite into my father’s thoughts. I want him to feel me. I reach for his memories and twist them, until a loud cry from his mouth throws me back into my body. I see Ruthiel, on his knees. At the last moment, I let go. Two seconds longer, and would have been nothing more than a slobbering pile of misery. He deserves to die, but I can’t kill him. I just can’t.
I wipe the tears running down my face. In passing, I realize that they aren’t salty like a human’s. They taste of nothing. I turn around and rip off the sheet covering Johar’s dead body. When I look at him, I don’t doubt anymore, that all of us will be better off without Ruthiel, and turn around to look at him again.
He has gotten back on his feet surprisingly quickly. This must have something to do with his artificially optimized health, because I was able to feel what I did to him. He pulls himself up at his table with effort, leaning on it heavily. I can’t take my eyes off of him. I am half-fascinated by his indestructibility, and half-repulsed. One half of his face is contorted, as if he has just had a stroke. When he opens his eyes, the fire in them gives me chills. He isn’t done yet. He still has an ace up his sleeve. Before I can get into his head, he has taken something from the drawer. The intact side of his face pulls into a smile, as he primes the syringe and injects the clear fluid into his upper arm. I need to know what he is doing, but I can barely muster the willpower to jump back into his sleazy thoughts. When I finally do, it is almost too late.
Valuable seconds pass again, while I look for what I absolutely need to know. I can barely breathe and have to force myself to reach into the farthest corners, without worrying about what it will do to Ruthiel. And then I find it. And understand; we only have a few minutes to leave the Solarian, because my father has set his final plan into motion.
He has somehow managed to connect his condition with the ship and its crew. Anyone who is on the ship and have ever been in contact with him, will fall into a kind of rigor mortis, but without actually dying. It is Cryo-technology, but it doesn’t require low temperatures, in order to stop all bodily functions. It is a similar technique to what happens in a cyborg, where machine and human unite, and can be put to sleep with the flip of a switch. The last thought I can grab onto, in his head, is so weak that I can barely read it. He has programmed the Solarian to travel on a course to an unknown destination, as soon as all the organisms on board have fallen into the artificial sleep. None of us will wake up until his brain is functioning again. Until then, all of us will be flying through space as the living dead on a ghost ship.
The dread that consumes me makes me jump into action. Even though I know there is little hope.