Distant Shores - Marco Palmieri [79]
Zolaluz grinned down at the perfect piles of diced vegetables. “Bite-sized,” she said, nodding at the tiny cubes. “Perhaps I won’t ask you to chop the firewood after all.”
“I assure you, the firewood will be cut to appropriate specifications,” Seven said briskly. “Perhaps, if you assigned more tasks to me, your housework would be accomplished with greater precision.”
Zolaluz laughed her little snuffling laugh. “I think maybe you would turn my entire home into those little cubes.”
Seven appreciated the joke but gave no indication. Instead, she asked the question that had been burning in her mind all morning, and every morning and every night since her arrival. “Is there news of Captain Janeway?”
Smiling from behind her thick eyeglasses, Zolaluz nodded. “Yes,” she said, her smile widening. “I have found her.”
Seven’s head swung up. “Where?” she said simply, unblinking.
“A militia camp,” said Zolaluz. “There were men in the sky-ship with her. They fought back, and the militiamen killed them. I heard mention that they believe her to be some kind of zola because of her strange appearance.”
Seven felt some relief that the Hazari bounty hunters who had kidnapped the captain were dead. “Describe her condition,” she said tersely.
Zolaluz sighed; her smile melted away. “I believe she is alive, and they are questioning her. At least, that is what I overheard, and you know I cannot ask questions myself.”
Seven nodded. The disease that had crippled Zolaluz in childhood was no longer contagious, but it had forever marked her as a zola, an outcast on her world. Her name labeled her: Zola, meaning outcast, forever preceded her birth name, Luz.
As a zola, she lived in isolation, away from any settlements. When she did venture near a village, she was shunned; she learned only what she could overhear from the conversations of others, from a distance… and then, only when they didn’t whisper or move out of earshot.
Seven had been lucky that a zola had found and rescued her; Zolaluz’s isolation improved Seven’s chances of remaining undiscovered. It also helped that Seven’s skin tone was a pale cousin of the neon pink skin of a zola. To explain her alien facial features, she could always claim that the disease had disfigured her. Seven had a better chance of blending in with a zola than among the fur-covered non-zolas of the general population.
Unfortunately, looking like a zola also drew the attention of undesirables. Soldiers of the militias embroiled in the local civil war were the only ones who would speak to Zolaluz… but that contact brought with it the likelihood of abuse.
“What is the location of the militia camp?” asked Seven, tightly gripping the handle of the vegetable knife.
“For me,” said Zolaluz, “it is the journey of a day and a night.”
“We will assemble supplies,” said Seven, “and leave immediately thereafter.”
Zolaluz shifted on her crutches and stared thoughtfully at Seven. “You have said that your leg is healing fast. Perhaps you should wait a little longer, and you will be better able to help your captain.”
“No,” said Seven. “My leg will heal en route.” This was the third day since she had arrived on the surface of Saladana in pursuit of the Hazari and their captive. Until now, Seven had not even known if Captain Janeway had survived the crash of the kidnappers’ ship, let alone the militia battle into which the ship and Seven’s shuttle had been dropped.
It had taken nearly three days to get word that the captain was alive… and word traveled slowly through the jungles of a backward planet without advanced communications technology, without even simple radio or telegraph. Janeway could very well be dead already.
It was imperative that Seven move quickly. Given time, Voyager might finally render