Distant Shores - Marco Palmieri [84]
“That’s my cue to call it a night,” said Zolacroy with a smirk, getting up and stumbling toward one of the huts.
“You must be crazy, Luz,” said Zolasova, struggling to her feet. “What a plan!”
Zolaloris, a young woman with one hand and uncontrollable tremors, also got up to leave. “Don’t look at me,” she said with a shaky smile.
One by one, the zolas limped away into the night. “None of them will assist us?” said Seven, consternation in her voice.
Zolaluz rocked her head back and laughed. “All of them will!” she said, nudging Seven’s arm with her elbow.
Seven frowned. “I do not understand.”
“To be a zola,” said Zolaluz, “you must develop a sense of humor. A big one.”
Seven thought about it, then decided that another matter was more troubling. “Explain the significance of Ramana,” she said. “Why would they wish you did not have to go there?”
Zolaluz’s smile turned sad. She gazed into the fire for a long moment… then reached up to draw a black pendant from under the neckline of her cloak.
“My mother gave me this,” she said quietly, raising the pendant for Seven to see. “It is ironic that I have always kept it with me, because she tried to get rid of me all my life.”
With a sigh, she let the pendant fall at her breast. “When I came down with the duluzola as a little girl, she and my father arranged for me to be brought here… but I would not stay. Young as I was, I found my way home through the jungle.
“When I was brought back here for the third time, they moved away.” Zolaluz shook her head and laughed her snuffling laugh. “You should have seen the looks on their faces when I turned up at the front door of their new home, one-legged, on crutches and all!”
Removing her glasses, Zolaluz rubbed her eyes. In the dying firelight, her bright pink skin took on a reddish glow. “They moved many times after that, but I found them wherever they went. They left me because of the duluzola… and the duluzola left me with strong hearing and smell and touch and taste that allowed me to track them down.
“They wanted nothing to do with me. I was never permitted to come indoors, and I was always sent back to Bahuzola. Still, I could not stay away from my flesh and blood.”
“They made it clear that your presence was not desired,” said Seven. “They told you to remain here. Why did you refuse to comply?”
“Love,” said Zolaluz. “On my part, anyway. And I did not like it here.
“I was first in my village to have the disease. There are those in Bahuzola who lived in my village and fell ill after I did. I gave them the duluzola.
“How would you like living among people who had received a terrible sickness from you? Whose lives had been ruined by you?”
Seven stared into the night. “I would not like it,” she said simply.
Zolaluz nodded. “There came a day when I wished I had stayed, though,” she said. “When I wished I had not gone after my parents.”
Zolaluz reached for the onyx pendant and thoughtfully rubbed it with her thumb and forefinger. “I could not see them, but I could hear every cry as they were tortured to death.
“Every breath and heartbeat, right to the last, was like thunder to me. I could smell the blood as if I were drowning in it.
“All thanks to the duluzola,” she said distantly, watching the fire. “The soldiers kept me away… but the duluzola let me hear everything. Smell everything.”
Zolaluz closed her fist around the pendant. “That is what happened at Ramana,” she said quietly.
Seven sat silently, remembering the screams of her own parents as they were assimilated by the Borg. “You are not required to go to Ramana,” she said finally.
“But I am your secret weapon,” said Zolaluz. “I know the place by heart.”
“I no longer require your assistance,” said Seven.
Zolaluz smiled and put on her glasses. “Do I seem like the kind of person who can be left behind?” she said wryly.
Seven frowned. “Stubbornness is irrelevant.”
“Then I am irrelevant,” said Zolaluz as she struggled off to bed.
When the barrel of a Hazari blaster swung up to greet them, Seven knew that they