Double Helix 03_ Red Sector - Diane Carey [26]
“Briefly” Zevon admitted. “I have no anesthetic to give you, nor any pain medication. Sad thing, for a scientist to be unprepared;’
His expression was efficient, as one might expect, yet somehow unashamedly sympathetic. Odd…
“I guess we’ve been down here alone the whole time.” Stiles glanced past Zevon, just to make sure he wasn’t seeing Travis or Jeremy anymore. Or even the ambassador he so deeply revered. Somehow they’d gotten him through the worst, and refused.
“In fact;’ Zevon confirmed, “I believe we were alone in the jail building when the Constrictor came.” “Constrictor… so what are you doing here, anyway?” “I am a political prisoner. I was hunted and kidnapped.” “You personally? They wanted you?” “No. Anyone of my race.”
“Why? I mean, I’m just here because my ship crashed. That’s how they got me. Nobody hunted me down. Why would they hunt you down? Is it just because they hate aliens?”
“Some, but I command a particular kind of ship. They thought my presence here would give them leverage:’
“You command a ship? You said you were a scientist, not a captain !”
“Primarily I am a scientist. The command is a position of royal favor”
With a small shake of his head, Stiles frowned. “I never heard of anything like that in the Vulcan fleet.”
“Not Vulcan.” Zevon passively adjusted the position of Stiles’s fight arm. “Romulan.”
Stiles drew one breath, sharply, and heaved himself to a partially sitting position, up on his right hip. The blanket slipped from his body and felt to one side. He reached over his own form, fished for the piece of rod he knew was here. His fingers struck the rod, knocked it a few inches, and he found it again. In a single swipe he raised the rod, knocked the Romulan along the side of his face, drove him away, and pointed the sharp end of the rod.
“You get away from me!” he shouted. “Stay away from me!”
Chapter Six
FROM ACROSS THE RAVAGED REMAINS of their two crushed cells, Zevon pressed a hand to his face where Stiles had struck him.
“I am not your enemy;’ he said. “I have no reason to hurt you. We’ll both die if you hold me off like this for long”
“All Romulans are our enemies;’ Stiles blistered. “You just keep your distance!” “But I freed you from the stone. I set your arm”
“To use me as some kind of hostage! I’ve been stupid enough for one day! I’m not being stupid again. You stay back. I’m getting out of here.”
Zevon lowered his hand. His face showed a single bruised cheekbone, but no open wound. “We must help each other. The prisoners are the last ones they’ll dig out. You can’t possibly climb out of here, ensign. I doubt you can take a single step.”
‘I’ll take all the steps I need.” Stiles held the metal rod between them like a club or sword, ready to use it either way. His right shoulder and arm pumped fiercely now as he exerted himself, throbbing inside the splinted wrapping. Zevon had managed to splint the arm with the elbow bent instead of straight at Stiles’s side, and that would prove an advantage as he tried to get out of this hole.
The nasty pit of broken rock wall and plaster sheets and plumbing spun around him suddenly, jagged edges and smooth sheets blending into a single blue-gray cylinder. “Lie down,” Zevon suggested, “before you pass out.” “I don’t listen to Romulans!”
His chest heaving with effort, Stiles let his body rest slightly on the edge of a folded bolt of linoleum flooring. He had no idea where the flooring had come from-there had been nothing like this in the holding area. Probably from one of the floors above. How many stories had collapsed on them? Since he had never seen the building from the outside, he had no way of knowing.
Thinking of something else, he looked at his right arm. One irregularly cut sheet of linoleum had been formed around his lower arm and another around the upper arm, held in place by strips of wool. A single wedge of metal slat, some kind of corner brace, had