Double Helix 03_ Red Sector - Diane Carey [34]
“They’ve let us come to the lab almost every day;’ he voiced, shifting from just thinking to also speaking his thoughts. “Why wouldn’t they listen to what we find out?”
Weary, Zevon simply gazed at him, seeing something other than the problem of convincing the Pojjana that there might be a way to save lives from the Constrictor. Lately Zevon had had more trouble concentrating, and Stiles was worried. They needed this breakthrough, not just for the billion, but for the two of them. They needed sanity and purpose, some reason to rise above the endless sense of being broken down and dull as barbells. After four years, they needed a win.
Stiles shifted uneasily under Zevon’s toil-worn gaze, knowing that the Romulan saw him clearly and hated the sight. A shaft of burning pain ran through Stiles’s innards, but he battled to keep it out of his face. He knew Zevon didn’t miss it, though. He wasn’t fooling anybody.
“Stop watching me,” he protested when he could speak again. “You’re in pain, aren’t you?” “No.” “You should eat. It always helps.”
“It helps because it makes me throw up, and then I’m too weak to feel anything. Typical Romulan logic.”
“Typical Eric defiance,” Zevon muttered, his eyes deeply solicitous and sad.
For a moment they simply looked at each other. Eventually, in his mind Stiles stopped seeing his own demolished physical condition and started seeing Zevon’s. Zevon had started out typically lean, as was natural for his genetics, but four years ago he’d been strong and well-nourished, with good muscle tone in his arms and shoulders and a glow of privilege in his face. Now his complexion was sallow and his arms were thin. His hair had lost its mahogany luster and had grown below his shoulders. He kept it out of his way by simply pushing it behind his ears. Being Vulcanoid ears, they did the job very well. He was less inclined to bother cutting his hair, though Stiles occasionally offered a trim when he was cutting his own. Strange-Stiles, so used to Starfleet spit-and-polish, had made a silly effort to cling to neatness during their four years as political prisoners, even trimming his nails and cuticles just to have something to do. He was the one who did their laundry and mended the rips in their clothing.
He would’ve expected the same, even more, from a prince of the Romulan royal line, but Zevon didn’t really care what he looked like. His long-suffering uniform, stained and tired, would’ve dissolved from his shoulders if Stiles hadn’t bothered keeping the seams stitched. The only echo of civilization offered them here was their privilege to use the lab, and the fact that every couple of days they got showers. The Pojjana hadn’t built a new jail. They’d just pushed the old one back up from the pit and nailed it together. A concrete floor now replaced the filed one Stiles had first seen when he’d been thrown in here. Generally speaking, though, the food stunk, the quarters were dank, the mattresses sagged, the floor was cold, and the light was bad. Otherwise, home sweet home.
“I wish I had a communicator,” Stiles mentioned. “Just one, and I could broadcast this new information to the whole planet. Somebody’d listen.” Shifting his weakened legs, he added, “I don’t miss home very often, but at moments like this I do.”
Zevon rubbed his chilly hands. “The silence from home is an old story now. The royal family must not know I’m here, or they would have come by now. They must think me dead. The Pojjana must not be communicating with the Romulan government, or word of my presence would filter out.”
“The Pojjana aren’t about to tell the empire you’re here. You’re their trump card. Why should they stir up trouble? And if it comes, they want you here as leverage.”
Uneasy with this line of talk, Zevon grew irritable. “My people would come if they knew.