Double Helix 03_ Red Sector - Diane Carey [37]
“Take the message;’ Stiles attempted one more time. “There’s another Constrictor coming. The planet… can get ready. Save the billion ” The effort of speaking coiled Stiles into a knot and apparently gave Orsova the idea that this was the best satisfaction he would get today. “I paid!” the soldier shouted.
“You paid to beat an alien,” Orsova said, “not to kill one. Go out now. Go.”
Orsova yanked the door open and shoved the soldier out, then left the lab and shut the door behind him.
That was the paradigm of their life Orsova sold opportunities to beat up the human alien, while he got his own jollies from watching the effects on the Romulan alien.
Zevon watched the frosted glass door, saw something that held him in his place-Stiles couldn’t see the door from where he lay, but knew to simply lie gasping and wait. Ultimately a shuffle in the corridor spared him, and Zevon broke from the table and rushed to his side. “Curses,” Stiles wheezed, “foiled again.”
“Eric…” Zevon sorrowfully turned him enough to raise him to a nearly sitting position and held him there. Stiles could never have held himself, but would simply have slumped back into a supine position and probably suffocated on the deck. “Look at you …. “
“What a way to-live-aw, God-I hate that son of a bitch….”
“Orsova is a walking symptom. He lost his children in the last Constriction Now he tortures us to ease his bitterness. The soldiers he brings here… they’re the same.”
Zevon got to one knee, then hoisted Stiles up and deposited him on the only cot in the lab. The Romulan’s face was creased with misery, overlaid by a firm mask of bottled rage. “Hey” Stiles gasped. “Your emotions are showing.”
“I keep telling you-I am not Vulcan.” Zevon angrily snatched a beaker of purified water from a shelf, soaked a rag, and pressed the cool compress to Stiles’ bleeding lip.
“We’ll never convince him to let us talk to the chief warden or anybody;’ Stiles murmured. “How can we convince them that this is their chance?”
“We’re not that certain of our readings,” Zevon reminded. “The prediction might be off by months. Stop moving.” “I’m not moving… I’m writhing in agony.” “Exercise some self-control.” “But you’re not a Vulcan.”
Obviously troubled, Zevon frowned. “All we know is that another Constrictor, a very strong one, has been building for two years and will certainly strike. The phenomenon hasn’t gone away at all.” “But we know, Zevon, that’s something. Help me-“
With Zevon’s help, Stiles jerkily shifted onto his side as his aching ribs and stomach muscles cramped again. His eyes clutched shut as he bore through the spasm, feeling worse for Zevon than himself. Zevon could do nothing more than grasp him and wait until the torment worked its way out. Stiles paced himself, breathing chunkily, until he could finally count through ten long breaths and his face and hands stopped involuntarily flinching.
“Orsova and his kind” he began when he could speak again, “they think we’re just stalling to avoid execution… we’ve got to convince them somehow. Or go over them to the consul general.” “They will be convinced when the Constrictor comes.”
“And we can laugh in their faces, if Orsova or some other anti-alienite doesn’t find a way to kill us first.”
Zevon sat down on the cot beside him and gazed at the dirty floor. “I can hardly blame them. A billion people dead… what would we do to anyone who caused that on our planets?”
“If we can predict the Constrictors,” Stiles muttered, “then it’s only a matter of time before we can reduce the effects”
“A thousand years of time, perhaps, between those two miracles.”
“But if we can just predict them, then planes can be landed, people can put on compression suits, get into reinforced buildings, put the babies and old people in antigrav chambers-you know how to build those. Why won’t they listen?” “I don’t know”
Stiles managed