Maker - Michael Jan Friedman [55]
The silvery thing was Brakmaktin, every visible part of his body glowing now with the light that had previously come from his eyes alone. And he was looming over Gerda Idun, dwarfing her with his bulk, as he absorbed her body into his.
One of her legs and her right hand had already vanished into the alien’s midsection, as if into some kind of quicksand, and the rest of her was being pulled in afterward. And though she didn’t seem to be in any physical pain, the terror in her eyes drove daggers into Nikolas’s heart.
He cried out, though not with words. His emotions were too raw, too primitive to be expressed that way. And as he was crying out, he launched himself across the bridge.
It enabled him to catch Gerda Idun’s hand as her other leg started disappearing into Brakmaktin. The pull was inexorable, irresistible. Nikolas couldn’t even begin to free her.
But he tugged nonetheless, his feet skidding as they sought purchase on the deck, until Gerda Idun screamed in agony. Her shoulder was coming out of its socket, unable to bear the strain of the forces exerted on it.
But what else could Nikolas do? Just watch her get sucked in like a bug in a Venus flytrap?
“Andreas…” she groaned, though he couldn’t tell what she was exhorting him to do.
Maybe she didn’t know. Maybe for her, as for him, there was no answer to her predicament. There was only the bottomless fear and sadness that went with the realization.
Nikolas looked up at Brakmaktin, hoping he could appeal to him somehow and make him stop. But there was no mercy in the alien’s eyes, no inclination toward clemency. He appeared to have evolved beyond such petty notions.
“Let her go!” Nikolas begged. “Take me, if you want—just leave her alone!”
It accomplished nothing. Gerda Idun continued to sink, up to her waist, her ribcage, her armpits.
And still Nikolas pulled, not so hard that it would hurt her but enough to slow her progress. Still, it was a losing battle. Her shoulders disappeared despite his efforts, leaving nothing but her head and the arm he was hanging on to.
“Andreas,” she said again, her eyes locked on his.
But it wasn’t because she wanted him to work harder. It was an expression of resignation, an acknowledgment of what she saw as inevitable.
“No,” he said, his voice thick with emotion, his eyes wet with tears. “I won’t let you.”
But the alien claimed her throat, her chin, her mouth. Then, agonizingly, he claimed her eyes as well, and the rest of her head. It all slipped away.
But her hand was still in his, her fingers strong and alive and callused, holding desperately on to the only vestige of life she had left. Until finally, that too began to sink into Brakmaktin, to the wrist and then beyond.
Nikolas would have held on, would have sunk in after Gerda Idun without protest, but he couldn’t. To her, the alien was a permeable membrane. To him, Brakmaktin couldn’t have been more solid.
So when Gerda Idun’s fingertips came free of Nikolas’s and slid from sight, there was nothing he could do about it. Nothing but sink to his knees and bite his lip to keep from weeping.
And Brakmaktin? He just stood there, spearing Nikolas with his eyes. He didn’t gloat, didn’t boast of how skillfully he had set up his little drama. But then, he didn’t have to.
He had achieved his victory. He had shown Nikolas that he couldn’t compete—not with a being whose power was so great it had yet to learn its limits.
Nikolas’s demonstration of how badly Brakmaktin needed his company, his attempt to deceive the Nuyyad into turning himself in to the Federation…Brakmaktin had paid him back for those impieties a thousandfold. He had found the worst wound in Nikolas’s psyche and ground a hot poker into it.
And though Gerda Idun had been Brakmaktin’s creation in the first place, it didn’t make his act of destruction any easier to bear. As far as Nikolas was concerned, it was still murder.
Nor was it Gerda Idun alone who had died. Something in Nikolas had died as well. It had endured the loss of one Gerda Idun, but it wasn’t strong enough to