Of Fire and Night - Kevin J. Anderson [218]
Jess stood outside in the deadly environment wearing only a thin white garment that clung to his body. His legs and arms were bare. His long brown hair flowed even in the incredible pressure of the hydrogue world.
"Shizz, if I'm going to have delusions, I'd hope they would have at least a glimmer of logic to them."
Robb yelped. "Who's that?" When the others crowded closer, all of them gasping and shouting questions, Tasia could not deny that everyone else saw him, too. She rubbed her eyes.
"That's--that looks like my brother Jess. But it can't be."
"I'll second that," Robb said. "He's at the core of a gas giant and he's . . . barefoot."
Tasia had seen the drogues create a quicksilver sculpture of her brother Ross, so this must be a new form they had chosen. The aliens' imitative abilities must have improved, because he certainly looked lifelike. Why did they keep preying on Tasia's memories? Her joy changed to crushed disappointment. "You're not real!" she shouted through the membrane.
When Jess came closer to the preservation cell, his face lit up with a real expression of delight and triumph. His rakish grin was unmistakable, dredging up many memories from her childhood. When the drogues had copied Ross, they had never succeeded in showing any emotions or expressions. This was something definitely different.
"Who the hell are you? And what do you want?" she demanded.
His voice came as vibrations transmitted through the dense atmosphere, amplified by some unknown power. It was Jess's voice, all right. "I've come to rescue you, little sister. Don't you recognize me?"
Her sarcasm was automatic. "Let's see, your hair's a little longer than I remember . . . oh, and I don't recall that you could float about in a high-pressure environment wearing nothing more than a thin shirt and trunks!"
"Let him rescue us!" Belinda cried. "We don't care who he is!"
"I care," Tasia growled. "The drogues have screwed around with my family enough already." She looked again at Jess's face through the murky membrane and felt her heart flutter. By the Guiding Star, he sure looked like Jess! And she hated hated hated this place. "Okay, I'm willing to be flexible if he can get us out of here."
"It is really me, Tasia, but I'm not the same as I was--you can guess that much. My body is infused with power from the wentals, a type of being as powerful as the hydrogues and the faeros. I have the power to get you out of here. Right now the wentals are attacking, and vanquishing, hydrogues all across the Spiral Arm."
"It's about damn time!" Keffa said.
"Anybody who crushes the drogues is a friend of mine." Robb grabbed her arm. "Come on, Tasia. We're light-years beyond having anything to lose at this point."
The prisoners began to shout, anxious to break out of their hellish cell. Keffa was the lone voice of dissent, warning that it was a trap. Belinda jostled Tasia as if trying to throw herself headfirst through the barrier.
"Can we let him explain everything after he takes us away?"
"All right, we've been under a death sentence ever since we got put in this bizarre zoo. POWs are supposed to try and escape." She looked at her brother, who stood in the hydrogue city without any visible means of carrying them to safety. "How are you going to pull this off?"
In a voice that remained eerie and powerful, Jess said, "Wentals are the mortal enemies of the hydrogues. They changed me, altered my body, so that I can do things you might not think possible."
Tasia laughed. "Shizz, that's an understatement!"
"Trust me." His wental-amplified voice resonated in the cell. "I may not be completely human anymore, but right now that's an advantage."
Jess extended his arms and closed his eyes. Misty power crackled around him like gathering fog as he condensed water droplets out of the air, molecule by molecule. He summoned rain until he had gathered enough elemental-charged