Pathways - Jeri Taylor [143]
He took one step, and then another, toward home. Each step fired a jolt of intense pain into his hand and the nausea returned, sending acid bile into his throat. He forced himself to keep going, a third step, a fourth, a fifth. Just one more step, he told himself each time. Just one more step.
He invoked no gods, for he’d never believed in an unseen and unknowable supreme being, but he made promises to each of his loved ones that if he could just make it home, he would never disappoint any of them again. He would excel in school. He would be helpful to his parents. He would never argue with his sisters again. If he could just make it home.
One more step . . . one more step . . . one more step . . .
Some twenty thousand steps later, well after dark, he stumbled, barely conscious, into his yard, where he collapsed. Even the agony as he fell on his roasted hand wasn’t enough to ward off oblivion. His last thoughts were of Alixia.
It was she who was standing over him when he woke in the hospital, hand swathed in bandages and mind groggy from pain-relieving drugs. Her kind eyes swam into view, and her familiar smile brightened her face. “Oh, Neelix . . . you scared us all so badly. What would we do without our baby brother?”
It took months for his hand to heal. He had a number of surgeries in order to repair nerves and tendons, and then further operations to do a series of skin grafts. During all this time, no one in his family berated him for playing with a weapon.
When healing was complete and he was back in school, Papa approached him one night with a stack of reading material. “If you’re going to learn about weapons, Neelix, you’re going to do it the right way.” And his father proceeded to sit with him as they read the manuals, discussed types of weaponry, and generally researched the topic from the ground level up.
Weeks later, when the research phase of the project was over, his father presented him with a new, low-energy weapon, along with a maintenance kit. When Neelix had demonstrated his ability to dismantle, clean, and repair the weapon, Papa announced that the time for target practice had arrived. They went to a place Neelix had never known existed: a broad grassy plain dotted with targets of all shapes and sizes, upon which some twenty Talaxians took aim.
“Well, Eximar . . . we never thought we’d see you on the weapons range.” This from a tall, stout man whose spots were almost black with age. His eyes glittered, and his tufts of hair were combed and fluffed into an elaborate arrangement.
“The boy wants to learn how to shoot, Uxxin,” said Neelix’s father. “I’m making sure he does it properly.”
“Good,” said the first man. “We’ll need an armed citizenry the way things are going.”
Neelix noticed that his father frowned a bit at this statement, and moved him away from the speaker, to a place where he could stand by himself to practice firing the weapon. They stayed for over two hours, and by the time they left, Neelix’s accuracy had improved vastly.
When Neelix had mastered that first weapon, Papa procured a second, more sophisticated one, and the process was repeated. And in this studious, scholarly way, Neelix gradually became proficient in any number of weapons, from personal armaments to starship disruptor cannons.
Only once did his father ask him why he was so intrigued with these devices, why he wanted to master them. Neelix couldn’t answer. Then Papa said something very peculiar: “Are you worried about the Haakonians?”
Neelix was puzzled by this. He’d heard of the Haakonians, but couldn’t remember in what context. “Should I be?” he queried.
His father looked worried, and that wasn’t like him. Neelix felt a little squirm of fear in his stomach, an unpleasant sensation. “There are rumors,” Papa said vaguely. “Our ruling body, I fear, isn’t comprised of the most diplomatically proficient. They may offend the Haakonians.”
“What does that mean? What’s going to happen?”
Papa reached out and