Sooner Dead (Gamma World) - Mel Odom [78]
Stamped growled.
“Weapons and the intent to use or not use them also has a lot to do with the way you communicate. The implied threat of using them can be confusing.”
“I’ll take your word for it. I think I make myself very clear.” Stampede waved a hand in a hurry-up motion. “Tell Hella about your world.”
Scatter reflowed and faced Hella, looking was appearing to step through his own body as he dropped his arms and walked toward her. “My world is perfect. I would like to go back there now.” He smiled hopefully and the innocence in his expression almost broke Hella’s heart. “Well, it was almost perfect. Except for the sickness that almost killed everyone.”
“On my world, we used to be flesh and blood. Like you.” Scatter gestured to include Hella and the Wroths who had gotten up to listen to the story and have breakfast. “We were on the edge of star travel. Before we did that, though, we wanted to explore our own world. And our minds.”
Hella sat at the table and worked on her second helping of pancakes. Twyla Wroth was generous and appeared grateful for the diversion from the loss she was dealing with.
“We had developed several devices that helped us perfect our bodies.” Scatter smiled a little. “That’s how I knew about your nanotech, Hella, though I haven’t seen anything quite like it. If we hadn’t learned the things we did, we would have died when the sickness came.”
“What kind of sickness?” Stampede’s ears flicked to attention. Sickness of any kind was cause for concern.
“We didn’t know.” Scatter reflowed himself, turning inside out and walking back toward the window. He held his hands out to the sun, soaking up the solar power he claimed to run on. “Perhaps something escaped in a laboratory before our world became perfect, but not everyone was at peace. Divided into two camps, the groups struggled occasionally for supremacy.”
Hella listened intently but the story was an old one that dated back to copies of the Bible and Koran and Torah she and Stampede had read. Large groups of people never learned to live in harmony—even when that was the professed goal.
“The disease spread in the form of a flesh-eating bacteria. It was virulent and unstoppable. The decision was made to transfer all survivors into these bodies.” Reflowing, Scatter faced them again and tapped his chest.
One of the Wroth children poked her head up from her sleeping bag. “You had enough bodies for everybody?”
The sadness on Scatter’s face looked hard and alien, but it also looked majestic in a way. “No. There were not enough bodies. The sickness spread too quickly anyway. Even as fast as they worked, the two governments could not transfer everyone in time. At the time of the last viable transfer, there were hundreds of these bodies left. Unused.”
“You were lucky.”
Scatter smiled at the little girl. “I was. I lived. But I lost a great number of friends and family.” He reflowed and walked back to the window. “I cannot bear any more loss. I need to get back to my world.”
Silence hung in the room, and it became a cold and uncomfortable environment to Hella.
Thankfully the little girl wasn’t finished with her questions. “How did you fall into our world?”
“I do not know. The last I remember, I was at home. Then I was here. I fell and then I woke up on the ferry when Hella and Stampede came to my rescue.”
Hella felt guilty about that too. They hadn’t been there to rescue Scatter, and he still wasn’t free to do as he pleased.
“You told him he can’t go back to his world?” Hella repacked the small kit she’d brought with her when she and Stampede had decided to make the run to the Coyle River.
“Not exactly.”
Fastening the leather strap that bound the kit, Hella raised her head and looked out the window of