Spirit Walk_ Enemy of My Enemy (Book 2) - Christie Golden [82]
It’s all right. It’s all right. Remember who you were, who you still are. See yourselves as you once were. This isn’t a curse, it’s a gift, but it’s one you can refuse if you don’t want it.
The swirls shifted hue. Curiosity, hope. Chakotay continued to urge them on. He changed his focus from Katal, trying to dig himself out as Kaz kept pummeling him with broken pieces of equipment, to the creatures who now stared raptly at him.
“Attack them!” cried Katal. The creatures ignored him. They were engrossed by Chakotay’s thoughts, by the bright possibility he dangled before them.
“Chakotay, look out!” Kaz’s voice pierced Chakotay’s deep state. He turned, again feeling as if he were moving through water, and saw that Katal had managed to find his phaser. His teeth were bared in a grimace of pure hatred. He lifted the phaser and fired.
Everything slowed down. He saw Katal’s finger tighten, saw the yellow beam of phaser fire crawl from the opening. It crept toward him. Sudden, swift knowledge filled Chakotay. He didn’t have to obey the laws of the physical world if he didn’t want to. This phaser blast, this lethal stream of energy—it was nothing to him. Time and matter were his friends; they would obey his whims now. Chakotay did not move out of the way of the blast. Instead, he understood, really understood, that the only way this would harm him would be if he let it. He stood and watched as the phaser blast reached his chest, passed harmlessly through him, and blasted a hole in the wall on the other side.
Kaz now moved to grab Katal’s hand, and Chakotay shook his head dazedly. He suddenly felt terribly weak. The colonist’s thoughts had changed from tentative queries to a bombardment. Without Sekaya to keep him anchored, he was beginning to succumb to the burden of Sky Spirit DNA as the colonists had done.
He fell hard to his knees. If a second before he had been master of matter and time, now he was their slave; he was no longer outside the boundaries of physics. Through suddenly blurred vision he saw Katal strike Kaz, hard. The doctor fell to the floor as Katal scrambled up from the pile of debris and fled. Even as Black Jaguar leaped to block his path, she disappeared. He couldn’t focus enough to keep her here, Chakotay realized.
This is your enemy, Chakotay thought to the colonists even as his eyes closed. The Changeling ordered these things done to you. Do what you will with him. The last thing he saw was the creatures that Katal had ordered brought into being running down the corridor, eager to exact revenge.
How could it all have crumbled to pieces like this?
The Changeling ran with all his might, cursing his limited abilities that now, perhaps, would never evolve. If he could turn into a bird, or a long-legged jatham, he might escape. But the things he had ordered Moset to make, the things that he had thought would be his new army, were turning on him, and they were fast.
He heard their gibbering howls. They were getting closer. Panic closed in on him, lending him fresh speed. The exit was just up ahead, through that door—
He slammed his shoulder into the door, bursting through. No time to close and lock it behind him, only time to run across the grassy field into the small vessel, leap into it—
The door shut behind him as they tumbled out of the earth, red-brown furry things that were all teeth and claws and hatred. Frantically the Changeling punched in the commands as they threw their hairy bodies against the unyielding metal. He glanced up to see one of them plastered to the viewscreen, clawing futilely, trying to rip his face off through the transparent barrier.
He was safe, and he allowed himself a grin. “Hang on, if you like!” he shouted at the creature. “Going to be quite the ride!”
Chapter 23
FOR THE SECOND TIME in three hours, Kaz awoke to pain. Hissing, he sat up and gingerly touched the knot on his head. His hand came away covered with blood, but he knew he was all right for the time being.
Beside him on the debris-littered floor of the lab lay Chakotay. Kaz