The Human Experience
Chapter 31

Quarter P, day 35-36 (lost track of earth-days), 3418.

While I’m waiting for Del to regain consciousness, I thought I’d ask the Iron Helms about her. After all, getting her to talk about her past is like pulling teeth. Most Helms say they didn’t know her personally – they just knew her as The Deserter. Of the few who did know her, even fewer liked her. It seems her bond with Orcadis inspired jealousy. One asked me, How is it that a girl with no scientific background managed to land the position of assistant mentalist to the Greathelm’s head of research? Another said he’d had her in a few classes, growing up. I remember all the kids were practising channelling their thought-waves. But there never was any thought-energy around Neria. It was just...a void. We didn’t know if she had an unnatural level of control or if there was just nothing in that closed head of hers.

The former, apparently. Jesreal says Del’s mental control rivalled only Orcadis’s – without the obsessive-compulsive side effects. With proper training, she could have been the next Iron Fist. They kept her close for that reason.

Not close enough. She deserted, stole Orcadis’s greatest tool (me), and brought the Helms down by revealing the true Star-King. See, that’s the problem with strong minds: they tend to think for themselves. Shouldn’t a good leader know not to encourage that?

_____

Del’s mind was prodded back into consciousness when she grew aware of someone stroking her hair. Odd – she sure as hell didn’t know anyone who would do that. Her eyes fluttered open and she squinted as lights and shadows danced into familiar forms, shapes muddled as if seen through pebbled glass.

Lykus bent over her cot, pushing her hair away from her forehead with a hand too gentle for his cold half-grin.

All remnants of sleep scattered from her mind and Del slapped his hand away, lunging into an upright position. It was a mistake. Her head screamed in protest, fire blazing in the arm she’d used to hit Lykus. She clutched the afflicted arm to her, noticing for the first time that it had been wrapped and placed in a sling around her neck.

Lykus chuckled. He drew her back into her pillows. With her splitting headache she couldn’t protest. Using her good hand she traced the swelling on her forehead up through her blood-crusted hairline to the meaty depression in her head.

Lovely.

“Don’t – I just cleaned that,” Lykus said. “Chirurgeon Padon says there’s no fracture. Same with your arm.”

Del swallowed to lubricate her throat, but it still felt raw as if rubbed with sandpaper, her tongue thick. “S-Stop doting on me, you creep,” she managed with a cough.

He swung his legs over the side of her cot and settled into the pillows next to her with his arms tucked under his head, shimmying to make room for himself. “You’re welcome.”

She didn’t play his game, just scooted away from him. “What happened? Where am I?”

“You’ve been segregated in the southern wing, along with the Infected and the Helms, just as you proposed. I’ve been tending to you; no medics will risk going into the war-zone. That’s what they’re calling the southern wing.” He snorted. “Sometime today the soldiers are going to march in here with every weapon they can replace and force the Helms to the hangar to get Infected. They say those who resist will be shot on the spot. Of course the Helms are planning a resistance. Hence war-zone.”

“The king is allowing this?”

“Fear runs the ship now. Fear and those who have weapons. The soldiers have weapons.”

Del frowned. She tried to think with the invisible mallet bashing her skull. Orcadis had always said ignoring pain made you feel it less – Orcadis! “Where’s Orcadis? Is he Infected?” Forked lightning passed through her at the thought.

“Asshole’s fine. He got the rock for the energy compartment of his whatever-it’s-called, and still had energy for this.” He turned his head and Del saw his lip was split, faint bruising mottling his chin. “That was when I told him how I’d saved you. That’s also why Dimrod and that bitch who can’t take a joke are breathing down my neck.” He tipped his head to the side, where Del had to crane her neck to see Belred and Solmay sitting on some boxes a few paces away, eyeing him darkly. He waved at them sarcastically and continued. “Orcadis has already started putting the catatonic into his detector thing. Says it’ll take days after he revives them for them to regain full consciousness, so if he doesn’t start now the first catatonics will dehydrate before they wake. Chirurgeon Padon is with the technicians in the western wing, fixing the engines. And I, in case you’re interested, am the messenger. I go from wing to wing carrying the catatonic to Orcadis and then taking them over to the northern wing for rehabilitation when he’s done reviving them. Of course, the northern wing is where the nobility and the soldiers are staying. They weren’t too happy about having to play nurse for former Helms, but after I threatened to stick a radiation-packed rock up Paq Ditra’s ass and nail him up in the northern wing to draw Voices, I found them more accommodating. Besides, if they won’t tend to catatonic Helms, perhaps Orcadis won’t revive their catatonic friends.”

Del shook her head, wondering if she was crazy for being half-amused. Impending death did that to people, she supposed. Made them replace humour in gruesome things. “So the hangar is still open? Voices are still going to the radiation?”

“Sure are. The doors won’t be closed until after the soldiers force you Metal Heads inside to get Infected. Looks like I strangled you for nothing. Sorry.”

“No you’re not.”

He cracked a grin. “You’re right. It was rather nice taking a little revenge. In Rakkhat, I told myself I’d kill you.” Lykus turned his head on the pillow, examining her, his black eyebrows arched. “But then I didn’t want to. Can’t say why.”

Del laid her good hand over her heart with mock sentimentality. “Why Lykus, your silver tongue could make a lady swoon.”

It was the idiotic sarcasm she used to dismiss the gravest of situations. Hector hated it. She searched this man’s eyes for any peevishness, and felt deflated when the corners of Lykus’s mouth twitched up.

“Things are more fun with you around. That’s probably it.”

That wasn’t it. The thought-strings were thin, maybe not even within his consciousness, but Del felt them. He’d saved her because Hector loved her, and he didn’t want to hurt Hector because...that pulsing pattern with the quick wavelengths meant yearning, but...no! Because he wanted to be Hector again? Impossible.

“What’s wrong?” Lykus asked.

“What, you can read faces now?”

He blinked. “I suppose I’ve gotten better, now that you mention it.” He tried a smile, and Del could almost believe her Hector was struggling to resurface for her, until he said, “So who were those ‘other men’ you slept with?”

Hopes, get back under Lykus’s stupid stomping feet, where you belong. She shook her head, dismissing him. “Drop it, Lykus. I didn’t ask you anything about your blonde girl, did I?”

“Because you know Hector didn’t love her. Not because you don’t care.” When she didn’t answer, he went on. “Was Orcadis one? Are you two still–?”

“Pyrrhus’s bloody balls, Lykus!” Del cried, smacking the side of his head. “No! Okay? No! I just said that in the heat of the moment, you idiot! Hector was trying to hurt me with his affair; that’s what pissed me off, so I tried to hurt him back! Stars above, you’re stupid.”

She sank down into her pillows, kneading her forehead with her uninjured hand. She’d always taken it for granted that emotionally-unstable Hector would seek love and safety in the arms of other women. Women who didn’t cringe when he cried. Women who actually hugged. That’s what it would be about, she knew. Not the sex – the emotion.

Maybe that was why she’d never felt the need to ‘get even’ by sleeping around herself. Because she, too, had been cheating emotionally. She’d known it all along, though she’d thought the consuming passion of her affair had been hatred. As it turned out, there was still love for that fuck-up of a man, Orcadis. But Lykus had asked about the physical part, not whether she cared for another.

Hector would have asked about love.

Lykus looked pleased with her response, like it was a relief not to have to dirty another blade with her blood.

“Funny you should ask about that and not about how I had you captured in Van-Rath,” Del said. “I was going to kill you, too, you know. I was there on that hill with the snipers, I watched their leader point his crossbow between your eyes.”

“So what stopped you?”

“I saw Varali. She was shadowing you, jumping around, swinging from your arms like a little monkey. At that moment I forgot you were an assassin on your way to your next target. Seeing her love for you made me think it wasn’t that simple. And of course it wasn’t. Half my village saw me as a simple beast – as I’d seen you. So I lowered the shooter’s arm. I begged the Rathians to take you alive, to bring you to the asylum where I worked.”

Lykus shifted, sliding an arm around her shoulders. “I just love human weakness. Though I must say, I’m surprised you still show it, considering how alike we are. Both cast out of our villages, horribly deficient in peoples’ eyes, both...killers.” He smiled at her like they were bonding.

Filth seemed to clog Del’s pores as it always did when her past came up. “I don’t remember how it happened,” she admitted. “Orcadis wiped the memory. He says I did it by accident, but I have no way of being sure. As a kid I heard voices in my head. Not Voices voices.” She sketched quotation marks around the first ‘Voices’ for clarification. “This was before Voices started forming. I mean like crazy people who see and hear things that aren’t there. Sometimes these hallucinations frightened me so much I’d have no idea what I was doing. I’d replace myself in my living room, everything destroyed around me, like I was some sort of horse with a crazed rider whipping it off a cliff. People thought I was possessed by Pyrrhus’s Wrath. My father took me to all these ‘cleansings’ that hurt like hell and did nothing.

“Things changed when the Helms took me. After I was exposed to the Amaris radiation in Orcadis’s detector, the hallucinations went away. The Helms said the detector made my mind strong like iron, gave me the ability to control it. I guess that’s why I’m better than most Helms, even, at controlling my thoughts, making them unreadable. I spent my whole childhood ignoring the horrible things whispered to me by hallucinations.”

It felt good to finally share that chapter of her life with someone who couldn’t judge her for it. Lykus looked at her a long moment. “Tell me, Del. What do we owe them? Why do we let them impose their rules on us?”

We. Freaks of nature. Them. The world. Humanity.

“They don’t hate us because they see us as animals. They hate us because we make them animals. We bring out their fear, and we make them use it against us. We owe them their humanity back, Lykus. And we can only give it to them by being human ourselves.”

“Give me one reason not to board your ship right now and leave everyone to rot.”

Del imagined conflict behind his eyes. Was he actually hoping she’d dissuade him? “Because,” she said simply, “you are a man. Not a wolf. Not a Voice. And,” she smirked, “because you have no damned idea how to pilot a ship.”

He mulled that over, then stretched and rose from the cot. “Last one’s a good point. Well, I’m off to see how many catatonics Orcadis has piled for me to take to the northern wing. In case the soldiers arrive before I get back, don’t join the Helms’ resistance. I’d like it if you lived.” He leaned down and pushed a deep, sensual kiss on her lips, just the kind he expected to terrify her.

She returned it, hoping some part of it reached Hector, wherever he was buried deep inside. The Hector that would, she now knew, fight for a shot at existence.

When Lykus had gone, Del forced her sore body out of bed and went over to Belred and Solmay. Ever-accommodating, Belred rose from the box upon her arrival and motioned for her to take his seat. She did, head throbbing too much to think about looking weak.

“Is there anything you need?” Belred asked. Apparently he hadn’t forgotten Orcadis had entrusted her welfare to him.

She shook her head. “I wanted to ask the two of you something.”

“Are you really in love with that monster?” Solmay hissed as if she couldn’t contain herself, disgust dripping from her tone.

Surprisingly, amazingly, Del’s first thought was, Orcadis or Lykus? Then she realized how absurd it was to think Solmay would speak of her Iron Fist that way, and she couldn’t help laughing.

Solmay’s disgust deepened. Madwoman, her thoughts accused.

“My understanding is that he spared your life in Rakkhat,” Belred said innocently.

Solmay launched him a glare that instantly silenced him. “He did something,” she said. “He must have. He did something to the Greathelm’s son to turn him on us all. He drove that boy insane.”

Del scoffed. “Was that before or after he asked Kaed to lock him in this doomed ship with the rest of us? Kaed’s mental break is Orcadis’s fault.”

The two Helms snapped their heads to her. Del read a warning in Solmay’s steely eyes – she’d probably pounce if another word besmirched Orcadis’s name. Belred looked slightly less accommodating. His polite smile was gone.

“See, this here is what I wanted to talk to you about,” Del said. “You are two of the most loyal Helms I’ve ever known. Why? What makes you hold on to that loyalty when faced with the knowledge that everything you’ve believed is a lie?” How do you do it, and why couldn’t I?

Belred’s square face strained as he fought to re-plaster his polite smile. “Let me tell you a little bit about Polenisi, where I come from. It’s a little country, rich, intolerant of deviants. By the time I was seven it became clear to my parents that I was...intellectually deficient.”

Seriously? Belred? The guy had just said ‘intellectually deficient.’

“His parents apprenticed him to a circus ringmaster!” Solmay interjected sharply.

The lines of Belred’s face hardened. “I liked school. I liked to learn. With proper guidance and services, I could have been something, finished school and lived independently. I could have overcome my mental handicap. When the circus came to town I was thirteen. My parents saw their chance. The entire town taunted me, considered me a running joke. I would fall into their comical traps, say things that drove them wild with laughter. They’d laugh harder when I would inquire what exactly was so amusing. Mother said this was the best chance for employment I had. I was funny. I would spend my life getting served pies in the face and playing the decrepit fool.”

“If you knew Bel, you’d know how ridiculous that is,” Solmay said. “He’s always been serious. Motivated, too. He’s never made a joke in his life! When Greathelm Durant found him he was amazed that someone with Bel’s handicap and no support could have made it so far in school.”

Belred’s face relaxed, the grooves smoothing from his brow. “He told me never to let others dictate what I should be. He said intelligence wasn’t fixed, and with my motivation I could be brilliant. After being exposed to the thought-energy detector, I was. It took turns, of course, tough turns of cultivating my abilities, but I think now my intellect is up to par.” He smiled innocently as if he didn’t know he was a genius. “So should I not offer my saviour the same lack of judgement he offered me, Miss Alister?”

Del chewed her cheek. She’d been so damned childish. “What about you?” she asked Solmay. “What’s your story?”

“Nothing. Stop prying.”

“Oh, come on! What did you do before the Helms?”

“I was a salesperson.”

“What’d you sell?”

“Meat.”

“What kind of...?” Solmay looked at her feet. Belred’s neck and ears glowed pink and he cleared his throat awkwardly. Oh. ‘Meat.’ I walked right into that one...

They sat in silence for a while. Finally Solmay looked up with vulnerable eyes. “It was one of the few pleasure houses in Van-Doth where they still allowed violence. It had a ‘you-break-it-you-buy-it’ mentality.” She glowered, then continued. “They called me The Warrior. I had a reputation for giving the men a good fight when they got aggressive. Once I hurt one so badly he threatened to sue the flesh-peddler responsible for me if he didn’t slit my throat. That was when the Greathelm came in.”

Somehow Del managed to circumvent a horribly misplaced joke about Orcadis in a pleasure house. Thank the gods for that.

“The Greathelm visits the places society shuns for recruitment purposes,” Solmay said flatly. Figures. The one time Del actually managed to bite back a stupid joke, and – damned Metal Heads!

Solmay continued. “I was on the floor, knocked out of bed, only a sheet covering me. Greathelm Durant offered a settlement to the client, then he offered to buy me from the peddler. The peddler was all too happy to get a pretty sum for spoiled goods, but the client was furious. He had two cracked ribs and a broken arm. He wanted revenge. The Iron Fist had to break his other arm and crack two ribs on his other side before he set to wailing and forgot about me.”

Always intent on symmetry, aren’t you, Orcadis?

Solmay smiled at the memory, as though the image of that man screaming on the floor was a beautiful sunrise. “He freed all the girls when he learned most of us weren’t there by choice. I was still on the floor, clutching that sheet to my chin. He bent down to me, and as he bundled me in his cloak, he looked at me like no man ever had – like I was a person.”

Fierce tears welled in Solmay’s eyes. Her lower lip trembled and she stared defiantly at Del, daring her to replace something negative to say about Orcadis now.

They were supposed to have been sheep. Brainless. Zombies. Somehow Delia Alister the first-class mentalist had never considered that their stories could have been as complicated as hers. Maybe she should have gone into mathematics or something.

“I’m sorry,” was all she could say.

“We know the Fist has made mistakes. We know it’s his fault we’re all probably going to die on this ship. But if it wasn’t for him, we would’ve been dead turns ago. Our love is unconditional.”

Del cradled her bandaged arm unconsciously. Something deep and inexplicable began taking root inside of her as she digested their stories, until suddenly she knew what she had to do. Del stood, her calves toppling the box over. “The public address room is in this wing, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Belred said, blinking. “Why do you ask?”

“Come on. Enough blood has been spilt.” She wheeled round and started from the chamber. After a few moments she heard Belred and Solmay following. The public address room was empty when they arrived. Del grabbed the microphone, not heeding the screeching whine it made as she pulled it to her lips.

“Iron Helms of Vangarde,” she said, her own amplified voice sweeping through the ship in a fractionally belated wave of echoes, “I know you’re afraid. A Helm’s life is about control; being Infected is anything but. I know you’re angry. Our Iron Fist has led us and himself astray. But he has not abandoned us. Do you remember your recruitment? You were lost and afraid. You had nobody. He gave you support. Now our Greathelm is lost. He is afraid. He needs our support. Will we not give it? Is that how loyalty works? This ship can only be saved if we allow ourselves to be Infected. We need to trust that the Greathelm won’t abandon us. It’s time to make our choice. It’s either we resist, fight the soldiers who come to take us, spill more blood – or face our fears. Helms, you want to be in control? Control your fear. March into the hangar with me, before the soldiers come to ferry us there like cornered animals. Together, we can save the ship. You have a chance to control the fates of everyone onboard. Will you take it?”

She threw the microphone away, swivelled on her heel and started out of the public address room before Belred or Solmay could even open their mouths.

“Miss Alister, where are you going?” Belred asked, sounding anxious.

“To the hangar,” she said. “Come with me.”

They didn’t answer, but nor did they stop tailing her. Del halted outside the double doors to the ship’s hangar, left open a crack for Voices to sieve through. She let the terror make its argument. She felt her heart slamming against her ribs, her stomach doing backflips, the trembles washing through her body. The Voices were her greatest fear.

No: being afraid is your greatest fear.

Del placed an open palm against the metal door.

“Wait!” Belred and Solmay yelled together.

She turned around. A small crowd of brown-robes had accrued behind her, looking tentative. She smiled at them in encouragement. More came from the southern wing until the entire corridor behind her had filled with determined faces. It was only a few dozen or so, but it was enough to motivate her.

“We can’t let others dictate our fates any longer,” she told Solmay and Belred.

“I’m in,” Solmay said after a long silence. Belred gave a stiff nod.

Del pushed the thick metal doors open and Voices permeated the air.

She took Belred’s hand with her uninjured one and Belred took Solmay’s. Together, they stepped inside.