"You! Why did you not help me?" she demanded angrily. "I was almost drowned."
"I couldn't," Poley explained with a shrug.
"He doesn't function at full capacity if he is submerged, so our father programmed him with hydrophobia," RJ said matter-of-factly.
Janad gave her a confused look, proving that she still didn't really understand what Poley was.
"He's afraid of the water," RJ explained simply.
Janad looked at Poley, pointed and laughed.
Poley gave the girl a confused look. "It isn't right to laugh at someone's fear. Is it right, RJ?"
"No, it's not, Poley," RJ said. She looked down, momentarily forgetting everything except the fact that her clothes and her chain were wet and how much she hated it when her clothes were wet. "I'm freaking soaking dripping wet. My blaster's wet; I'll have to take it apart and dry it out. Why can't anything be simple? Why can't anything be easy?"
"Many things are simple. Many things are easy." Poley supplied.
"Poley, I wasn't talking to you," RJ said shortly. "I wasn't asking you a question."
"Then who were you talking to?" he asked.
RJ gritted her teeth. "No one, Poley. I wasn't talking to anyone."
"Oh," Poley said simply.
RJ ignored the judgmental quality in Poley's voice. "Put your little tin ego away and go medicate David."
"Am I to assume that you are talking to me now?" Poley asked.
RJ laughed. "Sarcasm, Poley?" She smiled at him and moved to slap his back. "That's very good! You just became a smart ass. Now, could you just please medicate David?"
Poley moved towards David, and David jumped to his feet. Or at least he got to his feet as quickly as he could on this planet.
"No!" David screamed, backing away from Poley. "Quit doping me up. Quit drugging me. I know what you're trying to do. You're trying to brainwash me. But I'll never tell you where the rebel base is on Alsterace Island on planet Earth. Never!"
David tried to run, but Poley caught him easily. He took the pocket medic from his pocket and set it with one hand while holding David with the other. He placed the device against David's arm.
"No please
. . .
" David felt a slight stinging sensation. His vision started to clear; he could almost feel the confusion draining from his mind. He didn't feel like he was going to vomit any more. "I
. . .
I feel fine!" David said in surprise.
"Yeah, now all you have to go through are the chills and you should be right as rain," RJ said.
"What the hell happened to me?" David asked, then added almost as an afterthought, "Where are we and how did we get here?"
"You had space sickness. We didn't notice your symptoms till it was too late for the medication to do you any good as long as we were in space, so we sedated you and brought you with us to the planet's surface."
"I still feel very heavy – like it's harder to move," David said experimentally lifting his foot.
"That's because it is," RJ explained. "This planet is denser than Earth and therefore has a stronger gravitational pull. For all practical purposes you are a good twenty-five pounds heavier here than you would be on Earth."
"You threw shit on us," Janad said glaring accusingly at David.
"I did what?" David shrieked.
"He tried to drown her, and yet she's more upset about the dung," Poley said in an interested tone.
"I did what?" David asked again.
"Never mind. Suffice it to say you haven't been yourself lately." RJ started walking, and the others followed. "Oh, and it would probably be a good idea to steer clear of Levits for a few days," RJ added over her shoulder.
Taleed and Haldeed caught up to them then, huffing and puffing.
Janad met them with a big butcher knife she had obviously taken from the ship's galley in her hand, and they skidded to an abrupt halt.
Janad screamed something in their language.
"They're all right," RJ said. "Some local adventurers who want to help us with our quest. Come on, let's go find the others."
"So, the way I see it, we're basically screwed," Levits said.
"I'm freezing my ass off over here," David said his teeth chattering in spite of the dry space suit and three solar blankets he had wrapped around him and his close vicinity to the fire.
"It should pass in a couple of days," Poley informed.
"That's very comforting, thank you," David said sarcastically.
"Shut up, shit boy," Levits hissed from where he sat across the fire.
"All right. What happened with the shit?" David asked.
Levits started to tell him in what would, no doubt, have been very colorful language, but Topaz stopped him.
"Let's not go back there," Topaz said putting a gentle hand on Levits' chest.
"Ever," RJ added. She sat down behind Levits, and he laid his head against her chest. She wrapped her arms around him and kissed the top of his head.
"What the hell is going on?" David asked, wondering if he was still hallucinating or had indeed ever stopped.
"They have sex," Janad informed him.
"Really?" David asked looking at RJ.
"Yes, really!" Levits hissed, apparently taking immediate offense at the note of disbelief in David's voice. "You got some problem with that, shit boy?"
David was stunned silent for a moment, but finally found his voice. "Ah, no
. . .
Not at all." It was a lie, and probably not a very convincing one.
He was shaking all over, and now suddenly his stomach hurt and he felt heartsick. Neither of these latter symptoms had anything to do with his disease. RJ hadn't been ready for a relationship. He admitted now, if only to himself, that he had harbored some hope that RJ still loved him. That when she was ready to have another relationship it would be with him. He tried very hard to hide what he was feeling because it just wasn't appropriate. He didn't get along with Levits, but he didn't dislike him, and if he was sure of nothing else he was sure that Levits loved RJ. David didn't really love RJ, not at least with the sort of passion he knew to be romantic love. The truth was he thought he would never feel that way about anyone ever again, and RJ would have been the next best thing. At the very least he knew he could trust RJ. He wasn't sure he could ever really trust anyone else. So, now the way he saw it he was doomed to go through his life alone.
"David, are you all right?" Topaz asked, making David realize just how long he had been silently staring into the center of the fire.
"No, I'm not all right. I feel like crap, I'm freezing to death, and everyone keeps reminding me of the hideous things I did when I was delusional. I think I'm going to go in the ship and lie down." David started to get up.
"I'll help you," Poley offered.
David was about to snap at him that he hardly needed help lying down, when Poley reached down and helped him to his feet. He realized he actually
did
need the help, or at the very least he was glad to have it. Poley helped him into the ship and helped him to lie down on the cot, and then he covered him up with the three blankets.
"Thank you, Poley," David said surprised at how tired he suddenly felt.
"You're welcome," Poley said and turned to leave.
"Poley?" David called after him.
Poley turned to face David. "Yes."
"Poley
. . .
Do you think RJ is happy with him?"
"Who?" Poley asked.
"Levits?" David said trying not to scream. Sometimes the obvious seemed to go right over the robot's head.
"She seems to be. Yes," Poley answered. He turned and left the ship.
While a human might have sensed that David needed to talk, Poley had answered David's question and since David said he wanted to sleep, Poley was leaving so that he could.
David stared up at the ceiling and started to feel trapped – like he was back in space. So he quickly looked out the open door. He took a breath and made himself calm down.
I can't begrudge them whatever happiness they can find. Even if they chose to find it together. It was foolish and selfish to think that RJ and I would wind up together. Levits cares about her at least as much as I do. He even loves her, and I don't. Not really. I'd like to, but I don't and I never will. So I have to be rational. But she's the only almost human woman in my life, and I just don't feel like being rational.
He had just decided to stay up all night brooding about it when he fell asleep.
Haldeed and Taleed stood several feet away from the others. It had gotten dark fast, but soon
Grande Lune
, the largest of the six moons, would be up. The second brightest of Beta 4's moons, and this early in its cycle, it would light things up so bright that it would almost – but not quite – blot out the light of the smaller moon in this cycle,
Azure Lune
.
Between the two of them the night would be almost as bright as day.
"I think she knows who I am," Taleed said.
Who, the girl
? Haldeed signed.
"No, the woman, the white headed woman, the one they call RJ. I think she knows who I am. But how could she know, Haldeed? How did she figure me out when no one else – not even the Reliance men did?" Taleed asked.
She is a god
, Haldeed signed frantically.
"Look at the facts, Haldeed. She's no god, she even said she wasn't
. . .
"
Haldeed cut Taleed off with a shove – something he hadn't done since they were boys.
No!
You
look at the facts, Taleed
, Haldeed signed.
You are lying about what you are. She came from the sky. She was wearing the silver suit of the gods. She utterly did smite the enemy of the people and cleansed the temple of the poison gold. She runs too fast to be mortal. She doesn't look like us, and she doesn't look like them, either.
"There is another people I have heard of. The ones who fight the Reliance. It is said that they are white headed, blue eyed and bronze skinned. She must be one of those," Taleed said. He glared back at her. It hurt to know that she had already figured out his clever ruse. That his "hands" hadn't fooled her. It had been nice to be seen by others as normal. It bothered him to think that his disguise hadn't fooled her for even a minute. "They are all strange, all different. I admit I don't know that much about the Reliance people, but these seem even stranger than those."
All the more reason we should leave here and go back to the palace where we belong
, Haldeed signed.
"I'm staying with them till I find out why they have really come here," Taleed said stubbornly. "I don't understand everything that they say because they speak too fast and use slang words, but in a few days I shall know everything that they are saying. In a few days I will know what they are really doing here." He looked at his friend, pleading for his understanding. "I
. . .
I have this odd feeling, Haldeed, that my destiny is tied up with these strange people. If I leave now, I may never reach my true place in the universe. I may die without fulfilling my destiny. And if I leave now, I will never know one way or the other. I will always wonder whether this was the road I should have taken and didn't."
I do not understand you anymore, Taleed. You say you do not believe in the gods, but now you talk of destiny. Surely if there are no gods, then a man makes his own destiny. Why risk your life on the off chance that your destiny may be linked to these people? If you truly do not believe that someday you will be a god, if you are never to be any more than a man, why worry about your destiny at all
?
"You make good arguments, my brother, but I still will not go. Perhaps there
is
a larger power. If there is, then truly it has guided us to be here with these people now, for what were the odds that we should all be in that one place at that one time?" Taleed said in a passionate whisper.
Haldeed reluctantly nodded his head. Whatever Taleed wanted to do he would do, whether he thought Taleed's actions careless or not. Haldeed didn't need to find out what his destiny was. His destiny was to serve the young Prince. His destiny was written in stone, even as his tongue had been cut from his head.
Taheed glared down at the old priest. "Are you calling me a liar, Ziphed?"
"No, Your Majesty, but, well
. . .
Where is the Prince? He has missed his last three lessons, and
. . .
He has made a habit of running away, My Lord. His man servant Haldeed has also been noticeably absent from the palace grounds." Ziphed said with as much reverence as he could muster.