My Enemy's Son (The Two Moons of Rehnor, Book 2) (2 page)

“Blessed Saint,” Kenak gasped again, his
hands back in his hair.  “You have found a mutant Karupta.  Does he speak
Donak?  Does he say who he is or who he belongs to?”

“Unfortunately he does not speak.”  Donak
shook his head.  “This is why I have come to you.  He has been with us for
nearly a week.   He is now free from the drugs so we must release him from the
hospital.  There is no medical reason to retain him.”

“No!”  Kenak begged.  “Not yet!  I must
see him first.  I must see the marking.  If there is a Karupta colony anywhere
on this planet be it underground or under the sea, I must know.  I've spent my
whole life studying the Wars of the Saint.”

“I know, dear friend,” Donak replied
sympathetically.  “I have managed to hold off his release until this evening. 
Perhaps you could come to the hospital and see if you can communicate with
him.  Maybe you can even help him.  If he is an escaped slave and has nowhere
to go or to live, you could find him some sort of temporary accommodations.”

“I will, I will.”  Kenak leapt to his
feet.

“I will too, I will too.”  I jumped up as
well.

“Now?” Kenak cried.

“Now,” Donak agreed.  “Come on.”  He led
the way.

On the way over to the Rozari Science
Institute Medical Centre, from our building which housed the Social Sciences
Departments, we crossed half the campus.  It was extremely hot, and the ground
as always was covered with thick, red dirt that kicked up lots of dust.  Since
I had not planned to transverse the campus this day, thinking only that I would
go from the parking garage to my building in an enclosed overhead walkway, I
had worn an expensive and cute pair of strappy sandals. 

Now as I chased after the two men, I noted
that my expensive sandals were basically toast.  Stained with the red post
nuclear dirt of Rozari, which all had assured me was no longer radioactive, my
darling white heels would be thrown in the trash bin tonight.  Tim would
chastise me for wearing them to work today but I suppose it gave me an excuse
to go shop for new ones. 

By the time we reached the entrance to the
RSI Medical Centre, I was dripping wet from running in 120 degree heat.  There
were sweat stains down the length of my blouse and I was ready to turn around
and go back to my speeder and go home.

“What's the matter, Shelly?” Dr. Kenak
said, frowning at me.  “Why do you look so sad?  Do you not wish to meet this
Karupta fellow?”

“Oh, I do,” I said and waved.  “I just
need a shower first.”

The two Rozarian men stared at me as if I
were crazy.

“Why?” Kenak asked, clearly not bothered
by his own sweat stains or the dust.

“Forget it,” I said.  “Lead on.”

Donak took us to a secured patient room in
a corner of the hospital.

“Why is he locked in?” I asked as Donak
entered a code into the door console.

“While undergoing drug withdrawal, we
feared he would try to escape.”  Donak stepped back as the door swung open.  We
entered a typical sterile, white hospital room with white walls, a white bed, a
bathroom and a window.

“Where is he?” I whispered.

Donak tiptoed around the side of the bed
and waved to us.

“Good day,” he called loudly as Kenak and
I tiptoed around as well. 

Hunched against the wall in the corner, as
if he was trying to make himself as small as possible, there was a man.  Maybe,
he was even a boy.  He was much younger than I had anticipated.  He was wearing
a Rozari Science Institute t-shirt and a matching pair of sweat pants that
someone must have dug up from the lost and found, as they were obviously well
worn and far too short, barely hanging past his knees.  He had bare feet and
the first thing that I noticed was that something was wrong with his toenails. 
They were dark and claw-like.

“What’s wrong with his feet?”  I asked
Donak.

“I don’t know,” Donak murmured while I
looked over the rest of the boy.  The rest of him was not weird at all.  He had
long black, wavy hair, pale skin, a very noble, proud face with long black
eyelashes that were closed as if he was asleep.  He was beautiful in a strange,
almost ethereal, yet very male way.

“Kenak cleared his throat.  “I do indeed
see the marking,” he whispered.  “It does look authentic.”  He pointed at the
young man’s left arm where a large black tattoo-like picture of what could be
an eagle was made by cutting and burning scars into the skin tissue.

I supposed the Karupta’s might have
considered it art, but personally, I thought it was gross. 

“It is just the same as that borne by the
Infidel,” Kenak added.

“Is he asleep?”  I whispered to Donak.

Donak shrugged.

Since both he and Kenak appeared to be
rooted to where they stood, I stepped forward a few paces and squatted down in
my destroyed, now-red heels so that I was eye level with the young man.

“Hello?” I called softly.  “My name is
Shelly Mattson.”

The Karupta opened his eyes and looked at
me and for a moment my vision clouded with silver light.  I was lost.  My brain
fogged and I fell back on the ground, slipping off my heels and landing on my
butt.  The boy closed his eyes.

“Are you alright, Shelly?” Kenak gasped
and grabbed my arm.  He yanked me upright whereupon I teetered for a moment.

“Fine,” I replied, dusting myself off and
then removing my heels.  I squatted down again.  “Let's start over.  I am
Shelly Mattson and you are?”

No response.  I was not deterred though. 
I chatted away because Kenak appeared to be dumbfounded and this might have
turned out to be our only chance to speak with a real Karupta before he was
released and disappeared tonight.

“What is your name?” I spoke slowly and clearly. 
“Do you have a name?  What are you called?”

“I don't think he speaks Rozarian,” Donak
interrupted me.  “He hasn't spoken to anyone the entire time he has been here.”

“Perhaps he speaks Ancient Rozarian?”
Kenak suggested.  “If the Karuptas were hiding in an underground bunker or
isolated mountain cave for the last thousand years, their language would not
have evolved as ours has done.  I shall try a few Ancient Rozarian words.” 
Kenak proceeded to randomly toss out words like
table, chair, apple
, and
bread
in Ancient Rozarian.  Too bad he didn’t know any verbs.  It did
illicit a bit of response from the young man.  For a moment, he opened his eyes
again and Kenak was momentarily blinded by the silver light.  Kenak stopped
talking.

“Do you think he understood me?” Kenak
whispered when he had recovered sufficiently from the accompanying brain fog.

Before we could answer, the door swung
open and a nurse came in with a tray.

“Dude,” she said.  “Here's your dinner. 
You gonna eat something today?”  She had an accent that sounded like New Jersey
to me.  Setting the tray down on the swinging table, she went out to fetch a
fresh pitcher of water.

“Janet,” Dr. Donak said when she had
returned.  “Has our friend spoken to anyone yet?”

“Nope,” Janet replied, straightening the
already straight bed sheets.  “Hasn't eaten anything either.  You gonna want to
start an IV before he dehydrates himself?”

“Yes.”  Donak nodded thoughtfully.  “If we
have him hooked up, I can extend his stay a bit more.”

“Very good,” Kenak said excitedly.  “That
shall give us more time to work.”

I stood up and went to pour a glass of
water from the pitcher.  I then took it back over to the young man.  If this
poor guy had already been enslaved, I was sure he didn’t want to be trapped
here in the hospital as Kenak's lab rat.

“Drink this, sweetie, and maybe you can
get out of here,” I said, putting it on the floor in front of him.

“I think he blew his brains out on drugs,”
Nurse Janet remarked.  “Damn, he's hot though.”

“He is gorgeous,” I agreed.

“Yeah,” she sighed.  “Look at the biceps. 
It’s like he's been lifting boulders or something.”

“Perhaps he has been living in a mountain
cave,” Kenak mused.

“Go on, honey, drink the water,” I spoke
louder to the Karupta.  “You don't want Dr. Donak to have to poke you in the
arm.”

He opened his eyes again, just slightly,
so a thin stream of silver light came out but didn’t blind any of us.

“Water,” Kenak pronounced in Ancient
Rozarian.

The young man reached over and picked up
the glass of water from the floor where I had set it.  He drank it.

We all sighed and smiled at each other as
if this was a great accomplishment.

“I'll get you some more,” I said and went
to retrieve the pitcher.  Just as I was about to pick it up, it lifted itself
up in the air and flew across the room.  I screamed.  The others backed out of
the way as if the pitcher was some kind of a bullet.  It soared straight into
the young man's hand, whereupon he poured himself another glass of water.

“My goodness!” Donak exclaimed.

“Blessed Saint!” Kenak cried.

“Dude!” Janet gasped.

“Do you want something to eat too?” I
squeaked.

“Could the Karuptas do that, Kenak?” Donak
asked.

“I don't know,” Kenak stuttered. “I don't
know.  I don't recall reading anywhere that they could and surely if they could
they would have written it down so we would know, wouldn't they?”

“What?”

The dinner plate was now flying across the
room and landed next to the Karupta.  He had a piece of fried chicken, a few
red potatoes, a roll, butter and an apple.  Selecting the apple, he pushed the
rest away.  Then, he casually ate the apple, his silver eyes flickering at us. 
I picked up the plate and put it back on the tray table.

“Can you tell us your name now?” I asked,
turning back to him.

“Senya,” he said between bites.

Kenak gasped again.

“Your name is Senya?” I repeated.

He nodded.

“Where are you from, Senya?” Kenak asked
tentatively.

Senya finished his apple.  I looked at the
tray.  He tossed the apple core and it landed in the middle of the tray.  We
all stared at it as if this too was a great and astonishing feat.

“Are you from Karupatani?” Kenak
hesitantly spoke again.

“Ay yah,” Senya said.

“What does that mean?” Janet asked.

“I don't know,” Kenak replied.  “Perhaps
yes?”

“Or perhaps no,” Donak said.  “Why were
you marked, Senya?”  He pointed at the man's arm.

Senya said something totally
unintelligible.  We all looked at each other.

“Does anyone have a Universal Translator?”
I asked.

“I have an app on my iPhone,” Janet
replied and held it out.  “Dude, say that again.”

Senya cocked his head like he was
listening to something.  Janet swayed on her feet and almost dropped the
iPhone. 

“I think he wants us all to go away,” she
said and picked up the food tray.  She hastily beat it out of the room. 
Suddenly, I had an urge to follow and raced after her.  Once out in the
hallway, I thought about why I had left and then realized I hadn’t a clue. 
Donak and Kenak immediately joined me and the door slammed shut behind them. 
We heard the lock click.

“Why did we leave so quickly?” Kenak asked
no one in particular.

“Because he wanted us to?” Donak
suggested.

“Well, that's a good reason,” I replied.

The next morning, Donak rang us to say
that Senya had left the hospital during the night and no one saw him leave or
knew where he had gone.

About three weeks later, I was leaving the
office to go home.  I needed to stop by the Administration building to deliver
some documents for my class, so instead of going through the elevated walkways,
I was again walking across the dry dusty planet.  At least this time, I was
wearing running shoes. 

It was winter, which meant the sun had set
early and the planet had cooled off to a reasonable balmy temperature.  It was
very pleasant out and I was strolling along minding my own business when I
spied Senya sitting on the stoop of a building.  I recognized him immediately
because of all that long, black, wavy hair.  He was wearing the same worn,
ill-fitting t-shirt and sweat pants and was smoking a cigarette.  As I came
upon the entrance way to the building, the silver light from his eyes shone in
my direction.

“Hello Senya,” I said.  “What are you
doing here?”

He cocked his head and I felt again that
fogginess in my brain for just a few moments.

“Shelly,” he pronounced.

“Very good,” I said and sat down on the
step next to him.  “You remembered.  How are you doing?”

“Very good,” he replied but I think he was
just echoing me because his inflection was wrong.