Citadel: First Colony (7 page)

Alan gently took Thomas by the arm and led him toward Citadel.

After both bandages had been completely removed, Thomas downed a couple of antibiotics, some painkillers, and what had to be gallons of water. It wasn’t cold, but it tasted like heaven to him. He felt as if he hadn’t had anything to drink in months.

Alan had a kit with fresh bandages, swabs, and ointments. “This will hurt,” he said frankly.

And it did.

Thomas gritted his teeth as the young man meticulously swabbed and daubed at his hands with cotton, gauze, and alcohol. Once the burns were clean to his satisfaction, Alan slathered balm on them and wrapped them in fresh, clean bandages.

The damage hadn’t been quite as bad as Thomas had feared. His fingers were mostly fine, singed here and there. His palms and the backs of his hands were blistered and burned pretty bad, though. The balm felt cool and comforting, but it still hurt like hell.

“Thanks,” he said.

Alan looked up at him and nodded. “You’re welcome.”

Thomas nodded to his hands, “You've done this sort of thing before.”

Alan shrugged. “My parents died when I was very young, and I had to learn how to take care of myself. And occasionally other people.”

Thomas noted Alan's distant, subtle but sad tone. “How did they die?”

Alan stopped and looked to the side. His breath quickened, then he seemed to calm himself. “They died in a colony ship accident,” he said simply, without seeming emotional.

For the first time, it occurred to Thomas how tenderly and thoroughly the young man had dealt with his burns. He knew how to treat them without being told. He was an expert at it, in fact. This was more than just the standard set of survival skills learned by an abandoned youth, it was art. It was a skill learned with motivation, even if the purpose was long gone. “They were burned to death,” Thomas said quietly, feeling a pinch of turmoil at one of his own distant memories.

Alan looked at him, his gaze steady but sad.

“I know something about that,” Thomas said. “I ... let’s just say I have dreams about people dying like that. Fire. Explosions.”

Alan was silent, studying Thomas’ face. He nodded, rising to his feet. He helped Thomas stand, and the two of them quietly made their way out into the current of the new community that had been born, if somewhat painfully, in Citadel's shadow.

––––––––

G
ravity
was something different.
After years of working in space, even hanging from rigging high up in cavern-like chambers, Mitch had never felt the full tug of real gravity. At least, not while he was dangling from a questionable support ring with a bed of metal and jagged, splintered trees below. He opted to concentrate on the work at hand. And the work at hand was confirming something that Mitch had hoped would turn out to be his imagination.

This was definitely sabotage.

Mitch had inspected all of the release clamps for the shuttle and found the same weld on each of them. They were fused as if they were one piece of metal, and that meant someone had used an MD welding rig. MD—molecular disruption—could break things apart at a subatomic level, unstitching the target molecule by molecule. It also came in handy for joining things together in one piece.

“Mitch,” said Billy Sans, one of his Blue Collar crewmates. He was assisting Mitch, hanging from the side of the Citadel module. His hand-wound flashlight was playing light over another set of bolts. “Someone did this. This wasn’t an accident.”

“Yeah,” Mitch agreed. “They were pretty determined to keep us from launching the shuttle.”

“This doesn’t make sense,” Billy said. He had let go of the magnetic handgrips all together and was hanging entirely by the safety strap clamped to a ring in Citadel’s hull, bracing himself with his feet. It made Mitch nervous to see it, but the young man had been doing things like this his whole life. He felt perfectly safe.

Mitch wished he could say the same. He felt anything but safe at this point.

“Someone didn’t want this colony to survive,” Mitch said. “Makes sense to me.”

“But why weld the shuttle in place? I mean, the clamps on the modules ... I can see that. Heck, whatever they did threw us out of light speed too close to the planet, so you’d figure that would be enough to take us out.”

“But it wasn’t,” Mitch said. “Maybe they knew we might survive that and thought this might be a good way to finish us off.”

Billy chewed on his lip and allowed himself to swing gently back and forth on his safety strap, forcing Mitch to look up at the increasingly dark sky above. “Hey, Mitch, you don’t think it was the scrub, do you?”

Mitch’s temper went white hot, but he kept it in check. “No, Billy.
Captain
Somar didn’t do this. Why would he?”

“The Esool are the enemy, right? Maybe this is their way of starting the war again.”

“
Were
the enemy,” Mitch said. “And they were never suicidal, were they? Captain Somar was on board during the whole thing. There was a good chance he would have died with us. Does that make sense to you?”

Billy shrugged, “Who knows how a scrub thinks?”

Mitch couldn’t listen to this any longer. He released the magnetic fields on his grips, attached them to the harness, and hit the cable release on the safety strap. With the buzzing sound of the line playing through metal clamps and pulleys, Mitch lowered himself quickly to the ground, slowing his descent just before contact. Billy came buzzing down after.

Once they were back at camp, Mitch told Billy to go find some chow and set off himself to locate the Captain. He found Somar sitting at one of the folding tables that had been brought out of the equipment bay. Spread out on the table was a survey map, printed from the colony archive. A hand-wound brass lantern was lighting the surface of the table as Somar puzzled over the image, making various marks.

“Captain,” Mitch said as he approached.

Somar looked up. “Mr. Garrison,” he said.

“Looks like we were right. Someone put an MD weld on all of the release clamps. Whoever sabotaged the modules did the same thing to the shuttle.”

Somar nodded. “I was sure that would be the case. And it’s actually a relief.”

Mitch was surprised. “Why?”

“The module releases could be reached from within the colony ship, but the clamps on the shuttle would have to be welded from outside.”

Mitch thought about this. “Someone would have noticed an EVA. So this was probably done before we left the Hub.”

“That is what I believe. And that means there is a very good chance the saboteur is not among us.”

“Good news for once,” Mitch said. “So what are you doing now?”

“Looking at the survey maps. And what I have seen does not make me happy.”

Mitch looked at the maps with the various marks of certain locations. “What is it?” he asked.

“I cannot find us on this map.”

Mitch blinked. “What do you mean?”

“The batteries on the navigational computer you brought me are not fully charged, but I used the hand-cranked generator to power the computer long enough to give me a general location. The orbital platform seems to have survived and is functioning in orbit. However, the satellite data I have retrieved does not match any of these survey maps.”

“Maybe some are missing?” Mitch asked.

“Perhaps. But that still leaves us with only a brief glimpse at the landscape. I shall be forced to wait for the computer’s batteries to fully charge.”

“I can turn the crank for a while. It shouldn’t take more than thirty minutes to get a decent charge. Tomorrow the solar panels should do the rest.”

Somar bowed slightly. “Thank you, Mr. Garrison. That will free me to deal with another matter.”

“What’s that?” Mitch asked.

“One of the White Collar crew members was badly burned while rescuing a woman in the crew chamber. I will tend his wounds.”

“Can’t the medic or the doctor take care of it?” Mitch asked, confused.

Somar didn’t answer immediately. He seemed to be considering. “My people have ... special techniques.”

Mitch nodded and took up position by the computer system, taking the hand crank and turning it to charge the system’s batteries. “I’ll be here, then,” he said. Captain Somar nodded and left what had become the command center of the camp.

––––––––

T
homas
wished he had an actual book to read.
He knew that would be a strange idea to the others, who seemed to be content with the flat, metallic rectangles that were now used for reading and watching video. The technology was pretty impressive, he had to admit—a display that only used power when the image changed, allowing it to go months between charges. Remarkable. And necessary in an environment, such as a space-faring vessel, where power consumption had to be closely regulated and the span between lightrail hubs could be several months, possibly years. But as remarkable as it was, it somehow lacked the charm and kinesthetic comfort that a book could provide. It also lacked a smell—that strangely vital component of books that Thomas hadn’t even realized he’d missed until it was gone. Technology had finally won out over real books, even if everything else seemed to be a throwback to brass and bolts.

That was something else Thomas hadn’t expected. In his early research, it had become evident that digital technology would have problems operating under the conditions needed for faster-than-light travel. He had always assumed someone would invent an alternative. And, it seemed, someone had, only a few hundred years earlier—in the form of brass fixtures and pneumatics and cables. It was quite brilliant, actually. Where bits and bytes failed, good, old-fashioned bolts and gears performed miracles. It was a different world than the one he’d left, for certain. “Times have changed,” he said quietly.

“Indeed,” came a voice from above him.

Thomas looked up to see the alien captain. Somar. The green-tinged man was smiling down at him, barely visible in the darkness of the night-shrouded forest. “Captain Somar,” Thomas said, returning the smile. “What brings you to this neck of the woods.”

The captain blinked.

“It’s an Earth saying. Ironic, in this case.”

“Ah,” Somar said. He knelt down beside Thomas. “I heard about your burns.”

Thomas held up his bandaged hands. “Not the most convenient thing that could have happened. Makes me a little useless at the moment.”

“You have already served your people well,” Somar said with quiet authority.

If only
, Thomas thought. “What can I do for you, Captain?”

Somar shook his head. “You can do nothing for me, Thomas. But I wish to do something for you.”

“You have a book?”

“A book?”

“Nothing. You were saying?”

Somar looked around, and once he seemed satisfied that no one was paying attention, he reached into the interior of his jumpsuit and pulled out a very sharp, very wicked-looking knife.

“Um,” Thomas said.

“Do not be afraid, Thomas. This is not meant for you.” With that, he reached out and carefully cut the bandages away from Thomas’ hands. When the bare, burned flesh was exposed, Somar once again looked around, and then locked his gaze on Thomas’ eyes. “What I do now is considered a sacred act among my people, and you must promise not to reveal it to the others.”

Thomas, confused but intrigued, nodded. “I promise.”

Somar bowed his head slightly in acceptance and then quickly sliced the palm of his hand with the knife. As green-tinted blood oozed out, he cupped his other hand, catching it in a pool. He then cupped Thomas’s burned hands in his own, covering them liberally with his own blood.

Thomas felt it immediately. A cool sensation, tingling its way up his arms to the elbow. His hands felt as if they were covered in something mentholated. In moments, the burns stopped hurting all together, and soon after, the tingling and coolness subsided.

Thomas raised his hands, Somar’s blood making them slick and slightly green in the faint light from the camp. Somar reached out and wiped them clean with a cloth he produced from his pocket.

The burns were completely healed.

“What ... ”

Somar held up his own hand. The cut, which had bled freely only seconds before, was completely gone. Healed over. “As I have said, this is a sacred act among my people. Our blood is mingled. We are as brothers.”

“Blood brothers,” Thomas said quietly.

Somar’s eyes widened slightly. “Indeed. You have this custom on Earth?”

“Not exactly,” he replied, marveling at the smooth and blister-free flesh. “Can ... can you heal any injury this way?”

Somar shook his head. “No. Burns. Slight wounds. In the case of severe wounds, I can help in the healing process, but it is usually not significant enough to make much difference. Among the Esool, many of us would gather to share our blood and heal one severely injured brother.”

“So ... it’s cumulative?”

“As you say.”

“So the more of your blood you use, the more you can heal someone?”

“Yes, in a sense. Which is also why it is so vital to keep this a secret.”

“I can see that. If people here found out you could heal them with your blood, I don’t think you’d last very long. There are a lot of injured humans here.”

“Indeed, and only one Esool.”

Thomas saw it immediately. If the others found out about this, Somar would be torn to shreds in the name of healing the others. And all in vain, since there would not be enough of his blood to do much good.

But something wasn’t quite right about this. “Why me?” Thomas asked suddenly. “Why heal me like this? There are people worse off than me. Lissa ... Won’t this just raise questions in the camp?”

Somar shook his head. “If you agree to my plan, you will not be here to raise any suspicions.”

Thomas blinked. “What do you mean?”

Somar rose to his feet. “I have a mission for you, Thomas. One for which you will need your hands whole. And one that could mean the survival of this colony.”

T
he
night had been a long one, and no one had really slept much.
Things had gone so terribly wrong. Being on this world had been expected. Being here without the power and security that Citadel was meant to provide was just disturbing. When dawn finally came, the camp of humans rose wearily, stumbling and coughing and shuffling to the large, open area where they were being directed.