Of Blood and Angels (The Two Moons of Rehnor, Book 3) (9 page)

“If we bring him back here, it'll give us
cover.  Everyone will think he's been with me all this time.”

“Cover for what?”

“Jerry,” I zipped my bag, “I can't even
begin to explain.  I don't know how else to say this but, he's not normal. 
Frankly, he's really strange and I'm guessing that something really strange,
bad strange has happened and I don't trust anyone else to see to him and keep
quiet about it.  Does that make sense?”

“Well, thanks for the trust, honey and I
have noticed he's more than a little bit strange.  If that's what you want me
to do, I'll do it.”  He got up and started to leave.

“I'll send a note to Richard and let him
know I'm going with you.”  He paused at the door.  “Katie?”

Uh oh.

“Are you really happy with him?”

I closed my eyes.  I couldn’t look in
Jerry's face.

“Ok, you don't have to answer that.”

“Thank you, Jerry.”  I walked up to him
and took his hands.  “You are my best friend and my brother.  Please let that
be enough.”

“I understand.”  He kissed my forehead. 
“I can't compete with Superman, even if Superman is totally strange.  I'm just
poor old Jerry the newsboy.”

“He is Superman,” I agreed and was filled
with a longing so intense I wanted to cry.

“Alright then, let's go dispose of the
kryptonite so he can fly home to you.”  He winked and shut the door.

Some twelve hours later, Jerry and I
landed at the SdK campus and headed to Senya’s office.  Jerry was overwhelmed. 
He had never been in a spaceplane like ours and was shocked at the enormity of
the campus.

“This is all yours?” he asked as I told
him to take a seat and wait for Thad.  “All these buildings?”

“It takes a lot to make all those nifty
gadgets you like,” I replied, shifting through the papers on Senya's desk.

“Katie, do you think you can sign off on
some of these requisitions?” Susie asked.  “I know Ron was planning to do it
before he left.

“Oh, Katie.”  Thad bolted through the
door.  “I need you to authorize a transfer of funds.  Berkan is requesting this
amount.”  He showed me a number that was what I would call astronomical.  “Am I
okay to send him this?”

“Do we have this?”

“Uh…yeah.  Otherwise I wouldn’t be able to
send it to Berkan, would I?”  Thad smirked.

“Do you think we should do it?”

Thad glanced at Jerry.  “Berk is working
on a project for Ron and he needs additional funding for it.  It's just an
intercompany loan.  I’m totally sure Ron would do it.”

“Well, do it if it's necessary.”  I
shrugged and signed off all the forms he handed me.  “Let's get going.”

“Where are we going?”  Thad asked.  “And
who's he?”

I introduced Jerry.

“Donak was going to come,” Thad objected. 
“You can trust Donak.”

“I can trust Jerry too,” I said.  “Donak
can come if he wants but Jerry's specialty is Emergency Medical and Search and
Rescue.”

“Loman wants to send a team,” Thad
mumbled, holding his hand up as if to shield his mouth from Jerry’s view.  “He
told me we have until tomorrow night to find him and if we don't, then he'll
take over.”

“We'll find him before then,” I snapped.

“Who's Loman?” Jerry asked.

“And Loman says if he's hurt, he's to come
back there,” Thad continued, still hiding his mouth although obviously Jerry
could hear.

“I want to take him back to the
Discovery,” I said.

“Come back where?” Jerry inquired,
studying Thad through his glasses.

“You won't have a choice,” Thad replied. 
“If Loman gets a…”  He cleared his throat loudly.  “Ahem…edict signed, we'll
have to bring him there.  Berkan's got staff on call at the…cough, Palace…just
in case.”  He looked at me seriously but his eyes were laughing.

“What are you talking about?” Jerry
demanded.  “Who's Berkan?  Who's Loman and where are we taking him?  What
palace?”

“Palace Hotel,” I glared at Thad.  “Well,
let's get going and find him and get him out of here before Loman catches up
with us.”

Jerry brought his emergency medical kit. 
Thad and two security men had lasers and a Glock for me.

“We're going to the Karupatani continent,”
I announced, securing a laser and holstering the Glock.  “And I'm driving.”

The sun was setting over the continent as
we approached and I was certain now that this was where we would find Senya, as
it was raining and all along the coastline there was new growth, green grass,
tree saplings, and other foliage.

“You're right, Katie” Thad admitted.  “He
definitely has been here.”

“How can you tell?” Jerry asked.

“Because this is what he does in his spare
time,” I replied, pointing at the greenery beneath us.  “He turns nuked dead
red dust into that.”

“Kind of like a modern day Johnny
Appleseed?” Jerry suggested.

“Yeah, except he's not dropping apple
seeds.”

“What is he dropping?”  Jerry frowned.

“Blood,” I said and looked for a good
place to land.  I pulled the spaceplane to a halt on a plateau of dry red dirt,
high above the green meadows and seedling forests that we had spotted along the
coastline.

“I think we should just camp here for the
night,” Thad suggested.  “We can start searching on foot as soon as the sun
comes up.”

“No,” I said.  “We need to start looking
for him.  “If he’s hurt and…”

“Katie,” Thad interrupted.  “He’s been out
here for three weeks.  One more night isn’t going to kill him.  We’ll be
wandering around in the dark.”

“We’ve got torches!” I insisted.

“No, Kate.  I agree with Thad,” Jerry
said.  “I don’t have even a hint of a life form on my scan.  We could spend all
night walking in the wrong direction.  Let’s wait until dawn and then at least
we can see what we are up against.”

“No,” I protested.  “I’ll go myself if I
have to.”

“No!” Jerry grabbed my arm.  “What if you
get hurt?”

“Katie,” Thad took my other arm and both
of them led me over to the campfire the security men had started, “this is Ron
we are talking about.  Minor issues like starvation, dehydration, sun stroke,
they don’t affect him.  You need a pure silver bullet, a cross of garlic and a
half ton of kryptonite to knock him down.”

“A full ton,” Jerry corrected.

“Okay,” I agreed reluctantly and sat down
by the fire to eat a sandwich from the plane’s galley.  I slept that night in
the VIP stateroom aboard the plane while the men camped in tents outside.  I
don't know if I slept at all or just drifted occasionally into dream like
hallucinations where Senya, covered in red dirt, kept popping in and out of my
room.

In the morning, Jerry made us all coffee
and boiled eggs and then on foot, we set off hiking into the barren foothills
of the bombed out continent.  Jerry had a scanner and for the first few miles
there was not a single life form registered on it.  As we spread further into
hills where shoots of grass and seedlings started to flourish again, the
scanner registered small animals; squirrels, birds, a rabbit, and a gopher.

“Why is there vegetation up here and down
by the ocean but in between it is still dust?” one of the security men asked no
one in particular.  He spoke Rozarian with an accent.

“I think it's because it's actually
raining on the higher elevation and at sea level but not here,” Thad guessed. 
“We'll have to ask Ron when we find him.”

I turned and looked back at the security
men.  They were talking softly to each other and from the snatches of it, I
realized it was in Mishnese.

“Where does the security personnel come
from, Thad?” I asked.

Thad glanced at Jerry who was marching
along ahead of us and then winked at me.

“Has this always been the case?” I
wondered.

“Yep,” Thad nodded.  “Only now we're
allowed to use Andorians too.  You can't fight it, Kate.  He is who he is.”

“Who is who?”  Jerry called back.

“Who’s on Second,” Thad replied.  “He’s on
First.”

“Shut up,” I grunted and glared at Thad.

We were hiking upward well past noon and
lunch was water bottles and protein bars.  The seedlings were taller here,
almost a forest.  The vegetation was denser, the rain was incessant and soon we
were soaked and tired.  We crossed a rivulet, a tiny stream really and then
passed from the mini forest into another plateau.  Here, we returned to the dry
red dust of the dead planet.  Our clothes dried out as we walked.

“So all that we passed, the plants, the
animals, they came from…?” Jerry trudged along beside me.

“Blood,” I replied.  “I know it sounds
really weird and it is, but I've seen it.  I've got a 6 foot Improved Meyer
Lemon tree on the side of my house now that is fruiting lemons all year long. 
Two years ago, Senya took me outside and showed me how he does it.”

“That is so incredibly creepy, Katie,”
Thad said with mock surprise.

“I know,” I sighed.  “But it does grow
good lemons and I never have to fertilize it.”

“What about Blood Oranges?” Thad asked.

“Oh, Thad,” I sighed again when Jerry
bolted off towards the west.

“I've got a reading,” he yelled over his
shoulder and even though we were exhausted, we ran after Jerry towards the
afternoon sun.

Senya was lifeless and curled up in the
mud.  I stood back and let Jerry work while calculating if it would be better
to run back to the spaceplane and bring it here, or if we should attempt to carry
Senya back.  He was obviously dehydrated and gaunt as if he hadn’t eaten in
three weeks.  His hair was coated with mud and his clothes were torn.  Jerry
lifted his eyelids.

“Whoa!” Jerry gasped.  Senya's eyes were
normal, a light blue grey color with no silver stars obscuring them.

“Whoa!” Thad agreed.

“Can he see?”  I dropped down beside him
and stroked his face, begging him to look at me.

“He's not awake, honey,” Jerry replied,
running his scanner along Senya's body.  “I need a vein to start an IV.  There
isn't a single good one.  Practically every vein is collapsed.  Look at all
these cuts.  Jesus H. Christ, this is the blood you were talking about Katie?”

I couldn’t watch.  I turned away and took
deep breaths, so I didn’t start heaving.

“He's seriously low on blood,” Jerry
called.  “Come on, Katie.  Help me out here.  Hand me the packet of synthy in
my case.”

“He can't take a transfusion,” Thad said. 
“You can’t give it to him.”

“What are you talking about?” Jerry
snapped.  “Hurry up, Katie.  Bring it to me.”

“Listen to me, Jerry, he can't have a
transfusion,” Thad repeated.  “I will get you his medical records later, just
trust me in this.  You cannot give that to him.”

“That's ridiculous,” Jerry cried. 
“Everyone can have generic synthy.  What do you want me to do, Katie?  Damn, I
keep losing this IV.  He doesn't have a decent vein left anywhere.  Make a
decision please, Kate.”

I looked at Thad.  He shook his head. 
“Hydrate him and let’s get him back to the hospital or your ship or wherever in
the hell you want him to go.”

“No synthy,” I said.  “Find a vein
somewhere and let's get out of here.”

“Are you a doctor, Thad?” Jerry mumbled. 
He started a drip in a vein in Senya’s abdomen.  “Or do you just play one on
the vid?”

“You want me to ring Donak right now,
Jerry?” Thad asked, raising his voice.  “Donak will tell you the same thing. 
We happen to know a little bit more about this patient than you do.”

 “Guys!” I shouted.  “Let’s stop arguing
and move out!”

“By the way, Dr. Jerry,” Thad continued. 
“I may not be a doctor but about 10,000 of them on 4 different planets happen
to work for me.”

“That’s enough, Thad!” I snapped.  “Move
out!”

The security team hosted Senya onto an
inflatable stretcher and we floated him back to the plane as quickly as our
feet would take us.

We had left Rozari and were in route back
to Spacebase 37.  I hailed the Discovery and advised them of our ETA.  I was
then patched through to Caroline and I told her that Senya was injured and we
would be bringing him into sickbay.  She wanted to know the details but I
couldn’t even begin to describe it.

Thad pushed open the door to the bridge
and came in to sit down next to me.

“How's it going back there?” I asked,
keeping my eyes on the stars.

“Peachy,” he replied.  “Is this the first
time you’ve flown one of our planes?”

“By myself?  Yes.  It’s awesome.  It’s
almost like it knows what I want to do before I make a move to do it.”

“Neural networking in the control system,”
Thad smiled, “your husband’s idea.  You know, when we started to design and
permit the SdK Campus, Kalika-hahr looked like the rest of Rozari.  Your
property on the coast was also nothing but dust.”