The Theron Residency (Brides of Theron Book 4) (13 page)

“I know that you need more supplies and medicines and I promise with all my being that I will get every last thing you asked for. I’ll bring it to you when I get back. I’ll even get you those water treatment pellets. I promise Jenaya. I had planned to be gone for a week but, in light of all this…” he looked around the cave, “I will be gone only two to three days. The truth is, the only reason I am leaving at all anymore is to get you what you need and see if Zirlo and Lars made it out. I’m going to free all of these people from this horrible place if it kills me. But, in order to make that possible, I need you to make Gatton believe that the skull and this hand belong to Zirlo and Lars. Can you help me do that?”

“Why is freeing us so important to you Carel?” she asked as she wiped the tears on the dirty sleeve of her shirt.

“My grandfather was born and raised on this planet. He assembled the members of the Drylon council to write the doctrines to petition the Intergalactic Council for admission. My forefathers had to flee to Pernmock to save themselves when all the upper tiers of the government were being exterminated at the same time Gatton put himself on the throne and declared himself Emperor. Now, my planet is dying and I will do whatever I can to stop him from ruining my grandfather’s legacy. My people, as well as many others, have suffered by his hand. Your people are not the only ones that suffer. He oppresses the people that lived here long before he arrived. At the moment, I am working to build a rebel army with several very influential men. If I’m found out, I’m as good as dead.” He sat down next to her and she did not move away as he feared she would. “Help me stop him Jenaya. Help me free your people. Help me free my people.” She remained silent for a while, rocking on her heels.

“Let me see the bones.” She said without much emotion as she pushed herself off the ground and reached out for his hand to help him up. He took her hand and she tugged him up off the floor. A shock, like a bolt of lightning, raced from his hand to his heart. “You might want to let me look at those scrapes while you are here. Though, I doubt that I could anything but clean them.” She said mockingly and when he didn’t reply she said, “What?” as she looked at him quizzically.

“How do you do that?”

“Do what?” she quickly answered. Her smile was so beautiful.

“You were so upset just a moment ago and now you are smiling and laughing?” He looked at her and he could feel the edges of his mouth curl up in response to the look she was giving him.

“I can’t change what is going on here by myself,” she paused and looked shyly away. “I guess after listening to what you just said, I realized that I am not alone in this. My situation doesn’t seem so bleak anymore. Does that make any sense to you?” When she returned her gaze back to him, she gave him a sidelong smile and her left eye crinkled up just a little bit. She was going to be the death of him.

He nodded not having anything to say in response, he pulled the sack containing the bones out of his bag. It was a bit bulky due to the skull stored inside of it. Before he opened it and displayed the contents to her, he asked her, “Are you alright with this? The bones were burned pretty badly.”

“As are all of our dead by tradition before their bones are buried. Of course, I am. I am a doctor. You should know that I have probably seen much, much worse.” She shook her head and took the bag from him and went to reach inside.

He pulled the bag away from her before she could touch the bones with her bare hands and said, “Let me do that.” He put his hand in the bag and pulled both the skull and hand out of it and laid them on top of the flattened bag that she spread over the work surface of the cot.

“Can you help me move this away from the door and over to the corner to make us less visible from outside?” She brought the oil lamp and set it near the bones and attempted to turn up the flame.

“I wish these lamps were brighter.” She picked up the skull and looked at it carefully. “Did you bring the tools I asked for?”

“Yes. Here.” He gave her the measuring tape and calipers and other tools that he thought she could use. He pulled a flashlight from his bag and handed it to her. “You might be able to see better with this.”

She took the flashlight and turned it on. “Thanks! This is much better. Can you hold this for me?” When he nodded and reached to take the light from her, their hands briefly touched and they both recoiled. She looked away from him suddenly to make it seem that it had absolutely no effect on her at all. But, he could tell it had. She picked up the bones of the hand and instantly went to work examining each digit. “I can see how this man’s hands were mangled from what looks like arthritis and age. The degree of damage to the joints must have been a great source of pain to him. As for the classification of identity, we can eliminate the people of the Pernmock and Uvite race due to the structure of the bones. These hands could only belong to someone of Drylon or Theron decent. Are there members of any other races imprisoned here?”

He shook his head and gave her a questioning look. “Not at this camp.”

“You mean there are others? Other camps?” He nodded and she shook her head, not wanting to believe that this hell was being experienced by others. “Well, comparing them to the races that I have encountered here, at this camp. Pernmock’s have two digits that are opposable. The two outside fingers close inward toward the fingers between them. The digits of a typical Uvite’s hand are much longer when compared to ours. The fingers meet in what would be the center of the palm of our hand. Right here you see?” she pointed to her hand to illustrate her point. “So, the bones would be separated much lower into the hand. They also have one fewer digit, three long fingers, and one opposable thumb. While this hand is muddled, it still may take some convincing to make them think that it was recently broken.”

She put the hand bones down and looked away in deep thought. A moment later she looked up from her trance with eyes wide and retrieved the healing salve and a square of the cloth he had brought to her this morning. Tearing the fabric into thin strips, she said, “I think I have an idea that just might work. Do you by chance have a hammer and a knife in that bag? I need something sharp that I can use to make an incision with and something to break up the bones.”

He rummaged in the bag and pulled out a folding serrated knife. In one quick movement, he opened it and placed on the work surface. Next, he found a hammer with a pick end that he had used to place the anchors into the rock wall on his climb. “Will these do?” He asked. He watched as she began smearing ample healing salve on the digits of the fingers of the hands, followed by wrapping and tying each finger up with the strips of fabric. When she was finished, she surveyed the tools and nodded.

“While I am pretty sure that I can convince Gatton that the skull is from someone of Theron decent, the hand is going to be a tougher sell. You and I know that it is from a recently deceased Theron male, but I am sure that Gatton will bring someone here with some medical knowledge along with him to validate my findings. In all my years of practice, I find that doctors are a funny sort. They don’t believe anything unless it is proven and there is scientific evidence that pushes the findings in one direction or another. Usually, the results should be published and reviewed by peers in the same field of study in order to be conclusive. It may seem crazy, but I’ve found out that this holds true for every race and every doctor I have ever met.”

She was quiet for a short time, carefully attending to her work, “You had said that Lars had his fingers broken when he was captured and questioned before being turned over to the prison camp? Was it one or both of his hands that were damaged? This hand is the right hand and we will have to be sure that his right hand was broken.”

“Both his hands were broken,” he answered.

“When they broke his hands, were all the digits broken?” When he looked at her quizzically, she added, “What I mean to ask is, did they break his thumb also?”

“I know that he had both of his hands broken, but the extent of the damage was to the fingers with minimal damage to the forefinger. Gatton wanted them to leave the thumbs intact. You see, the Emperor maintains that prisoners can still work if their hands are strong enough to grasp the tools. Lars was given special treatment after the damage was done. Gatton had his personal physician set his fingers and bandage them before he was put in the dungeon a week before the transfer to the work camp. When he got here, his fingers were mostly healed. Lars was able to work, but his fingers were stiff.” He looked at her scraping out almost all of the healing balm from the container which bothered him. “What do you think you are you doing? Healing salve is not going to help the bones heal now. Besides, you can’t even imagine just how hard it was for me to bring that in here. That stuff is really hard to come by, you know? I had to barter with one of the little people.”

“The little people? From Blacknor? Well, it is not doing Mattie any good. I think that it has actually made the growths on her face worse. But, I don’t want to talk about that right now.” She checked that she had wrapped each of the fingers with the strips of fabric tightly. She reached for the knife, cleaned it with some of the drinking water, and passed the blade through the fire several times for good measure. “I don’t have any disinfectant. I hope that kills whatever’s on the blade.” She pulled up her sleeve pointing the tip of the blade in the direction of the bend of her arm.

As loudly as one could whisper, he said, “Wait a minute! What do you think you are doing? Are you crazy?”

“In order for my plan to work, I need fresh blood. Once the hand was burned, most of the cells died. I will not be able to repair the damage that I intend to do to the tiny bones of the fingers without the aid of live cells. If the bones do not show evidence of breakage and repair, I will never convince them that this hand once belonged to Lars. So the only way the salve will do any good, is if I add fresh blood, with live cells to the mix. My blood will have to do.” She returned her attention to the knife on her arm.

“Wait! Let me. I’ll be leaving tomorrow and can seek help if your flame doesn’t kill whatever is on that blade. Besides, a fresh healing scar on me would be easier to explain away. I did, after all, get many cuts and abrasions on my climb.” He rolled up his sleeve and waited for her say something.

“Alright, that’s a reasonable argument.” She reached for his arm and wiped clean the area where she was going to insert the blade. “You might want to look away when I do this.”

“No, I don’t think so. I want to watch you do this.” He retorted with a slight quivering in his voice. So much for trying to act brave she thought.

“Maybe you should sit down while I do this then. Most people have an aversion to seeing blood. In my experience, even the bravest of warriors faint at the sight of their OWN blood.” She helped him to sit on the ground with his back against the wall and looked up at him. Her hands were trembling just a bit as she touched the knife and pressed down firmly into the skin. The blood welled around the knife and she watched it stream down onto the fabric that covered the bones she was about to break. When the fabric was well-saturated with Carel’s blood, she pressed a fresh, clean cloth over the cut and had him continue to tend to it. “Put pressure on that,” she ordered as they watched the mixture start to foam immediately after Carel’s blood was added to the bandage. Now she was racing against time. It was necessary for her to hurry in order to get the outcome she was hoping to achieve. Grabbing the hammer, she brought the bones to a flat rock at the very back of the cave. Carefully using the pick ax side, she randomly tapped on the bones gently but with force until she could hear them crack apart. It was important that she do this with precision. If she were to fail it meant that Carel would be out digging up another buried warrior’s hand, or worse, he might get caught in his lie and be executed by Gatton. She toiled with it for about half an hour before raising her head and saying, “I think that will do it. Now we just have to let it sit for a little bit.” She looked over at him with concern, “Are you alright?”

“
Yes. I think I am. I’m just a little lightheaded,” he said as he closed his eyes and leaned his head against the cold, wet rock behind him.

She kneeled before him seeing the sheen of sweat that was starting to accumulate along his brow. His color was off too. She pressed the back of her hand to his forehead noticing that his skin was cold to the touch.

“I may have taken too much of your blood. You’re really pale.” She pulled out one of the hard biscuits that were intended for Mattie’s dinner along with the stew from a tray in the corner. “I know that you’re probably offered better food than this. Unfortunately, this is all I have. Besides, you need it more than Mattie does.” He shook his head refusing to eat the food meant for the poor woman lying on the floor. With a stern look, she took a spoonful and brought it to his lips. He opened his mouth reluctantly and swallowed it down taking each spoonful without any further complaint. It was probably one of the foulest things he had ever eaten, but he could not say no to Jenaya. She broke up one of the biscuits and dipped it into the remaining broth to soften, then fed that to him too. “Your color is a bit better now. How do you feel?”

“Better.” He shook his head and said, “You really weren’t lying. That stew was horrid. How can you eat that?” He watched as she took the last of the healing salve and applied it to the cut. Immediately, it began to foam taking away the sting from the incision. She turned her attention to his knees and elbows by tugging up his pants legs and shirt sleeves.