Treason, page 5
This remark turned Zoem’s own smile into a genuine one. “I’m getting better by the hour. The food combined with the nutritional intravenous treatment help with that. I think I’ve gained weight as well, which I really needed.”
“Sounds good. I heard you had a visit from the president.” Neenja gestured at the chair next to the bed, but Zoem shook her head.
“That’s a horribly hard and uncomfortable chair. Let’s sit by the windows instead. I can’t seem to get enough natural daylight.” She slid down from the tall bed and padded on bare feet to the seating area. Neenja followed her and took an armchair opposite Zoem’s. Leaning back, she crossed her legs and folded her hands on her lap. It was a relaxed pose, but to Zoem, Neenja seemed more like she was trying to look at ease, rather than being so.
“I’m not sure if you have been informed that I’m your personal guard whenever you want to move around, leave this room, or even the presidential palace,” Neenja said. “If we go out, an entire security detail will come along—all for your safety, of course.”
“Of course,” Zoem heard herself echo hollowly. “So, just you otherwise?”
“Yes.”
“But what about your other duties? I understand you’re the chief of the presidential guardsmen.” Zoem’s ears began making that low-pitched buzzing noise that came over her when she least expected it. Ever since she came to, it happened with increasing frequency. She placed her right hand against her ear and started to tremble.
“My current duty is to make sure you’re safe…what’s wrong?” Neenja uncrossed her uniform-clad legs and leaned forward. “Zoem?”
“Just, um, tinnitus, I think. It’s very disturbing but not painful.” Zoem hummed, as she found this distraction helped drown out the noise. Usually an attack lasted only a few minutes, but it was quite loud, and though she had insisted it wasn’t painful, it was borderline.
“Do your physicians know?” Neenja rose and crouched next to Zoem’s chair. “Should I page someone?”
“No. Please don’t. I don’t want to sound ungrateful, but I see enough medical professionals as it is. It won’t go on much longer.” Zoem attempted a reassuring smile but knew she failed.
Neenja looked hesitant but then rose and walked in behind Zoem. “If it is tinnitus, something my mother suffered from, this might help a little.”
Zoem felt Neenja pull her hair back. Then firm fingers began drumming behind Zoem’s ears, against the bone structure there. Neenja rapped quickly, much like she had done against the door frame, but not using her nails at all.
The noise in Zoem’s ears lasted another thirty seconds, and then it began to mellow and fade away.
“It’s disappearing,” Zoem said, expecting Neenja to stop.
Instead Neenja continued for at least another minute. “For good measure,” she said before she rounded Zoem’s chair and resumed her seat. “Your color is better again. Good.”
“Thank you. That was amazing.” Tilting her head, Zoem squinted as she scanned the handsome woman before her. Her black, long hair, kept in a tight braid and with a sooty texture, as it was completely without shine, and her surprisingly pale amber eyes, was indeed a unique combination. High cheekbones and a squarely set jaw emphasized Neenja’s stern expression. Zoem imagined this characteristic was an asset in Neenja’s line of work. She couldn’t imagine anyone not standing at rigid attention when this woman was in command. “When did you learn to do that?” Zoem asked, referring to the tapping behind her ears.
“Tinnitus is quite common, and as I said, my mother had it. It’s also far too common among soldiers subjected to explosions and loud weapons. A physician I met as a lieutenant once gave me this advice when I asked about it. I was then commander of a unit when an attack was launched at the president back on Oconodos. As it turned out, most of my subordinates found it relieved a majority of their discomfort.” Neenja returned to her previous pose in her chair. “Is this a new occurrence, or do you remember suffering from tinnitus before?”
“I…I can’t remember from the time before I came to at the hospital here.” Frowning, Zoem tried to think back to what glimpses of her past she recalled. “Here it happens almost every day.” She pulled her legs up, wanting what comfort the position brought her. “It’s honestly rather awful.”
“I can only imagine.” Looking ill at ease, Neenja shifted in her chair. “Can you share what you last remember before you were rescued from the cave?”
Not quite sure how to respond, Zoem sucked her lower lip in between her teeth. “Did they really? I mean, rescue me? I can’t shake the feeling that I’m more a crime-scene find, even if that gave the same result.” Zoem drew a trembling breath. “Don’t misunderstand me. I’m grateful for not being in the cave, stuck in a, what was it, a pod, or a canister? Truly. But that still doesn’t change how I feel.”
“What makes you think you weren’t a real rescue?” Neenja didn’t disagree, Zoem noticed, only asked the follow-up question in a neutral tone.
“Well, had you known I was in there, that could have suggested you were there to rescue me. I also know I wasn’t the only humanoid present.”
It was Neenja’s turn to frown. “How can you know this if you don’t remember?” Her eyes narrowed as she scrutinized Zoem, perhaps for signs of her lying.
Smiling sorrowfully, Zoem shook her head. “I have ears. I heard people talking around me the entire time after the so-called rescue. You might be shocked how much members of a hospital staff pick up on and how much of that they inadvertently share with seemingly unconscious patients.”
Her eyes darkening, Neenja stood and began pacing back and forth. “So, you’re telling me the hospital staff in charge of your care are aware of everything that happened in the cave?”
“I have no way of knowing how much they know, or not, but the information I have comes largely from them, especially the night shift. Maybe they felt safe discussing matters, being alone and with hardly any risk of being overheard.”
“This is outrageous. I’m going to deal with this situation. And just so you know, Zoem, finding you and the other four was unexpected, and if the team had had enough time, they could have rescued the other four as well. It was happenstance that we ended up saving you, but nonetheless, they all worked hard to get you out of there.”
“As I said, I’m grateful for that. I doubt it will change anything in the long run, as the Nestrocalder’s power is so great, but the rescuers’ act of kindness and forgiveness matters to me. Perhaps I will get a few days of being almost free.”
Zoem looked longingly at the beautiful scenery outside. Workers had already begun to move part of the Caydoc park from cube one of Pathfinder and replant it outside the palace. In the distance, blue-green mountains, capped with ice or snow, created a beautiful backdrop. If not for what had happened to her there, the horror she had been part of, she could have regarded those mountains with awe. Now they were in a sense tarnished by the atrocities committed by malevolent changers, led by the Nestrocalder.
“What do you mean by ‘the rescuers’ forgiveness”? Neenja asked, breaking Zoem’s reverie.
Surprised, Zoem blinked. “That should be obvious.”
“Well, tell me anyway.”
“I was instrumental in the creation of creatures that would be soulless automatons, at best, or murdering beasts, if the Nestrocalder had succeeded. My DNA would have been replicated, but for an individual to be created during such horrible circumstances, it—I can barely stomach thinking about it.”
“How do you remember this now?” Neenja produced a tablet and tapped in a command. No doubt she was recording their interaction.
“I have overheard things, as I said, and, combining them with my memories and my dreams, have filled in the blanks, in a manner of speaking.” Pushing her long, heavy hair back, Zoem sighed. “I have huge gaps, some of them probably spanning over years. I remember being taught as if in school when I was younger. The tests, all kinds, were rigorous. If I failed at something, the punishment was severe.”
Neenja closed her eyes briefly. “I’m sorry this happened to you. I can’t see how anyone could ever blame you for being kidnapped, violated, and ultimately used as a template for illegal, dangerous clones.”
“You misunderstand. I don’t take responsibility for what was done to me as a child or an adolescent, but later, I don’t remember much of it, but I should have taken any opportunity to prevent my participation.” Zoem clasped her hands harder.
“How could you have fought back? You were outnumbered, and they were changers with powers second to very few.”
“Neenja.” A mix of pity and tenderness filled Zoem as she looked at Neenja. This woman, so strong, so controlled, still couldn’t figure out what Zoem meant, probably because it wouldn’t occur to her for a single second in the first place. “I should have ended it. Permanently. I should have taken my own life when I still had time.”
Chapter Seven
Neenja had to admit she was shocked. Not only because of Zoem’s words, but with the soft, matter-of-fact way the frail woman communicated her intent. “You can’t be serious.” Neenja sat up straight. “The Gemoconian authorities would never expect, and certainly not demand, such a sacrifice. We have several potential plans in the works, and not one entails your demise.”
“Neenja. Shh.” Raising her slender hands, her skin so pale it was nearly transparent, Zoem looked at Neenja with shining eyes. “No matter how many clever plans you construct, trust me, it won’t help. If the people risking their lives by traveling through unknown intergalactic space to find a new, safe home stand a chance, my solution is the only one. Trust me. I’m not keen on dying, but the majority, in this case, must be our top priority. As long as I’m alive, the Nestrocalder will come for me, and people will be hurt or killed in the process. It’s as simple as that.”
“There’s nothing simple about it. I refuse to sit here and listen to this nonsense. Taking one’s own life is—it’s giving up. You’ve survived against immense odds, and ending everything now…it’s like spitting on the ones that died to save you.”
“You’re mistaken.” Zoem’s voice sank, and so, it seemed, did the temperature in the room. Sounding cold and callous in a manner she had never done before, she continued. “Nobody was there to save me, or any of the other four, when they set out on their mission. I’m not privy to what the teams’ objectives truly were, but my fellow catalysts and I were the Nestrocalder’s best-kept secret.” Zoem pulled up her knees and hugged them to her chest. “And as far as I’ve learned, once I was out of the cave, no more lives among the so-called rescue team were lost. So, no. I don’t spit on any saviors, as there were none.”
Taken aback when she saw the ice in Zoem’s normally so-soft eyes, Neenja had to reel her temper in. “You’re right. In theory. It wasn’t a rescue attempt—to begin with. But it became one once the canisters began to explode. Both for you and the rest of our team in there. I wasn’t there, that’s true, but I have read all the after-action reports, and all the injured on site received the same life-saving efforts, including you.”
“That doesn’t change the fact that nobody was originally there for me. For many years, nobody has missed me or looked for me. I was the Nestrocalder’s prisoner, kept in some different damp cells in bunkers in the jungle.”
“You remember more and more?”
“I do. And because I do, I’m realizing what I decided a long time ago. My life is already forfeited. The Nestrocalder used me for its horrible intents, and I clearly became what it wanted since it used me as a catalyst.”
“Nothing that happened to you is fair by any stretch of the imagination,” Neenja said, forcing her voice to be soft. “You were a child, I’m sure, when you were taken. Instead of having a normal childhood, or what went for one when it came to Oconodos, you never knew which day would be your last.”
“Yes.” Pressing her forehead against her knees, Zoem drew a long, trembling breath. “At least you understand that much.”
“And so, living during such conditions for so long, with no hope of someone coming to your aid, ending your life on your own terms would understandably seem like the only option. Perhaps even a welcome one?”
Snapping her head up, Zoem stared at Neenja, her jaw slack. “How—how can you possibly know?”
“Because I’ve been there,” Neenja heard herself say. “Nothing as bad as what happened to you, but bad enough.”
“What happened?” Zoem asked in a husky whisper.
“That’s a story for another time. I think we’ve exhausted you far too long.” Back-pedaling now, Neenja stood. “You look like you need a nap. May I assist you?” She held out a hand.
Taking the proffered hand, Zoem stood, but she wobbled and nearly fell over. By instinct, Neenja put one arm around Zoem’s back and one under her bent knees. Lifting her, she carried her over to the bed and placed her gently on the bed.
“Every time I think I can manage, that I’m finally getting stronger, I almost faint like some fragile old maid.” Pursing her lips, Zoem looked annoyed. It was the first time Neenja had seen the woman look anything but either icy or poised and well put together.
“Are you kidding?” Neenja said impulsively. “We’ve just scratched the surface of the horrors you’ve endured. It’s going to take time.”
“Time you don’t have,” Zoem said and seemed to melt into the bed.
Neenja registered that Zoem left herself out in her last sentence. “I have to report what you told me earlier. We can’t allow you to commit suicide, Zoem. First, we’re not barbarians, like the Nestrocalder, and second, you can help us more if you’re alive. I’m going to place you on suicide watch. This means being monitored at all hours.”
“What?” Zoem gasped.
“It can’t be helped. I would not be performing my duties if I allowed something like that to happen. I know you have an appointment with the Lindemay sisters this afternoon, and I hope they can help you reconcile yourself to the fact that you’re alive and have to figure things out from there.”
“So, people will spy on me around the clock?” Jutting her chin out, Zoem looked furious. “It’s insane to use that type of manpower when the outcome will be the same either way.”
Placing her hands on either side of Zoem’s head on the pillow, Neenja spoke with emphasis, pronouncing each word carefully. “You will have someone at your side at any given time.”
“And that will be your undoing,” Zoem whispered. “The Nestrocalder will use your misplaced, forgiving attitude against you, and you’ll end up its slave—at best.”
“With your help, we’ll be ready for it to show up, and we’ll take it out and continue building our new home.”
Zoem closed her eyes and rolled over on her right side, facing away from Neenja. Realizing she had been dismissed, Neenja tugged at her communicator. “Commander KahSandra here. Send a female guard to Ms. Malderyn’s quarters.” After the dispatch confirmed the new orders, Neenja decided to wait in the corridor, leaving the door half open so she could watch Zoem.
When the guard joined her, Neenja briefed her about Zoem’s intentions. The woman about to take over from Neenja looked suitably calm and walked inside and sat down on a chair next to the door.
Neenja hurried down the corridor, heading for the private quarters of the presidential residential area. She had to talk to Tylio and Caya.
***
Briar Lindemay knew something was very, very wrong as soon as she laid eyes on Zoem Malderyn. She was what they called an empath, and even a mind reader when the circumstances were extra favorable. Now, the entire body language and facial expression of Zoem told of someone who had made up her mind. Neenja hadn’t exaggerated. This woman was only too ready to commit what she regarded as the ultimate sacrifice.
Glancing at her sister, Briar saw for a moment the image of the young, naive woman Caya had been when they boarded Pathfinder more than two years ago. At the time, Caya had been a sheltered and hidden benevolent changer with certain, undefined gifts. Now, her younger sister was not only married to the most powerful woman on Gemocon, but also a famous and awe-inspiring seer who commanded an orb that strengthened her gifts.
Now Caya sat on the side of Zoem’s bed, holding her hands. The young woman they were trying to save and, yes, extract information from, returned Caya’s gaze with clear resentment.
“I’m not sure this is a good idea. You’re changers. The Nestrocalder can sense other changers, no matter if they’re good or bad. If you use your gifts around me, how can you know that it can’t feel you? Or locate me instantly?”
“Hush now. Don’t get so worked up, Zoem.” Caya’s voice was gentle but not soft. “I have gifts that constantly develop, and I promise you, the Nestrocalder won’t be able to home in on where you are or what we’re doing.”
“I don’t believe you.” Zoem was clearly starting to panic. That was Briar’s cue.
“Hey, listen. Hold my hand as well. You’ll feel better.” Briar took over Zoem’s right hand. It was cold and twitched in hers like a wounded bird. “There we go. Just relax. You’ll be fine.”
“You don’t understand,” Zoem whimpered, but she was settling down. “I don’t want to be responsible for anyone getting hurt or killed.”
“And you won’t.” Briar hummed gently. “Now let us in. You agreed to this, and I think you’ll notice how much better you will feel later.”
“No…” Zoem sobbed once, but then her features relaxed. “Wh-what are you doing?” She squinted. “I’m warm. I mean, I haven’t felt warm in a very, very long time.” Zoem now clung to Briar’s hand. “I can’t even remember when I’ve felt like this.”
“Then just bask in the warmth. You deserve it.” Caya spoke quietly. “You’re safe, and we won’t let anything happen to you.” She reached out with her free hand and placed it on her orb that was sitting on a special stand next to Zoem’s bed. “Just keep your eyes closed, and we’ll do all the work. Relax.” Caya glanced at Briar for confirmation. “Ready, sis?”
