Talking Man

CHAPTER THIRTEEN - AMA

Traver woke up.

"Lance. Are you alright Lance?"

Lance rolled his head over until he was able to see Traver's bed. They looked at one another for a moment, then Lance rolled back again, preferring to stare at the ceiling.

"Am I missing an arm?" Traver's speech was sluggish and slurred, effects of the medication which still heavily inundated his system.

Lance waited a moment, then replied "Yes."

"Oh. I remember now. I thought that would have hurt more."

During the silence that followed, Lance hoped someone would come into the room and distract Traver, or at least provide him with someone else to talk to. Nobody came.

"We're still near the planet. She hasn't started for home yet. That's good."

"Why is it good?" Lance asked, too flustered to play the silent game, yet also too curious.

"I told you before, it wants to talk to me."

"How do you know we were still in orbit?"

"I can feel it. I told you that before, too."

Perhaps it was his own head concussion mixing his thoughts, but Lance for the first time suspected there might be something strange going on with Traver – more than the obvious craziness, that was.

"What made you decide to stop me from finishing the mission, Lance?"

His words sent guilt shooting through Lance like a spear, and the assistant went cold for a moment.

"I'm sorry. Maybe I shouldn't have done that," Lance said. Then he realized what he'd said. The coldness vanished as his heart, beating faster, pumped fresh blood into his head. "No. That's not what I meant to say. I did what I had to do. You already killed nearly half the crew, and you were ready to kill the rest of us. I saved our lives. I will not apologize." Why had he apologized in the first place? Did Traver's words really hold so much power? I need to get out of here, Lance thought; it's dangerous just to be in the same room with him.

He unclipped himself from the bed and tried to push himself up and out. His head instantly throbbed and his foam-coated right arm threw off his balance. Instead of steadying himself upright, he spun clumsily for a moment until his leg struck the edge of the bed, bringing him to an abrupt halt. He allowed himself a moment of drifting to recover, his head swimming, then he pulled himself back down to the bed.

"Can you promise me something?" Traver went on as if there had been no interruption.

"What?" Lance asked before his better judgment could advise him not to respond.

"If I need you to broadcast me to earth one more time, will you help me to do it?"

At first Lance wasn't sure he had heard Traver correctly. He wondered if he might still be unconscious and dreaming, or if perhaps Traver was the unconscious one and sleep talking.

"I am going to need to record one last show," Traver continued when Lance did not reply. "It's very important that it reach earth."

"Why should I?" Lance almost shouted, disregarding the pain in his head so that he could turn sharply toward Traver. "Damn your broadcasts, damn your speeches, and damn your audience."

Traver did not retort, and for several minutes he gave no reply at all. In that time Lance's anger simmered and faded into the same exhausted bitterness that had defined his existence since he first found himself recovering alongside his monstrous companion.