Starfarers!

Chapter 3 - pt 5

Drok'Ti didn't even bother to talk anymore. His demands had run dry. Only his actions were needed.

The Ai'Hrokni twisted his feeble little wrist, screwing the slim barbed rod deeper into the human's fleshy shoulder. The man screamed out in pain, half shout and half cry. His face was pale and sweaty, his black hair clinging to it in wet strands. Rivulets of blood ran down from his shoulder, moving too quick to bead up in his hairy chest as they joined with others that lined his torso, pelvis, and legs, like dozens of tributaries adding up to the grotesque lake beneath him. As a little metal tooth poked its way out through the back of his shoulder, tearing open a new hole in his back, the man tried to say, "Stop," followed by, "I will," but only sobbed.

Drok'Ti heard those words, even if they were not fully there. His small hands retreated into his chest cavity, leaving the rod to stick out several inches with the others that jutted forth from the man's body. He studied the human as he hung before him. The captive's wrists had been raised and bound in a dull light that cast grisly shadows all down the man's tortured skin as he hovered a foot above the ground. His ankles were bound too, but that did not stop the convulsions that frequently washed over him.

Drok'Ti took a couple steps back, pushing a floating table filled with cruel instruments away from him with his metal arms. "You will. This is what you said?"

The bloodied man breathed forcibly, like every taste of air was to be his last. His ribcage expanded with each effort and shuddered with every other. He raised his head weakly and said in a whisper, "Yes."

Even though he hung on his own, suspended there in the middle of the round room, he twitched back and forth slightly as if small hands were still poking and prodding at his wounded skin. A fourteen-inch metal rod, lined with tiny barbs, had been screwed into his thigh, a second protruded through his foot, a third through his calf, a fourth from his bicep, a fifth in one shoulder, and a sixth in the other. Bloody cavities in his arms, legs, down his sides, and all over his back marked where the rods had at first only toyed with him. His hands, however, were preserved; they would be needed.

When viewed as a whole, it had taken a lot to break the man. But at least he broke, reflected Drok'Ti. The loyalty to this organization of theirs runs deep. The Ai'Hrokni could still smell the fresh stench of death lingering in the air from the last one to have been suspended in the middle of the room. The scent was even more powerful than the sweetness of the newest man's worst pains. And how those pains bled. Drok'Ti was careful enough in his process to make sure the human didn't bleed too much. Humans were finicky; Urshni had said they needed donors of a specific variety in the event that too much blood was lost. Drok'Ti didn't have any donors on hand. He could acquire some, but that would take time. So, instead, he opted for care, despite how the room and his subject looked.

In similar situations, Ai'Hrokni were not finicky. They could receive blood from any of their own. That had been the case with Drok'Ti's surgery. His back had been cut open, he too had bled excessively, but he had a donor. It was a lucky thing that his secondary brain was the one that had been degenerating and not the primary. The primary was what made an individual stand out from the rest. An Ai'Hrokni's secondary brain was simply a tool to help the body function, or a cog in a machine; it didn't dream, remember, devise, plan, and invent, it only worked and worked, telling the legs to walk, the hands to grasp, the lungs to breathe, and the body to simply live. That incision in Drok'Ti's back was now a scar, one of six, hidden beneath metal. It reminded him that the Ai'Hrokni were not finicky, but versatile. Yet not versatile enough.

"It's good we can finally agree," Drok'Ti said to the human. "You were the smart one of your group to see that logic." One of his metal fingers found a button on the table beside him and pressed it. "See that our guest is cleaned up and dressed." He spoke louder now, addressing those that were not in the same room. "He has many injuries that require your upmost attention. Contact me as soon as he is ready."

As the Ai'Hrokni turned his back to leave, his four feet clicking on the hard floor, the hanging man did not say anything more; he only struggled for breath as his head hung low, adding more tears to his blood. No more words were needed at this point, though. Everything else required of the human would be in his coming actions. Drok'Ti stopped at the door as it hissed and whooshed open. On a peg on the wall hung the human's torn clothes. He glanced at the shirt. Sewn on the sleeve was a simple white and blue patch with three simple letters: IHG. Drok'Ti grinned.

He stepped through and doorway, into the dim hall lined with yellow lights. His feet clattered on the floor as the door shut behind him. This is progress, he told himself. Slow, but progress, nonetheless. It sounded as if he were alone for only a couple seconds, then a pair of padded shoes scuffled after him. "It was wise of you to bring me more than one of them," he said without turning. In the darkness of the hall, the shape of his silhouette was a menacing brute in comparison to the smaller ruffled cloak flapping beside him. But that was only in size. In reality, they were two ambitious heads of the same hungry beast. "The human caved. He is ours now."

"I knew one of them would make us happy," responded Urshni from under her hood. She was so near, but sounded so far. "No matter the oaths they keep, there must always be one willing to break them." She let a pause follow her words. "You say he is ours, but what if he falters? This may only be another type of oath for him."

"It's the desperate man that sells his soul to keep his life. That's the man we needed and the one we've just earned. I see no reason for him to back away now. If he does, he knows he still has enough blood in him to bleed."

The hallway turned gently, curving to the left. The yellow lights reached up at every passing moment, glinting gently against the Ai'Hrokni's metal frame and prying at the folds of the cloak and hood beside him. Drok'Ti's shadows streaked across him as any normal shadows would, but the shadows of the other, the ones tucked beneath the ruffled covering, were adamant in staying put. They were shadows that fought back, pushing light away when it got too close.

"Things are finally speeding up," said Drok'Ti. "It's almost time to begin the real work, down on the ground. And when we do begin, I need you in the middle of it."

Something beneath Urshni's hood moved, pressing against the fabric in a number of places before settling. "Where?"

"A small planet called Ifeen. There's a plot of wilderness large enough for us to go unnoticed. After we touch down, there will be a role I need you to fill."

Her hood shifted once more. "Name it."

***