Banished To Earth, Book Two, King Davin (43)

Chapter 70

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     Everything went white. It was as if reality had suddenly crumbled away. Heaviness. But not the strange hulking heaviness of being inside of Stayner. This heaviness was familiar; it was comforting.

    Something lay over him. Cloth cool and smooth covered him. He moaned. He breathed. Stirring, he was stirring! His eyes fluttered open. White. It was the sheet. Softness beneath him yielded to his weight and movement as he tried to sit up.

    “No, no, you’re not out of the woods yet.” Rebecca’s voice was gentle and sweet.”

   “Woods.” Davin sat up; vertigo pushed him down.

   “It’s been in stasis for a very long time.”

    “It?”

    “Your body, silly.”  She smiled down at him; her eyes filled with profound gratitude and affection.

         “My body!” He said, lying flat again, as his soul integrated with his new flesh.

     “Yes, they’ve a slew of ‘em, but Chase chose to die. No telling how long he might have lived, but he blew his head off, a true kill shot…oh well, his loss, your gain, Mr. Lucky.”

    “Chase is dead?”

   “Yes, they died decades before my time.”

   “Decades! They?”

   “Yes, Chase and Mabel.”

She pressed her hand against his forehead. “Warm, that’s good; they’ll be pleased. You might yet survive this.  You’re a miracle.”

       He studied her face. She was a ginger angel. “They?” he asked.

   “The Urgis, of course.” Her answer was short, and way too matter-of-fact.

  “How many?” He asked. “How many live?”

     She smiled down at him. “You ...you really do love us. They said you did, but you’re not one of us. Don’t know why you should? But it’s nice, and I’m quite sure it saved us. How many?” She repeated his question. “Ooh, that’s a hard question; not much of a numbers

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gal, millions and millions, most in hard freeze. Stayner really did a number on Mother Earth, got nowhere to be right now. They say the green will clean the planet soon. It’s been a while though.”

  His entire body relaxed, as tears streamed down his face.

   Her head tilted toward him. “Look at you. Sure hope you pull through.”  

      He smiled, then he noticed Stayner. His smile disappeared when he saw the smoldering mass of dead, mutilated lizard lying in a massive heap, thirty feet to his left. “You killed him.”

   “Oh, that. Yeah, otherwise you’d still be in him. That had to be nasty.” She yanked her right arm up, pushed her sleeve down, and typed against her inner forearm. The floor vanished beneath the carcass. It dropped, and the floor reappeared. “There. Done. He was kinda disgusting’. So glad he’s gone, can’t tell you how I dreaded comin’ in here.”

   “What do they want?” Davin sat up slowly this time.

   “No. What do you want?” Her question was clearly pure deflection.

    Davin pushed himself up on his right elbow and discovered he was wearing soft white pajamas. “Why did they save me? What do they want?”

   “I dare not speak for them, so I won’t. Again, what do ye want? I already know, but I kinda want to hear it. I’m a bit romantic; what can I say. Call her.”

    His eyes narrowed, then darted away.

   “If they wanted you dead. You would all be dead. Come on. Pry, come hug your husband.”

    Energized by her name.  He bolted straight up, shrugged off his lingering vertigo and peered past Rebecca.

     Pry, his human Pry, raced across the room. “Davin, they took us. They saved you. They brought you back!”  Dressed in jeans and his old red flannel shirt, she ran to him, and buried herself in his open arms.

  After a bit, they separated. Rebecca was grinning like a child on Christmas morn. “So glad I got to see this.”

   “Silhouette, Tucker?” He asked as she laid her head on his shoulder.  

      “They are well, unharmed.” Rebecca butted in. Pry didn’t care.

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“Sorry, thought you were talkin’ to me.”

     Pry smiled back at her. “It does not matter. You were very kind, not at all what we expected.”

    Rebecca’s eyes darted up. “I am not Urgis.’ Her voice was suddenly robotic. “I. We happily serve Urgis.” Her features tightened, then quickly melted back into a sweet smile. “Davin saved us. They, they value him and you. They want you to,” she hesitated, “appreciate them.”

     They looked at one another, then back at Rebecca, confused.

    “The Urgis value knowledge ‘above everything’. Had Davin not been so concerned for us, they would have been much less generous, less merciful.” Her eyes rolled up timidly, the way a child looks at a parent for permission. Smiling, they could see she had not overstepped and was free to continue. “They want to learn from you, study you. They never wanted to destroy Earth; its people were a potential threat, but not anymore. We are now the carrot, if you know what I mean. You gave us value, thank you.”

    He looked up at what she had looked at earlier but saw nothing but bare wall. “So, they are holding you and the rest hostage? Carrot as in leverage.”

    Her features tightened. “No. We are the carrot, just the carrot.” She laughed at herself and spoke again, “They want to plant us back on Earth. And they want you to govern the planet.”

  “Yeah,” Said Davin as Pry slid away from him and off his bouncy floating bed. “Well, I’m no politician, no leader.” He could see fear filling Rebecca’s eyes. “So, I will need as many people helping me as the Urgis can provide.”

    Relief washed every bit of fear from her lovely face. “Yes. They want that too.”

  “I’m sure they want a lot more than that,” Davin said, sneering up as he spoke.

   Rebecca slowly shook her head.

    He took note. “The universe is infinite. There will always be more to want, uh, learn. More galaxies to discover and,” he hesitated, “explore.” He thought exploit and rape.

   Rebecca stepped back, turned and glanced over her shoulder. Davin and Pry saw nothing, but she obviously did. They didn’t pursue it…

   “Millions?” Davin asked as Pry took his hand and looked back at Rebecca. “Just millions?”

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    Rebecca glanced up again and nodded, “Stayner’s mutagens polluted Earth so badly, millions of her people were as many as the Urgis could save.”

    “So, billions still died.”  Davin fell back down. “It wasn’t Stayner’s mutagens it was mine.” He confessed.

   “Davin, we did not know.” Pry's long white hair rippled down, resting on his chest, soothing him.

   “Oh, they know that.” Rebecca was quick to tell him. “But that’s good, Davin; don’t feel bad about it. That’s what’s saving our lives right now. That and how you were able to come here from so far away and push Chase out of his unborn body is a mystery the Urgis are desperate to unravel and use, and all this shape -shifting you two have been doing, well, they finally got a handle on that. Pry…”

    With her right finger lifted, she bowed her head. Her flesh rippled, fur sprang from every inch of exposed skin. After a moan that slowly became a purr, she lifted her head.  Pry, the adorable werecat, reared back and smiled at her husband.

    “Okay…you just did that. They did that?” His delight filled the hangar like warm, soft light; it was not his intent, but he could not help it.

   She smiled again and left the floor. “And you can fly,” He said. “Hey, why not? We’re being bought.” He said through a tired sigh, his eyes rolling up. “I know how they can do all this, super advanced aliens, and all that.” His attempt at being unimpressed was obvious.  “But how do you know all this?”

  “They have been studying you and Pry since you arrived.”

   “I just got here. Didn’t I?”

   “I’m sure it feels that way, but no. You touched Stayner’s mind unexpectedly, but not before you entered one of Chase’s bodies. It would die, and you’d hop to another and another. You only recently entered Stayner. The moment you did, they sent me to ah, ‘collect’ you with a properly defrosted body. There are more, but you wanted Stayner, not stasis.”

   “So, you killed him against the off chance I would migrate.” He paused and looked down at himself, “into this.”

   She gave him a sheepish smile, “It was an experiment, and a last-ditch effort. You really should be dead.”

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Pry reached for him and stroked his arm. “They ‘acquired’ us shortly after you left; they know a lot about us: Alisar, Phastanar, Trudy and Beth and Nikki, the oak. They want to know more.”

    “Pry, what did they do to you? Did they hurt you? Did they make you talk?”

   “No, but they entered our minds.” She answered through a low growl, “They know what we know.”

   “But that’s not enough, is it?” Davin glared at the wall.   

   “Did you drive Chase to suicide?” He demanded. “You know our thoughts, so what’s the point in pretending?”

    Rebecca grabbed his arm. “Don’t antagonize them. They will kill you. You die, we die. Stop it!”

   He snatched his arm away. “Or they dissect Pry,” Davin yelled at the wall. Pry reverted to her human form and shielded him with her body.

     “Dramatics serve no purpose.” The hangar rang like a bell as Fev’s voice boomed against its walls. “We told him the truth after he chose himself over his mother. He passed our test, but, apparently, not his. Humans even manufactured humans are complex, an endless source of knowledge and unpredictable. We will examine you. Cutting you and Pry into little pieces will yield little if any useful information. Hatred and rebellion will over time reveal far more information than fear and compliance. You pose no threat, but you are resourceful, inventive, and you hold secrets. Plotting against us, formulating ways to circumvent our will is exactly what we want. Please look for your hidden friends. We implore you. Your will is ours.  We are one, do you not see that?”  

    “See what? Coward you want even show your face!” Davin glared at the wall until a huge section of it melted away to become a giant opening.

       Pry, and Davin gasped at the same time. Fev filled a thirty-foot-tall archway. A skeletal giant, draped in white robes. Black hollows for eyes, scraggly long grey hair, lipless mouth just beneath two vertical nose slits, an horrific mockery of a face, looked down on them. “I repulse you, but no less than you repulse us. Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, is it not?”

       “Now you’re quoting Shakespeare.” Pry hid her face in his chest.

   “Molly Wolfe Hungerford wrote that in 1878, not Shakespeare. We know your world better than you do, but then this is not your world is it? Every play, book, scientific thesis, movie, television show, all your music art, philosophy and technology have been collected, studied and archived. We know you, but not as well as we would like. And you are not native to this world, neither is your mate. That represents an entirely new field of study. Live your life do as you please. We know what you want, the rest of your family. They are hidden from us, in time, another compelling avenue of study, something we must know. Goodbye, you will be relocated to Earth shortly. You may wander about the ship until then. You are free, because we have learned.”

     The wall reappeared. Rebecca cut her eyes at Davin. “That was foolish.”

    He kissed Pry on her forehead. “Can you fly too?”

       Rebecca’s eyes rolled, her smile returned….