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“Do you know why I’ve brought you here?” the man asked him.
Evan’s mouth opened. His lips cracked and began to bleed. His tongue moved clumsily; he could not feel it.
“Betrayed.”
“Betrayed? Oh no, quite the opposite. If there is one word to describe you, it is devoted.” He stepped to one side and a woman wearing a white smock wheeled a gurney into the room. Two soldiers followed. They scooped him from the floor and dumped him onto the gurney. Above him, a single drop of water clung to a sprayer nozzle. He watched it quiver there, unable to look away. A cuff was wrapped around his arm; he didn’t feel it. A thermometer was run across his forehead; he didn’t feel it.
A bright light was shone in his eyes. The woman probed his naked body, pressing on his stomach, massaging his neck and pelvis, and her hands were deliciously warm.
“What is my name?” the colonel asked.
“Vosch.”
“No, Evan. What is my name?”
He swallowed. He was very thirsty. “It can’t be pronounced.”
“Try.”
He shook his head. It was impossible. Their language had evolved as a result of a very different anatomy. Vosch might as well ask a chimpanzee to recite Shakespeare.
The woman in the white smock with the warm hands slid a needle into his arm. His body relaxed. He wasn’t cold or thirsty anymore, and his mind was clear.
“Where are you from?” Vosch asked.
“Ohio.”
“Before that.”
“Can’t be pronounced—”
“Never mind the name. Tell me where.”
“In the constellation Lyra, the second planet from the dwarf star. The humans discovered it in 2014 and named it Kepler 438b.”
Vosch smiled. “Of course. Kepler 438b. And of all places from which you could choose, why the Earth? Why did you come here?”
Evan turned his head to look at the man. “You already know the answer. You know all the answers.”
The colonel smiled. His eyes remained hard, though, and humorless. He turned to the woman. “Get him dressed. It’s time for Alice to take a trip down the rabbit hole.”
65
THEY BROUGHT HIM a blue jumpsuit and a pair of flimsy white shoes. He told the soldiers watching him, “It’s a lie. What he’s told you. He’s like me. He’s using you to murder your own kind.”
The boys said nothing. They nervously caressed the triggers of their guns.
“The war you’re about to wage isn’t real. You’ll be killing innocent people, survivors like you, until the last one falls and then we will kill you. You’re participating in your own genocide.”
“Yeah, well, you’re a fucking piece of infested horseshit,” the younger boy blurted out. “And when the commander’s done with you, he’s giving you to us.”
Evan sighed. There was no breaking through the lie because accepting the truth would break them.
Vices are virtues now, and virtues vices.
Out of the room, down a long corridor, then descending three flights of stairs to the lowest level. Another long corridor, turning right into a third that spanned the length of the base, passing door after unmarked door, walls of gray cinder block and the sterile glow of fluorescent bulbs. Here
night never fell; here the light was everlasting.
