Page 128 of The Space Between Stars

Mastico held up a hand; Niklaus held his tongue. They all turned to look at Calver. His hands were clutching the sides of his head, eyes scrunched tight. The rings around them seemed suddenly darker than before. A vein twitched at his temple.

“Calverous,” Mastico said. “How did you survive?”

Calver had told Niklaus that Strikapa was a cover-up for a Tera’thian scourge of Kaidech—an act in which Thyatira was complicit. That Thyatira had silenced him and abducted him to use as a test subject for Limtush Pharmaceutical. Would he spin the same tale to Thyatira’s second?

Calver’s breath came in short gasps. His neck bulged. Blood began to dribble from his nose. A moment passed. And another.

“Cal?” Niklaus tapped his shoulder.

Calver’s hand snapped out and clenched Niklaus’s bicep. Niklaus gasped—his fingers were like talons, his grip like iron. Both Masticos drew towards them. Calver’s eyes rolled until only their whites showed. His hand fell away as his body pitched onto the rug with a thump. Niklaus scuttled backwards.

“What’s wrong with him?” Mastico’s question was nearly a shout.

“I—I don’t know.” Niklaus massaged his arm and gritted his teeth before returning to Calver’s side. He patted Calver’s arm, half-expecting the mute to punch him square in the nose. Calver’s body began to seize.

“I’m calling for a medic,” the senior Mastico said, rising and striding from the tent.

“What did you do to him?” Kian accused Niklaus.

“Nothing! He—” He’d only had his back ripped to shreds that morning, marched five hours through the desert, fought two men in a ring, and unmasked childhood trauma. It was a wonder he hadn’t dropped like a sot hours before.

It took less than two minutes for Mastico to return with a medic, a bristly brick of a man who sped into the tent, bag tucked under his arm. Without acknowledging anyone, he squatted beside Calver and felt for a pulse. Niklaus tucked his hands beneath his arms.

The medic’s sharp eyes turned toward Mastico. “Low pulse. Dehydrated. But stable. I expect he’ll recover with fluids and”—the doctor’s brows rose so high they nearly filled in his receding hairline—“not fighting any rally matches and staying up past the highmoon, fathom that. Has he shown any indication of injury or illness?”

Niklaus would be a fool to lie now. “He, ahm, injured his back.”

The medic rolled Calver carefully, and with surprisingly little effort for a man half his size. He pulled a set of shears from his bag and cut through the shirt from top to bottom, pulling it away from the skin. Niklaus stared for as long as it took for his mind to comprehend—and threaten the contents of his stomach. Mastico brought a fist to his mouth. Kian’s mouth was open. The silence shouldn’t have stretched so long. It felt like ages.

“Call for a stretcher,” the medic said.

It wasn’t the burns. It was everything else. Calver’s skin was so ridged, scarred, matted, it was hard to tell whether any of it had been whole before the explosion. Strange, raised shapes sat beneath the burns and blisters. And in some places…gleaming metal pierced through.

“Vabem,” Mastico asked the medic. “What is this?”

“The burns are fresh. They risk infection. The rest...” The medic—Vabem—pulled a glove over his hand and grabbed a magnifying instrument from his bag. He brought his face inches from Calver’s marred skin. “This scarring implies surgical insertion.”

“Why would he do it? Is it religious? Ritualistic?”

“This is not self-inflicted. The mounds here—well, I’ve heard of them but never seen them in person. They resemble the barbing system the Tera’thians use for corporal punishment.”

Niklaus shied at the invasion of privacy. It was no wonder Calver had shrunk away from contact like he had something contagious. He swallowed. “You mean like…?”

“Torture. The damage is old, though. The tissues long since healed—as much as they could.”

Mastico’s brow furrowed, eyes shifting quickly. “Search his forearm,” he commanded.

Vabem rolled Calver’s sleeve and pivoted his forearm until something shiny caught the light from the tent’s Aetech lamps: a brand, in a language Niklaus recognized but couldn’t decipher. An escaped Tera’thian slave. Escaped, because no Tume’amic lived past their teens.

“A Tera’thian,” Kian spat.

“A—a Nelfinden,” Niklaus stammered in defense, though he couldn’t be certain. Who, now, had twisted their tale? What was real? What was a lie? He’d trade everything he possessed to know, given the chance, but there was nothing in his pockets, no scrap of dignity to his name, and the chances themselves had long since run dry. He spoke on hope alone. “He’s fighting against the Tera’thians.” Hope was a feather on any scale against logic.

The stretcher came, towed by two medical aids. It took four of them to load Calver onto it. Niklaus turned to follow him out the flap.

“Meyernes, stay. I have questions.”

Niklaus was sure he was sweating. His head pounded. “Yes, Mesu.”