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* * * *
Kalquor
“My son, you’re safe. I’m here.” Gruthep spoke in Ilid’s ear as his child’s exhale neared its end and his scream lost strength.
Ilid’s eyes flew open. His body tensed as he attempted to throw himself forward on the medi-bed he slept on. The partial stasis field enclosing him kept him from doing so. His gaze darted around, following unseen horrors.
Gruthep bracketed Ilid’s sweating face between his hands. Hands he’d thought strong, which had fended off and killed enemies. Hands too weak to defend his son from the monsters living in his head. Useless, useless hands.
The Nobek bent close anyway, willing his child to recognize him. “I’m here, Ilid. My heart, look at me. You’re safe.”
Ilid blinked rapidly. Recognition flooded his gaze for an instant. Then shame and guilt. Agony knifed Gruthep’s gut.
He kept his voice steady. “Here you are. Here’s my boy. Here’s my precious son.”
Gruthep pressed his lips to Ilid’s forehead as the tormented young man dissolved in a storm of weeping. Every sob Ilid uttered shoved the point of the father’s grief deeper, but he merely stroked his hair and whispered as comfortingly as he was able.
Little by little, the crying eased. At last, Ilid said, “They should have let me die.” As awful as the emotional outburst had been, his defeated tone was worse.
Codab appeared at the opposite side of the bed. “I’m glad they didn’t, my son. A miracle brought you home. I’ll do everything in my power to keep you.”
The door hissed open. Jadel peered in questioningly. He’d hustled a protesting Diju from the room as soon as Ilid’s screams had begun. “He’s awake?”
Diju shoved past him and dashed forward. “Ilid, I’m here.”
Ilid allowed her to wrap her arms around him. He even rested his cheek on her shoulder, but his expression was distant. Gruthep had witnessed that terrible mix of apathy and grief in the mirror after his deadly encounter with the Tragooms: a yearning to leave life, yet unable to let go. As awful as it was to see, he felt relief. Despite his son’s suicide attempt, he wasn’t quite gone in his heart. As long as a spark remained, Ilid might hang on. They had to tend the tiny, flickering flame carefully until he flared to life again.
* * * *
Gruthep scowled at Dr. Degorsk. The men of Clan Codab had joined the psychiatrist in the hall beyond Ilid’s room when he’d arrived. Diju remained at their son’s side, sneaking him small baked sweets she’d smuggled in and catching him up on the latest gossip. He’d managed a few smiles for her in the last couple of hours since waking.
“It’s a setback, no doubt. A combination of the trauma and his determination to not subject you to it has brought him to a point I’d hoped we wouldn’t see.”
“Yet you insist he must do more.” Gruthep liked Degorsk and appreciated the fleet’s need for Ilid’s help, but he was focused on his son’s recovery.
“Within reason. I won’t lose him.” Degorsk sighed. “The trick is finding a balance. Ilid needs time to and space to heal. At the same instant, the safety of the empire depends on him.”
“He sent the warning. He allowed you to take the brain scans. He’s done his fair share for the empire,” Jadel seethed.
“I agree. Ilid is shattered from what happened. He’s received his discharge, and the fleet needs to leave him alone.” Codab’s tone brooked no refusal.
In case their opinion needed further support, Gruthep added, “Duty and honor be damned, Doctor. If Ilid wants to help, that’s his call. Until he’s well enough to offer, you can tell the fleet to back off. I won’t allow it to destroy my son.”
* * * *
Hope and Lokmi gazed at the sample of bacteria through the microscope vid monitor. Its lack of movement didn’t require the computer’s assessment.
It shared its findings anyway. “The sample is lifeless.”
Hope scowled. Lokmi sighed. “We don’t even know if we’re poking through to the other dimension.”
Hope stretched as she scanned their temporary lab in Clan Tranis’ home, relaxing from the intense focus she’d trained on the vid and her instrumentation for the last hour. “We must be. It survived when you phased with it between the dimensions.”
Lokmi sagged in the extra hover chair pulled up to the clean end of the table, where pieces of Hope’s engineering work on the miniscule nanobots she continued to refine weren’t scattered. “All living tissue we send over dies when we send it through the window, even in a pocket of our atmosphere. We have no idea if the containment is holding across the divide, but I’m guessing it isn’t.”
“We also have no idea if alternating frequencies will hold a Dark in our space,” she reminded him. “You phased, yeah, but we can’t determine what the Darks are made of or how they cross dimensions. It’s obvious organic matter on our side isn’t adaptable to their universe the way theirs is to ours. Or maybe something else is going on.” She shrugged. It was a big guessing game. They weren’t sure of the questions they should be asking, so finding answers seemed damned near impossible.
Nonetheless, the clock on capturing Admiral Hobato’s supposed rider was ticking. Piras and Tranis weren’t interested in failure.
