The Edge Page 43

They were brave in the face of a slow agony which would only get worse before they would be released. People had quietly died, expiring from the accumulating toxic gases, slipping away into death against the cold hull that wasn't meant for deep space, succumbing to injuries no longer treatable.

  At the first few hearings, he'd told himself not to give up. Stay strong. Be Calm. They'd come to understand. But it became clear early on they weren't interested. He was the fall guy. Almost all of an entire Battle Group had been destroyed. Thousands of lives lost. Tens of thousands. Nobody wanted to hear about crazy conspiracies, invisible aliens, secret deals. They just needed him to be guilty of everything, of anything. Maybe they were right. He had caused it all. Death, murder, destruction all on a cosmic scale.

  Worse of all though, the nightmare of survival still didn't obliterate the memory of the two minutes he spent killing those people. With nothing to do in the cell, those two minutes would replay in front of him again and again. And the two minutes would take hours to play from start to finish, only to start again. And again. And again. While he slept, images of being trapped in the Bridge Express tried to suffocate him. When awake, faces, so many faces stared at him, trying to weaken him, unravel what little sanity he had left. Sometimes, it seemed as if his cell was full of their corpses, piled high all around, the stench of their deaths driving the air out of his lungs. Or the ghosts would crowd the room where the hearings were held, eyeing him, wandering around him. Once, when Sha watched him, one of the officers glanced over his shoulder and asked what he was looking at. That was why he stared at the table. Don't let them see the scream threatening to erupt out of his throat. Sometimes, he imagined Sha was trying to say something. He didn't want to hear it.

  As the hearings dragged on, Eckstein was becoming more and more agitated. She was having trouble working under the "guidelines" whatever they were. He was pretty sure it meant she was a good person caught between her duty and whatever her superiors wanted.

  "I'm going to represent myself," he told her, finally. It'd been weeks since the meeting with Larson. He'd not returned. "It's my right."

  "No it's not, prisoner. The court determines your rights. And you have none, zero, right now."

  "I get that."

  She slapped the bars separating her from his tiny cell. "You are not understanding this. They want to get rid of you. But they're afraid of just executing you. They're afraid of some... Thing. And I don't think I want to know what it is."

  He looked pointedly at the cameras. "Leave it."

  "They think they can dump the problem onto the Hellborne. That's what I'm trying to save you from. The Hellborne will kill you. At least here, I might get you life."

  "Goodbye."

  He didn't see her again.

  Time went by with little change. Day. Night. They were the same. Not even tri's that he could tell. Even the food gave him little clue as the real time. He realized they didn't want anything from him anymore. The hearings stopped. What they wanted was to get rid of him. One day they shackled him up and instead of going to the briefing room, they hauled him to an armored transport. A black box on wheels. He wasn't even taken outside. They just backed the vehicle against a door and shoved him in. Then chained his hands to a metal bench. When the van lurched to a start, he fell to the floor, to slide around and get thrown against the sides.

  The guards in the van swore vigorously when it suddenly slowed, causing him to crash into the front wall. The transportation was supposed to have been secret but crowds blocked the way. News hounds, the small floating cameras of the media, flittered around outside the van. Mak could hear the ugly little whirring sound they made as they jockeyed for position. One of the guards smirked at him. He'd been the one to leak it to the press. And the press made sure there was a mob screaming for blood pelting the transport with rocks and debris. From his vantage point on the floor, Mak could see through a thin slit under the door. There were angry faces belonging to angry people yelling angry things. Some of the mob held signs begging for justice, for retribution, for vengeance. Butcher. Murderer. Criminal. Madman. They beat the sides of the vehicle causing a thoom, thoom, thoom to vibrate along his bones. It reminded of something he could almost forget.

  "Want us to open the door?" the smirking guard asked.

  Mak didn't bother to answer. When the guard kicked him in the side, it was just one more bruise on top of others. The guards had ramped up their abuse since his advocate had stopped coming.

  The transport waited for the police escort to beat a way clear. Then they resumed their slow progress to the military gates where the news hounds had to stop flying and the crowds were left screaming their hatred. They pulled into a building. He knew because the daylight through the small slit in the door winked out. He heard doors being slid shut and the van rocked to a halt.

  The doors opened. The guards flung him out. His face smacked into cold hard concrete. There was little light. It didn't look like a place of execution but then, when had Mak ever seen one? The guards dragged him to a spot and threw him down on the ground.

  "Your buddy Larson did everything he could to stop this," one of them hissed. "But you know what, you piece of shit? You deserve this."

  Mak lay on his side gasping for air trying to let his eyes adjust. Finally, there was some movement. Three Hellborne separated themselves from the shadow.

  When they kicked him, it felt like his ribs were breaking. And unlike the guards, they didn't grunt or curse. It was quiet, methodical.

  The guards smiled then clambered back into their transport to leave him to their worst nightmare.

  His eyes opened.

  Something was different.

  Almost immediately, he closed his eyes again. He didn't care. The rhythm here was set in stone. Nothing ever changed. Except for this moment. There was something different. A small thing. Had to be. He'd ignore it. There was no need to do otherwise. Until the small thing spoke.

  "Mak," said the small thing. "Do you know how long you have been here?"

  Mak's face was pressed against the bars. Again, he opened his bruised eyes and then squinted against the bright sun. The Hellborne sun. Late afternoon. The sun, banded red and orange and yellow was still visible over the horizon. Nobody had spoken with him for so long he wasn't sure if it was just another dream or nightmare. The stranger was a Hellborne. For a moment, he thought it was Jerry. But Jerry was dead.

  "Mak, how long have you been here?"

  He sat up. Pain. It was his truest companion. The cage was small, barely large enough to stand. About three feet in radius. The floor was made from bars that hurt his feet and butt. The cage hung in a garden in what he believed to be a large city. The garden was quiet at this time of the day, no children to taunt him and pelt him with things. They were the only ones who noticed him now. The Hellborne had spent much time degrading and abusing him early on. Eventually, they had become bored it seemed and now just left him alone. The final newshound camera had flittered away a long time ago, probably thinking he was dead.

  And wasn't it close to the truth? The rags covering his body were the same orange jumpsuit he had worn when they had first taken him. It was little more than tatters now. His long stringy hair and beard were clumped with dirt. The sun had baked his skin a dark, leathery brown. He knew he looked like a skeleton. Food was just a sometime thing.

  People used to question him. He ignored them. Usually reporters asking how he felt, was he sorry, did he feel guilt. Humans for the most part, sometimes a D'ha'ren every now and then. The Hellborne usually didn't ask questions though. If they did, it was mostly to ask if being hit with that particular stone was painful enough.

  This Hellborne had brought a chair.

  "Can you hear me, Mak?"

  Mak watched. The Hellborne was well dressed in bright colors, reds and blues, which contrasted with his dark skin. He was a little thinner, and shorter than average. Unfolding the chair, he dusted it off with a silky handkerchief and perched on the edge. He cocked
his head and stared intently at the prisoner.

  "Do you know how long you have been here?" He spoke in his own language, loudly and slowly as if Mak were a child or a mental defect. Age was one thing Mak had yet to master. The Hellborne was definitely an adult, his skin was wrinkled but his hands darted about spryly. A young old man? An old young man?

  He thought about not responding. The Hellborne thought he had power. Someone used to getting his way. But as far as Mak was concerned, the alien was just another tourist, a gawker. Mak didn't glance at the tree growing a little ways off. It told him he'd been here for about five Hellborne years. Close to six Earth years. Finally, after some consideration which the Hellborne spent fidgeting with his clothes, Mak slowly nodded.

  As if waiting for more of an answer, the man bobbed his head encouragingly. Mak didn't answer. He hadn't spoken for ages it seemed. He used to speak with the ghosts who came to visit him. But even they seemed to have found his company tedious. Sometimes Sha would come and sit with him. She'd chat about this thing and that, he'd say he was sorry, she'd ignore it and ramble on about something he couldn't understand. He'd scream at her to go away. The guards would beat him into silence.

  "Well, we think that it's been long enough," the Hellborne chirped brightly. "The Unity has forgotten you. For the most