Ad Noctum: Chapter 2

“Dungeons and Dragons?” Volker’s voice cracked. Blood was leaking out of his shoulder pretty darn fast. He tried to stay calm. Get his heart to beat a little slower. “Ever heard of it?”

Chapter warnings: Stressors of all kinds. Abduction. Anxiety. Panic. Purposefully insensitive discussion of mental health issues. Boundary problems. Manipulation.

Text iteration: Midnight.

Additional notes: None.

Chapter 2

Volker tried not to seem too impressed by the spectacular Neptune fly-by on their way out of the solar system, as neither Rush nor Telford seemed interested in the gorgeous blue of its methane-rich atmosphere or the shadows cast by the ridges of its high-altitude clouds.

The massive curve of his solar system’s farthest-flung planet didn’t help the air of unreality he found himself battling on a minute-to-minute basis.

“What’s our velocity?” Volker tried to sound casual.

“Relative to what?” Rush asked. “Aren’t you an astrophysicist? Aren’t frames of reference fuckin’ fundamental to every waking moment of your professional life?”

“Um,” Volker said, taken aback. “Relative to whatever convention is used by space-faring people, okay? Or space-faring Goa’uld? I don’t know.”

“Our current velocity is ninety percent of the speed of light,” Telford said shortly. “What the hell did you bring him along for if you’re not going to explain anything?”

“Ninety percent of the speed of light,” Rush repeated disdainfully. “Means fuck all.”

“It’s a universal constant,” Telford shot back.

“Well, exactly.”

“You’re making some subtle semantic argument that you’re not even going to bother to explain just because you’re pissed I put a transmitter in your neck.”

There was an awkward silence.

“Displacement from the solar rest frame was implied,” Volker said mildly. He did a little mental math. “So around 168,000 miles per second relative to the sun, probably.”

“Stars are generally the relevant point of reference,” Rush admitted.

“So we should be experiencing relativistic effects,” Volker said, trying to sound confident. Because he was confident, at least when it came to relativistic physics.

“And we are,” Rush replied. “An unfortunate necessity when leaving the solar system. We’ll jump to hyperspace shortly, at which point time dilation will cease.”

“Hyperspace?” Volker couldn’t help himself.

“And you’re sure he’ll be useful,” Telford muttered.

“Hyperspace has been neither detected nor studied by terrestrial physicists,” Rush snapped. “Just because you spend most of your time there doesn’t put it or its properties within the sphere of common knowledge.”

“Fine.” Telford managed to sound offended and placating at the same time.

“So if our perceived time for transit from Earth to Neptune is about two hours—” Volker trailed off, doing some mental math, “then time seen by a stationary observer would be—what? Five? Ish?”

Rush sighed in a manner that suggested something about Volker’s approximation had personally offended him.

“You think my math is wrong?” Volker asked.

Telford rolled his eyes.

Rush shot to his feet and stalked away, his hand slamming against the door controls as he left.

“Change your damn clothes,” Telford yelled after him.

“Um—can he just—” Volker began, trying to fight down the uncertainty in his own voice. “Walk out of here? While we’re, uh, heading into the Oort Cloud?”

“Ideally? No. But he already plotted our course.”

“Oh,” Volker said. “Do you need me to—” he wasn’t sure how to continue, uncertainty warring with his natural tendency to offer help, warring with the fact that he didn’t want to be helping Telford, “—do anything?”

Telford hesitated, then seemed to come to a decision. He tipped his chin in the direction of the chair beside him. “Get up here.”

Volker slid into the seat Rush had vacated. The display in front of him was more complicated than the one at the lateral station he’d been studying. He didn’t have much of a chance to examine the new readouts before Telford spoke.

“You’ll need to learn Goa’uld,” Telford said. “Possibly Ancient as well.”

“Ancient?”

Telford sighed. “We’ve got a bunch of training videos I illegally copied for Rush. You can watch them, presuming they haven’t been erased or converted into custom circuitry, but until then, try to pick this stuff up as you go. You’re a smart guy, right? Or is he bullshitting about that as well?”

“Um, no.” Volker tried not to sound as out of his depth as he felt. “I have a PhD in Astrophysics.”

“Do you have any idea how many damned astrophysicists I know?” Telford asked.

“None?” Volker guessed.

“At least fifty. That’s a low estimate. And only two of them are really outstanding.”

“Okay,” Volker said, not sure where the other man was going with this.

“And you,” Telford said, “had better be number three.”

“You abducted me, you know,” Volker felt compelled to point out.

“Wrong answer,” Telford snapped. “The correct answer is ‘You’re damn right I’m number three.’ And I didn’t abduct you. Rush did.”

Volker stared out the forward view, his jaw locked.

“For what it’s worth,” Telford said, “I’m sorry you got dragged into this. That wasn’t the plan. He was supposed to break into your office and take your data. Not talk to you. Not abduct you.”

“So why’d he do it?” Volker asked through a tight jaw. “Why destroy my life?”

“He needs your help,” Telford said, his expression guarded, “with one of the greatest potential discoveries that mankind has ever made. Ever will make.”

“Rush,” Volker said dubiously. 

“Yes, Rush. Rush and I.”

“If you say so.” Volker fought to keep his face and voice neutral.

Whatever Rush and Telford were up to? Knowledge for its own sake probably wasn’t their primary goal.

“You’re part of something greater than you could possibly imagine,” Telford said.

“Great. I’ll, uh, keep that in mind.” Volker hadn’t intended the sarcasm, but it was laced through every word.

Telford’s expression closed. “Tap the flashing text.” He glanced at the screen in front of Volker. “We’re beyond the range of terrestrial sensors. We won’t be detected if we engage our hyperdrive.”

Volker tapped the string of flashing hieroglyphs. The darkness of space in the forward view blurred and brightened into linear streaks of what could only be starlight. He flinched in surprise.

Telford pulled his hands away from the controls, hit a depressible part of the console, then turned to Volker. “You need a new outfit. Which is a pain in the ass, by the way.”

“So sorry to inconvenience you,” Volker replied.

“Go put on whatever you have that looks as similar to what I’m wearing as possible.”

Volker gave Telford a dubious look, eyeing the black boots, the black leather pants, the matching black leather jacket over a dark shirt of an unfamiliar cut. The overall aesthetic was—intimidating.

“Um, it’s not gonna be very—” Volker trailed off as Telford stood and walked away.

The door to the bridge swished open, then shut again.

“—close,” Volker finished in the empty room.  

Four hours later, Volker sat alone, eating a power bar in a room that was a cross between a workspace and—well, he wasn’t sure what. Plastic containers and crates were stacked low against the walls, leaving a clear space for a central table that was strewn with electronic equipment, a bottle of alcohol, several small notebooks, and what appeared to be a modified terrestrial soldering gun.

Terrestrial.

Yep.

As opposed to alien.

With starlight streaking linearly past the room’s only window, it was hard to keep his attention focused on the training video playing on the laptop in front of him.

“—Shol’va. This is the Goa’uld word for ‘traitor,’ but in a broader cultural context it came to be applied not only to individuals, but to scientific, philosophical, and theological disciplines that defied Goa’uld convention. Methods to ensure conformity have historically been and currently are extreme. Should physical and psychological torture fail, the Goa’uld employ methods of ‘coercive persuasion,’ more commonly referred to as ‘brainwashing’. Unfortunately, this technique has spread cross-culturally. It’s been refined and adapted by other civilizations, most notably the Lucian Alliance.”

“Ugh, you’re kidding,” Volker muttered at Dr. Daniel Jackson, triple PhD.

“In order to gain a greater understanding into the physiology behind this technology, please refer to Dr. Carolyn Lam’s video, ‘Recognizing Thought Control in Self and Others’,” Dr. Jackson continued. “The concept of Shol’va traces back to Ra, who introduced the term—”

Volker jumped as the door slid open.

Telford stood in the frame. “We’ll drop out in a few minutes,” the other man said. “Get ready.”

“For what?” Volker asked, but Telford had already disappeared.

Volker shut the laptop and looked at himself critically. He was wearing black jeans, black dress shoes that Telford had done his best to beat the hell out of, a black T-shirt, and a black dress shirt that was unbuttoned and untucked, giving the vague impression of a jacket.

He did not look badass. In any way. He looked like a roadie for a Nerd Rock band. 

Volker wondered how the heck he was supposed to “get ready” to visit an alien world, but couldn’t think of anything to do other than focus on the nervous anticipation fluttering in his chest.

An alien planet.

An alien planet?

Yeah. Apparently.

A brief hit of deceleration and the suddenly stationary stars let him know they’d dropped from hyperspace.

Volker had a difficult time thinking of “hyperspace” as a real thing.

Same problem with “hyperdrives.”

Did people ever say “hyperspeed?” He’d have to keep an ear out for that one.

He went to the window and looked out. A green and brown world spread out below. It was cloud-covered. Not as blue as Earth. Not as beautiful. Its clouds had a gray cast, as though seeded with dust. Their albedo and formations suggested water vapor, rather than something more exotic. It was hard to estimate the scale of the planet as he didn’t have a good way of judging how far from it they were, but if he’d had to guess, he’d have put it at maybe 1.3 times the radius of the Earth.

They descended through the atmosphere, with only a hint of turbulence caused by atmospheric entry. That was cool. He wondered how that worked.

Given the clouds, the planet probably had a strong enough magnetic field to protect it from the solar wind of its parent star, which Volker could also see, shining a yellow-gold. If there were a magnetic field, the core of the planet was likely still liquid and hot and rotating.

He watched the whole descent, cataloguing as much information as he could on the way down, before the ship came to rest on a disappointingly normal patch of bare ground.

Once they’d landed, he left the room and stood in the central hallway, waiting for the other two to appear.

Gravity felt a little dialed up. Not quite 1.3g, though.

Rush showed first, stepping out of a door next to the transportation room. Volker hadn’t seen him since he’d stalked off the bridge and, no doubt about it, the guy cut a very different impression with his Space Pirate glow-up. Like Telford, Rush was clad head-to-toe in black leather, but where Telford’s outfit hit as intimidating, Rush’s hit as—

Weird.

The man’s boots were knee high. His leather pants had a little more detailing than Telford’s. They were tighter. His belt had two buckles…or maybe they were belts? He wore a leather vest with a complicated flap of angled buckles and pockets. His leather jacket was structured, fitted across the shoulders and through the torso, then flared at the hips. It was long, and hit Rush at the knee. Volker caught a flash of burgundy in the lining.

It looked—awesome?

Kinda steampunk?

It also looked like maybe he’d found it in the ladies’ section of whatever Space Pirate Store he’d bought it from?

Coupled with the designer glasses the guy was wearing, Rush would have made a pretty good splash at Caltech’s Halloween Party. He looked kinda like a Pirate Time Lord.

Rush came to a stop in front of Volker, shook his hair back, looked Volker up and down, and said, “Pathetic.”

“Thanks,” Volker said. “Nice to see you too.”

The door at the end of the hall hissed open, and Telford stalked out. “We’re powered down,” he said, “and cloaked.”

“Cloaked?” Volker echoed as Telford brushed by him. “Like Romulans?”

“You couldn’t do better than that?” Rush pointed elegantly at Volker. “He looks bloody terrible. By any standards. By all standards.”

“You’re one to talk. Lose the fucking glasses, Nick.”

“Fuck off.” Rush slid the glasses off and tucked them carefully inside his incredible jacket.

Telford glared at the pair of them, then jabbed the blue button on the door controls to the transporter room.

“So,” Volker said. “Where are we?”

“Rolan,” Telford said. “It’s a planet under the control of the Lucian Alliance.”

“And what are we doing here?”

“I am meeting my contact. You are going with Rush.”

“Great.” Volker eyed the mathematician skeptically as they followed Telford to the circle etched into the floor. “And we’re doing what?”

“Buying clothes,” Telford said.

Volker perked up a little at that, given the yeah, extremely cool sci-fi outfit Rush was sporting.

“Not sure we can handle such levels of danger and intrigue,” Rush said dryly.

“Do not,” Telford fixed Rush with a hard look, “light anything on fire.”

Rush scoffed and gestured elegantly at his own chest, as if to say, “Who, me?” 

“Didn’t you guys kidnap me to do astrophysics for you?” Volker asked. “Why are you taking me to a planet?”

“First of all,” Telford said, “we didn’t kidnap you. Rush recruited you. Welcome to the Lucian Alliance.”

“Oh. Thanks for clarifying,” Volker said.

“Second, I can’t exactly advertise I’ve picked up an untrained Earth astrophysicist, so you’ll need enough experience to pass for a member of the LA.”

“Um, why?”

“Lucian Alliance induction rituals are—” Telford hesitated, “—extreme.”

Volker couldn’t help the sudden chill any more than he could help glancing at Rush.

The mathematician’s expression was neutral, his stance uncharacteristically still. He didn’t look back at Volker. He was staring into the empty air.

“You need to be able to pass.” Telford hit a button on a small device he carried. “Let’s leave it at that.”

Volker had been expecting the blue-white flare of the beaming technology, but he jerked in surprise as they were surrounded by a falling stack of what looked like metal rings? His ears filled with a tone that was really more vibration than it was sound. The loops of metal—or whatever the heck they were—collapsed down and lifted back up. As they did so, he found himself squinting in the brightness of natural daylight.

Weird.

Also? Cool.

The sky was a uniform gray-brown, covered with low-lying clouds. It looked like it might rain at any moment. A cold wind sliced through the thin material of his shirt. Ahead was a small and depressing settlement.

He looked up at the overhanging hull of the ship, trying to figure out where the rings had gone.

There was a circle etched into the metal above them, the same diameter as the one in the room they’d just left.

“It’s a reverse platform built into the exterior hull,” Rush said, tracking the direction of Volker’s gaze.

“Go into town,” Telford said. “Buy him some clothes, and get the hell back here. Don’t talk to anyone except whoever you buy the gear from.” With that, he headed away from the ship, away from the small town, out into a field of what looked like alien corn.

Rush watched Telford go, his expression tense and unhappy.

“Isn’t he worried that we’ll escape?” Volker suppressed a shiver as a particularly cold gust of wind cut through his thin shirt.

Rush scanned the dust-covered landscape like he was counting heads in an invisible crowd. “On a planet like this, there’s nowhere to go.”

“Ah,” Volker said.

Rush shifted his attention to Volker, studying him with fiery intensity that was a little tough to just stand there and take.

“What?” Volker asked, self-conscious.

Rush stepped in, grabbed the trailing end of Volker’s black dress shirt, and started methodically ripping off its small, white buttons. He dropped them on the ground as he went, working his way up toward the collar. Volker, getting the idea, popped them from the cuffs of his sleeves. 

Rush bent down and came up with two handfuls of loose, dusty earth, which he proceeded to smear over Volker’s shirt.

“What the heck are you doing?”

“You’re too clean,” Rush explained. “And this material?” He yanked the loose fabric at the shoulder of Volker’s shirt. “It doesn’t hold up. It’s worn by people of the lowest rank. No offense, but I think we’d have a hard time passing you off as a prostitute, yes?”

“Um, thanks?” Volker said.

“If anyone asks, we’ll say I bought you out of indentured servitude.”

“Great,” Volker said. “Just when I thought my day couldn’t get any worse.”

“Wouldn’t tempt fate,” Rush replied, grinding dirt into Volker’s back, “plenty of daylight left.”

The wind whistled around the corners of the ship.

Once Rush was satisfied, they set off toward the road leading to a small cluster of buildings, none of them taller than a single story. Gray dust clung to everything.

“How do they get the corn to grow?” Volker asked.

“I’d imagine in the usual way,” Rush said testily.

“The soil just seems crappy,” Volker offered.

The mathematician’s irritation visibly faded. He picked up his pace, scrambling up a short bank to reach the road. When he got to its top, he dragged the edge of his boot through the fine, dusty earth, then studied the faint coating of soil on his hands with a concerned frown.

“What?” Volker panted a bit after his scramble off the bank.

“It’s probably nothing.” Rush started for the town.

“What’s probably nothing?” Volker asked pointedly.

“I doubt that’s ordinary corn,” Rush said, his eyes on the endless fields of gray-green leaves. 

“Seeing as we’re on an alien planet, yeah, I’d agree.”

Rush shot him a glare. “Y’need to learn when to shut it and absorb information.”

“Well, you’re not the most communicative guy,” Volker said, frustrated. “So far all I know is that you think the corn on this planet is weird. Which, by the way, I pointed out to you.”

“The Lucian Alliance,” Rush said, “engineers food that contains psychotropic compounds for the purposes of behavioral control. Or worse.”

“And you think this corn—”

“Possibly, though I wouldn’t mention as much to anyone.”

“What about Telford?” Volker said.

“Especially not Colonel Telford,” Rush replied darkly.  

They’d nearly reached the first of the low buildings.

“Why not?” Volker asked quietly.

Rush shook his head.

As they wound their way through the low buildings, Volker was surprised to see a mix of high and low tech. The dirt roads were trafficked by people on foot, some without shoes, dragging supplies loaded onto hovering platforms with no visible propulsion. They passed shops and small homes, following the small road they’d come in on. It led to an intersection where several small roads met. An open-air market occupied the crossroads.

They perused the stalls, but there wasn’t much available. Certainly nothing like what Rush was wearing. They bought a pair of leather pants from a raggedly dressed man but couldn’t find much else.

After they’d made a single pass, Rush put an end to their shopping with a terse, “Let’s go.”

To Volker’s surprise, they didn’t return the way they’d come. Rush took them out of the marketplace by a different road. Volker’s dead reckoning skills were a little rusty, but he was pretty sure they’d crossed the settlement and were near the opposite side.

They were far from the ship.

“Rush,” Volker said, as they turned down a dubious alleyway. “Where are we going?”

“I have a personal errand I need to attend to,” Rush replied.

“Telford said—”

Rush stopped. Turned.

Volker flinched at the raw intensity on the man’s face.

“You and I have a set of skills Colonel Telford lacks.” Rush’s voice was low and dangerous. “Until such a time as he manages to acquire said skills or we by some means lose them, his power over us will be limited by the fact that we are necessary to him.”

“Um?”

“Don’t fuckin’ fall in line. Don’t do what he says just because he speaks with authority and advertises a military rank. Don’t allow him to dictate your agenda,” the mathematician murmured. “Develop one for yourself.”

“Kinda hard when—”

“It’s always hard.”  

They stood, eyes locked, staring at one another.

“Do you,” Volker floundered, at a loss. “Do you need…help?”

Rush’s expression turned complicated. Angry. Wistful? Amused. His brows knitted. A muscle in his cheek twitched. But instead of speaking, he turned and continued into a narrow alley.

Volker stared after him, then jogged a few paces to catch up.

The alley pressed in, close and dim. Volker followed Rush, clutching his leather pants to his chest. At the end of the narrow passage between two buildings was a no-man’s land of dust that separated them from a wall of alien corn.

“Stay here.” Rush pressed him against the rough wooden slats of the building at the end of the alley.

“But—” Volker wasn’t sure whether he was protesting for his own sake or for Rush’s. In either case, splitting up did NOT seem smart.

“I need t’go alone,” Rush said. “I’ll be back shortly. If anything happens, go back to the ship.”

“What do you mean if anything happens?” Volker whispered, the words tripping over each other in urgency. “Like what? What’s going to happen?”

“Stay out of sight.” Rush was already scanning the empty space beyond the settlement, where the open swath of dust gave way to tall stalks of corn, where anything could be concealed.

“This is such a bad idea,” Volker whispered.

“I know.” Rush gave him a smile full of rue and charm. He turned, heading for the dusty, windswept ground beyond the cover of the alley.  

“Rush,” Volker whispered. “Rush.”

The other man didn’t turn.

“Dang it,” Volker hissed.

The wind was picking up, swirling the dust into small eddies. There was no one in sight.  

He couldn’t just stand at the shadowy end of an alien alley and hope Rush would come back.

Could he?

Well, he wanted to, but that would be a dumb decision.

Peering around the edge of the building seemed risky. He grimaced.

Too bad he didn’t have a mirror.

What did he have? A pair of leather pants, his own dusty outfit—and, in the pocket of his jeans, slipped in by habit—his iPhone. Volker pulled it out. The black surface of the touchscreen reflected the gray-white of the sky.

Definitely workable.

Pressing his back into the rough wooden slats, he angled his phone, extending it out past the corner of the building. He saw Rush’s silhouette—that flared coat was hard to miss. Another man slipped from between the rows of cornstalks to approach the mathematician.

Volker heard indistinct voices carried on the wind. He couldn’t pick out any words.

Rush pulled something from his jacket and held it up. Whatever it was, it was too small for Volker to make out.

The other man reached into his own jacket and removed a small packet.

Raindrops began to fall, hitting the earth and beading in the dust.

Rush took a step back.

The taller man lunged forward, delivering a glancing blow to Rush’s face; the mathematician ducked in time to avoid the worst of it and stepped back, his hands open, as if he were trying to talk the other man down.

It didn’t look like it was working.

Rush’s open hands curled into fists.

The combatants closed with one another, dark silhouettes merging.

It didn’t take long before Rush hit the dirt. Hard.

Not surprising. The other guy must have at least four inches on him.

There was no way, no way that Rush would win this fight.

The guy was a mathematician, for goodness’ sake!

Arguably, he was also Volker’s best chance at surviving Space Piratetry.

He slid his phone into his pocket, dropped the leather pants, and flung himself around the corner.

They struggled in the dust several yards away. The fight was visceral and intense and more vicious than his iPhone screen had really prepared him for.

They were fighting over something that flashed silver in the gray afternoon light.

A knife.

It was a knife. Rush was already mostly pinned, and that was the only thing Volker had time to think of before he was there and dragging the other man back, off of Rush with all his strength, dragging him up and away and—

Crap.

He hadn’t thought this through very well.

The man turned on him with a furious snarl, the knife coming down in a fast arc.

Volker dodged. Partially.

The blade slipped along his collarbone as he turned away from the blow, but the other man was turning too, pressing his advantage, changing his angle to drive the blade into the meat of Volker’s shoulder. He looked at the knife. He couldn’t help it.

It was in there, all right.

A shadow fell across the hilt of the blade, and his attacker fell away.

Rush stood next to him, a flat, wide stone in his hand.

Volker stared at the knife in his shoulder, breathing hard.

Rush dropped the rock.

“Don’t look at it,” he snapped.

Honestly, it was pretty tough to do anything other than stare at the knife buried in his shoulder. He felt a burning sensation. It seemed far away.

“Volker, I said don’t look.”

He looked up at Rush.

“Better.” In one smooth motion, Rush stepped forward and drew the knife out of Volker’s shoulder. A gush of blood followed it, warm and wet and soaking the thin material of his shirt.

And that—

That really hurt. 

Instinctively, he clamped a hand over the wound and pressed. His pulse throbbed beneath his hand.

Rush strolled over to the man he’d hit with a rock. He knelt next to him, the hem of his coat trailing in the thin soil.

“Did you kill him?” Volker rasped.

“No,” Rush said, his fingers at the other man’s neck.

Volker decided he wasn’t going to bother verifying whether that was true just right now. “Let’s get out of here,” he said, trembling with cold or with nerves or with shock.

“One moment.” Rush searched through the other man’s pockets. He pulled out the packet Volker had seen earlier and tucked it into his own jacket.

“Rush,” Volker hissed. “If he’s not dead, he’s gonna wake up. Haven’t you ever seen a movie? We’re supposed to run away.”

The scattered drops of rain began to fall faster.

Rush rolled the other man over, then began peeling his leather jacket off. It didn’t come easily. Rush put his back into shucking it off the guy arm by arm, then shook it out, straightened its seams, and wrapped it around Volker’s shoulders.

“Rush,” he hissed. “I need a jacket way less than we need to get out of here.”

Rush ignored this. He knelt and began to unlace the other man’s boots.

“Rush you can’t take this guy’s boots.”

“He stabbed you,” Rush replied, the picture of rational calm. “And you need boots. I consider this just and practical.”

“Yeah.” Volker tried to keep the hysteria out of his tone. “That tracks. On, like, the Sword Coast, man.”

Boots in hand, Rush cleaned his new knife by wiping it on the back of the unconscious (dead?) man’s shirt. “The Sword Coast?” He slid the blade somewhere into his complicated Space Pirate vest.

“Dungeons and Dragons?” Volker’s voice cracked. Blood was leaking out of his shoulder pretty darn fast. He tried to stay calm. Get his heart to beat a little slower. “Ever heard of it?”

Rush sighed. “Let’s go.”

Rush led the way back toward the alley they’d come from. He rescued the leather pants from the dust, then set out in a direction that Volker was pretty sure would lead them right to the ship.

It began raining in earnest.

“Do not pass out on me, Volker.” Rush stepped in to steady Volker as he stumbled. “I’m not inclined to carry you back to the ship.” The mathematician gave him a small shake for emphasis.

“I,” Volker said, “really hate you.”

“Not unreasonable,” Rush replied. “But fuckin’ hold yourself together, yes?”

Volker gritted his teeth and focused on putting one foot in front of the other as they walked through the increasing downpour. The dust of the road settled into muck as they picked their way back to the ship. It took twice the time it had taken them to walk into the small settlement.

“So…no one cares you hit that guy with a rock?” Volker asked as they passed the boundary of the cloak and the ship became visible. The rain abated inside the invisible barrier, its sound turned to a static hiss at the border of the cloak.

“Well,” Rush said, “I’d imagine he cares.”

“What kind of world is this?”

“One that’s known little other than rule by force.”

“We’re academics,” Volker said as they came beneath the ship and aligned themselves with the rings. “We’re not meant for this sort of thing.”

“You’d be surprised.” Rush reached into his jacket, pulled out his glasses, and slipped them on.

“What did you take from him?” Volker asked. “What was in that envelope?”

“You’ll find out soon enough.” Rush hit a button on the small device he carried, and the rings descended. When they unstacked, Volker found himself back in the transporter room.

His knees began to buckle.

“No,” Rush snapped. “Don’t you dare.”

Rush dragged him forward, hit the door controls, and pulled him into the hallway.

“Rush,” Telford called from the bridge. “Where the hell have you been?”

“We ran into some trouble,” Rush dragged Volker toward the room with the laptops and crates.

“What kind of trouble?” Telford appeared in the doorframe.

“There was a minor disagreement over the reasonable price for a leather jacket and boots,” Rush said.

Volker was having a hard time keeping the floor from spinning.

“You got him knifed?” Telford sounded like he was underwater.

“I hardly think your phrasing is accurate,” Rush snapped back. “Give me a hand here, will you?”

The blood was roaring in his ears.

“Knifed,” Telford said, flat and crisp. “On a shopping trip.”

Volker’s fingers were tingling.

“Fuck off. You’re not being constructive.”

His vision was fading out.

“Constructive? You’re talking to me about being constructive?”

Volker came to, lying on the same table that he’d been sitting at earlier. Telford and Rush stood over him, backlit by the recessed gold ceiling lights.

Telford probed his shoulder wound with a gloved hand. “You’re not supposed to remove the blade until you’re under controlled conditions.”

Rush, arms crossed, looked away. As though maybe he wasn’t too keen on the sight of blood. “Oh yes? Sounds important. Can I borrow a pen? I’d best fuckin’ write myself a note.”

 “That’s how people bleed to death, Rush,” Telford’s tone was absent, his eyes on Volker’s shoulder.

“The blade might well have been poisoned,” Rush argued.

“Good thought, very LA, but blades coated with bloodstream poisons don’t generally release on a time delay?”

Rush sighed. “Infection risk has to be a direct correlate of the length of time it remains in place.”

“Don’t dig on an edge case. Just learn how not to die?”

“I’m not that interested.”

Telford looked from the wound to Rush. “Yeah. I know. But—”

Volker decided it was time to sit but, as soon as he tried, two pairs of hands held him down.

“Hold still,” Rush snapped.

“Are you all right?” Telford asked.

Volker tried to clear his head and ignore the pain in his shoulder. “You tell me.” He craned his neck to get a good look at his injury, then wished he hadn’t. The cut was messy and deep.

“You’ll be fine,” Telford said. “As stab wounds go, you got off pretty light.”

Volker felt his expression warp into utter incredulity.

“I’m sure it hurts like a bitch though.” Telford clapped him on his good shoulder.

“Yeah,” Volker breathed.

“Rush,” Telford said. “Go sterilize the suturing equipment.”

“Oh no,” Volker said. “No, I don’t think that’s—”

“Yes, it is,” Telford said. “Rush, go.”

A look of naked suspicion on his face, Rush picked up the instruments and alcohol, then stalked toward the door.

“Don’t forget to heat them,” Telford called after him.

Rush scoffed.

The door hissed open, then shut again as the mathematician left the room.

“Is he reliable enough to be—oh, I don’t know, sterilizing things?”

“I hope so.” Telford’s gaze lingered on the closed door. “Lighting the alcohol on fire will put him in a better mood.”

“Great.”

Telford looked down at him. “What happened?”

Volker chewed his lip.

“It’s okay,” Telford said. “You can tell me. I know what he’s like.”

Volker stopped chewing his lip.

He had seconds to decide on a course of action. Seconds, based on his limited experience with the pair of them, to determine who he’d side with.

No thanks.

It was better to play middle for as long as he possibly could. Rush had basically told him as much.

“We went to an open air market.” Volker watched Telford. “Rush and one of the vendors disagreed over a fair price for boots, a jacket, and a pair of pants. They started arguing.”

Telford was tough to get a read on. His expression was neutral. Attentive.

“Things got heated,” Volker said, “and the guy tackled Rush. I guess I sorta instinctively pulled him off? But he came up with a knife and stabbed me in the shoulder. Things got hazy after that. Rush knocked the other guy out—”

“Rush.” Telford was skeptical.

“Yep,” Volker said. “He used a rock.”

“That’ll do it,” Telford said, mild and unreadable.

Volker had no idea if the man believed him or not, but it was no coincidence they were having this conversation when Rush was outside, flame-sterilizing suture needles or whatever.

“He’s really, um, volatile?” Volker levered himself up on his good elbow.

Telford nodded.

“What’s the deal with that?” Volker asked. “Has he always been that way? Or…” he trailed off. 

Telford dropped his eyes and went back to studying Volker’s shoulder. “The situation isn’t likely to improve. I suggest you find a way to handle him.”

In the hallway, a door hissed open. Rush returned to the room, holding a pair of forceps and something that looked like an oddly designed pair of scissors. “Where do y’want these?”

“Hold them until I find the sutures.” Telford stripped off his gloves and dug through an open bin perched on a bench.

“Wait, you’re serious?” Volker had been pretty sure the “sterilize these instruments” line was an excuse for Telford to question him without Rush in the room.

“Yeah.” Telford came up with a see-through plastic packet containing surgical thread attached to a curved needle. “It won’t heal properly unless I stitch it up.” He looked over at Rush. “You need to hold him down.”

“Right,” Rush breathed, sounding like he didn’t relish the prospect any more than Volker did.

“Any time now,” Telford said.

Rush carefully transferred the instruments to Telford and then leaned over Volker, pressing down, his hands braced on Volker’s good shoulder and the biceps of his injured arm.

“Try not to move,” Telford said. “We don’t have any local anesthetic.”

“You have a spaceship,” Volker said, “but not anesthetic?”

“Be glad we have sutures,” Telford replied. “I’ll be quick. This was a slash-and-stick, light on the slash, heavy on the stick. You’ll need maybe three or four stitches in order for it to close properly. I can be done in under two minutes.”

“Teach this kind of thing in the Air Force, do they?” Volker asked breathlessly.

“A little,” Telford said. “Don’t talk.” He met Volker’s eyes. “Don’t look.”

With a grimace, Volker squeezed his eyes shut. 

Rush pinned him to the table, putting his body weight into the effort.

Volker tensed at the fiery pinch of sensitive, injured skin clamped together by Telford’s not-scissors. He felt the sharp sting of a needle puncture, the passage of the suture thread, and a series of sharp tugs as Telford, presumably, tied a knot.

“Breathe,” Rush advised, “or you’ll pass out.”

Volker thought about breathing as the sensations repeated, but didn’t get it done very effectively.

“If you have sterile gloves, you can knot with your hands rather than the tools,” Telford said.

“Who fuckin’ cares?” Rush replied.

“It’s an important skill. Pinch,” Telford narrated, as he clamped another little piece of torn shoulder, “puncture.”

“Ow!” Volker hissed.

“Pull, twist, tie,” Telford finished, and Volker felt a short jerk as he pulled to finish the knot. “Never touch the suture material itself with anything other than sterilized instruments or sterile gloves.”

Rush sighed. “Obviously.”

One more round, and it was over. Volker opened his eyes and blinked the reflexive moisture away. Rush backed off, and Telford taped a bandage down over the stitching.

“Take it easy with that shoulder,” Telford said, when he was finished.

“Yeah,” Volker said. “Sure.” Slowly, he pushed himself up. He felt weak and shaky. “I’m going to go find a shirt.”

“Fuckin’ terrible idea,” Rush glared at him, then turned and left the room.

They stared after him until the door hissed shut. 

“You think he’s getting me a shirt?” Volker asked.

Telford snorted. “I’d say there’s a seventy percent chance that’s what he’s doing,” He finished repacking the first aid kit, then turned to one of the plastic bins along the walls and pulled out a silver package. He handed it to Volker.

“What’s this?” Volker studied the silver packaging.

“The LA equivalent of an MRE.”

“I don’t speak acronym?”

Telford rolled his eyes. “It’s food. Don’t forget to drink water. You didn’t lose a dangerous amount of blood, but it’s always a good idea to stay hydrated.”

Volker stared at him.

“What?” Telford demanded.

“Sorry. You just sounded so…normal.”

“I am normal.”

“Um,” Volker said. “Sure. Thanks for stitching me up.”

“You’re welcome,” Telford replied. “There’s some intel I need to go over, so I’ll be on the bridge if you need me.” He turned for the door, then paused. “Tell Rush to go fuck himself if he starts harassing you.”

“Piss off, David. I heard that,” Rush said from the hallway. He edged past Telford, one of Volker’s shirts in hand.

“What?” Telford said. “You know how you are.”

Rush ignored Telford. He dropped a blue dress shirt into Volker’s lap.

The door swished shut, sealing them in the room together. Rush crossed his arms over his chest like a mix between a Space Pirate and a disappointed math professor standing at a chalkboard. He stared Volker down.

Okay then.

Volker started the painful process of pulling the shirt on.

“Wrong,” Rush said.

“Wrong?” Volker asked.

“Injured side first,” Rush informed him.

Volker stopped and reoriented. He eased the left shirt sleeve up his arm and over his injured shoulder, then reached around to hook his right arm through the open sleeve.

Annoyed it had worked so well, he said, “Got a lot of experience with this kind of thing?”

Rush looked away and said nothing.

“What’s going on, Rush?” Volker looped buttons through holes with numb fingers. “I’ve been on this ship for—what?” His left shoulder stabbed him with an angry bolt of pain as he raised and twisted his hand. “Ten hours? How many times have I covered for you?”

“Not sure I’d describe it that way,” Rush countered.

“Then how would you put it?”

The mathematician lifted a brow. “That you find yourself in the midst of a rather subtle conflict and haven’t yet declared yourself for one side or the other.”

They looked at each other.

“A course,” Rush continued, “that I’d pursue as long as possible, if I were you.”

“Thanks for the advice,” Volker said dubiously.

“Eat,” Rush said. “Drink some water. We start in thirty minutes.”

“Start what?” Volker asked.

“Working.”

Volker’s shoulder felt like it was on fire. The edges of the room had started to melt and blur. He couldn’t remember ever being so exhausted. He could barely maintain his grip on awareness, let alone whatever the heck Rush was talking about.

“What about the COBE map?” Rush demanded. “Even there, the quadrupole has a low amplitude compared to what you’d predict. The WMAP data seems even more convincing on that front.”

Telford had gone to bed hours ago, following the announcement that Volker would have to find a place to sleep, as they only had two bunks. It looked like he’d be sleeping in the cargo bay.

If Rush ever let him leave.

“Volker. Volker. For fuck’s sake. Are you even paying attention?”

“Yes,” Volker said, heard a panicky edge beneath his own exhaustion. “A full Bayesian analysis—”

“You’re about to fuckin’ start in on experimental error, aren’t you?” Rush snarled. “I don’t want to hear it. There are large-scale anisotropies. They’ve been cross-culturally observed.”

Volker wanted ten minutes to just sit.

Sit and process everything that had happened to him in the past day. But, before he did that, he wanted to sleep. Anywhere. Under any conditions. But the thing he wanted most of all? Was to get the hell away from Rush.

“Volker!” Rush threw a pen against the bulkhead wall.

Volker flinched.

“Pay attention. I don’t have an unlimited amount of time, and you’re not listening. There are large-scale anisotropies and that is a verifiable fact.”

Rush was shouting.

“I’m not interested in your opinion on whether these fuckin’ anisotropies exist or not, I’m telling you to take it as given. I’m looking for any pattern identified by superimposing your radiometric map over the WMAP in order to identify planets that may contain naquadria deposits within the confines of this galaxy. Such planets emit on a spectrum that will disrupt the CMB and give off EM radiation along every observable frequency, including radio waves—”

Volker was positive he’d never, in his life, heard anyone pack that much informational content into one sentence. One sentence that still wasn’t over.

“—as high energy EM radiation passes through differential distances of the dense material that makes up the deposits themselves, not to mention the planetary crust; or maybe that’s utter shite, I don’t know, I’m not an astrophysicist, but I am telling you what’s been observed when one of these planets was studied.”

Finally, Rush paused.

“Naquadria?” Volker repeated.

Rush sighed in what could only be interpreted as disgust.

“Yep, okay.” Volker held himself together with superhuman effort. “Forget this.” He got to his feet.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean forget this,” Volker said. “Leave me alone, Rush. I’m going to bed.”

Rush dug the heel of one hand into his temple, but he said nothing.

Volker crossed the room, hit the door controls, and stepped into the cool, dim space of the hallway. He stopped off in the bathroom to take his meds and drink a glass of water before he made his way unsteadily to the cargo bay, hitting the door controls and stumbling through.

The lights were dim. Dimmer than they’d been earlier in the day. He didn’t have the mental energy to puzzle through why that might be.

He heard a soft meow and saw Mendelssohn appear from behind a crate.

“Hey buddy.” Volker slid down the wall next to the canvas bag he’d packed that morning.

The cat padded over, meowing plaintively as he came.

“Sorry,” Volker whispered. “Were you lonely?”

He reached into the bag of cat food and pulled out a handful, placing the dry food on the floor next to the half-empty water dish.

The cat began to crunch his way through the dry pellets. Volker ran a hand over his back.

He knew he should make an attempt to sort out the utterly untenable and wholly unbelievable situation he found himself in, but instead he found himself thinking of Nupur, who had, just this morning, been earnestly worried about the radio array, and of Brian, who’d probably had to cancel his committee meeting. Those things were tough to schedule.

Volker brought a shaky hand up to his face. He had no idea how to deal with any of this. In the span of one day, he’d been abducted, knifed, and constantly ridiculed. It was a lot to take.

He felt too stunned by all of it to respond in any meaningful way.

He stared at his empty hands.

After finishing the cat food, Mendelssohn came and curled up in his lap.

Volker decided this was as good a place as any to go to sleep. He tried slumping over his bag, but his shoulder was too painful for that, so he just stayed where he was, eyes closed, with his cat in his lap. 

“Volker.” Someone was speaking quietly. “Dale. Dale.”

He opened his eyes to find Rush crouching next to him, uncomfortably close in the dim light.

Volker jerked in spite of himself, startling Mendelssohn, who leapt out of his lap.

“What?” he asked. “What time is it?”

“It’s late,” Rush murmured. “Get up.”

“No. No. I’m not—“

“Just—” Rush angled his head and sighed. “Just get up, will you?”

Something about the way the other man said it made him pull his feet beneath him and stand. Rush helped him to his feet and led him into the hallway, stopping in front of one of the rooms Volker hadn’t entered. Rush hit the door controls, and the door swished open. It was nearly pitch dark in the room, but Rush guided him toward a low mattress.

“But,” Volker began.

“Shhh.” Rush pulled away, vanishing back into the hallway with the pneumatic hiss of the doors.

Volker relaxed into the thin, hard mattress. He pulled the blankets over him, trying to avoid jostling his shoulder.

It took him less than a minute to fall asleep.