the list, part three

Ordella climbed out of her landed skycar and onto the burnt sand of dayside.  her job as a reporter had taken her to dayside on a few occasions over the course of her tenure at KlinComm, once quite deeply into dayside.  she never got used to the heat.

she thanked her driver, and the door closed behind her.  she tapped the projection disk in her left pocket to reassure herself that it was there, then tapped it again just to be sure.  the hot, uncomforting wind played at the strands of her blond hair, and she brushed it out of her eyes as she surveyed her surroundings.

this was her second time in Gorshen, but her first on company business.  the city, from what she could remember, looked basically the same: everything was shades of tan, and the entrances to homes and businesses alike popped out of the ground like furrowing rodents, just awoken, surveying the landscape and being none too pleased with it.  there were few people on the street, and there was little sign of activity at all.

there had been one major change since her last visit, and it bore itself conspicuously as the charred, twisted remains of what used to be the largest dry refining plant on dayside.  whole sections of the building still stood — the ones furthest away from the reactor, she supposed, and perhaps the ones most heavily reinforced, designed specifically for just such an event.  there was a large groundcar, conspicuously decaled with orange-lettered warnings and bold symbols of admonition: it was the hazardous materials team, no doubt sent in to ensure the safety of the site before the larger clearing crews were sent in.

it was a terrible scene.  debris still littered the surrounding area, and though the bodies of the dead daysiders had been removed, their stench still clung to chunks of scorched metal and burnt earth.  it seeped into the air subtly, so that the smeller was not aware of it consciously, but, undoubtedly, revolted inwardly.  the symbolic meaning was, of course, as obvious as the physical carnage.  Ordella had her own suspicions as to the actual cause of the meltdown — suspicions that had gathered in her mind as she researched the event on her flight to dayside — but the official story would be anything but the truth.  and her story would be the official story.

she could have shot the piece on her own — her projection disk could capture video of a quality that would be more than ample for the KlinComm global station, and for hyperwave transmissions throughout the galaxy.  but, the company always assigned photogs.  there were the guys, totally insensitive to whatever scene she was working on, who came in, cameras blazing, wanting — like hunters of primitive societies — to shoot anything that moved.  this was, most likely, not the most efficient exercise in journalism, but the company’s profits were so rampant elsewhere that they could afford some casual patronage in other areas.  her profession was one of them.

“oh, you have a son, i see,” a StarEx employment manager would say.

“yes, indeed,” a mother would respond.

“well i see here that you and your husband have excellent communication skills.  to be honest, we have little to no demand in job cycles at the moment — birth rates have been a bit above margin lately, you see — but i think we can fit him into the communications field.”

that was how it went, and that was how she got stuck waiting for a photog that for some reason couldn’t be held to the same high standards of punctuality that she was required to adhere to.  still, she was excited to spend a bit of unsupervised time in Gorshen — hell, she would have been excited to spend unsupervised time anywhere.  KlinComm was notorious for a structure that resembled a dozen magnifying glasses stacked on top of each other, and somehow pointed in every direction.  if her photog was not to show up for a few hours, she had, then, a few hours to do unfettered investigation, for once.  she nearly salivated at the opportunity.

she walked slowly towards the heap of metal that was once Gorshen plant.  she tapped her pocket, made sure that her projection disk was still there.  it was, and she continued walking.  as she drew nearer, an inhuman figure emerged from the rubble, approached her.  he was pure white form head to toe, save for a translucent face shield that pointed directly at Ordella.  his colorless costume was no doubt the top-of-the-line hazardous-materials suit, and it seemed that it would keep even a meteor impact out.

Ordella faced the approaching suit, thought she caught a hint of an eye beneath the shield.  she squinted at the facial region of the approaching figure, now perhaps fifty yards distant, and after a few steps more, the shield slid open, revealing a young but weathered face.

“i am an official haz-mat agent, via StarEx,” he said, drawing a badge from a pocket on his waist.

“i am an official journalist, via StarEx,” she responded, drawing a badge of her own, flashing it without reservation.

the man stopped, then leaned in, as if he were taking full stock of her credentials.  he threw his head back, laughed.  “oh, sun,” he said, lifting a hand up to his helmet, releasing the sealing clasp.  “i thought you were one of them!”  he pulled off his helmet, revealing  pleasing but battered face.  a scar cut across the higher part of his right cheek bone, one that looked like it had come quite painfully, but was now a symbol of courage.

“‘them?’” she asked.

“oh, you know, another one of the miner-wives, looking for their dead husbands.  come here, come here,” he said, gesturing with his left hand.  “you want some shots of the rubble?  i’ve got a couple of really good angles all lined up.  you see, before i got placed in haz-mat division, i always wanted to be in the media.  and, well, being in the media means working for KlinComm.  but, well, come here, will ya?”  Ordella followed him as he walked back towards the remains of the plant.  he continued, “anyway, i guess i didn’t score high enough on this or that test, and, well, whatever.  but i always still picture myself as shooting the news.”  he stopped, cocked his head, eyed Ordella.  “hey, you don’t suppose…let’s say i got you a couple of really good shots here — i mean, real good ones.  ones that will get picked up on the hyperwave, ones that will have your name stamped on the bottom, ones that will appear on the nightly wavecasts of thousand planets.  think you could put in a good word for me then?  if, and only if, of course, there were an opening at KlinComm?”

Ordella shrugged.  “i know people,” she said, simply.  “impress me.”

“oh, yes!  yes, i will!” the man said, convulsing with excitement.  “right this way!”

Ordella spent the next half hour perusing the depths of the Gorshen destruction.  her eager translator showed her, first, the sections of the structure that had been obliterated.  this used to be the main access corridor to the reactor.  this used to be the meal commons.  this used to be, well, the plethora of now-sawed-off waste pipes made it obvious.  still, the stench of death followed her.  it did not seem to bother her guide, who cheerily lead her from one department to another.

“so, how about a shot of this?” he asked, as they came to what seemed like an intact door.

“a shot of what?” Ordella asked.

her guide seemed baffled.  his spacesuit ruffled as he crossed his arms.  “anyone could say that Gorshen was well designed,” he said grumpily.  “you don’t think it’s worth noting that some of our reinforced sections of the building survived, of all things, a reactor meltdown?”

“i see the point,” Ordella said.

her guide leaned his ear toward the door in question.  he heard a loud squawking sound, and grimaced proportionally.  he tapped his knuckles, enclosed though they were by his white wrapping, on the door.  he waited, tested the lock.  “must have been shut down,” he said.  “let’s move on, shall we?”

the rest of the “tour” was entirely pointless, and though Ordella took down his name, she had no intention of calling this guy back for an interview once her photog arrived.  eventually, her guide suggested that they head back to the sealed room he had knocked at earlier.  she encouraged him to go on his own way, and, with a few more sycophantic words, he did so.  that room seemed important to him, and it was at least important enough to get him out of her hair.

because there was little structure left to Gorshen plant, she found her way to a relatively unaffected distance fairly easily.  once again, she was on the skirtings of an abolished cultural and economic hub.  the dayside wind gained strength, and it was hotter than any of the dayside winds she had ever experienced.  she flicked at her bangs with the forefinger of her right hand, and they caught the wind, stayed away from her eyes for a long moment.  she smoothed her tight-fitting pants-suit, trying to forget how foreign she must have looked.

Ordella, having gained a certain distance, turned back to face the plant.  she pulled her projection disk from her pants pocket, slid one of the contacts to the “record” position.  at least, she hoped, she could get some good b-roll.

and then she saw her.  there was a woman there, on the far side of the plant.  from Ordella’s distant standpoint, it almost seemed that this woman was bringing an animal sacrifice to the remains of the refinery.  she had something in her hands, in any case, and Ordella began to close the long distance between the two, still observing this woman.  when she had closed perhaps half the distance, the red-clad woman stood up, then brought a hand to her face.  Ordella took the opportunity to approach her further.

“did you know someone who worked here?” she asked, with as much innocence as her running projection disk allowed.

“aye,” the woman said after a long pause.  the hot dayside wind licked at her loose garments, but she did not seem to mind.  “but he didn’t die ‘ere.  he died–” the daysider swallowed hard.

a long moment of silence followed.

“can i ask your name?” Ordella finally asked.

“i, well, sure ya can.”

there was a pause, then Ordella asked, “what’s your name, daysider?”

“Furlia,” she said.  “Furlia Tocts.”

“you knew a man who worked here.”

“aye.” she did not look at Ordella, but did not waiver, though she seemed about to.  the hot win licked at her garments, but she did not respond.  Ordella gazed at her for a long moment.

“what has been done to him?” she asked, sensing the despair, not avoiding it.

“he don’ it all, joining with them guys,” Furlia spat.

“but what did he do?” Ordella’s voice was a whisper now.

“he took his own life.  a’ least, that’s how i’s hears it.  slit ‘is wrists, they say.”

Ordella starred at the woman.  she was despondent, but unwilling to admit that she was so.  “why?”  it was her only question.

“because he believed in ‘em, i guess.”  she set her bundle down near a broken wall of the plant.

“if i could ask just one more question,” Ordella asked, eying the package as inconspicuously as possible, “who were ‘they,’ exactly?” she tapped her projection disk in her pocket to remind her that it was still there and, hopefully, still recording.  she looked at Furlia as another gust of unforgiving dayside wind whipped her interviewee’s red tunic into a twist of fabric.

Furlia gave a long sigh.  at first, Ordella wondered if that was all she was going to give her, but she waited a moment more.  then Furlia said, “he mentioned a guy name Sorensen.  now if ya’ fergive me…” Ordella’s wide-eyed look was lost on Furlia as the daysider walked off into a sandstorm of increasing intensity. she did not seem to mind.

Ordella turned, walked back towards the center of the compound.  the child’s cries were lost in the wind.

**

Issac sat in the chair to which he’d been directed, and Cillian followed suit directly to Issac’s left.  Issac looked uncertainly at his elder, at the archetypal daysider, hoping to find direction, comfort.  the strange blue, green lights of the hundred display screens splashed over Cillian’s face, making strange yellow patterns.  he was not prepared, but wasn’t surprised that he wasn’t.

there was a humming, way in the background.  if Issac would have given it conscious thought, he would have known, or at least guessed, that it was from the multitude of electronic devices operating simultaneously and in seeming constant interaction.  he was not, in fact, consciously aware of it, but it served a calming effect, even without his consent.  the room was somehow dark despite its numerous sources of illumination: the monitors were not intended to light the room, though they did so accidently, and there was no other light in the room, save for the one garishly white light above Lambrix’s chair.  Issac’s eyes once again scanned the monitors, saw nothing familiar, strayed to the spotlight and followed its beam down to the ancient man who sat before them.  he had pale skin and there was no hair on his head aside from the plush eyebrows that wiggled humorously on his forehead.  there was also, perhaps, some wisps of hair protruding from his ears, which Issac could have only described as “tall.”

“please, sit.”  the old man’s voice crackled through the air like lightening in an electrical storm.  unlike thunder, it was not loud or deep.  but it was very much like thunder’s cause: sharp, brilliant, and fleeting.  his offer was tardy, though: the men were both already sitting.  “good,” he said, extending the vowel into what almost became a laugh.

Issac took a closer look at the man’s head — the wires did not seem to be attached to a helmet or mask of any kind — they seemed to pass seamlessly through his scalp.  there may have been metal interfaces there, but Issac could not tell in the dim light.

after Cillian and Issac sat in silence for a long moment, a smiling Lambrix continued, “you are coming here in search of information.”

Cillian hesitated, wondering if Lambrix was going to say more.  when it became clear that he wasn’t, the daysider said hesitantly, but with his ever-present edge of defiance, “yeah. we were told you might know…something.” he stiffened.  “what do you know?” he asked accusatorily.

Lambrix smiled, wrinkles creasing his face.  “you wonder if i am a plant?”

Cillian cleared his throat, stood, paced a few steps from his chair, then the few steps back to it.  he faced Lambrix directly.  “it explains us still being alive.  tell us something you know, that we know, that you shouldn’t.  tell us something that would be the information you’d want out of us if you were hunting rebels.”

“Ash,” the old man said simply.

Cillian scoffed.  “look, i like the guy and everything, but it wouldn’t surprise me if you bastards had turned him.  i mean he — well, i’m not telling you anything you don’t know if i tell you about the raid on the spaceport.  if you wanted to kill us for that, you cudda done so a long time ago.   and you’ve talked to Ash, and he was there.  so that can’t be it.  but that pale motherfucker’s got one master, and his name is Ash.  ya get me?”  he did not wait for an answer.  “and he’s how we got here.  you think we’re stupid?”

Issac warmed at his inclusion.  he began to formulate his own interjections in case Cillian did not cover all relevant points.

Lambrix was serene.  Cillian continued, “so i see all yer fancy shit here, but you’re going to have to do better than that.  spill it, old man.”

Lambrix responded by holding up a crooked, wrinkled index finger.  “one moment, please,” he said, and his eyes shut.  his head tipped back, shook in a faint lateral motion.  Cillian looked at Issac with a look that said “what the hell?” with nearly infinite volume.  Issac merely shrugged, turned his eyes back to the piece of history that sat, personified, before them.  by then, Lambrix had awoken from whatever peculiar trance he’d been set in to.  somehow, he looked even more weathered than he had before.  his skin was even more paper-like, his eyes more sunken.  he said, seeming on the brink of death, “i will, as you say, spill it.”  his voice sounded terrible, as if it required the energy of a supernova to crawl from his wrinkled throat.  “you have a small rebel group in Gorshen.  Sorensen, the late Tocts, Merith and Fain, and a few others, less committed.  oh, Furlia,” he gasped, as if he was hearing tragic news for the first time.  the wires connected to his head twitched as his head shook from side to side as if in a minor seizure.  “Ash, you have, of course, and his men, Joyn and Lareth among them — Joyn has the ship, if i understand correctly.  and you’ve looked for those on nightside — i understand that Taynor is a name you have heard before.  yes, yes, she’s one of them.  Othen.  you ought remember that name as well.  and, oh, you have some allies!  yes, certainly you do.  Tarshall.  Tarshall Yandrake.  and, at least one more.  Or–”

suddenly, Cillian cut him off, hissing through is teeth, “don’t say her name.”

Lambrix’s eyes widened, focused on Cillian.  “oh?”

“you’re goddam right, ‘oh.’  don’t say her name.”

“very well.”  Lambrix seemed relaxed.  “are you convinced?”

Issac looked at Cillian, who now sat, arms folded, entirely unresponsive.  Issac said, “well, you seem to know a lot.  but, like he said–” he gestured toward Cillian “–if you got some good intel, you’d know all that anyway.  so tell us something we don’t know, something that they wouldn’t want us to know.  something you wouldn’t tell us if you were StarEx.”

the old man considered for a moment, then said, “you haven’t asked me what i am.”

“you’re a myth,” Cillian said, still not looking at him.

“but yet i am here,” the old man cackled.

“you didn’t answer my question,” Issac said, staring at Lambrix.

“fair point, young Dulvernian.  by the way, have you heard anything from Leah?”

“fuck you,” Issac said icily.  “you could have found that out easily.”

“could i have found out that she got a hyperwave message text from you, telling her you were at Yandrake’s?”

Issac stiffened, and Cillian turned his eyes fiercely on Issac.

“you sent a hyperwave?” the daysider asked.

“and could i know, further,” Lambrix continued, “that she was on her way to this planet?”

“what?” Issac raged as he shot to his feet.  “what did you say?”

“you must listen,” the old man said, ignoring Issac’s affronts.

“what did you say about Leah?” Issac insisted, his voice bellowing and echoing through the dimly lit room.

Lambrix again ignored him.  he continued, “our time is short.”  the old man shook with a paroxysm of what might have been laughter and might have been agony.  “i am a man become software.  i am a person become hardware.  i am every electronic impulse on this planet.  i know everything.  i hoped that you would ask, but it seems you are not smart enough.  in my last moments, i hope to educate you.”  Issac and Cillian sat down, listened.  “i am connected to every tube, every wire, every broadcast on Klin.  you have come here in search of a list.  i had hoped that you would learned more, but — ah!” the old man shook with a shock of pain “–but time we have not for you to learn your own way.  ah!” he cried again, and his guests’ grimaced at the tortured expression on the old man’s face.  he struggled on.  “Yents.  Brill.  Idal, Bennif, Tashe.  Uniy.  eaghh!” ultimate pain ripped itself from the old man’s vocal chords.  Issac stood suddenly, approached him.  he touched the old man’s shoulder, which seemed to be melting in his clothing.

“Yents, Brill, Idal, Bennif, Ta– who else?”

“Tashe — ah! — Uniy…” Lambrix’s teeth began to melt within his mouth, and his face collapsed in on itself.  Issac felt a hand on his shoulder, fingers dug into his muscle.  he could see Cillian in the leftmost part of his peripheral vision — it was not him.  he swung his head to the right.  it was Vize.  her face was twisted with urgency.

“we have to leave, now!” she commanded.

“what the hell is going on?” Issac heard Cillian’s shout behind him.

“please, now!” Vize’s face was wrought with the most complete desperation that Issac had ever seen, and it gripped him.

Cillian saw the wires, those attached to Lambrix’s head, spark and shake sickly.  unthinkingly, he reached for one.  his hand passed through it without resistance.  he looked at his hand as if it were a foreign object, then attempted to grab the wire again.  “you can’t die!” he screamed.  his hand went through the wire once more.  he balled his fist, wound his arm, unleashed a punch on the old man’s face.  it struck squarely, and the already-shrieking old man fell off his chair, spitting blood, and landed on the floor the room.  red and blue lights licked his skeletal face.  Cillian recoiled in horror.  “oh, fuck, i’m — i’m — oh, fuck, i’m so–”

the largest wire at Lambrix’s temple, the side that was facing up, anyway, sparked and twitched again, sending the old man to a new height of pain.  he writhed on the ground.

“shit, oh, shit!” Cillian panted.  he reached for the cable, and once again, his hand passed through it as if it were not there.

“please!” it was Vize, and she was no longer apologetic.  Cillian turned to her, as did Issac — turning his eyes away from the terrible sight on the floor — and they saw that she held a weapon in each hand, one trained on each man.  “exit now, or i will kill you.”

“fine,” Issac said, walking backwards towards the door.  she watched him for a moment as his steps took him further away from her.

suddenly, Cillian lunged at the old man.  his hands landed on the dying man’s shoulders, and he shook them.  “tell me!  tell–”

his voice was cut short by the flash of Vize’s weapon.

“no!” was all Issac could say, and one step was all he could take toward Cillian.  Vize’s second weapon flashed, and Issac’s world became dark, instantly.

**

Ordella thumbed through the reports displayed in the air in front of her.  her projection disk had received multiple documents from StarEx and KlinComm — leads, she supposed.  whether they had any useful information was yet to be determined.

Gorshen had one hotel, and it was rarely used.  few miners had money to travel, and those that did stayed with the family, or, on rare occasions, friends that they were visiting.  the media rarely visited Gorshen, and the mining city, like all mining cities, had no athletic teams that bore its name.  Klin had few musicians, and they never traveled outside the Ring.  politicians did not come here, as there were not any real politicians on Klin — there were political figures, of course, but they were StarEx men and, occasionally, women, that did what the company said.  and she was a media woman and, occasionally, a man, and she did what StarEx told her.

the Gorshen Hotel still, somehow, operated, and she was at the front desk.

“reservation?” the deskie asked absently.

“no.  the sign said you have vacancy.”

“maybe,” he said, still not looking at her.  he was an obese man, and perhaps three day’s worth of beard had grown on his face.  he scribbled a few notes on a ratty sheet of paper, then turned his beady eyes toward her.  she felt their sickness, looked away.  the wallpaper that caught her eyes curled in green spirals from the drywall that once held it.  “who’s askin’?”

“Ordella,” she said simply, and waited for no reply.  then she said, “a reporter from KlinComm.”

the deskie coughed, then said gruffly, “nope, looks like we’re all booked up.”

Ordella tried to make her voice gentle despite her frustration.  she was trying to help his people after all.  “but the sign–”

“yeah, forgot to flick it over,” the deskie said.  he turned his eyes to her, and they were cold.  “you’re from the Ring?  there ain’t no fucking vacancy.”

“listen,” she said, pulling her last card from her sleeve.  for a moment she considered that the name she was about to use might get her shot rather than simply sent out to the streets, but she was twelve hours into an assignment with no story.  “i’m a friend of Sorensen’s.”

there was no immediate reaction from the deskie. his eyes fell, and he continued to scribble on whatever notepad was in front of him.  “what was the name?”

“Sorensen.”

“last name?” the deskie flipped through a rolling index of notecards, as if he was looking for the name.  Ordella knew he wasn’t, but played along.  she told him Sorensen’s last name, or at least the last name that she had once heard associated with that first name, and the deskie reacted visibly despite, seemingly, his best intentions.  he coughed again, then said, “alright.  room seven fourteen.  i’ll send someone up — i don’t know who it will be.”

“that’s fine,” she said, suppressing her relief with a masterful pretense of expectation.  she slid her KlinComm card across the counter.  “what’s the charge?” she asked, a pursed smile that inexorably spread across her face despite her best efforts.

“um, no charge,” the beefy daysider behind the counter said.  “his, well, they’re bill is on me.”  he grabbed a bit of metal attached to a thumbnail-sized cardboard disk from the wall behind the counter.  “still use keys here.  take the gravlift to floor seven.  on your left.”

“thank you!” Ordella said cheerily.  the deskie stared at the counter in front of him, refusing to acknowledge the Ringer.

“yup.”

Ordella headed upstairs, confident that the story was coming her way.

*

the room was not even close to luxurious.  it might have been considered comfortable, but not clean.  the sheets of the bed she was now laying on were tolerably fresh, and she had not spotted anything else alive as of yet.  this was a good sign.

she dropped her projection disk on the mattress, stood, stretched her arms, yawned.  she crossed the threadbare carpet to the small window.  her room had a sunward exposure, and the blinds had been closed since she’d checked in.  she tugged the string that hung loosely on the right side of the window, and the blinds slid open.  it did not surprise her that this so-called hotel did not have luminary dampening film on the windows, but she noted it nonetheless.

hot, white sunlight bathed her.  even only a few hundred miles sunward from her home, the sun was noticeably higher in the sky, and considerably more intense.  she let the pale light wash over her for a moment, felt its warmth on her face.  she closed her eyes, but her vision turned only to a deep red, not black.  she basked in the heat for a long moment, yawned again.  it was then that she made an important decision: first, sleep; second, search for Sorensen.

she returned to her rented bed, curled up in its fairly-clean comforter.  she tapped the projection disk on her bedside stand to make sure that it was nearby.  she turned over once, then turned back to her original position.  her blond hair fell over her eyes, partially blocking the sunlight that streamed in through the window to which she had neglected to close the blinds.  she slept.

**

Issac awoke somewhere unfamiliar.  it was dark, cold.  he tried to orient himself to his surroundings: he was on Dulvern, in an alley behind a bar.  he stared at the wall in front of him.  Eltteas.  he must have gotten too drunk, and passed out on the way to his groundcar.  but he didn’t feel drunk.  maybe he felt hung over.  had he slept here all night?  but the sun wasn’t up.  if he’d been drinking late into the night, or early into the morning, and had slept long enough to sober up, it should be at least a few hours after dawn.  then it occurred to him that his cognizant analysis of the situation disallowed either the still-drunk hypothesis and the slept-in-a-street hypothesis.  his head hurt, and hurt terribly, but he was thinking clearly.

he sat up, rubbed his eyes.  his hands were damp, and the moisture transferred to his face.  he pulled the sleeve of his shirt over his hand and dried his cheeks.

“uh, boy,” he muttered to himself as he brought himself back to reality.  it occurred to him that he could not only not remember anything from Eltteas, he couldn’t remember anything from the last — wait, wait.  he wasn’t on Dulvern.  wait.  heat.  a crash.  a ribbon.  wait.  names: Cillian, Sorensen.  Klin.  it came rushing back.  Lathan.  Tocts.  dayside, the Ring.

then came light.  first it teased at the corners of his vision, leaked toward his focal point.  it came in shades of orange, then yellow.  the yellow permeated everything, and the wall before him became not the back of a Dulvernian pub but the exterior of what he had come to know as a Klinian establishment.  now everything was yellow, and painfully bright.  Issac squinted, looked down at his hands.  they glistened.

his hearing began to return then.  at first, it was merely a high-pitched ring.  the, slowly, it became a gentle pattering, the sound of water.  rain.  the color of his vision began to adjust itself further, became bluer.  he coughed, felt himself crawling closer to reality.

“rainin’ in Gorshen!” he heard a voice announce humorously.  “boy, ain’t that a sight!”

a shadow passed in front of Issac’s eyes, and a figure followed shortly.

“yeah,” Issac said huskily, almost surprised that he had the ability to speak.

“ya seem like yer in trouble, brother,” the figure said.  Issac tried to focus his eyes on his new companion, but only made out a darkly clad figure, short, and with curly brown hair.

“i’m…yeah.  i’m not sure what happened.  mind?” he held out his hand lamely.

“not a’tall,” the figure said, gripping Issac’s hand firmly.  with a solid tug, Issac was on his feet.  he got a good look at the stranger for the first time: aside from his diminutive figure, his face was, well, unseemly.  Issac wondered if he had been disfigured in an accident during youth, but, even in his weakened mental state, knew better than to ask.

instead, he said, “thank you, sir.”

“ah, an outworlder, eh?” the man said, detecting Issac’s accent.

“yeah.  and, um, if you wouldn’t mind…i seem to be a little disoriented right now.  could you tell me where i am, exactly?”

“ah, sure, sure,” the man lilted.  “just o’side Gorshen.  ya heard ‘bout the accident there, didn’t ya?”

“yeah.  i actually  know one of the guys who manages — well, managed the plant.”

an alarmed tone crept into the man’s voice.  “which, uh, which guy i’ that?”

Issac rubbed his eyes again — this time his hands were dry — but he could not make himself any more awake.  he answered, “Cillian, for one.”

“oh,” the man said, alarm in his tone.

“what?” Issac prompted.

“nothing, nothing.”  the man was suddenly stiff, almost agitated. “well, you oughtta think about seein’ a doctor, young man.  all the best–”

“wait,” Issac said, grabbing the man’s sleeve as he began to leave, gripping weakly.  “please.  what are you talking about?”

“oh, well, my,” the man stammered.  “i, well, if you gotta know, well, let’s just say i know ‘nuff ‘bout that guy — you gonna wanna stay away from him, i think.”

Issac lapsed into a spate of coughing, recovered after a moment.  he asked, “why would i want to do that?”

“oh, my; oh, my,” the man repeated.  “the evil in that man’s past.  he is an outworlder, too–”

“i know that,” Issac said, his patience thinning.

“but he’s the bad kinda outworlder.  he wants all this for himself.  just watch ‘im.  oh, boy, he got designs, let me tell you.  ya’d be a fool to trust ‘im.  from one guy to another, just keep an eye on ‘im, will ya?”  he paused, shook his head.  “sorry, young man.  he’s yer friend and all, i understand.” he thrust out his hand, palm up.  “here.  here’s some groundcar tokens, getcha back home.

he took a few steps away, hesitated.  Issac watched him curiously, unsure what to make of a man who seemed to be a babbling old fool.  the man turned after a moment, took a step toward Issac, said, “and, here.”  he slapped a ragged slip of paper is Issac’s palm.  “here’s where i’ll be in a week.  ‘cept i won’t be there — or maybe i will!  i’ll be lookin’ fer you; if yer there, alone, and wanna talk, wanna really get down to the truth of this guy, i’ll be there.  but if you show up with yer buddies, well, i’ll be long gone.  the choice is yer’s, pal.”

and with that, the stranger was gone.