Beyond (24 page)

It was as if his greatest hero stood before him in the flesh. Gordy shoved the JOH aside and it floated back up into the air.

"Hello Gordeelum." Zak crouched down so that he was on eye level with the seated boy. "It's not very nice being locked away in a room like this, is it?"

Gordy's eyes bubbled up immediately and Aimee dropped down beside Zak, sitting on her heels and offering Gordy a sympathetic smile.

"I don't know why I'm here, Zak. Were you sent to rescue me?"

Zak swiped a hand over his face. He looked tired. Heck, he had just crash-landed onto the flight deck of the Horus. He dropped his hand and looked at Gordy solemnly.

"Gordy, they tell me you are special. That you are stronger than everyone on this ship."

Pale eyebrows lifted. "I am? I'm not stronger than you. No one is."

The idolization pinched Aimee's heart. Zak had such an impact on the people of the Horus, and he didn't even know it.

"They say that you are so strong, you're not getting sick like some of the others."

The boy's expression was torn between pride at Zak's
accolades
and indecision, along with a strong dose of fear.

"Why can't I be with my parents?"

"You will be. They are just getting tested right now."

"JOH said it's because my Mom makes me eat Crup. That’s why I'm not sick."

Aimee laughed. "JOH is probably right," she agreed.

"Listen to me, Gordy." Zak waited until the boy focused on him again. "You won't be here for long. We'll be back in a little while, okay?"

"Okay." Gordy's eyes misted up again.
"How long?"

Zak grinned. "As fast as a
terra angel
can lap the Horus."

Gordy laughed. "If it's you flying, then you will be back here before you even leave."

"I'm not
that
fast." Zak raised his eyebrows.

Gordy laughed again and then glanced at Aimee. His cheeks started to flush and she grew alarmed. But he cast
her a
sheepish look and said, "My friends think you are cute."

Now she blushed.
Her?
Cute?
Never to someone her age, and surely not to a ten-year-old.

Gordy spoke to Zak as if the conversation was confidential. Man to man stuff. "They say Aimee looks different than all of us. She has that dark hair—like you. Are you both from the same planet? Can I go there someday?"

There was an ache in Zak's expression and then it passed. "You want to go there and get your own dark-haired woman, is that it?
Because this one is mine."

It was a casual declaration to a young boy, but it tickled the inside of her stomach. She met Zak's eyes and held his gaze until Gordy interrupted.

"You’ll be back as fast as a
terra angel
? You promise."

Zak's eyes lingered on hers a second longer and then he turned to Gordy with a smile. "I promise, Gordeelum. Until then, JOH told me he has some lessons for you."

Gordy rolled his eyes. "I'm so tired of lessons."

"Lessons beat staring at the wall, no?"

"I guess." Gordy shrugged.

Zak stood up and Aimee followed. At the door they both looked back. Gordy remained cross-legged on the floor and reached up in the air to snag the floating JOH. JOH must have decided the youth needed some entertainment. He dodged to avoid Gordy's hands.

"Hey!" Gordy shouted and lunged again. But JOH out-maneuvered
him. On the next attempt, Gordy giggled.

Thank you, JOH
, Aimee thought. You’re alright in my book.

They traveled in silence inside the lateral transport. Zak leaned his shoulder against the wall and watched listlessly as the symbols flashed by. He startled Aimee when he spoke.

"I wish you weren't coming with me." His voice was hoarse.

"I know." Her throat felt thick. "But, I'm scared. Much more scared than the crash-landing. Much more scared than attacking a walking tree. This—" she waved her arm, "—the extent of this overwhelms me. They are telling us that thousands of people are going to die.
That this will be a ghost ship."

"Not everyone is going to die."

She looked at him. He was a beaten warrior. A man who seemed too tired to stand under the weight this world had burdened him with. Shadows lurked beneath his eyes, and his jaw clenched. He wiped at his face again, as if he could brush away the fatigue. Their eyes met and she felt a charged energy every time he looked at her like that.

Zak hefted off the wall and took two steps to reach her. His hands came to rest on her upper arms and he looked down at her with a tired smile.

"I know you're scared," he said softly.

She touched his chest. "I know that
you
are scared."

He looked away and his profile was stark. So much anguish in this man. Aimee's palm flattened on his chest and she was startled when his hand clamped down on top of hers.

"What—what am I to expect to see in the Jay-nine?" she changed the subject. "On our planet a plague wiped out millions of people. It was many years
before I was born, but I read about it, and it was horrible. The population was covered in sores, and they say the cloud of death suffocated the air." Her fingers curled against his chest. "Prepare me. Is that what I'm going to see here?"

Zak looked away. He stepped back and stared at the approaching satellite. It was a spherical structure connected to the main body of the Horus by a single column. The sphere bore rings of lights, the upper and lowermost loops flashing yellow. As they drew closer, she could see a thick band of black around the middle—a depression in the surface. To her surprise, she realized that the depression was an assemblage of outdoor balconies. No one stood on them, though. And just when she was about to ask about them, Zak spoke.

"This disease strikes internally. There are no visible sores to speak of. One of the reasons for the suit is because it is such a silent predator. It attacks the—" he hesitated as if waiting for the translation, "—liver. People in the advance stages will have yellow skin and sad faces.
That
is what you will see."

Were sad faces any less dramatic than open lesions?

Suddenly Aimee didn't want to go there. But the Jay-nine sphere now filled the window to the point that she could no longer see past its circumference. The lateral transport was about to slip inside this sphere of death.

Zak reached for her hand. He didn't look at her, but his fingers squeezed with encouragement. Aimee took a deep breath as the door slid open.

Expecting the worst, she was surprised to exit into an innocent chain of corridors remarkably similar to those in the main body of the Horus. Zak still held her hand and she tried to relax enough to read the symbols around her, but they were faint, like fading murals on a cave wall. One symbol loomed at every intersection. She tried to pretend that she could not interpret it, but the truth was that it looked remarkably like a skull.

There were very few JOH's here. She only saw one about every fifty feet. The skull emblem grew larger and more pronounced until she could no longer discount it for what it was.

Ahead loomed two stately doors.
Two
physical
doors—the types you opened with your grip and not a fancy hand trick. The doors were almost two stories high and looked imposing with their beveled surface. Aimee felt as if she stood before a sinister depiction of the gates of Oz.

Zak stepped up to the entry and rapped his fist against it. The resonance was hollow. As if he suspected they were being scanned, he cast a hasty glance up at the arched ceiling.

A groan similar to the call of an elephant sounded as one of the panels slowly swung outward. They backed out of its path, noticing the pallid man that shoved the portal from behind. He opened the
towering
door wide enough that his broad shoulders could fit through as he stepped out. With arms crossed, his stance was one of intimidation. The intimidation was weakened by the pale rose score across his abdomen. His features were common to the rest of the Anthumians, but unlike everyone else, a thin band of rust-colored hair hugged his jaw. Perhaps in the Jay-nine there was no time
or care left to shave.

With his eyebrow cocked, the man gaped at their midsections.

"Why are you here?” he barked. “You are not ready for this place yet."

What
surprised
Aimee was that he was the first person to
not
recognize Zak.

"I'm here to see Vodu." Zak explained.

"You really want to go in there?" The man nudged his chin to the side.

"Yes."

"And her?”
The man glanced at Aimee. “She will wait out here?"

Zak turned towards her. His eyes conveyed the
message,
this is your last chance
.

She shook her head.

"She's coming with me," Zak declared.

Exasperated, the bearded man blew air out of his lips.
"Your choice."
He stepped back. "It's busy in there. They issued a ship-wide mandatory blood test.
As if the mandatory blood test from two hours ago wasn't good enough...or the one from four hours ago.
Bah,
whatever,
follow me."

Uneasy, they trailed him through the doors.

This was the anti-Oz, Aimee thought. Black marble columns towered five stories up into a massive vestibule. Each story was lined with black and gold spiked railings, the uppermost floors locked in shadow. With a trick of acoustics, voices drifted to them—the eerie whispers of mourning.

Before them, a posh fountain plumed a cascade of water. It was a welcoming touch for this
macabre
hotel—this resort of the damned.

To the right of the fountain a lobby desk stretched the length of the wall. Behind it stood a petite blonde, watching them curiously. The bearded man ushered them up to the desk and leaned against the obsidian counter as he announced, "They are here to see Vodu."

The blonde’s lips formed an ‘o’, her discreet glimpse at their uniforms registering surprise. "They'll need to be tested up there."

"Yes. Yes. Imagine us walking five feet without being tested,” the bearded man quipped.
“As if all these damn assessments really do anything.
The results are all the same.
Doom."
He forced a quick smile for the woman who looked displeased with his sarcasm.

Aimee could not see the woman's midsection behind the counter, but judging by the fatigue in her posture and the shadows under her eyes, she could surmise her fate.

“Please excuse Selmak.” The receptionist extended a sympathetic smile towards them. “He has not quite mastered the hospitality aspect of his position.” She smacked the arm of the bearded man and he hefted from his slouch against the counter.

“Vodu is on the third floor. He has a private chamber.” She glanced up into the atrium and added, “But Selmak will have to escort you up there.”

The ominous addendum gave Aimee a chill.

Selmak tapped the counter and winked at the woman. He stepped back and was all professionalism again as he ordered, “Follow me.”

Zak met Aimee’s eyes and offered silent encouragement. She nodded. She could do this. It was no different than a hospital visit, right?

Passing the sprawling desk, Selmak strode onto a disc embedded in the marble floor. The disc depicted a sun with molten layers bubbling around the sphere. He backed up, inviting them both to join him. As soon as they did, Aimee jolted when the disc disengaged from its marble moorings and began a gradual ascent. The woman behind the desk grew smaller as Aimee shrank back from the edge, afraid of tumbling off. Zak reached for her arm to tuck her in close against him.

Their ascent halted at the third floor, where her eyes were drawn to the sharp spikes along the railing. Was this a hospital or a prison?

Selmak stepped off and Aimee was more than happy to follow. It was too disconcerting to stand on that little slip of rock, and she wasn’t very fond of heights. A hasty glimpse across the atrium revealed other discs in various states of transport. One floor above, a man and a woman boarded a disc. The man held onto the woman slumped against him. As they descended Aimee could see that the woman clutched him for support, her forlorn eyes staring up at him.

It was a sad image.

"This way."
Selmak barked.

Jarred by his voice, Aimee yanked her gaze from the atrium only to be confronted with the onset of death. There were no rooms here. No privacy. It was an open floor that revolved around the atrium. And she truly meant
revolve
. Down below, the desk and fountain remained stationary, but her perspective towards them rotated ever so slightly. She was surrounded by rows of beds. Each bed possessed a single chair and table stationed next to it in a pathetic attempt to appear hospitable. All the beds were occupied, and some of the chairs were filled. The silence was pervasive enough to make her want to claw at her ears. There had to be hundreds of people on this floor and yet there was no sound. No talking. No coughing. Heck, couldn't someone sneeze? As she passed by the beds she saw men and women of varying ages dressed in their silver uniforms, their bellies aglow with the red hue of infection. Their faces were sallow and their eyes vacant. In some cases she wasn't even sure if she was staring at corpses already.