Serpent of the Abyss by S.J. Sanders
Chapter 36
Lori woke, her head spinning as she sat up. The mattress beneath her was thin and uncomfortable as any bed in the med bay. She rubbed her face with one hand in confusion. She wasn’t in the med bay, though. She knew exactly where that was. Where she had been taken, while well supplied, had nothing to do with treating the miners and staff.
Although the light was mercifully dimmer, her head pounded with the residual side effects of the strong sedative. At least she was no longer on the exam table. Blinking, she focused on her surroundings, taking in the four walls that surrounded her. She swallowed against a tide of nausea.
She was in a cage.
It was a clean cage, the floor dirt free, the bedding fresh, and she was grateful to see that the cell possessed a small sink and commode tucked into one corner. The walls themselves, while completely transparent, were likewise clean, even if the space was uncomfortably small. The wall directly across from her bed had a keycode-locked door that connected to another transparent cell next to hers. It was a mirror reflection of hers in terms of the way it was organized. Thankfully, it was unoccupied. She didn’t like to think of someone being there to watch her pee or wash herself or being able to see her at any given moment.
She wasn’t so naive to think that there weren’t cameras trained on the cell doing exactly that, but it was easier to pretend that they were not there. Just as she had been trying to pretend not to notice the eyes peering at her now.
Pushing up slowly from the bed, she turned to her left to face Commander Patricks. He looked the same as he had before except that he no longer wore a mask, his face set into callous lines. He stood on the other side of a door that was fitted with a retractable chamber so that she could safely receive anything they gave her. She wasn’t sure if she was being quarantined or imprisoned. It felt about the same as she would have expected either situation to feel.
Brushing her hands down the cotton gown she now wore—her TRS and uniform having disappeared at some point during the rounds of testing she was sure, leaving her now decidedly at a disadvantage and once again practically bare—she lifted her chin and faced him as fearlessly as she could muster.
“Why am I in here, Commander?”
His head tilted slightly, one corner of his mouth ticking up. “The answer would be complicated. One, you are in here because you violated United Earth sanctions against interspecies copulation.” He gave her a hard look. “That is to say, you broke the law and should be confined.”
He relaxed again and began to leisurely stroll along the side of her cage, Lori adjusting her stance to keep an eye on him as he paced around her like a predator.
She let out a shaky laugh, attempting to play it off. There was no way she was going to admit to that charge. They could see the truth of it themselves when she was flying away safely with her mate… if she ever got out of there.
“What makes you think I would do anything to jeopardize my contract? One year and I’m out and enjoying employment on Zeril Prime in a luxury resort.”
His smile widened, and he chuckled. “That’s what you think? I see now how they lured you here. I wonder how many similar ‘deals’ they made with other miners. No one would willingly come to mine on M285.” He shook his head with amusement. “So foolish and clearly so easy to catch just by offering you exactly what you wanted. One year is nothing when it comes to your dreams… correct?” He did not wait for her to respond before he let out another loud rumble of laughter. “Unfortunately, that was never going to happen.”
Lori’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”
Patricks stepped closer to the cell, his smile morphing to a contemptuous smirk. “I suppose there is no harm in telling you.” Lifting one hand, he tapped a finger on the glass slowly to emphasize every word he spoke. “Because, little girl, there is no leaving M285.”
At her horrified expression, he dropped his hand and laughed. “Not for the laboring crew exposed to the elements, anyway. After even a few days of breathing the air, it starts to change you so you could not survive without the gas components specific to this planet. Not thoroughly, unfortunately, not enough so that we don’t need to rotate the crews week by week, but enough to guarantee that you will be spending the rest of your life here.”
She shook her head in denial. “No, that can’t possibly be right. I have seen everyone outside at one point or another. And we all wear masks”
He clucked his tongue and shook his head. “And that is why controlling perceptions is so important. You only think you saw what you did.” He tucked his hands behind his back and regarded her thoughtfully. “The chief staff and I go off planet all the time as you likely know, and that’s because we don’t breathe the air outside. All the upper staff receive similar consideration. I suppose you didn’t notice the way your superiors are fully masked whenever they are outside whereas you just have ventilation units to filter out the sand and dust. They do not suffer exposure. Even the dome is multi layered, letting heat out but not letting the outside air in.”
“But why?” she mumbled. “Why not protect everyone?”
She felt like an idiot even after saying it. Despite the flaunted “higher ideals” of United Earth that stressed equality, everything always boiled down to money.
“I think you know. It’s cheaper that way and easier to keep workers from leaving. Any attempt at all to leave the surface and they are rushed back when they start to show signs of sickening. Once they return, they’re miraculously better. Of course they then have to repay their transport fees and emergency medical debts. This is not Earth and such things are not free, especially not for the non-gratis. Few make the attempt more than twice before resigning themselves to their life here.”
“That’s illegal,” she whispered.
He regarded her silently for a moment. “I suppose in the nature of legalities and what is and is not permitted, it’s why your illegal conduct will not be reported. And we do, as a matter of fact, have undeniable evidence of your behavior. A pregnancy is hard to conceal,” he said, his smug smile returning.
Her eyes widened. Pregnant? Her hands skimmed over her belly. She knew that sophisticated tech could tell as early as the next day regarding conception, but she never imagined…
His mocking voice intruded on her thoughts. “After we’re done with you, you will be reintroduced within the colony. Afterward, you can feel free to fuck whoever you like. That part is beyond my concern. All I really care about is what I want.”
She swallowed thickly. “And what you want… that’s number two.”
He nodded. “Not a complete idiot, I see. Yes. Two, you are property of Darvel Exploratory Corporation and are in possession of something—well, beginning to develop something if you wish to be exact—that will be highly useful to Corp, and therefore to United Earth.”
She defensively crossed her arms over her stomach, and he laughed.
“Don’t be ridiculous. I have no use in your offspring. The scientists think it might be useful for deeper mining, and have suggested a breeding program… but that’s more an idea being tossed around right now by Corp. No, all I’m interested in is the strange mutagen that’s been introduced into your body from whatever alien you fucked. A lovely little bit of coding that makes you able to actually live full time in that environment. Unfortunately, it’s only partially developed and is useless to us as it is. Therefore, it requires us to… help the matter along.”
The last was said with such a chilling smile that she stepped closer to the wall separating them. Although she was relieved that he had no immediate interest in her baby—something she knew could easily change if Darvel convinced him that it would be a profitable idea—she was more concerned with the calculated gleam in his eye as he looked at her.
“What do you mean?” she demanded, her voice harsh as it echoed back to her in the chamber.
His smile dropped away, his face hardening, giving nothing away except that cruel gleam that remained in his eyes as he stared at her.
“Let’s just say that you will be getting some company very soon. As soon as we catch one of those slippery creatures, if it happens to be male, we will be introducing him to you via that cell adjoining yours. It’s lucky that we had this set up in case we needed to run tests. We only needed to make some necessary modifications.” He nodded to the door separating the cells. “The locking panel has been disabled and reset to automatic entry.”
He paused, his head tilting as he watched her reaction. Lori felt sick to her stomach. They were going to seriously throw a strange male she didn’t know in with her. There was no need to guess where things were heading. Her chest heaved with every panicked pant, and his lips curved with satisfaction.
“Naturally,” he continued mercilessly, “it will open to allow the creature into your room. And then…” he waved a hand in dramatic emphasis, “…we let nature take its course.”
She wheezed, her head shaking in denial. “You can’t do this. Please.”
His expression chilled. “You are quite mistaken. I can and will do whatever is profitable for United Earth. This planet is rich in minerals and metals of the likes you can only find in trace amounts elsewhere. We haven’t found any really big deposits yet, but it is only a matter of time. Productivity is a big concern to both Darvel and United Earth. Consider your role in this to be a matter of civil duty and a demonstration of patriotism for your homeworld.”
Frustrated, she slapped a hand against the wall in front of her. “You don’t understand. You can’t keep me here. I just came to warn you. The males who have been attacking the dome aren’t the worst of your problems. There’s an entire society that is about to wage war with the colony if you don’t make an effort at peaceful contact.”
“If they were at all interested in peaceful contact between our species, then they would not have been attacking us and killing our people,” he rebutted, his voice harsh.
“That’s because they didn’t know we were sentient. They saw laboring creatures and assumed that we were some sort of intelligent livestock—and we’ve been invading their home and causing cave-ins. The colony needs the protection of the Seshanamitesh against those who are attacking us. You won’t get that protection by keeping me in here.”
Patrick’s face pinched. “This is not our first rodeo with hostile natives. We don’t need the help of locals to deal with this matter. We’ve managed to kill more than one of these creatures over the years. They are fascinating predators. Almost admirable and, we decided early on, worthy of study.”
He turned away and pressed something on his datapad. The wall behind him opened, revealing dissected parts of Seshanamitesh, perfectly preserved in a display tank used for scientific study.
A partially de-fleshed head of one male gaped at her from where it sat beside the skull of another. A full skeleton occupied the side of the display closest to her. It was bad enough, but from there it became grislier. Preserved arms and hands with claws splayed were set up directly beside it and were followed by tails and gavo, clearly taken from different parts of the body, including a selection of crests. They filled the wall in addition to a preserved pair of long wings stretched out in the center. There were even two sets of sexual organs set up, side by side, both filled with the necessary preservatives to keep them in their correct shape pinned in place next to a full-length tail with scales the darkest shade of green.
Lori raced back toward the toilet. She only just made it in time to puke up what little she had in her stomach. It was only when the heaving stopped and she was able to rest her brow on the cool surface without feeling the need to vomit again that she pushed up to her feet and returned to the commander.
She tried not to look again at the appalling sight behind him as he smirked at her, but she couldn’t seem to look away. What Darvel was doing here in cooperation with United Earth was inhuman. With the variations in color, they all seemed to come from different subjects, each sample as gory as the one proceeding it. Along the surface of the display, glowing notes formed randomly regarding each of the items, only to fade and reappear moments later.
“And now you see exactly what I mean,” he commented, his eyes sweeping over the collection in admiration. “I am hardly afraid of these things. We have had some casualties, yes, but we will deal with these creatures. And I assure you that the next step of catching a live one will not be so difficult. We’ve been preparing for months, studying the attacks, especially now that they’ve become bold enough to attack the colony itself. I imagine that we will have one in captivity very soon. Perhaps even whoever the daddy is. I imagine he is lurking out there… waiting, isn’t he?”
When she fell silent, refusing to respond in light of the horrors before her, he merely shrugged. “It does not matter who we get. One male will work just as well as another, I’m sure. Once we have accomplished that I will be deploying our military units into the mines to deal with this problem. Now that we know where they’re coming from, we will be able to coordinate an attack and destroy their breeding grounds.”
Lori roused herself from her silent protest to gape at him. “Are you insane? It will be a bloodbath. You’ll be sending your men and women down there to die!”
He stepped closer, his eyes, once again hard and cold, narrowing on her. “I am a highly decorated commander of United Earth fleets. Do not mistake my assignment here to mean that I don’t know what I’m doing. Our troops are trained in all manner of terrains and environments. They will successfully wipe out the serpent infestation from the caves.”
Laughter broke from her, dismal and pained as she stared up at him. “You are a fucking idiot.”
His dark eyes flashed with anger before a grin stretched grotesquely on his face. “It seems you’re a fountain of information. We find out exactly what you know and then we will see.”
With that parting shot, he closed the display and left her alone, the lights in the outer room clicking off except for the dim light of her cell. Lori sank to the floor miserably. She was trapped and there was no way to get a message outside. Slengral had to be so worried. She only hoped that he didn’t try to come after her. Commander Patricks would like that too much.