Your Truth is Out There (Find Your Truth Book 1) (16 page)

Backus?
He’s never called me that.
For the first time since they’d locked him up, Henry was more than a little frightened himself. But he wasn’t about to let anyone see his fear, Hickam least of all.

“I should think you’d know the answer to that by now, Sergeant,” he said, using bravado to hide his fear. The guards hadn’t attached Henry to the wall yet, so perhaps his play on the Sergeant’s apprehensiveness would force a quick retreat and Henry would be taken back to his cell.

To Henry’s dismay, Hickam went the opposite way and charged him. He let out a yell as he connected with Henry, knocking him over, along with the two guards who were holding him. They fell in a heap, but Hickam immediately jumped up and pounced on the defenseless artist and unleashed a barrage of blows to his face that nearly knocked him unconscious, all the while screaming obscenities at the top of his lungs. Just before he lost consciousness, Henry felt the other guards pull Hickam off him in an effort to try and salvage what was left of their careers.

“It doesn’t matter! It doesn’t matter!” was all Henry could hear coming from Hickam over the din of other commotion in the room. “It doesn’t matter. We’re all screwed anyway, and it’s all his fault.”

The room quieted momentarily as Hickam’s last statement sunk in throughout the rest of the guards. Then someone threw water in Henry’s face to snap him back to total consciousness. After that, the unbridled mayhem began again, with Hickam leading the way and the others matching their comrade’s fierceness blow-by-blow. At one point, Henry thought they would kill him, and he welcomed it.

Just before he blacked out completely, he felt, just barely, the hands of his destruction being pulled away from him, while at the same time a voice was shouting, louder than the others, to break it up, before they all ended up behind bars.

I know that voice …

He woke the next morning, bandaged as best his captors could manage without taking him to a hospital. Without a word, he was led to his daily interview with General Alcorn. Henry did his best to walk into the interrogation room under his own power, but he could barely stand upright, much less walk. He couldn’t move his right arm at all, his left eye was completely swollen shut and he was pretty certain a couple of his ribs were broken. How they thought Alcorn wasn’t going to notice was beyond anything Henry could imagine. Maybe they no longer cared.

“What in God’s name happened to you, son?” said the General, as Henry was helped into his chair.

Henry didn’t respond. He wasn’t sure he could.

“Guard! What the hell happened to this prisoner?”

“Sir!” said the guard, snapping to attention. “He was like this when we found him in his cell this morning, sir.”

“Bullshit!”

Henry did his best to keep up with the interaction between the General and the guard with his right eye, but all he could see was the General glaring at the guard for what seemed like an eternity. Henry had to give the guard credit for standing strong and not shrinking under that glare. In his former life, before he met Zef, Henry was certain he wouldn’t have held up as well.

“Don’t even think about moving your ass,” Alcorn finally said to the guard.

He walked over, opened the door, called for his officers, and then sat back down in front of Henry.

“Son, I think you know pretty clearly how much I think of you …” said Alcorn.

Henry nodded and watched the General’s eyes as he was thoroughly examined by his captor, but he said nothing.

“… but, I do not condone this type of behavior in my men. Torture is never a solution, and … what’s been done to you isn’t even torture, it’s mindless brutality, done in the name of sport.”

Two men entered the room, one with a silver bar on his collar and the other a gold leaf. Henry knew them as Major Wellston and Lieutenant Skinner. They both stood at attention and in one voice said “Sir!”

“Lieutenant,” said Alcorn, in a voice that made it clear to Henry the effort he was making to contain his displeasure. “Please take our prisoner to the infirmary and make sure he is provided the very best in medical care.”

“Yes, sir!”

The general stood up.

“Lieutenant.”

“Sir?”

“The very best care, son. I mean it. Do you understand me?”

“Yes sir!”

He reached down and helped Henry to his feet.

“Come on, let me help you up.”

As they left the room, Henry heard the General say something to the Major about “rounding them up” just before the door shut behind them.

“Yes sir,” the Major replied.

Henry stopped.

“I know that voice,” he said, half under his breath.

It was Wellston! He’s been behind these beatings the whole time.

“Of course you do,” said the Lieutenant, “Major Wellston has been in all of your interrogations.”

Henry stared at the Lieutenant for a second, then caught himself. He shook off the feeling as best he could in his condition.

“Of course, you’re right,” he said, trying to quickly change the subject. “I’m not thinking clearly. What did the General mean by “rounding them up?”“

The lieutenant smiled at that.

“He means that as bad of shape as you’re in, you’re better off than the guys who did this to you are gonna be. Come on, let’s go.”

Henry spent the next nine days in the infirmary, recovering from three broken ribs, a badly swollen eye, and numerous bruises, lacerations, contusions and other wounds he couldn’t pronounce, but that hurt just as badly. In the end, he was informed by his doctor that he’d been quite fortunate, as none of the injuries were severe enough to cause any permanent damage. Henry had never believed, nor disbelieved, in God, but after this, he was beginning to think someone, or something, had to be watching out for him.

By the fourth day, he’d recovered enough to spend more time awake than asleep. He took advantage of that time by reflecting on all that had happened since that day in the clearing.

General Alcorn had wanted to know everything that had taken place that day, from the time Henry first saw Zef’s ship begin its descent, to the time the General and his troops showed up. He didn’t know why the General was so interested in hearing the whole story. It wasn’t like there was much to tell. He also wasn’t all that sure as to why he hadn’t just told Alcorn everything from the very beginning. He supposed he was just being obstinate, being uncooperative because of the way they had treated him, and the way they had treated Zef. But then, after a while, it became more a test of wills, a contest to see who could hold out the longest. More recently, when the beatings began, it somehow seemed a moral imperative not to say anything, as if his very soul would be lost if he gave in. The more he thought about it, lying there in that hospital bed, the more he believed that part, at least, to be true.

But he also knew that Alcorn wasn’t behind the beatings. Even before witnessing the General’s reaction to his condition, Henry knew Alcorn would never condone such actions. He didn’t know exactly how he knew it, he just did. It was something he could sense about the man. Alcorn was as tough as nails, and he was pretty sure they would never like one another very much, but the General was also a fair man, even to those who disagreed with him. Now that he knew Major Wellston was involved, he had to let the General know somehow. He had to get him alone, without Wellston or any of the other officers who seemed to cling to Alcorn like a fungus.

“The doctors tell me you’re healing well,” said a voice from the doorway, interrupting his train of thought. Henry looked up from his bed and standing there, as if on cue, was General Theodore Eustace Alcorn.

Gsefx stood frozen, staring at the screen where the image of his beloved Lhvunsa had appeared just moments before, with a razor sharp spike at her throat and terror in her eyes. He couldn’t move. He knew what he had to do and that he didn’t have much time to do it, but he couldn’t seem to make any of his limbs move, even just a little. After what felt like an eternity, the vidcon buzzed again with the same unknown number. He answered, but this time no image appeared, just the same cold, threatening voice.

“The clock is ticking,” it said, “and you’re wasting time.”

“I want to speak to her,” Gsefx said suddenly. “I want to hear her voice.”

“A reasonable request.”

“Gsefx!” It was Lhvunsa. “Help me, Gsefx!”

“I’m afraid that’s all you have time for,” said the voice. “Now get moving.”

The vidcon went silent.

This time Gsefx moved without hesitation. He grabbed the coordinates from the table, stuffed them in his pocket, and headed for the door. He stopped before reaching it. Something inside him insisted he slow down and think through what he was about to do, regardless of the urgency. That something was Lhvunsa herself. It was her voice inside his head, the one she always used whenever she tried to convince him how unproductive it was to act rashly. If he had listened to that voice the day Qilzar had fired him, she wouldn’t be a prisoner right now. None of them would be in this mess.

He pulled the coordinates out of his pocket and quickly pulled them up on his computer. As he suspected, they were for Mindaal, which meant the Ricnor Gang now had both Lhvunsa and Qilzar.

It also meant that, since it would take Gsefx much longer than two sars to reach Mindaal—at least five by his calculations—there was no way he could deliver the painting to them on time. Of course, they knew that was the case, which meant they had no intention of letting any of them live and he was walking into a trap. Gsefx was likely being watched right now. As soon as he led them to the painting, their lives would be over, his, Lhvunsa’s, and Qilzar’s.

Qilzar, that miserable little womble. If we all get out of this in one piece, I might just kill him myself.
He looked around his house.
Until then, I need a plan, and I need it now.

He ran into the bedroom and flipped the bed over. On the floor near where he usually slept was the scrambler he kept within arm’s reach. It wasn’t meant to be a deadly weapon, although at a close enough range, and if used for an extended period of time, a scrambler could potentially kill. Rather, a scrambler was meant to render an intruder unconscious long enough for the authorities to arrive. Gsefx hadn’t had the occasion to use it yet, but Lhvunsa had been so shaken up by the break-in, he felt he needed something to help him defend her if something like that ever happened again. He wasn’t sure if she knew that he’d purchased the scrambler, or if she would approve, but he was sure glad he had it now. He stuffed it in his pocket and ran out the door.

Gsefx piloted his way in silence to the storage facility where he kept the painting. Since his return from Earth, he no longer listened to the music that had once played such a large part in his life, especially the albalan music native to Earth. Its once pleasurable effect now gone, he found it more distracting than anything else, especially as he focused on more pressing matters, like his work and what was going to happen with the painting.

As beautiful as the painting was, and as moved as he was when Henree had given it to him, he’d lost count of how many times he’d wished he’d never laid eyes on it. It had brought nothing but grief and misery since he brought it back with him. When Henree first handed it to him, after he recovered from his initial shock, he remembered thinking how great it would look in the main living area of their home. But seeing Qilzar and Lhvunsa’s reaction to it changed everything, and he knew he’d have to lock the painting away, safely out of sight. He’d not even told Lhvunsa where it was, not because he didn’t trust her, but because she didn’t want to know. He briefly considered destroying it, but couldn’t bring himself to do that to Henree’s work. Even if they could never display it, he had to keep it safe.

So he decided to lock it away in the storage facility he’d rented to hold all of the stuff he couldn’t bear to part with, but didn’t have room for in their home. He first started renting the facility when Lhvunsa threatened to throw away the military spacecraft models he had scattered about. Model building had been his latest hobby at the time and, combined with several of his previous hobbies, his “junk was taking over their home” as his wife had so eloquently put it to him. He rented the storage facility to ensure the models and all of the other treasures he couldn’t part with would not mysteriously disappear when he wasn’t paying attention. There were times Gsefx believed that renting the storage facility was perhaps the single best financial investment he’d ever made in their marriage. He knew better than to ask Lhvunsa, but he was pretty certain she would agree.

Gsefx reached the facility and parked his vehicle, being careful not to show that he was aware of the dark-gray, multi-passenger vehicle that had been following him, and was now parked just around the corner behind him. Gsefx went inside, but instead of going to his private storage unit, he went to the other end of the building and back out the other side. Working his way back around to the front as quietly as possible, Gsefx crept back to the corner where his vehicle was parked and waited in the shadows for something to happen. He wasn’t sure what, but he hoped he would know it when he saw it. He didn’t have to wait long.

It was difficult to see who or what it was at first, it moved very quickly and blended in with the environment—an eye less trained for detail might have missed it. It helped that one of Gsefx’s Galacticount co-workers was also a Yelton. He’d been scared enough times in the break room by that little prankster to know how to watch for him. So when he saw the ever-so-slight rippling motion slide by his vehicle, he raised his scrambler and fired.

A brief high-pitched shriek pierced the otherwise still Clangdorian night air, followed by the sound of his stalker falling to the ground unconscious and fully visible. Gsefx took a step from behind the building, froze suddenly, and then jumped back into the shadows. Were there more of them? Surely they wouldn’t send just one? But, then again, Gsefx was just an accountant, hardly one to be feared. Why send a whole army after him? He waited a few ebyts more, then slowly made his way out to the unconscious thug lying next to his vehicle.