Page 92 of Elanie & the Empath
He’d made it. Sem was still alive. Now Mal and I just had to keep it that way.
Mal creptinto the hut just before dawn, sneaking in the morning’s bushel of laundry. We hid the linens under the bed and in the dresser quickly. And when I told him that Sem had escaped and then broken back into the underground, Mal practically blew a fuse.
“Yes!” Mal’s nod was so enthusiastic his hydraulics clicked. “He is Portisan. Excellent swimmers and larger than average lung volume. Your mate is very brave. Brave and adventurous!”
I placed my hand on Mal’s arm. “We need to be brave and adventurous too. Are you ready?”
“It is time.” His eyes dimmed. “I have stood by long enough. I thought I was only sacrificing my own freedom to remain near my family, but I have been letting others remain imprisoned.” His shoulders fell. “I am complicit.”
I didn’t know what to say to him, so I said nothing.
“I am ready to make amends. No matter what it takes.” His knees bent and straightened, his jaw clenching. “No matter how angry Gol will be with me.”
“If everything goes to plan, none of us will ever see Gol again, unless it’s on our VCs when he’s thrown into an Imperion detention sphere twenty leagues beneath the sea.”
“I hope so,” Mal said, then his head tilted to the side. “But when does anything ever go to plan?”
35.SEM
“Good to seeyou survived the swim, blue man,” Maximus said once the old man caught his breath. His cough seemed to have worsened overnight. Pneumonia vs. emphysema was my differential diagnosis. Both conditions could be easily treated in civilization but were decidedly deadly in this abominable basement.
“Barely,” I managed after my own coughing spell, my lungs still raw and burning. “Mal should show any minute now, unless Gol sends someone else or demands to get the clean linens himself.”
“That pretentious prick won’t come,” Maximus assured me. “He hates it down here. Says it stinks like pig shit.”
I commiserated. It did stink like pig shit. “Are you ready to tell me what’s about to happen? Why you need Mal?”
With narrowed, watery eyes, Maximus studied me for several uncomfortable seconds. I suddenly understood how a misfiring ignition coil he was deciding how to repair might feel. At length, he said, “You know everything you need to know, Doctor. When the gen-1 gets here, yourjob is to keep Lars and the other bootlickers occupied until you hear the signal.”
“Which is?” I still wasn’t thrilled with his ambiguity, but my exhaustion outweighed any desire to press him further. Especially when he started coughing again.
Eventually, he held up a shaky finger. “Don’t worry. You won’t be able to miss it.”
I hadone hour before my shift at the pumps started, and I couldn’t risk any suspicion by showing up late. Pacing my cell, I waited for the telltale bird whistle from Maximus signaling that Mal had arrived. I only hoped the old man still had the lung capacity left to get it out.
To keep my mind from spiraling, I thought of Elanie. Not of her face or her lips or her body—well, not only those things. I thought of her laughter. Her soft, breathy laugh when Grover did something ridiculous. Her barked “ha!” when I caught her off guard with a well-timed joke. But the type of laughter I thought of most, closing my eyes and trying as hard as I could to remember every detail, was her unbridled, tears-streaming belly laugh when I really got her rolling.
Like the time I’d impersonated theIgnisar’s crewmembers to entertain her in the cave. When I’d done Sunny, calling Elanie “darling” as I walked around on my tiptoes with Sunny’s exaggerated hip swish. While I bemoaned how insufferable Martian movie stars were and how there was never any good shopping on the ship, Elanie had laughed so hard she’d literally fallen over. That was the laugh I missed the most.Saints, what I wouldn’t give to hear it again now.
Instead I heard?—
Whoo-whit.
My heart skidded to a stop at Maximus’s signal. When it remembered how to beat again, I slid from my cell, carrying an armful of dirty clothes clutched against my chest. On the way to the laundry, I passed a Vorpol sitting on his bunk, his single long-toed foot propped on a chair while he clipped his toenails. When I nodded at him, he only grunted, a bit of nail flinging into the air with his next clip.
Scurrying down the tunnel, I rounded the corner to the laundry. Knocking—three fast, two slow—I waited, my nerves jangling so hard I could practically hear them.
The door creaked open, Maximus’s beady eyes peering through, “What? Are you waiting for an invitation?”
Biting down on my retort, I stepped inside. And then my jaw dropped. “What in the worlds is going on here?”
Sitting cross-legged on the floor, his back panel removed, his internal wiring, circuitry, and hydraulics on full display, Mal said, “Hello, Dr. Semson. Please forgive my”—he winced down at his exposed back—“nudity.”
Maximus coughed, then groaned as he sat on the floor behind Mal. He picked up a screwdriver and pointed it at me. “Take a seat, blue man.”
“What are you doing?” I asked, sitting beside them.
Ignoring me, Maximus poked at a wire. “Does that hurt?”
