Family

Day Eleven

Paradise Station

What greater gift than the love of a cat?

- Charles Dickens

I faded in and out of consciousness. When I finally woke I was lying on my back, the smell of lubricants and dust strong in my nostrils. And I was no longer in pain.

I cautiously tried a deep breath. I could feel the expansion of my ribs, my back and the sensation of cool air passing down my throat. Still, no pain. That was definitely not a good sign.

As the last tendrils of fog filtered out of my mind, one thought came to me.

"Darwin." I whispered.

In the darkness, he came to me and laid his head on my chest, his eyes intent.

"You must rest now," a soft voice spoke out of the gloom. "The healing is not complete."

Her voice had a musical quality to it that I found mysterious. She stepped into my field of vision, the dark silhouette of a head and shoulders on a darker background. A night-black hand holding a purple light passed over my eyes, and my memory ceased.

The next moment of consciousness found me in the same place. The smells were familiar as was the position of my body, I was lying flat on the floor. Still, there was no pain.

A light had been turned on while I was out, and my eyes adjusted quickly and painlessly. I heard the rustle of movement in the room.

"Sam?" I called out quietly.

Someone stepped into the light.

She was beautiful, of that there was no doubt. Her face was sculpted out of onyx, her cheekbones sharp and her face delicately angled to a rounded chin. Her nose was slightly wider and flatter than average, which only served to give her a more pensive look. Her black hair was so tightly cropped that I couldn't tell at first whether it curled or straight (later, I discovered it was curled.) She was tall and thin, dressed in a simple black overall.

But it was her eyes that drew my attention. Large and liquid and completely black, even the sclera. It was a little unnerving, because I couldn't tell where she was looking.

Nor could I read her intentions. She had an impenetrability about her, a shield that prevented you from seeing her inner thoughts. I had no idea how much danger I was in. More importantly, I didn't know what to do next.

I slipped into trance and it was raining, the thunder and lightning and the beating of the waves were deafening. The cliff rose above me, impossibly high. The lightning flashed purple behind me and I twisted and turned to avoid its burning brightness, shutting my eyes against the light, yearning for darkness.

I had found Leena, or more properly, she had found me, and I was dying from the encounter. The vortex opened before me in my self-imposed night, and behind me the lightning flashed. I was lost, tossed about in the maelstrom between the past and the future.

"Leena!" I called out.

And warm hand gently caught mine, long thin fingers wrapping competed around my smaller hand. I felt like a child again, safe and protected by my mother. Slowly, the wind and the waves were stilled. "Hush. You are not yet ready for that."

My vision cleared and she was kneeling beside me. "What is that word you said?" she asked gently. "I have heard it before."

I tried to sort out my jumbling thoughts. How had she known what I was doing, that I was losing to my own vortex? How was she able to calm that storm and call me back? Who was she?

"Leena," I answered. "It is your name, or at least the name you have been given. Who are you?"

"Leena," she tried experimentally. Her teeth were as black as her skin and eyes, but her tongue was bright red/pink. It was just a shock of color in the otherwise sable canvas of her face.

"It is a strange word," she noted. "What does it signify in your tongue?" Her voice was steady, clear, assured.

"It means... It is an acronym." This drew a puzzled look from her features. "It is a word made up of parts of other words. The other words indicate where you were found."

"Curious," she replied, understanding my explanation immediately. "But I was not found, for I was not lost. I presented myself to you."

She had presented herself? She had approached her captors, expecting a welcome!

"What do you call yourself, then, that I might present myself?" I asked tentatively.

"I do not call myself, for I never have need to come nearer unto myself." She smiled at her own joke. Apparently it lost something in the translation. She laid her hand on her chest in the universal, 'My name is' sign, then said something filled with clicks and pops.

I stared at her while I tried to force my mouth to make the sounds she had just created. Her smile grew broader.

"However, you may call me Leena. It is a serviceable name."

"I am Joshua Friedman. I am known as Josh."

"I am still new to your way of speaking. What does 'Josh' signify?"

Like most people, I knew something of the meaning of my name, and like most people, it was a name chosen for me by its sound, rather than its meaning.

"It means 'one who rescues' or something like that."

"Ah, you are a savior? Your kind are well regarded among my people. And yet it is I who rescued you." She laughed. "Perhaps I can add 'Joshua' to my name" She followed this by repeating her name, and somewhere in the middle of it I heard a slightly twisted version of 'Joshua.'

"I am not anyone's savior. I am only a Finder." Leena gave me a puzzled look. "I seek out things and people who have been lost and... well I find them. I note their place."

She sat on the floor next to me, her long legs crossing. "Is that not the function of a savior? To seek the true essence of a person and help them find their place in the universe?"

I have to admit that a philosophical discussion is the last thing I was expecting at this point in our adventures.

"Why are they after you?" I finally asked.

Leena thought about that for a moment. "There are two who seek me. Yet their motivations are different. The woman looks for me because of what I have. The man, because of what I am. Both would seek to dominate me. This must not be allowed."

"What do you have?"

"Knowledge."

If that is all she was willing to share, I wasn't in a position to push. My guess was that she was as unsure of me as I was of her.

"And, what are you?"

She paused. "An answer." Thunder again, but quietly this time. What questions did Gregson have that she could provide answers to, I wondered.

I then realized that someone was missing. I was ashamed that I hadn't noticed that Darwin had left. I looked around briefly.

"Your friend has gone to maintain our safety. He is patrolling the corridors again. However, we should prepare to change location. We are being sought. Individually, and for different purposes."

Her strange way of phrasing things made it awkward to follow her meaning, but I understood. I didn't want to risk moving though. My nerves had ceased sending pain signals to my brain. Frankly, I was surprised I was still conscious.

"I cannot. I am almost spent. You should hide again, though. I will not tell them where you have gone."

She gave me that puzzled look again. "I do not understand what is meant by 'spent'."

"I mean that I am nearly dead. I can no longer even feel my injuries, and my body is shutting down. If you are found with me, you will be held responsible for my death."

"But you are not dead."

"I will be. Soon."

"How do you know this thing?"

"My injuries are too severe. Even our best medicine could not prolong my life."

Let me interject here. You have probably guessed the following already, but allow me a little time to wallow in my death song. I might not get another.

"But you are not injured. You are healed."

Carefully, I reached for my shoulder. The hole in my shirt was still there, but where there had been blood and pain, there was fresh skin. I could feel my fingers touch my shoulder.

"How long was I out?"

"You have been here since I brought you. You have not left."

"I was unclear. How long was I here, unconscious?"

"The window has shown me your sun three times."

The station rotated about once an hour to maintain the gravity on the rim. That would mean that I had been here between three or four hours.

"How did... how is this possible?"

She actually seemed a little embarrassed by this question. She couldn't blush in any way that I could see, but the way her head turned to avoid looking at me was universally understandable.

"The healing is made possible by the phage."

"You gave me a healing phage?" I was a puzzled by the contradiction in terms.

"I... I shared with you my phage. You were dying." She said this as if it explained everything. I would have been happy if it had explained anything!

"Leena," I asked quietly, sitting up. "What happened?"

"You were dying. I could see the life essence seeping from you. So I broke my skin and shared my blood. It is a thing not lightly done, but I saw no other way to be your savior. We... we are bonded."

This was clearly important to her. I was worried that time was passing quickly and our hunters would find us. But there was something in her manner that said sharing her blood with me was probably the most personal thing she could do. Who was this woman who had taken on a roomful of thugs with lethal efficiency and yet be embarrassed at this closeness?

"In what way are we bonded, Leena?"

"We share the same blood, Joshua. We are bonded by our blood, and we are family now." A little corny, I will admit, but perhaps the fault lies with me. I had become somewhat jaded after all those years alone. Except for Darwin of course.

Speak of a colonist and his ghost with appear, as they say. Darwin bounded into room and, seeing me up, veered from his path to run me down.

I was lying on my back again, Darwin's full weight on my chest as he nuzzled my chin.

"Darwin..." I gasped, the wind knocked out of me, "I can't breathe." The little horror didn't even shift but kept right on rubbing his chin against my face. I carefully slipped him off to one side and struggled back to a sitting position.

"Yes, I missed you too," I said, grabbing him in an embrace and burying my face in his fur.

Then I heard Leena speak in her tongue, and Darwin squeezed out of my arms to look at her. He tilted his head and twitched his ears and tail, following it with a small vocalization. Leena responded, then turned to me as if to speak.

"We have to go," I interrupted. "They are coming."

Leena looked surprised, her eyes opening a little wider.

"Why are you so surprised?" I asked as I struggled to my feet. I was still feeling a little weak, but I hadn't felt this normal since before the card game. "I may not understand you, but I sure as hell understand him."

Leena unfolded herself, rising to her full height. Damn she was tall. Close to seven feet tall, if not more. She strode for the door, Darwin loping alongside of her. I had to jog to keep up.

"You didn't answer my question," I said, trying not to pant. "Who are you, really?"

"Have you not understood," she said, rounding the corner ahead of me. "I am your daughter." I was really hoping something was being lost in translation