Chapter 36 Unseen Dangers

What are we looking for? Where would they be? I touch the rock sticking out of the side of the pit. The compound of the rock comes back to me as silicone-based plus tons of further unnecessary information. As I admire the crystals of quartz, sparkling in the purple light I’m overwhelmed by the voice in my head:

“Brush up on those skills, Domiarn. Part of your programming is searching for metals and minerals. I’m going to need that.”

It is Yasen. His voice brings a lot of anxiety… and longing. The game is on. He can’t wait to have me, and I’m tuned in to fulfil his every wish. The conscious part of my mind resists that, but the unconscious has already fallen to the effects of neurotoxin like a city wall under a siege.

“Asmadis, how long ago was your husband abducted?” I ask.

“About two centuries ago of Earth time.” He answers in a scared, uneasy voice.

“What is your lifespan?”

“Give or take 150 years your time… But… I’m old. Very few kribers live to see my age.” Asmadis sighs, looking around nervously, his rainbow-colored crest trembling with fear.

What exactly is he afraid of? And what are my chances? Granted, the Blisps kidnapped these Koms in retaliation right about the same time, but the Koms only found out just now… It’s hopeless. These hostages are long dead.

Even if they are not, they are behind this big, thick rock. I hate getting stalled, especially when my time is running out relentlessly. I feel like screaming in despair.

“You know what I feel? I feel they were brought here to die, and not to be held.” Kallitris says. “The answers are behind this huge rock!”

Wow, really, captain Obvious? He can actually listen to his surroundings for once! I guess I’m still mad at him for not checking on the ederi transmitting device. Yasen is nowhere to be seen, but he is here. He is watching me, and I can feel his heavy, entrancing glance on me.

“If they’re dead, can we just go home?” Asmadis says weakly. He is scared and poised to flee.

“Get a hold of yourself! You are the leader!” Iris frowns. ‘This is our chance to stop the war that is killing mostly your people! We will bring the hostages back!”

“You don’t know. Our dead do not disappear. They go underground and turn into devilish creatures, dwelling in bottomless wells… So, they might be behind this rock!”

“Enough, Asmadis!” I say loudly.

This tension is getting to me. I can’t stop feeling condemned. And I don’t even have a watch to look at. How much do I have left? Is Yasen going to just teleport me out of here in 24 hours without a warning? Or am I supposed to be back at the ship in 24 hours?!

“Oh, allright! Stand back everyone!” The Blisp himself also takes several steps back.

And before we know what happened, small, fragile Asmadis pulls out a device from beneath his clothing and points it to the rock. Next second our faces are lit up as if by a lightning, and the rock gets blasted into several big pieces, one of which falls to the ground with a thunderlike sound.

Iris grabbed me and now looks at me attentively.

‘Are you allright?” He says quietly.

I nod, and I want to go, but he holds me tightly, his hair feel smooth and silky against my cheeks.

“I will not let you go to pay for sheirer’s crimes. I love you too much!” Baron Leo takes my face into his hands and kisses me with extraordinary passion.

Kallitris and Asmadis stare, making this moment even more intense. Albeit the first one is full of jealousy and anger, and the other is in disbelief over how these crazy humans can collapse into a balmy expression of feelings in the middle of a dangerous mission with nothing but impending doom for all involved?!

Finally we walk up to the black hole that opened up. Iris does not let go of my hand, as if this could somehow ensure my safety. Kallitris sighs, watching us, feeling guilty for the fatal turn of events with the ederi.

“Oh, OK… I’m damned if I do, and I’m damned if I don’t!” Asmadis mumbles to himself and climbs inside, supported by nothing but this piece of fine philosophy.

We wait at the edge. For a minute nothing can be heard, but the rustling of Asmadis’s wings. Then he screams and it startles everyone, but me.

I, for one, have lost all sense of fear after I realized that Yasen’s neurotoxin is not wearing out like the one I’m used to. It is running in my veins, and it burns my mind with ever-increasing desire to serve the one who injected it into me. Is that how it would have been with Leot? Who cares. I wish myself dead right now.

So I step into the darkness and quickly catch up with Asmadis. He is searching for something on the ground.

“I lost my flashlight!” He says in a frantic whisper.

“Here, it rolled under this…” My biosonar locates the little tube with a string attached to it, sticking out from what looks like a piece of rock. I try to grab it, and whatever it is I thought was rock hits me in the chest with unbelievable strength.

I’m thrown onto Kallitris, who senses more than me. He grabs me and Iris by our hands and runs into the depth of the cave. Asmadis gives out another loud scream and runs ahead of us as fast as he can. I see him on my biosonar, flapping his wings helplessly. Then he suddenly disappears from my picture. Just like that.

“My waves are not coming back! This path ends abruptly into a…”

“I know!” Kallitris quickly picks up both me and Iris, and jumps.

I look up to see what demonic creature might be following us, and I wish for it to devour me as Yasen is still watching. That will show him!

But the truly demonic sight is Kallitris himself. It’s either the fright, or a sudden jump, but he took on his natural features of the alien that once saved me just like that in my childhood. I get dizzy with old feelings of love I had for these eyes, for this tense grasp, for the skin with a dark intricate pattern.

The menacing darkness we’re falling into does not bother me anymore. As Asmadis’s screams echo in the vast well all around us now, I realize that nothing can ever make me stop loving this otherworldly man.

Likewise I will never let go of my devoted husband, who crossed half the universe simply to be with me. So, between the three of us we can overcome anything. Even the slavery of my chemical inebriation.

I kid you not, we fly for at least three good long minutes until I see the light on the bottom. It is getting bigger and brighter until it turns into something none of us expected – a huge cave filled with buildings made of emerald-green glass. It’s lit up all around with kribers flying in and out of the buildings, and into tunnels going even deeper underground.

I have a déjà-vu of Komkaran, and I wonder if we somehow found our way there. Kallitris makes a couple more swift flaps of his wings, and lands us on a relatively flat rock by a small lake. I look up to make sure we lost our pursuit. Apparently, whatever had hit me had no further interest in us. The feeling is truly mutual.

“That was super-brave of you to protect us all!” Asmadis looks at Kallitris with a new understanding of the one he hated for so long.

“So much for stealing my boy, you piece of…” Sheirer assumes his human appearance, and clenches his fists fiercely.

“It’s OK.” I pat Kallitris on the shoulder, and look around.

By now several kribers flew up to us, but the surprise is all ours – they are not Blisps. They look like the Koms! They have greenish crests instead of the rainbow colored, they are much smaller, and their wings are brownish-green. The biggest difference is the eyes. These kribers are studying us with big vortexes of surprised expression, whereas Asmadis looks back with the eyes more resembling that of a creature.