This is a continuation of a story begun in the post “Chapter 1. Part 1.” If you enjoy it, please like and share it with others!
I didn’t know exactly what my plan was, storming off into the woods. I thought momentarily of going back to The Settlement. I thought of maybe trying to find the trader who had brought Pathena here to see if he could get me back to earth. I thought of searching for Teleon and giving him a piece of my mind. I even considered just sitting on the beach and waiting for someone or something to come along.
So many thoughts were racing through my mind. I thought back to the little makeshift boat I had found in Troy and the whirlwind that Chak had first appeared in, when he looked so frightening. Who’d have thought that days later I would be in a screaming match with him and he’d be scared of me. I thought of the questions he had asked and whether or not he had actually killed all the people he said he did. I thought of the solemn faces of the other Umbili I had just walked away from. I thought of my little boat back in Athens and how this whole mess could have been avoided if I had never gone to Troy in the first place. That’s when I thought of Pathena. I never would have found her again either.
It was just when this thought entered my head that I heard her voice.
“Nicholas! Nicholas, wait for me!”
I turned around to see her making her way through the thick jungle toward me. She looked distressed but also happy at the same time. It was an odd expression.
“Nicholas,” she said as she finally closed the ground between us. “Nicholas listen. I know this is frightening, but Chak does have a bit of an explanation, and I’m sorry but you really do need to go back. At least hear them out. They do have a plan.”
“Pathena, you don’t get it. They lied to me. I’ve trusted them this entire time, and they were lying through their teeth this entire time.”
“I understand that Nicholas, but listen. You have to go back. The fact that they lied to you aside, the fact that you want to leave right now aside, what are you going to do without them? Right here, right now, in the middle of this jungle, what are your plans now that you’ve stormed away? Did you think you would hitchhike back to Athens?”
She was right. None of my ideas were particularly viable.
“I figured I’d start by heading back to The Settlement and finding someone who could get me back to earth,” I said sheepishly.
“Nicholas, you literally just tore that place apart four days ago. Do you really think they won’t remember you, or even that they won’t kill you if they get the chance? What was your back-up plan?” She was grinning.
“Looking for Teleon,” I said, even more sheepishly.
“Teleon? The probably Higher-up guy who wants you to continue on this mission? The one who told you to measure yourself only against perfection? The guy who told you that you would face many perils ahead? You were going to go to this man to get help deserting the mission he urged you to finish? Smart plan. Did you have any other thoughts?” she said almost laughing now.
“Well, I had also considered just sitting around and waiting for someone to…” I didn’t even finish this one. A full-blown beam was slung across her face now and it wiped my mind clean momentarily. “What?” I asked. “What’s so funny?”
“You are,” she said. “You didn’t think this through at all did you? And I thought you got this job because of your reasoning capabilities.”
“Sort of,” I said. “I still don’t want to go back there. I don’t want to be around the people who were going to throw me to the wolves.”
“Just hear them out. They actually had a plan. They were going to try to keep you from dying, but really, can you blame them for keeping that information from you? What good would it have done to tell you from the beginning? At least this way you would be happy for a little bit.”
“That’s a weak argument and you know it. They should have told me,” I retorted.
“Look, there’s one more reason you need to go back. I don’t know if this will change your mind, or just make you angrier, but Teleon told me this would happen,” she said.
“What? You mean you knew I was going to have to die too?” I yelled.
“No, no. I didn’t know that. He didn’t tell me that. But he did tell me that soon you would want to quit, and he told me I had to stop you. He said I’d be the only one you would listen to.”
“Well he was wrong.”
“Was he really wrong?” She smiled again, and again I had a momentary memory wipe. “You still don’t have any real plan of action if you do leave. At least hear Chak out. He’s your friend now after all. If you still want to give up after you’ve heard their explanation and their plan I will follow you. But maybe you should make your decision after you’ve heard all the facts.”
There was a brief silence and she took a step closer to me, and pulled my hand toward her. She grasped it tightly.
“Please, Nicholas? Hear them out. For me?” I then felt her slip something into the palm of my hand. I looked down and saw the pouch with the seed that I had thrown into the dirt before storming away.
“Fine. I’ll hear them out. But I’m not happy about it,” I said with a little smirk but an overall defeated tone.
We trudged back to the little clearing where we had found the little red box and saw the entire group huddled up talking, all except for Skreech who was fastened to the trunk of a tree on the edge of the clearing.
Plink was the first to notice that we were back.
“Nicholas! Thank goodness,” she said with a genuine smile, obviously happy to see us.
“Thank goodness that what? That I decided to die for you?” I shot at her. I thought a moment. “I’m sorry Plink. I didn’t mean that.”
“It’s alright,” she said still smiling.
“Okay Chak, I’m here. You’ve got one chance to convince me. You’d better have an unbelievable, but believable, explanation for this,” I said.
“We sort of do Nicholas. There are two things that need to be addressed. First of all, why we didn’t tell you about this sooner, and second, what we plan to do to keep you alive.”
“I’d say those are the two most important factors, yes.”
“First of all, we didn’t tell you about this sooner because we literally couldn’t. We had all been told that exact poem before joining this mission. The Higher-ups had told it to us saying that it was a message or a treaty they had received from Mendrax, or something like that, but they specifically instructed us not to share it with the human who would be chosen. They said he wouldn’t understand because it was an incomplete instruction. I don’t really understand what they mean by that, but there it is.
“There have been times throughout this trip when I really did try to tell you everything, but I couldn’t. Whenever I would start, I would find myself tongue-tied. I couldn’t even tell you just now! I was trying to find ways around it when Pathena told you what the poem was. Like I’ve told you before, we have no choice when a Higher-up gives us a direct order. That’s part of why we need a human, someone who can disobey Higher-ups if he needs to. We don’t know what sort of instruction power Mendrax has. If he can order us like the Higher-ups do, he can undo our entire plan with a simple instruction. He could tell us to turn around and go home when we got there, and we’d have to do it! But I’m getting off track. That’s why we haven’t told you sooner, we simply didn’t have the ability.”
“And what about you Doctor Lee?” I stressed the word sarcastically. “Why didn’t you tell me about this?”
“I knew nothing of it Nicholas. While in Mendrax’s service I knew only that a human would be found and I was to keep records of his whereabouts, reporting them back to Mendrax. I truly had no idea you would be required to…” Dr. Lee trailed off.
“To kill myself?” I said bluntly.
No one spoke. I turned back to Chak.
“Why would the Higher-ups instruct you not to tell me?”
“I don’t know why. I asked, but they wouldn’t tell me. I didn’t think it was right! Like I said, I’ve been trying to come clean this whole trip. Really though, would it have done any good to know that from the beginning? I mean it would have just made you more upset and more unwilling to do the job. At least this way you were a little bit happy in your final days. Maybe that’s why they didn’t want you to know,” said Chak.
“That’s what Pathena said. It’s a weak argument and you both know it,” I said.
“You’re right,” said Chak. “But I know that the Higher-ups always have reasons for what they do, we just don’t always see or understand them until much later, or not at all.”
“Okay. Let’s say I accept that explanation for the first point. What’s your plan for keeping me alive? How am I going to have all my blood be weighed in planting this seed without dying?” I asked.
“Well, now let me say first that this was an idea that Brew, Flye and I came up with. It’s not something the Higher-ups told us to do; it’s something we cooked up ourselves to try and prevent, well, your death,” said Chak awkwardly.
“Wait a second. You can do that?”
“Sure. They didn’t tell us we can’t try to keep you from dying!”
“They sure seem to want me to die though,” I said.
“Seem being the important word. Maybe we can work around that,” said Chak hastily. “The bottom line is we think you shouldn’t have to die in order to save us and we’re going to try and stop it from happening. Flye, grab the IV. Let’s show him.”
Flye reached into the backpack and extracted the bags of liquid and tubes I had seen go into it on my first day in the Syllogy.
“Basically this is a setup to do a blood transfusion. See we brought all this human blood,” he said gesturing toward the bags of liquid, “and we’ll find your blood type with a simple blood test. Then, when you water the seed with your blood from your veins, we’ll hook up the IV and be replacing it with other blood. Flye developed an additive that virtually eliminates transfusion reactions and helps to accelerate the assimilation process. If we go slowly enough, the transfused blood will replace and become your own. See you’ll be using all of your blood in the garden, but you’ll be keeping someone else’s blood, and your life. What do you think?” He finished this quick little explanation with his voice very high, obviously trying to paint this mediocre plan in the best light that he could.
“That’s one of the lamest things I think I’ve ever heard. You think you can trick the Higher-ups and Mendrax by pumping extra blood into my veins? Forget the fact that I have no idea how a blood transfusion works or if I want you doing one on me, how do you think the Higher-ups feel about this little plan of yours?”
“I imagine they don’t like it, but I also imagine they know about it and haven’t stopped us yet. But most importantly, the way I see it, it’s this or death,” said Chak desperately.
“What chance do you think this has of working?” I asked.
“I’ll be honest. It probably has about a fifty percent chance. But that’s fifty percent more than if you just go to die, right? What do you say? Can you forgive us? Can you keep going? Can you trust us to do everything we can to save your life, in your attempt to save ours?” Chak said, desperation still flooding his voice.
“I guess I don’t have much of a choice. At least you’re trying to save my skin. That’s more than the Higher-ups or Mendrax are offering me.” I paused at this point thinking the explanation over in my head. I looked around at the pleading group then at Chak’s pitiful face. Finally I glanced at Pathena who seemed to be thinking it over as well. Saving the Syllogy meant saving her too. How could I refuse such a task?
“Yes I can forgive you Chak. I can forgive you all. What do I need to do to make this transfusion thing work?” I said.
“That’s great Nicholas. We promised to protect you and that’s what we’re gonna do.” For a moment Chak sounded like the old spunky Brew. “All we need is a prick of your finger to match your blood type. We can take care of the rest in the garden.”
“Whatever you say captain,” I said, trying to give the impression that I trusted him more than I actually did.
In the back of my mind I thought it was insane, but at this point there was no turning back. If not for these Umbili, who were becoming like family to me, then for myself, I had to finish this job. The Syllogy, the Higher-ups, and the entire Umbili race were counting on me, and if I was going to die, then I was going to die. As I had already concluded a week early in the bay of Troy, that was my fate anyway. There was no use in fighting it. At least I could go out with my head held high.
I looked at Pathena, who was intently watching Chak and Flye run the blood test. Her mouth was smiling, but her eyes were worried. I knew she thought that this plan was weak also. She knew I was heading to my death, just like I did. But Pathena was part of this now too. She was in the Syllogy and in just as much peril as the rest of it. She was worth dying for. If nothing else, I would do it to save her life alone.
I was going to die for life. If there was one thing I was sure of it was that there is no greater act of love than to die for the sake of others, and that’s just what I intended to do.
Want to keep reading? Go to the next section! >>> “Chapter 21.”