Chapter 5

Qi was fairly certain that he was laying on a firm but thin mattress. His head and neck ached. He tried to open his eyes, his face grimaced from the pain of light striking his eyeballs. He fluttered his eyelids a few times but that didn't help and he willed his lids to relax shut as his head leaned to the side.

He heard two voices, both female, and they were arguing. He wasn't sure about the words for awhile and he let them wash over him as he tried to wake up. Then he heard his name.

"Qi is mine," one voice said. She was angry he decided.

"It is a Khan mission and a Khan ship," the other voice said. "He is Khan booty."

"I snagged him and I own his skin," the angry voice said. Qi didn't like that reference. He wanted to open his eyes and see who wanted to skin him but he still couldn't do it.

"You are in no position to argue," the other voice said. "We will simply space you."

"Don't threaten me, Pelta," the angry woman said. "You nor Khan would survive the revenge of Farendass. Besides, I'll have you filleted before you could press a button on that pretty little gun in your right pocket. Then your Number 2 can fret over what to do with that little package permanently attached to the fusion core of your ship."

There was a beat of silence that had Qi waiting with anticipation. This was better than the serials.

"Keep in the forefront of your weak mind, Pelta, that my contract is with Volentin. Farendass tolerates your family only because it is in the interest of our client. You contaminate yourself with too much contact with the normals and you willingly adopt their styles and fashions."

"Volentin brought that ship architect into their fold. Surely you judge that travesty worse than our so called pollution." Qi now had a name to go with the voice: Pelta. Her family was Khan. The statement about families confused him.

"The architect has proven himself," the Farendass woman said. "He isn't bad in bed either. The difference is that he is adopting our ways and you are wasting your days adopting his."

A flash of pain lit across the front of Qi's head, forcing him to groan. A hand touched neck and felt his pulse. The hand felt warm on his skin.

"Qi is mine, Pelta," the Farendass woman said. "This discussion is over."

Qi heard a patter of two feet walk away from him. The door opened and then closed. Without meaning to do so, he let out a sigh.

"Oh, so the spy is awake and listening," the woman said.

"The spy hears two women fighting over him and the one who wins wants to skin him," Qi said. "She is also the one who clopped him on the head. Why?"

"Expediency," she said. "Normals can't be trusted in most situations. Open your eyes."

"Why?" Qi said feeling petulant. "I wanted to leave Leonides."

"I want to see if your pupils are equal and reactive. Normals are just so fragile and I may have given you a concussion."

Maybe Qi was feeling woozy or maybe he had just lost his sense of fear. "You're lying. You just want to see the color of my eyes. Maybe you don't have my eye color on your souvenir trophy board."

"Stupid normal," she said. "If you knew anything about dead bodies, you would know that eyes deteriorate rapidly and the color disappears immediately. When I collect my trophy, you will be painfully aware of the moment."

"Great," Qi said aloud to no one in particular. "I meet another woman who wants to cut off my balls and she can actually do it."

"Open your eyes, Qi," she said as she grasped his hair. "Just like Apache Junction, I'm going to take your scalp."

Qi gave out a short laugh. "I cannot believe you watch that hackneyed serial. Who would actually believe that grown men would wander around the desert in their tiny little strips of leather underwear? Oh admit it, you watch just to see those butt cheeks flex when they pull the bowstring. Ow!"

"Green eyes and you're just fine," she said. "Your tongue is too loose and your brains are still scrambled, which means that nothing has changed."

"My ears are just fine, too. Who is this ship's architect and why are you stealing TSC parts for his designs?" Qi was still lying on his side but he was not breaking eye contact with her.

"What a clever little animal you are. You can put two and two together and get a coherent number," she said.

"You didn't answer my question, not that I thought you would," Qi said. "At least give me your name."

"Yahvi," she said.

"You have a beautiful name. How did such a skillful murderess come by such exquisiteness?" Qi thought he was on a roll.

"White man speak with devil's tongue," Yahvi said. "Your butt cheeks aren't near as taut as Apache Junction either. Listen well, Qi the Spy: I gave you the ride you requested and you now owe me payment in return. I will have my payment and no amount of manly charm is going to absolve you. Think on that while you rest. I will be back."

With that last statement, Yahvi turned on her heel and exited. After the door shut, Qi realized that she didn't make any sound when she walked. He watched her shoot Kern again with a swiftness that he couldn't quite grasp and he shuddered.

Levering himself up, he massaged his sore neck. He was sitting on a thick pallet that was laid out on the rough and scratched floor. In some places there were gouges in the floor as if something very heavy had dug into the plasteel material. The walls were the uniformly beige plasteek typical of storage areas and they were broken by vertical bars of hole-punched plasteel that would be used as anchors to tie and secure bulky items. At least Yahvi had left him a bucket in the corner.

The slight vibration in the walls informed Qi that he was on a spaceship. He had no clue how long he had been unconscious or if the ship had already phase-shifted out of the known universe. If his calculations were correct and they had been so far, he was going to be locked in this little room for five long weeks. The last of his observations was the little irony that the ship had stronger gravity than the TSC complex.

"I think this trip is going to make it a little more difficult to pass through Earth passport control," Qi said as he heaved himself up. The dizziness was not surprising but the nausea was. While keeping a hand on the wall to steady himself, Qi walked over to the bucket and relieved himself.

He retraced his steps and carefully lowered himself to the ground. They had dressed him in pajamas with lots of empty pockets and padded soft shoes. Qi approached the mat and with little else to do, he allowed himself to slip further onto the mat and close his eyes. When next he woke, he would learn more. Although the question of whether he had jumped from the frying pan into the fire flitted through his brain, he chose to ignore it as best he could.

The first time Qi was awakened from his nap, a middle-aged man was placing a tray of food and drink just inside the door. The second time, the same man took the tray away and placed a large bowl with a pitcher of warm water and a towel in its place.

"It's a begger's banquet and ball," Qi said to the walls. He realized that he was talking to a lot of walls and ceilings in the past weeks. He was concerned that it could become a normal part of his life. Hoping that he was giving the ship's crew a better show than the ones he gave the TSC security teams, he stripped down and gave himself a bath with the soap scrubby cloth he found in the bottom of the bowl. Standing in the bowl he carefully poured the water over him and washed the suds off. After a brisk rub with the towel, Qi felt a bit more human.

He redressed himself and settled down on the mat with his back against the wall to wait for his next visitor. He had gone through all of the pop songs that he could remember, even if he didn't know all of the words, when the door finally opened.

"Are spies always so fastidiously clean?" she asked while standing over him.

"This one is," Qi said. "One never knows when a beautiful woman is going to walk through the door. 'Be prepared!' is an ancient Earth motto."

"You know Earth customs," Yahvi commented.

"I'm a born and raised Earthling, darling," Qi said. "I'm not bragging though. I'm from the wrong side of the planet."

"Planets don't have sides – they are round," Yahvi said.

"You don't do coy well, Yahvi. I'm from the dirty, nasty and ignored corners of our beloved home world where people starve and kill and beg and do anything to stay alive. I'm the latest version of the original survivor. Hey, you've already seen my scars. Did you like the cigarette burn on the small of my back? Did you match it to the one on my inner thigh? Both were a gift from my Uncle Davos when my begging collection was short three days in a row."

"Bullshit," Yahvi said. "You lie like a spy. You want me to believe that the blessed Earthlings treat each other in such a brutal manner, that they beat, burn and terrorize their children? You speak fairy tales."