Welcome to Percotran -Part XXXIII

By Richard Davidson

“You! You were the man I saw in Worker 2567A’s mind!” Thawala shouted upon seeing Alexander, as the Bahini brought him aboard, spears pressed against his mighty neck.

They marched him to the second deck, and proceeded to shackle and chain him.

“Sir, this couldn’t possibly be a Sailor of the Percotran Navy,” the Chief Naval Warrior was informing the Shaman. “Everything about him says Cellulex Spy. He’s probably a very dangerous man.”

They had taken him without a fight, after shelling his Watercraft to uselessness. At the moment, it was on its way to the bottom of the sea.

The Shaman forced a vision, shuddered, and said, “put a mind reducer on him. We have other things to deal with right now.”

Mind reducing technology had been abandoned by the big corporations centuries ago, because of its tendency to cause Brain Atrophy Simplex I, which basically turned the subject’s mind to mush.

However, the Bahini had been perfecting it for centuries, and could usually suppress instinct and rational thought for up to 35 hours with no damage to the subject whatsoever, provided the subject was reasonably healthy, and hadn’t been drinking the night before.

Two warriors routinely clamped Thawala’s head in a large vice designed for just such a purpose, and an Engineering Warrior installed two metal bolts into his temples, with a cordless drill.

Thawala winced, and his eyes may have moistened just a bit when the 3/4 inch studs penetrated his skull, but for the most part, he was a brave soldier, whose mother would have been proud.

A small Tinganium band was mounted in a circle around his head, supported on those metal bolts. As soon as the Engineering Warrior tightened the last bolt, it let out a little hum, and glowed a pleasant green color, as the intense look on Thawala’s face evaporated into the blank stare of a Viewscreen Addict.

“Chain him to the Bulkhead,” ordered the Chief Naval Warrior.

“You’re just going to leave him out on the deck all night?” Alexander protested.

“The soft hum, and glow of the Mind Reducer is very soothing for the men,” he answered politely. “He makes a good night light. Good for morale.”

The Shaman was racing up and down the deck, gesticulating wildly.

“Some fool has set off a Thermal Detonator, only a few degrees from the Southern Icecap,” he shouted.

Alexander didn’t know what that meant, exactly.

“We’re going to be hit by a big tidal wave, that will be filled with razor sharp shards of ice.”

The Shaman hated to alliterate like that, but this senseless dog language just made you want to do that.

“How long’ve we got?” Alexander asked, noticing he and the Shaman were the only two people left on the upper deck. Everybody else had sprung into action, preparing to either deal with an emergency or die.

“Not long enough.”

“Do you think the explosion had anything to do with him?” Alexander asked, motioning towards the big Geneticon.

“I don’t care,” shouted the Shaman. “I simply don’t care about things like that, because I’m going to die now, and if all was right with the world, so would you, along with me, but I fear no matter what happens; no matter what we do, you’re just going to keep on squeaking by, carried on the wings of nothing more than fate and dumb luck.”

“Can’t you turn into a fish, or something?” asked Alexander, curious.

“If I did, I’d probably simply die as a fish, instead of a Human Being,” the Shaman replied, sounding just a little bit negative.

“You know, there has been somewhat of a dark cloud around you since day one,” observed Alexander suddenly. “I think I’ll go for a swim.”

He walked a few steps towards the iron railing on the deck, and then turned.

“But tell me one thing, before I go.”

“What is that?” said the Shaman.

“Tell me what you know about the little people.”

“The people on your farm, all those years ago?”

“Yes. Tell me about them.”

The Shaman laughed. Not his witchy, sinister laugh, but a genuine laugh of amusement.

“Your sense betray you badly, my friend. They have always done so. You might be getting better, out here in the real world, but I would never count on such a thing.”

“Well, you probably won’t have to,” Alexander was fast growing impatient.

From across the deck, near the Stern, Kasheeba was watching intently. She didn’t like the body language she was seeing from Alexander at the moment.

“He’s gonna jump!” she thought, pleasantly surprised at the little man’s bravery.

“Weren’t you amazed at the grace with which your little people moved?” asked the Shaman, smiling wickedly.

Alexander had to acknowledge that indeed, he had been.

He could see Kasheeba charging him, and began inching closer to the railing.

She was only a few feet away, as he perched there long enough for the Shaman to finish.

“No!” shouted Kasheeba, as Alexander disappeared over the rail, and then, before the sound of Alexander’s splash echoed back up to the deck, she too had sailed over the edge.

As Alexander plummeted into the icy depths, the Shaman’s last words to him rang clearly in his mind.

“Your little people were deer.”

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