Chapter 28
Excerpt from Darc's notebook, Julla (July), 940 A.M.:
DAY 2
Pulled through my second day among the Lepers - OK health, just tense and upset stomach. Shara shows no sign of illness either.
(Hair falling out in clumps. Maybe that glowing rock has something to do with it.)
Started out with basic field observations. Once the natives grow less suspicious, I'll try taking blood samples and such.
(Then I'll sell them glass beads and gin. They won't know what hit'em! Nya ha haa!)
ITEM: All Lepers live in family-like groups.
(Known as "families.")
But how can they know who is related to whom, when all children have different deformities?
(Um.... by their last names?)
Seems like the children have the same eye-color as their parents - this could be a clue to the nature of the Plague. Make a map of eye-color matches.
ITEM: How can these people survive?
(Without minimum-wage Mexicans to mow their lawns, work on their farms and raise their kids?)
Must determine their infant mortality rate. Add lacking medicine and primitive housing to their defects, and the figure should get high.
(Higher than Detroit?)
Their willpower is admirable. Saw a man with no eyes, and no jaw (named "NO-JAW" in their own tongue) - he had learned to talk by cupping one hand under his tongue, as a replacement jaw. Another Leper, with a wide-open throat so he cannot speak, leads him around. Fantastic!
(Behold: America's next President and Vice-President!)
("You may already have won!")
An escape from Damon City is being prepared for you. Wait for a signal. You will be taken to the castle hangar, and flown to another city where you are accepted as a refugee of high standing.
("P.S.: I borrowed your car over the weekend.")
Dohan pondered the message for a time; he certainly did not trust it. His father held the key to the main hangar port. How would they open the castle hangar without alerting the entire castle? It was practically always guarded.
(For sloppy home security, you can always rely on Generic Lazy Guards Inc.!)
And the laser artillery could strafe any craft during its takeoff - unless it was raining, which usually blocked out the beams.
(So lasers are pretty useless, then?)
The monsoon was at least a month ahead, and the sky was cloudless.
(And the writer was clueless.)
But the most suspect suggestion was the phrase "another city". Dohan started to feel the prickling of anger in his skin. This had to be Tharlos Pasko's doing, trying to lure Dohan into another prison - or, more likely, death. Dohan was not going to accept the plan, yet he had to do something to reveal the traitor inside the family household.
("Everyone who's a traitor, raise your hands!")
He thought about Andon Pasko. No, he was too obvious - confound it, everyone suspected Andon.
("What's 'Confound it' mean?" - "It's how people said 'F*** it' in the Middle Ages.")
It had to be someone else, someone who escaped Bor Damon's attention. Librian? His assistant, Awonso? Bwynn? Azuch Fache? An officer? The court physician?
(Waldo?)
Who was always close to Bor, at all times? Dohan's own mother?
The thought sent a cold shiver down the young warrior's spine. He could only wait and see.
(INTENSE... WAIT AND SEE... ACTION!!)
("Saigon... shit. I was still in Saigon.")
DAY 3
I was right: Leper children always inherit the eye-color of their parents - even if the eyes sometimes grow in the wrong places. This could mean the deformities aren't inherited, or at least aren't spread over the entire genetic makeup. A limited gene damage stands a better chance of repair.
(So there's still hope for Michael Bay?)
Bad news: They say the Plague spreads by skin contact. If that's true, Shara and I are done for. But the defects on the Lepers do appear from birth, hence they are genetic - it doesn't add up.
(Carry the ten, and get the square root of... no, it doesn't add up.)
Possible explanations:
A) The Plague isn't inherited genetically, but may still spread through sexual contact - i.e. the virus is carried by every mother, so that the babies get it in the womb. That might explain some of the large deformities - the damage simply started early on.
(In high school cafeterias.)
B) The Plague is a genetic mutation, inherited from parent to child. (No risk for me or Shara, then.)
C) Other explanation. Radioactive/chemical poisoning of the water? Unlikely, they don't seem to have many cancer cases.
(D: They Super-Sized themselves.)
ITEM: Make a list of cancer and leukemia frequency. I must find the common denominator to the deformities. I owe it to these poor outcasts, especially that child with the twisted legs - it can't walk, or survive in life, with legs like that.
(Except in Amsterdam. You wouldn't believe what freaks can survive there.)
Now I understand the city-people's fear of genetic engineering. Whoever started this, knew what he was doing. The Plague is the ultimate crime against mankind.
(After Jack Kevorkian getting a hug on 60 Minutes.)
This was not her first attempt in the last few days. Bor frequently moved around the city, and exchanged daily messages with his allies; something was afoot. An armed soldier and Surabot stood on guard outside Bor's door.
She put on her most concerned face, and pleaded to see her father - it worked.
([Girlish voice] "If you don't let me in, I'll tell Dad I caught you sniffing his underwear!")
The soldier let her in. Surabot's glowing visorplate kept scanning in her direction until the heavy door closed between her and the machine. Eveli barely noticed the machine's presence.
(In the future, the hard work of being an overlooked minority is done by robots.)
She found her father in a sad state of personal decay, quite apart from his normal strict appearance. He had hardly shaved in days; his eyes were red and haggard.
(Ted and haggard?)
He sat in his study without his jacket on, in spite of it being the middle of the day, and his shirt was crumpled. When Bor caught sight of his daughter, dressed in a modest dark riding dress, he sat up to attention and smiled at her.
"My, you look like a full-grown lady, my little Evelily!"
(This whole scene could have been cut out of the book. Seriously!)
Eveli loathed that nickname - it was for children - but she greeted him with an innocent smile. Then, quickly, she flung herself at him, and launched a veritable assault of cute mannerisms.
("General! Our right flank is being assaulted with cute mannerisms, and the men are vomiting out of control!")
"I am going for a ride in the park and to the city, dear father. Would you please, please come out and watch me? You haven't been outside for days - I have learned to jump with the horse higher than you have ever seen. Please, father?"
("Pretty pretty please, with ****ing sugar on top...")
Lord Damon sighed wearily and rubbed his head. She was still a little angelic child to him, and breaking her heart was the last thing he wanted to do.
(So it was with great reluctance he broke her heart and stomped on the shattered remains.)
"I wish I had the time," he said. "So much to do, when I should be with -"
Something stopped him - perhaps the thought of his other child. He frowned, and lifted up the young girl like she was a doll.
(By one arm?? The fiend!)
He hugged Eveli in a crushing embrace, and mumbled in her ear: "One day, I hope you shall forgive me for the damage done to our family by my hand. You are the only one who never betrayed me. My dear, dear child."
("And what is this knife doing in my back, with your hand around it?")
Gently, he dropped her and slumped back on his chair. Eveli took his big hand in her small, delicate ones, and sat down by his feet with worry in her face.
"What is it, father? Is it the war?"
("The War on Drugs? The War on Terror? Or the War on War?")
"Yes," he said with a shrug of his head. "Our old allies are in disarray, each of them going their own way.
(Well, they are old...)
It is all the fault of him!
(The archenemy of the Powerpuff Girls!)
I saved him from certain death! Let him into my home! I trusted him to sit at my table, befriend my family! And he stained our name, our reputation!"
("Our tablecloth!")
His fist, unexpectedly, clenched Eveli's hand; she yelped. Bor started, horrified that he had hurt her.
"Forgive me, Evelily!" he begged, his voice almost breaking - Eveli was shocked, and moved.
([Girlish voice] "S'allright Dad, it's only a minor compund fracture...")
She changed her mind in that instant; she could not bring herself to deceive him.
"Don't be sad, father," she told him. "I am sure there is a solution, if you just stop and see... just stop and see..."
Eveli stopped there. Had she had the courage, she would have said: If you just stop and see that Darc is our friend. But it seemed to her as if an invisible fog was smothering their minds, preventing them from thinking further.
(Damn that invisible fog! It's impossible not to see right through it!)
A little later she stood up and left, carrying with her a half-hearted promise from Bor: he would attend her riding course the next day. Eveli had failed to get the vital information she needed from him, and her hopes sank.
(Clive Cussler's Raise the Hopes!)
She went to her room, and waited for her governess and maids to come and occupy her mind with empty chatter.
(Bla, bla, bla, Clothes! Bla, bla, bla, Families! Bla, bla, bla, Marriage!)
She realized that her home had become a prison.
("I'm not a number! I'm a free girl!")
DARC AGES (c)A.R.Yngve 1995, 2000, 2004. All rights reserved. May not be copied without permission.
______________
A.R.Yngve
The MSTing Of
DARC AGES
Book 2 1/2: The Smell Of Fear
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("Those goddamn kids are playing soccer on my lawn again...")
Dohan received another concealed note with his morning meal:
- A friend
Excerpt from Darc's notebook, Julla (July), 940 A.M.:
Bor Damon was slumbering in his rooms, when Eveli got to meet him in private.
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