“As you wish, Father.” The gray skinned man bowed stoically and bent to lift Torri’s limp form into his arms once more. “I will bring her back when she has calmed.”
And he carried her away, still sobbing.
Forty-Nine
Vic was in a bright place—a place full of warmth and light and the soft rustling sound of leaves. Delicious scents perfumed the air—essences of exotic fruit and flowers—and sunshine caressed his face. The soft, burbling sound of a stream running over rocks reached his ears, along with faint strains of gentle music.
Where am I? He looked around himself uncertainly. His surroundings looked a little like the Sacred Grove aboard the Mother Ship, which he hadn’t visited in years. But why was he here and how had he come here?
“Do not trouble yourself with such questions, warrior, murmured a soft but strong feminine voice. “Come to the fountain.”
The fountain in question suddenly appeared before him—a broad silver disk sitting on a white marble stone pillar. It was filled with cool, clear water that shimmered like gold in the sunlight. Vic walked towards it and felt the cool, ticklish sensation of grass under his feet. Looking down, he realized that he was barefoot. In fact, he was altogether naked for some reason.
“Do not worry about your state of undress, warrior,” the soft feminine voice said. “For after death, all must enter the holy presence of the Goddess as bare as the day they were born. Naked we come into the world and naked we must leave it.”
“After death?” Vic asked, as he walked forward. “I don’t understand—I’m not dead.”
“I fear that you are, warrior,” the voice said. “For you have passed through the gate from the previous world into the next. You are now in the Garden of the Goddess.”
Looking up, Vic saw that the voice belonged to a beautiful woman with strong yet delicate features and long, flowing hair. He couldn’t say what color her eyes or skin or hair were, though—they seemed to be all colors at once, flowing into one another. She was standing in front of the silver and marble fountain, dressed in long white robes, waiting for him.
“But…I can’t be here,” Vic protested. “I am not fully organic—I was grown in an artificial womb—not born. How can I enter the Garden of the Goddess when I am an artificial life form?”
“You were artificial—before your positronic net went off-line,” the beautiful woman told him. “But in the time when it was damaged, your organic side took over and you began to act and think and behave as a true warrior does. You cried out to me when the female you cared for was threatened—do you not remember?”
Vic remembered being trapped by the bolted door of his room back in St. Elizabeth’s—remembered hearing Torri’s frightened sobbing and knowing that he had to get to her. He recalled the frantic prayer he had sent up—the prayer which had been answered…
But all that only reminded him of the terrible situation he had left the curvy little Earth female in—alone aboard the Fathership with no one to guard her.
“If I am in the Garden of the Goddess, then I truly must be dead. But how can I protect Torri if I am dead?” he asked.
“Alas, warrior—you cannot protect her. She is beyond your reach,” the lovely woman said softly.
Vic fell to his knees before the woman.
“Goddess,” he said—for it must be the Goddess he was speaking to. “Goddess, please—I cannot leave her alone in such a terrible place! Send me back to protect her!”
The Goddess’s eyes softened and she reached out to touch Vic lightly on the brow.
“Truly, though you started your existence as barely more than a machine, you have grown into a true son of mine, warrior. The fact that you can love so deeply proves your right to be here, in my garden.”
“Your garden is a lovely place, but I don’t belong here—not yet,” Vic could hear the pleading in his own hoarse voice. “I can’t stay here—please, Goddess-send me back!”
The Goddess sighed.
“If I send you, you will face much peril, warrior. You may die again or be caught and tortured in your quest to save your female.”
Vic lifted his chin.
“I don’t care—I don’t care about anything but saving her. And if I can’t, I’ll die trying just like I did before! She’s all that matters to me, Goddess.”
“Your courage and fidelity shall be rewarded,” the Goddess murmured. Dipping her fingers in the silver bowl of crystal-clear water, she flicked the cool droplets over Vic’s face with a light motion of her slender fingers. “Go then, warrior. Be swift and silent. Save your female. And then you must bring the Mother Ship as quickly as you can. There is an evil force trying to keep my children, the Kindred, from coming to the Earth—trying to change things which have already been and which must be in the future.”
Vic didn’t understand these last words about the future, and he didn’t get a chance to ask her what the evil force was. The beautiful garden was fading all around him, the sights and sounds melting like snow in the sun.
The Goddess’s face, filled with wisdom and beauty and strength, was the last thing he saw before he woke once more to the living world.
Fifty
Vic woke to find that his chest ached and someone had covered his face with a cloth. It was heavy and dark and it reeked of chemicals. His first instinct was to bat it away from his face, but then he heard the voices.
“A Kindred scout, you say?” one asked.
“Yes, Doctor. The AllFather has requested an immediate dissection,” the second voice—this one familiar to Vic—replied. “The Earth female who was with him is presently in the dungeons. She was too hysterical after his death for the AllFather to scan her, but we must know what the Kindred are planning.”
“I will see if I can learn anything about the Kindred’s motives from the scout’s positronic brain and memory banks,” the first voice promised. “How soon does the AllFather require results?”
“As soon as possible. We are nearly to Earth’s atmosphere. As soon as we reach them, we can begin firebombing the strongholds of their various leaders and razing their major cities to the ground. Once their leaders are dead, the rest of the humans should be fearful enough to do as they are told.”
“Very well—I shall get right to work,” the second voice—presumably belonging to the “doctor” whoever he was—replied.
“See that you do.” The first voice must belong to the male who had appeared on the com-link’s viewscreen, Vic thought. “You can experiment on the body and harvest the DNA later—I know how you love to make your monstrosities in the Flesh Vats and for some reason my father indulges you. But first you must get him any information that might still reside in the brain.”
“It shall be done,” the doctor replied. “Leave me now—let me work.”
The first voice didn’t reply. Instead, there was a sound like boots on a metal floor and then a door closed with a muted thud.
Alone, Vic thought. I’m alone with him now and he’s going to try to dissect me.