Titan's Plague: The Trial by Tom Briggs (story reading .txt) đź“•
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- Author: Tom Briggs
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“Not me, one of our people.”
“Why would I do that?”
“For this reason,” he said, and as he finished the statement, a wave of ecstasy flowed through her. Just like the other times, only stronger, more powerful.
“Isn’t this what you desire?” she heard Richard, or Mr. Temujin, ask.
She couldn’t respond. She could only feel the high, so much like the pain drugs she had received after breaking her leg as a child.
“Is she ready?” Pati heard. It was the child’s voice she heard in her dreams.
“That is up to her. I think she is enjoying the experience, aren’t you, Pati?” he said.
“Yes.”
“Then you want to come with us, don’t you?”
She did, only what about her family on Earth? She got the distinct feeling that saying yes now would mean she would never see them again.
“Pati, you must think of yourself, of your own pleasure. Nobody will ever give you pleasure like this,” he said.
He was right, and yet, did the ecstasy lessen as he said it? The feeling was still more wonderful than anything she had ever experienced, but because it was less, she felt some depression. She focused again on her family, and the ecstasy lessened even more.
“You don’t know what you’re doing, Pati,” he said.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“You don’t want to regret this,” he said. “You are being offered an eternity of bliss. To live here on Titan as if you were in the heaven you think about. It can all happen right now.”
“I want to go home,” she said. She saw the girl standing next to her, on her right. Richard/Temujin stayed to her front. He looked very upset.
“This is what you can expect if you leave,” he said. The ecstasy left her, and deep depression filled the void. She no longer wanted to live, because she felt so sad. There was no reason to be sad; she felt sad anyway. And sad was too light a word. It felt as though someone in her family died, that a psychological crutch had been pulled out from her.
“This is what you can expect if you go back to Earth,” he said.
“I’m going back to Earth,” she replied. Depression or not, she knew what she wanted.
“You won’t get away from me another time. Our person nearly killed you outside the walls, and if you don’t join us, you’ll be dead before you leave here. You should accept the better fate.”
“No!” she screamed. She jumped from her chair and launched herself at the being that looked like Richard McLear. As her hands approached his throat, he sneered. Then, she was in a mist of white and felt a cushion below her.
Pati popped her head up from the pillow. She’d rolled over in her sleep, and from a prone position swung her head as far around as it’d go, and back the other way.
They were there in the room. Reddish-orange apparitions hovering next to her bed, in approximately the same locations as they’d been in her dream. They didn’t stay long; she watched them move through the air to the end of her bed, and together they disappeared into the wall.
She rolled over again as they left, sat up, and with her right hand, rubbed her eyes. She checked the time; it was almost four in the morning. She’d been asleep for about five hours. Was the dream that long?
It didn’t matter, the thing that tried to kill her had come back. Somehow, it’d gotten into her head and affected her dreams.
But what could she do about it?
* * *
“We need to talk,” Pati said. She’d called Nancy after she woke up, and Nancy had just appeared on the screen. She must have taken a minute to straighten her hair, because otherwise, she couldn’t have been sleeping. Low gravity solved many human problems, keeping yourself picture-perfect while sleeping was not one of them.
“Hey, ah, what’s going on?” Nancy said.
“I was contacted by the aliens again, this time in my room.”
Nancy’s face tightened. “Pati, we’re not on a secure line.”
“It’s okay, I’ve got to tell someone, and soon. This can’t wait.”
“Your final hearing is next week. It can wait till after then.”
“No, it can’t, you see—”
“Stop talking, right now!” Nancy ordered.
Nancy looked busy at her workstation. Pati didn’t have a similar arrangement in her apartment and had to use the video screen in the living room to contact people. Pati waited about a minute, and Nancy returned her attention to Pati. “I engaged a security service for the call. It’s not cheap, but it’ll keep our communications from being tapped.”
“Okay, that sounds good, for now.”
“Speaking of now, do you know what time it is? On a Saturday morning, no less.”
“Yeah, you see, I just had a dream.”
“A dream!”
“No, that’s not just it. You see, Nancy, I was dreaming, kind of like the other dreams I’ve been having. And you see, it all ended, and I saw those things like I saw on my ship, when that thing that pretended to be my ex-husband appeared to me, except, there were two of them.”
“What did they look like?”
“It was the same, goldish-red kind of glowing objects, smaller than us, I think, and they floated.”
“Uh-huh,” Nancy answered.
“Then, after I woke up, and saw them in the room, they floated through the wall and out of my bedroom.”
Nancy hadn’t moved a facial muscle. “No records of this event, I expect,” she said.
“No, I don’t turn that on in my bedroom, why would I? I mean, most people don’t, and why would I expect something like this to happen to me.”
“Those aliens might return, then?”
“No, I don’t think so. The conversations we had, the ones in my dreams, I don’t think they were happy.” Pati paused for a second. “Do you think they might be who’s trying to kill me?”
“Pati, unfortunately, there’s no shortage of people who might want you dead. Could be someone with the McLears, or with Bruno Redden’s family. Maybe one of the twins had a girlfriend we never discovered or a long-lost friend. And nobody is going to be sympathetic with a former Marie Antoinette who fell from her lofty position.”
Pati stared back at the screen. “That wasn’t nice.”
“Yeah, okay, you’re right. Sorry about that, it’s just that you got me up early on a Saturday and, to be honest, Pati, I not sure what I can tell you that I haven’t told you already. No matter what happens, unless you come up with some real proof, proof other than your personal witness, you can’t go public with this before your final hearing.”
“Yeah, but they might be trying to kill me. First, there are a lot of unanswered questions about my ship’s life support going south if we don’t have an alien taking credit to kill me. Then, there’s the sabotaged rebreather, again, a lot of unanswered questions, and maybe we have a possessed person like what happened to my ex-husband. And, I’m pretty sure that’s what the aliens wanted with me just now. They said they wanted me to join with them, except I wanted to go back to Earth too bad, and…”
Nancy, again, didn’t move a facial muscle.
Pati decided not to ask Nancy if she believed her. “These things keep happening to me,” she said, “and I’m not crazy. You could have used that as a defense if that possibility existed.”
“Yeah, I know, you’re not crazy. That’s why it’s so difficult to dismiss what you’re saying, which I’m not doing. I have to consider your legal case first. Which I believe I’m right in doing.”
“Nancy, you see, these dreams—”
“Are dreams, Pati. We have zero proof to justify any statements you make about your dreams, and while we can certify you’re not crazy, it will be far better if we don’t have to go that route in the first place.”
“Nancy, I have to do something.”
Nancy paused, she did move her facial muscles though and seemed in thought. “Okay, we can talk about who you want to see after we settle with Jack Reagan this week.”
“You want to wait that long to discuss it?”
“No, we can discuss it on Monday morning. I just don’t want you speaking about this to anyone until after we settle with him on Tuesday.”
“Then, we won’t be getting in front of the JJ next Thursday for a final hearing?”
“Well, I don’t want to beat Jack Reagan up too bad. As long as you’re good with a month or so of labor dedicated to the state.”
“I’m good, as long as I don’t have to go out on an ice-miner again.”
“I think we
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