She nodded and went toward the machine. She reached into it and then said, “This is not something that you can see. Not only because you are not given to see what I do now, but because looking at what I bring forth as I bring it forth could blind you or drive you mad. Do not just close your eyes. Turn away.”
Turn away? Drake wanted to protest, and as he looked at the faces of the others, he saw that they did as well. But there was a clear warning in her voice, one that would not be denied, so one by one, they turned their backs and then closed their eyes. There was a loud ripping sound. The machine groaned as if it were a mortal thing that was being torn into bits. He could hear its death throes.
Lornia spoke. “We need to go to the gardens. I have to take things from there.”
Drake turned around. The machine lay broken and dead, its guts all strewn onto the floor. That it was broken so badly gave him a momentary pause. Lornia was already on the move, her lithe body so swift that he and the others found it hard to keep up with her.
Drake caught up finally and huffed out, “Whoa. Slow down.”
She didn’t look his way. “I can’t. Any minute now the gardens will go. There are things in there that must survive.”
He stopped in his tracks. Talon stepped onto the back of his boots, but Drake hardly noticed. Bile rose up in his throat, and his skin creeped along his bones. He got out, “What did you do?”
They stood there staring at the rows of human heads inside the clear glass bubbles of the chambers they had been preserved in. To Drake’s horror, one head’s eyes opened and stared at him. Lornia said, “It was not me. Franchine did that.”
Franchine? The founding and originating member of the Federation.
Jessica cried out, “My God! They’re still alive!”
Tara, Blade’s woman, choked and gagged as she tried to back away from the gruesome sight. Blade uttered a few swear words. Talon pressed closer, a frown coming up between his eyes. “How do they remain alive yet?”
Lornia said, “They don’t. They were hooked into the machine by Franchine. It was his bid to keep them alive. They were, I suppose, in some small way, but they could not speak nor move nor understand.”
Tara cried out, “Of course they couldn’t move! It’s just their heads!”
Drake, his dark humor once more breaking free said, “Why are all of you being so squeamish? Seeing the heads of the Federation’s leaders on spikes seems like a good thing to behold as far as I am concerned.”
But it was still a revolting thing, and his eyes went back to Lornia, and he asked, “Why didn’t you stop him?”
“I was in a cryo-chamber and not awake. When I did awaken, I found that he had done much worse to my people. Of them, nothing remains.”
The words landed in the distance between them. Drake read real rage in those words, and he knew then that she not only did not trust them, any of them, but her distrust might prove to be a hard thing to overcome.
And if Franchine had done worse to her people, he didn’t want to know what it was that that he had done.
The gardens eventually opened to their sight, and Drake stood there, awestruck as he took in the cavernous rooms with the hanging greenery, the deep and seemingly endless water in the middle of one room and the growing plants and food there.
Lornia said, “Fill your packs, and not just with foods. I need those,” she indicated a long twisting fruit vine, “the vine and the fruit.”
She began to gather things. Drake did too. He took part of vines and much fruit and other things. He had no idea what they were, and he didn’t care. She had said she needed them and he was determined to get as many of the things that she needed as possible.
That he should not really care about what she needed crossed his mind. It was unlike him to be so obsessed with a woman’s wants and needs. He was though, and time passed quickly as they gathered and cut and stowed away the things Lornia said she needed the most of.
Finally, he said, “We have to go. I don’t know how much time has gone by since we crossed the threshold of this place but I know time’s different here. We can’t afford to tarry too long. We might return to our universe to find that the war ended without us being in it.”
Lornia said, “Outside of Tralam, time goes on as always, but you’re right. In here it’s strange and different. You will find the war still raging though, of that I have no doubt.”
Tara muttered, “What a pity that would be.”
Drake tended to agree with the emotion behind those sarcastic words.
