The Starchild Page 5

  Even from here, I could still hear the howling winds beating against the walls of this part of the workshop. The place creaked and moaned in time with the storm and I started to wonder if I had actually come at a very bad time. Or this was…a sense of really bad timing?

  With no more leads to go on, I decided to retrace my path back to my original starting point and begin with Bay Three across the hall from the sleeping alcove–instead of Bay One.

  Just as before, darkness greeted me as I resumed my search for my mentor and teacher–even with the palm light at my disposal.

  “Calis?” I called out then. There was simply no answer to my immediate summons.

  I started becoming more impatient now and not because I just turned eighteen a week ago today. But then I remembered the old man telling me late last month about some “big project” he was about to embark on and I started to think (to myself anyways) that this is what he was talking about.

  And why he pulled such a big disappearing act too!

  My search in this bay turned up nothing either.

  “Hell’s bells…!” I breathed with mounting rage. “Where the fuck are you?!?”

  The only thing that answered me in hindsight was the raging storm above my head. The ceiling boomed in response–shaking free a bit of collected dust particles and dirt in retrospect.

  Some of which rained down on top of me.

  “Gross.” I said in disgust, dusting myself off, then shaking my head to get rid of anything else that might have landed on me.

  Then I sighed dejectedly–not wanting to believe my run of bad luck.

  “I suppose…I could just wait here for him to return. But then again, there’s no telling when he’ll be showing up either.” I reasoned to myself then.

  But I was beyond throwing a fit for this very reason. I wasn’t fourteen anymore. Let alone twelve. Even ten by my reckoning. And mom did mention to me last week that I was one step closer to becoming a full fledged adult.

  So there was that too.

  Huge responsibility. Simply huge in my book.

  But first…I had to find the old man and chew him out for my little ongoing treasure hunt.

  “So if I were him, where would I be right now–if not inside the workshop?” I postulated slowly.

  I turned my attention towards the rear of this work bay, towards the emergency exit and the haphazardly lit exit sign directly above it.

  Then it hit me like a blaster bolt out of the blue.

  “Heh.” I chuckled. “Makes sense. Why didn’t I think about it?”

  He had to be out back. That was the only logical place he could really be at this hour. And this time of day.

  Without giving it much thought, I started walking a bit more briskly in the blind hope that I would finally be able to put an end to this mess. So I bypassed the lurking shadows belonging to the metal machine presses sitting parked in the middle of the bay itself, the gigantic gyro balancers located above the two open repair pits beneath my feet (which I managed to avoid falling through), and kept going towards the direction of the emergency door itself–not even caring about my surroundings at that point.

  Big mistake.

  One of which I would be paying for in the next few seconds in fact–because I had tuned my hearing to the sand particles repeatedly raining down on the roof above my head.

  So my immediate thoughts were on the storm and not what was in front of me. Or precisely…what was on the floor at that very moment.

  And because of my lapse in judgment, I tripped over something heavy and metallic in the process. I didn’t even have time to process what was happening as I stumbled around and fell–losing my hand light on top of that.

  It went bouncing and clattering on the hard cold floor and then spun wildly around for good measure.

  That’s when I smashed both of my shins into an exposed (and half buried) T-bar that nobody told me about the last time I was here.

  Not even Calis!

  I cried out in total pain and agony, shocked to the core on how this fucking hurt. But I was laying on my back now and nursing both shins with my hands and arms and crying, mewling, and hissing to beat the band.

  All I could feel was the painful throb of my tender flesh being violated so succinctly and nobody was around to help pick me back up.

  Hot tears came pouring out of both eyes as I continued to suffer in silence–my mind in a state of chaos. I couldn’t even think straight for the first couple of minutes. All I could think about was the pain.

  The mother fucking pain!

  “Calis…!” I managed through gritted teeth. “I swear on my father’s grave…! You’re so dead!”

  It took precious minutes for the pain to finally subside and for me to start thinking clearly (and rationally) again.

  But I wasn’t able to move much until a few minutes after that. It took some supreme effort to get back up without squeaks of pain coming out of my mouth for each and every time I tried to sit on my bruised legs–but only managed to get on both knees instead.

  Turning around in a full circle, I spotted my hand lamp and crawled over to it in passing. Picking it up, I also encountered something sharp under one hand and went to brush it off.

  Using the lamp, I checked the offending spot in question and found out that the entire area around me was littered with metal fragments of all conceivable sizes, discarded machinery parts, and other things that I recognized from my time being here.

  Rubbing my face in mutual embarrassment, I muttered: “Calis…you can be such a pig sometimes. Worse than my younger brother. And that’s saying a lot.”

  My legs now ached, which just served me as a cold reminder of this new discovery.

  But I also remembered the early days of my now cherished childhood where I would hate the old man too–often for no apparent reason.

  That’s how far back our love/hate relationship with one another dated.

  But over time, that love and hate eventually changed over to friendly exchanges, camaraderie on a personal and professional level, and eventually…? A full accounting of our relationship with each other as teacher and student.

  No, I could not genuinely hate the old man because of how I felt about him in the interim. With my dad now gone, he was like a second father to me. He was always there for me, supporting me, giving me encouragement, while at the same time, cracking the whip, being firm, being unrelenting, strict, and a lot of things which escaped my attention even now.

  So it’s not like I could be completely angry with him forever you know. That’s not how our relationship really worked in real life.

  That’s not how I worked either.

  So with that in mind, I proceeded towards the emergency door–debris free mind you–and pushed in the handle; half-expecting it to open for me.

  It didn’t.

  I blinked in response to this new development.

  It didn’t? I repeated inside my head. What the heck?

  I pushed on it again, this time using some of my overtly famous upper body strength that got the job done.

  Still nothing.

  I stepped back for a moment, thinking I might be at the wrong door. I mean, anything was possible–right?

  But this was also the only door which led out to the old man’s enclosed junkyard out back which contained numerous scrapped hover tanks, auto-frames and some other shit that didn’t even have a proper name for yet.

  “Oh-kay…what do I do now?” I wondered out loud–seeing that the only way out was permanently blocked.

  In answer, something screamed overhead like a plethora of banshee missiles going off and the entire shop took a direct hit from above.

  I staggered back in alarm–thinking that the worst just happened and I was dead meat either way. Then I got the biggest surprise of my life when the emergency door popped open ever so slightly and then was violently ripped off its hinges by something incredible and sucked out into the roaring maelstrom itself–never to be seen again.


  On top of that, some tremendous crashing noise could be heard in the distance and I really thought that’s where the world would end for pretty much everyone and everything.

  Of course, I was no position to argue. In fact, I didn’t the time to mount any kind of a defense against myself because in the next split second, some great force sucked me out of the rear of the shop and threw me bodily into the air.

  I was fucking airborne people!

  Lucky me, I didn’t end up going very far. But I hit the ground pretty damned hard when I came back down–bouncing, rolling, and then skimming across the sand like a smooth rock.

  I only managed to stop towards the end because I had hit something pretty damned hard and rolled sideways again in the opposite direction–throwing up sand everywhere in the process.

  Whatever took me out with the trash was clearly not done with me yet. But when I looked again, I could vaguely see the outlines of some old packing crates that stood out like silent guardians to the wind.

  I couldn’t even find the strength to speak. I was in such a daze at the moment. But because of the storm’s intensity, visibility around me was practically zero.

  Then my stomach decided to rebel then and I felt this unnaturally powerful urge to throw up whatever I had for breakfast this morning.

  I dry heaved for a couple of rounds in response–thinking that vomiting was a better alternative than the sharp shooting pains in my back right now.

  But all I got on this return flight was me burping up some more of the same powdered egg stuff I had reconstituted on my plate through the magic of re-hydration and the family’s water rations.

  “Oh god…” I whispered in quiet agony. “I feel like–” and stopped for a moment to cough up some really nasty bile–which I spit out in front of me of course.

  I lay there for a few moments, even as the storm raged around me.

  I did not feel good at all. And my back hurt to beat the band. I didn’t think I was going to get up this time around with some form of assistance.

  So I just laid there in a huddled mess and listening to the howling winds, the blowing sand whipping over me in a frenzy, and everything else on top of that.

  I did not like this at all. But at least from my perspective, I wasn’t too far away from the shop. I could see something of a pulsating light in the distance and I believed that’s where my goal currently lay.

  But I could not take any more direct hits like that even if I was able to get up and move. Right now, I was just recovering my strength and spent energy.

  When I looked up again, I found that the light had moved just a little bit closer than it had before. And for that brief moment, I thought I had also suffered serious eye injury on top of everything else.

  I definitely thought it was a hallucination! A torturous figment of my imagination!

  Closing my eyes against the storm, I hunkered down between the two shipping crates the best I could–thinking I had no choice but to wait until things subsided a little and then moved to try again.

  To try and get up.

  That’s when I heard a voice call out to me and the sensation of someone shaking me.

  ~6~

  For one foggy moment, I thought I was back home, back in bed, and having my mom doing the same thing to me–as this unknown person was doing right now.

  “Isis?” The gravelly voice echoed loudly in the storm’s wake. “Isis!”

  I tried to move, tried to bat the hand away from me–but I just didn’t have the strength.

  “Okay, don’t move! I got you!” The same reassuring voice told me in response, before I felt myself being picked up bodily off the ground and carried through the storm’s wrath itself.

  I didn’t think it was even possible. The storm was just too strong…too powerful and yet this person (whoever he was) carried me effortlessly through it all.

  I couldn’t even see where I was even going. I was literally storm blind at this point in time. There was nothing around me to grab a hold of and–

  “Almost there, Isis. Almost there.” The same voice cut through my jumbled thoughts.

  “How…how are you doing this?” I managed to get out on my own. But I was still pretty weak and I didn’t have any real idea of what happened to me.

  “No talking now. Just stay quiet. Please.” The same person begged of me, before we finally reached the place in question and it turned out to be one of Calis’s extra work sheds.

  The old man stepped inside with his burden and lay me on the floor carefully. I still could not even move and so I just lay there like a marionette doll with all of her strings cut.

  The wind still blew through and made a mess of my hair, but everything ceased the moment my teacher and mentor closed the door behind him and locked the door for safekeeping.

  Turning around, he faced me with open concern and worry.

  “When the first microburst hit the shop, I wasn’t expecting you to be inside.” He explained to me in passing, before bending down to check me out.

  I gazed up at the old man with a momentary look of shock and astonishment.

  “Is…that what happened?” I asked weakly, before hissing in pain when Calis touched my right side. He pulled away for a moment and sat back.

  “Yes. But the second microburst…that’s what sucked you out into the junkyard.”

  “I remember the door flying off and then landing somewhere.” I shared with him at that point–even as Calis gently hiked up that part of my t-shirt to check on a personal hunch.

  Tenderly, he ran his cold fingers along my hot and feverish skin and I winced again.

  “It…hurts. Feels like something’s busted.” I told him.

  “I can’t tell if it’s a rib or a torn muscle.” The old man informed me sparingly. “I would have to get the spare medical kit that’s above your head and do a preliminary medical scan.”

  I tried not to laugh at my own foolish stupidity–and current predicament–but I did it anyways. Just so that I could feel good again.

  Calis smiled at me in return. “At least you’re alive, Isis. The last time I had to treat you, you were pretty much unconscious to the world.”

  I took a deep breath. Or at least one that didn’t have my sides killing me at this very moment.

  “Don’t remind me, old man.” I said with a hiss of pain. “I still owe Matt Barlow a kick to the head for cheating me out of three hundred credits and a power junction converter.”

  My mentor and teacher returned with the medical kit a minute later and opened it.

  “First…?” he announced, taking something out. “Something for the pain.”

  “Please.” I practically begged. “I can’t tell how much I’m hurting right now.”

  “Then I won’t delay things as per custom and tradition.” Calis joked lightly, leaning over so that he could have access to the side of my bruised face and injected the concoction into my neck.

  “There. You should start feeling better in about five minutes. But in the meantime? Try not to move.”

  I gave him a two fingered wave of acknowledgment from where I was lying down.

  “Not planning on it.” I told him breezily. “In fact, with a couple of blankets, this could be a nice spot to go couch camping with.”

  My mentor and teacher chuckled at my dry sense of humor.

  “You would find it most uncomfortable, Isis. Your head is currently lying on two gunny sacks of dried corn meal.”

  “Is it edible?”

  “Should be. But I’m not testing that assumption right now.”

  “I wasn’t really suggesting that we try, old man.” I answered with some open affection in my voice. “It’s just the thought that counts.”

  “Positive thinking is a good thing,” Calis said with approval. “Oh, by the way? Happy birthday.”

  “Blessed.” I returned in kind. “But my mom read me the riot act this morning when I failed to finish my chores on time.”

  “I see. So what did you miss this
time around?”

  “The holding tank out back. I never got around to cleaning it.”

  “I don’t blame her for scolding you. But Maye has always been something of a firm believer in the rules. I remember your father complaining about the very same thing once or twice in the years that I knew him.” Calis shared with me. “But then this was before your folks got married. Way before you were born as a matter of fact.”

  I smiled. “I should hope so. Dad often said that mom cracked the whip often as the head of the household.”

  “So my question to you, Isis is…why didn’t this form of discipline ever rub off onto you?”

  “Who is to say that it didn’t in one form or another?” I deflected a bit.

  “I’m quite serious.” Calis lectured me lightly. Then he produced a medical scanner and ran it over my frame.

  “Hold still. Try not to move.”

  “Like I have a choice? I’m still hurting, but the pain has receded a bit.”

  My teacher and mentor nodded. “That’s because of the pain killers. I gave you a pretty good dose. Of course, it will cost you.”

  I rolled my eyes a little bit at that one in response.

  “Naturally. Nothing with you is ever free. Not even your daily bits of wisdom and advice.”

  “That’s because I am still–technically-speaking–your boss, your employer. Not too mention your racing sponsor.”

  I nodded gratefully. “To which I am forever in your debt, old man.”

  “Yes. You are.” He said without missing a beat. The medical scanner he had in his hand beeped a couple of times–signaling that he that the scan was complete.

  It would take a few moments for the mini-comp to process the information, so he said: “Which reminds me: Since you are here, you still have your geology assignments from yesterday to complete at my work station.”

  I gazed at him owlishly. “I thought I finished those at home over the comm link?”

  “You finished your math and science requirements, yes. But there were some other things which you did not complete.”

  I groaned morbidly to beat the band. “This day just keeps getting better and better–doesn‘t it?”