Kidnapped (26 page)

The room was small, but bright and clean, and she plopped down on the bed, liking the way it had fresh sheets and was soft. Travis sat down beside her and rubbed her back, and she relaxed and allowed herself to lean against him. She felt exhausted, but it wasn't quite time to rest yet. "I've gotta go do some shopping for us."

He shook his head, "No Sweetums, it's too dangerous."

They had gotten some things from their friends on the Redeemer, but they needed more clothes and supplies. After resting for half an hour or so, Patricia went out by herself to shop for them, in spite of Travis's objections and her own worries. She was much more inconspicuous alone than a man with just one hand, and as much as he wanted to, Travis couldn't argue with the logic. The less he was seen, the better.

When she left the hotel, she was once more overwhelmed by all the people, aliens as well as humans, by all the noises, sounds, and huge holographic billboards, and she had to be very careful not to get washed away with the streams of moving bodies. She'd never find her way back again. She got lost anyway, of course. Many of the stores were enormous and had numerous exits and entrances, and they all looked the same to her. As much as she tried, she went in on one side and out on another, and before she realized what had happened, she had gone too far to remember where she came from.  She tried to ask for directions, but people just looked at her and hurried on their way. Her feet and back ached, and she wanted to cry.

It felt like she'd been walking for a day before she saw the sign for the hotel, and she might have passed it several times without even realizing it was there. When she finally entered the room, hours after she left, she found Travis pacing around in there. He hurried over to meet her when the door opened, pulling her close. "Where have you been? I was so worried."

She dropped her bags right down and wrapped her arms around him, burying her face against his chest, explaining, "I got lost. The place is so big and everything looks the same, I thought I'd never find you again. I'm sorry it took this long. I got everything, though."

He held her tight and murmured, "I don't care about physical things, I only care about you. Come on, sit down, you need some rest."

*****

Patricia
was
exhausted, both physically and mentally, but Travis couldn't sleep at all. He held her through the night, listening to her steady breathing, watchful of all sounds outside their door. It was funny how he who once lacked the very concept of imagination could now visualize all sorts of dangers sneaking up on his little family.

He was still awake when she opened her eyes the next morning. She smiled and mumbled, "Hi, handsome," and he squeezed her a little tighter. After blinking a couple of times and looking closer at him, she rose up on an elbow and asked with a frown, "Are you alright? Did you get any sleep?"

He replied softly, "Yes and no. Don't worry."

She frowned, "You always say that and I never believe you."

Shrugging slightly, he knew there wasn't much more he could say.

*****

When they left the hotel, Travis knew exactly where he wanted to go and how to get there, and it amazed her how he could always find his way with such certainty. She supposed he'd been in all these places many times before, but it still mystified her.

It didn't take long until they stood in front of a solid door with a big lock, and she had no idea of how they'd gotten there, or of the way back to the hotel.

There was a camera mounted above the door, and Travis knocked and smiled, attempting to appear friendly and non-threatening. He looked so confident and strong, and she felt a sting of unfocused jealousy when she thought wearing actual clothes and not just the blacker-than-space uniform suited him. Everyone would want him, and then how would she be able to keep him? Travis would have laughed heartily if he knew what was going through her mind, but he didn't have a clue. He just glanced over at her and winked when he felt her watching him.

It took a couple of minutes before they could hear someone fiddling with the locks inside. The door opened a little, and a man peeked out and squinted at them. He was old, with a kind and wrinkly face crowned by a mop of white hair, and he said carefully, "Hello, what can I do for..." before cutting himself short and squinting as he took a closer look at Travis.

He mumbled, "Oh no, not you," and tried to pull the door shut. Patricia never knew how he did it, but in the next moment the door was wide open and Travis was inside, holding the little man by the shirt. She shrugged and went inside too, closing and locking the door behind her.

Their unwilling host was pleading for his life, and Travis exclaimed impatiently, "I'm not going to kill you. I need your help."

Those words somehow penetrated the old man's mind, and he fell silent for a long moment before asking, "You need my help?"

He peeked around Travis towards Patricia, looked her over and started babbling, "Well, if the lady wants to get rid of the baby, I'm sure there are many fine..."

Travis interrupted him by shaking him a little and saying sternly, "No. If you lay as much as one finger on my wife, I
will
rip your head off, even though I only have one hand."

Patricia smiled sunnily; William had taught him the word on their drinking night, and hearing him use it made her feel all warm and fuzzy inside. The old doctor looked at her and stuttered, clearly unable to believe his ears, "Wi-wi-your wife?"

Travis nodded, acting as if it was the most natural thing in the world, and Patricia waved her hand in the air, pointing at the ring and smiling.

"I need you to do this one little thing for me, and I'll be grateful forever."

Patricia was surprised at how easily he persuaded the man to help, and she wondered if the old doctor could be trusted. She shrugged it off, thinking her husband usually knew what he was doing, and she didn't have a better plan. She after all didn't even know where her own home planet was.

*****

As soon as Travis let go of his shirt, the old doctor shuffled over to Patricia and introduced himself, "Malcolm Leer, I'm an old, eh, acquaintance of your, uh, husband," and he glanced over at Travis for approval before even shaking her hand. Travis smirked, feeling a grim satisfaction that he hadn't lost his ability to intimidate people.

Patricia flashed a bright smile, and they appeared to like each other. It didn't surprise him one bit. He had found everyone liked her, and it made the mystery of why she stayed with him so much bigger. She'd had plenty of opportunities to get away from him if she wanted to. He wouldn't try to stop her if she chose to leave, and yet she stayed. Sought him out, even. It was incomprehensible to him. He didn't consider himself a loveable person, and evidently no one else did either, except for her.

Malcolm woke him from his thoughts. "I... Uh, I guess we should go to the junkyard and see what I have. I haven't looked there for a long time, but I'm sure I can find a pretty good fit."

Patricia exclaimed in a curious voice, "Junkyard? You have a junkyard? This is a pretty big house you have, don't you get lonely?"

Travis's mouth twitched into a reluctant smile. He would never have thought of saying a thing like that, but from her it came naturally.

The old doctor took them on a little tour of the house. He mostly addressed Patricia, and Travis followed behind the two, fascinated with the effect she had on the old man. She turned around and smiled at him, and he was fascinated with the effect she had on him too; it felt like his heart skipped a beat. He wished he had two arms to hold her with.

The house was spacious, meant to be a hospital with nurses and up to 30 patients, but it was empty. He felt a sting of guilt when Patricia asked about it. He had led the raid on the place a couple of years earlier, and it had never recovered. Malcolm had been notorious for providing health care to both common criminals and the resistance, and Veronica had wanted to make an example of it.

*****

When they eventually reached the junkyard, Patricia stopped and stared at the huge room with spare body parts scattered randomly all around. It looked like a mass-murderer's workshop, or maybe a graveyard for mannequins. There were mechanical eyes and legs, individual fingers and noses, hearts and intestines, and she half expected to see an electronic brain on a shelf, in case someone's body still worked but the mind was gone.

She wondered if it would be possible to put an entire person together, make an android out of spare parts, but she didn't want to ask.

She couldn't fathom how anyone could ever find anything in there, but Malcolm surprised her. He seemed to have a fairly good idea of where he kept everything, and he started to hum as he searched for the thing that would be just right for his unlikely patient. He was completely focused on the task ahead, and it seemed he even forgot to be afraid of Travis as he scurried back and forth with one limb after another.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Travis didn't care what the thing looked like. If he got an arm with approximately the right length that worked, he'd be happy. Malcolm, on the other hand, was a perfectionist and made a big deal of finding just the right one, so Travis cooperated patiently for Patricia's sake. Some were a little too long or too short, most were too thin, and few had the right color. The old doctor commented absent-mindedly, "It's a good thing you're not hairy. I don't have any that are hairy."

Travis rolled his eyes and Patricia giggled. "Eeewww, I don't like hairy men."

Eventually, his patience was running out. Patricia had taken a seat on the floor and yawned, and Malcolm was rummaging around in an old closet, mumbling to himself, "I know I have some in here."

He was about to call out that this would be the very last try, but the old doctor beat him to it; he emerged, triumphantly waving a mechanical limb in the air. "This is it. I do think this is the one. And it's even brand new!"

Over to the side, Patricia wrinkled her nose, and Travis thought dryly that at least no one would be reusing his old arm. Veronica had seen to that.

Malcolm held the limb up against Travis's stump and chuckled happily. "Perfect, this is going to be perfect. Come on, young ones!"

The comment made Travis laugh, thinking it felt like a very long time since he was young, if he had ever been. Patricia smiled, and Malcolm stared with surprise, mumbling, "I didn't think he
could
laugh."

Their new friend led the way through the house to a room where he had once performed surgery after surgery on a tight schedule. He still kept it shiningly clean out of old habit, and he told Patricia to stay to the side and Travis to take his shirt off before going any further in.

Travis nodded and kissed Patricia's cheek, mumbling with a grimace, "I'm not looking forward to this."

*****

The thought that this procedure would be painful, possibly even dangerous, hadn't even crossed Patricia's mind until now, and she frowned. Further in the room, Travis sank down in the patient's chair, and the old doctor was strapping the remains of his arm in. Any movement could undo hours of hard work. As soon as that was done, Malcolm started to rummage around in a drawer, but when he came back with a hyposyringe, Travis said firmly, "No."

Their new friend stared at him. "I can understand you don't trust me, but you have your woman standing guard, and I have to give you something for the pain."

His patient shook his head, and repeated simply, "No," with a slight nod towards Patricia, who frowned. Malcolm pulled a hand nervously through his hair and answered. "I see your point, but this will be living hell for you. I must at least give you antibiotics, you don't want to get an infection, and if I don't neutralize the connections your body will reject the implant."

Shrugging, Travis replied, "That's fine," at the same time as Patricia asked, suspicious, "What point?"

Malcolm looked at Travis, who shrugged again. "You can tell her. I don't keep secrets from my wife."

Patricia was frowning, wondering what knowledge the men shared that she didn't, and the old doctor sighed. He began telling her something that sounded like a story as he kept preparing her husband for surgery. "Basically everything in this sector, well, in this galaxy actually, is Alliance. There are plenty of worlds with aliens of all kinds, and some still underdeveloped worlds where humans haven't been all that long, but they will also submit to the Alliance once they advance into space. They'll either belong to it or at least accept its superiority, or go to war with it. Trust me, there have been many wars."

He paused for a moment, and Patricia watched him lay out scalpels and other little tools on a tray. "Thus, everything we can get our hands on, except for William Reynolds's ship, is in some form or way developed by the Alliance."

Travis added helpfully, "The Redeemer is from another galaxy. Veronica sort of had it confiscated."

Malcolm loaded the hyposyringe with something she recognized from their earlier adventures as antibiotics, and shot a good dose into Travis's upper arm before he continued. "This of course goes for medicines too. What is the main purpose of the Alliance, you might ask? I would say that it is to win. When a soldier is wounded in battle, what do you want them to do?"