She’s right, of course. Though damned if I want to go through the ordeal of getting myself coiled up in and screwed over by this snot-covered Qhigarian octopus-starfish with too many arms.
I almost feel like running away, like I did when I left Rubble City. Now that I’ve got the extragalactics’ trajectory coordinates, I’ll just refuse to make Contact and we’ll hightail it out of here. It’s what they deserve; not a bad idea to play one last trick on these tricksters.
But I have a sneaking suspicion that if we don’t play fair, they’ll just send us wherever they feel like and not where we want to go, giving the other searchers an even bigger edge on us than they already have. So I choose the straight and narrow. Sucks to have principles.
“Shall we proceed?” I finally suggest, sighing with resignation while I start to undo my suit. The faster I get through with this the better. Good thing it’ll be quick and painless to collect epithelial cells with useful DNA by swabbing my oral mucous membrane. Making Contact with this Valaurgh is going to be unpleasant enough already.
“Extragalactic trajectory data, transmitted. Human DNA no-degraded, required,” the Qhigarian calmly announces, without making the slightest effort at approaching me.
What? For a second I’m stunned, then I understand and laugh out loud.
Of course, human DNA no-degraded: I forgot about my Countdown.
Even if I turn off the handy device right now, its vibrations have already synchronized with my biofield, so my DNA will continue to degrade when it’s away from my body, and therefore become useless to the Qhigarians, for the next hour at least. And it’s not like we have time to spare.
“Human DNA no-degraded, required, cloning,” the octopus repeats, relentless. “Do, give sample, here-now.”
“What the fuck does the freak want now?” Amaya splutters. “Your DNA isn’t good enough for it?”
Shit. I think I’m going to have to stay in this crappy little system a little longer.
“No, it’s the Countdown I’m using,” I sigh, and I turn off the ultrasound-emitting collar that hangs around my neck. “Oh, well. You guys go on. I’ll wait here until the effect wears off and they can take a usable sample of my genome. An hour isn’t so long. You can come back later.”
And if we don’t find them in time, nobody can say that Josué Valdés wasn’t a team player.
“No way,” Amaya says between gritted teeth. “You’re the Contact Specialist. We’re going to need you there when we find the extragalactics. Besides, not only do we not have an hour to waste, we might not even be able to make it back here and get you if these Unworthy Pupil con artists take off.” She swallows hard, tries to smile confidently. “So—I’ll stay. I hope they drug me up, because I don’t like pain, and I can’t stand the thought of being fingered by those thousands of arms covered in eyes.”
You’re a real hero, Amaya. What a sense of duty. Everything for Nu Barsa and Catalonia, no?
Touched, I’m about to thank her for the gesture, but then I get a better idea.
“That’s the spirit, Amaya. But I don’t think I can allow you to make such a sacrifice.” I wink mischievously. “On any exploratory mission, especially one to make Contact with extragalactics, a sensor tech is also more useful than… than an arrogant third officer who anyway doesn’t know how to do anything but fire his guns, don’t you think?”
Yes, revenge is a dish best served cold. Amaya’s eyes shine conspiratorially. She smiles and says, “I’ll consult with the captain, of course, but I think your proposal will strike him as perfectly acceptable. I almost feel sorry for the Qhigarians, though. Cloning Jordi Barceló for slaves won’t do them a lot of good, wherever it is they escape to.”
It’s cold.
Real cold.
I shiver, maybe because I’m naked as a worm, huddling by a pitiful little bonfire.
I once read that our senses of heat and cold, feel, and taste play only a small role in the architecture of dreams. But I also know this must be a dream. A frozen dream?
Still, I almost feel like rejoicing. Though my teeth are chattering and my scrotum feels like it’s trying to hide inside my body, at least this isn’t my classic, obligatory nightmare, with my colorless Atevi losing the mutant cockroach race to Yamil’s long-legged Centella yet again and me being forced once more to copulate with the fat girl-Doberman Karla-Rita.
Maybe I’m finally going to get over it.
But it’s so, so cold. Too cold.
The fire’s going out, I’ll have to feed it. Luckily, there’s a little pile of logs here that look like they ought to burn well. If there’s any logic to this dream at all.
If not, maybe they’ll turn into snakes when I touch them, or into sand, or…
Nothing for it but to try. Let’s see if things really have changed for the better in my REM department, or merely…
Here goes the first log… Good; it isn’t trying to bite me or dissolving into foam. How strange! It calmly lets itself get tossed onto the fire, and when it lands in the flames…
Yeah, I was starting to wonder. Instead of burning like it should, it shudders, acquiring the features of my friend Abel. His black skin writhes, scorched by the tongues of flame, and he asks me, “Why’d you do it, Josué? Why’d you abandon me?”
Shit, now I know where this new nightmare is heading. Pure remorse. Everyone on the bonfire, sacrificed for one thing only: me and my well-being. Step on up, ladies and gentlemen, watch everyone else burn so that Josué Valdés, the Rubble City Egomaniac, can live and prosper.
But I still can’t stop. No point getting scruples now. Especially since it keeps getting colder and colder. All I can do is throw another log on the fire. And another, and another.
Every time the bark of a log touches the fire it convulses and turns into the face of somebody I know. They cry out in pain as they burn, scolding me for being a cynical, ungrateful egotist. My childhood friends and enemies from the poorest neighborhood on the outskirts of CH: Yamil, Evita, Diosdado, Damián, Karlita…
And Agustí Palol, the likeable captain of the hyperjump corvette Juan de la Cierva; and the young physicist Jaume Verdaguer; and Nerys, the mermaid condomnaut; and Narcís Puigcorbé and his wife Sonya; and Captain Ramón Berenguer; even Third Officer Jordi Barceló. All are consumed by the greedy flames until I have no one left to throw on the fire, nobody else to sacrifice to the gods so my heart can keep on beating and not freeze solid.
But I still feel cold, and strangely the firewood hasn’t run low. So I throw on another log, and another… And once more I hear screams, accusations; but now the voices are all mine, the faces dissolving in the voracious blaze all have my features, because I’ve sacrificed so much of the best part of me to get this far, so I’m the one burning, with a smell of scorched flesh that turns my stomach. It’s burning, burning—I can’t go on.
A reflux of bile burns my esophagus, but when I try to spit it out I can’t stand up, I’m held too tight by the security net on my seat in the greenhouse-gym.
One second of suffering, just one, and the bile dissolves at some point between the pain and my mouth, but it doesn’t turn into vomit; it makes my eyes water, but my insides settle into their regular resting places.
I still hurt, though. Top to bottom. The price of Contact with that horrid, slimy Qhigarian star-octopus. Good thing the automedic already fixed up the worst of it, but… Jordi wasn’t the only one who made a sacrifice for Nu Barsa, Catalonia, and humanity.