We’re going to die, Cam thought as the sinkhole appeared. Good. Better than the alternative.

Cam led the assailants to walk right into the caving, shifted earth and made peace with the end.

He knew that their bombs had compromised some of the terrain on T-446. Cam could see the cracks and the shifting dust, and because he memorized the mission brief, he knew that T-446 had pockets of hollow earth.

They were all going to fall to their deaths because that was better than them taking Hermes.

Cam fell and fell and fell. He blindly grabbed towards Hermes, holding him close as the sand poured around them. They landed on sand below, which cushioned the fall. Cam sprained an ankle, a pop that failed to register in his rush of adrenaline, but he was still alive.

The attackers weren’t as fortunate in their landing. Cam could hear one of them choking in pain nearby—until, finally, silence fell upon them.

Cam wrapped his arms around Hermes, who didn’t move—but he was warm. Alive. His eyes were shut, and blood sluggishly spilled from a cut in his forehead. It must have happened when the ground caved in.

Cam held a hand to the wound, but it continued to bleed. He shifted to hold Hermes’ shoulders and head sideways in his lap, still ignorant to his own injury, and stubbornly pressed against the gash. Cam’s belated pain began to drift in as the shock wore off, but he could do nothing but sit there, unmoving, breathing through the hurt. He focused on Hermes, instead.

He did so for hours and hours. Presumably. Cam didn’t have a method for telling time except for the blue sky above fading to red, then pink, then black. Night was cold. Shivering, he hunched over Hermes and, eventually, began to whisper.

“I’m glad you made me visit the Training Quarters so much. I’d probably be dead right now without this bonus stamina. I mean, I’m gonna die anyway, I guess? I don’t think they’re gonna be able to find us down here. I’m too hurt to walk. You’re probably dying on top of me right now. Are you?” His voice went tiny. Tears overwhelmed him, dripping from his cheeks onto Hermes’ chest below. “Please don’t die. I can’t watch someone else die.”

Qhathiren’s face and the way her whole body shuddered as she died were seared into Cam’s mind. He sobbed quietly.

A few hours later, he mumbled, “I don’t think you’re bleeding as much. Hopefully, that’s a good thing. I’m gonna be an optimist here, in this hole in the ground. You’re gonna pull through.”

He was so thirsty. He was hungry, too, but the thirst was the thing that got to him. His throat was so dry that it hurt almost as much as his ankle.

“They built you different, right?” His voice got quieter. “I bet you can go a week without water. Maybe two.”

Cam’s hands were crusted with blood. He tried to wipe them off on his pants, but the fabric was just as filthy. He sighed, exhausted, and placed his forehead against Hermes’.

“I can’t even go a day without water. I feel like shit,” Cam said. “I’m just not very strong. Hazard Recognition… Who was I fucking kidding?” He snorted.

After some more time, he opened his eyes and examined Hermes’ face from far too close. It was probably inappropriate, but—well, who was going to know? Hermes’ lashes were dark and straight, and his skin was so smooth. Such a pretty shade of blue… The ridge on his forehead and nose were so uniquely defined. Medese in style but still quintessentially Hermes.

“You’re so handsome,” Cam mumbled. He dropped his head down, once again. “No wonder I had a crush on you.”

Dawn came and, shortly thereafter, distant shouts.

“If there’s someone alive down there, I need you to yell for me because these readings are far from accurate,” came a distant call.

Cam gasped, jerking backward, looking up.

“Hello?” came the voice again. “This is the Search and Rescue of Stellarship Soter. Is anyone alive?”

“Yes,” Cam croaked. He raised his hands, fanning them towards the air, and screamed, “Yes! Yes, we’re down here! We’re down here!”

Some incomprehensible shouts came from above, and several figures appeared in the sky. Cam was told to stay still—like he had a choice—

The next few minutes were a blur either from Cam’s exhaustion or the frantic way the rescuers repelled down and retrieved him and Hermes. When they were back on the surface of T-446, Cam twisted in the hands of the man carrying him, reaching towards Hermes.

“I can’t leave him—” he said. He knew he sounded manic, but he couldn’t stop. The rescuers helped him up again and Cameron begged, “Please, he’s hurt. His head—he hit his head—”

“Ollis, he’ll be okay. We’ve got him. Calm down.”

“I don’t want to leave him,” Cam said, and he was crying, and he didn’t realize—

“Sedate him,” someone said.

Cam gasped. “No, you don’t need to sedate him. He’s already unconscious.” His hand curled around Hermes’ arm as the group tried to pull them apart.

“I’m not talking about Hermes, Cam.” There was an amused snort from the rescuers.

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

And then black.

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It// it is not// / a malfunction.

The combination of //. Vn an// Vn, Tarotan, Medese, and Earthling physiology meant he had telepath/// ic

Telepathic capabilities.

A/ a touch telepath. An ability discovered only while under duress but perhaps an ability that c// ould be us//eful?

? .// /

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The medbay was dark and quiet. Hermes awoke and the gentle presence of sleep was still pulling at him, beckoning him to close his eyes once more, but something felt—off. Different. He shifted in bed and zeroed in on the change: a lack of pain. He’d been writhing with it when he first awoke aboard Soter. Now, he felt—

He was warm, resting on something soft, and it was quiet.

He sat up, blinking in the darkness. He was inside one of the recovery pods: a small room with one wall of clear plexiglass to see out into the rest of the Medbay. There were two doctors at the side of another pod, and Hermes knew without looking that Cam would be there.

He stood up, pushed open the clear glass door, and stepped out. The quiet sounds of the doctors working and the various beeps and chimes of instruments became crystal clear. He approached the pod and saw Cam’s pale profile, nearly glowing in dark.

“Is he hurt?”

The doctors both jumped. “Hermes!” Dr. Sam Perriand, a human physician and expert in internal medicine, rushed over, lifting one of his instruments for a scan. “How do you feel? Any stress on your systems?”

“I feel fine,” he said. He meant it.

“Well, you’re high as a kite right now,” Dr. Alise Hang said, her own instrument at the ready. “So I’m sure that’s helping.”

Hermes blinked at her. “Cameron Ollis. Is he hurt?” He approached the pod.

“He’s sleeping,” Perriand said. “He sprained an ankle and had gashes along his thighs. He’ll make a full recovery. He was a little dehydrated and hungry, too. You were out there for about thirty hours.”

“Can I go inside—” When he started to reach for the door, Perriand stopped him, his warm brown hand tight on Hermes’ arm.

“Let him rest. He’ll be awake soon; you can see him then.” We just got him to fall asleep without a sedative, for goodness sake. They’re both absolutely mental, Perriand thought.

Hermes looked down at where Perriand held his arm. He looked into the man’s deeply set eyes behind a pair of round spectacles. He had a severe look about him—high cheekbones and a mouth framed in the wrinkles of his age. A no-nonsense sort of doctor—

He and Dr. Wha hadn’t gotten along very well.

Dr. Hang, however, was one of Wha’s protégés, and they were good friends back on Earth–according to Dr. Wha. Alise had been a young intern at the Hermes Project a few years before Hermes had his physical form. After they took up station on Soter, Hang seemed to follow Wha around, starry-eyed and hanging on her every word. Hermes assumed the fact they were both Tarotan women working in bio-sciences helped establish a kinship between them.

Hermes pulled his arm away from Perriand, nodding in agreement to leave Cam alone for now. “The other survivors. What of them?”

Perriand looked grim as ever, and Hang, usually bright-eyed and enthusiastic, seemed similarly muted. “A handful of our crew made it home,” Hang said. “Lyh Haasit said you saved him.”

“Is he well?”

“He was discharged pretty quickly. Just a few bruises.”

“That is good.”

“We were able to recover…” Hang trailed off, eyes darting away from Hermes.

Perriand stepped in. “We found Qhathiren’s body. She’s going to get a proper Tarotan burial as outlined in her will. But she’s also going to get a service here with everyone else. We couldn’t find most of the people killed on T-446, so it’ll be a symbolic…gesture.”

“Yes, many died before we reached the planet,” Hermes said, voice sounding distant to himself.

“Hermes, I’m—” Hang’s voice was watery, uneven. He met her stare, confused. A tear rolled down her cheek. “Qhathiren was—she was really special. I’m so sorry for your loss.”

His loss? Was it his loss?

The world blinked into gray, then color, then gray again.

I love you, she thought as she died, and I’m so sorry.

Hermes stood motionless before Hang as she cried until, without warning, he collapsed to his knees. His legs were weak, and his heart was tight—agonizingly tight—inside his chest. He didn’t understand how. He wasn’t injured. His wounds were healed.

But he hurt. The pain bled from him into the air, invisible.

He sobbed. A hand came down, pressed between his shoulder blades, and stroked his spine until his cries faded to silence. “Let’s go lay back down for a bit, alright?” Perriand offered, continuing to pat him comfortingly. Distantly, he heard Hang hiccup. She was crying somewhere else, feigning privacy behind a desk.

Hermes stood up on weak legs and allowed Perriand to guide him back to the recovery pod and into bed.

“Drink this,” he said, handing Hermes a thin white liquid in a plastic cup with a plastic straw. “It’ll help with your healing. The physical part of it, anyway.”

“Thamk…” Hermes took the glass, furrowed his brow, and tried again. “Thank you. Oh.” That made his distant light-headedness make more sense. “I am under the influence of drugs.”

“Yes. As Hang said. You aren’t feeling any effects of your injuries because we’ve given you some, uh… medicinal relief.”

Hermes pressed a hand to his sore, hollow heart.

Perriand sighed. “That’ll take a while longer to recover. Drink.” He pointed at the cup. Hermes, dutifully, drank the whole beverage and handed it back empty. “Great. Now, sleep.”

He did.

He dreamed he was standing back on Earth, staring at the stars from the balcony off his room within the facility he called home. But the stars were faded and distant. He could barely see them with his naked eye. There was a great greenish pollution casting a fog between him and the vast space above.

He reached towards the sky, and his hand connected with his piano.

He was inside his room on Soter, seated at his piano, and the song he’d begun to write fell from his fingertips.

“You have to play to the end,” said Dr. Wha, “Or we’re not going to make it.”

His fingers fumbled. She clutched the side of the piano, voice tinged in panic. There was blood on her face.

“Hermes, you have to keep playing.”

He tried, and failed, and tried again, fingers smashing into the keys uselessly. Even the notes he should have hit weren’t right—everything was off, the key incorrect, the strings out of tune. “I have not finished this composition,” he said, breathless. “Dr. Wha, I am trying.”

“Please,” she begged, and tears filled her blackish eyes. “I love you, and I’m so sorry.”

He heard the whizz of the Scatterer and as it landed upon the keys of his piano—

He awoke with a gasp.