A Dark And Hungry God Arises 26 - Davies [3]

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A Dark And Hungry God Arises 26 - Davies [3]

Post by Cord Hurn »

Davies Hyland tries to relax in his cell after the Bill and Sorus Chatelaine have finished questioning him, but he cant' relax for long, because he's too worried about the threat of Sorus torturing him. He starts pacing, and the thought of his mother Morn being given to the Amnion almost overwhelms him with grief. And he is also puzzling over the information (via the Bill) that his father Angus Thermopyle has arrived at Billingate.
He'd never seen his father. His only impression of the man came from the things Morn and Nick had told him, as well as what he cold see from his own body; from studying his face in the san mirrors of his room aboard Captain's Fancy. He'd spent hours in front of those mirrors, trying to understand where Morn Hyland left off and he began. But those hints had given him no sense of his father as a solid, actual presence separate from himself.

He had no defenses--

Angus Thermopyle's sudden appearance in his cell hit him like a translation across a dimensional gap. Ash-faced and urgent, Angus swung open the door and stalked into the cell as if he'd leaped into being from the core of Davies' blocked memories.

In that instant Davies lost the distinction between himself and Morn. Ambushed by her fundamental desperation, he became her as if he'd never been anybody else.

He hardly noticed the pudgy man clinging like a cripple to his father's back.
Without transition, as instantaneous as intuition, he began to remember.
Davies, in his mother's memories, recalls the time Angus had her put a scalpel beside her nipple and threatened to order her to cut it off if she didn't stop trying to kill him. He also recalls Angus forcing his penis into Morn's mouth, himself in the position of being Morn. And he swings his fist at Angus in fury, but Angus spins him around and catches him in an armlock.

Angus tells Davies to shut up, as he is trying to rescue him and warns that the Bill's sensors will pick up his making noise. Angus tells Milos to gag Davies if necessary, and the three of them struggle out of the cell, staying closely together.

While Milos and Angus are half-carrying him, Davies is living another of Morn's memories. This time it's when she tried to persuade Angus to give her the zone implant control in exchange for her testifying he didn't illegally depart Com-Mine station. Davies also recalls Angus hitting her, and feels it as if it's happening to himself. He wants to yell at Angus. Nevertheless, the option of escape that his father and Milos are offering him convinces him to try being silent.

While continuing to experience through his mother's memories all the humiliation and threats with which his father burdened her, Davies finds himself wondering why Morn didn't arrest or kill Angus when her ship Starmaster saw him killing the miners.

As they finish riding an elevator to a higher level, and start to get out, Angus takes a packet of nic out of Milos' pocket and throws it down a corridor. The movement of the nic packet distract one of the Bill's guards, and Angus drives Davies and Milos forward toward the guard. Angus kills the guard by touching his fist to the guard's spine (presumably by using his laser on the guard's spinal cord.) Davies now remembers Nick telling him that Angus had put a zone implant into Morn, and that she'd learned to like the zone implant sensations enough to get addicted to it. Soon Angus, Milos, and Davies enter the Reception area of Billingate, and move forward while keeping their heads down as much as possible. Then they move toward a corridor with elevators leading to the visitor's docks.

The three of them go upward, and leave the elevator, and pass through a scanning field towards Trumpet. They go inside the ship, and Angus exults at Davies that he's got him. Milos swears at Angus, saying the Bill's guards will be there in no time at all. Angus reveals to Milos that he can bend light and that the Bill's sensors never saw them. Milos is furious at not being told that Angus can do this, but Angus merely sneers at Milos.

Davies accuse Angus of raping him, and tells him it's because of men like him that he became a cop. Angus realizes Davies is repeating Morn's words verbatim, and understands that because Davies has been force-grown by the Amnion, his son has had Morn's memories placed within his mind. Then Angus reveals that Morn killed everyone else aboard Starmaster, and Davies falls into a fetal position at the realization.
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ADAHGA 26 - Davies [3]

Post by Cord Hurn »

I find the descriptions of Davies' anguish in this chapter to make for compelling reading.
Unconsciously aping Angus' exultation, Davies brandished his fists, he flailed the air because he had nothing else to hit.

"It's because of men like you I became a cop. I'll do anything I can to stop you."

Angus' yellow eyes widened. "Wait a minute. Wait a minute. I've heard that before. It's a quote. A direct quote."

"Angus--" the other man put in.

"Shut up, Milos," Angus snapped. "Let me think."

Without warning, all the anger ran out of Davies. Anger was essential: it was his last defense. But now the central why was too close to the surface; he couldn't fight it down any longer. Involuntarily shudders ran through him as his rage turned to panic and helplessness.

"What did Succorso tell us?" Angus asked rhetorically. "The Amnion used some kind of force-growing technique." Mimicking Nick's voice, he drawled, "'They say force-growing is supposed to make vegetables out of the mother, but that didn't happen to her. They think they know why. So they aren't particularly interested in her. But they want her brat. They want to study the consequences of have a mother who didn't lose her mind.'"

Angus' eyes glittered with intuitions. "I don't know anything about force-growing. They didn't supply me with a database on it. But maybe she was supposed to lose her mind because they gave it to him. They imprinted it on him. Because he isn't old enough to have a mind of his own."

He let out a guttural laugh. "He thinks he's her. He thinks he's the one I raped.

"He thinks he's the one who killed her whole family."

There.

Why.

Nick had given him a hint, but he hadn't understood it. After she demolished Starmaster, he rescued her from the wreckage.

Killed her whole family.

Hugging himself like a child, Davies Hyland sank to the floor of the lift and curled into a ball.
Such information couldn't have come at a more inconvenient time for Davies, just when he needs to concentrate on getting away from the Bill's cell. Luckily Angus is more than equal to the task of shepherding Davies and Milos out of there and back to Trumpet without detection by the Bill's surveillance system. But at least now, Davies knows the worst, and it's all uphill recovery for him after this. Or so it would seem.
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