Sacrifice

Chapter Nine

In the cargo bay, John concentrated on his fencing exercises, trying to eliminate the events of the past several days from the forefront of his consciousness.  He wasn’t able to.  He remembered the family meeting held shortly after leaving orbit for Blandor.  Finally he had been able to call the children together.  But it had been quite apparent from the moment he entered the galley, that they were already very much aware of his transformation, so he skipped to the second announcement.  It was a less than stellar opening….

“We are going to a world called Blandor,” John announced to the family.  He watched his children sitting around the table in the galley, and placed a tight check on his emotions.  Judy totally avoided eye contact, instead hanging on to Don’s arm and staring down at the table.  Penny seemed hard-pressed to keep from crying.  Will kept looking at him curiously, as though trying to figure everything different about him.  Only Maureen and Don acted normal.  And Smith.  Smith looked around the room furtively as though planning an escape in case he pounced on him and bit his neck.  Consciously taking a breath, just so he could sigh in resignation, he continued, “I am going to help Dreel and Arist stop a group called the Vandir-ent from acquiring hyper-drive ships.  If the Vandir-ent are able to leave their world of exile, they will be able to visit other worlds and take advantage of other humanoids.”

“You mean feed off them?” Judy said tersely, still not meeting his eyes. 

“Yes, Judy, that and make them vampires against their will.” 

“Kind of like what was done to the griforis?” she persisted.

John was amazed at her astuteness, but then she had figured out his change right away.  That had puzzled him. “Yes, Dreel thinks that is what happened to the griforis.” 

“I know that’s what happened to them.  Miris told me the griforis’ history.”

“Hmm, that would explain much.  That’s something that Dreel wanted to check out.  Hopefully we can help them.  Otherwise I suspect they will die in that cave of theirs.  Maybe during the trip to Blandor, you can tell Arist everything that Miris told you,” John said. 

“Maybe,” Judy said noncommittally.  But her face showed her absolute abhorrence to that idea. 

John realized that what he had done was no doubt a terrible shock to them.  It was still a shock to him.  The permanence of the whole situation unnerved him.  All he could find to say at the time, was something that he considered inane in hindsight, something about eventually getting used to the situation.  That, and the promise that they would never have to fear him.  The second statement he was vehement about and hoped it would give a bit of comfort to his confused children…. 

John drew in a deep breath and released it slowly, trying to return to the present and his exercise.  Saluting his imaginary opponent, he advanced and retreated, slashing and then thrusting, backing away and lunging.  This was no Olympic-style imagined competition, even though he was totally familiar with such.  This was the fierce action of saber fencing, like he imagined dueling would have been like.  It was something to help relieve the tension that he felt sometimes knotting his muscles.  Sometimes he shouted as he advanced, adding a bit of flourish to his strokes.  Finally, he ended the exercise after what he considered an adequate amount of time.  Looking at his watch, he was shocked to see that he had worked out for well over two hours.  He was hungry, only slightly tired and certainly not winded.  Shaking his head, John headed into the kitchen, hoping that no one else was there. 

Luck was with him.  The room was empty.  Still extremely self-conscious about his diet, John preferred to use the replicator when no one else was around.  He could not get out of his mind how his change had upset Penny and Judy. As he sat at the table drinking his meal, a slight noise alerted him to the fact that he was not alone.  Turning slightly, he saw Dr. Smith staring at him, a crafty look on his face. 

“Deciding on how long to whittle the stake, Smith?” he asked acerbically.  Smith had gotten rid of the garlic, but like a quiet child, he had been busy.  A small, handmade crucifix on a chain hung around his neck.  Although much of the vampire folklore had some basis in fact, John felt no revulsion to the religious object.  To the contrary, he had to work hard to keep from laughing at the older man’s hypocrisy.  Sauntering over to the stowaway, he reached over, fingered the cross and smiled broadly, knowing that the sight of his canine teeth would disconcert Smith, too.  “Not a bad job, Dr. Smith.  When did you become religious?”  Letting the cross drop, he watched the older man scuttle over to the elevator and go up to the observation deck.  Somehow, that little scene gave him a small sense of perverse pleasure.

With a sigh, John sat back down to finish his meal.  Again, a slight sound alerted him to the presence of another.  Quickly he wiped his lips and turned around.  He saw Will watching him, shuffling his feet nervously.  They gazed at one another for a moment. 

There was no revulsion in his son’s eyes, only confusion.  Setting the mug down, John beckoned.  “Do you want to sit and talk, son?”

Nodding, Will sat down across from him at the table.  “You look like you have a few questions,” John understated.  Will paused for a moment, opening his mouth a time or two without saying anything.  It was extremely uncharacteristic. “Son, I promise, I really don’t bite,” John finally said with a slight smile, trying to reassure his son.

Will gazed at him for another moment, before totally understanding the joke.  Then he smiled and began to chuckle.  John joined him.  It felt good to laugh with his son.  There had been so little to laugh about lately. 

“Dad, how did it feel?  It’s permanent, isn’t it?  What made the knife wound heal so quickly?  Did it really make you stronger?  What would you do if the replicator quit working?” the questions suddenly came like bullets, but it was the last one that John heard the most.  He knew that Will wasn’t asking it in the way he was hearing it, but it brought his dilemma into sharp focus. 

Taking in a mental deep breath, John decided to just answer them in the order they were asked and started out by asking a question of his own.  “Son, what do you think the bottom of the ocean is like?”

“Cold and dark.”

“That’s the way it felt, Will.   As to its permanence, that’s my understanding, it is non-reversible.  Wounds heal due to special enzymes and bio-chemicals that Dreel sent into my body when he was taking my blood.  More serious wounds take a bit more time to heal.”  He paused for a moment to see the reaction his bluntness had on his twelve-year-old son.  Will had always been a perceptive child.  “Yes, it does seem to make me physically stronger.  If the replicator quit working, we would land somewhere and I would go see a butcher, I suppose.”  John wasn’t surprised to see Will looking a bit squeamish. “I’m sorry, son, but you asked.”

“That’s okay, Dad.  I guess it’s all kind of strange and new to me.  I… I….” Will suddenly closed his mouth and stared at the table. 

“Will, I’ve tried to be straight forward with you, please tell me what’s on your mind.  I certainly can’t feel any worse than I already have the past few days,” John said softly, laying his hand on his son’s arm, surprised at his own candor.  To his relief, Will didn’t draw away. 

“No, Dad, it’s nothing bad.  I just wanted to thank you for coming down for us,” Will said.  Then he did something that totally surprised John.  He began to cry.  Great racking sobs seemed to tear themselves from the boy’s chest and they tore at John’s heart and alarmed him at the same time.

Quickly getting up, John walked around the table and sat down next to his son, putting his arm around him and embracing him tightly.  He felt the warmth of his son’s body next to his, the warmth of his compassion.  It was a wonderful feeling.  “Oh, Will. You know I would do anything for you and the rest of the family.  It’s all right.  We’ll all get used to this.”

“No, Dad.  If I had been quicker….  If I hadn’t waited, we’d have been back to the Jupiter II before you let Dreel make you a vampire.  You wouldn’t be so unhappy.   We’d all be able to eat together….  Dad, I’m sorry.”

“What do you mean if you hadn’t waited?”

“I figured out how to shut down the computers and sabotage the video monitors the day before, but I told the girls we’d wait for a day, because we’d have a bit more time…”

“That was very smart thinking, Will.  You were right not to go rushing into something as serious as an escape from those caves.  You have nothing to be sorry for.  You didn’t disable the computer.  You, and Penny and Judy would have been dead or recaptured.”  John continued to hold his son close to him.  He felt the warmth of his youngest child’s body, the warmth of his concern, and a measure of peace flowed into his heart.  Looking up, he saw Maureen watching silently from the doorway, tears in the corners of her eyes.  She smiled and left as silently as she came.  “Never blame yourself for what I have done or for the decisions I have made.  I love you, son.  This ship was so empty when you weren’t here.  But you are back now.  That makes me happier than you could imagine.” 

Slowly, Will regained his composure and finally looked up at his dad.  Using his sleeve, he wiped his eyes.  “Dad, I love you, too.  Only your body is different; it’s colder, but everything else is the same.”

“Thank you, son,” was all John could say before his throat constricted, tight with the emotions he was feeling.  

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Don was at the control panel.  “That program of Dreel’s still running smoothly?” John asked his friend.  The nur-Vandir had given them a program just before leaving the Lorent and griforis’ world, which allowed their hyper-drive unit to work much more efficiently.  In fact it had allowed the two ships to travel between the stars still docked together. 

“Like a charm, John,” Don answered brightly.  

Maureen was at the communications console.  Leaning over her chair, he gave her a quick kiss and then noticed a blinking light.  “Wonder what Dreel wants,” he murmured.   “What’s up, Dreel?” he asked when Maureen had activated the connection.

“Bad news, I’m afraid.  The timetable for the sale of those ships has been changed.  Six medium-sized reconnaissance starships are ready for immediate sale, and there are Vandir-ent representatives on Blandor ready to consummate the agreement.  We don’t have weeks or even days to deal with this; we may only have hours.  Maybe a day, at most,” Dreel said gloomily.

“We are due to drop out of hyperspace in two hours.  We’ll just have to go in and take care of the shipment using the direct approach, right?” John asked.  Dreel’s silence on the other end told him he had made a correct assumption.  “As soon as we are in ‘real’ space, we’d better have conference and plan this thing out as best as we can.”  John heard a murmuring sound on the communicator.  “Dreel, my family and I have been dealing with things by the seat of our pants for over two years now.  This will work, simply because it has to.”

Finally, Dreel answered.  “Thanks, John.  And yes, it will work….”

End Chapter 9