Ion 417: Raiju

I don't know why I kept coming back to these files. I had seen them so many times that I could recite every nuance of the movements, every flick of the eyes. Something pulled me back with a longing to fill the empty void in me; that void that screamed for an explanation to my existence. The truth is, I had found that reason, and it burned inside of me. I just didn't like what I'd found.

I was owned by someone who had taught me the meaning of a word that the dictionaries only vaguely comprehended: Hate. Hate was grey. Hate had a name. Teyrn Elon. It only added to the hatred that he refused to allow me even so much as a name.

That wasn't who I had selected to look at though. The heading read 'Andorian Eel #6: Day 1395'. I watched the yellowish-green form swim past the imager once more. As though on cue, I knew when the eye would flick to lock on to the imager pick-up. The long body slid by in a series of graceful undulations of the near invisible stripes highlighted against the slightly darker color. Eight meters of graceful beauty slid by with the gentle flick of his tail, clearing the screen just in time to catch the flash of white teeth as he bit down on the imager.

I didn't know if it was a sign of intelligence, or merely instinct that had driven him. If intelligence, then he had carefully used his own body to shield the attack as his head came back around for the kill. If instinct, then what instinct was there in going for the motionless plastic lens when other fish swam past in ignorant bliss to the deadly killer among them?

It recorded long enough to catch the flash burn of the electric arc that turned the camera into half a kilo of charred ruin. The log listed no further entries for Andorian Eel #6. It hadn't in the three years since I'd first stumbled across this file.

When I had first found this file, I had dug into my xenobiology texts to find out all that I could about Andorian Eels. What I found was intriguing, but not really informative; basic stats about size, and electrical discharge; very little about behaviors, other than to call them extremely aggressive. It seems that few researchers into their depths return, and fewer still in one piece. Attempts to domesticate and train them had failed due to the hazards involved.

I switched the terminal over to another secreted file. I knew these files were hidden away; that I shouldn't even be able to see them, but I had found them just the same. My one fear was being discovered, and losing access to them. These files bore the only clues I had to my origin. I chose one at random from the ten point seven years of recordings for her.

It picked up from the moment of the door opening in her small room. A Selstlak stood there in the doorway as he tossed her tan form into the room. I could hear the lizard laughing as he watched her limp form come to rest against the far wall. She just lay there unmoving as the door slid shut on her isolation, as it always did.

A few moments later she stirred, sitting up to scream at the door and the departed lizards. When her rage was spent she looked down at the floor, as though focusing her thoughts. Only a moment later her face tilted back up with a look of determination, and she calmly reached behind her head to begin braiding her black hair. It hung loose down to the small of her back, with snarls from the Selstlak's rough handling. With practiced ease she brought all of the loose strands into the thick braid, and tucked the ends back through to keep it tight.

The next part was what had brought me back to this particular recording. She stuck a finger into her mouth to wet it, but when she tried dragging it across the floor it left almost no mark. I remembered this scene as one from early in her second year of recordings. Frustrated that after three attempts she couldn't get a line to show up because her mouth was too dry, she bit the tip of her smallest finger.

It was just a tiny hole, but it bubbled up a dot of red on the tip. Satisfied that the blood had welled up, she drug that finger across the floor before her. It left a mark barely as long as the hand that had drawn it. This was another file that I had watched countless times. I had watched them all at least a few times, and some of them dozens of times. This particular one happened to be a favorite. I spoke the word even before she did.

"Ichi."

A second line paralleled the first. "Ni."

And a third; the line barely more than a hint of red. "San."

She tried spitting on her drawings to clear it, but alas, her mouth held no moisture. She had to move over a little to draw the four sided box with interior curved lines. Without the moisture of saliva, she was forced to bite her finger once more. She held up her hand toward the ceiling, with thumb folded and fingers spread wide. "Shi."

This went on for twenty-seven drawings, some getting fairly complicated, before that same Salstlak came back into her room to drop some meal wafers on the floor. I called that one Scar snout for the burn scar that crossed his right nostril. He laughed once more at the sight of her scrambling to pick up the broken pieces.

He took but a moment to glance at the drawing she had done before proceeding to urinate on them. Lizards don't retain much water, so there wasn't much to come out. Still it was enough to obliterate the blood marks with a swipe of his tail as he turned to depart. Knowing his temperament from other recordings, I was sure that he had made an effort to hold that in until he could urinate on her.

She held the wafer aloft. "Shokuryou. Sesshoku."

She leaned back against the wall to chew the thin wafers, and glared at the ceiling in her fierce determination. I knew every curve of her face, and tilt of her eyes. Other than the coloring, it was the same face that stared back at me from the mirror each day. Her recordings ended some ten years ago, with a simple notation that she had ceased functioning.

Scar Snout was beyond my reach. He had been transferred to the weapon testing division more than ten years ago. The final notes indicated that he was the subject of evaluation for Project 109. I hope that he spent his final moments remembering the bite. A careless snapping of his jaw removed her smallest finger in the final images of him.

Her screams had lasted mere moments before she had clamped her mouth shut to glare her anger at the retreating lizard. Blood dribbled between the fingers of her other hand she had wrapped around the wound. That was one of the later files that I didn't enjoy watching as much.

Once again I shifted files. This time to the sector marked as the surveillance imagers. These were centered upon my own room. At first it was the current view, but I set about shifting the time markers back several hours to the point when I'd first deviated from the proscribed teachings of Muufa'sa, Victor of the Seven Worlds Clash.

Oh how boring his recitals were. He may have emerged victorious, but I sometimes wondered if it was because he drove his opponents insane with his ceaseless monologues. His ritual that he deemed essential to prepare for the daily events covered four volumes. Little of it applied to me. I didn't have tentacles, let alone care about the preferred method of achieving a striated sheen to enhance length.

I spent the next half hour overlaying the recorded images depicting my foray into secret files, with various volumes of the blowhard cephalopod. I actually had read those things a few times, though once was more than enough. Even the most boring of monologues becomes entertainment when there is nothing else.

TOC

ICHI

The door slid open just as it had done a thousand times before. There had been no signal; no warning; there never was. When they chose to come for me was their own whim, and I had no say in the matter; actually I had no say in any matter. My very existence was even a matter of his whim. Teyrn Elon was the supreme master of everything that encompassed my existence. He taught me the meaning of hate. Pain and hate.

It wasn't him standing in the silhouette of the door, it never was. I think that he knew better than to come within reach of my grasp. He hadn't been in the same room with me for nearly ten years. No, it was the sneering mottled-brown one that stood there in the door of my cage they called a room. A two meter tall lizard with more teeth than brains, called a Selstlak. The whole group of them served as Teyrn Elon's guard flunkies, and sometimes test subjects if they failed him. Sneering Tooth was about to fail him in a big way, but I'd save him the pain of being a laboratory test subject.

He sauntered in slowly with that nice insulating suit all bundled up tight. There was even a toughened patch in it where his tail tapped the floor behind him. I could tell that he was in one of his teasing moods with both fangs showing behind the faceplate. They all knew there was a lot that they could get away with as long as Teyrn Elon didn't discover. Sneering Tooth's favorite start of the day was to flip the tray over, and watch as I picked the crumbs of my meal wafers off of the floor. That tray that he held in his hands at this very moment. That tray held in his bare hands. I nearly let a smile betray me at the sight.

An insulated suit is pretty good at blocking out electrical contact, but it doesn't work so well when the matching gloves are still tucked into the belt. His gloves were tucked so very neatly with the claw tubes folded down to show off the symbols drawn on them. Oh how those Selstlaks seemed to relish decorating themselves.

I had been ready for a moment like this for months, or at least as ready as I could hope to be given my limited resources in this cage. I was so surprised when the moment had arrived that I nearly blew it right then as I jumped up to get my meal. It took tremendous self-control, and two deep breaths, to shove the anticipatory thrill down to where it didn't show on my face. I could never tell just how much these guards actually paid attention to me.

Quickly donning a mask of apathy I slowed my steps down to one per breath, stopping just short of actually taking the tray from him. I knew from the showing of both fangs that the moment I reached for that tray it was going to flip over. He would pay for that sneer. This had to look just right or I'd scare him away. I was only going to get one chance. Just before his patience ran out I reached; not for the tray like he expected, but grabbing his wrists - the yellowish-green of my hands standing out stark against his mottled-brown.

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