#zenj

[4 August 233 Before Age. Nagaoka.]

"Perfect. Absolutely perfect."

Treekul had spent the last several days laboring over a hot alembic, preparing a reagent at Rehval's instruction. Her lavender skin was dirty with soot and sweat. Her lips were dry and her eyes bleary from lack of sleep and water. Lowering herself to her knees, she laid the bottle containing her finished project at Rehval's feet, and waited for him to examine it for his appraisal.

"The war goes well, Treekul," he said, ignoring her reagent completely. "Luffa hasn't left Federation space for over four months now. I've bottled her in. It's perfect."

Treekul didn't particularly care about the war. She knew Rehval was waging one, and that he was using his cult followers as soldiers, but she wanted nothing to do with either. She had been brought to this place against her will, and Rehval refused to let her leave. It might have been simpler for him to kill her, but Rehval seemed to fancy the idea of grooming Treekul as an apprentice in the alchemical arts. This didn't interest her much either. Treekul was an alchemical historian, not a practitioner. She had only played along so far in the hopes that Rehval would let his guard down and give her an opportunity to escape.

And so, she didn't particularly care what he thought about the small bottle of golden liquid she had laid at his feet. All that mattered was that she had done as he asked, and that he would trust her a little more than ha had trusted her yesterday. So if he wanted to congratulate himself on his military adventures, Treekul would play along.

"Is that what this is about, boss?" she asked. "Bottling up the Super Saiyan? Because I don't see what good it does you. From what you've told me, everyone you've sent into Fed space has gotten killed. You can't keep this up forever."

"I don't need to contain Luffa forever," he said. "The point is that I've proven that it can be done at all. A day, a week, a month. The duration isn't as important as the precedent it sets. In my own way, I've shown the universe that I can overpower Luffa."

"Sorry, but I don't get it," Treekul said. "The way you talk about the war, it sounds like more of a stalemate than anything else."

"You lack vision, my disciple," Rehval said.

"Maybe, but I think my vision would be a lot clearer if I got some food and sleep," Treekul said. Wearily, she pointed up at the bottle. "It wasn't exactly easy making that stuff. I don't even know what it's for."

"Ah, how inconsiderate of me," Rehval said. He clapped his hands, and a pair of Saiyan men entered the room and stood at attention. Rehval pointed at Treekul like she was an dead animal he wanted removed from his presence.

"Priestess Treekul has undergone a great trial," he told them. "You will attend to her needs, and escort her back here in six hours."

"Twelve would be better," Treekul yawned, rubbing her eyes for effect.

"Six will have to do," he replied with an unctuous smile. "We still have much work to do, you and I."

Treekul sighed and went with the acolytes.

*******

Treekul wanted a shower, but the Jindan Cult seemed to prefer sponge baths. As a priestess, she had enough rank to at least keep the male acolytes out of the room during this, although they insisted on women taking over their duties in their absence. Treekul at least managed to talk them down to merely standing by while she handled the sponge herself.

"Just seems like everything around here is designed to humiliate a person," Treekul mumbled as she squeezed the sponge into a pot before drawing up clean water from another.

"Sure!" said one of the Saiyan women. "It's like the Thrice-Blessed always says. You gotta reduce an ore down to get at the true essence."

"Oh, I get it now," the other woman said. "For a minute there, I thought you were displeased with us, Priestess, and that was why you wouldn't let us help you. But making us stand around and watch is even more degrading than having us wash you off!"

"I'm not making you watch," Treekul grumbled. "As far as I'm concerned you two can go wander off and do something else, or at least turn around."

"Sorry, your grace," one of them said. "We have standing orders to see that no one harms you."

"Yeah, there's still some Saiyans here who haven't exactly... gotten with the program, you know?" the other one explained. "And if one of them lashed out in frustration, an alien like you might be hurt."

"Wonderful," Treekul said. "So where's Maro and Kocho? They're my usual babysitters, not those two men you replaced."

"I don't know, your grace," the first one said. "We normally serve the male priests, so we don't spend a lot of time with the acolytes who serve the women."

Treekul kept her head down so they wouldn't notice her frustration. She had talked Maro into escorting her to the shipyard. He thought she was only interested in meeting the technicians who maintained it, when her true motive was to gather information to plan an escape. But their schedules never seemed to line up, and then she stopped seeing him altogether. This was probably a simple duty rotation, but she didn't know enough about the cultist's work assignments to be certain, and she was afraid that it might be conspicuous if she asked too many questions about it. She could probably find another cultist willing to show her the shipyard, but that might also attract attention.

So she took a different tack, and chatted with the women about the compound's water supply. All she had seen of the cult was a series of natural and manmade caverns, connected by tunnels that were carved out of solid rock. Treekul had never seen the surface of the planet, but from they told her, it was an uninhabited wilderness. Work details were occasionally sent topside to gather fresh water from polar glaciers. So even if Treekul made it out of the compound, there wouldn't be a city of helpful natives to look for.

"Maro told me the skies were beautiful at night," Treekul lied. "Where I come from, there's too much light pollution to see the stars."

"I've never been outside," one of the acolytes said. "But I know there's no stars out there. Someone told me there's cloud cover over the whole atmosphere."

Foiled again. Treekul looked down and pretended to be very interested in scrubbing her left knee. She had no idea where Nagaoka even was in relation to the rest of the galaxy. The stars in the sky might have given her some clues, but now even those were denied to her. It was beginning to look like everything depended on getting herself a ship, and that all hinged on finding Maro.

*******

[4 August, 233 Before Age. Zenj I.]

Maro was his name. Zatte knew this because he wouldn't shut up about it, and she could hear his chatter over the communicator in her ear. All of the Jindan cultists were eager to prove themselves in battle, but that eagerness made them careless. Two miles away from the battlefield, Zatte watched Maro through the telescopic sight of her plasma rifle, and when she was sure that he was standing still, she opened fire.

Her ability to manipulate energy had a number of applications, but for combat, she preferred to bend light around herself as a nearly perfect camouflage. For this shot, she dropped that invisibility field, allowing her to focus her power on guiding her ammunition to the target. It was a difficult technique, one she was still struggling to master, but it allowed her to strike from greater distances. And it worked. She saw Maro fall through the scope, heard his blustery talk cut off in mid-sentence, and sensed his ki energy vanish in an instant.

Luffa was hurting. These groups of Jindan raiders were no match for her, but each one managed to get a few licks in, and she had been fighting them on planet after planet for weeks. Dr. Topsas had developed mycotherapy techniques to heal her quickly, but it still took a few days for that to work, and once it was done, Luffa would have to return to the grind. There seemed to be no end to the Jindan attacks on Federation territory, and no way to take the fight to them.

Luffa probably should have undergone mycotherapy after the last battle, but she wanted to take care of the cultists in the Zenj System first. And on paper, it was probably worth it. She was more than holding her own against the cultists, but Zatte could tell that Luffa's moves were sluggish and pained compared to her usual self. Normally, Zatte never even got a chance to fire her rifle in these battles. Luffa made a game of trying to defeat the enemy before Zatte could get off a shot. This time, Zatte had made five kills, and lining up for a sixth.

It was gratifying to assist Luffa this much, but it was troubling to know that she needed this much help. To a casual observer, the Legendary Super Saiyan would have seemed as invincible as ever. She was a gleaming yellow blur, dodging and deflecting the cultists's attacks, and countering their numbers with overwelming force. But Zatte could hear Luffa's grunts and stifled groans through the communications earpiece. She could sense that Luffa's power wasn't quite as high as usual. And she had seen her various injuries back on their ship.

It reminded Zatte of Luffa's defeat against the Tikosi. As horrific as that day was, Zatte kept reminding herself that it directly resulted in Luffa's ascension, and all of the good that came with it. Luffa was destined to prevail. Providence would see to that. All Zatte had to do was hold on tight and help Luffa along until her purpose was fulfilled.

She noticed one of the Saiyan cultists had broken off from the group. They knew there was a shooter, and this one was trying to track Zatte down. "Good luck," were the words she mouthed to herself. A ballistics team with advanced equipment might have been able to follow the path of her plasma bursts back to the source, but all this man had were his senses. Zatte doubted that even a Saiyan could pick up her scent from two miles downwind, and she had cloaked herself completely from ki senses and visible light. Even if he fired an energy blast in her general direction, it would have to be such a wide dispersal that she was certain she could deflect the worst of it. He'd just leave himself wide open for Luffa.

Take your best shot, she thought as she lined him up in her scope. He seemed to be taking his time, moving erratically through the air to avoid her fire while he prepared himself. And as Zatte waited for him, she noticed something.

It was a Zenjin ki signature, one so faint that she hadn't even noticed it until now. This part of the city was supposed to have been evacuated, but someone had stayed behind. Moving carefully, Zatte looked up from the broken wall she had been using for cover. Less than a hundred yards away, she spotted a child. A little boy, she thought. She had trouble telling when it came to Zenjins. Something about their antennae, and the patterns on the wings that hung from their backs like capes.

He was dressed in an imitation of Zenjin military garb, and seemed to be watching the battle through a pair of telescopic goggles. He reminded her of herself as a child, always playing soldier.

This was bad. If the Saiyan had sensed his life energy, the he might concentrate his attack in this direction. Zatte might still survive, but the boy would definitely not. Even if she managed to line up a shot and take out the Saiyan first, one of the others might pick up where he left off. And Luffa's hands were full at the moment.

There was only one choice. The Dorlun survival ethic placed self-preservation above all else. Luffa was xan-nil'Dor, chosen by Providence, so that made dying for Luffa a rare exception. To forsake that sacred duty for a child she didn't even know wasn't just a bad idea. It was heretical, a betrayal of everything the Dorluns believed.

Zatte leaped out from her cover and ran as fast as she could to reach the boy. Thanks to Luffa's training, she was able to cross the distance in only a few seconds, but using her top speed also meant that she had to drop her invisibility field. The Saiyan spotted her immediately.

"Who--?" the boy started to ask as Zatte snatched him up in her arms. She kept moving, slowing down only enough to restore her cloaking effect around them both.

"I'm Luffa's shadow," Zatte said between breaths. The situation was bad enough without telling him her name. She was zealous enough to bend and twist the survival ethic, but not that far. There were other Dorluns out there, she hoped, and there was no reason to tell this boy of their existence. Not that he was likely to threaten her people, but there was still the principle of the thing.

"I can't see!" the boy gasped.

"I made us invisible," Zatte said. Each Dorlun had a unique ability, and hers allowed her to bend light rays around herself. Now that she was close enough to him, she could bend the light around the child too, but she couldn't share her ability to see through the cloaking effect. To him, it looked like the whole world had gone dark. She wanted to explain this to him, to assure him that he was safer now that she could use her powers to protect him, but before she could speak, she was knocked off her feet by an explosion.

The next thing she knew, she was lying on the ground, still clutching the child in her arms, and looking up at the Saiyan who had been searching for her.

"Well what do we have here?" he asked with a triumphant sneer. "I always knew the Super Saiyan was an alien trick, and here I find an alien supporting Luffa on the battlefield. Let me guess: she's really an android, and your job is to shoot anyone who gets close enough to see through her holographic effects."

"It's going to be all right," Zatte said to the boy. "You're safe as long as you stay close to me." From the way he trembled, she didn't think he believed her, but she wanted to say it anyway.

"Yeah," the Saiyan said. "That explains how she seemed to move so quickly. It's that invisibility effect you use. You make your puppet disappear and reappear, or even project illusions of her to throw us off-balance." He took a step back from her and pointed his short spear at her. "You're quite the little witch, aren't you, One-Eye? Better keep my distance, eh? I bet if I came any closer you'd use some other secret weapon on me."

He was right. In a pinch, Zatte could use her ability to burst blood vessels, but that trick only worked in close quarters. She had dropped her rifle when she ran to get the boy, and her speed and invisibility were useless with him standing right in front of her.

"You can't kill me," Zatte said, her left eye opening wide with conviction. "You'd be better off running away, or begging for mercy."

"Is that right?" he chuckled. The tip of his spear began to glow pale blue as he prepared his attack. "And why is th--?"

He suddenly noticed an intense increase in ki on the battlefield. Zatte felt it too, felt his comrades all scatter as golden balls of fire came streaking out towards them. Zatte had used her abilities to cloud the Saiyan's senses, so that he didn't know what was going on until just now, when it was too late. He tried to dodge the blast that now approached him, but it struck anyway, and when the light faded and the smoke cleared, he looked like he could barely stand. His clothes and hair were singed beyond recognition, and his skin was covered in burns and scorchmarks.

"I'm with her to the end," Zatte said, although she doubted that he could still hear her. "She and I will die together, so you'll never kill me unless I'm by her side."

He still had enough in him to step forward, no longer caring about any secret weapon Zatte might have. As he raised his spear, he suddenly stopped, and looked down at his abdomen to find a fist that had impaled him from behind.

"That was a mistake," Luffa said so quietly that Zatte only heard it through her earpiece. The man tried to turn his spear on Luffa's bloody wrist, acting more on instinct than any sensible plan, but then a golden glow appeared on her arm, which spread out to envelop his entire body. He made a weak, anguished cry of pain, and then he disintegrated like burning guncotton, and leaving only Luffa where he once stood.

"Are you all right?" Luffa asked, sounding more fatigued than she probably meant to. There was blood on her black racerback and yellow pants, and Zatte knew at least some of it was Luffa's own.

Zatte released the child and rose to her feet. "I'm fine," she said. "What about--?"

"Let's... let's get back to the ship," she said, then turning to the boy: "You can find your own way home, right, soldier?"

He was so awestruck that he almost forgot to answer, and Luffa barely waited for him to nod. "Good. Let's go," she said.

*******

[4 August 233 Before Age. Nagaoka.]

Treekul expected her next lesson to be an evaluation of her last assignment. Instead, she entered Rehval's laboratory and found him dressed like he was going to an expensive restaurant instead of presiding over a cult.

"I'd like you to wear this instead," Rehval said. He held up a black dress and presented it to Treekul before she could even step towards him.

"I thought the robes were specially treated to protect us from chemical burns," Treekul asked as she reluctantly accepted Rehval's gift. It was one of the few things she appreciated about her 'apprenticeship'. Her priestess garment was little more than strips of red cloth haphazardly arranged into a dress, but he had to cover her in more modest protective equipment for the lab work.

"Oh, we won't be slaving over the retorts this time," he said with a laugh. "I thought I'd treat you to something special. A little reward for your hard work."

She waited for him to tell her where to change, and when he didn't she simply headed for the bathroom and put on the dress there. She recognized the style as Camelian fashion. The neckline was square and the hem was in a sawtooth pattern. What truly grabbed Treekul's attention was what was attached to the dress. The price tag was still hanging from the inside of the back, and it identified a particular clothing store as its point of origin. She removed it, but folded the tag in with her usual clothes so she could look at it later. With any luck, it would help her figure out where to go whenever she found a way off the planet.

Rehval put his arm around her waist and led her to a room she had never seen before. Gold bullion lay in piles on the floor. A statue of a woman holding a torch-- also gold-- stood on a pedestal along one of the walls. A scarlet cloth hung over the figure's shoulders. Several paintings adorned the walls, including portraits she recognized from her alchemical history textbooks. In the center of the room was a small-but-expensive-looking table, with dinner served for two. A bottle of wine in a gilded bucket of ice served as a centerpiece for the occasion.

"There's not much to see outside of the caverns," he explained. "So when I want to share my aesthetics with someone, I bring them here." He picked up a gold coin and examined it idly while Treekul took it all in. "It doesn't compare to the villa I once had on Pflaume II, but I decorated the place myself, so I suppose it's a bit more personal that way."

"Where did you get all this money?" Treekul asked. "Wait, dumb question. You're an alchemist. You transmuted an equal weight of lead, didn't you?"

"Cadmium, actually," Rehval said. "It's a similar technique, but I find the procedure more sentimental."

"Where would you even spend it?" Treekul asked. "Unless you give this stuff to your followers when they do missions off-world?"

He laughed. "You're such a utilitarian, Treekul. No wonder you like to keep your hair so short. It's nothing but dead cells to you, waste material to be disposed of. It probably never occurs to you that you might look ravishing with the right style. Although I have to admit, I do enjoy the contours of your head... Anyway, the coins, the gold, they're all for show. Once I learned to counterfeit my own cash, I realized how pointless finances really are. But it still looks pretty, and it impresses other people. A big wooden chest stuffed with gold coins has a romantic touch, don't you think? A bauble I can show off to demonstrate my power."

Treekul's gaze lingered on the chest for a while, and Rehval moved on to a large bookshelf along the wall.

"Have a look at this," Rehval said. He handed Treekul a book bound in old leather, and the smell of the pages was enough for her to estimate the age of it. As she flipped through the tome, Rehval stepped behind her and craned his head over her shoulder. Then he placed his hands on either side of her waist.

"What is this?" Treekul asked.

"You're the archaeologist," Rehval said. "You tell me. I thought you would be interested to ply your trade a bit."

She shrugged and examined several pages. "Encryption 40... No, this is 41," Treekul said a few minutes later. "This was definitely encoded by an alchemist. I'd say... five hundred years ago."

"A layman from that era would read that text and think it was nothing more than a cookbook," Rehval said. Treekul didn't like how close his lips were to her ear, but there wasn't anything she could do about it.

"It is a cookbook," Treekul said. She studied another page more closely, then checked the table of contents to see if the rest of the book covered any other topics. It did not. "The encryption is authentic. Only a student of the Topaz school could have coded this, but when you decode the recipes you just get... different recipes. But it's all food."

"Yes, I know," Rehval said. He gestured to the table somewhat haughtily. "I used it to prepare our dinner."

"Where did you get this?" Treekul asked.

"One of my flock retrieved it for me," Rehval said. "I sent him to the Percel Nebula as a trial of courage. I keep it here with my other collections."

"What's so important about a cookbook, boss?" Treekul asked. "Unless there's another layer of encryption to this, it barely qualifies as an antique."

"You miss the point," he said. "The book itself is nearly worthless. What matters is that I sent a man to find it for me, and he braved many dangers to come back with it. I suspected he wasn't entirely devoted to my cause, but once he handed this to me, I knew that no traitor would go to such lengths for me. From that moment on, I knew that he belonged to me, body and soul."

Treekul bit her lower lip at the sound of this. Then Rehval released her, and headed for the table.

"By the way, I examined your potion," he said. "The formulation was nearly flawless. You have a real talent for alchemy, Treekul. Next time I'll have to assign you a formula that's actually useful. But for now, it'll make a fine addition to my collection."

It was then that she noticed the vial on the shelf where the book had come from. It looked exactly the same as the one she had given to him six hours ago, though it was impossible for her to be absolutely sure.

"Oh, I thought you might want to know that I've assigned a different acolyte to see to your personal needs," Rehval said. "I had to send Mero to the front lines, and he was just killed on Zenj I this morning, so I'm afraid he won't be coming back."

She lowered her head and tightened her grip on the book. With her back turned, she was grateful that Rehval couldn't see the look on her face. He was using her, just as surely as he was using everyone else in this mad cult of his. She could play along and try to win his trust, but she would only be sinking herself deeper and deeper into his game. Did he know that she was trying to use Mero for her escape plan, or would he have sent Mero to die in any event?

No, the real question she needed to ask herself was whether any of it mattered at all. Rehval didn't seem to care what she did or how well she did it. He just wanted her here, like some housepet, or the coins he wouldn't spend, or the book he didn't need, or the potions that served no purpose. She had flattered herself by thinking she could resist him, but in reality there was nothing for her to resist. She was like a rodent in a maze. Even if she died trying to oppose him, he would just shrug his shoulders and find someone else to toy with.

That was why he left that tag on her dress. He wanted her to find it, to make her think that he had made a mistake, that there was some slight opening in her prison. It was just a game to him.

"Well then, come sit down and let's eat," he said. "I'd like to tell you more about my collection..."

With a sharp breath, Treekul turned to join him. For now, there was nothing else she could do.