Page 57 of Dark Shaman: Eternal Hope
"In a way. Without external stimuli, they're turning inward. Or rather, toward each other. If you don't want them to keep doing that, perhaps playing music or showing them movies could be a distraction."
Navuh regarded him with thinly veiled amusement. "I know that you don't believe that. They can tune out exterior stimuli."
Eluheed let out a breath. "Forgive me, my lord. I wasn't thinking clearly. You are absolutely correct. They've found each other in a space where physical conditions are largely irrelevant."
"Then what do you recommend?"
That was a loaded question, and he didn't want to give Navuh an answer that would result in the execution of these men.
The truth was that they were dangerous, and the prudent thing to do would have been just that, but it wasn't Eluheed's responsibility to determine their fate.
"There isn't much to do except to frequently monitor them. They're in a process of becoming, and I assume you would like to understand what they're becoming before the process is complete."
He might have just bought these poor souls a few more days to live.
"Could you do this daily?" Navuh asked.
The thought made Eluheed's gut twist. Each contact risked exposure, especially now that they were becoming more perceptive and more intrusive in their pursuit of entertainment.
"Every other day would be safer, my lord. Repeated exposure might allow them to map me, for lack of a better term. To understand my mental architecture well enough to predict and possibly manipulate it."
Navuh considered this. "You're concerned they could influence you?"
"It's possible. They're learning to work as one mind. Against that unity, an individual consciousness, especially a human one, might be vulnerable."
The lie was wrapped in truth. He was vulnerable, just not in the way Navuh assumed.
"Every other day then," Navuh agreed.
"Thank you, my lord." Eluheed bowed again.
As they walked back through the facility, Navuh seemed contemplative. "What did you mean when you said they wanted stories of the earth you carried?"
Eluheed chose his words carefully. "It was like they were trying to read a book written in a language they only partially understood. They could sense there was meaning there but couldn't quite grasp it."
"Meaning in dirt?"
"Everything carries information, my lord. The soil contains minerals from specific locations, pollen from certain plants, and microscopic life unique to particular environments. To a consciousness that has expanded beyond normal limitations, these details might be significant."
On the drive back to the harem, Eluheed stared at his soil-caked hands and thought about the answer he'd given Navuh. The enhanced soldiers had sensed something about him that was more than skin deep. Somehow, the dirt on his hands created a bridge to his past, which was why he'd ejected so quickly, severing the connection.
He couldn't allow them to find out that he was not human.
23
LOKAN
Lokan stood outside Jeremy's bedroom, watching through the open door as Julian checked the man's temperature.
"It's 102.6," the physician announced, not looking up from his tablet where he logged the second reading he'd taken in the last hour. "It's slowly climbing, but it's not at a level that justifies moving you into the clinic. I can monitor you here until we are sure that you are transitioning."
Jeremy lay propped against a pile of pillows, his face flushed and glistening with sweat, but his eyes were alert and excited. Sitting beside him on the bed, Naomi held his hand, her thumb stroking across his knuckles.
This morning, when Jeremy woke with a headache, no one was sure it was a sign, but by noon the fever had started and everyone's hopes had gone up.
"This is good, right?" Jeremy sounded hopeful and scared simultaneously. "The fever could mean that I'm transitioning, right?"
It had been just one day since the induction ceremony and Anandur's venom bite, but Jeremy was acting as if he'd been waiting forever for the transition to start. Then again, this hadn't been his first time, so he might have counted the days after the previous attempt.
