literature

Akiva Akkad and the Sons of Liberty Chapter 4

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Literature Text

The Doctor's Potion

    Akiva Akkad was a stranger from another world called Earth, lost on a strange world and prisoner in a floating metal ship. Not 24 hours before he'd wished for an adventure and now he was neck deep in one!

    Now a prisoner, Akiva took stock of his new surroundings, a steel rectangular box lined with rivets and barred portals. It might have been a brig on a naval dreadnought, complete with bunks.

    It might have been a very lonely turn were it not for the fact that the cell had a another occupant who'd made himself well at home long before Akiva's arrival. At first Akiva had quite a shock since his cellmate looked like one of the fellow he'd just escaped from.

    Akiva gulped and kept near the door, half hoping that meal time was soon so he wouldn't be left alone for so long with a hostile subject.

    Only on taking a second look did he notice the differences between his cell mate and the savage creatures who'd chased him through the air. First was a point so obvious that he was almost ashamed he hadn't picked up on it right away, namely that the primitive subject sitting opposite him had a distinctive greenish hue, as opposed to blue. The man returned Akiva's gaze and nodded jovially at him, his eyes being of a human type, the irises green and gold. His dress was distinctly like that of the blue men, but his entire attitude was passive, perhaps even friendly. Also, Akiva found this particular fellow far more handsome that the savage tribe he'd met first.

    He realized he was staring and spoke “Gee, I'm sorry to be rude like that. You see, I've had a day you wouldn't believe...”

    The man shook his head and shrugged his shoulders.

    “Oh, I keep forgetting nobody can understand me.”

    The man stood and crossed the metal floor to Akiva and rested a hand on his shoulder.

    “Hello... um, pleased to meet you.”

    The green man smiled and began to speak, again in the mixed-up tongue of the yellow men who held them prisoner.

    Over the next hour or so they both tried to communicate and did a poor job of it. The language barrier seems impenetrable.

    Akiva shook his head in frustration. In his travels he'd never had so much trouble picking up a language as he had now. Usually he could at least get a few useful phrases.

    The green man sat in silence for a long time. When Akiva tried talking again the man only put his hand up and looked away, it must have baffled him just as much. He stayed like that for what might have been several minutes, until a thoughtful look came over his face.

    Akiva was going to speak, but the green man put up his hand again and walked over to what looked his a cabinet mounted in the wall near the corner of the room. He pulled out a lacquered box about the size of a lunchbox, it was covered with lightning-bolt like designs. The green man set the box down on the bunk and removed from it a little glass vial.

    “Come to think of it, I am pretty thirsty,” Akiva said. “But I don't think whatever you got in that bottle will do it.”

    The green man un-screwed a stopper from the bottle, a crystalline dropper attached to the inside of it. Akiva's eyes screwed up as his cellmate came near him holding the dropper, a drop of brownish fluid glittering on its tip.

    “Wait a minute, fella, I'm not sick and you sure don't look like any doctor...”

Without hesitating, the green man dropped the fluid on Akiva's tongue, cutting off his sentence and eliciting a deep grimace.

    “Sufferin' snakes!” Akiva exclaimed. He tried to spit out the bitter liquid, but it had already been absorbed into his tongue.

    A strange sensation came over Akiva Akkad as the awful taste in his mouth began to dull away. It was as if he felt more wide awake than he'd ever felt before, but without a trace of nervousness or jitters.

    The green man put the box away and poured Akiva a glass of water from a faucet in the wall. When Akiva had drunk, the green man began to talk again, and as before Akiva tried talking to him. This second time things fared far better somehow.

    Over the next hours a strange conversation took place between two captive men of different worlds, during which Akiva found himself introduced to the mechanics of an alien language and was shocked to realize he retained it.

    Even with the breakthrough, the process took time. As they talked they felt the craft sway and turn, the light from the portals changed through the course of the day, a meal was brought and later another.

The two men were about to settle down to sleep when Akiva asked “Just what was that awful-tasting stuff you gave me?”

    “It's a special liquor, called Ninot,” the green man answered. “It's only ever made in small batches, and as you noticed, it is not the made for its flavor.”

    “We probably never would have got to talking without it, right?”

    “It would have taken a long time. The language of your world is so different and your mind was so accustomed to certain linguistic patterns...”

    “I don't suppose you meet many folks from other planets?”

    “You're my first, the first I've ever heard of really, but it's only sense that you aren't from here.”

    During the long flight and the long conversation, Akiva learned many things. He'd arrived on a world called Harl, and on a vast continent called Ortul. Ortul lay in the Northern hemisphere of the planet and had been peopled by the green men and the blue men since recorded time began, the yellow men having arrived only in recent centuries from across a large ocean.

    Akiva's green teacher, names Estep, knew little of the geography of the far half of Harl, but he did know that the first yellow people began arriving just over 500 years ago, from a continent called Torob. Only for the last 200 years had this present force, their captors, come from a northern nation called Vodor, whose empire controlled many parts of Harl.

    The Vodorites were warlike and sought to control as much of the planet as possible in the name of progress and morality.

    “They say their empire has endured for 2,000 years,” Estep told Akiva. “So far they only control this eastern section of Ortul. They might have taken it sooner, but Ortul, and it's sister continent, Ozu, are part of what the people of Torob used to called 'The Forgotten Lands', lands that were known thousands of years ago, before their great empires fell and the world fell into ignorance.”

    “Golly, how long ago was that?”

    “I'm no expert on it, but I've heard it said that that far-gone time has been dead more than twice as long as the Vodor empire has been here. They say that in those times the great empires pushed scores of purple ships across the seas under the banners of gods that nobody today could name.”

    “What about you, Estep?” Akiva asked, crossing the cell. “Have your people got an empire and all that stuff?”

    Estep laughed. “Nothing like what these foreigners have. We've always had a few scattered kingdoms across the lands, usually keeping to their own spaces.”

    “I wouldn't figure they'd lock you up for a reason like that.”

    “That has less to do with my people than me. I was a 'guest' at a military outpost in Trusol when I decided to cut my stay short and visit my home.”

    “Then I guess you're not a big fan of this empire?”

    “I know it isn't so fond of me.”

    “But why do they let you keep this medical kit in here and all? I figure if they didn't like you so well they'd just put a chain on your ankle and forget about you.”

    “They might, but you see I'm a doctor and they need me to be able to practice my profession. The medical kit is always with me and the Vodorites would hardly have taken me without it.”

    “And you'd let them just use your skills as a doctor? They kidnapped you, didn't they?”

    “They wouldn't use a harsh term like that, but it amounts to the same thing. It doesn't matter much what they do, though, since I'm a doctor and I've taken an oath to help people whenever possible.”

    “That's big of you.”

    “You might say you picked kind of a tricky time to visit our planet, you see...”

    The cell door opened suddenly and two of the guards entered and grabbed hold of Akiva roughly and began dragging him towards the door.

    “Hey, what gives?” Akiva asked.

    The guards stopped and exchanged puzzled looks.

    One said “I thought you couldn't talk.”

    “You never asked me.”

    The guards started in again dragging Akiva out and didn't forget to lock the door afterwards.

    They dragged their prisoner along the open-air decks once again, passed by many other armed men. Akiva noticed that landscape had changed slightly, that they were no longer above the mountainous river deltas, but over what he took to be a high forested plateau. He didn't get too long to take in the sight as his escorts rushed him up a flight of stairs and then forward into an interior corridor and up to the bridge.

    The guards stopped and waited for their captain to notice their entry.

    Akiva spotted the captain right away, a very severe looking man in a crown, leaning over a chart, his back to the large crystal portals that showed the view ahead. Underlings went about steering the ship and working various controls, all heavy metal machinery in what could have been steel.

    Through the windows, Akiva saw what appeared to be a large white city ahead beyond the forest that rolled below them.

    The captain looked up, crossed to where the guards and prisoner stood and stared at Akiva.

    One of the guards said “He can speak.”

    The captain nodded “Of course he can.”

    “They said he couldn't when he arrived.”

    “He was locked up with that green doctor, wasn't he? You two are dismissed.”

    The captain returned to his chart and seemed to ignore Akiva for a moment.

    “Aren't you afraid I'll run off?” Akiva asked.

    “Fear is not a quality of a captain of the empire. Besides, you have nowhere to go. A leap from this ship would kill you and I doubt you know enough about it to disable it.”

    “That makes enough sense. What can I do for you?”

    “You can tell me why you were flying from my mountains on a blue-man's glider with a blue man chasing you.”

    “It's kind of a funny story...”

    The captain's expression indicated to Akiva that he was anything but amused.

    “I... um, had a disagreement with the blue fellas. They... um, they don't provide a very warm welcome to strangers.”

    “Neither do I,” the captain said. “Especially in times like these.”

    “What kind of times are they, mister?”

    “The empire is bedeviled by spies, saboteurs and foreign agents. Just where did you say you were from? It must be far away if you don't speak our language.”

    “I'm not sure how it far it is, but I'm from the United States of America.”

    “United States? Is that an empire?”

    “Not really, it's a democracy.”

    The captain's eyebrow raised. “I warn you not to mock an officer of the empire.”

    “No, you see, you haven't heard of it because it's on another planet...”

    “Enough.”

    “But...”

    The captain walked to a control panel and pulled a lever. A buzzer sounded and the two guards from before appeared and took hold of Akiva again.

    “What are you gonna do with me?” Akiva asked.

    “That's not for me to say,” the captain replied. “When we land, your case will be presented to the governor and he will decide your fate.”

Comments6
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VinceAndrews's avatar
good stuff Leo, finally got a chance to catch up :)