Preview
Soulwalker: Benzoin
As the Alien Queen sank, Lex rose and hurried to Scar's side.
Sobbing, she fell to her knees in the bloody snow, cradling the dying Predator's head in her arms. His body broken, the Predator seemed resigned to his fate.
As Lex held him, Scar reached up a battered claw and gently traced the thunderbolt scar on her forehead with the tip of his finger. Using a distorted version of Lex's own voice, the Predator spoke.
"The enemy of my enemy..."
"...is my friend," said Lex.
Then the Predator shuddered once, and died.
The dream always has different developments. Sometimes she holds the hunter's head and cries for him, her cheek scar touched by him. And sometimes she kneels at his side with no expression and watches him die.
Sometimes, she dreams of dragging the hypothermic alien hunter into the hot ashes, keeping him warm, snuggling up to him, listening to his clicking and the sound of the flames, and spending time there.
No monsters, no icebreakers and investigations, no reporters and news, or the faces of crying victims' families. Only Scar, still alive, remained with her in the abyss of her dreams. There is no escape from reality, no hiking or climbing, only countless pills and one-way glass rooms.
Her most vivid dream came during the time she was in a coma from a ruptured spleen.
The dream was of a snowy field where Scar appeared from behind her. Lex cried tears of joy. They reunited and embraced, and then together they entered the light door of the spaceship.
And then... she was cured.
The rupture of her spleen was barely noticeable. She actually lost blood during her escape from the pyramid due to the adrenaline rush, and Scar's companion's kick to her abdomen was so hard that she flew off and hit a pillar, and then she didn't even have time to express her discomfort because she was constantly facing death.
October 10th, maybe 11th.
As the ship rises out of the clouds, Lex finds a Hagglund that is still running, finds some warm clothes to put on, and then examines the ground at the whaling station site, following the signs of the battle to find all of Scar's belongings.
Including the broken half of the combistick (the other half went down with the Queen), the half-buried bio-mask in the snow, and the tattered shuriken that Scar's people for some reason hadn't taken away, perhaps because they thought Lex was entitled to it and didn't need to clean up the evidence.
She also miraculously finds a ring that came off of Scar's dreadlocks and puts it on Sebastian's bottle cap necklace. It looks ordinary enough, so hopefully it will pass muster in the human world.
The emergency spear Scar made for her is completely missing. She lost her weapon and shield, as well as her feathered cloak, after stabbing the Queen in the throat. With time running out, she must abandon them.
Lex finds a rock wall before returning to the icebreaker, climbs it with her bare hands, digs a hole, and shoves everything Scar has into it, then covers up all traces and returns to the Hagglund before freezing and returning to the icebreaker to face the nightmare of the real world.
But before the nightmare can begin, the dream of reunion finds her first.
Lex can barely recall how she contacted the Piper Maru or what the arguing people asked her. She only has a vague image of white light tubes flashing across the ceiling and the ticking of instruments. Then she dreams of the Lightgate.
Upon awakening, she finds herself in a hospital bed within a closed facility. Instead of being offered a glass of water, the staff presents her with a recording pen and begins to dig gently, but relentlessly, into whatever part of her memory is still fresh.
Lex only protests by going back to sleep. She needed rest, both physically and mentally. Only an Alien jumping out of the corner could get her to open her eyes again.
Lex lived a short, quiet life... If the one-way glass room and the various examinations counted, Weyland took as much evidence from Lex as they could, treating her like any other victim of a whaling station, collecting microscopic material under her fingernails and from her hairbrush, all her clothes, and her mucous membranes.
And, of course, the endless loop of repetitive questioning.
And then they let her go, just like that. With the relic necklace.
But after returning to the real world, things weren't so easy. The reporters, the victim's family—that's enough for her.
October 14th, Gunnison, Colorado.
The new tragedy took her place, and Lex had to admit it was a relief. A research team that had disappeared in Antarctica hardly mattered anymore; there was a hole in the map of Colorado that had been erased forever.
A team in Antarctica was no more important than a small town and a tactical nuclear bomb, not to mention Weyland's blocking of any information they didn't want to get out. What happened in Antarctica isn't big news internationally; the company seems to have taken responsibility and put together their own rescue team, but in reality, only they know what they did.
Sometimes Lex climbs up on the roof and looks at the stars while fingering the bottle cap and the ring. She knows Scar is out there somewhere in space; maybe there was a funeral and the aliens buried him in the ground.
She sometimes wonders, in the words of Charles Weyland, "Was the last thing Scar remembered was pain? Or defeating the Alien Queen with her?" As if that would make the pain any less.
Poor comfort.
Scar wasn't the only one who died in Antarctica; she's almost certain that most human victims end up dying from pain, but it's not clear how much each of those people contributed to her pain, which the counselor is still discovering with her (she can't talk about the aliens, so of course progress is bad).
But Lex had been so intimidated by the food that she had pushed it away from the table. It was just a hamburger steak with guacamole, not Alien fingers and sour blood. But she still felt fine; she just needed some prescription drugs.
She had survived the pyramid; there was no way she was going to let the other things get her down.
Lex hid her words in that necklace until the Yutani Corporation stood on her doorstep.
In the dark, deep space—
Bhu'ja crossed the passage to the bridge. It is dark everywhere, for the Yautja do not need light to see. He finds the Elder who summoned him in the busy infrared landscape of the crew.
...Hopefully it wasn't related to the crashed scout ship.
But when did fate spare Bhu'ja? The Elder turned to him, glad to finally find a scout to call after he had just lost an entire small ship's crew.
"Bhu'ja. The Mission."
With a wave of the Elder's hand, the computer projected a view of the planet they had just left, where the last group of New Bloods had all died in the Blood Ritual, and Bhu'ja's fangs twitched in the bio-mask. He shouldn't have returned to the clan mothership so soon; he'd be happy to collect a few more of the hunt's predetermined locations.
"The Oomans took Yautja's weapon: a plasmacaster pistol type."
Bhu'ja almost let out a painful groan. Plasmacaster. Oh my Paya... Damn those newbloods!
"There is no need to retrieve the weapon."
At that, Bhu'ja felt alive again.
"Just transmit the location of the weapon, I'll send a crew. Our scout ship sent out a distress call before it crashed, and the cleaner from the home planet responded, but he went there and lost contact. You're the only scout closest to there, and it's up to you to find him or figure out what happened."
Elite's death and disappearance were something his clan would want to investigate, and it had something to do with the Isolation Clan, so the cleaner's clan sent over a cooperative commission.
It also means that the scout may have nothing to do but investigate, and Bhu'ja's fangs are carefully busy under the bio-mask, like two pairs of little hands clapping happily all over the place. It was hard to find an excuse to go to Earth. He wants to restock!
The silent scout nodded his head and accepted his new assignment.
Before he left, the Elder couldn't help but stop him and say, "Bhu'ja."
A bad feeling.
"Use your shoulder cannon normally. Normally."
Please don't emphasize it twice. Don't.
"Yes." Bhu'ja's dreadlocks whipped out in a circle and turned away like a trusty hunter.
... But if time could start over, Bhu'ja would definitely ask if that Plasmacaster was lost by New Blood or the Elite.
Spoiler
Mandarin Fiction Book Titles：安息香
- 安息↓
- rest in peace · go to sleep · (history) Parthia
- 香↓
- fragrant · sweet smelling · (of sleep) sound · perfume or spice · joss or incense stick · savory or appetizing
Because of its poetic name and stabilizing aroma, many people will immediately associate benzoin with "death. In fact, the origin of benzoin's name has nothing to do with its efficacy or religious connotations. It is because it was imported into China at that time from a place called the "安息 Kingdom," and only then was it called benzoin.
But while benzoin doesn't get its name from its effects, it does have the ability to calm and soothe. Benzoin is a warm oil that clears negative energy and transforms it into positive energy. It removes painful imprints, heals unspeakable pain, and calms the deepest turmoil of the soul.
