Free In Enemy Hands by K.S. Augustin Page A

about it, about what happened to him, but something stopped him. And he got the feeling that something always stopped him. There was unease when he thought of his therapist friend, as if, like him, Hen Savic was hiding something deep and terrible.
    Srin frowned. He automatically reached for a towel and dried his face and hands.
    He looked older, so much older. Maybe even fifteen years past his last remembrance. Was that assumption true or false? He threw the towel back onto the countertop.
    Let’s say it’s true.
    He walked back to the bedroom and sat on the edge of the mattress and the cabin plunged into darkness again. What could have happened in fifteen years? Did he marry Yalona, as they planned? Did they have children? What had happened to his proposal to the Republic Science Directorate? Did they give him the extra funding required? Why was he on this ship?
    It was only the last question he could answer easily. Hen told him he was helping with an experiment in stellar-forming. But, was he really on a ship? Srin stilled his breathing. The ever-present hum of running machinery, the slight vibration beneath his bare feet, the configuration of his cabin with its curved section of hull wall, seemed to indicate that this was correct. There was nothing to be gained by lying to him about that. But he got the distinct feeling he was being lied to about something .
    That thought was as comfortable as an old glove. He knew that Hen and the people who surrounded him were lying. He had always known they were lying.
    “How?” he whispered harshly. How could he know he was constantly being lied to when he didn’t even know what happened to the woman who was to be his wife? He knew Hen would give him an answer if he asked. But would the answer be correct?
    Srin almost doubled over, resting his head against two clenched fists, squeezing his eyes shut until he saw flashes of red light bursting in his mind, his hands pushing against the hard bone of his forehead.
    This was so familiar. He knew he had been here before. Maybe not on the Differential , but certainly in this same pose, thinking the same thoughts. If so, there must have been something he had done about it, some way to reassure himself that he wasn’t losing his mind. Had that thought occurred to him before as well?
    With a renewed sense of purpose, Srin got to his feet and started silently searching his room. His computer was functional, but useless, containing only basic information on the Differential . Being read-only, there was no way he was able to modify its information. There were no pads or notebooks, not even an errant cushion that could be stained in a particular way. Srin knew Hen was somehow responsible for this and grimaced. No, he must have thought of a way around this, around the scrutiny of his handler. He wasn’t an idiot! He requested some lighting and sighted down the shelves in his quarters, but saw no revealing variations in furniture texture. Maybe that was too obvious. He turned his attention to the wall panelling.
    The only memories that were crystal clear to him were ones from almost two decades ago. And yesterday. Why? Trying to capture intervening images and emotions made the throbbing in his head worse, but Srin gritted his teeth and tried, even as his fingers explored every rare nook and cranny of his smooth-walled cell. There were ghostly images of other people, a slowly ageing Hen Savic and the insides of more laboratories than Srin thought he could ever have seen in his life. And then, nothing. Nothing more. Just tantalising glimpses showing him that there had been events, actions in past years, just none that he could clearly recall.
    What was going on? What had they done to him?
    His fingers trembled. Was this uncomfortable realisation that he was alone, in a conspiracy he couldn’t even begin to fathom, the first time he had such a thought? Or the six hundredth? There were so many images of different places—indistinct, fading to