The scream that erupted from Everson’s mouth made the high-pitched shrieks of the Leftists sound like music. The white-hot, excruciating pain tensed every fiber in his already beleaguered body as the orb extracted fluid from his spine. The procedure was mercifully quick, and then the orb removed the needle effortlessly from his back. Everson’s trembling arms could hold him no longer, and he collapsed face-first against the dingy floor.

Even so, Everson was now painfully aware of the orb’s violent capabilities, and he didn’t want to let it out of his sight. His cheek scraped against the gritty floor as he strained to move his head. His eyes rolled as if they were loose in their sockets, but finally he glimpsed the orb moving purposefully back to the abandoned and disheveled apron.

A long needle still protruded from the orb’s base, obviously the cause of the searing pain in his back, and Everson watched as the orb used it to tidy the apron back into a flat mat. The silver sphere then hovered above the now neat checkerboard pattern as if waiting for something. When Everson made no move to join it, the orb zipped over to his prostrate form and tapped him hard on the head with the needle.

Everson blinked. That tapping reminded him of his childhood elocution classes administered by Master Abel, a slight but stern Indiran with delicate hands that all too often wielded a thin and highly lacquered black baton. That baton was deployed frequently, tapping Everson soundly on the head when his mind wandered or when he found the windows more interesting than table settings. Master Abel would place it under his chin, pressing upward until Everson’s head had achieved the proper haughty angle befitting a prince. It had poked him almost daily between the shoulder blades to remind him of his posture.

Despite all of that, Everson had been very fond of the fastidious instructor, who always had a twinkle in his eye and who had lavished loving praise upon him when he performed well. The prince had heard it rumored that Abel preferred the intimacy of men, but such innuendos were meaningless to his affections.

Everson blinked again, some semblance of rational thought coming back to him. He had heard that people on the verge of death often conjured images of their life. Was that what he was experiencing now? Master Abel would be flattered, and his delicate hand would fly demurely to his mouth if he only knew. Everson felt the tapping again, and he realized that the orb was trying to get his attention. He raised his head with much effort and looked at the insistent silver ball floating too near his face.

The orb promptly returned to its airspace above the apron. Everson watched in confused fascination as a thin stream of fluid dripped from the needle and onto the apron. He suspected that that same fluid had recently been in his back. He didn’t have long to ponder it. A bright neon-blue grid rose in a three-dimensional shaft from the humble apron. The needle retracted with a click.