A Kaikan Quick: The Capture
“This is all your fault,” he mumbled, golden eyes narrowed as he stared pointedly at the floor. He, the mighty Mvarta, had been caught by local authorities. It was humilating.
”But… but… there was cake.” The voice in his head sounded mournful. Mvarta’s face feelers twitched.
“The cakes were fine. But the Garesh incident?”
”…”
There was a long pause as the irrational part of the Kaikan’s brain seemed to consider what the rational part had said. Mvarta resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Talking to D’taran was the equivalent was trying to explain nuclear physics to a two year old. All they wanted to do was hit things with their toys and make messes. They didn’t care about the complicated, inner workings of a city that worshiped their cows like they were sent from the heavens, and neither did D’taran. How did Mvarta arrive at such a conclusion? It was simple. If he had, D’taran surely wouldn’t have shaved the cows and then paraded around wearing horns to interrupt a very serious religious ceremony. But Mvarta didn’t even really care about that. Cows were cows, and their only purpose in life was to taste good. What bothered him most was… well.
“And why did you feel the need to go streaking through the city butt naked?!” He had a hard time keeping his voice down. Most people didn’t understand the duel nature of the Kaikan Quick’s personality, didn’t understand that unless the amount of the drug was administered in exact amounts it created such a divide in the mind that the two halves could exist separately. Not only did they exist together, in one body and mind, but they could also communicate with each other. Such a thing had happened to D’taran.
The focusing drug was meant to completely remove the irrational personality and harness the Kaikan Quick’s creative genius. A Kaikan who has mental capabilities worlds beyond the normal but does things only on a whim is useless. A Kaikan who has the same mental capabilities but is in control of their actions is much more useful. Mvarta was the result of exposure to such drugs. Normally, the Mvarta-type personality would completely win out against the D’taran-type, provided that the drug took full effect. Once the rational brain took over, the drug needed to be administered in smaller and smaller doses, since it was believed that the rational side would continue to ignore the irrational. In the case of D’taran (and Mvarta), the drug wasn’t as effective as it had been on their predecessors and thus now there were two of them. One who was capable of the most ingenious plans to steal information from the North’s sworn rival, and the other who… painted cows rainbow colours. It was understandably very frustrating for Mvarta.
“It was necessary at the time,” D’taran supplied finally, with a small giggle, “And I needed a distraction to get the cake!”
“That is about as far from a suitable distraction as—“
“Degestytaran Lamoyadeeras Elvakia Mvarta?”
The Kaikan Quick looked up into the face of his judge. His face feelers twitched again. If only D’taran hadn’t been such a stupid a** and gone and done so many things that even Mvarta couldn’t think of a way to get out of it. Indecent exposure and theft were easy enough crimes to pay the penalty for, but sacrilegious behaviour and evidence of espionage on top of that and they both were in deep, deep trouble. The only comfort he had as he faced what would probably be his death sentence was the fact that there were several very red-faced nobles behind the judge. They had probably been conducting the religious ceremony that D’taran had interrupted. Golden eyes still on them, he mouthed “moo?” and watched as their faces turned even redder. Nobles were so easy to mess with.
“I herby sentence you to confinement on Gaia.”
Mvarta was forced to look back at the judge at those words, thoroughly surprised for perhaps the first time in his life. Gaia? They weren’t going to kill him? The crowd around him murmured, clearly as stunned as he was by the sentence. His rational brain caught up with him, and he frowned. This Gaia place must be worse than death, that was why they were sending him there. But, if so, why had nobody ever been sent there before?
”’cause nobody’s ever stole forty cakes?” D’taran supplied helpfully.
Mvarta’s feelers twitched. The judge banged his hammer to silence the crowd and then motioned for the guards to take the Kaikan Quick away. He allowed himself to be lead into what appeared to be some sort of metal tube and enclosed within it. As his eyes began to close, overcome with a sudden sleepiness, he could have sworn he heard D’taran say,
”I wish I’d got a chance to eat that fortieth cake.”
Perhaps a life stuck with D’taran would be worse than death.
