Beauty and the Fleet (Intergalactic Fairy Tales Book 2) by Robert McKay

unconscious from his abuse the day before.
    "Hands," Beatrix called. He didn't respond. She called his name several more times, progressively louder until she was shouting at the top of her lungs. He stood between her cell and his while they unlocked the door, as lifeless as his captors. That's when Beatrix noticed the two small bands of black flesh on his forehead, trailing up into his hair.
    Beatrix pressed close to her bars to get a better look, hoping that it was some trick of the shadows. It wasn't. As he moved into his cell, she could plainly see the black flesh covering the back of his neck as well. A symbiont. They had attached a symbiont to Hands. A hot clenching feeling formed in her stomach and the world spun around her. She barely had time to take the two steps to the toilet before she emptied the contents of her stomach.
    Beatrix stumbled over to her sink and rinsed her mouth, barely able to form thoughts. Why would they put a symbiont on Hands? She couldn't think of any possible purpose that could serve. She stared blankly at the wall for several minutes before she was able to muster her thoughts.
    Nedran biology was radically different from Colarian, so it was entirely unlikely that they would have a good symbiotic relationship. What could possibly be the reason for putting them together? While the symbionts enhanced many of the Colarian's physical traits, making them stronger and more resistant to disease, it was never clear what the symbionts got out of the relationship other than the nourishment they drew from the Colarian. The symbionts showed no signs of intelligence. Beatrix decided it had to be a sick experiment. There was only one question that really mattered: what was the symbiont doing to Hands?
    "Hands, are you alright over there?" Beatrix called, once she could do it without her voice quavering. She needed to be strong for him. She calmed her breathing and strained her hearing to its utmost and could barely hear a soft sniffling next door. "Hands, talk to me!"
    There was no answer. The sniffling gave way to a low keening sound, like a small child or a wounded animal. Beatrix had to dig around in her memory for several seconds before she managed to come up with his real name; she'd used it so little. "Colin, please talk to me, tell me that the symbiont isn't hurting you."
    "It's not hurting me," he whispered after several moments. "It's erasing me..."
    "It's doing what?" asked Beatrix, not wanting to believe her ears.
    "Erasing me," repeated Hands, this time in a soft sob.
    He wouldn't say anything more, though Beatrix tried talking to him for hours. The moaning and crying stopped after about twenty minutes, leaving her to wonder if he was still alive. She wanted to scream until he was forced to respond, but she was afraid that would draw the guards. All of this had started because she had called that Colarian monster in to talk.
    Every so often, she heard a scuffling noise that was too close to be from one of the other cells, at least that was what she told herself. That he still had to be alive. If he was alive, there was still hope for him. Maybe for Gadget, too.
    There were far too many ifs and maybes floating around in her head for her liking. She needed answers, but that was how Hands had gotten taken away. It was all her fault. If she hadn't called the beast down there, then Hands wouldn't have one of those things sucking on his brain.
    No, she wouldn't let herself think that way. None of this was her fault. The blame fell to the Colarians and no one else. And her friends being hurt was the work of the beast. He had some sort of sick fascination with her and it was causing her friends pain. The longer she sat there doing nothing, the more pain would come for them. There was no doubt in her mind that the beast would come for her last, after he'd destroyed all of her friends.
    Erased them.
    Hands' words echoed in her mind over and over again. The beast would erase her friends' minds and then he