The Morcai Battalion (11 page)

He turned and looked down at her. “I would call that,” he said, “an apt comparison.”

Madeline barely heard the insult. She was paying attention to the relaxed breathing of the little girl in the ambutube, still amazed at the Centaurian’s mental abilities.

“Her heart was damaged by shrapnel,” she said. “Now it’s whole again.”

“Some few members of the Holconcom have healing abilities,” he replied quietly. “The basis of which we do not share with outworlders,” he added. He glanced down at her solemnly. “And which you will not discuss with your shipmates, save for Hahnson.”

Curious, she thought. It was as if he knew that she’d discussed him with her fellow medic. “Of course,” she replied. She drew in a long breath. “Well, thank you. Again.”

He folded his arms over his chest. “I said that we would discuss your language,” he continued. “A female does not use such words. It is a breech of custom for a female to curse and brawl and act as a warrior.”

“Sorry, sir, I forgot that your women are still living in the Dark Ages.”

His eyes widened, dark blue with curiosity. “Dark Ages?”

“Your sexes are unequal,” she explained. “Among Terravegans, all genders are treated equally in the military. We’re mentally neutered. I don’t have the slightest idea of how a female is expected to behave in a male-dominated society. I’ve never even seen a breeder.”

“Breeder?”

“Women chosen for specialized childbearing, outside the in vitro government baby mills. It’s difficult to explain.”

The alien studied the woman in the green uniform—the long auburn hair, the pale complexion with a tiny row of freckles just across her nose, the long-lashed green eyes. He shook his head. “To make a woman into a poor replica of a man while she retains the beauty of her gender is an abomination,” he said finally. “Your society is mad.”

Beauty?
Unused to the kind of scrutiny she was being subjected to by those elongaged, alien eyes, she felt a strange tensing of her muscles. She turned away from him, suddenly breathless. “Yes, well, if you’ll excuse me, sir?” She went back to her patient, and she didn’t look at him again.

The mess hall that Madeline was using for a sick bay was one of the smallest compartments on the ship. Two Centaurian technicians passed by it in deep conversation about the growing tension between the human and alien crew members. Their guttural tongue was like a ripple of wind and song in its high and low tones, its odd nasalized consonants. Although they couldn’t know it, the language had an uncanny similarity to the tongues of nomadic dwellers on the ancient planet that spawned the Terravegan society.

Whatever words existed in that musical pattern of sound must have been more interesting than a human mind could grasp. Because the Cen
taurians never saw a soft shadow pass along the programming computers that ringed the engine room, or a white-skinned hand reaching for the panel which controlled one segment of the memory banks.

And before they noticed, much later, that one master unit was just slightly out of sync, the shadow had long since disappeared. So stealthy was it that even the alert
kelekoms
in the classified sector of the ship weren’t disturbed by the tiny, faint change of rhythm in the engines.

Holt Stern pressed his back hard against the bulkhead in the deserted food processing sector, his face an agony of conflicting emotions. He understood, finally, what was expected of him. He had no option, and perhaps it was a small price to pay for an end to the violent headaches that had plagued him from Terramer. But something deep inside him ached. A tiny bubble of guilt and regret blew up in his brain and he wanted to tell someone, anyone, that he was…sorry.

They
wanted the commander. So he had to make sure they could take the Holconcom ship. First the slight adjustment of the ships engines. Then a sudden death to divert the crew. Afterward, a new clone to assist him when the Rojoks closed in. He hated himself for what he was doing, but he couldn’t stop himself. He was programmed, somehow, for these tasks. His meddling would mean the death camps for Madeline and Strick and the other humans; and the alien crew, of course. The Centaurians would be no sacrifice, he told himself, they were warriors. They expected death. But, oh, God, this kind of death…!

Madeline’s face was there, in front of his eyes, already haunting him.
Why
was this treachery necessary? What had been done to him that brought about such changes in his personality?

He held up his hands and looked at them, turned them over, studied them. He was Stern. There were lapses in his memory
pathways, but he was Stern, and he was human, and he belonged to the Tri-Fleet. Why was he doing this? Who were
they
—how did he suddenly know what he had to do, and why hadn’t he refused to do it? Why couldn’t he refuse?

“God!” he cried huskily, his hands crushing at his temples. “Who am I? Who am I?”

But no answer came. The moment of weakness began to pass. He straightened with a hard, heavy sigh. There was work to be done, and quickly. And, fight it mentally as hard as he might, his feet turned him to the passageway and carried him relentlessly down it. A voice in the back of his mind told him, too, that from now on he must do his damnedest to convince his comrades that he was back to normal. He
was
normal. What had possessed him to make him think otherwise? He was having fantasies about betraying his crewmates, but surely they were only fantasies. No doubt they were caused by the concussion. His nostrils extended in distaste as he passed by a group of humans, but he controlled a grimace and grinned at them instead. He was playing a part. He had to play it well. It wasn’t so hard after all.

Madeline was eagerly trading insults with Hahnson when Stern joined them in the mess hall.

“Hi, gang,” he said cheerfully, flashing a convincing smile in their direction as he flopped into a chair and ordered a steaming cup of horrible-tasting imitation java from the small oval synthesizer. “You two look like prospective Vegan organ donors at the Emergency Surgical Sector,” he remarked. “You’ll trip over your lower lips in a minute.”

“Stern!” Madeline exclaimed. “You’re back to normal!”

His eyebrows went up over dancing ebony eyes. “I don’t think I’ve ever been accused of that. But the headaches are gone, and I’m beginning to get my memory back.”

“I told you it was the blow to the head,” Hahnson told Madeline with a smug look.

“Remind me to recommend you for promotion, Doctor,” she replied. “Not on my staff, of course, but…”

“How come,” Stern asked Hahnson, “you’re older than she is, but she outranks you?”

Hahnson shrugged. “Easy. She’s two centimeters taller than I am.”

Stern sipped his java with a chuckle. It was easier to fool humans than he’d thought.

Lyceria found the quarters Chacon had provided for her more to her taste than the rude dungeon. But captivity was slowly draining her spirit. And for some reason of his own, Chacon had allowed no one near her save himself. The loneliness had an almost tangible feel. It was as consuming as her fear of
Ahkmau.

She touched the sleek fabric of the dress he brought her on his last visit. It was more comfortable than the Rojok armor she’d been required to wear in the beginning of her captivity, and infinitely more lovely. Its pale golden color shimmered in a delicate variety of patterns as the chemicals imbedded in its composition reacted to the heat of her body. The colorful gift had pleased her, although she was careful not to let the pleasure show.

A footstep at the door made her heart shudder. She stood like a fragile statue, a study in feline grace, as she began to rise.

Chacon moved into the room and stopped, his slit eyes drawn like electromagnets to the portrait she made. The silence was long and unbroken except for the soft whisper of the door sliding down again.

“You flatter the dress,” he said.

She lowered her eyes before he could read the warm brown shades that touched them. “You flatter me.”

She felt his gaze cling to her even as he spoke. “I bring unpleasant news. I had thought your capture was the doing of one of my men—whom I saw punished for the act. But it was more. Mangus Lo himself ordered the death of your young brother, and your capture. The knowledge was carefully concealed from me, until now.”

She raised her face and met his level gaze with eyes the pale gray shade that denoted curiosity. Behind the question was a fear that she dared not show. “Why? Why?” she asked.

“I do not know. The only information I was able to obtain was that it had something to do with another goal—the capture of the Holconcom commander. Even now, I fear that goal is being accomplished. And I know all too well what treatment will be given my old enemy.”

“There speaks compassion in your voice,” she said, surprised.

“A warrior can hold respect for even an enemy who warrants it. But now my concern is for you. It is only a matter of time until Mangus Lo learns where you are being kept. The threat of
Ahkmau
has loosened many a tongue, and my confidants are not immune.”

She barely heard him. Capture Dtimun?
Maliche
, they might as easily paint cloud pictures on the wind. But if Mangus Lo by some dark power accomplished that end—her hands trembled involuntarily.

Her wide, graceful eyes wore the blue color of deep concern. She looked into his. “You cannot protect me further without jeopardizing your own life. This, by custom, I cannot allow. I do not fear death.”

“Nor I,” he replied with a tiny smile. “Madam, I cannot condone the murder of a female. It is a breech of my own honor. I will take you to a place of safety.”

“There are no places of safety,” she said gently. “They exist only in the mind.”

“There is one which even Mangus Lo would not think to search. My harem.”

A faint pink tinge washed over her pale, golden complexion. “I should prefer
Ahkmau
,” she said proudly.

An expression came and went in the glittering depth of his slit eyes, but his expression remained untouched. “I mean you no insult. I offer you the only protection I am capable of giving, and it is good only so long as Mangus Lo does not guess my involvement. Will you trust me?”

“Trust carries with it an awesome responsibility, Commander Chacon,” she said. Her eyes studied his face, dusky, masculine, rugged with the years of combat and command. There was no softening there, no weakness that could be perceived. She sensed a deep sadness, a loneliness, however, that had no echo in his expression. She weighed the legend against the man—and found a balance. “I…will trust you,” she said after a minute. She felt an odd sensation from him, although his expression never wavered. “But why will you risk so much for an enemy of your people?”

He smiled, a slow, quiet smile that was almost affectionate. “If you must have a reason, call it repayment of a debt. Perhaps the next time you see the Holconcom commander, you may ask him to explain. Will you come?”

She followed after him, surprised at her own acquiescence. She must be cautious, she reminded herself, she must not be so ready to trust him. Whatever else he was, he was also the enemy. And she was Alamantimichar. Chacon surely knew that he could ask any ransom for her return, and Tnurat would tender it. An ambitious soldier possessed of such a captive could name his own price. She wondered what Chacon’s would be.

Another solar day had gone by, and it brought a new tragedy. Madeline and Hahnson were discussing a missing crew member with Stern.

“It’s Merrick,” Stern said. “He wasn’t at roll call, and I can’t find
him.” He didn’t add that he’d had another of several peculiar blackouts just minutes before. The medics were already suspicious of him. He wasn’t going to let himself in for more questions and tests. Surely it was just a minor result of the concussion. He might even remember where he’d been eventually.

“Merrick.” Madeline sighed. “He’s been one of the most uncooperative of the crew since we’ve been on board.”

“It will get him in big trouble if he pushes any of the Centaurians,” Hahnson added.

He was about to add something else, but he stopped when Komak appeared beside them so silently that none of them noticed him until he spoke.

“Dr. Strickhahnson,” he addressed Strick, “please come with me quickly. There has been an…accident. Perhaps you should come, as well,” he told the other two.

Hahnson glanced curiously at his companions and started down the long passageway with them past other members of both crews.

Komak stopped at a sector marked only by a strange Centaurian scrawl and cautiously motioned the humans inside. Madeline stopped just inside the doorway for an instant before she joined her comrades.

While Hahnson knelt beside the blond human casualty on the floor, Madeline dropped to one knee across from him. “Merrick, you fool,” she muttered under her breath.

“What happened to him?” Stern asked curiously.

Hahnson was examining the crewman. “His neck’s broken,” he said at once. “Crushed would be a better adjective. The cervical vertebrae are literally shattered. A damned neat job of it, too. Quick and efficient. I doubt he knew what hit him.”