Читать книгу The Morcai Battalion: The Rescue - Diana Palmer - Страница 9
ОглавлениеRHEMUN WAS DISCUSSING a new navigation program with Holt Stern when Hahnson joined them on the bridge.
Back when Holt was captain of the Bellatrix, even with the usual military formality, Hahnson would have thought nothing of greeting his commander with a smile. Here, on the Morcai, it was like boot camp. Military formality was the order of the day. Nobody used first names. Nobody acted in a chummy fashion.
So Hahnson made a snappy salute. “Sir,” he addressed Rhemun, “I need to speak to you for a moment.”
Rhemun never smiled. His cat-eyes darkened to a solemn blue. “Very well.” He turned to Stern. “Keep working with that program,” he said curtly. “I will expect it to be functioning perfectly before we lift. Am I understood?”
“Yes, sir.” Holt snapped him a salute, sat back down and went to work. Hahnson, who knew his friend very well, could see the hidden irritation that accompanied the remark.
Rhemun led the way into the small cubicle off the bridge that was used for an office. He closed the door, but he didn’t sit down or offer Hahnson a seat.
“Well?” he asked curtly.
Hahnson’s dark eyes narrowed. “I’ve just spoken to Dr. Mallory,” he began.
Rhemun held up a hand. “I know that Dr. Mallory has reacted badly to an incident earlier today,” he said. “She will have to learn to cope. Even a combat medic must be expected to defend herself from attack.”
“Commander Dtimun never allowed medics to be armed,” Hahnson commented.
“I refuse to send any personnel into the field without weapons,” Rhemun replied tersely. “But as to Mallory’s condition, she must work through it herself.”
He sighed. “Yes, sir, I realize that. But Dr. Mallory has never been in combat situations until quite recently.”
Rhemun didn’t speak. He folded his arms over his broad chest and stared at Hahnson.
“She really is doing the best she can, sir,” he said finally.
“None of us has the time to shelter a physician from the harsh realities of military life,” he replied curtly. “If Dr. Mallory finds her work too tedious, perhaps she should consider another branch of service.”
“That is not an option,” Hahnson said shortly.
Rhemun raised an eyebrow.
“Dr. Mallory washed out of combat school,” Hahnson said stiffly. “Then she was rejected as a breeder...”
Rhemun’s expression, in a normally expressionless face, was faintly surprising. “A breeder?” He said the word with blatant contempt.
“It isn’t what you think,” Hahnson replied. “She was kept in a lab while they decided if her genetics were sound enough for breeding purposes. They were not.”
Rhemun’s face hardened. “An inferior genome...”
“Recessive genes,” Hahnson shot back, not caring if he had to take the loss of points on his military record. “They’re not in fashion this year.”
“Excuse me?”
“The government agency overseeing breeding decides from year to year which traits are acceptable, and as the board changes, so do the prejudices. The members of the board determined that recessive genes should be purged from the genome, so anyone who strongly depicted them was automatically rejected.”
“Explain recessive genes.”
“In a few words, blond or red hair and light-colored eyes.”
“These traits are quite admirable,” Rhemun replied. “Dr. Ruszel has beautiful coloring.”
Hahnson wouldn’t have touched that remark with a pole. He was aware that Rhemun had a soft spot for Ruszel, which had caused some problems between him and the former commander of the Morcai before Dtimun and Ruszel bonded.
“Well, the board makes the final decision, sir,” Hahnson replied tactfully.
“May I ask what those two rejections have to do with Mallory’s current situation?” Rhemun asked after a minute, obviously impatient.
“It puts her in line for Reboot if she gets a third black mark on her service record. Sir.”
“Reboot,” Rhemun scoffed.
Hahnson frowned. “You know about it?”
“Yes. I know about it.” He turned away. “Was there anything else?”
Hahnson was diverted. He hadn’t realized that anyone outside the Terravegan medical corps knew the painful, horrible truth of that process. “May I ask how the commander knows of it?” he persisted.
“I was involved in a case where it was invoked. I will speak no more of it.”
“Yes, sir.”
Rhemun’s eyes were dark with anger. “You humans protect your worst specimens in a manner that is repulsive to me.”
“Sir?”
Rhemun waved a hand. “Dismissed.”
“But, sir, about Dr. Mallory...”
Rhemun just looked at him. The look was enough. Hahnson saluted, turned and left the room.
How did Rhemun know about Reboot? Hahnson asked himself. And not only that, why was he so dismissive of it, if he knew the truth? It disturbed him, but he wasn’t going to try the alien’s patience by referring to it again. Meanwhile, he’d do what he could for Mallory. Which was going to be precious little, he imagined.
* * *
EDRIS MANAGED TO get herself back together, after a fashion, but something inside her would never be the same after her brush with death.
She saw the alien face in her mind night and day, saw the horrified expression as life drained suddenly out of him. She slept badly, even with the sedatives. Her mental state made her more likely to make mistakes. When she did, the commander of the Holconcom was always ready to pounce.
“You have marked the wrong status on two of my crew,” he growled at her when she’d presented him with the latest casualty list after a brief skirmish with renegade Rojoks on an asteroid colony world.
Edris looked at the padd and winced. “I’m sorry, sir,” she said formally, still standing at attention. “It won’t happen again.”
He glared at her. Small. Blonde. Fair. Long, almost-platinum-colored hair tortured into a tight bun on top of her head. For one split second he wondered what it would look like loosened, and hated himself even for the thought. She was the image of a nightmare figure from his past, from a tragedy that he could never speak of to the humans aboard this ship. But it gave him reason to hate them, especially this one.
She swallowed. His hatred was almost palpable. She felt sick to her stomach. She didn’t know what she’d done to create such antagonism. Well, she did snap back at him when he was at his worst. But that didn’t really seem provocation enough for the anger he directed at her.
“Hahnson tells me that you aren’t adjusting well after your...incident,” he said after a minute. He lifted his chin and a cold little smile touched his chiseled mouth. “I suggested that a change of military assignments might be applicable.”
She went pale. Her mind flashed with images of laboratories and body parts and agar in petri dishes.
Unknown to her, Rhemun saw those images. He didn’t understand them. But, then, he understood very little about humans and their mental processes. However, her discomfort gave him pleasure. He felt a brief skirl of shame at his own behavior. An anniversary was upcoming. He couldn’t share its import, but it was connected to his opinion of Mallory and her race and culture. He hated both. He hated the anniversary. His life was replete with torment, from adolescence onward. He had lost his father in a most terrible manner, in a way that shamed him and his mother even today, despite the emperor’s kindness and support. Then he had lost another, to a human’s stupidity. He closed his eyes. The pain was almost palpable.
“Sir?” she prompted, surprised at the anguish on his face.
He opened his eyes. They were dark brown, anger almost gone to rage. He hated her compassion. He didn’t want it.
He handed her back the padd. “No more mistakes.”
She saluted. “No, sir.” Her tone was subdued.
His eyes narrowed. She was still pale. Why would the thought of reassignment be so disturbing to her? That was, after all, what Reboot was. The humans didn’t punish their officers, not even for murder. They just reassigned them.
“Dismissed,” he said in a cold tone.
“Yes, sir.” She saluted and hurried away.
* * *
IT WAS ONLY going to get worse. She knew that. But she had no alternative, no place else to go. She was stuck here, Madeline Ruszel’s replacement but never an acceptable replacement to the commander of the Holconcom, who revered Ruszel and hated Mallory.
“I should have known I couldn’t make it here,” she mumbled to herself as she ran blood samples through her small lab.
“Excuse me?”
She turned as Holt Stern entered. He was really a dish, she thought, smiling—dark wavy hair and dark eyes and a glorious physique. She wished she still had the crush on him that she’d had when she first served aboard the Morcai. But her heart was tugged elsewhere, to a person who didn’t want her interest, who found her actually repulsive.
“Hey, Cap,” she said with a grin. “How’s things?”
He chuckled. She wasn’t Maddie Ruszel, but he liked her. “Rough,” he remarked with a sigh. “None of us are dancing with joy over the changes around here.” He shook his head. “I never thought a court-martial would appeal to me more than staying in the Holconcom.”
She lifted her eyebrows.
“Nobody back at Terravegan HQ knows I’m a clone,” he pointed out. “If they found out, I’d be drummed out of the service. So would Hahnson. Only use we’d be then would be in some top secret government lab.”
Sort of like me, she thought, but she only smiled. “It’s not so bad. We just have to learn to get along together.”
“Not going to happen, Doc,” he replied, leaning back against a bulkhead. “I’m not the only one who has a problem. The new CO hates humans. Didn’t you notice?”
She averted her eyes. “He’s just not used to us yet,” she said. “After all, he commanded the emperor’s personal bodyguard for decades. All Cehn-Tahr. No humans.”
“He makes his contempt for us known,” Stern said quietly. “He doesn’t even try to hide it.”
“He wasn’t with you at Ahkmau,” she pointed out. “Dr. Ruszel said that’s what made the unit into a unit.”
He nodded. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” he agreed. “We pulled together and the CO got us out, with a little help from a real enemy, the Rojok Field Marshal Chacon.” He chuckled. “When he took power, we thought the wars would be over forever, especially when he was given a seat on the Tri-Galaxy Council itself.”
“We didn’t consider that a lot of old, hard-line troops didn’t want what they called ‘handouts’ from the Council. They thought of Chacon as a traitor and took to the field to oppose his rule.” She smiled faintly. “How’s that for a turnout?”
“Not what we all hoped for, for sure,” he agreed. He studied her. “How’s it going?”
Everybody knew what had happened to her. The humans had been sympathetic. Surprisingly, even some of the older Cehn-Tahr had been supportive.
“I guess I’m dealing with it,” she said. “Not very well.” She looked up at him. “How do you guys manage?”
He shrugged his broad shoulders. “After a few years in the field, it doesn’t affect you so much. You still feel it, I mean. You just don’t dwell on it. You can’t afford to. It will get you killed. Worse, it will get your comrades killed.”
She nodded. “The CO thought a change of military assignments might be the answer.”
Stern’s face went hard. “Does he know about Reboot?”
“Yes,” she said, and he looked surprised. “He said he was familiar with it.”
“And, knowing that, he still made the suggestion?” His face was like stone. “He’s not getting rid of you,” he said shortly. “Not unless he wants to lose the whole unit.”
“Don’t,” she said. “Don’t push him. You guys have as much to lose as I do. I already have one death on my conscience. No more. Period,” she said firmly.
“We’d stand up for you,” he told her.
She smiled. “I know that. Thanks.”
He smiled. “What are friends for?”
* * *
THEIR NEXT ASSIGNMENT was to storm a suspected rebel Rojok base on Terramer, the former site of the Peace Planet that had failed.
Mallory was assigned to the forward unit, led by Holt Stern. But he kept her in the background, refused to let her advance with the troops.
She was treating a Rojok soldier for plasma burns when Rhemun rejoined the group, back from a scout with one of the Cehn-Tahr kelekom operators.
“What are you doing behind the lines?” Rhemun asked shortly.
She stood and saluted. “Captain Stern’s orders, sir,” she said formally.
“Pack your kit and get up with the line,” he said coldly. “Your assistant can handle the job here!”
“Yes, sir.” She didn’t bother to argue. It would have done no good.
She found a place to work just behind a line of boulders and set up a temporary prefab medical hut with one of her techs.
“Go and do triage,” she instructed. “I’ll start with the men here.”
“Yes, sir, Lieutenant.”
She went to work, aware of Greshams firing and chasats returning fire all around her. The weapon fire didn’t bother her as much as the thought of having to use a weapon. She tried to concentrate on her work, but the alien’s face kept intruding.
“Dr. Mallory, there’s a man over there,” her assistant called.
She left the men with minor wounds and ran to her assistant. He was indicating a Rojok who was on a ledge, groaning loudly.
“Go take care of the abrasions in there.” She indicated the hut. “I’ll go over and look after this one.”
“It’s a long jump. Shouldn’t I go?” he offered.
Rhemun would love that, she thought, having her delegate a dangerous chore to a subordinate. It would give him real grounds to demote or reassign her. “No,” she said. “It’s okay, I can do it.”
She walked stealthily along the line of boulders, climbing up until she could see the ledge where the wounded Rojok was lying. His weapon was beside him, but when he saw Edris, he didn’t reach for it.
“D’egles M’char Cha,” she called across in the old Rojok dialect, the one that Chacon had taught her while she was tending Dr. Ruszel’s pregnancy on Memcache. “Don’t worry. I come as a friend.”
The Rojok, even through his pain, managed a smile.
She judged the distance fairly accurately, but when she went across, she dislodged the stone she’d used as a jumping point. It fell into the chasm below. She knew that she’d never be able to jump back across after she treated this poor fellow. But, she’d worry about that later.
She bent to her task. She questioned him and understood the answers as she treated his wound, which was a very bad one. A plasma blast from one of the Greshams had torn through his intestines. Untreated, the damage would have been quickly fatal.
She finished the sutures and smiled reassuringly. He would be taken to a prisoner of war camp, but nothing like Ahkmau. She reassured him that the Holconcom didn’t torture captured prisoners. There was a treaty, under which such behavior was punishable. He only nodded, relieved.
He was able to jump the chasm. Edris, however, was stuck on the other side. The Cehn-Tahr who took the Rojok into custody stared across, motioning her to jump.
She sighed. “Can you send over a levibelt, please?” she called back. “I’m afraid I can’t manage the distance—I knocked over the stone I used as a starting point.”
One of them waved. She hoped they’d send Stern or even Hahnson. But it was Rhemun who came.
He glared across the chasm. “You can jump that,” he scoffed. “It is hardly any distance at all!”
For a normal human, no. But Edris, with her gimpy motor functions, would end up dead and she knew it. For just an instant, she pictured the look on Rhemun’s face as she fell to her death. It would almost have been worth it. She grimaced.
“I’m sorry, sir,” she said, standing formally at attention and saluting. “I really will need the levibelt.”
He jumped across as if he’d moved only a step. “Very well. I can carry you over,” he said with long-suffering patience.
She backed away from him. “Sir...that would be unwise,” she stammered.
He frowned. “Explain that.”
She wasn’t sure how to say it without giving offense and she didn’t really want him to know how much she’d picked up about Cehn-Tahr customs—they were never shared with outworlders. But she was backed into a corner and she really had no choice.
“Sir, it would be unwise for the commander to touch me, sir,” she said stiffly.
He looked down his nose at her with pure contempt. “I see. You’ve heard that certain behaviors in my race can be triggered by touching, is that correct?”
She didn’t like the look in his eyes. “Yes, sir. Begging the commander’s pardon, sir,” she added.
“You think that I find you attractive, so that touching you would provoke me into unmilitary behavior?” he asked, almost purring.
“No...no, sir, of course not, sir.” She hated herself for wimping out.
He smiled icily. “Mallory, I find nothing attractive about you. In fact, the only emotion you provoke in me is revulsion.”
That was harsh, but she didn’t dare reply. She’d gone right off insulting him ever since he mentioned reassigning her. She was afraid of him.
He realized that. And it was unfortunate, because nothing revolted a Cehn-Tahr more than fear. It had been Ruszel’s incredible courage which had won his respect and his affection, despite her race. No Cehn-Tahr aboard the Morcai had more or better reasons to hate humans than Rhemun. Those whom he hated most were dead and out of reach of his vengeance. Mallory was close at hand, and vulnerable.
“Enlighten me, Lieutenant,” he continued. “Why should I find you attractive?”
“Sir, I beg your pardon, but I never said I was...”
“You hardly had to say it,” he shot back. “Apparently Stern finds you desirable, so perhaps I should send him to rescue you. Would that be more acceptable?”
She closed her eyes. “Sir, please...”
“Commander, we’ve got the last of them!” Stern called over, almost as if he knew what was going on there against the cliff. “Does Dr. Mallory need any help?”
Rhemun looked at Mallory as if he could have happily cut her throat. “Yes,” he said. “She could use assistance.” He turned and jumped lightly across the ledge. “Make haste,” he added coldly. “These Rojoks may be only a splinter of a larger rebel group.”
“Yes, sir.”
Stern jumped across the distance almost as easily as Rhemun had. He was a clone, but with greatly advanced genetics, courtesy of the Rojok scientists who had cloned him from his original during the attack on Terramer. He was almost the equal of a Cehn-Tahr in strength, even without the help of the microcyborgs that the entire crew wore.
“Come on, Doc, I’ll get you across,” he teased. He bent and lifted her. “Old man giving you hell, was he?”
She nodded. “Thanks for the lift, Captain,” she replied, and smiled up at him.
“Now, Stern!” Rhemun called angrily.
“Oooh, somebody’s in a red-hot rage,” Stern whispered in her ear, and she suppressed a nervous giggle.
“Coming, sir!” he called back to Rhemun with an angelic expression on his handsome face.
He landed in front of Rhemun with his soft burden, but he put her down almost at once when he registered the fury in the alien’s expression.
“My hearing, like that of all Cehn-Tahr, is acute,” he informed the captain, who was by now standing at stiff attention alongside Mallory. “Another infraction,” he added softly, “and you will be up before a court-martial panel by the end of the day. Do I make myself clear, mister?” he added.
“Clear as mountain water, sir, yes, sir,” Stern replied formally.
Rhemun looked down at Mallory with barely bridled anger. “Dismissed!”
The two of them almost ran for cover. Mallory didn’t dare look at Stern. She was trying not to laugh at the brief glimpse she’d had of his rolling eyes before they left the commander standing there.
* * *
THE CAPTURED ROJOKS were turned over to a patrol ship for transport to the second of Memcache’s moons, where prisoners of war were kept in a spacious, comfortable facility. One of the Rojoks was overheard telling his comrades about one of the humans who spoke the ancient tongue.
Hahnson wondered who they meant. He didn’t know a single member of the human crew members who could even speak more than a few words of Standard Rojok.
He’d noticed that Edris had come back aboard even more depressed than usual, which prompted him to pay her a visit in her sector.
“How are you doing?” he asked.
She glanced up from lab results on a small padd. She smiled sadly. “Not so good. The CO’s mad at me again.”
“What did you do this time?”
She shook her head. “It’s better not to discuss it,” she said. She was wary of the AVBDs. It wouldn’t do for Rhemun to catch her crying on Hahnson’s shoulder.
He understood without a word what she was trying not to say. He closed the door and pulled out that little white ball and activated it.
“Nothing can hear through that, not even telepaths,” he reminded her. “Spill it.”
“I jumped across a crevice to treat a wounded Rojok and the rock displaced, so I couldn’t jump back. The CO offered to ferry me across, but I wouldn’t let him touch me.” She winced. “He just went ballistic...”
“Humans aren’t allowed to know such things about them,” he pointed out. “They’re very protective about their private behaviors, especially mating behaviors.”
“Dr. Ruszel told me that,” she replied. She drew in a long, heavy breath. “I know that if Cehn-Tahr males touch females, sometimes it triggers the mating cycle, even if I’m not allowed to know it. I wasn’t sure if it was the same for females of other races...”
“It is,” he interrupted.
She frowned. “I wasn’t trying to insult him,” she began.
“And how did he arrive at the idea that you had?”
“He hates me. He hates humans, but especially me,” she corrected. “He was insulted that I would think myself attractive to him at all.”
“I see.”
She lowered her eyes, almost in shame. “It’s probably not noticeable to anyone except Cehn-Tahr,” she began slowly, “but I...react...to him.”
He frowned. “React?”
“Outbursts of pheromones,” she said stiffly. “I know he can probably smell them, and that just makes it worse. Do you have something that inhibits hormone production?” she added plaintively.
“You get those at the same time you’re mentally neutered for service,” he began.
“Yes, but I tried to get into a breeding camp, remember? They did reject me but when they gave me the drugs later, I purged them, because I thought the board might reconsider my application. Bad move. Very bad move. Can you...?”
He sighed. “Yes. I can give you something. But there may be problems down the line. A lot of servicewomen who take them later in life have allergic reactions after a time.”
“It doesn’t matter about later, just right now,” she replied. “I don’t want to make things any worse than they already are.”
“Okay, kid,” he said gently. “I’ll have my assistant bring them over when we get through talking. I noticed that it was Stern who ferried you over the chasm,” he added with a grin.
She laughed. “Yes. Oh, I had such a flaming crush on him when I first came aboard the Morcai.” She shook her head. “In a way, I wish I still did. He’s mourning for the woman he lost all those years ago, so it wouldn’t be a problem.” She looked up with a grimace. “Why am I getting a case on my hateful commanding officer? Sheer cussedness, you think?”
“You can sure pick them,” he pointed out.
She grinned. “It’s like people who hate cats, and cats always want to sit on them, you know?”
“He is a cat...”
“He has cat genes,” she returned. “Besides, he doesn’t want to sit on me. He wants to get rid of me. Maybe curtailing my pheromones will help.”
“Maybe.” He wasn’t sure of that. No medicine known to science could completely override the human body’s natural response to stimuli of that sort. Mallory had to know it.
He picked up the white ball. “Just try to stay out of his way. Maybe, eventually, he’ll grow fond of us.”
“Oh, sure.”
He made a face and walked out.
