by S. L. Viehl
I wandered from Medical an hour later, walking the corridors until I reached my quarters. I was still in shock over Joseph’s revelation. When the door panel opened, I faced the emptiness with blank eyes.
Dhreen had betrayed me. Had been betraying me all along. Why hadn’t I seen it? Why hadn’t I known? The signs were there.
After the attack on Caszaria’s Moon, Reever had told me what happened. “The Terran pretending to be a Dervling drugged you and attempted an abduction. Dhreen heard you scream, and fought off your assailant, but the Terran escaped.” Or had Dhreen been helping my assailant when Reever came in? Did he let the Terran deliberately escape?
Joseph Grey Veil contacting me almost immediately after the attempted abduction on Caszaria’s Moon. “Cherijo. The incident on Caszaria’s Moon was made known to me.” Dhreen must have signalled him.
Norash, the Commander of Colonial Security, interviewing me.
“—now this alleged attempted abduction during your off-planet furlough . . . confirmed only by Chief Linguist Reever’s account.” Dhreen had not made a statement. Afraid he’d say too much.
Dhreen leaving K-2, infected with the contagion. His ship crashing. Me and the medevac team at the crash site, pulling him from the wreckage. Yelling at him for running away. Dhreen coughing, in agony. “Couldn’t . . . take the . . . chance.” Of getting caught.
The worst was the clumsy cohab proposal he’d made after the epidemic. “I just wanted to tell you I’ve gotten a position on one of the system long-ranger haulers . . . now that the Bestshot is gone, I need steady work . . . you saved my life . . . you’ve been a good friend . . . see, when I heard the Council was trying to get rid of you . . . I have cohab rights on the hauler . . .” I had been charmed, I remembered. “We don’t have to bond for life . . . we’ve always coexisted well . . . I don’t like leaving you here. . . .”
Yeah. I bet he hadn’t.
I was beyond tired. When I closed the door panel, I saw the signal indicator on my display and punched the keypad.
OverLord TssVar’s grim visage filled the vid screen. “Doctor.”
“OverLord. What can I do for you?”
“Report to Command.”
“Okay.”
I wandered back out. How I arrived at the correct level without getting lost, I don’t know. I had a vague sense of direction, but I really didn’t care what was happening to me.
TssVar saw it the moment I was admitted by his private guards.
“What has happened?”
“May I sit down?” I asked, and he nodded. “I just found out one of my best friends has been betraying me for the last two years.”
“Who do you speak of?”
“Dhreen, the Oenrallian pilot. Orange hair. Red horns. Lying mouth.”
“I am sending him back to the League with the scientist.”
“That’s nice.”
The Hsktskt’s claws tapped on the desk as he lowered his limbs. “It is not good. To be betrayed.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Warm-bloods make a habit of it,” he said. “Yet you are always surprised when it happens to you.”
My cynical smile burned on my lips. “Perhaps we should be more like your people.”
“That would be an improvement.” He watched me stare at my footgear. “You display no curiosity about my summons.”
“Sorry.” No, I wasn’t. “Why did you want to see me?”
“We have kept our bargain. I have the Fleet ships. The planets of this system will not be raided.” He said it carefully, as if making sure I understood every word of the agreement clearly.
“You’ve been extremely generous.” He had. After all, he had over four hundred ships at his disposal. He didn’t have to keep any promises he didn’t want to.
“You made no bargain for yourself,” TssVar said.
I looked up from my footgear. “No, I didn’t. You have satisfied your debt to me by sparing the inhabitants of this system.”
“It is good you acknowledge that.” His hissing changed in pitch. Became more menacing. “SsureeVa, you have not been forthcoming with me. About your personal value.”
“I rarely volunteer information about myself,” I replied.
“Being on the run from the League has made me somewhat paranoid.”
“I would have done the same,” he said. “Yet my task remains the same. I now know you are of infinite value to the Faction. You will not be returning to the planet.”
I wasn’t surprised. Joseph must have added some interesting details to what he’d already told the Hsktskt about me. I’d expected he would.
“Our rules are specific,” TssVar said. “As Hsktskt property, you have no special privileges. Yet you were instrumental in our success. I will not require you remain in detainment with the other captives.”
That was nice of him. I didn’t relish getting my throat cut while I slept.
“Are you truly . . . a genetic construct?” he asked. His tongue lashed as he said it, relishing the words.
The truth might save or kill me. I didn’t seem to care. “So I’ve been told.”
TssVar stood. “It will be determined. Our scientists are extremely knowledgeable.”
I bet they were. I rose to my feet, too. “Will that be all, OverLord?”
“For now. You are to report to level six, chamber one.”
“Thank you.” I turned to go, hesitated, then swung back around. “Tell me something, OverLord. Would you have let me go, if I had asked that as satisfaction of your debt?”
“I am grateful, SsureeVa. Not foolish.”
A new guard was waiting to escort me to my holding cell. He snapped something around my wrist. It was the same metallic device the other prisoners were wearing.
“What’s this?” I held up my arm.
“Detainment cuff. It tracks you. Disciplines you.”
I didn’t ask any more questions. He might want to demonstrate the discipline function. We walked briskly to level six. The business end of his rifle never moved from the small of my back.
Crew’s quarters took up most of level six. The officers, if I remembered correctly. Chamber one had once been assigned to Colonel Shropana, according to the panel designation.
“You will remain here until summoned.”
I nodded to the guard and stepped through the door panel. Shropana must not have spent much time here. No personal decor. Little beyond stanissue furnishings. I sat down on a rigid, uncomfortable chair and waited.
My thoughts bounced between relief and rage like a plassball.
Relief. Joren was safe.
Rage. Joseph Grey Veil was free.
Relief. My people would not be destroyed.
Rage. Dhreen had betrayed me.
I decided to take a long, hot cleansing. The throbbing in my head made it impossible to consider sleep. If I didn’t relax, I’d work myself right up into a tension migraine. I doubt anyone from Medical would send me so much as an oral analgesic.
When I released the warrior’s knot in my hair, Tonetka’s blade dropped to the deck with a clatter. I’d forgotten all about it. I stared at it for a moment, then picked it up. It wouldn’t hurt to hold on to it.
I might not like being Hsktskt property.
It felt good to be clean. I hunted through Shropana’s stores and found a tunic that fit me like a long dress. That was all I needed. Something to cover my flesh. I lay down on the sleeping platform. Stared at the deck above me. Wondered how it would be. Life as a lab specimen in some Hsktskt research facility.
“Doctor,” a voice called from Shropana’s console. “Prepare to be escorted to your OverMaster.”
“Acknowledged,” I said. OverMaster? That was news. Apparently I was going to be put to work by one of TssVar’s soldiers. I worked the knife into the warrior’s knot in my hair, then presented myself by the door panel. The guard appeared almost instantaneously.
“This way.” He jerked his weapon toward the descending corridor.
/>
We walked quickly down three more levels. My fingers felt cold, my throat dry. I wasn’t afraid. I always acted like this when I had a rifle shoved in my back.
“Halt.” A door panel was keyed open. “In there.”
The rifle jabbed me. I stumbled over my own feet, and tried to grab the corridor panel to stop from falling. The guard misinterpreted my clumsiness for resistance. A painful blow landed across my shoulders and drove me to my knees. Before I could say a word, he picked me up and tossed me into the dark chamber.
I landed facedown, my cheek and mouth throbbing, my upper back on fire. Why the hell had he done that? My headgear lay askew, so the disembodied voice that came to me sounded distant and garbled.
“Wait a minute.” Furiously I straightened the device. “Want to repeat that?”
“Get up.”
I did. The darkness prevented me from seeing much at first. Gradually my eyes adjusted, and focused on a seated figure at the other end of the chamber. I caught the metallic of a Hsktskt uniform.
“You’re the OverMaster?”
“Yes.”
It didn’t sound right, the voice. There was none of the hissing or sonorous breathing the Hsktskt did when they spoke.
“Okay. I’m here. What now?” I squinted at the figure, but it rose and moved back into a deep pocket of shadows.
“Silence.”
Being a captive wasn’t going to be easy. All right, calm down, I thought. Hsktskt didn’t like getting socked in the jaw. Very important I remember that.
I heard something being tapped. A bright, blinding light focused on my face.
“State identity,” a drone audio announced.
“Cherijo Grey Veil, medical physician.” They knew all this. Why the drone?
“Identity confirmed. Prisoner designation 1471428. Repeat the designation for future voice recognition.”
“Designation 1471428,” I said. My tongue felt thick, my lips stung.
“Correct. You are now property of the Hsktskt Faction. All former rights and freedoms are terminated. You have been assigned to OverMaster HalaVar. Repeat the assignment designation.”
“I’m assigned to OverMaster HalaVar,” I said. My face felt hot. I raised my fingers, discovered the warm wetness trickling from my mouth and nose. I wiped a sleeve across my face, smearing the blood on the fabric.
“You will obey the orders of your OverMaster and all free citizens of the Hsktskt Faction. There are no exceptions. Penalty for failure to comply is termination. Acknowledge these instructions.”
Do what they said, or die. Pretty simple. Wonder if they had programmed the drone with standard responses. “Acknowledged.”
“Prisoner 1471428, remove outer garments for physical scan.”
Undress? I lifted my fingers to my fasteners, releasing them as slowly as I dared. It took a few minutes, but at last everything dropped on the deck and I stood naked in the light.
“Hope you enjoy the view,” I said.
“Do not speak unless you are ordered to!” the drone’s audio screeched. “Commencing physical scan.”
A thermal beam swept over me, front and back, from crown to feet. I could feel something else scanning me, too. The OverMaster. I wondered if he found naked Terran females appealing. If he meant to hurt me. If I looked like a small pale-pink appetizer in his eyes. How hard would it be to dislocate his jaw.
“Minor injuries detected. Epidermal contusions. Facial lacerations.”
If you don’t like the damage, I thought, stop knocking me around.
“Scan complete. Replace outer garments.”
I replaced them.
The light snapped off. The sudden return of darkness blinded me again. I stood waiting for what would come next. The time seemed endless as nothing happened.
Don’t speak unless you are ordered to? Stand here forever? What was this guy’s problem?
“OverMaster?”
“Silence.”
I felt him then. Not from the voice, but the heat growing closer. Behind me. I didn’t dare turn around.
“SsureeVa.” Something cool touched my neck. I flinched, but rammed my hands at my sides and kept still. As still as was possible, considering I was shaking inside like a leaf in a strong Terran wind. “My prisoner.”
What was it about the voice? The headgear I wore only translated the words into automated Terran. The sounds I heard beyond the earpieces weren’t Hsktskt.
Worse. They seemed almost familiar.
The coolness encircled my throat. A collar of some type snapped against my flesh. My inner shaking began to emerge. My knees weakened, my throat went tight. I fought for air and courage.
“TssVar gave you to me,” he whispered against my ear. I shuddered at the touch of his warm breath. “Remember that, SsureeVa.”
“Yeah, right.”
Something nudged me between my shoulder blades. The cold edge of a weapon’s barrel? “Walk forward.”
I walked. I found myself in front of a viewport looking down at a rapidly dwindling Joren. Tears stung my eyes.
I pressed my fingers to the icy surface. “Bye, Jenner,” I whispered.
“You saved them. A life for a world.”
What was he talking about?
“Close your eyes.”
Oh, God, what was this monster going to do to me? I closed my eyes. Pressed my forehead against the viewport. The sudden press of light against my eyelids told me the darkness was gone.
“Open your eyes.”
I did. Joren dwindled to a small speck now. Full lighting illuminated the room. The Hsktskt stood directly behind me.
I wasn’t going out with a whimper. I turned as my hand tugged the blade hidden in my warrior’s knot. If I was going to die, the OverMaster could be a gentleman and go first.
I launched myself toward the blurry figure in the grey uniform, arm up, blade high. Something knocked me away. Something that felt like a humanoid limb. I hit the deck, rolling over and over until my head struck an interior panel. New pain flooded in shimmering waves over the old.
I rested for a moment, wiped more blood from my mouth. Propped myself up with one hand. Tried to focus my eyes.
“Get up, SsureeVa.”
My headgear lay on the deck next to me. What I heard wasn’t Hsktskt. The OverMaster spoke to me in my own language. I got up slowly. Carefully.
I could be hallucinating. I’d hit my head pretty hard, twice now. So I stood and stared until my eyes burned from not blinking. The blood dripped from my mouth to my tunic like tears.
One word left my lips. Soundless. Incredulous. “You.”
I realized why the Hsktskt negotiated with me. Why TssVar knew so much about me. The most effective treachery comes from the one you least suspect.
He wore a modified Hsktskt military uniform. His fist curled around Tonetka’s blade. No emotion animated his flat, steady gaze.
“You signaled the Hsktskts.”
The drone went bananas. “Do not speak unless you are ordered to! Do not—”
“Terminate prisoner indoctrination program.” The drone shut off. “Yes,” he said to me. “I signaled them.”
“You told TssVar about the League attacking Joren. About what my father did to me.”
“Yes.”
I nodded. After what Joseph Grey Veil had done to me, it seemed silly to find myself so shocked by another betrayal. This one, I thought, was the last. The worst.
“Cherijo. Get up.”
I buried my face in my arms so I wouldn’t have to look at OverMaster HalaVar anymore. “Go to hell, Reever.”
I heard him move across the room. A panel opened. “Guard. Bring it in.”
More footsteps. Something touched my hair, and I jerked my head up. “I said—”
I’d been wrong. That wasn’t the last, or the worst. This was. Shock shut me up. Horror made me shake.
Reever had done the unthinkable. He’d abducted an innocent being. Stripped it of the only freedom it had ever known. Subje
cted it to its own worst nightmare. This was beyond betrayal.
This was obscene.
Sad, colorless eyes looked down at me. “I am sorry, Cherijo.”
“Me, too, Alunthri. Me, too.”
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