Eternity Row

by neetha Napew

  He stroked my cheek with his fingers. “If you wish, I will not go to Jxinok. You never have to tell me what you find there.”

  “That was the only good argument I had,” I said through gritted teeth. “Thanks for blowing it away.”

  “The first thing I loved about you was your courage,” he said in a very soft voice. “You would crawl through fire to save another’s life. I have seen you shot and stabbed and burned and beaten and none of it stopped you. That is what Marel needs-her mother’s courage, not her fear.”

  I gave in, and stepped into his arms. “You’re going with me. I need you to go with me.”

  He rubbed his palm over my hair. “Always.”

  After a few moments, I stepped back and handed him the disc. “Let’s look at it again.”

  Duncan pulled the charts back up, and the data coming in from a long-range probe he’d launched the day before. “The environment appears innocuous, and the atmosphere amenable for the Jorenians. The higher nitrogen content may make you feel light-headed, until you adjust.”

  “The Captain wants us to revive Hawk tonight, see how he reacts.” I looked at the ancient star chart from Maggie’s disc as my husband superimposed it on the more modern version from the ship’s database. “Why aren’t they identical?”

  “Some of these stars are now novas, or black holes.” He tapped a couple of unmatched pinpoints of light. “Others have formed in the interim between surveys.”

  “How long does that take?”

  “I’m not certain.” He stared at the console. “My best estimate is at least two million years.”

  “How could she have a star chart that old?”

  “There is only one way.” He met my gaze. “Her species, like you, is immortal.”

  “Don’t start that with me again.” I grabbed my work tunic and shrugged it on.

  “Cherijo, she’s alive.”

  “No.” I swiveled around. “She’s not. I watched her die. I buried her. She’s decomposing in a hole in the ground on Terra.”

  “Why didn’t she choose to be cremated? That is the standard funerary disposition of bodies on Terra now.”

  “How the hell do I know?” I threw up my hands. “She was a strange woman. Practically everything she did was socially unacceptable!”

  “And yet Joseph kept her on staff and allowed her to supervise you for eighteen years.” He switched off the terminal. “Joseph, who you will agree was more conservative than most Terrans.”

  “She told me they were lovers. Maybe he kept her because she was good in bed.” I finished fastening my tunic and headed for the corridor. “I’m going to work.”

  “Wait.”

  I waited. He came up behind me, and rested one hand on my neck. “What?”

  “Don’t change your mind about going down to the surface.”

  “I won’t, but I’m going to complain about it,” I said, and went out the door. “Frequently.”

  In Medical, Squilyp and the nursing staff were prepping to remove Hawk from sleep suspension. I didn’t say anything as I joined them, still in knots over Duncan and Marel and Maggie’s stupid discs.

  “We’ve already observed a tolerance for rysperidyne,” the Senior Healer said as he removed the suspension shroud and deactivated the support unit. “Given the serious prolactin elevation, conventional drug treatment is out of the question.”

  “The obvious choice would be a dibenzodiazepine,” Qonja said. He had recovered in record time from his transplant surgery, and showed no signs of rejecting the bioengineered organ. “Clinical studies on Joren have shown that drugs such as clozapyne increase delta and theta activity, and slows dominant alpha frequencies. They also exert potent anticholinergic, adrenolytic, antihistaminic, and antiserotonergic activity.”

  “Yeah?” I turned on him, glad to have a direction to vent. “Last time I was in Medtech, clozapyne use was strictly limited to totally nonresponsive or highly intolerant patients. Maybe because it causes agranulocytosis, tachycardia, and seizure in most patients. Or did you forget to attend that class, resident?”

  “The patient has been given two courses of chemically unrelated, conventional antipsychotic drugs and responded to neither.” Instead of being miffed, Qonja sounded almost amused. “What other course of action remains unexplored, Doctor?”

  “Why don’t we wake him up first and see what we’ve got to work with?”

  “I agree,” Squilyp said, before the psych resident could protest. “Administer the neutralizer, nurse.”

  Savetka administered the mild stimulant, which roused Hawk within minutes. His eyelids fluttered, then opened as his drowsy eyes tried to focus. “Patcher?” he said, his voice raspy.

  “So far so good,” I murmured to the Omorr as I moved in and checked Hawk’s vitals. “How are you feeling, hataali?”

  “Strange.” He looked from me to Squilyp, and then turned his head toward Qonja. “What happened to me?”

  “You’ve been ill, so we’ve had you in sleep suspension for a couple of days.” His pulse jumped under my fingertips, and I felt sweat dampening his skin. “Easy, now. Everything is going to okay.”

  “I want to go home.” He sounded like a scared little boy. “Please take me home.”

  The expression on his scarred face made me fold his hands between mine. “I wish I could, pal.”

  The next thing I knew Hawk had clamped his hands around my neck, dragging me across the berth, while Squilyp and Qonja struggled to free me.

  “I am the lifeblood of the world!” he screamed in my face as he choked me.

  Qonja did something fast with his hands. I heard bones snap, then Hawk howled with pain.

  “Sedate him now!” the Omorr shouted, wrestling down one free arm and pulling me off the berth. I fell to the deck, holding my throat and coughing, my eyes fixed on Hawk’s spasming hand as my boss strapped his arm in restraints.

  All the fingers on one of Hawk’s hands were broken.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Mirror of Confrontation

  Qonja didn’t bother to duck my signal when I came off duty. Nor did he raise any objections to accompanying me to an environome.

  I ignored him at first, warming up the way Wonlee had showed me a few days before-what he called “a quick start after a long lull.” I wasn’t sure what I was feeling, outside of a determination to get to the truth, but I had no intentions of leaving that environome until I got what I wanted.

  My target politely refused to arm himself against my goreu, and spent the next hour expertly dodging my attacks.

  “This serves no purpose,” he said, just like he had the last time.

  “You be sure and tell my husband that. I signaled him right before I came to get you.”

  The door panel slid open behind us. “Cherijo.” It was Reever, and he didn’t sound happy.

  “Hello, honey. Qonja here was just getting ready to tell me who he is. Aren’t you, Qonja?”

  The psych resident looked past me and his expression went from strained to relieved. “Captain.”

  Xonea approached us from the side, clearly upset himself. “ClanSister, what are you doing?”

  I twirled my staff. “I’m going to beat some answers out of this man, if he ever holds still long enough.”

  “I shield the representative,” Qonja blurted out. “This was not her doing. I- I provoked her by my actions, and I beg forgiveness of her for doing so.”

  Reever took the staff from my hand, and threw it across the room. “Does this satisfy you now, Xonea? Or would you see her kill him?”

  I ignored that, and stared hard at Qonja. “What representative? What are you talking about?”

  He remained on his knees, until Xonea made an impatient gesture, then Qonja rose and gave me a formal bow. “You, representative. I was ordered not to reveal this information to you by our Captain, until the Jado arrived.”

  “What information?” I turned to Xonea. “What is he babbling about?”

  “A vote was
taken some weeks ago, by the people.” My ClanBrother put a big hand on my shoulder. “Qonja was sent to guard you until we could transfer you to the CloudWalk.”

  “Why?” I shouted.

  What he said then was something so bizarre it barely registered. “You have been appointed to serve on the Ruling Council, Cherijo. You are now one of the leaders of Joren.”

  Before I could say anything, my husband dragged me back away from Xonea. “You are responsible for this.”

  My ClanBrother slowly nodded. “I made the recommendation to the other ClanLeaders. She will be taken back to Joren and kept safe from the League and the Hsktskt. No one would dare attack a world leader.”

  Which made sense out of the whole mess. Of course, Xonea would think having me appointed to the Council would protect me. He lived on a decent world, where people respected the rights of others.

  I doubted my newly elected status would impress the League or the Hsktskt one bit.

  “By doing this, you have attempted to violate the bond between me and my mate,” Reever said, in flawless Jorenian.

  “Wait.” Panic made me grab him. “No, Reever, Xonea didn’t violate anything.”

  His eyes, which had lost all color, shifted to my face. “He cages you with his politics, the same way Joseph caged you like a specimen. I will not have it.” To my ClanBrother, he said, “I challenge you. Here, in one hour.”

  “I accept.” The Captain made an eloquent, terse gesture. “One hour.”

  Somehow we had gone from me pretending to want Qonja dead to Reever and Xonea fighting over my future. “No. I won’t let you two do this.”

  “I protect what is mine, too,” Reever told me softly.

  Qonja came to stand beside me as both men strode out of the environome. “Healer, I apologize. Perhaps if I had been permitted to tell you sooner, this might not have happened.”

  “No, Qonja.” I stared at the door panel. “I think this has been brewing for a long time, and I’m just now seeing it.”

  I couldn’t track down Reever or Xonea, so I ended up in Medical, wandering around the inpatient ward trying to figure out how to stop the two men I loved from killing each other. I was staring blindly at a patient’s chart when I noticed a couple of the nurses having some trouble at the other end of the ward, and went over to help.

  Dhreen lay on the berth, laughing and swatting at them as they attempted to take his vitals. “I’m fine, I’m fine.” He saw me, and sat up. “Hey, Doc! What say we get out of here and play some whump-ball? I’ve got credits burning in my pocket, just waiting for you, how about it?”

  “Dhreen, calm down.” I took out my scanner and passed it over him. His heart rate and blood pressure were spiking.

  “I told you, I’m fine.” His eyes never stopped scanning our faces, and the nurses had to grab him again as he tried to climb off the berth. “Come on, Doc, lighten up! Let’s have some fun, I’ll spot you twenty points; what do you say?”

  He didn’t stop talking, but I tuned him out as I prepared a syrinpress. “How long has he been like this?” I asked one of the nurses.

  “Most of the day. One of the engineering staff brought him in when he was found toying with a prep unit in the galley.”

  “Toying?” I injected Dhreen with a mild tranquilizer.

  “I believe the crewman said the pilot was offering to prepare traditional Oenrallian dishes for everyone who wished to use the unit.”

  I checked the time, and saw the hour was nearly up. “All right, keep him quiet, and monitor his vitals closely.” As Dhreen settled down, I unfastened his tunic to check the shunt, but the mold was gone. “Put another Lok-Teel on him and strap him down, if the dose wears off before I get back.”

  Squilyp caught up with me in the corridor. “I heard the news. What provoked Reever into challenging the Captain?”

  “I’ve been elected to Joren’s Ruling Council. Whether I like it or not.”

  The Omorr grimaced. “That would do it.”

  I quickly briefed him on the latest development with Dhreen, while he updated me on Hawk. As we entered the environome with a crowd of crew members, Squilyp said, “It seems visiting their homeworlds did neither of them any good.”

  “You can’t go home again,” I agreed, then stopped. Someone bumped into me and apologized, but I simply waved them on. ‘That’s it. That’s the connection I was looking for.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “They both visited their homeworlds after an extended absence. Think about it.” I led my boss to the gallery seating, and pulled him down on a chair beside me. “Hawk had never been to Taerca, and Dhreen’s been away for about the same amount of time. Their immune systems couldn’t cope.”

  “The biodecon prior to landing on both worlds would have identified any bacteria detrimental to them.”

  “I don’t think it’s bacterial. It’s something else.”

  Squilyp’s dark eyes narrowed. “We will have to obtain biosphere samples to test-food, soil, air, and water. I doubt, however, that either species shall willingly provide us with them.”

  “Reever sent a remote probe to Jxinok. He could do the same thing again for Oenrall and Taerca.” I looked out at the warriors quad, where my husband and Xonea stood facing each other. “God, I’ve got to stop this.”

  “Yes, you must.” Salo came and sat down on the other side of me. When my brows rose, he added, “Qonja came to me and explained what has happened. I think I can help, if you’ll allow me to do so.” He placed an ancient Jorenian book in my hands. “These are the very first laws created for our people.”

  I was afraid to open it, it was so fragile. “And there’s something in here that will keep them from killing each other?”

  “Yes.” He opened it to a central passage, and pointed to a heading mark identical to the pictoglyph Qonja wore on his vocollar. “Listen, and I will translate for you.”

  It took a few minutes for Salo to interpret the symbols for me. As I listened, I watched both men warming up. Xonea seemed even more enormous than ever, his muscles bulkier, his entire frame emanating sheer, animal power.

  Reever, who would never be as tall or muscular as the Captain, had other advantages-speed and agility, which he demonstrated by going through a number of those odd, inhuman moves the Hsktskt had taught him.

  Watching them made me realize for once just how dangerous both of them were.

  “That is all that is written, but I believe it is enough,” Salo said when he finished translating the passage.

  “I can’t do this unless I say okay to the whole deal, right?” Which was going to make my husband furious, but would keep him alive.

  My friend made a cautious gesture. “You must assume the appointment in order to take advantage of the law.”

  “An appointment for life-a life for two lives.” My lips twisted. “Not a bad deal, really.”

  “Are you certain?” Squilyp asked.

  The gallery fell silent as Xonea turned to address the crowd. “Ship’s Linguist Reever has challenged me, by the right of bond. I have freely accepted, thus no retribution will be taken against Reever, should he prevail.”

  Reever only stood, silent and waiting. I nearly got out of my seat then, but Salo clamped a hand on my arm. “Patience, ClanCousin. It must go to the point of death-strike, and only then can you act.”

  “You’d better be right about this, Salo.”

  Xonea returned to his position in the quad, and nodded to Reever. An eerie silence fell over the gallery as both men entered the central quad, circling each other. They seemed to do that forever, until Xonea feinted to one side and slammed into Reever from the other. My husband pivoted in the same direction of the blow to his abdomen, and returned the favor.

  Then the gallery exploded with shouting voices, and the two began to literally beat the life out of each other.

  My chest tightened as I watched, and waited. I couldn’t help the sounds I made when either of them took a fist or kick to their body,
couldn’t help the tears that welled in my eyes as I saw the first splatters of red and green blood stain the quad’s surface.

  “I can’t wait,” I said to Salo, my voice cracking.

  “You must.” He put an arm around me. “Be strong for them now.”

  The fight went on. At first it seemed Xonea had a greater advantage, with his superior size and strength, but slowly Reever began moving faster, working up to that blurry, frightening speed he had used in the past. After fifteen minutes, both men were covered with bruises and contusions, and panting from pain and exertion, but Reever seemed to be holding his own.

  I kept flinching and jerking as each blow landed, almost feeling them on my own body. The tears in my eyes now streamed down my face, and I couldn’t smother my sobs. Salo’s arm tightened, and he placed the book in my hands.

  “Now it comes,” he murmured.

  The crowd fell silent as Reever flipped down on his stomach, almost completely prone, then vaulted up and back when Xonea tried to straddle him. Somehow he got the Captain facedown on the quad, one strong arm locked around his blue neck. The Jorenian thrashed and writhed under my husband, but it was obvious he wasn’t going to get out of the hold.

  “Now.” Salo thrust the book into my hands, and I jumped up and ran for the quad.

  “Ruling Council intercedes!” I shouted as loudly as I could, to be heard over the now-roaring crowd. “Stop the challenge and adhere to what I say now!”

  Duncan looked up, his face a battered mask of blood. He frowned, as if not quite sure it was me. Reluctantly, he released Xonea, and got to his feet. “What are you doing?”

  The Captain slowly rose, rubbing his throat. “You cannot stop us.”

  “I just did. According the First Laws of Joren”-I held up Salo’s book-“a member of the Ruling Council can and will intercede in any matter pertaining to the welfare of the HouseClans. Xonea, you yourself had me appointed to the Council, and know that I may speak for them in their absence.”

  “That is only during times of conflict, when the Council members are separated.”