For one moment only. The defensive shell she hid behind was too strong, forged in fires he could only guess at. He felt her fight to restore her self-control and saw the struggle on her face as she sought to hide her desire for him, before pulling angrily away.
Hamon watched as she jerked the shift to rights again, attempting to cover the telltale signs of her response. Disappointment wavered with amusement inside him at her abrupt change of attitude, and a sad wish rose in him: If only they had met under other circumstances. As it was, he feared sleeplessness and hunger would overcome her before he could achieve any of his goals, personal or professional. It was not something he dared consider, and he too sought safety in retreat. Hamon was too vulnerable here. Only the Major was safe.
He let a practiced grin lift the planes of his face. “It seems, madame, that this forced intimacy may be more enjoyable than either of us had expected.”
“Enforced by you, Major; and you can spare me further exhibitions of your much vaunted talent for seduction.” Another angry tug at her shift. “You may think to flatter your ego by adding a true Hathian Lady to the list of unfortunate women who have been lured into your keeping, hoping to find a man behind the tricks. But I am awake to you and owe too much to the memory of what your race has done to mine. Leave me be!”
“But you would be quite one of the most desirable I have kept,” he teased. “And who, may I ask, taught you to think of me in such unflattering terms? Your friend, des Trurain?”
“He always was a good judge of character.”
“Then it’s a blessing he is no more. You seem to have had far too good an opinion of the man.” He put his hands on her hips to tug her close, his touch gentle despite his intentions. He managed to at least school his face into grim resolve. “I spent a considerable part of the day searching the records for his details. If you ask me, the universe is well rid of him. Which reminds me, madame: fifty others detained wore those unusual patches. They must also be disposed of. One a day, until you start to talk, if you remember.”
She pulled back, the blush on her face and deliciously peaked breasts giving the lie to her defiant glare. “You, sir, must be the most callous man it has ever been my misfortune to encounter. To kill innocent people because they use a common wound dressing is ridiculous. And all to extract non-existent information from one very much abandoned Haut Liege, not much better than a peasant herself. What a waste!”
“You’re lying, just as you lie when you claim to be indifferent to me. Perhaps you hope I’m bluffing. Do not. All those so innocent people will die. One by one, a day at a time, for as long as you maintain this stubborn silence.” He stared at her, trying by sheer will power to break through her shell. It didn’t work. He lifted his hands from her hips in disgust, and escorted her over to the table.
Marthe had no choice but to sit in the proffered chair. He was just too strong for her. Or rather, for the pampered Haut Liege Lady she must appear to be. Once again, she was forced to watch as he slowly worked his way through a tempting array of gourmet delights. Always the dishes were just out of reach, but close enough to set off her digestive juices. And, again, her night afforded little rest. At irregular periods she was jerked awake by the hated force field. Some time during those long, dark stretches of loneliness, a dismal hopelessness crashed down on her. She couldn’t withstand such treatment forever. One day, soon, she would talk, and there was nothing she could do to stop it.
Next morning, she once more watched the inhuman red light, waiting for the off signal. Who was the unknown man she condemned? Did he have a family, waiting somewhere for his long spell of duty to end? Or did anyone really die? Truth to tell, she wasn’t convinced. The extinguishing of a light seemed so far removed from the reality of a life gone.
As it was, she missed the crucial moment. Her eyes closed and she sank into blessed sleep. The harsh voice of her captor jerked her back.
“That is two you now have on your conscience, and forty-nine still alive. How much longer can such indifference last?”
She didn’t bother to turn her head in answer.
He waited until he saw it was useless, and stood up. “I have to leave you for now, but I strongly urge you to reconsider. And don’t think that means I’ll let you sleep. After two days without any, the field cloaking this apartment is probably no longer strong enough to stop you falling off, but this headband will keep you awake.” He strapped a metal band around her forehead, the purpose of which was only too soon revealed when she nodded off. A sharp pain jabbed her head, yanking her painfully awake. Desperately, she stayed silent, fighting back the tears she must hold in. Remember what is at stake. Remember the lives you hold safe. Don’t give in.
Hamon watched her, but there was no breach in the wall of her resistance. Give in, please give in, he pleaded wordlessly. She only stared back at him, defiance still strong in every tautly held muscle of her beautiful body. He kept his own face rigid. She must break soon.
He left then. He had work to do, a duty to fulfill. The lives of millions of his people depended on him. He marched into the lab, hoping against hope that something had been made of the strange patches. Marthe asn Castre had stamina, but she was no Amazon. Without results, how long before Johne ordered him to pass her over to his own, delightful soldiery and their barbaric methods?
No, never that.
And you are so civilized? jeered an inner voice.
Sanity demanded he ignore the taunt. Perhaps the lab could give him the breakthrough he needed. Something had to, soon. He passed through to the room housing the technical staff, only to be greeted with a disappointing negative from the chief communications technician, Ferdo Braddock.
“Sorry, Hamon, this stuff has us beat. We don’t even know the substance it’s made of but can only postulate it to be synthetic. Nor can we open it up. It’s resistant to everything we’ve tried.”
“What about signal activity?”
“Not that we can detect. We’ve been through the whole range of known particle and energy types and can find no trace of a transmission. Either it’s as harmless as the girl says or, more likely, it’s something beyond our technology. This planet was rather advanced at one time, believe it or not.”
“I know. I was here then.” Hamon’s fist crashed onto the bench, setting the monitors jumping and Ferdo staring.
“Hold on there. I mean, you wouldn’t think so to look at them now.”
“Sorry,” said Hamon. “Things are piling up a bit at the moment. They must be getting to me. Are we off record?”
“Just a minute.” Ferdo sealed the doors, checking the screen as he did so. “Now, what’s up. You look like you’ve been asked to execute your own mother.”
“I feel rather like that,” admitted Hamon ruefully, throwing himself into a disgruntled heap on a nearby seat and staring at his feet for a long moment before lifting his head to meet his friend’s troubled gaze. “Do you never wonder why we’re here?” he asked. “Before we came, this place was one of the most advanced Alliance planets, and now look at what’s left of its people—a backward, peasant race—all so we can get unlimited quantities of one mineral, and that we can’t even do without the technology this peasant planet once owned, four short years ago.”
He looked down, seeing the staccato of restless tapping his fingers insisted on beating out, and clamped down hard to stop it.
“Where is that technology now?” Hamon demanded, glaring at his friend. “Vanished, in one stupid month. Stars! That simple first battle against the Hathians cost us this war. A trivial holding action, we thought. They didn’t have the ships to take on even one of our starcruisers, let alone a whole fleet, but guess what? They did manage to stop us long enough to let their elite escape—the ones who had the knowledge we needed—and that won them the war. Well, I say good on them. What right have we here anyway? We’re barbaric!”
Hamon saw Ferdo’s eyes rest on his drumming fingers. “Your problem,” his friend said, “is that you think t
oo much. You know as well as I what will happen if we don’t get the quantities of urgonium we need, and damn soon at that. Have you seen the latest reports from Earth? Food production is down so badly that we soon won’t have a people to go home to. In fact, I guess you would be killing your own mother if you don’t become a barbarian, as you so nicely put it.”
“What a logician you are.”
Ferdo chuckled. “It helps in this place. You should try it.”
Hamon smiled wryly. Then stopped. “You’re not in my position,” he said. “We’ve captured a Lieger. The daughter of one of their Councilors, no less. I have the honor,” his teeth gritted on the last word, “to be her interrogator.”
The technician whistled in appreciation. “A Lieger. By all the stars above! Why the glum face? According to report, they were a remarkably cruel bunch.”
“This particular one has brown eyes you could lose yourself in forever, hair just asking to be touched and the most beautiful face you are likely to see on a woman anywhere. Worse still, she’s as brave, staunch and fine as could be, damn her.”
The technical officer stared, an amused grin lighting up his features as understanding came to him. “So the impregnable Major has finally been caught in one of his own webs.”
“Caught?” Hamon grunted. “I’ve been half in love with the woman since I first saw her more than five years ago, on the night of her Presentation—the Hathian coming of age ceremony,” he added by way of explanation. “They had to give a speech, she and her twin brother, and you should have heard her. So bright and full of the future.”
“She must’ve been surprised to meet you again in such changed circumstances.”
Hamon shook his head. “She didn’t know me. I never got a chance to meet her that first time. I couldn’t get near her, thanks to that brother of hers. One night, he actually had me thrown out. Would you believe it? I was there on official business, the son of Earth’s representative to the Alliance; but it was as little use to me then as it has ever been,” he finished with a grimace.
“What’s the problem then? The brother isn’t around now. You have her all to yourself.”
“She just might be the key to the whole mystery of this planet. So she must be questioned, by me at least rather than that band of thugs Johne employs. But I must still deny her sleep and food, and think up every ruse imaginable to make her talk, before it’s too late and Johne forces me to hand her over anyway.” Hamon looked down, watching his fingers pluck at his trousers. His face felt like a smudge of cold clay and his voice dropped to a whisper, barely able to admit his thoughts. “It’s not pleasant to watch a woman fade, day by day. Oh, at first I was angry enough to think revenge would be sweet. But it’s not. Stars, it’s not. What in hell am I going to do?”
He slumped forward, burying his face in his fingers. Ferdo sat silent. There was nothing he could say that would help, and both of them knew it. They had been on Hathe long enough to know that the only choice on offer here was the degree of cruelty Hamon must employ.
It was Ferdo who broke the silence. “You want me to say it? You have to give her a session. Or let her escape, thereby signing your family’s death warrant, along with every other Terran’s.”
Hamon’s mouth opened in denial, but Ferdo jumped in before he could speak.
“If you don’t give her one, Johne’s gang will, or worse, and she may die at the end of it. Even if she lives, she would probably rather be dead. Their little refinements aren’t too nice. I watched them in action once on some rebels on Earth.” A harsh light entered his eyes as memory yanked him painfully back. Then Hamon saw him realize what he’d said. “Don’t worry about her,” Ferdo promised gently. “I’ll take personal control, and I guarantee it will only be an illusion. But keep trying your methods for another day or two, if you like. Who knows, you may break her.”
“Have you ever had a session? I did once, in my not so illustrious youth, and it’s the most damnable experience.” A shudder rippled through Hamon at the memory of it, even now, after so many years. “To have to subject another person to it, especially one for whom I have a fondness…”
Ferdo snorted in derision, but refrained from further questioning. Just as well. He had told Ferdo more in these last minutes than he’d told anyone before. His private life was usually that—strictly private. It saved a great deal of trouble. For now, he was grateful that Ferdo was considerate enough to change the subject, asking instead why Hamon had been on Hathe before the takeover. He was certainly the only Terran among the occupying troops to have done so.
“I just happened to end up here once. I liked the place and stayed on for a couple of months. Father took advantage of my presence and arranged for me to be seconded to the team negotiating to buy more urgonium. Mostly to keep him informed fully on what was happening, I suspect, but at least it gave me entrée to the houses of the ruling classes, even if only as a type of poor cousin. As far as our delegates were concerned, I was a very junior member of the negotiating team, and expected to act accordingly.”
“Did you get any more?”
“Urgonium? No.” He felt his mouth tighten at the memory. “They just stared and showed us the door. A more patronizing pack I’ve not met before or since. Yet … their civilization was amazing. I guess we were rather like the country cousins. They had so much: pure, clean air, beautiful homes, an abundance of food, and the time and leisure to indulge in an orgy of the arts. As for the discussions. They talked and argued constantly, with a gift of freedom you never find on Earth. How they talked!” He smiled at the memory then it was wiped abruptly away. “I never saw this part of the planet, though. Would never have guessed that such a bleak wilderness existed. Maybe they did only let us see their best. Maybe the peasants are right and their society was as they claim. Only it’s strange that I saw no sign of it at the time.”
“What about the girl? You never got to meet her.”
“No. Not for want of trying, but she was always in the middle of a large group of friends, and I couldn’t get near her. Her brother’s attitude didn’t help either.” He saw Ferdo’s attempt to hide his curiosity and relented. “I had beaten him to a certain, delightful lady in a local shop, and he took strong exception to what he called my poaching.”
Ferdo hooted with laughter. “Trust you, Hamon. There’s always one somewhere.”
Hamon rightly ignored this. “It was before I saw Marthe. If I had known… But that’s pointless. Anyway, he made sure I couldn’t get near his sister.” He grimaced, then remembered images chased it away. “You should have heard her speak,” he said. “She loved a good argument, and usually came out the winner. That family was one in which intelligence was definitely inherited. Her elder sister was already looking to take up her father’s work. You may have heard of him; he worked in your own field: Dr Sylvan an Castre?”
Ferdo sat up suddenly. “An Castre! I’ll say I have. Even on Earth, we heard rumors of his studies. You don’t mean to tell me this girl is his daughter? What a catch!”
“That is exactly what I’m telling you,” snapped Hamon sourly. “And if you don’t mind, she’s not a hunting trophy.”
“Oh, yes, she is. And if I remember rightly, that twin brother you tangled with was involved in energy research. We never learnt more than the barest outline of the work of his group. For some stupid reason, no one thought it relevant to Earth at the time, but I bet it was, and that sister would know all about it. Hamon, you have to break her. Now isn’t the time for you to turn romantic over a pretty face. You have a duty to your own people first.”
They were the worst words possible, echoing as they did his own inner turmoil. “I am fully aware of my duty,” he snarled, rising to leave, “and am not about to forget it.”
“Did I say any such thing?”
Hamon stopped, his back stiff. Then slowly, his shoulders came down and he turned back. “My apologies.”
“Accepted,” said Ferdo quickly. “Bring the girl down tomorrow. Even if s
he can last longer, your temper won’t.”
Hamon grunted, forced to concede the truth of the words and the good will that prompted them. Ferdo’s next words were less palatable.
“If it doesn’t work, we can give her a repeat session the next day. Though the threat alone should make her talk. Sorry, but I can’t think of a kinder way, and at least with us she will still be alive at the end of it.”
What could he say to that? Hamon left, feeling little better than when he had entered. At least he’d given his friend something to think about. As well as affording him a great deal of amusement, he thought sourly. It didn’t feel amusing to Hamon. Neither Earth’s plight nor his own.
The day had been no less difficult for Marthe. She soon learnt that trying to ignore the shocks from the headband didn’t work. All it did was make her headache worse and she still got no sleep. What she needed was something to take her mind off it. Cleaning the apartment yesterday had helped distract her, so she decided to try that again. There was nothing else for her to do since she’d already searched the place thoroughly, without finding anything of interest. If she was going to be immured here for some time, she may as well arrange things to please herself. Hopefully it would also thoroughly annoy that cursed Terran Major.
She started in the bedroom, straightening the sleeper and restoring the clothes to cleaning and storage. Finished, she stood back, nodding briskly with satisfaction. As she turned to walk into the other room, she looked up and was caught again by the painting of her home, so inexplicably set on the wall of this Terran apartment. A wave of homesickness hit her, remembering the happier days of her youth. There was the east tower where she and Bendin had made their secret headquarters. It was in reality only a dusty old storeroom, all but forgotten by the rest of the family, but to the twins it was a magic kingdom. In it, they had planned such campaigns as the Expedition to the Deepest, Darkest Depths of the Albanok, commonly known to lesser mortals as the kitchen. There, they planned to find and bring back the famed Elixir of Life cleverly disguised as a jar of sweets the cook dished out to any child who had helped her.
Resistance: Hathe Book One Page 7
