“Behold the sympathetic physician,” teased Jorven. “God protect us when you are let loose again on an unsuspecting world.”
“As soon as I am, I promise you will be my first patient,” she threatened back.
Her father smiled, amused. “That day is not too far off. Setting up refresher courses for professionals is one of the Council’s first priorities, after we rid ourselves of these Terrans. I have already booked you a place. You’ll be back in practice in no time.”
“Not straight away, thank you Father. I’ll need a holiday before I tackle something like that. You’ve no idea how much I’ve forgotten these last years, even with all the field work that’s come my way.” She grimaced, thinking of the tasks ahead, but then thrust them away, indulging instead in the pleasure of family gossip.
Later that night, she stood gazing out the library window in quiet contemplation of the lunar landscape, escaping for a few moments’ peace. A noise made her spin round. It was Jacquel, poking his head through the doorway.
“Mind if I come in?”
She shook her head, motioning him forward to a pair of seats ideally placed to view the lunar scene below. The light from the window cast gaunt shadows across his face, sharpening the usually merry contours into harsh crags, and his voice when he spoke held no trace of easy banter. She sat in the other, and waited. She could guess why he was here. He soon confirmed it.
“The Terrans have told me one story. I would like your version.”
She nodded, her mouth dry. Her one-time friend was sitting in judgement before her. Only the truth would do, so she told him of her imprisonment, hiding nothing yet revealing little beyond the plain, unemotional facts. Grimly she told of Radcliff’s ultimatum.
“Your death, or my confession. I ordered your death.”
“Oh?”
“Plus two others.”
She sat still, neither defending nor attacking herself.
Jacquel leaned back, resting his chin thoughtfully in his hands. Their enduring strength belied the usually reckless air of the man. “You had to do it, for the sake of the cause,” he said with an icy logic.
“It was the only choice possible,” she agreed. “Were you told?”
“Oh yes, he told me. In vivid detail.” Bitterness scored deeply into the shadows surrounding him.
“Major Radcliff?”
“I received a visit from your amiable protector not long after.”
Marthe was quelled by the hate edging his voice. “You don’t seem to approve of our mutual captor. I take it that his methods were not overly gentle. I would like to know the truth; he did not kill you, remember.”
“Of course he didn’t. As a Haut Liege, I am for too valuable, even if I do not possess your beauty.”
“Beauty nothing. There is more than one kind of torture; the subtlest can be the worst,” she snapped, guilt churning her guts.
“Oh yes. No food, no sleep, but at least you were clean, lay in a proper bed at night. And how intensive was your interrogation—every waking hour of the day with those ghouls of hell they call soldiers?”
“I had one session.”
“One?” he jeered, throwing himself up from the chair and pacing angrily back and forth. The very air seemed spattered with his rage, spewing forth into the shadows of the room as he strode in front of her. Suddenly he turned, paused in mid-step, his face of agony upon her.
“Why?”
The word hung there, splitting to shreds the defensive anger she had so gladly thrown up.
“I don’t remember a time when you and Bendin weren’t my closest friends,” he went on. “When Bendin died, it hurt me almost as much as it hurt you. I’ve trusted you with my life more times than I care to remember these last years, and vice versa. Then you just say ‘No’ and I’m gone? That’s it?”
“I had to,” was all she could whisper.
“Had to? Of course you had to. All those men who would have died. But did you have to so easily? You didn’t even ask for a day’s grace to consider.”
“There wasn’t one on offer,” she replied in a voice as still as his was turbulent. “Major Radcliff is driven by a desperation almost greater than our own. He thinks his world is dying.”
“So now you favor his cause. Take care. You soon won’t have to worry about killing your friends. It will all spill out so easily.”
Marthe shot up at that. “Jaca, stop it. Don’t do this. I doubt if you can believe me, but the moment I thought you dead was the worst of my life, whatever our mutual enemy may claim. Worse even than losing Bendin, because I didn’t cause that. I won’t ask your forgiveness for my decision. You would’ve been forced to do the same if you were me. But I tell you, it wasn’t lightly made or easy to live with.” She smiled jaggedly. “In less than a day’s time we both return to captivity. Let’s not bear this burden as well.” She began to raise her hand in supplication, then recognized the effrontery and let it drop.
Jaca didn’t move, standing as one trapped, his chest heaving and pain scoring his face. She waited, knowing if she failed here, it would be one loss too many. She didn’t know if she could face the coming ordeal without his support.
For a long time, it looked like she would have to. Jaca stood silent, in judgment, his clear blue eyes studying her and his face closed and rigid. Then, slowly, ever so slowly, the stiff shoulders eased, and fell, and the ghost of a smile flitted across the twisted mouth. He had made his decision. “You’re right, Mimi, as ever. My hand.” and he cautiously stretched out one, pale palm.
The relief of it flooded her. “A pact on it,” she agreed eagerly, grasping his hand with pleasure.
“Yes, a pact on it.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
That brief smile was all he gave her of warmth. The barest hint, but there was yet a promise in it and, for a moment only, he made her a party to his pain, the trace of warmth disappearing and his face open and exposed. He let her see all the grief of the days to come and a pledge that he would stand by her as they stepped through them together.
Then he gave a small shake and the old Jaca, the bright image of her youth, settled as a mask over his inner torment. She had no choice but to go along with the masquerade. She was the betrayer here, and when he spoke again it was as if the last moments had never been. They had known each other so long that the familiar habits of friendship fell easily into place, but Marthe knew the private soul behind the bravura and that nothing was the same.
“We ought to discuss our strategy,” he said brightly, once more the fellow conspirator. “Decide what tale we shall string the Terrans. Two such tried and true troupers as we are must be able to come up with something special.” He paced before her again, his considerable dramatic talents to the fore as he illuminated his words with vivid movements of arm and body. “Shall we be the revolutionary philosophers of our tribe, preferring to share in the peasants’ poverty to a luxurious exile? Or did we run away, or were cast out for our flagrant contempt of their outdated mores. I would rather like to go down in history as a rogue, a lecher of young, innocent daughters and not so young or innocent spouses. What say you, Mimi? Can you see me as the disgraced ravisher?” And he flung his hand high before flourishing low in a sweeping, courtly bow.
“You’ve had an interesting reputation since your teens, and well you know it,” she said, laughing at this display but not fooled for a second. Still beneath the surface, she sensed the tautly held control of her apparently volatile friend. But she was also a skilled actor.
“As for me, my story is told,” she said as blithely. “Father and I quarreled, I took myself off in a huff and missed the ships’ departure. Needless to say it wasn’t believed.”
“I should think not. Everyone knew how close your family was. Couldn’t you think of anything better? Why not stolen by bandits for ransom? Or you were knocked on the head, developed amnesia and wandered off?”
“They are just as unbelievable and you know it. Apart from which, my tale is told and it’s
too late to change it now.
“You’re right, more’s the pity. It really is the worst load of garbage I ever heard, but it will have to do. As for me, I do think I was cast off in disgrace, because, because...
“Your father was trying to get you to marry Emily delns Varst?”
“Ugh!” His face crinkled. “Not even Father would try that one.”
“You had got the President’s daughter pregnant?”
“Who says I hadn’t?” he grinned back.
Her eyes opened wide. “There was a rumor going round. I remember Jessamie saying something.
“Rubbish she did,” he retorted, rapidly backing down.
“Thought that would call your bluff. But you must have told them something, if only to put them off the track?”
“There was no point. By the time Radcliff caught me, he was so suspicious that anything I said would only have made matters worse. So I played dumb: the spoiled Haut Liege in a sulk.”
“Which you can play to perfection.”
“Thank you.” He lifted an eyebrow in some surprise.
“Well you can, so you needn’t look at me like that. Save it for the Terrans.” A thought caught her. “Since we can’t avoid imprisonment, why not use it to reinforce the set-up of a society of Haut Liege and peasants. After what they’ve done to us, the least the Terrans deserve is to have a pair of insufferably arrogant Haut Liege thrust upon them. We won’t be able to fool Major Radcliff—the man knows too much about what Hathe was like before they came—but possibly we can minimize his credibility with the other Terrans.”
“By exposing them to a full blast of those exalted personages, the Lady Marthe asn Castre and the Master Jacquel des Trurain?” For an instant the old, wicked delight lit his eyes.
“Exactly!”
“And Radcliff? How are you going to manage him?”
She looked away at that, out the window to the rocky shadows of the valley below. Then she retreated to the sanctuary of a chair and sat tensely poised on the front edge. The air strained heavily around them again. “That will be a more personal battle,” was all she could say. Who she must battle wasn’t clear, even to her. Too many conflicted feelings invaded her whenever she thought of the Terran. Hamon Radcliff was her enemy. So why couldn’t she think of him as one?
Jaca went to stand by the window, looking out it as he asked the question she knew he couldn’t avoid. “He’ll want to make you his mistress?”
“If I can get him to trust me? Yes, probably. ”
He turned half back. “Will you agree?” All the light was stripped from him as he waited, and she saw the effect of her slow nod in reply.
“If necessary to keep my cover. Yes.”
“Can you bear it?”
A jagged gasp of laughter escaped her. “After what we’ve have endured these last four and a half years? This is nothing.”
“Maybe.”
He lied, and they both knew it. More than anyone else alive, he knew the cost of those strife-torn years, years which should have seen her youth and young loves. Emotionally, she was a novice. Did she really understand what she proposed?
“He won’t tolerate our charade otherwise,” she added then.
“You seem sure he’ll know it to be a charade.”
“Oh, yes. Sometimes, it’s as if he can see right into my—” and she broke off in confusion. She shook her head and continued in a voice devoid of emotion. “But without proof, he can do nothing. Who’s going to believe him if he claims I’m a spy, when he’s the one keeping me safe, and you can be sure he will be fully aware of that too.” Bitter anguish feathered her whispered words.
Jacquel watched the emotions chase across her face. Damn the Terran and his charm. And he was going to have to watch her do this, watch the two of them together, watch his worst enemy with his best friend.
Marthe shook herself mentally. Enough. She plastered a bright smile on her face. “He has no choice but to go along with my act anyway, if he wants to find out what I’m up to. I only hope he’s so busy trying to figure me out that he eases up on you. Otherwise you will be far worse off than I. You don’t seem to be Major Radcliff’s favorite Hathian.”
Jaca’s smile looked forced. “It’s only for a few months, and I’m tougher than I look.” Which was nothing less than the truth, thought Marthe. “Don’t worry about me,” he continued. I’ll be such an autocratic, overbearing, conceited and spoilt brat that they will just beg me to escape.”
She had to laugh then. She hugged him closely, trying to hold on to his strength and familiarity till the last moment possible. She had an idea she was going to need it.
“You say they are not extracting enough urgonium to meet Earth’s domestic requirements?”
Marthe passed a weary hand across aching eyes, before replying for what must be the hundredth time. “That’s correct. They seem to know little of more recent developments in energy generation that use urgonium more efficiently or are based on other sources.
“That’s impossible, child. The kind of alternatives you refer to have been in common use throughout the Alliance for years, well before the Terrans invaded. This Major Radcliff? Is he in a position to fully know about Earth’s current situation?”
“As I have already stated, Councilor an Baktish, Major Radcliff is the son of Representative Garth Radcliff of the Alliance Council and Administrator Freya MacDiarmid. He was also part of Earth’s mission to Hathe immediately prior to the invasion. He knew exactly how badly the Terrans needed the urgonium then, and how much they still do.”
“Yes, yes, girl. You said that. But what else does he know?”
“I was not able to ascertain the exact extent of his knowledge of Earth’s affairs, Councilor,” she replied, politely resigned. “That must wait until I return to Hathe’s surface proper.”
She’d been giving similar answers for hours. The whole bunch of them now ignored her, leaning over their notes and talking among themselves. Marthe was set on a solitary chair facing what she could only think of as her panel of inquisitors. Barely attending to their discussions, she gazed speculatively at the lineup. Grey-haired and tetchy Councilor an Baktish, the oldest member of Council—a fact which afforded him a kind of precarious pride she had never been able to understand. Beside him, the quietly distinguished and completely unfathomable Councilor an Heurain. Though he spoke the least, she had quickly become aware of how readily the other three deferred to his judgment.
The booming, staccato voice now addressing her belonged to Councilor an Jordan. A large, hale man resembling a giant megalith in action, she knew not to discount him for he was a man of subtle deliberations. Then her own dear father, torn at present between his duty to his people and to his family, a slight pucker wrinkling his brow as he watched her closely. She could feel his concern, caught the frown that warned her to attend, the frown that had always accompanied worry for his children. Right now, she guessed he would rather have been anywhere than in a senior Councilor’s chair.
She replied absentmindedly to Councilor an Jordan’s rather rambling question, yet another that she had already answered over and over. In the past two days, she would swear she could count on one hand the minutes she had spent out of this room. Over in the far corner, the same crack still reached cautiously up the otherwise flawless wall, struggling to impose lunar forces on this antiseptic bastion of the organic invaders. Even the potted shrubs in one corner were a synthesized replica of the sprawling gardens of Hathe, the atmosphere here too precious for other than necessary organic life. Living plants were strictly confined to the hydroponic unit, as part of the tightly controlled, environmental systems servicing the colony on Mathe.
Thinking of this, she wondered cynically which were of the least use: the ornamental shrubs or the even more ornamental wielders of power sitting in front of her. But that, she supposed, was unfair. Everyone had their own peculiar talents, as her father was wont to say and, right now, she couldn’t really claim that her talents had been
of the slightest use to the cause. In all probability, she may have actually hindered her people’s plans, which was more than the garrulous an Baktish had ever managed. She answered the next question. Would they never stop? She’d begun to wish she’d never left Hathe.
At last her relief force knocked on the door with a message that Agent asn Castre was required Hatheside immediately if their cover was not to be broken. Word had come that the Terran major was to be released from sick bay, and he would be sure to ask about his prisoners soon afterwards.
Thank the stars, she breathed, hiding a grin of unholy joy. Her father knew her too well and ticked her off soundly as they passed down the corridor to the space bay shortly afterwards.
“Marthe, Marthe, will I never instill in you a proper respect for our leaders. We are in a very serious situation and here you are, still treating a planetside mission as an exciting holiday trip.”
“It is after that grilling, and well you know it, Father mine.” She smiled, linking arms affectionately with her father and sister. “You have no idea how lacking in imagination are our esteemed leaders, Laren. I swear, if they asked a question once, they asked it a dozen times. The scant information I had could have been delivered in half an hour at most; but no, they had to pick over every nuance, every slight change in tone.”
“You poor darling,” chuckled Laren. “Though Father is right. The Councilors carry a heavy load of responsibility. Even if it is only to provide our government with the essential essence of senility in the case of your favorite, dear old an Baktish.”
“Dear old an Baktish nothing. The man is a public menace. If his family hadn’t bred so profusely, he would never be there. I swear he must be related to half the planet.”
“A point you would do well to remember, if you do exaggerate somewhat,” said her father. “Dotty old an Baktish he may be, but to many of us he symbolizes the family ties on which our society is built, and without which we would never have survived the invasion. The planet couldn’t have been organized in that one, short month we had before the Terrans arrived without a quick call to a second cousin, a word from uncle to nephew, sisters having a chat, your grandmother speaking to old an Baktish—her third cousin by marriage, I might remind you. Formal deliberations at Council would take an age if we had to find out the people’s opinion some other way.”
Resistance: Hathe Book One Page 11
