Alysha's Fall

by M. C. A. Hogarth

Only to reveal another layer of encryption. Alastar closed her eyes, reset her box, and began again.

  An hour and three layers later, the words that scrolled across the display made sense. Alastar leaped on them. “Laelkii!”

  Laelkii abandoned the door and rushed over, staring over the Karaka’An’s shoulder. “NiiAna!”

  Alastar brought up image after image of Brighthaven in Phantasies. The retouched ones showing him in the middle of unsavory activities elicited a twitch from behind her, but she could only stare in frank admiration at the expertise of the edit. Her fingers flew, and she spread the pictures that Sloan had used for grafting. They were of himself, as well as other patrons.

  “He’s a voyeur!” Laelkii exclaimed.

  “And a sadist,” Alastar said, jaw hard as she continued to look through the pictures. She was startled when the next item flashed onto the display was textual instead of visual. “Look at this.”

  “From the Anti-human League?” Laelkii whispered, reading the mail message over Alastar’s shoulder.

  Alastar scanned it faster than her friend, ear-tips paling despite her apparent equilibrium. “Look,” she said, pointing. “I was right.”

  “He’s going to kill her!” Laelkii squeaked.

  “He had to,” Alastar answered. “He wants to create a scandal with Brighthaven either way to satisfy his membership in the AHL, and Alysha alive is a liability. She knows too much.”

  “But he’s waited so long…”

  “Distracted, maybe,” Alastar said. “He seems to be enjoying himself.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  Alastar had fallen silent, eyes locked on the screen, and Laelkii hesitantly shook her friend’s shoulder. “ ’Star?”

  “Laelkii,” Alastar said softly, “I think we might be too late.”

  The white Asanii followed Alastar’s gaze to the bottom of the message, which promised results within the month. The message was time-stamped twenty-eight days ago.

  Laelkii grabbed her cloak and slung it over her shoulders, twisting her silvering braid out from under it as she rushed for the door.

  “Laelkii! Where are you going?” Alastar called.

  “I’m going to warn Brighthaven!”

  “I’ll pack up after I finish things here,” Alastar said, “I’ll meet you in your room.”

  “Done!”

  Alastar barely heard the white feline leave as she returned her attention to the terminal. She had found the material . . . now it was time for a little justice.

  Laelkii ran through the snowy streets, face turned away from the sky, the wind, the falling flakes. She prayed it wouldn’t turn to sleet even as she dashed through the lighted byways back toward campus. By the time she reached the gates her numbed nose had lost its power to smell and the sensation in her fingers had fled. How long had it taken her? How much time did they have left? Laelkii frantically glanced at the sky, but the moon was obscured by the cloud cover.

  Heart racing even as her limbs tired and slowed, she pressed on through the gathering drifts, running brokenly alongside the walls until she reached the outer edge of the campus. She rubbed her hands together until they could bend, then launched herself onto the wall, wincing as her flesh stuck to the stone in the cold. The wind forced snow into her eyes as she scrabbled to the top of the wall, rolling over it and into the embrace of the icy shrubs on the opposite side. For a while she lay cushioned there, the breath knocked out of her, then she thrashed her way free of the bushes and re-oriented herself.

  She stood on the crest of a hill inside the perimeter; to the southeast she could see the lights of the on-campus residence of the Academe commandant. The elegant, colonial-style manor was the most welcome sight Laelkii had ever seen. She ran uphill, wheezing, the pain in her side warring with her for breath. The Asanii almost collapsed at the portal, but she managed to press the chime before falling against the wall and dragging down it.

  Several minutes later, the Earth-style door swung open. Dressed in a long bathrobe of wine-colored terry-cloth, Brighthaven glanced around outside.

  “Sir!” Laelkii said, straightening and trying to catch her breath. She couldn’t bring herself to move into his field of vision. Tears from her long run through the inclement weather clouded her eyes. “Sir, you have . . . to go to her . . . now!”

  He had turned toward the source of the voice and now squinted at her. “Who? What is going on, Cadet . . . ” Brighthaven stopped, scanning her face, and suddenly drew back. “Who are you?”

  “Alysha. It’s Alysha,” Laelkii said, ignoring the question. She gasped in a breath, composing herself, and tried to inject everything she knew into her voice, “Sir, please go. Now.”

  Brighthaven stared at her, and Laelkii feared she would have to explain when there was so little time left. Just as she began to despair, the human flung himself back into the house. Several minutes later, he bolted past her fully dressed. Laelkii leaned against the side of the house and pressed her forehead to it, allowing herself a sob of relief before she set off for her rooms and blessed warmth to wait out the interminable night.

  Alysha clenched her teeth, throttling her cries before they left her mouth. She refused to give Sloan the satisfaction of knowing she was in pain. The Karaka’An flexed her hands against the chains that held her suspended above the bed’s surface and closed her eyes and mind against the weight on her back. He was sparing her nothing tonight, and she wondered at his frenzy, too distant from it to worry.

  A sudden, excruciating pain tore through her body, and hot blood ran down the back of her thigh even as her pelvis creased and then snapped near her spine. She jerked away, eyes flying open and a cry of sheer surprise escaping her.

  The smell of blood in her nose combined surreally with the scent of snow as the door opened to reveal Brighthaven. Alysha stared at him, convinced he was a figment of her imagination, some hallucination brought forth from the depths of her mind to draw her attention from the trail of the knife. She continued to disbelieve his reality until he lunged for the bed and grabbed Sloan from behind her. She felt herself emptied, felt the knife fall off her back, and the first strike of shock gripped her so hard her heart skipped twice.

  Alysha turned her head in time to see Brighthaven slamming Sloan against the wall so hard the Asanii slumped, stunned into unconsciousness. She stared in fascination at the feral look on the commandant’s face. His eyes were wild and staring, his mouth distended to bare his teeth in an inhuman growl. The force of his anger blazed through every pore in his body as he pinned Sloan to the wall.

  The Asanii woke, confronted with that burning gaze. Incredibly, he summoned up a thin smile.

  Between that breath and the next an eternity stretched. Alysha watched the war within Brighthaven, the man against the animal, the violent struggle revealed in muscles that rippled with furious tension. It seemed inevitable that the ripples would become waves and the commandant would tear Sloan apart. The outcome was written in the cords on his arms, the wild insanity in his eyes. Trapped, Alysha opened her mouth to call out, uncertain what would emerge: a plea for Brighthaven not to taint himself with murder or a mad scream for him to do it.

  The breath rushed into her mouth. Brighthaven knocked Sloan against the wall again and then threw him to the floor.

  “Get out of here,” the commandant said. Alysha shuddered at the ferocity in the voice.

  Sloan picked himself up and smirked, then limped out.

  Brighthaven stood, staring at the door, shoulders rising and falling with his breaths. Alysha suddenly realized her state but could not summon up the energy to feel shame. Now that the confrontation had passed, only the waves of pain emanating from her lower body mattered. She bit her lip against a moan, determined not to show weakness, but some part of the sound leaked from her.

  The human turned slowly. His face was twisted, eyes terrible in their calm, in their contrast. He walked to the desk and found the black key, then joined her at the bedside. Gently, he to
uched her wrist, and she turned from the sight of him looking at her, beginning to tremble.

  When the first shackle came undone and her left wrist fell to the bed, Alysha gritted her teeth, fighting a gasp. The second one would have dropped her to the bed but his hands beneath her ribcage gently lowered her to the mattress. Then both her legs were released, and she lay without moving, hardly believing the cessation of pain at her extremities. The belt unclasped, the harness, and then she felt his hands gently smoothing her hair from her neck. She almost wept at the delicacy with which he touched her. The collar sprang open and she heard his footsteps recede.

  When he returned, a cold cloth touched against the white agony of the knife wound in the back of her thigh. Alysha’s claws velveted, puncturing the blankets, and she bit a pillow as tears streamed from her eyes. Tender fingers cleaned the wound, then bound it. The tension in her shoulders built as hands gently parted her legs and the cloth began to clean the shallow paper cut-thin slices along the inside of her thighs. The intimacy, the silence, and the pain together threatened to overwhelm her.

  The hands pressed her legs back together, then Brighthaven sat on the bed beside her upper body. When she opened her eyes, he was gazing at her, and the look in his green gaze was unspeakable.

  Her first attempt at speech was a croak, and she tried again. “No . . . no. Don’t.”

  “How can I not?” It was obviously rhetorical. He had another cloth in his hands, and he took her wrist and began to clean the long cuts left by the shackles. He did both of them, and then her ankles.

  “Roll over.”

  It was a command, and she began to obey through habit when the fire ripped through her from her hips. She cried out, and he hastily steadied her. His hand probed along the crest of her pelvis toward her tail, and when she jerked away the sensation faded. He helped her turn over, one hand spread along the small of her back and the swell of her rump and the other moving her injured leg so she wouldn’t bump it. Sweat sprang up all over her body at the pain, at the sick way her hips see-sawed. She tried to throttle the small sounds, as much for him as for her. When they’d finished, she lay exhausted.

  When the cool of the cloth returned, she opened her eyes and watched him as he applied his attention to the network of whip marks across her ribs and over her breasts. His face had calmed, and now it was solely his eyes that betrayed him. She let her lashes fall to her cheeks, trying to block out the sensations of his tender ministrations and the burning pain they brought.

  After the long silence, words seemed vulgar and violent. His voice was devoid of emotion.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  She didn’t have the reserves left to feel despair. “He has blackmail material on you.”

  The silence descended again, and the hands stopped. It lasted for so long that she finally opened her eyes.

  He was looking at her. She could read there horror, amazement, resignation, calm, and a score other far subtler emotions. There was so much power in that expression that she felt trapped, unable to look away.

  Slowly, Brighthaven raised the cloth again. Gazing into her face, he gently wiped the tears from her eyes and the sides of her nose, the crust from her lashes. A hot flush suffused Alysha from within, and without even intending she felt her eyes closing and her chin rising in supplication. The cool cloth vanished, replaced by the feel of his hand cupping her cheek. She leaned into it slightly, breathing deepening against the tears that threatened to return.

  “Alysha,” he whispered.

  The sob almost broke loose at the grief in his voice, the intimacy, but she bit her tongue and clenched her teeth against it. “Sir,” she answered, her throat contracting on the word, her eyes still closed.

  How long they remained that way she never knew.

  The wound in her thigh began to throb, and she felt him wrap her in a blanket and scoop her into his arms. She sank against him as he took her out of Phantasies and into the cold, and the warmth of his embrace enfolded her, protecting her from the snow. Halfway to the Medplex, she fainted.

  Laelkii tucked a fuzzy blue blanket around Alastar. The gray-brown Karaka’An had stumbled into the older feline’s quarters at false dawn, movements blurred with fatigue. Laelkii had put her to sleep for an hour in her own bed, grateful that the coming day was a restday and they weren’t expected for any tasks. She was personally exhausted but could not compose herself to sleep. The suspense was too great.

  The older woman started when Alastar dragged herself into a sitting position and called raggedly, “Turn on the news.”

  “The news?” Laelkii answered.

  “This is the part,” Alastar said, “where we find out if I succeeded or failed.”

  “If you succeeded?”

  “Then Sloan is dishonorably discharged and imprisoned.”

  “And if you failed?”

  “Then we’ll be lucky if Brighthaven lives, and Alysha.”

  So as the sky began to blue in the east, the two huddled together in bed under thick blankets, watching the blank holoprojector edgily. Outside, the clouds cleared away and only a few fat flakes drifted to the already thick cover on the ground. Laelkii was dozing off despite her nervousness when the holo chimed three times, jerking her upright. As the disc of the sun swelled on the horizon, she and Alastar stared at the 3deo as a shot of the Academe appeared and a clear woman’s voice spoke.

  “Second Commander of the Fleet Academe of Selnor linked to several suspicious deaths and found to be a member of the Anti-Human League—our top story of the day in the fifth-hour news!”

  Laelkii’s head fell against Alastar’s shoulder and she began to laugh, or cry. She wasn’t sure which. Alastar wrapped her arms around her and let out a long sigh.

  Alysha watched the backs of her friends recede with a smile as she stood next to the doors to the loading area for the shuttle. She could hardly believe what they’d done, even after thinking about it for several weeks. She’d had a great deal of time at the end of the semester for thinking. She’d been in the Medplex for two days while the doctors had re-fused her pelvis and rebuilt the muscles Sloan had peeled apart; after that, she’d had another week of walk therapy.

  Alysha hadn’t returned to the club after her release; she hadn’t needed to see Brighthaven to know that, somehow, she simply wasn’t supposed to go. When the mail had arrived informing her that her tuition had been paid for the remaining two years, Alysha had been deeply affected . . . but somehow, not surprised.

  Freed now of her financial worries and her nocturnal responsibilities, Alysha finally had the chance to take a few semesters in the orbital station the Academe maintained to teach piloting and other topics relevant to those who would sail a starship. The shuttle beyond the doors was her ride there. Smiling one last time at Laelkii and Alastar’s distant figures, Alysha grabbed the strap of her duffel bag and slung it over her shoulder. She turned to go.

  And stopped.

  Impeccable in his usual Fleet uniform with the badge of the Terran Space Navy on his right shoulder, the commandant stood with his hands clasped loosely behind his back. There was more gray in his hair than she remembered from their first meeting, and a few more lines around his eyes, but his shoulders were straight and his back unbowed.

  Slowly, she straightened until her posture mimicked his, different only in that her digitigrade stance forced on her spine a deeper curvature. She lifted her chin, gathering herself for the moment.

  She held out her hand, and he clasped it.

  Alysha said, “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” Brighthaven answered.

  His hand in her grasp tightened, then released. Alysha looked at him a moment longer, then turned and headed for the shuttle. In her eyes, and in her stance, there was the making of metal.

  The Piece That

  Makes the Difference

  “He’s inside,” the aide said to her before leaving.

  Senior Medical Cadet Laelkii Takara watched the human lad
y go, her white tail twitching. She reflected sadly on what the commandant’s rearrangement of his staff to include a much greater percentage of humans said about how Selnor had treated him. The “incident” had concluded over two years ago, but the burns still smarted on the Terracentrus campus of Fleet Academe.

  The Asanii woman stood at the threshold of the commandant’s closed door, presenting a mostly human appearance with a feline veneer bequeathed to her by over-zealous genetic engineers centuries ago. She had no idea why Brighthaven had sent for her, but she had the man’s mettle. If he wanted to distract her from her celebratory preparations for Alysha’s graduation, she was certain he had good cause. Laelkii straightened her blue and black uniform, tossed her silvering bangs out of her face, and chimed for entrance before stepping inside.

  He stood behind his desk with his back to her, impeccable in the blue and black of full Fleet uniform, with the Terran Space Navy’s emblem on his right shoulder, the gold just visible. His posture evoked the confidence that had guided the Academe on Selnor to its present state, and the silver that threaded his oak-brown hair the effort that guidance had required. He was human, and there was something that defied description about his easy stance and the sense of command that permeated it.

  Laelkii stood at attention before his desk, her eyes demurely downcast. She focused on his hands, clasped neatly behind him, their palms facing her: broad wrists, strong fingers with sensitive tips curled inward.

  “Cadet,” he said at last.

  Laelkii lifted her chin but not her eyes. “Sir. You sent for me.”

  He turned from the window, bringing his polite green gaze to bear on her. “That I did. Have a seat.”

  Surprised, Laelkii sank onto a chair, curling her tail through the hollow meant for that purpose. She folded her hands in her lap and waited. The military courtesies that came so easily to Alysha remained foreign to Laelkii even after two years, but curiosity and patience—those things she understood. The Asanii found it easy enough to be still, to concentrate on the reflections sliding off the glass surface of Brighthaven’s desk, when in pursuit of some mystery.