His oration stopped Valessanna’s pacing in mid-stride. The sheer impertinence of his interpretation was irritating beyond belief, but his analysis was above reproach. He would never be charged or even reprimanded for his actions. The realization left Valessanna speechless.
When he saw she had nothing more to say, Lindy spoke again. “May I go now?” he asked. “I must change my uniform.”
“Yes,” she said, flustered. “Yes, you may go.”
The pilot turned on his heel and exited the compartment. Valessanna took her seat at the head of the table and dropped her face into her hands. “You may go as well, doctor,” she said, her voice muffled. “I will be down to visit your sick bay as soon as I am able.” Beccassit rose and left the room without a word, while Busht remained standing to one side, apparently unwilling to speak but also too concerned for his captain to simply leave.
For the first time Valessanna realized that it was she who would be held accountable not only for the presence of the aberrant, but for everything that had gone so horribly wrong. The mission unaccomplished, the loss of so many lives, the near destruction of her ship; all the responsibility would be laid at her feet, and her feet alone. She would be the sacrificial lamb. And Calese Arkhus would be there to lend a helpful hand to the investigation. There would be no trial of course, for as Lindy had so kindly reminded her, none of what had happened in the Sol system would ever become a part of the public record. But her career in the Union Police Force was almost certainly over.
She pushed the thoughts aside, feeling guilty again. She had no right to worry about what might or might not happen to her with so many of her crew dead. She raised her head to address Busht. “Colvan, why don’t you get back to the bridge? Assemble the most proficient bridge crew that is healthy enough to man their stations and pull them off duty for the next twenty-four hours. We’ll need our best people rested for the course change. I’ll be down there later, after I visit sick bay. I need to get cleaned up and perhaps get a little sleep, if I can sleep, so it could be a while. You take the conn until I get there, and then you can get some rest yourself.”
“Yes, I’ll attend to what needs to be done,” the exec agreed, but still he made no move to leave. Instead he pulled out one of the chairs next to the captain and took a seat. “Valessanna, may I speak candidly?” he asked.
Valessanna massaged the back of her aching neck with one hand while slowly turning her head from right to left, trying in vain to stretch the soreness from the muscles there. “Why not?” she responded. “Everyone else does.”
“On the bridge,” Busht began, “when Joella broke down, I was so afraid. I couldn’t move; I couldn’t speak. All I could do was stare at the viewscreens. I think I was just waiting to die. And then when it was over I was incredibly ashamed. I’m still ashamed. Val, I don’t know if I can do this. The Vazileks are so different from any criminals I have ever had to deal with. There has always been danger, but there has also always been the knowledge that we, the police, were feared by those we sought to apprehend. But I don’t think the Vazileks fear us at all. They seem to relish every opportunity to confront us. They don’t even fear death. And they’re strong Val, as strong as we are, maybe even stronger. I don’t know what we can do against them. And they always seem to know everything. How is it possible that they show up at the aberrant world on exactly the same day as we are to retrieve the acquisition team? It’s like they knew exactly what we were doing. I’m telling you Val, they scare me; they scare me out of my wits.”
Valessanna stopped the manipulations to her neck and instead reached out to Busht and took his hand. She squeezed it tightly. “Colvan,” she said softly, almost whispering. “You’re not alone. Everyone, including me, was terrified down on the bridge. And no one knows what to do about the Vazileks. I think we’re all a little bit frightened by them. No one has ever had to take down a criminal enterprise like the one they’ve constructed. That’s why we were ordered to the aberrant world, to give our leaders the tools to try and figure out what to do. And we will figure it out. Until we find a way to get through to them, to communicate with them, to somehow convince them to behave in a rational manner, we will do whatever it takes to keep them at bay. We’ll expand the force; we’ll build more ships; we’ll be ready for them no matter where or when their ships appear. Then the time will come when they will tire of their attempts to wreak havoc. They will either be forced to talk with us or they will simply disappear back into void. In the end, we will prevail, one way or the other.”
Busht sighed, then wearily spoke. “I appreciate the attempt to raise my morale, but if you don’t mind me saying so, it’s really not your forte. You know as well as I do that the funding is simply not there to build a fleet large enough to protect everyone all the time. There isn’t enough money in all the Union to do that. We’ve got to come up with something better than that.”
Valessanna leaned forward, using her free hand to brush Busht’s hair back from his forehead. “You’ve had a bad day, just like everyone else. As soon as you get the crew assignments straightened out, go get some sleep. Don’t wait on me. Just give the conn to whoever is senior on the bridge, and I’ll take over as soon as I can. I’ll send a med tech up from sick bay to look in on you. You’ll feel better once you’re rested.”
The Exec nodded, pushed back his chair and stood, as if to leave, but still hesitated. “Val,” he said stiffly, “do not let Calese’s accusations weigh on your conscience. The crew does not share her feelings. They understand that we had to go back for the cutter. The story of how you left your station, were thrown about the bridge, and then personally punched up the deep drive with no regard for your own safety is already making the rounds. If I have heard it, then I am sure nearly all of the crew has as well. Everyone I have spoken to feels as I do. They feel that you personally saved the ship, and their lives. They’re grateful Val, not angry or vindictive.”
There was a long pause as Valessanna digested his words. At length she nodded in appreciation, and turned her eyes to his. “Thank you, Colvan,” she murmured. “You don’t know how much I needed to hear that just now.” Busht nodded as well, turned, and exited the compartment while, for the first time since the engagement, Valessanna’s sinking spirits were buoyed just a fraction.
CHAPTER ELEVEN:
A Wolf in the Fold
Sick bay was still a bustling hive of activity when Valessanna, now clean and wearing a fresh uniform, strode crisply through the entry. But what met her eyes upon stepping into the clinic stopped her in her tracks. Nurses dressed in white hurried about, loading the various treatment stations with whatever was needed before tallying additional requests and quickly withdrawing for more supplies. Exhausted med techs sat at every auto-doc, intently supervising the machines’ diagnosis and treatment of each patient’s injuries. The wounded lay everywhere, seemingly every inch of open space was taken up by the gurneys upon which they had been placed.
Outside in the corridors, she had passed a long line of people with minor injuries waiting for care, but all of them had been fit enough to make their way down to sick bay on their own. Many of them had leaned a shoulder to a bulkhead or taken a seat, cross-legged, on the floor; but at least their eyes had been wakeful and alert. Some had even greeted her warmly or nodded appreciatively as she had passed. But inside were the more grievously hurt, some of them obviously drugged and many more of them unconscious, all of them waiting for space in an auto-doc to become available. Crimson stains of blood, seemingly everywhere, screamed silently at her eyes. Seeing the human cost of her failures spread before her was far different than listening to the doctor’s dry recounting of the injuries in a staff meeting.
The macabre sight was something she had never before witnessed or even dreamed of. Sick bay was ordinarily a tranquil retreat of antiseptic purity, a calm expanse of white and chromium where little of real import occurred. The noisy chaos and grisly trauma that now filled the space brought tears to her eyes and concern to
her face. All of this, she felt, was the product of her poor decision making. The burden for it rested on her shoulders.
She spied Beccassit across the room. Clenching her teeth, she forced her legs into motion and made her way through the wounded—pausing here to utter a few words of encouragement, and there to grasp a shoulder reassuringly—until she was at the doctor’s side. She waited as he wound up an answer to a med tech’s query before speaking. “All right, doctor, where is he?” she asked, trying to be hard edged despite the scene convulsing around her.
“Where is who?” Beccassit replied absently, as if he had no idea why the captain would be visiting his sick bay. In response, she glared at him without speaking, her arms folded tightly beneath her breasts, her expression the embodiment of impatience. After seeing all the wounded she was in no mood for games.
Beccassit maintained his innocent pose for only a second more before relenting. “I take it you mean the aberrant,” he said, sighing.
“Yes, I mean the aberrant,” Valessanna said testily. “You do recall the barbarian that Lindy brought aboard, do you not?”
The doctor nodded slowly, as if he were suddenly fatigued, before speaking. “This way, Mrs. Nelsik,” he finally said, in a tone and cadence that unmistakably implied that her presence in sick bay was an impediment to the efficiency of his department and an irritant to him personally. He turned and walked toward the rear of the clinic with Valessanna following closely behind, her lips curled petulantly with more than the usual annoyance at the doctor’s use of her surname.
Beccassit was a strange one, she thought, even by the standards of academia. Of all the people on board, he was the one in the best position to maintain his physical well being, yet he walked around in a body that looked to have been abused for seventy years. He had allowed himself to go bald until the summit of his crown was completely bare, while the hair that ringed the sides and back of his head had turned to pure white, as had the whiskers of his beard. To say that he was corpulent was somewhat of an understatement, as his girth was plain to see when he was in uniform. The form fitting whites of the medical staff did nothing to hide the expanse of his distended waistline, instead revealing it in all its bountiful splendor. The man even preferred to wear spectacles rather than having his vision corrected. No one knew how he managed to have the archaic corrective lenses manufactured to the specifications his eyes required, but obviously he had found a way as there never seemed to be a problem with his eyesight when he donned them. It was as if he wore his body like a statement of protest, a rejection of societal norms which he found in some way opprobrious. Some amongst the crew believed that he even went so far as to let his replacement bodies age before he availed himself of them so that his decrepit look could be maintained on a continual basis. Valessanna was doubtful of the veracity of that particular rumor, but with Beccassit one never really knew for sure.
She followed in his wake until finally he turned from a dead-end corridor into a small overnight room. There was no bed in the compartment; a cylindrical gel tank standing in the middle of the floor was the only furnishing besides a small desk and chair by the entry. Inside the tank, a naked body hung suspended in green ooze. The thick healing gel and the tubes connected to the mask that covered the patient’s mouth and nose made it difficult to discern much about his facial features; but one thing was clear, he was a monster. Even with his body encased by the gel tank it was easy to see he was a good third of a meter taller than she was, if not more.
“My word,” Valessanna said softly. “Just how big is he?”
“Oh, no need to whisper, Mrs. Nelsik,” Beccassit began in his normal, voluble tone. “Even if he were conscious he couldn’t hear anything in there. The gel is very dense, you know, and there is the tank itself to consider. But to answer your question, he is very large, just a shade under two meters in height. This gel tank,” he said as he affectionately patted the curving glass of its exterior, “is two and a quarter meters tall and, as you can see, he very nearly fills the entire cylinder. And despite the withered condition of his legs, he still weighs in at slightly over a hundred kilograms. He’s a literal giant by our standards. Easily dwarfs the largest among us. If either of us were to stand beside him the top of our heads would barely reach his sternum. Amazing that a human being could grow to such dimensions given the environmental degradation of his habitat. But I rather suspect we are dealing with recessive genes in his case. Most of the aberrants, although still large due most probably to natural selection, are much closer to our own proportions. He has blue eyes you know, natural blue eyes. Another recessive trait. We haven’t seen naturally occurring blue irises in our population in thousands of years. The man would be worth a fortune in our society for his genes alone. Do you have any idea how much blue eyes cost these days?”
Valessanna scowled without speaking. The query only served to remind her of Lindy, with his powerful in-laws and his money and his annoying self-confidence.
But the doctor hadn’t seemed to actually expect an answer. He went on excitedly without skipping a beat. “And his skin tone, you should see it. It was hard to tell as so much of it was seared away, but his pigmentation is many shades paler than the lightest of us. He is truly an incredible specimen.
“You know I have studied the Earthers off and on for many years now; that is why I was chosen to accompany you and your fine crew on this mission. A fascinating people, but it’s obscenely hard to obtain any data concerning them. There are so many restrictions. Damned unconventional if you ask me, particularly as they are a one-of-a-kind civilization, at least as far as we know. Well, besides the Vazileks of course, if you want to include nomadic peoples. Or I am not supposed to know about their lack of a home world?” He paused to look at Valessanna as if challenging her, but if he was attempting to goad her into a caustic response he was unsuccessful. She merely continued to study the aberrant and waited for him to go on, which he did a moment later, with gusto.
“Did you know that as fair as this man’s skin is, there are others on the same world who are very nearly ebon in pigmentation? That’s right, and the same disparities apply to height, as we touched on earlier, and weight, all within the same planetary population. The mutational differentiation that has transmuted their society from a single culture into so many has never…”
As he spoke Beccassit turned his attention away from the aberrant and back to Valessanna. She glared at him with apathetic impatience, vexed at his interminable ramblings, and he stopped in mid sentence. His demeanor dropped from effervescent to crestfallen in an instant. “Well, I’m sure you’re aware of all that,” he said in a much more subdued tone. “You were trained for this mission as thoroughly as anyone left alive on this ship.”
Valessanna moved closer to the gel tank and peered into it. “Have you had the time to establish,” she asked, “exactly how grievously he is injured?”
“Of course,” the doctor replied, immediately effusive once more. “Here we are looking at what can only be described as a total overhaul. The burns that cover most of his body are the least of his problems; the tank will take care of that easily enough. But he’ll also need a whole new set of internal organs. What he has currently are full of toxins and carcinogens, and are operating well below optimum levels, so we’ll have to start from scratch there. I’ve already obtained DNA samples and started the cloning process. Or course we’ll have to pressure-grow them to the proper age as he is in no condition to wait nearly two decades. It won’t be quite as effective as a natural growth pattern, but that can hardly be avoided at this stage.
“But the most difficult problem is his neurological condition. I mentioned his withered legs before. Come round the back of the tank here and have a look.” He motioned to Valessanna to follow him, then pulled a pointer out of his pocket and tapped on the glass.
“See here, at the small of the back? That is scar tissue, so much of it that it is clearly visible even through the gel and the burn damage to his epidermis. Beneath
that tissue, his spine has been incredibly traumatized. This man is very nearly completely paralyzed below the waist; has been for years. I can fix it, but it will take some doing, and some time. And even after I restore functionality, he will still be looking at a significant rehabilitation period; rebuilding his musculature and relearning how to ambulate will be no easy task. And all this is just a short synopsis of the major work to be done. There are plenty of little things that will need my attention. Quite frankly, his body is in horrendous condition. A new one should be started for him as soon as possible. He should be admitted to a cloning facility on the very day we make port.”
“What do you suppose could have caused such an injury?” Valessanna asked, ignoring the doctor’s last remark while studying the aberrant’s back intently.
“You mean the spinal injury,” Beccassit said, clarifying.
“Yes.”
“That would be hard to say definitively. Not a fall, nor even a blow for that matter; there’s entirely too much damage to suspect either of those two possibilities. Judging by the severity of the wound, I would have to say that this is an injury caused by some sort of a high velocity impact. A piece of dense material must have been propelled at him at great speed, piercing the body. It could have been the result of an explosion, an industrial accident, or something of that nature. Or he could have been attacked, some sort of criminal incident; you know how rampant that sort of thing is on his world. Maybe he tried to run away, unsuccessfully, from his assailant.” Beccassit hesitated for a moment before continuing. “But there is a more probable and more sinister scenario that may also explain the wound. One that I don’t think you will care for.”
The Empty Warrior Page 17
