by Diana Palmer
Madeline glanced at him and wanted, so badly, to tell him what she suspected about Muldoon. But she didn’t dare. Now that she knew the Morcai carried AVBDs, she couldn’t risk it.
“Strick, you don’t think he’s a clone?” she asked suddenly, and felt such a sense of loss that her eyes almost watered.
He gnawed on his lower lip. His broad shoulders moved uncomfortably. “I don’t know.”
“You suspect something,” she persisted.
He drew in a painful breath. “It wouldn’t serve Rojok purposes to leave the original alive if they deliberately replaced Stern. But we have no proof of that, remember? It may be just what it seems—a strange pattern due to a head injury.”
She folded her arms tightly across her chest. There was a deep, throbbing pain in her very soul. “The three of us have been together for so long—” Her voice broke. If she hadn’t been so involved in the theory, she might have realized that it was rare for her to feel such a burst of emotion. “We’ll have to watch him closely until we get to Benaski Port,” she added. “If we’re still convinced by then that he’s showing signs of brain pattern alteration or brain damage,” she said heavily, “I’m going to have to file a Section 10–010 with the portmaster.”
“That could cost Stern his command,” he reminded her.
“Don’t you think I know that?” she asked with tortured, pale eyes. “Strick, he dragged me out of a moga swamp and carried me two miles to an aid station on Signus Four. He could have left me there to die, and no military tribunal in the galaxy would have charged him for it. But he didn’t. He’s my friend,” she added simply.
“He’s mine, too.” He looked drawn. He glanced down at her with concern. “I’ve been relegated to medicine because the emotion suppression didn’t work on me. It was the only way I could stay in the SSC. But you were a combat officer.”
She realized what he was saying. Her green eyes lifted to his. “Apparently the emotion drain didn’t completely work on me, either, Strick.” She smiled faintly. “I don’t share that tidbit at HQ, and you mustn’t, either. I’m still an Amazon reservist. I don’t want to lose my status.”
“You know me better than that.” He studied her curiously. “How did you get past the scans? And why didn’t the drugs work on you?”
She leaned closer. “My dad is Lieutenant Colonel Clinton Ruszel of the SSC Paraguards, Royal Legion of Earth,” she reminded him. “He took an unusual interest in how his donation to the sperm bank was being used. I’m his only progeny, and I understand that he was having me watched almost from birth. I think he may have had something to do with the drugs’ lack of effectiveness. Even when I served with the Amazon squad, I had problems.” She looked up at him. “You know Dad, don’t you?”
He nodded. “I fought with your father and Dtimun in the Great Galaxy War,” he reminded her. “He and Dtimun were even closer than the commander and I are, and that’s saying something. Our temporary C.O. hates most humans.”
She nodded. “Dad mentioned having served with the Centaurian divisions, but he didn’t mention the C.O. by name.” She frowned. “I wonder why?”
Several sectors away, a pair of laughing, green elongated eyes stared down at a remote vidscreen with real humor.
She shrugged off the question. “I’m going to miss Muldoon. He was a pain in the butt, but he was a hell of an engineer.”
Hahnson had graduated best in his class at the Tri-Fleet Medical University. He gave her a steady look. “Muldoon never screamed in his life, you know,” he said pleasantly.
“Don’t!” She grimaced, looking all around. “He’ll think I told you!”
A pair of amused green Centaurian eyes behind a monitor disputed that.
He cleared his throat. “Yes. Well, we won’t discuss it outside this room. But just between us, I never believed the spacing to begin with. Or, for that matter, the way he dealt with his officer in the mess hall. The Holconcom never scream, either, you know.”
She gave him a curious look.
“I told you that I served with Dtimun in the Great Galaxy War,” he reminded her. “The officer I knew was above such methods to control crewmen.” He smiled. “He and Chacon were cut from the same cloth.”
“I wouldn’t agree at the moment,” she said on a sigh. “Chacon has lost his mind if he ordered that shoot and strafe on Terramer.”
“Chacon wouldn’t do it in a blind fit of rage,” Hahnson said firmly. “It was the Rojok emperor, Mangus Lo, or I’m a wimbat.”
“You do look a little like a wimbat, Strick,” she mused. “Especially when you haven’t slept in forty-eight hours.”
“Watch it, or I’ll tell Stern you set him up with that Mervician shape-shifter the last time we were at Benaski Port.”
She held up a hand. “Okay, okay, I withdraw the comment. But you carried the vidchip about her to him for me.”
“One slip in a brilliant career.” He chuckled.
She smiled at the memory. “We’ve had good times, even though we’re not supposed to be allowed to feel camaraderie.”
He glanced at her. “Outcasts, all of us,” he agreed. “But Stern has never been the same since he lost Mary.”
Her smile faded. “He still carries that blue ribbon around with him everywhere,” she said. She frowned. “I wonder if we might use that memory…”
“…and ask him about it?” he wondered. “What if he’s lost it somewhere?”
She cleared her throat, unzipped her sleeve pocket and produced the ribbon. “He gave me this bit of it on Montclair Colony two months ago,” she reminded him. “I saved him from a nasty chova bite and shot a bat creature that went for the blood.”
“I had it the last time, when I pulled him out of the moga swamp with a broken leg.”
She fingered the ribbon gently. “Mary was wearing the main part of it that Stern kept when she died,” she whispered, feeling the pain. Mary had been a colleague of hers and Strick’s, a brilliant surgeon.
“Holt always thought of it as a medal,” he replied. “Because she saved two children from certain death by throwing herself in front of the captured Gresham handgun when the Rojok fired it.” He shook his head. “I thought we’d have to bury Stern with her. He wasn’t the same for months. The neutering didn’t work well on Stern, either.”
“But not like he is now,” Madeline said, putting the ribbon back in its place. “I think we should show him the ribbon.”
“So do I. But not today. We don’t want him to become suspicious. And if he has been altered for some dark purpose, where does our allegiance lie?” he added. “Can’t you imagine the damage he could do when we reach Tri-Fleet HQ? He’s done enough aboard this ship in one day. Not to mention,” he added heavily, “that we’re still being followed by a Rojok fleet that seems bent on our capture.”
She grimaced. “I know.”
“You don’t like Dtimun,” he said out of the blue. “But he’s an honorable man. He’s legendary, in his use of tactics and his courage. He—”
“He brings out my stubborn side,” Madeline interrupted. “But I respect him.” She smiled. “He’s a lot like my father. He doesn’t back down. I like that.”
The unseen pair of green eyes twinkled even more.
“Be careful how you talk about him when you think he isn’t listening,” Hahnson chuckled. “There are things you don’t know.”
“I don’t discuss people except with you and Holt.” She felt sad. “I don’t want to think about him being altered, being a stranger. I don’t want to—!” Her voice broke and tears threatened.
He caught her arm, firmly, and shook it. “Watch it!” he said shortly. “You’re having too many of these episodes lately. It will be noticed. You could be thrown out of the service for any display of emotion, you know that. Even your father couldn’t save you.”
She swallowed, and then swallowed again. She drew in a steadying breath. “I don’t understand it. Emotion is drugged out of us the minute we enter the military. It’
s chemically erased. I took all the required drugs when I first enlisted!”
“In one percent of subjects,” he reminded her blandly, “the process reverses itself spontaneously.”
She hadn’t remembered that. She looked absolutely horrified. “Do you think that could have happened to me?” she asked, lowering her voice.
“I think it’s very possible,” he said.
She laughed humorlessly. “Maybe I’m a clone.”
“Bite your tongue,” he uttered. “You’d be sent to an organ supply house on the spot.”
“Yes,” she sighed. “In our society, clones are nothing but spare part banks. The Centaurians may be prehistoric in their attitudes toward genetic engineering in their main population, but they treat the clones of the Holconcom with great dignity and respect. We treat them as disposable organic donors.”
The remote eyes narrowed and darkened with anger.
“Maybe that will change someday,” Strick said gently, “when people realize that they’re sentient beings. They deserve better treatment from a so-called civilized society.”
“They do.” She sighed. “But none of this solves the problem of Stern.”
“Dtimun already suspects that there’s something wrong with Holt,” he told her. “Whether or not we discuss this with him, he’ll be watching.”
Her eyes widened suddenly and she started looking around the room like a fugitive from justice.
Hahnson turned away. “We’d better get back to our patients. Stern isn’t going anywhere for the moment. Let’s keep watch and hope for the best.”
She turned and followed him. “I guess you’re right.” She locked her hands behind her as she walked. “I wanted your opinion on one of my Jebob patients…”
Stern felt the pain slowly begin to ease. His head was throbbing, but he could manage. He sat up, grimacing when it briefly increased the discomfort. He didn’t know himself anymore. He had memories of his distant past, but the recent part of it was blurry and incomprehensible. His mind was still a blank, but the memory of Muldoon’s horrible fate intruded and left him weak.
“My mind’s going, isn’t it, Strick?” he asked the husky medic, who was finishing up a test.
Hahnson spared him a glance and a grin while he turned off his scanners. “No more than mine,” he said. “Relax, Holt. It’s only a minor irregularity in the bios, after all. Probably due to that bump on the head you got on Terramer. You’ll be yourself in no time.”
“Sure,” he said, unconvincingly. He sat up on the table and shook his head. “Funny,” he said with a hollow chuckle, “I think Muldoon was one of my engineering officers for years, but I don’t remember anything about him.”
“Memory lapse. Understandable.”
“Is it, Strick?” He eyed his friend. “Or have I really changed so much in a few days that my own men don’t know me?”
Hahnson laid a heavy hand on his shoulder. “I know you. Cut out the questions.”
He sighed wearily. “The C.O. How did he kill that Holconcom so easily?”
“Let’s just say,” he replied, choosing his words carefully, “that he has an uncommon gift of both strength and mental abilities. I don’t know if the gift isn’t more curse than blessing.”
“Who is he?”
“Who knows?” Hahnson shrugged. “His Clan is as secret as his private life. I served with him for two years, and it might as well have been two days for all I learned. Even Komak doesn’t know him well, and he’s Dtimun’s executive officer and his friend.”
“Somebody wants that cat-eyed terror pretty bad,” Stern remarked, “to throw a whole fleet of ships against a single Centaurian ship.” He frowned. “Fleet of ships…” He sat up quickly and clasped his head because of the sudden pain. “Are they still following us?”
“As far as I know, yes,” Hahnson said worriedly. “Nobody’s talking about it right now.”
Stern scowled, rubbing his eyes. “How do I know that they’re after the C.O. and not the ship?” he asked blankly. “How can I know that?”
It was a question his friend couldn’t answer. He grimaced. “Let the C.O. worry about pursuers. I’m only concerned with getting you back on your feet.”
Stern gave him an appraising look. “How do you propose to do that?”
Hahnson picked up a laserdot syringe and showed it to him. “A mind stimulator,” he said. “It targets memory.”
For some reason Stern was reluctant to let the medicine be injected. He pushed it away. “Let’s…let’s wait a day or two, until I feel stronger. Can we do that?” It was imperative that he retain his clarity of thought. Something very important was about to happen.
“We can wait,” Hahnson agreed. But he wondered what was going on behind Stern’s black eyes. He was going to have to talk to Madeline, and quickly.
Madeline was making final adjustments to a programming bank as she finished the delicate genetic mending of an Altairian’s torn thigh muscle. She shot an amused glance at two Centaurian engineers who were watching her with open curiosity.
“This process isn’t totally unknown to you, is it?” she asked, puzzled by their continuing watchfulness.
The younger of the two struggled for the Terravegan Standard verbs to express himself in Madeline’s language. “We—how is it said?—will never have seen a female in military uniform, Dr. Madelineruszel,” he explained, giving her two names a typical Centaurian compounding. “Or a female trained as you are to perform medical procedures.”
Abandoning the complicated operation for an instant, she gaped at them. “Never? Well, what do your females do?” she exclaimed.
The shorter of the two shrugged. “Some, the most gifted, create offspring, and rear them. Others compose great works of music, or write poetry, or make paintings. Still others involve themselves in political occupations or manage industries essential to our culture. None go to war,” he added. “It is considered to be a threat to the continuity of our race, that if our females risk themselves in war, they would contribute to our own extinction as a race.”
She blinked, astonished.
“In a time long past,” the taller one added, “it is said that many of our females were great warriors. The old emperor, Tnurat Alamantimichar, came from a strict culture which denied women any place in public life. Only in recent years has their position in politics and business been modified.”
“There were riots,” the shorter one said abruptly.
Madeline hid a smile. No wonder, she thought. She studied them curiously. “The Holconcom are clones, aren’t they?”
They nodded. “All of us have our roots in cloneries, where our donors were chosen from the best mental and physical specimens in our culture. We know little of civilian life, however.”
“Neither do I,” she confessed. “Among my people, there is no distinction between male, female, and berdache—our three genders.”
“Three genders?” the older Centaurian asked, surprised.
She nodded. “The berdache mates within its own gender, but has the rights and privileges of the other two genders. Equality is our most precious right. Our soldiers come from breeders.”
“But you must have clones, also?”
She grimaced. “Yes. We have clones.” She gave them a sympathetic glance. “But our society is less enlightened than yours in this one area. Civilians and military alike treat clones badly.”
The tall one gave a green laugh with his huge eyes. “Only our Holconcom is made up completely of clones, save for our commander. The emperor has been known to order a public escareem, a trial, for civilians who dare to patronize us. We have full equality under our law.”
She smiled, privately curious about why Dtimun was himself not a clone. “A shame that we don’t all have it.”
“The Holconcom have never been mixed with other facets of our military, not even with the nonclones of the regular divisions, whose strength is vaguely comparable to our own. Brawling is strictly forbidden because of our physical s
uperiority to other soldiers. It is the one reason we will not be able to mix with the humans for very long, I think. Your people are a physical race. They will try to test us, as we have already seen happen with tragic results.”
“Tragic, indeed,” she mused quietly.
There were other words for it, as well, she thought later, when she ran up on a scathing disagreement between two of the Bellatrix’s complement.
“…tell you, we’re going to be slaughtered,” one of them muttered. “A whole damned fleet of Rojoks ships is closing in on us, and our captain won’t even fight for us!”
“You got that right,” his companion agreed darkly. “Stern won’t fight for us, and these cat-eyes won’t lift a finger to help us. Inhuman alien devils, I think…!”
“You’d better think about your jobs and spend less time griping,” Madeline said shortly, glaring at them. “Or I’ll have both of you thrown in the brig. Is that clear?”
They snapped her a salute. “Yes, sir,” they chorused.
“We can’t fight the Rojoks and each other at the same time,” she reminded them.
“That black-hearted alien killed Muldoon!” one of them said shortly. “Let the Rojoks have them!”
“We’re all on the same ship,” she returned curtly. “If the Centaurians die, so do we.”
They didn’t have a comeback for that. She was about to add to the statement when the audio kicked in.
“Dr. Ruszel, sick bay, stat!”
She turned and took off at a trot, closing her mind to some insulting remarks her shipmates were muttering behind her. She only hoped that if it came to a fight, the humans would resolve themselves to the situation.
Mentally she cursed the size of the ship and the lack of suitable facilities for use as a sick bay. Sixty critical patients of all races, stuffed into one medium-size mess hall. Strick’s facilities were even smaller and he had a like number of severely injured patients. The ambulatory were confined to two other storage units aboard ship, where they spent their time caring for the children with minor injuries. No spare ambutubes. No medical stores except what an alien synthesizer could imitate. Overworked personnel, a hostile ship’s company, and one exobiology chief to cope with clones of half a dozen alien cultures. Why, in the name of the seventh nebula, didn’t this Holconcom warship carry a medical unit? Was it conceit or pure apathy? The audio paged her once more, and she ran faster.
