by Diana Palmer
“I was not aware,” Chacon replied gently, “that the Holconcom commander was our prisoner.”
“Of course he is a prisoner! We have the Morcai and its complement and a shipload of humans and the Jaakob Spheres, as well! Do you not read your own intelligence reports?”
Chacon seemed to stiffen. His slit eyes were piercing and hot as they met Mangus Lo’s. “I was not informed of this capture. May I ask why?”
Mangus Lo looked momentarily disconcerted, as if he suddenly realized that he had given away too much. He paused, thought for a moment, then focused his attention on a bright globe of nightflies fluttering in stasis webs on his desk. “We have our reasons,” he said finally. “What of the Centaurian princess?” he added craftily.
But Chacon was a hunter, and he recognized traps. “Centaurian princess?” he asked with a scowl. “Your Excellence has deprived me of much information, it seems. Either I am in command of the military, or I am not. Shall I take my resignation to the people?”
“No, no, there is no need for that!” Mangus Lo exclaimed quickly, almost in panic. It was a well-known fact that Chacon was held in higher esteem than himself. He couldn’t risk a showdown, not just now. “You have not been deprived of any information. I was only ascertaining that it was…correct…before concerning you with it!”
“What of the Holconcom commander?” Chacon asked.
Mangus Lo dropped into the chair behind his desk. He toyed with the globe of nightflies, watching them burn like tiny blue fires in the soft pink shimmer of the stasis webs. “They have lost him, the fools! He was aboard the Morcai when it was taken, I am certain of it. But when the complement was transported to Ahkmau, he disappeared.”
“You had the Holconcom sent to Ahkmau?” Chacon exploded. “But it is a camp for political prisoners, not military…!”
“It is a camp for my enemies, whoever they may be!” Mangus Lo shot back, his eyes wide and threatening. “Even you may be sent to Ahkmau, my commander! The terror must be maintained! Without it, we will lose everything!”
“With it, we will lose everything!” Chacon countered. “Honor, integrity…”
“Our people are starving,” Mangus Lo growled. “Will integrity and honor fill their empty stomachs? Will it undo the pollution that makes our fields dead and lifeless? Will it strengthen our economy enough that the poor will no longer have to choose between energy for their homes or food? Will it provide jobs for the unemployed? You idealists make me sick! My way is forcing a path for us into the New Territory. It is creating jobs in the military and the various death camps, and the munitions industries. It is giving us the opportunity to spread our mushrooming population onto new worlds. It is putting life back into a dead economy. Will your honor and integrity do that, Commander Chacon?”
Chacon stared at the small maniac with something like pity in his dark, quiet eyes under their shock of blond hair. “Honor and integrity will not do that,” he conceded. “But,” he added, “neither will they ask the sacrifice of a million lives a year in a camp already notorious for its depravity.”
“Depravity!” Mangus Lo’s face almost purpled. “It is not depravity to eliminate inferior races and enemies of the state! Will you argue that the humans are equal to us? Or the Altairians? Cleemaah, let it be known across the galaxy that what opposes us is horribly destroyed. I have said before, Commander, that the terror must be maintained! It is our banner of victory!”
“It is our symbol of disgrace,” Chacon argued, his eyes cold and raw with emotion.
“And have you hopes of liberating it, Commander?” Mangus Lo spat. “Forget them! If you so much as set foot on Ahkmau, I will have you imprisoned there! Do you understand?”
“I understand,” Chacon said icily. “By your leave…Excellence.” And he made of the one word an insult.
One day, Mangus Lo promised himself as he watched that stiff-backed soldier withdraw, he would eliminate the field marshal. He would have to. He could not tolerate a soldier whose popularity was double his own. Chacon was dangerous.
Holt Stern’s head jerked back when the Rojok officer’s merciless six-fingered hand connected with it.
“You lie!” the Rojok growled furiously. “You must know the Holconcom commander’s whereabouts!”
“How could I?” Stern returned, his blood churning fury in his veins. “The damned exec of the Morcai ordered the two of us shot before your men even boarded the ship! All I know is that Dtimun was critically ill and they said he would die. That’s it. Period!”
The Rojok glared at him, but Stern didn’t back down an inch. He compressed his lips stubbornly as he stared up at the alien with narrowed, dark eyes.
“You are of no further use to us,” the Rojok said finally, “unless you learn cooperation. We will allow your former comrades to convince you.”
“Better them than you, buster.” Stern grinned, and gave way to a strange impulse to pat the Rojok’s dusty cheek.
“Get him out of here!” the offended officer yelled to a subordinate.
Stern chuckled as he followed the guard out into the complex. It was as if all the conditioning, all the programming, was beginning to lose its potency. He wondered vaguely what the original, the real Holt Stern was like. Perhaps someday he’d find out.
Madeline had just gathered the last of her improvised necessary surgical tools, juryrigged unknowingly by the synthesizer, when Hahnson caught her attention.
“Remember when we were wondering about what happened to Stern’s body?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said slowly, giving him a puzzled look.
“Here it comes.”
“What!”
She joined the husky surgeon at the front of the dome, and watched, shocked, as Holt Stern was marched toward the cell in front of an armed Rojok sentry.
“What the hell is this?” she wondered softly. “An infiltration? Do they think we’re stupid enough to trust him?”
“He may not be here to infiltrate,” he said in Old High Martian. “He knows what the ‘old man’ looks like. He may be here to point the proverbial finger for his new buddies.”
“Oh, my God,” she whispered in a husky prayer. “Not now. Not when we’re so close!”
The cell opened wide enough to accommodate Stern, and he was pushed through it by the Rojok. The cell closed. The guard watched as Stern straightened. He looked around the cell slowly until his eyes lit on Dtimun’s unconscious form.
His eyebrows arched. “Well, well,” he chuckled. “What have we here? Isn’t this just like a family reunion?”
He glanced toward Madeline and Strick Hahnson, who were standing mutely like statues, their eyes glaring at him with pure hatred.
Madeline couldn’t decide between going for Stern or praying.
Higgins and Crandall and Jennings flanked the doctors, glaring at the newcomer. Komak and Btnu joined them, their eyes burning a solemn blue before they slowly darkened to brown anger.
“No welcome?” Stern exclaimed. “No hugs?”
“Let me find my scalpel and I’ll give you a really warm welcome,” Madeline began.
Stern’s jaw dropped. “What the hell is wrong with you people?” he burst out. “Don’t you recognize me?”
The silence was rudely broken by Higgins, his fair complexion gone red with fury as he moved toward Stern. “You ungodly traitor,” he breathed furiously as his fist drew back.
Stern’s hand shot out like lightning, inhumanly strong, almost breaking the bone as he grasped it. “I pulled you out of that burning freighter on Megus, boy…don’t make me regret it,” he said harshly, idly wondering at the memory and what reservoir of experience it had sprung from.
Higgins gaped at him, his brows drawing together as he stepped back. “Sir, you…couldn’t possibly remember that,” he faltered. “The medics had to remove a portion of your brain when the bulkhead collapsed on you afterward. They said…there was no way you’d ever remember what happened!”
“You’d be amazed at
what I remember,” he said quietly, and his dark eyes went straight to Madeline.
She met that level gaze squarely, frowning, not sure what was happening here. “You sold us out,” she accused. “A Rojok officer told us you’d been cloned from our captain, Holt Stern.”
He shrugged. “Like I had a choice,” he muttered. His eyes narrowed. “If you keep glaring at me like that, I’m taking back the blue ribbon.”
“There’s no way in hell you could remember that,” Madeline began.
He pulled a tiny remnant of it from his pocket and displayed it. “We split it on the last successful mission, as I recall?”
Madeline was still unconvinced and uneasy. Especially when Stern’s gaze went back to Dtimun.
He moved toward the alien and shook his head. “Why’s old Fred still flaked out like that?” he asked casually. “Is he drunk again? And on duty? My God, why doesn’t somebody report him before he causes an interplanetary incident on one of these binges? Komak, you’re slipping, to let one of your crewmen slip up like this!”
11
Madeline recovered quickly from the unexpected help from Stern. “We can’t sober him up,” she added.
“Alcohol affects my race differently than yours,” Komak volunteered. “It takes much longer for the effects to abate.”
“Tough,” Stern said. He glanced toward the Rojok, who was still watching. “We’re going to need every crewman sober when the Rojoks surrender.”
The Rojok guard made a sound like contemptuous laughter, sealed the cell and continued on his way.
Madeline took a deep breath. It had been close.
“Why did you not betray us?” Komak asked Stern in Old High Martian, his eyes still an angry brown but slowly mingling with flecks of blue curiosity.
“Pure cussedness,” Stern replied with a grin. “The Rojoks threw a few punches at me and demanded to know where the commander was. Nobody does that to me. I clammed up, and here I am. Sorry your boys missed, back on the ship?”
Komak eyed the human in a silence more eloquent than words.
“You don’t trust me, do you?” Stern persisted, and the gleam of laughter left his eyes. “I can’t say that I blame you. If one of my command staff had done to me what I’ve done to you, I’d share the sentiment. You all know what I am now, don’t you?” he added slowly, looking around him at the somber humans.
“A Rojok operative,” Komak spoke for them, “programmed and probably genetically altered so that your strength and sensory capabilities would equal those of a Holconcom.”
“A genetically altered clone,” Stern corrected, and his lightning glance didn’t miss the looks of anger mingled with sadness on the faces of Strick Hahnson and Madeline Ruszel. “My…original…was killed on Terramer. They told me. They told me what I was. Strange, I seem to have most of the original’s memories. I don’t…feel…like a clone, however clones feel. But,” he added with a glimmer of bitterness, “ability doesn’t lie, and mine is far superior to any human’s. If it’s any consolation to those who knew the original, I had no choice about my actions. They were programmed into me at the instant of duplication. In all honesty, I don’t know how I managed to throw off the programming just now—or whether it may be the Rojoks’ way of giving me enough rope to hang us all.”
“Your honesty is to your credit,” Komak said warily. “For the safety of the ship’s complement, I should dispose of you now, Holtstern.”
“I don’t think you can,” Stern replied quietly, leaning back against the firm dome wall of the cell with his arms folded. “Oh, you’re welcome to try. But they replaced the calcium in my bones with a synthetic material stronger than zenokite—they won’t break. All my senses are magnified, as well. I can even hear the sentries talking through the walls. I can sense radiation and body heat, and my sight is twice as good as yours, Komak. I make a formidable adversary, physically. And my improved mental capabilities would rival yours, as well, from an intellectual standpoint. I don’t possess psychokine-sis or telepathy, but I’m not sure if that’s part of the programming, or if I just haven’t learned to use them yet.”
Madeline Ruszel moved slightly between the two officers, her solemn face as smooth as a rain-wet leaf. “Fighting won’t solve anything. We’ve got to see about him,” she told them, gesturing toward Dtimun. “They want him, we’ve got him, and if they find out, he’s dead. We’re all dead.”
Stern glanced around the cell, his eyes narrowing on the ancient synthesizer. “Have any of you consumed anything out of that monstrosity?” he asked, nodding toward it.
“Sure,” Hahnson told him. “Why?”
“How much, how long ago and how many of you?” Stern asked quickly, his dark eyes concerned.
“Higgins and I had a cup of java about an hour ago,” Hahnson said easily, grinning as he pointed at the engineer of the now-destroyed Bellatrix. “I don’t guess anyone else has had the inclination yet. We’re kind of new to the joint, Holt, old boy.”
“Do you want to leave here, Strick?” Stern asked the husky physician.
“Leave?” Hahnson burst out. “In God’s name, what for? We’ve got free meals, a roof over our heads and we’re out of the war for the duration. We’re even going to be assigned to technical work, not hard labor. So who the hell wants to leave?”
Madeline looked at her colleague as if he’d taken off his nose and waved it at her. Komak only stared, his great cat-eyes the soft gray of curiosity at first, and then suddenly they darkened into deep blue certainty.
“A drug?” he said, turning to Stern.
“A very potent drug,” Stern said calmly, “which attacks the neurotransmitters and increases the norepinephrine production—magnifying the subject’s ability to perceive pleasure.” He glanced at Madeline. “Tell him.”
“We…use such a drug,” she faltered, her glance sweeping Hahnson’s dreamy expression, “in the treatment of incurable organic paranoid schizophrenia—the cases that are violent and don’t respond to genetic therapy. In ancient times, such aberrations were confined to prisons. Later, subjects were treated with mood-altering drugs, but those were only effective if taken daily. Now, we can induce a state of permanent serenity with a single dose. Apparently the Rojoks have modified the drugs to induce euphoria.”
“There’s another drug,” Stern told her, “that produces exactly the opposite reaction. One of many minor tortures they use to extract information, or as a medical research tool on alien races. They use sensory deprivation and subsonics, as well. The drug is the best, though. It’s cheap, in large supply and readily available. Just the thing for an inflated economy if you can’t afford the really expensive form of torture…”
“This is no time for cheap humor,” Madeline told him. “What do we do?”
“Don’t drink anything or eat anything out of that synthesizer for a start,” Stern told them.
“Just how long do you think we’ll last without water in this hellish heat?” Madeline asked irritably. She was already brushing at sweat on her flushed brow. “There’s no coolant in these ventilators. Deliberate, I suppose.”
“I don’t suppose anybody thought to bring along a few Milish Cones?” Stern mused.
Madeline turned and looked, hard, at Komak.
The alien’s eyes turned green. He produced two of the pocket water synthesizers out of a pocket in his uniform.
“Smart,” Madeline said with smiling praise.
“Good for you,” Stern added. “Share it covertly with the others. If the guards see it…well, you know.”
“We waste time,” Komak said after a minute, his great eyes going to the complex beyond the domed cell. Darkness was finally coming on the horizon beyond the jagged magenta peaks of the mountain chain that ringed the desert complex. The interior of the great pressure dome, which contained all the cells, began to give off a faint reddish glow. So did their own small cell.
“Will we have daylight equivalent in here, do you think?” Madeline asked the somber alien.
/>
“I think not. No more than you see at the dome’s zenith.” Komak turned to Stern. “We propose to interfere surgically with the dylete. If you cannot assist, will you at least agree not to betray us to the Rojoks?”
“That depends on my conditioning,” Stern said truthfully, “not on my inclination. We both know that.”
“Then go sit in a corner and count your toes, old man,” Madeline said, giving him a wan smile. “Better yet, count the sentries.”
“No problem.” Stern’s gaze was drawn to the slender, hard-muscled Centaurian who was lying unconscious in his technician’s uniform, on the padded covering under the dome’s softly glowing reddish light. “Now that the drugs have been dispensed, and most of the prisoners have consumed them, they’re not expecting trouble. I doubt there will be more than one or two patrols all night.”
“The Holconcom,” Madeline asked Komak. “Will the drug work on them?”
Stern grimaced. “I don’t know how to tell you this. The Rojoks removed their microcyborgs.”
Komak’s eyes flashed a dangerous brown. “Barbarians!” he exclaimed. “The Holconcom wear them from infancy. It will be, for them, the equivalent of broken bones!” He looked at Madeline. “I still have mine, however.”
Her eyebrows arched. “Where?”
He gave her his best approximation of an indignant look.
“Never mind,” she said quickly. “I’ve also secreted quite a number in our comrade,” she added, meaning Dtimun. “If we can get out of here, I’m fairly certain that the kelekoms can replicate more.”
Komak looked uncomfortable. “Madelineruszel, outworlders are not permitted to know such things about the kelekoms.”
She held up both hands. “Forget I said a word. The kelekoms…?”
Komak closed his eyes, opened them again and smiled. “The Rojoks believe their very existence is a myth.”
