by S. L. Viehl
We were still debating how we might obtain a corpse when the locks on the outer door disengaged and a pair of Palace Guards entered the lab. Both were in envirosuits and carried rifles held at ready.
“What is it?” ChoVa demanded, clearly outraged at the interruption.
“The Hanar has ordered you to return to the Palace,” one of the guards said. “Gather what you need. You will not be returning here.”
I touched her shoulder. “Go. Explain what we have discovered and what we need to continue.”
“No,” the guard said before ChoVa could reply. “The Hanar’s orders are to bring you to him as well, Warm-Blood.”
ChoVa quickly grabbed two medical cases and what light instruments and scanners she could fit in them, and handed one to me. The two guards held their rifles trained on us as we were escorted from the lab.
“Do they think we are dangerous?” I asked ChoVa in a low voice.
She glanced at the weapons. “Evidently the Hanar does.”
Outside more guards stood holding rifles on Reever and the Akade. My husband was bleeding from the nose and mouth again, and when he saw me something in his eyes glittered like light on a blade.
I had the feeling that ChoVa and I would not be at the Palace for very long.
The trip from TssVar’s estate to the heart of the city took only a few minutes. The Hanar’s guards would not speak to ChoVa or answer her questions about why we had been ordered to court. The further into the city we moved, the more fires I saw burning above on the rooftops. The smell of the smoke-filled air came through the transport’s vents, and the stench of cooked flesh became so strong I thought I might retch.
“Breathe through your mouth,” ChoVa advised me as she studied my face. “Do you know your skin turns the color of bone when you are nauseated?”
I tried her suggestion, and it did help. “At least I am not green all the time.”
It was ridiculous to jest when we were possibly facing imprisonment or execution, but I was tired and feeling a little defeated. I had come here to help these people, and I had failed. Worse, I had caused my husband and daughter to be abducted and nearly murdered by outlaws in the process. Doubtless my former self would congratulate me for my dedication to the work; but then I was turning out to be almost as reckless and impulsive as she had been.
“You’re not half the doctor she was,” the disembodied female voice I had heard on the launch and in the outlaw camp told me. “You’re small and scared, and you’re always avoiding confrontations. Cherijo never ran from a good fight.”
I was hearing Maggie’s voice in my ears, but from the lack of reaction around me, no one else did. I wondered if the entity or whatever she was could read my thoughts.
“Like they were made of plas,” she said. “And I’m Maggie, not an entity. I was the only mother you’ve ever had.”
I frowned. She sounded resentful, almost sulky, as a boy child did when he was thwarted. I rather expected more from the being Reever had described. How was she transmitting these messages to my mind? Was there some organic implant in my brain that had never been discovered?
“It’s organic, all right,” Maggie said. “You’ll never understand it, or the how and from where and why, but that doesn’t matter. I’m disappointed in you, Jarn. I expected you to at least try to recover Cherijo’s memories while you were screwing her husband and loving up her kid.”
She wished me to address her. That seemed as crazy as talking to myself, but I decided to try a direct thought. Why are you contacting me like this?
“I have nothing better to do,” Maggie snapped. “Sure, I could float here in oblivion and wait for the end of time, but it’s going to take a few million more centuries. I need some quality entertainment. Which, by the way, you are piss-poor at providing. Why don’t you try to break free of these guards? Why don’t you get that big female lizard to help you?”
Some of the guards were giving me curious looks, and I glanced down to see that my hands were clenched so hard that my short nails had cut small, bloody lacerations into my palms. This was neither the time nor the place to confront Cherijo’s ghost-mother. Why don’t you close your mouth?
“Okay.” The voice went silent.
Once we arrived at the Palace, we were moved from the transport onto one of the lift-vessels, and given only a desultory scan before being whisked up to the Hanar’s level.
“If the Hanar fears being infected by the pathogen,” I murmured to ChoVa, “why does he not have us decontaminated more thoroughly?”
“I cannot say.” She looked around her. “Most of his guards have gone, too. Have you noticed?”
The Palace did seem somewhat deserted. We walked through the corridors to the Hanar’s throne room, but the guards remained outside as we passed through the entry doors, and closed and secured them behind us as soon as we had done so.
The smoke from the city’s burning dead tinged the pervasive heat of the throne room, but otherwise the chamber appeared empty. Everything had been removed, even the Hanar’s dais. I glanced at ChoVa, who shook her head slowly as she scanned the room.
“He must have ordered everything taken to be burned,” she murmured. “When last I saw him, he was worried that the infection could be in everything, all around him.”
“Perhaps he is already infected,” I suggested in a low tone.
She took in a quick breath. “The paranoia, yes, it makes sense now.”
“Here now, my personal physician and her pet Terran.” The ancient Hsktskt came limping into view, kicking something out of his way. In both hands he held long swords dripping with dark fluid.
“Hanar, what has happened to you?” ChoVa said.
He hissed, baring bloodied teeth. It was only then that I saw what he had been kicking were the remains of a guard, partially covered by the sweeping hem of his robe. The guard’s throat had been torn out, and large chunks of his flesh were missing. A bulge in Hanar’s throat told me how at least one of the wounds had been inflicted. “ChoVa.”
“I know,” she said to me.
“This is your doing, Terran,” the Hanar said, his voice thick and distorted by the flesh still lodged in his gullet. He swallowed it, and then lifted and pointed one of his swords at me. “I should cut you to pieces and feed you to her.”
ChoVa stepped forward with a slow, deliberate movement. “Hanar, you are the light and reason of our people. We are lost without you. Permit me to ease your suffering.” She reached into her case and removed an infuser.
“No.” Although there were many yards between them, he swiped at her with the other sword as if he thought to strike her. “I know what you do. You mean to end me so that your blood assumes the throne. Your cursed father will never wear the mantle of leader. I will devour him myself before I allow him to kill me.”
“That is not the truth. You have known my father since he took his first breath,” ChoVa argued. “He lives to serve you, as do I.”
“You will die serving me.” The Hanar turned and bellowed, a roar so loud I had to clap my hands over my ears. “Come out, you filth. They are here. I have fulfilled my part of our bargain.”
ChoVa hissed as a shadow detached itself from the wall and moved into the light. It was PyrsVar, the war master of the outlaws.
“Hanar, this male is the leader of the outlaws who have attacked your city,” I said urgently, ignoring the wild look ChoVa gave me. “He cannot be trusted. Summon your guards at once.”
“He knows who I am, Healer,” PyrsVar said. “I came here alone and surrendered myself to the Hanar. I have since been granted amnesty for my crimes, have I not, Supreme One?”
“Only for the cure you promised me.” The old ruler’s arms fell, and his swords slipped from his claws and clattered to the floor. “You have them now, renegade. Give me what you vowed, and then take them and get out.”
I turned toward the grinning Jorenian. “You have a cure for the pathogen?”
“Indeed. I vowed to use it to p
ut an end to the Hanar’s suffering.” PyrsVar strode up to the exhausted ruler and placed one of his hands on the old Hsktskt’s arm, as if they were old friends. “Did I not?”
“I cannot bear another moment of this madness. Not another moment. Do as you said.” The Hanar closed his eyes and would have fallen if not for the war master. “End this before I end myself.”
“As the Hanar commands,” PyrsVar said softly.
A weapon fired. I watched in horror as the Hanar jerked, and then crumpled in a heap of tangled limbs and robes. ChoVa screamed in fury and rushed at the renegade Jorenian, but was knocked backward by a displacer shot to the side of her head and fell, unconscious and bleeding, to the floor.
I did not think, I ran. A gaping hole in the Hanar’s abdomen told me his fate, but I checked for a pulse anyway and found none. I moved over to ChoVa and tore off my jacket, using it to stanch the flow of blood from the deep gash creasing the side of her head.
“Healer.”
I looked up. In my face was the pistol PyrsVar had used to kill the Hanar and shoot ChoVa.
“You see?” he said in a reasonable tone. “He no longer suffers from the plague. I told you, I always keep my vows.”
FIFTEEN
PyrsVar left the Hanar where he had fallen, but dragged ChoVa over to a small adjoining room and shut her inside, using the pistol again to fuse the door-locking mechanism.
I used the opportunity to run to the doors and pound on them with my fists. “Help,” I screamed, hammering as hard as I could. “Open the doors. The Hanar has been murdered. Open—”
“You are wasting your breath.”
I did not look back or stop shouting.
“The throne room is completely soundproof,” PyrsVar said as he dragged me back from the door. “You can scream until your throat swells shut, and they will still not hear you.” He lifted me under one arm as if I were nothing more than a pack of supplies and strode toward the observation deck. “Now that I finally have you again, we will go.”
I tried to look up at him. “You did all this for me?” You shot the Hanar only to get to me?”
“I would have shot anyone else who came between us,” he assured me as he shot out the protective screen covering the deck viewer and stepped through it. Outside a small scout ship hovered, and then swooped closer to extend a ramp. “You should not have drugged me, or run away from me.”
“You abducted me and my family,” I said, struggling with him as he put me down on my feet inside the scout’s small passenger bay. “What did you expect me to do?”
“Keep your vow to me.” His hand clamped around my neck, and when I felt the tips of his claws I went still. He used his other hand to retract the ramp and close the bay door, trapping me inside the scout with him. “You promised me that if I let the male and the young ones live, you would not attempt to escape. You lied to me.”
“Yes, I did,” I admitted. “But your grievance was with me, not the Hanar. You had no reason for murdering him.”
“Perhaps you should not lie to me again.” PyrsVar flung me into a small alloy cage made for some sort of animal and locked me inside. “For who knows who or how many I will kill to get to you the next time?”
He went up to the helm and spoke to the pilot, who was presently flying at high speed out of the city. Try as I might, I could not hear what they were saying. Through the viewer civilization rapidly disappeared, replaced by the featureless and endless sands of the desert. Dread settled inside me as I realized there was no one who knew I had been abducted. Back at the Palace, the Hanar was dead, and ChoVa lay unconscious in a locked room. It might be days before she was found. By then everyone might assume I had been killed.
No, Reever will know, my common sense argued. He knew my body lived the entire time I was on Akkabarr. But with no witnesses, and no means with which to track me, how would Reever find me this time?
PyrsVar sat down at the copilot’s console and proceeded to ignore me for the rest of the flight. He might have meant to unnerve me, but I was glad of it. I needed time to think, and to plan better. My daughter would not be here to slip me an infuser, nor my husband to fly me back to the city. If I was to escape, I would have to do it on my own.
Hours passed. Once the scout stopped, possibly to refuel, but it took off before I could see what was happening outside the ship. I thought I would end up in yet another outlaw encampment, but we soon passed over the last of the desert and moved into a maze of towering mountains and narrow, rocky valleys.
This was one of the unsettled regions of Vtaga, too cold and steep to appeal to the heat-loving Hsktskt. I sat down in the cage, exhausted and defeated, and watched the snowcapped peaks flash by as the scout flew between them. Back at the Palace I had managed to bandage ChoVa’s head by tearing off the sleeve of my jacket, but until she regained consciousness and was subjected to head scans, there was no way to know if being shot had caused any more serious damage. Then, too, someone would have to find her, something I doubted would happen soon. Whoever entered the throne room would see the Hanar’s body first.
What will they do without a ruler? I closed my burning eyes. Who will succeed him? Will it be TssVar, even though he is infected? At least ChoVa had seen PyrsVar shoot the Hanar. If she had not, they might have blamed it on me, and taken out some sort of retribution on Reever and the Adan. My hand crept up and touched the place on the side of my head where I had been shot twice at point-blank range by Daneeb. Unless she has no memory of it.
I must have slept, for the next time I opened my eyes the muscles of my neck were stiff and the launch engines were reversing. We were landing again, somewhere, and from the change of scenery in the viewer it was someplace so high that there were cloud formations floating by and beneath the scout.
Through tired eyes I watched PyrsVar walk back to me. He opened the door of the cage, and then reached in to help me out. His claws had retracted, but his expression was, if anything, more uncompromising than it had been.
“Are you not going to ask me where we are?” he asked as he bound my wrists together in the same type of manacles he had used on the children at his desert camp. “Or are you thinking of how you will plead for my mercy this time?”
“On my homeworld, women are taught to be silent when they are being beaten or punished.” I turned my face away from him, bracing myself to endure what would come. “Do as you will, War Master.”
He jerked me around to face him. “You would like that? Is this what that Terran male, your master, has done to you?” He looked all over me. “You are not afraid of me or him. Why do you pretend to be so?”
“There are more important things than what happens to me.” I nodded toward the pilot “The people are dying. ChoVa and I were working on a cure for their sickness. Without one, their symptoms will overwhelm them, as they did the Hanar.”
“The fear.” His eyes narrowed. “I could smell it on him.”
“Fear is an emotion that Hsktskt do not experience,” I said. “They do not know how to cope with it. They are already burning the dead. Soon the madness will set in and send them into the streets, where they will fight each other like wounded animals.”
“The strong will survive,” he assured me, taking my arm and making me walk to the hull access panel. “Those who do will be worthy of my rule.”
So he wanted to be the ruler. “You will survive, no doubt, because biologically you are not like them. But who will you rule, War Master, when the last of your outlaws has gone insane, and all of the cities on Vtaga are empty or burned to the ground? What will it be like for you, Hanar of a lifeless world?”
PyrsVar hesitated, staring down at me, and then flashed his pointed teeth. “That was better than the begging and pleading. You should have said this in the desert; then I might have let you go.” He jerked me out of the scout and into frigid, snowy wind.
We had landed atop a high mountain, on a transport pad so small the scout barely fit on it Above us, a round structure made of rough
-quarried stone had been built into the side of the mountain and camouflaged to appear as nothing more than natural outcroppings. A primitive-looking lift descended, so small as to barely accommodate the two of us, and raised us up to an aperture in the lower stone vault of the structure.
As the lift halted, I saw someone standing just beyond it. A Hsktskt male in his prime, from the shape of his body, but he had draped his head and shoulders with a curious headdress made of dimsilk. I recognized the alien material because Resa and I had made use of it to disguise our own bodies when we had posed as vral on the battlefields of Akkabarr.
PyrsVar hauled me out of the lift and shoved me down on my knees. I did not resist, but I showed no particular deference toward the disguised male.
“How long I have waited for this moment,” the Hsktskt waiting for us rasped. “Dr. Cherijo Grey Veil, here on Vtaga, come to save the Hsktskt from themselves.”
He called me by the name Cherijo used before she had mated with Reever, but why?
“I remember you being larger and noisier, but perhaps the years have taken their toll on you.” Beneath the dimsilk, some sort of mechanism clicked and whirred. “Well, Doctor, have you found a cure for this plague?”
“Not yet.” I had an eerie sense that I knew this male, but it might have been the voice. He spoke with the synthetic speech sounds of a drone.
“Such optimism, even under the duress of being a captive held at the mercy of a killer. Your bravado is useless here, although I do appreciate the effort.” The shifting lines of the dimsilk concealed his head movements, but his body turned slightly toward PyrsVar. “Does the Hanar yet live, or did you manage to neutralize the correct target this time?”
The renegade Jorenian bowed. “The Hanar is dead, as you commanded, sire.”
My shock must have shown on my face, for the veiled Hsktskt made a low, chuffing, mechanical sound. “You are not mistaken in what you are thinking, Doctor. PyrsVar is my son.”
