The Sisterhood

by Juanita Coulson

  Had she fainted? She must have. It felt like it was hours later. It felt miserable — wish-I-could-die miserable. Renee tried to sit up straighter and held her throbbing head, wondering how soon she’d have to throw up again. That diaphragm-knotting pain was still down there, still active. Either she had the worse case of flu on record or somebody had slipped her a Mickey Finn.

  “You do understand now?” Soft voices, nearby. General Vunj was being held by the Gevari. No, he was being propped up. He was also being caressed and made over by Lady Esher and Pasyi. Vunj was glassy-eyed, but his jaw was stubbornly set. Continuing to resist to the last breath.

  Why didn’t he just give in? she thought. It was easier.

  And yet, why should he cooperate? That didn’t make any sense. None of this did.

  Cobwebs, melting within Renee’s thoughts.

  They’ve got to be kidding. This one-sided propaganda — All this hate for the Green Union. I know a Green Union type pretty well, and he’s a sweet guy. Haukiets. Niandians. They’re both civilized, highly intelligent species. So what’s all this nitpicking over names and alienness? The universe is big enough for them to live in peace for thousands of generations to come …

  That was the important thing. Stopping the killing.

  The propaganda had been solely for her benefit. And now it was being twisted sideways and applied to General Vunj. The Gevari kept harping on the Green Union’s having committed atrocities. Well, what about the atrocities the Niandians had committed? Those had taken place. She’d seen them in the Arbiters’ holograms, and Renee tended to believe their accounts of events a lot more than she did those claimed by Lady Esher and her fanatics.

  Tilt the peace negotiations in Niand’s direction. Better yet, from the Gevari’s point of view, forget peace negotiations entirely; they wanted to persuade the Arbiters to use their superweapon to wipe the Green Union out of the cosmos.

  Let us do their dirty work for them, she thought.

  Use our weapon, the scalpel, and forget about the other weapon, the ones the Gevari and top-dog Niandian leaders were holding in reserve. A weapon that could destroy not only the Green Union but all other life in its path.

  Including Evy, Susan, Tran Cai, and billions of others back on Earth.

  Brainwashing! That was what the Gevari had been doing to her! Sheep-dipping her mind. The previous time she’d been on Niand, the Gevari had tried to kill her, Martil, and Tae. This time they were concentrating on messing up her thoughts so completely she wouldn’t be able to think straight at the peace negotiations.

  A few implanted prejudices fought the broom sweeping away the cobwebs. The Gevari. Weren’t they the good guys? They’d saved her from that Haukiet assassin. Or had they? Was the Haukiet a drugged dupe, programmed to do what his captors commanded, and then killed so that they could convince Renee of their good intentions?

  But, remember all the Niandian babies, wounded …

  The Haukiets’ babies had suffered, too. They had been wounded, had died.

  No, it was all some sort of plot by the Gevari. She had to get away from them. Now, while her mind was fairly clear.

  How? There were so many of them, and she was alone. The matter-relay unit? Renee peered around and spied the cubicle. Her stomach heaved at the sight of the thing. Even if she managed to make it that far before the Gevari got to her, how did she operate the unit? Chayo had said, too, that the Gevari could interfere with matter-relay systems. Escaping in that direction might simply mean she’d be evaporated.

  Nevertheless, she knew she had to try. Slowly, Renee got to her feet. Her legs trembled, threatening to fold under her. At least no one was watching her; the Gevari were concentrating on General Vunj. Poor Vunj! If she got away, maybe she could send a rescue squad back, before his brain was totally rotted. With infinite care, Renee edged toward the matter-relay cubicle.

  Something stopped her. None of the Gevari had looked around or spoken to her. But she had to stay put. Why?

  Wait. A subtle but clear plea. And in a strangely familiar tone. Wait. Don’t attempt it. Too dangerous. We will be there soon.

  Who would?

  Abruptly, a wall disappeared, and people were charging into the room, aiming billy-club guns.

  “Oh, lord,” Renee gasped, “not another shoot-out.”

  A wild scramble. Gevari diving past Renee, heading for the matter-relay unit. And there was shooting, as she’d feared, and people screaming, falling, bleeding. One of the Gevaris grabbed her arm and started dragging her toward the cubicle. She twisted free and kicked him in the shins, hard. “Let go! I can’t take any more of that stomach pump!”

  A hand seemed to reach out of nowhere. It seized the Gevari’s hair. The rebel fought to get loose. Renee hastily retreated and looked up.

  A long way up. Tae was at the end of the hand trying to detach the Gevari’s hair from his head. The big Arbiter wasn’t smiling, for once. He looked positively nasty.

  Renee ducked behind an overturned table. She suspected she was in no condition to participate in what was about to happen. Wary, she peered over the table’s edge. The Gevari who’d been shoving her toward the matter-relay unit was fumbling at his belt, for a billy-club gun. Renee yelled a warning to Tae.

  She needn’t have bothered. Tae drove his free hand into the Gevari’s belly, folding the man in the middle like a jackknife. Renee felt a trifle sorry for the rebel, and awed by Tae’s strength. She had never imagined the big blond Arbiter striking anyone in anger and was glad he wasn’t forced to do so often; that was one Gevari who wouldn’t be abducting anyone else in the foreseeable future.

  A couple of other familiar figures were very much in evidence in the chaos-ruled Gevari hideaway. Renee’s stomach settled down a lot when she saw Martil and Chayo. They were flexing their muscles, enjoying all this masculine heavy action. She didn’t mind playing spectator. Not at all!

  A Gevari rushed at Martil, billy-club gun at the ready. Martil made no attempt to dodge, and for a heart-stopping split second Renee was afraid that he’d lost all of his common sense. He hadn’t. The Arbiter deftly avoided the stinger — just as a red bolt from its tip went zapping harmlessly past him. He grasped the weapon halfway down its length and heaved it toward him in a startling display of strength for such a thin being. The Gevari attacker couldn’t control his accumulated momentum. He kept right on running, under Martil’s arm and into a wall. The deadly dance was almost comical. Martil had simply helped his assailant along, to the point that the Gevari knocked himself out cold.

  More red streaks from the billy-club weapons were shooting all over the room. Renee cringed down out of the target zone again as one bolt ate a piece out of her table barricade.

  When she finally dared peer out from cover again, the excitement seemed to be over.

  Except that Chayo was aiming a Niandian gun point-blank at General Vunj.

  “Chayo, no!” Renee hurried around the table, leaning on it and other furniture as she staggered across the room. Tae moved in close beside her, one big hand under her armpit, steadying her. “Don’t, please don’t!” she begged the prince.

  Chayo held his fire, but maintained his murderous, unblinking focus on the general. Vunj was a man in a trance, unaware of his surroundings or his danger. The prince’s handsome features contorted with rage. “Let me kill him, my Lady Renamos. If we had arrived but moments later, these motherless traitors would have had you utterly within their power.”

  Renee plucked at his sleeve, trying to make him lower the gun, which was pointed at the spot between the general’s glassy eyes. “I know what they were up to. But Vunj isn’t one of them. He’s not a Gevari. He waylaid them at an earlier station on this matter-relay network, was going to round them up, put them in custody. They’ve been trying to frame him, all along, planting clues to throw suspicion in his direction. Tell your mother that it really wasn’t him involved in the attacks on us.”

  “Are you sure?” Martil asked. He was stuffing his shirt back
into his pants. It had pulled out during his rough-and-tumble exhibition with the Gevari. Renee had trouble meeting his gaze. She was remembering the last time she’d seen him and Tae, there in the spaceport concourse, and the shameful way she’d behaved.

  “I’m sure,” she said. “They drugged him, brainwashed him, like they did me. I don’t know how long it went on. I’ve been out of things for a while.”

  “Four Niandian days,” Martil said. Her jaw dropped and he nodded, confirming the shocking statement. “We had begun to despair of ever tracking you down. We feared the worst, and we suspected General Vunj knew something of your whereabouts. So we kept close watch on him, were following him. And then he vanished.”

  “They kidnapped him. He’d laid a trap for them, but it backfired.” Renee gulped, mulling over what Martil had said. “I — I couldn’t have been jerked around by these Gevari for a whole four days!”

  “Do you remember everything that happened to you, my Lady?” Chayo asked. He continued to hold the gun on Vunj, but now his attention was primarily on her. “The Gevari have some very sophisticated drugs and mind-bending techniques at their disposal.”

  “Did they give you anything to eat or drink? Inject anything?” Martil wondered anxiously. “Something that might have been hidden by the flavor of ordinary tastes or smells?” His concern embarrassed her. She’d been a total bitch, accusing him of heartlessness. And all this time he’d been worried frantic about her. “When the guards separated you from us at the spaceport, where did you go?”

  “Oh, lots of places. They lured me on beautifully. Let’s see. Before the time when I — when I yelled at you, I think I inhaled something I shouldn’t have. I thought I was helping out one of the doctors, but maybe I was being doped up, even then. And then I touched hands with a med staffer and got stung or bitten. I guess that wasn’t static electricity after all. A Niandian hypo? Plus I don’t know how much coffee and other stuff they gave me …”

  Martil was aghast. Renee felt her ears getting hot from a chagrined blush. She had been a real ass, hadn’t she? The Arbiter hugged her, his relief obvious. Martil’s face was much bonier and foxier-looking than usual, and there were heavy circles under his eyes. “That was criminally stupid of them! Didn’t they realize that your body chemistry is different from a Niandian’s?” He turned to Chayo and exclaimed, “They could have killed her.”

  “Yes, but not deliberately. My Lady was far more useful to them alive.”

  “To shill for them at the assembly of Federation premiers. I know that — now,” Renee said. “And I just swallowed their scheme whole, thanks to whatever they were feeding me. I guess it’s a good thing I finally threw up.”

  “Was that voluntary?” Martil asked.

  Renee glanced up at Tae for a moment, then felt a pulsing “remember me?” sensation at her breast. She tried to alter the direction of her stare, to look down at her Ka-Een — and almost fell over. Tae’s hand tightened under her arm. If he removed his support, she’d collapse. Slowly, Renee said, “I think you ought to chalk one up for my Ka-Een. It couldn’t get through to me any other way. So it made me get rid of all that drugged junk. Kill or cure.” She paused, studying the faces around her. “You told me to wait, didn’t you, Tae? You and my Ka-Een. That’s how you and Martil found me, too. Tracked me down through my Ka-Een, working with yours.”

  The male Arbiters grinned, two not-very-small boys sharing a not-very-well-kept secret.

  “My prince,” one of the Niandian soldiers interrupted, “I regret to report that two of the Gevari escaped: the small woman and the agent known as Hij. And there is another matter I believe you must attend immediately, Son of the Matriarch.”

  Chayo followed the man a few steps to one side. Renee, with Tae’s assistance, swiveled to see what the problem was. It was Esher. The plump matron lay on the floor near the matter-relay unit. There was no visible injury on her.

  “She stumbled, my prince,” the guard explained. “She could not reach the cubicle before we overtook her.”

  Chayo knelt, taking Esher’s hand and kissing it reverently. “Beloved of my mother, Noble Lady, how can this be? There is some mistake!”

  “It’s no mistake,” Renee said weakly. “She’s a Gevari big wheel. The Gevari, I suspect. Chief brainwasher. She handed out the orders.”

  The young prince gaped at Lady Esher in astonishment, shaking his head. “You are a fool,” Esher whispered. “A fool, like your spineless weakling of a mother. The Gevari know how to die, and dead I am useless to you.”

  “My Lady! Don’t!” Chayo cried, chafing her hand. She sneered at him, contemptuous of his pity.

  “Fools — all of you.” Those words were very faint, and then Esher’s voice dribbled away into nothing; she stared unseeingly at the ceiling.

  “Poison?” Renee said, deeply distressed.

  Martil sighed heavily. “No doubt. She wanted to conceal information. Most likely the others we captured here don’t know anything much. Lady Esher did. Probably the two who escaped were the sole other key operators in this plot.”

  “Hij and Pasyi,” Renee said. “Pasyi was the first Gevari I met, there at the spaceport. She was in the room with the orphans, and she shot a couple of soldiers …”

  “Agents,” General Vunj said suddenly. He was drooling as he spoke. “Good agents! Tried to … dangerous! Dangerous!”

  Martil leaned over the general. “Vunj! Chief of Niand’s defenses! Do you know the hiding places of the remaining Gevari rebels? Tell us!”

  Vunj was sweating badly, his bug-eyed gaze unfocused. Chayo left Lady Esher’s body and hurried over to the officer. The prince shook Vunj demandingly. “Remember! You must remember! Why do you always keep these top-level intelligence strikes of yours to yourself? You are the only one privy to the information, aren’t you, now that your people are dead? Tell us who besides Esher still leads these die-hard Gevaris. They will destroy us with their fanaticism!”

  “Dangerous!” General Vunj repeated, a man trapped in a waking nightmare, caged within his own mind, perhaps forever. “Destroy us! They will harm the Arbiters — and it is death to harm the Arbiters!”

  Chapter 10

  RENEE felt a little less blah than she had. A large amount of undrugged sleep, a leisurely “insta-bath,” and a general absence of tension for the past Niandian day had done wonders. She didn’t feel completely restored, by a long shot, but not too bad, all things considered. She leaned closer to the room’s mirrored wall, squinting critically at her reflection. Passable, though hardly spectacular. It — she — would have to do.

  A buffet of sorts was spread out on a nearby table. Renee eyed its contents warily and decided she’d already had a big enough snack, earlier that morning. Solid food had produced a definite improvement in her condition-solid, untainted food and drink. There had been a number of hours, after her return to the capital city and the palace, when the very thought of eating had nauseated her. Eventually, though, the queasiness had abated. And Martil had assured her that it was safe to indulge in the miniature banquet the matriarch’s staff had prepared for the alien Arbiters. However, Renee hadn’t felt like taking that chance until this morning.

  She tapped a cup of Niandian cola-tea from an oddly shaped urn and sipped at the liquid, letting it clear some of the lingering cobwebs from her brain.

  Four whole days — no, five — wasted! What an airhead she’d been! Drugs aside, she should have been suspicious. But, as Martil had noted, the Gevari were sharp; they’d played expertly on Renee’s sensibilities and sympathies, there at the spaceport. Martil admitted the scenes of war victims had affected him and Tae, too. They had managed to pull themselves out of the trap, though, and had tried to warn Renee to do the same. Lacking their experience, she had let herself be suckered right in. In retrospect, she wasn’t sure whether she was ashamed to be so gullible or proud that she wasn’t so callous she could easily step back from suffering humanoids in need.

  “Have you slept well, Renamos?
” The matriarch and Zia swept into the Arbiters’ suite, Onedu taking the lead with polite chitchat. While Zia inspected the buffet and the room’s luxurious appointments, the matriarch quizzed their recently rescued guest. “I trust all is as you would have wished? If there is anything you desire, you have only to request it …”

  “Proper food and drink,” Zia said, nodding her approval. “Not like that which those committers of outrage forced upon you.”

  “There doesn’t seem to be any permanent damage caused by the Gevaris’ drugs,” Renee replied. She studied the royal pair thoughtfully, remembering some of the nagging doubts that had penetrated her befogged brain even while the Gevaris were pumping her full of alien chemicals.

  “They were criminally stupid,” Zia exclaimed. “Their zeal for the honor of Niand obviously overcame their wits. They should have realized one of the Arbiters might be killed by the application of those drugs.” Her anger was sincere, and her contempt was withering.

  “We must make amends to you,” the matriarch said.

  “You mean for sending me to the spaceport with Zia — when you knew that we wouldn’t be meeting Wisi of Corlane but witnessing the tragedy of that hospital ship?” Onedu and her daughter exchanged startled glances as the Arbiter added, “That was a scheme that backfired on you, didn’t it?”

  “I — neither of us had seen that the situation would become so convoluted,” the matriarch admitted. “We confess we had hoped to elicit your sympathies for our people, but —”

  “And we are not ashamed of that,” Zia cut in, her chin going up defiantly. “Niand has suffered so much. Her children, her helpless ones, those our family is sworn to protect.” The princess’s voice trembled. “Our concern always must be for them, for Niand. We do not know the Arbiters’ viewpoint. We fear, justifiably, that you will not have our people’s interests at heart so much as you have the enemy’s. It is not wrong for us to wish to show you the pain our citizens have known. Is it?” Zia finished, challengingly.