But his conscious mind, his sense of self, was already gone, wasn’t that what Peters had said? Broken under alien torture? Maybe this was actually a mercy, finishing his days in a drugged peace.
But she had a hard time accepting the conclusion. Having been kept in chains herself, as a prisoner of the Combine, she was revolted to see another sentient treated so.
Time to clean and get out. Carialle stepped away from the bed to get her supplies, and rubbed her aching lower back, trying to work out the kinks. It had been a long time since she first labored as a maid at the temple, and she wasn’t getting any younger. Smiling to herself, because she was far from being an old woman, she turned, tools in hand, and froze.
Marcus Valerian was awake and staring at her. His eyes were blue, the same blue as the flames burning inside his soul. He licked his chapped lips and strained one wrist against the padded restraints, as if reaching for her. “Where?” he whispered. “What…planet?”
“Felicia Seven.”
“Home.” He let his head fall onto the skinny pillow and closed his eyes again.
Nerves making her dizzy, she gave the room a cursory cleaning and escaped. She debated mentioning to Matikian how the soldier had awakened for a brief moment but held her tongue. Reluctance to betray the fact made silence the wiser course to follow, especially as no one ever seemed to care about the details of the patients’ health on this wing. No one expected her to report on a patient’s physical condition.
Marcus struggled through layers of thick, gluelike fog, striving to wake up, to open his eyes. He felt as if he was cocooned in webs. A heavy weight lay across his hips and groin and he could feel the unpleasant cold of nutrients entering his system through some kind of tube, while embarrassingly the damn machine was also removing bodily wastes through other tubes. What the seven fucking hells is going on here? He tried to raise one hand to his forehead and discovered with a rush of adrenaline he was in tight restraints, unable to move or defend himself.
Incredulous, he lay against the pillow, studying the room while he controlled his breathing. It was unlike any military hospital he’d ever been in and although it was hard to search, tethered as he was, there was no call button anywhere on the bed to summon help. No vital signs monitor either, he realized as he became more alert. No vid or com unit on the wall or ceiling.
Nothing to look at but the cracks in the ceiling. Not even a window. Just him and a bed and the damn intrusive machine hooked up to his body.
His first instinct was to yell for a nurse or a doctor, anyone with the ability to get him out of this uncomfortable setup, but no one responded to his demands. His voice was weaker than he was used to and his muscles trembled a bit from the effort he was making. Marcus studied the restraints on his wrists, which weren’t like anything he’d ever seen before, and could find no way out, despite his military training.
How long have I been here?
He replayed his tattered memories and the last clear thing he could recall was being severely injured, crawling through an overgrown jungle toward the medevac point, dragging a buddy who was probably already dead. And then—He screwed his eyes shut tight.
And then the Mawreg had found him and taken him prisoner. He could not, would not remember what happened after he was captured. But he must have had hope of rescue, because he hadn’t activated the checkout code implant in his mind which brought instant death.
This place sure wasn’t heaven.
Although it might be hell.
There were vague hints in his memories indicating he’d spent time on a Sectors hospital ship, he thought, possibly even treated in a rejuve resonator. But he couldn’t be sure since he knew for a fact he’d been treated twice before after severe injuries suffered in earlier missions. His mind was fuzzy—whatever drug they were giving him was screwing with his mental processes.
Maybe this was a trap. Maybe he remained trapped in the Mawreg labs, undergoing mental torture of some kind.
A man appeared in the doorway, holding an inject. “Awake, are we? Time for your next dose, soldier boy.”
“I’m Captain Marcus Valerian, Sectors Special Forces, and I demand to speak to whoever is in charge here,” he said, infusing as much command into his tone as he could manage. The man’s dismissive attitude infuriated him. “There’s clearly been a mistake.”
“Right now I’m in charge and you don’t get to make demands,” the newcomer said, advancing to the bed. “Let me give you more of the magic sleep juice and whatever you’re worried about won’t matter in a few minutes, I promise. A few more days under our tender care and you won’t even be waking up to talk about it.”
Marcus resisted the shot as best he could, being in severe restraint, but the orderly clamped his hand around Marcus’s upper arm and jabbed the applicator into a vein. As soon as the drug hit his system his hold on reality slithered away from him in a tidal wave of warm dizziness.
The attendant laughed. “Told you it was good stuff. High street value but free for you. You can thank me later.” He patted Marcus on the shoulder and moved to check on the medunit, adjusting a control here and there.
“You’ve got no right to hold me,” Marcus said, although the words came out garbled. His head was spinning and the periphery of his vision grew black.
One final memory swam out of the darkness into his mind’s eye. A beautiful woman, with skin the color of pale jade and emerald green eyes holding a hint of gold in their lustrous depths. She’d told him he was home. If he was going to escape this predicament, he needed her help and he prayed to the Lords of Space he’d see her again. I hope she was real.
CHAPTER THREE
The next night when Carialle came onto the floor, she heard yelling and swearing. With a sinking feeling in her stomach, she realized the uproar had to be coming from Marcus. She was astounded to find Matikian unperturbed, sitting at the console as usual.
“Shouldn’t you go see what’s wrong?” she asked timidly, glancing in the direction of the noise.
“I know what’s wrong, poor deluded bastard wants to be uncuffed. Thinks he can leave.” The orderly laughed. “Yeah, only way he’s leaving will be on a stretcher, as cold meat, straight to the boneyard.” Looking at her as she hesitated, he said, “Clean his room last if the noise upsets you. I’ll give him his next dose in half an hour and then he’ll be quiet. Day shift had a problem with him too. Only with them he was having flashbacks to his time in the Mawreg experimentation camp. ”
“Thank you,” she said, the anger in her heart over the man’s treatment like a hot coal burning. If he needed his meds, they shouldn’t be withheld. She debated using her power to get Matikian to give Marcus the inject now, but since she had her doubts about the medicine, she couldn’t force herself to intercede. She cleaned the first room, clenching her teeth against the continuing tirade from down the hall and debating what—if anything—was proper for her to do.
Before going into the second patient’s room, she tiptoed to the threshold of Marcus’s and peeked inside. He was thrashing in the bed, fighting the restraints, attempting to throw the med unit off his lower body with violent movements. Maybe I shouldn’t have told him where he is. Maybe it would have been better to let him remain ignorant.
The sounds stopped as he caught sight of her. Wide shoulders raised as far as the restraints would allow, the soldier stared at her. “Please,” he said softly.
“Come to gawk at the wild beast?” Matikian shouldered her aside. “He’s quite a fine specimen all right.” He advanced into the room, holding up the inject. “I’ve got what you need right here, buddy, keep you quiet, let the maid and me get our work done in peace.”
Marcus cursed him loudly, using words Carialle had never heard before, even from the worst of the Combine’s thugs. Matikian laughed, easily evading the attempt Marcus made to bite him and jabbed the inject into the patient’s arm. “Double dose tonight, pal. Enjoy it while you still have a brain cell left.”
Unable to watch an
y longer, Carialle fled. She spent a few minutes in the bathroom, crying from emotional overload, and then emerged into the corridor to go on with her duties. She had to keep her job no matter how distressing the circumstances.
Matikian was waiting, leaning on the wall. “You ok?”
She sent a quick tendril of her power towards him. As she’d suspected, he wasn’t asking out of any concern for her, but only to gauge if she was going to make trouble for him. “I’m sorry if I made your job harder tonight,” she said humbly, the lies ashes in her mouth. She’d spoken similar falsehoods to bullies in power before. “I—I shouldn’t have gone to look at the patient before you dosed him. It upset him more, didn’t it? I mean, you warned me and you’re the boss.” Technically he wasn’t her boss but she needed to boost his ego. “Please don’t report me to Peters.”
Matikian grinned and gave her a side hug, fingers brushing against her breast, which she endured, biting her lip. “Of course not. The patient’s quite amusing when he’s all riled up with nowhere to go. I get it. You and me—we’re all good. You can clean his room anytime you like now.” Giving her a pat on the butt, he swaggered to the console.
Carialle took a deep breath, nauseous at the idea of treating Marcus or anyone like a wild animal to be gawked at. Matikian had quite a streak of sadism in his makeup. She hadn’t missed the way he jabbed the inject into the helpless man’s arm, forcing it to hurt despite the built-in safeguards. She hadn’t missed other bruises on Marcus’s body either. The orderly must not fear any retribution from Mrs. Trang, should she come for a surprise inspection, and what did his confidence in his attitude to abuse the patients say about the clinic owner? It certainly supported what Peters had told her about why Mrs. Trang ran this place.
She cleaned all the other rooms and areas and then tiptoed into Marcus’s, reluctant to speak to him, hoping he was unconscious so she’d be spared any more pressure to intervene. The less she knew of him, the better for her own safety.
But the cowardly inclination sat uncomfortably in her mind. Since when was she afraid to do what was right?
Since the Amarotu Combine made her a slave.
She stood beside the bed for a moment, staring at the soldier’s face. His brow was furrowed even under the drug’s influence and his hands were fisted against the rails. Reluctantly she checked his wrist restraints, alarmed at the dried blood staining the edges. He’d fought so hard. Reaching into her pocket, she fumbled for her hand lotion, since dry hands were a fact of life as a maid. She rubbed a dollop on the part of his wrist she could reach under the tight restraint and then crossed to the other side of the bed and repeated the effort, hoping to soothe his raw skin. As she worked the lotion into his wrists, she hummed a blessing song, sending him a smidgen of restorative power.
She examined his aura, trying to ascertain the soundness of his mind and personality. The flames were less distorted, had other positive colors twining through them, although the gray was eating into the edges at a surprising speed. I don’t think he’s insane or broken, any more than I am. Perhaps he had been at one time, maybe the powerful tranquilizers had given him a respite for his mind to heal itself. And maybe her brief interventions, like this one tonight, sending him a small dose of her power as a gift, had helped. She was no formally educated healer, no trained priestess, but she knew how to wield her gifts.
But was it truly a blessing to heal him, if he was doomed to lie in this bed until Dr. Trang had what she wanted and killed him?
Nervously glancing at the door, she tightened her grasp on his fingers, because physical contact amplified her power, and she sent her senses arrowing into the core of where the blue flames, the black pools and the white lights met in his mind.
A second later she reeled back, gasping. The black pools contained such awful thoughts and emotions under their oily surface that she could understand why the poor man ranted and raved at times. How he could display any sanity at all baffled her. She leaned on the foot of the bed, breathing hard, considering what she’d seen. There were completely alien elements in the depths of the black, colors she had no name for. Could his enemy captors have implanted things in his mind? Were the white light strands his unconscious, desperate attempt to wall off the infestation, in order to function and survive?
Biting her lip, she stepped to the bedside again and forced herself to reach for his hand. Marcus’s fingers curled around hers ever so slightly, although she didn’t believe he truly knew she was there. Closing her eyes, she studied the black pools with her senses, leaving herself dangerously unprotected against discovery by Matikian or Peters. There were three of the alien deposits inside Marcus’s aura. She picked the largest and sent her gift against it, injecting the area with her brightest colors of hope while the oil pulsed and shrank under the assault. Next she unbraided the tightly woven white strands Marcus’s mind had apparently used to defend himself. The lights were tangled and lumpy but eventually she’d combed them into fine silk ribbons with her mental ‘fingers’, then watched in amazement as the slender filaments launched themselves like lightning bolts at the two remaining pools of black.
Shaking, knees buckling after the amount of energy she’d exerted, Carialle lost her grip on his hand and sank to the floor. No more would be possible tonight, not for her. Perhaps his own energies could wage a battle against the alien implants now. She’d never seen such things in all her time at the temple on Tulavarra and honestly she hoped she never saw the like again. Who were these Mawreg, to be able to force a warrior like Marcus to endure such unheard of torment? The Shemdylann who’d attacked her world and kidnapped her and her fellow Tulavarrans were frightening enough but these Mawreg must truly be the monsters spoken of in the oldest legends.
Her activities had bumped against other searing memories in his soul during the session, but those were real, human reactions to combat and related events of war. She couldn’t heal those in this manner—Marcus’s active participation and willingness to confront and work through the stress fractures would be required. But when it came to the alien colors, her powers rose to the occasion willingly. Eagerly.
Grabbing the bed rail, she dragged herself to her feet. This room was going to have to remain less than perfectly cleaned tonight. She’d no strength left for scrubbing, although the robo had done its surface cleaning untended while she fought her battle for Marcus’s mind.
“I hope I did the right thing for you,” she said, staring at his face, unable to decide if he looked more at peace now.
Brushing his hair off his forehead, she sighed and went to accomplish her remaining tasks in the veterans’ wing as best she could.
She spent her next day off researching veterans’ affairs as best she could but was unable to find anyone she could anonymously try to involve on Marcus’s case. With dismay, she recognized the doctor who worked with Mrs. Trang as being the authority in charge of the planet’s veterans’ affairs agency and it certainly wasn’t going to do any good to send him a whistle blower note. Attempting to learn more about Sectors Special Forces was also a dead end, as all aspects of information about them seemed to be classified, other than promo about their successful missions. Unlike other branches of the planetary and Sectors military, they didn’t even recruit directly. She was left with no idea who could be safely contacted about a veteran diverted to the wrong hospital.
And the police weren’t even worth considering. How many times had she heard the Combine members boast of all the planets where the cops were on their payroll? No, she couldn’t take a chance, risking herself and probably Marcus. A person as nefarious as Mrs. Trang appeared to be undoubtedly had ties to the Combine. As far as she could tell from the news reports, the Combine hadn’t reconstituted itself after the big takedown the SCIA had pulled off, but even if Dobkin was dead, there were elements of the mob syndicate remaining on this planet, including the man he’d called before his fatal fall. That person was aware he’d had a Combine asset with him and might search for her. An organization a
s evil as this one would regenerate from the ashes, no matter what the Sectors did to root them out. She had to remain under their scanners.
Carialle looked at her now cozy apartment and bit her lip. Soon it would be time to move on, find a new place to hide. She wished she had more credits but it was dangerous for her to settle in one place too long. She had to stay ahead of whoever might come to find and recapture her.
She fled outside to the garden and worked with the plants for a few hours, allowing nature to sooth her soul and calm her anxieties over attempting to root the alien interference from Marcus’s mind, the Combine and what else, if anything, she should do for the new patient.
Reporting for work that night her stomach was in knots, apprehensive over how Marcus was faring.
“You missed fireworks today after lunch, Mrs. Trang was here and she was not happy,” Peters told Carialle as she headed toward the dressing room. “Seems someone is asking awkward questions about where Marcus Valerian ended up after he was shipped home.”
For a tense moment she feared maybe her own inquiries had created the problem but then she realized the impossibility. She’d done nothing where his name had been mentioned. “His friends in the military maybe?”
“Maybe. So far there’s been nothing concrete but she’s upset he’s not further along with the toranquidol regimen. She thinks maybe all the military implants and stuff are retarding the effects. Special Forces guys get loaded up with secret gear and special injects,” Peters said. “She tripled his dose. Once he reaches the compliant stage in a day or two, and signs off on giving her his veteran’s acres deed, he’ll probably have a convenient stroke and die. Now she thinks he’s too much potential trouble to keep going for the monthly benefits. Probably for the best. If the clinic was to get investigated, we’d all be in trouble.” He gave her a meaningful look, right eyebrow raised and she realized he was subtly warning her. She’d have to flee on short notice or find herself in legal jeopardy. “No one cares much about the cases we usually get assigned,” he said. “This guy is different in too many ways, starting with his being from the Special Forces.”
Two Against the Stars Page 4
