The Horseshoe Nail (The Donn Book 1)

by S Thomson-Hillis

  Sellars waited and tutted and tutted some more until, finally, “Sir?”

  Kelsey neatly stashed his stylus, carefully selected hold and saved his file. Without possessing any telepathic talent, he knew when he was doomed. “Miss Sellars? Cubicle 11/1/81? Is that your problem? He’s here again and you want me to ask him to leave?”

  She glowered speechlessly.

  “She’s a very important patient, Sellars. We do not disturb her or her visitors.”

  They’d said the same to the boss and that meant the big boss. The High Admiral had originally demanded a thrice-daily report but was grinding his teeth on a nightly update. In the medical bays the Chief Medical Officer ruled supreme and when Sri Arwin growled, there’s no point, she needs time, nobody dared gainsay him. It was set in stone.

  They’d traced the root of the physical problem, Introven. Introven was a dangerously futile Autocracy side-alley of a drug, outlawed along with rest of their bio-technical atrocities. This particular worm-variant, Introven B, was deadly, combining a strong hallucinogenic with prohibited cryogenic proteins to enable behavioural control. The Donn woman’s incredible paranormal system had isolated it, locked down vital neural processes and deflected the worm. The effort had nearly wrecked her but she had dealt with it and long-term damage should be minimal. She’d probably have to be a bit picky what she ate but that was a small price to pay for survival and the Donn were mostly vegetarian anyway.

  Kelsey would have given a month’s salary to find out where she’d picked up a drug linked to a cryogenic process that even the Autocracy denounced, as well as how it had burrowed so deep into her system. He’d done his homework. Kelsey knew that if you forced a toxin into a Donn they altered it at will, rendering it inert. Macluan had confirmed the technique and, incidentally, bang went his reputation as a hard-headed drinker, he’d been practising it on alcohol for years. The technical name for the process was Conversion but Macluan found it difficult to explain to a layman. Converting Introven B had allowed Ellis to survive associated psychosis and side-effects, as well as the stress of suppressing the symptoms. It was fantastic. No one in the medical team had ever seen anything like it.

  Nor had they ever had to treat two people simultaneously to cure one.

  By the time Wing Leader Jenson had wheeled Macluan into the bays the Donn had been virtually catatonic, probably reacting to the cocktail of drugs they’d used to try and flush the female’s system. After that, scarily, he’d duplicated her symptoms for the space of twenty hours before he’d woken up, sat up, abruptly announced, we are recovering, and more or less just got up and walked away. His initial reaction to Kelsey on the ZR had obviously been a blip, a stress reaction and there’d been no sign of any aggression or defensiveness since. In fact Macluan had been endlessly good-natured and cooperative about enduring a battery of tests. The trouble was that once they’d tested him for everything and given him a clean bill of health, he’d steadfastly refused to stay away and let them do their job. He’d returned to duties, all right, fine, but when he wasn’t on the bridge he was in the medical bays.

  That was Sellars’ problem in a nutshell.

  One perfectly healthy Donn male rattling around Medical whenever it suited him, while one supposedly fully recovered female wouldn’t wake up when she should.

  Wouldn’t, please note that, not couldn’t.

  They’d tried all the normal stimulants. Nothing.

  They’d tried all the abnormal stimulants they dared. Nothing.

  At one time or another the frustrated Ajal Kelsey along with the rest of the team, except Chief Medical Officer Arwin with his famous, sleeping-off-one-hell-of-a-hangover-boys-let’s-not-worry-about-it-too-soon theory, had been tempted to try cold water, electric shock, explosions and slapping. They’d even tried back-tracking through Macluan. Nothing worked. Wing-Leader Jenson had testified to a link between the two Donn, no one was denying the evidence but where had it gone? Macluan was as genuinely foxed as they were.

  And that looped Kelsey back round to Sellars.

  Her impressive frontage heaved. “Mr Kelsey, he should not be here, he was rude.”

  Really? No change there then. Given that Macluan was a UC Captain, one of Krystie’s bridge Executive Officers and that both Arwin and Krystie had cleared him for free access, that was probably pushing her luck. Macluan tended to sarcasm under duress, and as duress, when he’d first met Sellars, had included several prohibited substances being used, via his neural system, to try and wake up his lady-friend, Kelsey couldn’t blame him. Kelsey couldn’t blame him anyway. Sellars qualified as duress in anybody’s book.

  Eunice Sellars was where Kelsey drew the line. Unfortunately it was the front-line.

  “He’s doing no harm,” he said calmly. “We still can’t discount his neural link as a catalyst and we can’t send him packing just because he makes the place look untidy.”

  Sellars understood well enough but what nobody else seemed to realise was that Mark Macluan was a slimy little rat. It had been instant and official. If Mark had been the last male in the universe and Sellars the last female, racial extinction would have been assured.

  “He…” She paused, chewing her lip and drawing breath.

  “He?” prompted Kelsey.

  “I, politely, asked him not to sit on the bed because it might affect the balance of the receptor frequency.” Frequency adjustments were a finicky job, her job. “And he...”

  “Yes?” This was going to be one of Macluan’s finer moments, Kelsey could tell.

  Sellars’ alarming chest bloomed again. “He…”

  “He?” prompted Kelsey again.

  “He refused... He did this.” A finger twirled at her temple. “I’m sure he did. I went all dizzy for a moment. He spat something I cannot repeat and then looked at me. Like this...”

  The penny dropped. “Oh?” Years since the wars and still Autocracy mud stuck. One of their first ploys, before the Donn purges had begun in earnest, had been to sell a fear of Minders to receptive populations. That meant people like Sellars. The Biotech believed the threat was real, despite training, despite knowing the worst slurs were propaganda.

  Her eyes latched on pathetically. “He wouldn’t really do anything, would he?”

  There had been that incident on the ZR whispered a traitor in Kelsey’s head.

  “Er... Sorry...” Frankly, he didn’t want to know. No, really not. Somewhat nervously, he sidled past and towards 11/1/81. “I don’t... Perhaps I should… A quiet word?”

  * * *

  Cubicle 11/1/81 was softly lit. The patient lay in the bunk surrounded above, below and on three sides by glowing panels monitoring each whisper of a heartbeat. Ellis breathed evenly, gently, utterly unaware of the pantomime she was causing. Above her head a panel winked a tender blue light proclaiming all-is-well with the world. Macluan, his exhausted eyes red, leaned one shoulder against the dormant sensi-field above her feet, with his arms folded and his chin sunk on his chest. He was not sitting on the bed or disrupting any fields, which was a real testament to Sellars. Kelsey padded in and automatically checked for any changes before he opened up what could be, at best, an awkward conversation.

  “Who’d’ve thought it?” Nodding at the glossy hair spread across the pillow.

  Macluan shifted and flicked him a tense glance.

  “I certainly wouldn’t have guessed when she came in,” continued Kelsey. “We had her pegged for mouse but that’s ginger with sparks. Got a temper to match, has she?”

  Mark’s lips twitched wryly. “Given what she’s been through, anyone might turn a trifle tetchy. I wouldn’t put it down to the colouring though, I think that’s a myth.”

  So did Kelsey. He grinned and shrugged with a (somewhat forced) chuckle. “We know her physiologically inside and out. It would be nice to really meet her.”

  “It’s an experience.” Mark nodded and relaxed slightly. “I’m sorry about the Biotech.” It wasn’t insincere, he was truly sorry for anyone o
n the same team as Sellars.

  Kelsey tried to work up to asking about the alleged problem and failed.

  “I’m not leaving.” Mark wasn’t being defiant, simply honest.

  “You should or you’ll end up a permanent resident,” sighed Kelsey. “Or,” as a dark suspicion based on two drug-ridden days struck, “is that part of the master plan?”

  “No, most definitely not.” Mark turned up the charm with a sweet smile that would have caused Jenson to duck. “I don’t really know why I’m here. I can’t help you, I can’t help her, but she’s the first one of my people I’ve come across since I was ten.”

  That had never occurred before and it should have done. Donn had been hunted on many worlds in the final years of the war and it was common knowledge that Macluan had been planted when his family had fled the purges. That wasn’t as harsh as it seemed. Hiding a young Donn in a human home had rarely worked once the Autocracy had employed Prodders to force a child to reveal itself. The prod they used to flush out any hiding Donn was a fine-beam sigma device called a streamer. Once they’d identified their victim, they used streamers to disarm and kill the individual. The effects on a Donn were spectacular but it also affected others. Human children ended up brain dead and if a Donn was suspected they’d prod the whole family. What would the Autocracy care so long as it showed up a Donn? Other punishments inflicted on people who tried to protect the Donn made mauling a child’s mind look tame. Macluan had been a street kid, roaming the bombed out shell of Algezeal for months before being swept into an Autocracy dumping-ground on Genta Prime. Something inside Kelsey withered. He tried to imagine what being a sole survivor was like, especially a Minder born to link with peers. Stalling after lonely with no future, he went no further.

  “It is amazing how little information we have about the Donn and their physiology and origins,” he ventured hesitantly at last. “The Autocracy wanted your people gone in a big way and they wiped the slate very clean. Even our secure Archives are pretty thin.”

  “The Archives?” Mark blinked like a stunned snake. “Archives?”

  “Archives,” echoed the DMO, sensing an enigmatic change in attitude. “Big room on the education deck full of classified elio-cones? Induction Pack one? Secure technical and educational histories not personally streamed? Centre-aisle 3 is chock full of stuff on the other extinctions as well as yours...” He faltered, cursing his lack of tact, but Macluan hadn’t seemed to notice so he plunged recklessly on. “Anyway there’s precious little to be found out about the Donn. A few weighty tomes on traditions, a history or two, a couple of ancient medical journals from before the start of time. Nothing much to help sort out your lady.”

  Mark wasn’t listening. In the long hours and days since his recovery he’d picked over every minute spent with Ellis until he knew each word and action by heart, and the waters were still muddy. Something had linked them, instantly, something stronger than normal, but she hadn’t seemed so keen. The missing bits were what and why. He’d never thought of the Archives, it was too obvious. When Mark went out on active operations he started by reading the information pack sourced by researchers, but, being Mark, he often sent for additional data which was streamed to his personal elio. Non-streamed pre-Autocracy histories and the more esoteric and elderly data-cones were stored in the Archives with the education data-base. Below a certain clearance level nothing from there was either issued or streamed without permission and you had to visit in person. It was common territory to the more avid researchers. Mark had UC-I clearance and rank and Donn intuition. He’d find something.

  He perked up. “Mr Kelsey, you’ve been a boon. I thank you.” Wickedly, realising the reason for Kelsey’s visit but unrepentant and unabashed, he gave a sly smile. “Please reassure your Biotech she is quite safe, I would never waste my time threatening her. Will that do?”

  Kelsey achieved a sick grin. He didn’t dare ask.

  Never, ever, would he ask.

  * * *

  Sam’s life had been ground down into hiding and creeping and stealing food.

  It was ages before he remembered the day of the ghost, the day he’d spent fencing before the end of life as he’d known it. When at last the penny dropped, it fell into crystal clear water. He was Donn, though he hadn’t known that then, and there had been someone with him out there on the ranges, someone watching, watching over him and trying to talk to him. Who? Well, that was easy too. A parent wouldn’t forget a son for that bond had to be sacrosanct. The presence had definitely been male, so logically there was only one person it could have been. It was Kim Mavyn, his father. And if Kim could make his presence felt over years of loss and staggering barriers, then so could Sam. Heredity had to count for something, Soren had said so. Look at how well Sam had managed the locks and they were dead easy now. Kim, the father Sam had never known and who he couldn’t remember, had been checking up on his son. Therefore Kim would be able to rescue that same son, his absolutely, unquestionably trapped and very much endangered son, from the hell of his prison.

  There were some big leaps of logic in there, big leaps at off-skew angles. That had never stopped Sam before and it probably never would. He couldn’t let it, for it was all the hope he had left. Curled up in his cubby-hole he threw his heart and soul into making contact.

  The first attempt didn’t work.

  Nor did the second, nor the third.

  He kept up the barrage until the next batch of the Seven Sisters’ future crew went down for processing. While they screamed Sam could not call, for their hoarse torture blotted out everything else and he cowered and cried with them. Sometimes he was sick.

  As they faded into nothing but tattered memory and torn ghosts, Sam tried again.

  And again, and again, and again.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Mark and the resident Archivist, a Dimitrion, locked horns on sight.

  The Archivist tapped his Universal Translator and his nostrils flared as if someone was cooking a favourite meal a short way away. A Dimitrion’s flat, elongated nose could always be trusted, angst stank rich. His eager tongue flicked dry lips. Mark watched warily. The cones were taking forever to arrive. Data-storage had suffered badly from the loss of Autocracy Crack-Crystals, but apart from the Union’s over-arching ban on Crystal, Crack tended to raise cancerous growths in the brains of most species so – think positive.

  It was a painful wait.

  There was plenty of time to admire Dimitrion chic and for Mark to regret his attitude to petty officialdom. The Dimitrion was tall and stooped, his watery eyes lined with brilliant blue gems and the fine scales on his polished pate were just visible below his frills. His jaw never ceased rhythmic motion, he made sense of his world through scent and taste, giving the impression of gum-chewing. Mark wondered if Dimitrions meant it to discomfit others, if so it worked. Asking for information about his race that revealed how much he did not know made him feel naked. Relationships had always been private territory, largely unexplored, deeply personal, and Ellis already mattered too much. If he’d had one stripe’s higher clearance he could’ve had the information streamed to his room. Soon he promised himself, very soon. Pass the tests, apply for promotion... Averting his gaze, he waited stoically.

  The Archives saw little action but Imperious’ grapevine was superb, the Dimitrion didn’t need to see the ID twice to realise he had a hotline to gossip. “We don’t often see you down here, Captain Macluan.” There was a bleep from the elio. The Archivist swayed forward but hesitated, fingers arched. “Recovering from our latest adventure, hmm?”

  Polite smile #39 (back-off-or-else...) was produced.

  “I hear you found a new playmate.”

  Smile froze.

  “Your new girlfriend?” The Archivist had known corpses more forthcoming.

  No expression at all.

  Like that, was it? “Final selection?” sniffed the Dimitrion. “Listed under Donn manuals are: Traditions and Ritual Etiquette of; Formal History of; Medic
al Specifications of a Psychic Phenomenon (I and II); Philosophical Treatise on the Emergence of; Donn, the Silent Enemy; Mind Eater or Healer? and finally, Donn: Quest for the Lost Homeworld.”

  Mark was startled into a query. “Donn was a place?”

  “So it would appear.” Grudgingly the Archivist checked. “Yes, it seems that there was a planet close to some binary system – oh yes, there we are – Old Space, modern Epiniron. It was an original colony during the Second Intervention expansion, turned up again during the prelude to Autocracy Wars. Some researchers even linked it to the missing source of Sentient Crystal, though nothing’s been proved. Any maps are long gone now, of course, like the planet itself, and there’ve been so many wars since then there’s no trace of who they were fighting or where.” That was fact, solid ancient history. It was also information and information was hard currency in the Archives. He waited hopefully for Mark to reciprocate.

  “Oh.” Mark had a Homeworld. Lost in legend, but his people had a Homeworld.

  He vaguely recalled the dispersal of the Homers. His mother had been furious because a stop on the underground railroad had come dangerously close and one of her sisters, a sympathiser, had vanished. Mark presumed that his aunt had run off to join them. That’s all. Nobody had ever mentioned a Homeworld to him, but then his early education hadn’t been extensive. He’d been equipped with the tools for hiding, fighting, shown how not to trust, to survive, to conceal his nature, and to defend by closing down contact but there’d been no time to spare for Donn history. His history was a blank. The last of his species knew so little about his people he had to front a nosy Dimitrion to find out he had a Homeworld.

  It was pathetic, embarrassing.

  Gaps in his knowledge were bigger than he was, they sucked him in.

  The look he gave the Archivist was a hard silver mirror.

  “Traditions, please,” he decided firmly, “and Formal History.”