Beyond Varallan

by neetha Napew

  I might not like being Hsktskt property.

  It felt good to be clean. I hunted through Shropana’s stores and found a tunic that fit me like a long dress. That was all I needed. Something to cover my flesh. I lay down on the sleeping platform. Stared at the deck above me. Wondered how it would be. Life as a lab specimen in some Hsktskt research facility.

  “Doctor,” a voice called from Shropana’s console. “Prepare to be escorted to your OverMaster.”

  “Acknowledged,” I said. OverMaster? That was news. Apparently I was going to be put to work by one of TssVar’s soldiers. I worked the knife into the warrior’s knot in my hair, then presented myself by the door panel. The guard appeared almost instantaneously.

  “This way.” He jerked his weapon toward the descending corridor.

  We walked quickly down three more levels. My fingers felt cold, my throat dry. I wasn’t afraid. I always acted like this when I had a rifle shoved in my back.

  “Halt.” A door panel was keyed open. “In there.”

  The rifle jabbed me. I stumbled over my own feet, and tried to grab the corridor panel to stop from falling. The guard misinterpreted my clumsiness for resistance. A painful blow landed across my shoulders and drove me to my knees. Before I could say a word, he picked me up and tossed me into the dark chamber.

  I landed facedown, my cheek and mouth throbbing, my upper back on fire. Why the hell had he done that? My headgear lay askew, so the disembodied voice that came to me sounded distant and garbled.

  “Wait a minute.” Furiously I straightened the device. “Want to repeat that?”

  “Get up.”

  I did. The darkness prevented me from seeing much at first. Gradually my eyes adjusted, and focused on a seated figure at the other end of the chamber. I caught the metallic of a Hsktskt uniform.

  “You’re the OverMaster?”

  “Yes.”

  It didn’t sound right, the voice. There was none of the hissing or sonorous breathing the Hsktskt did when they spoke.

  “Okay. I’m here. What now?” I squinted at the figure, but it rose and moved back into a deep pocket of shadows.

  “Silence.”

  Being a captive wasn’t going to be easy. All right, calm down, I thought. Hsktskt didn’t like getting socked in the jaw. Very important I remember that.

  I heard something being tapped. A bright, blinding light focused on my face.

  “State identity,” a drone audio announced.

  “Cherijo Grey Veil, medical physician.” They knew all this. Why the drone?

  “Identity confirmed. Prisoner designation 1471428. Repeat the designation for future voice recognition.”

  “Designation 1471428,” I said. My tongue felt thick, my lips stung.

  “Correct. You are now property of the Hsktskt Faction. All former rights and freedoms are terminated. You have been assigned to OverMaster HalaVar. Repeat the assignment designation.”

  “I’m assigned to OverMaster HalaVar,” I said. My face felt hot. I raised my fingers, discovered the warm wetness trickling from my mouth and nose. I wiped a sleeve across my face, smearing the blood on the fabric.

  “You will obey the orders of your OverMaster and all free citizens of the Hsktskt Faction. There are no exceptions. Penalty for failure to comply is termination. Acknowledge these instructions.”

  Do what they said, or die. Pretty simple. Wonder if they had programmed the drone with standard responses. “Acknowledged.”

  “Prisoner 1471428, remove outer garments for physical scan.”

  Undress? I lifted my fingers to my fasteners, releasing them as slowly as I dared. It took a few minutes, but at last everything dropped on the deck and I stood naked in the light.

  “Hope you enjoy the view,” I said.

  “Do not speak unless you are ordered to!” the drone’s audio screeched. “Commencing physical scan.”

  A thermal beam swept over me, front and back, from crown to feet. I could feel something else scanning me, too. The OverMaster. I wondered if he found naked Terran females appealing. If he meant to hurt me. If I looked like a small pale-pink appetizer in his eyes. How hard would it be to dislocate his jaw.

  “Minor injuries detected. Epidermal contusions. Facial lacerations.”

  If you don’t like the damage, I thought, stop knocking me around.

  “Scan complete. Replace outer garments.”

  I replaced them.

  The light snapped off. The sudden return of darkness blinded me again. I stood waiting for what would come next. The time seemed endless as nothing happened.

  Don’t speak unless you are ordered to? Stand here forever? What was this guy’s problem?

  “OverMaster?”

  “Silence.”

  I felt him then. Not from the voice, but the heat growing closer. Behind me. I didn’t dare turn around.

  “SsureeVa.” Something cooi touched my neck. I flinched, but rammed my hands at my sides and kept still. As still as was possible, considering I was shaking inside like a leaf in a strong Terran wind. “My prisoner.”

  What was it about the voice? The headgear I wore only translated the words into automated Terran. The sounds I heard beyond the earpieces weren’t Hsktskt.

  Worse. They seemed almost familiar.

  The coolness encircled my throat. A collar of some type snapped against my flesh. My inner shaking began to emerge. My knees weakened, my throat went tight. I fought for air and courage.

  “TssVar gave you to me,” he whispered against my ear. I shuddered at the touch of his warm breath. “Remember that, SsureeVa.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  Something nudged me between my shoulder blades. The cold edge of a weapon’s barrel? “Walk forward.”

  I walked. I found myself in front of a viewport looking down at a rapidly dwindling Joren. Tears stung my eyes.

  I pressed my fingers to the icy surface. “Bye, Jenner,” I whispered.

  “You saved them. A life for a world.”

  What was he talking about?

  “Close your eyes.”

  Oh, God, what was this monster going to do to me? I closed my eyes. Pressed my forehead against the viewport. The sudden press of light against my eyelids told me the darkness was gone.

  “Open your eyes.”

  I did. Joren dwindled to a small speck now. Full lighting illuminated the room. The Hsktskt stood directly behind me.

  I wasn’t going out with a whimper. I turned as my hand tugged the blade hidden in my warrior’s knot. If I was going to die, the OverMaster could be a gentleman and go first.

  I launched myself toward the blurry figure in the grey uniform, arm up, blade high. Something knocked me away. Something that felt like a humanoid limb. I hit the deck, rolling over and over until my head struck an interior panel. New pain flooded in shimmering waves over the old.

  I rested for a moment, wiped more blood from my mouth. Propped myself up with one hand. Tried to focus my eyes.

  “Get up, SsureeVa.”

  My headgear lay on the deck next to me. What I heard wasn’t Hsktskt. The OverMaster spoke to me in my own language. I got up slowly. Carefully.

  I could be hallucinating. I’d hit my head pretty hard, twice now. So I stood and stared until my eyes burned from not blinking. The blood dripped from my mouth to my tunic like tears.

  One word left my lips. Soundless. Incredulous. “You.”

  I realized why the Hsktskt negotiated with me. Why TssVar knew so much about me. The most effective treachery comes from the one you least suspect.

  He wore a modified Hsktskt military uniform. His fist curled around Tonetka’s blade. No emotion animated his flat, steady gaze.

  “You signaled the Hsktskts.”

  The drone went bananas. “Do not speak unless you are ordered to! Do not-“

  “Terminate prisoner indoctrination program.” The drone shut off. “Yes,” he said to me. “I signaled them.”

  “You told TssVar about the League attacking J
oren. About what my father did to me.”

  “Yes.”

  I nodded. After what Joseph Grey Veil had done to me, it seemed silly to find myself so shocked by another betrayal. This one, I thought, was the last. The worst.

  “Cherijo. Get up.”

  I buried my face in my arms so I wouldn’t have to look at OverMaster HalaVar anymore. “Go to hell, Reever.”

  I heard him move across the room. A panel opened. “Guard. Bring it in.”

  More footsteps. Something touched my hair, and I jerked my head up. “I said-“

  I’d been wrong. That wasn’t the last, or the worst. This was. Shock shut me up. Horror made me shake.

  Reever had done the unthinkable. He’d abducted an innocent being. Stripped it of the only freedom it had ever known. Subjected it to its own worst nightmare. This was beyond betrayal.

  This was obscene.

  Sad, colorless eyes looked down at me. “I am sorry, Cherijo.”

  “Me, too, Alunthri. Me, too.”