strongholdrising

by Lisanne Norman

  I want to be here when he wakes, sent Carrie.

  You will be. Vanna will call us in time for that.

  “I want to see him,” said Rhyasha, moving away from them toward the doorway into the ward. “I’m not leaving until I’ve seen him.”

  “Vanna’s lowering the protective shields now,” said Kaid, following her.

  *

  Kusac lay still, his black pelt dull and lackluster against the bright white of the mattress below him. The dark flesh around his nose and eyes was gray, blanched of color, as was the new scar tissue where the implant had been. His right hand was swathed in a faintly bloodstained bandage.

  Carrie swallowed convulsively but the lump in her throat refused to move. This was the first time she’d seen him and she hadn’t expected him to look this bad.

  Rhyasha let out a low, keening wail and flung herself across the transparent cover.

  Kaid looked at Vanna, who gave a brief nod before turning to the treatment trolley beside her.

  Anger flared briefly through Carrie. How could Kusac do this to them all? Did he have no thought for how they’d feel? She’d tried, the Gods knew, she’d tried to get him to talk to her, but he’d refused. Then this!

  Anger won’t help any more than grief will, sent Kaid, looking decidedly ill at ease.

  Carrie suppressed her feelings and moved forward to wrap her arm around Rhyasha, making soothing noises as Vanna approached her from behind and applied a hypodermic to her neck.

  Rhyasha jumped, turning on them in fury. “I don’t need your drugs! I just need my son healed!” she managed to say before her eyes took on a glazed look and she began to sway.

  Kaid leaped forward to catch her, lifting her up bodily in his arms.

  “Why did you do that?” she asked in a faint voice as she struggled to stay conscious.

  “You need to rest, Clan Leader,” said Vanna. “You’ve been living on your nerves since Taizia told you what happened. You’ve hardly slept or eaten in five days. It’s only for an hour or two, no longer. You’ll be awake before he is, I promise you.”

  As Rhyasha’s eyes closed and she went limp in Kaid’s arms, Vanna sighed with relief. “Take her to the room next door,” she said. “I got it made ready for you to use.”

  Kaid nodded and disappeared with Rhyasha, leaving Carrie alone with Vanna and the two medics.

  “You can go now,” the physician said to them. “I’ll page you in the common room if I need you.”

  “I’m so sorry this happened, Carrie,” she said, once they’d left. “How are you coping?”

  “How do you think?” asked Carrie tightly, turning her back on the cryo unit with an effort. “I’m coping because I have to, because I have a daughter to look after, and Kaid depends on me holding myself together. I don’t have the luxury of choice with all those responsibilities— and a cub on the way.”

  Vanna closed her eyes briefly, ears folding flat in shock. “A cub? But you had an implant!”

  “Which the Primes removed, knowing I would conceive,” she said quietly.

  “Vartra’s bones! Were they trying to breed you?” Her eyes widened in shock.

  “We have our suspicions,” said Kaid, returning. “None of this must go beyond us, Vanna. I need you to examine Kate, find out if she was pregnant a few weeks ago, without her knowing what you’re doing.”

  “Doesn’t she know?”

  Kaid shook his head. “We don’t think so. She wasn’t pregnant when we left the Kz’adul, that’s for sure. If she was, we can only pray she aborted naturally.”

  “But the treaty…The newscasts paint the Primes as nonviolent, victims of the same hatred that the Valtegans have for us!”

  “They will be, when the Valtegans find them,” said Carrie dourly.

  “There are two factions on the Prime world, those who want this treaty and those who don’t. It was the leader of the latter group on the Prime ship who had Kusac. He kept us apart, and may well have operated on Kate,” said Kaid. He reached out to touch Carrie’s arm. “We should go now before it gets any later. Kashini is waiting for you and we need to eat and rest for an hour or two before we return.”

  She nodded, letting him draw her out of the room. At the doorway, she stopped. “I want Jack brought in on this now, Vanna. I’m not leaving him to some Guild mind medic. And I want to be here when Kusac wakes.”

  Vanna nodded. “Kaid told me— I wanted Jack involved anyway. And I’ll be sure to call you before Kusac wakes.”

  CHAPTER 5

  the Kz’adul, the same day

  KEZULE was waiting for Doctor Zayshul. He’d arrived early in order to observe the physical recreation area below him. His official tour with Commander Q’ozoi had included a brief visit, but he’d not had the occasion to return to it until now.

  Because the meeting was social rather than professional, he was feeling, unusually for him, a shade apprehensive. He’d invested a fair portion of the last ten days pursuing the doctor with little success. She’d meet with him, but only in the company of her friends. While it hadn’t furthered his goal, it had afforded him a crash course in the reality of Prime social life on board the Kz’adul. Comparing it with all he’d read and watched in the library on the subject, he now knew that it was also representative of life at the Court, which was his eventual destination. This knowledge had been one of the main driving forces behind his pursuit of her: it was to his advantage to have contacts in high places, and she was well placed. Just as his frustration reached its height and his patience was running out, Doctor Zayshul had finally agreed to a private meeting with him and had suggested a visit to the swimming pool.

  His vantage point on the observation balcony afforded him a good view inside the open-topped gymnasium. Three fitness trainers were working their way round the off-duty officers, checking that each was following his or her exercise regime. Behind this little enclave, the moisture-covered transparent walls and ceiling of the bathing pool rose almost level with him, giving him a tantalizing glimpse of the environment within.

  A cry of pain drew his attention to the obstacle circuit that surrounded the pool and gym complex. Someone had taken a fall from one of the many treelike structures provided for the practicing of climbing skills. A small knot of people was already gathering round the hapless individual.

  Two medics emerged from the aid station immediately below him, making their way swiftly to the injured person. He shook his head slowly in disgust. The response of the medics had been instantaneous. Were they so unsure of themselves and afraid of any injury that they needed the area constantly monitored? As soon as the medics reached them, the small crowd began to disperse. Losing interest, Kezule returned to gazing out across the rest of the recreation area.

  He’d found the Prime culture baffling at first, totally unlike anything he could have expected of his kind. Then he’d considered all the genetic modifications they’d had to make in order to breed successfully, like using the drones. Now they were, quite simply, alien to him. Once he’d grasped that concept, plus a few other basic facts, he’d begun to understand what motivated them as a species.

  Drive and ambition were still there, but right across what he’d seen of the Kz’adul’s cultural mix, it had been sublimated and redirected by the need to excel in one’s chosen profession. The strongest drive among the civilian officer class— the doctors and scientists who made up most of the nearly seven thousand inhabitants— was in academic excellence.

  The Primes were like the intellectuals he’d met at the Emperor’s Court in the City of Light on the occasions when either his family, or the Emperor himself, had demanded his presence. They advanced in status through bloodless conquests of mental excellence: matters were discussed endlessly with arguments that never went anywhere or got heated enough for an exchange of blows. It would be interesting to see if the Primes also resorted to assassination as the way to get rid of an intractable superior. If the attempt on Prince Zsurtul was anything to go by, some at least did
.

  Commander Q’ozoi had spoken no less than the truth when he’d said the lack of the Warrior caste meant their species was now incapable of breeding a body of people with the will to fight. Aggression was completely missing. It was there on the odd, individual level, but not in the species as a whole. Only by implanting volunteers were they able to have any kind of security force, and then it was unreliable. He found it unbelievable that on this heavily armed spaceship there was not one true Warrior. Even those taken from the M’zullian ship, the M’ijikk, had had their Warrior capability neutralized in the interests of safety.

  He’d seen the remnants of that crew, all thirty-seven of them. There had been eighty-four, but the Primes had culled them, ensuring that only the most aggressive survived. Zayshul had told him their seed had been harvested, and they were in the process of cleansing the racial memories prior to using it to impregnate suitable females. The M’zullians themselves now worked in the docking and cargo areas, instantly identifiable not only by their colored coveralls, but by the small, black implants on their skulls which not only controlled them, but neutered them, turning them effectively into sterile male drones— if such a thing were possible.

  He’d hidden his distaste when Zayshul had told him the fate of the M’zullians, keeping his true feelings to himself, aware that his presence and apparent freedom was dependent on the goodwill of his hosts. His rescue from the Sholans had come at a price, but the Primes didn’t yet realize that he knew what it was and he wasn’t prepared to pay.

  He’d lived most of his life among the military, it was what he knew and trusted, his touchstone. For those in the lower echelons, hatched without his advantages of birth, it was a seething hotbed of diverse factions and loyalties. They constantly watched their immediate superiors for the first scent of indecision or bad judgment. Then they’d turn on the hapless officer, rending him apart before turning on each other to fight for which faction’s leader replaced him. For higher-caste Warriors like him, related by blood to the Emperor’s family, the violence had still been there, but it had been more subtle, ruled by logic and intellect. Self-confidence and force of personality counted for everything if one was to survive the early years, because those qualities attracted followers.

  The City of Light, once the capital of their vast Empire, had been carved out of a hostile landscape by the blood and toil of the Valtegan people. From all he’d heard about it now, it had shrunk to a pale, anemic ember of its past glory.

  His lips curled in contempt as he looked back to the medics treating their patient in the sanitized obstacle course. In his time, officers and enlisted Warriors both would have been honing their natural skills in far more challenging conditions. Their “obstacle course” wasn’t fit for a one-week-old hatchling!

  But the Primes’ innovative freeing of their female population did have advantages of which he approved. His pursuit of the doctor had forced him to spend time watching the interplay between the two sexes, and he’d come to the realization that though much Valtegan heritage had been sacrificed, there was one Warrior pastime the Prime males had kept— the thrill of the hunt.

  He’d been shocked at first to find the females were truly as free and independent as the males: owned only by themselves, they were at liberty to mate out of season and across their own shipboard rank with whomever they wished. They could have as many or few partners as they wished, and he’d seen none that were breeding. It intrigued him, at first against his better judgment, until he’d realized for himself how little mental satisfaction there had actually been for him in the harems of his own time. Similarly, the three females the Commander had sent to him as his personal “guides” to the Prime culture had initially been— absorbing. The memories made him smile. They’d not even waited to see what his inclination was before falling into his bed, but he’d learned much about pleasure from them while the novelty had lasted. In his time, there had only been the dubious thrill that his wife might recover from the sedatives before he was done. Or the drones used by the common soldiers and some officers.

  These modern females had to be pursued gently, and with stealth, persuaded by a show of obvious interest and attention to them that one was the ideal companion and mate. The thrill of such a hunt, with the desired goal a prolonged mating with the female of his choice, was what interested him right now. Especially when his quarry was the doctor, and his careful pursuit of her was finally beginning to show some hope of success. It was also the cause for his disquiet. The concept of sentient free females was still very alien to him.

  A footfall from behind made him relax his features before turning to acknowledge Doctor Zayshul’s arrival. As he eyed her neat figure in its formfitting gray coveralls, he knew that winning her would afford him more personal satisfaction than any campaign he’d planned in a long time.

  “Good afternoon, General Kezule,” she said, joining him on the balcony. “Are you ready for our visit to the swimming pool?”

  “I’m looking forward to it,” he lied as they began to stroll along the balcony toward the walkway for the elevator. “I’m curious, though, why you should have one. In my day, our surroundings were far more austere, unless one was on the Emperor’s own flagship.”

  “This is a civilian ship, General, its mission one of science and exploration. We spend many months at a time away from home. We need a few luxuries.”

  Kezule said nothing, merely stood back and waited for her to precede him onto the walkway.

  “Besides,” she said with a sideways look, “we have the Enlightened One with us.”

  “Ah, yes. The Emperor’s only heir,” he said, keeping his tone light. He’d met the youth the day they’d released him from the sick bay and moved him into his own quarters. A pleasant enough young male, but like all the Primes he’d met so far, lacking the steel that was needed to be an effective ruler. But then, the current royal family had drone genes in their past. It showed in the fact the Emperor had only one son.

  “Emperor Cheu’ko’h has refused to take another wife,” Zayshul said, in a tone that rebuked him. “I think it’s extremely loyal of him.”

  The elevator door opened as they approached and Kezule followed her in. “His loyalty is, indeed, commendable,” he heard himself murmur as they began to descend to the exercise area. He knew the right things to say to impress her— he’d always learned quickly— but sometimes, like now, they stuck in his craw. He preferred a straightforward approach to life, but that wasn’t the way these hunts were played.

  Zayshul looked sharply at him, opened her mouth as if to speak, then changed her mind.

  *

  The temperature in the pool area was hot, with just enough humidity to make it pleasant. A tiled path, meandering its way through beds of various small trees and shrubs native to K’oish’ik, led from the stripping area toward the actual poolside. A genuine effort had been made to re-create one of the lush hot springs from their homeworld. It was a custom followed, not usually so successfully, by every planetary governor, no matter how small the outpost world. Racial memory of these pools was embedded deep in the Valtegan psyche and it was a balm, not only to his eyes, but to his body and soul. He could already feel himself relaxing as his pores opened and began to absorb the nutrients from the airborne moisture.

  Faint wisps of steam drifted up from the heated mineral water. Islets and landing stages had been cunningly constructed among the greenery, breaking up the geometry of the pool, making it appear more natural and larger than it was.

  The sound of voices drew his attention to the fact there were others present. Pulling his toweling robe more tightly round himself, he frowned and glanced back to see where the doctor had gotten to. As they’d arrived, she’d recognized a friend about to leave and knowing his capacity to be embarrassed, had suggested he go on ahead of her. He should have realized they wouldn’t be alone here either.

  That the females would use the same stripping area had never occurred to him, accustomed as he was to a single sex so
ciety. Thankfully, he’d found a locker and somewhere to undress out of their line of sight.

  Wrapped in a bright blue robe and carrying a couple of large towels, she emerged to join him. With a sinking feeling, he remembered that there was a larger hurdle still to cross.

  “Impressive, isn’t it?” she said, mouth widening in a grin. “There’s a separate aerated pool behind the main island, if you’d prefer to try that.”

  He shook his head slowly. “Perhaps later,” he said, hearing for himself how strained his voice sounded.

  Zayshul took him by the arm, drawing him toward a pile of soft cushions lying near the edge of the pool. “We’ll leave our towels and robes here while we swim.”

  Before he could answer, she’d tossed the towels down and unfastened her robe. Letting it drop to the floor, stark naked she walked to the edge of the pool and dived in.

  The brief glimpse he got of the rainbow-hued markings across her lower belly and upper thighs, and the bright speckling across her lower back, etched themselves instantly and indelibly on his mind. He blinked in disbelief, then saw her looking up at him from the water, her nakedness now partially concealed.

  “Do you intend to stand there all afternoon, General?” she asked, putting her head to one side and looking up at him as she treaded water to keep afloat. “You really should come in. It’ll do you good.”

  All hope of making a quick, dignified entrance into the water vanished. He clenched his jaw in annoyance. If this was what it took to catch her, then he could be equally brazen. It wasn’t as if he was unused to communal nude bathing, they’d done it in his time— only there had been no females present then. After all, she’d seen him naked before, he remembered with an embarrassed wince.

  Deliberately, he walked toward her, untying his robe. Pulling it off, he threw it on top of the towels. As he dived into the water, he reminded himself that at least his body could stand up to her scrutiny after his weeks spent walking across the Sholan plains to reach the Aldatans’ home.