Chilka’s entrance was opportune and she filled Marina in on the rest of the conspiracy. It gushed out of Chilka even down to the nebulous statement Marina would soon be dead. Put together with the report on caches of explosives and the knowledge of Ga’Mikkal and Zadina’s uneasy partnership, it was damning. Marina issued a few more orders on the strength of Chilka’s testimony, thanking her for her help. They embraced and Marina walked with her to the entrance where she gave Bona a kiss before Chilka took the children home for supper.
The officer who had followed Zadina to the park was relieved by a colleague; she reported Zadina’s meeting with Blazena. Marina ordered a tail on Blazena as well, considering the plot to kill her. She now generated her personal force shield in public as a precaution against surprise attacks.
A letter arrived from the Police Department, signed by Irzina in person. It requested support for a house to house search for a double murderer. A slave named Maz had gone berserk, killing both his mistress and her mother. He had not been apprehended and Irzina thought someone was hiding him. Marina got similar requests twice a week, she usually ignored them. It was not the Internal Security Department’s function to provide extra woman power for police business. The Security Department dealt with matters that might affect planetary security. Chasing one murderer did not fall into that category.
On this occasion Marina was prepared to be co-operative. She called Irzina and spoke with her.
“Yes, I’ve received several sightings for this Maz. No, I don’t want to provide the addresses. Your idea of house to house searches is excellent. It might be a good idea to search a few houses around the suggested addresses so they do not realise they’ve been informed on. No, I’m not sure of the provenance of the information, do you have any other leads?”
“No, my police haven’t had any reported sightings of this Maz,” Irzina confirmed.
“Well I’ll supply enough people to help seal off the area around the suspected streets and we could start the raids at midnight.”
“The search will be very unpopular,” Irzina noted.
“Yes, it will be unpopular, but such a dangerous murderer must be found. No-one will sleep peacefully, knowing he’s at large. Keep it very secret, don’t even tell your secretary. I’ll leave your police to do the searching, but we will stand by to give assistance.”
Irzina was jubilant, Marina would give her support. Marina had agreed and would let her people take orders from her. Marina finally realized the importance of co-operation between Police and Internal Security.
Marina called Fenzela in, “Find out where a slave called Maz is staying and bring him into Headquarters. I want him here by ten o’clock tonight. I do not want him seen by anyone.”
Chapter Fourteen - Doubtful Deaths
During the afternoon, Bromarsh examined a large number of files from Markaba on a variety of different people. Charles kept him company for most of the afternoon except for a brief spot of horizontal exercise with a gorgeous Blue named Cavalza. Most of what Bromarsh read was inconclusive, but some things became clear. A group of Army Officers had risen far faster than normal. For one to rise that fast was unusual, but for seven? Of these officers General Hulavan’s rise was the swiftest.
The others were all acquainted with him. Hulavan had served with four of the officers in earlier postings, before Bromarsh’s disgrace. Of the other two, one was a cousin and the other had been in his class at school. Amongst the officers Bromarsh remembered as his contemporaries of his own rank or higher over 80 percent had left the army. This seemed unduly high for career officers. The mere ten percent who stayed until retirement age appeared unexplainable.
Bromarsh sought assistance in getting a breakdown of reasons for quitting and causes of death. The breakdown came back quickly, including a far larger sample than the rough estimate Bromarsh had made. The study made use of data for some 7,435 officers in the army at the time of Bromarsh’s cashiering. Of those 2,092 were of the rank of Major and above. 1,857 senior officers had left or died in that period. This compared badly with the previous ten years’ figures of only 552 senior officers leaving from a complement of 2,057. Of the 1,857 only 191 stayed until retiring. 63 percent of the 1,766 no longer on the rolls had died before reaching retirement age.
The break-down for the deaths stated over half had died from heart attacks, a fifth from air or road accidents and another fifth from sundry illnesses and other causes. The final tenth were killed in action. Bromarsh was astounded. It was very rare indeed for men of that seniority to be killed on active service during what was officially peace. No war outside the Markaban Union was in progress.
Over a hundred senior officers killed in action. He called for a list of their names and went through them. A few were killed in terrorist ambushes; three were killed when a plane crashed at a military display. The files on the other officers killed said they were on covert missions. Not all of the files had even got a code name for the mission on which they died.
He asked for help again. What is the incidence of death from heart attack or other natural causes for Markaban men under sixty? The statistics were copious for all classes and types of occupation. The number of all men who died between the ages of 40 and 60 from heart attacks and strokes was only 3 percent. The nearly 25 percent for his army colleagues dead was not high, it was wholesale slaughter. Judging from the death-rate, could the accidents be suspect? And what secret missions were that dangerous or required officers of that level? Bromarsh had never heard of even one while he had been in the army.
He ordered the figures for the navy and space-force. Their figures were also high, more than a third higher than the previous ten years.
Bromarsh turned to Charles “What can be causing so many deaths within the army? How can I tell whether they died naturally or were killed?”
Charles thought for a moment; then he said, “Call for their death certificates.”
“What will that tell me?” asked Bromarsh.
“Whether the same doctor certified them dead.”
“Why should that make it fishy?”
“A heart attack can occur at any time, night or day. They occur often in the early evening and are as likely to happen on holiday as at work.”
“How do you know this, Charles?”
“I don’t know the statistics for Markabans but their anatomy and life expectancy is similar to Zigans, which is what I was. I remember studying the data from my first year in medical college.”
“You were a Doctor before you became a slave?”
“No, only a student. I got ill before my finals and never finished.”
“I never thought about you having another life. How long have you been on Zenina? How did you become a slave?”
“You want the story of my life? There isn’t much to tell. I’m 44, the eldest son of a respectable Zigan family. I’ve been on Zenina since I was 27, which is about the age I look. When I was 22 completing my final year at college, I fell ill.” Charles took a breath as if this was a story he had never told anyone and was unsure how to continue.
“I had chronic myelogenous leukaemia, if that means anything to you. They put me on drugs with appalling side-effects. I was sick all the time and my hair fell out. They looked for a marrow donor but I have a rare blood group, not even my family matched. They did not hold out much hope. I could see my family, my parents distraught, grieving for me, but I was not dead. I couldn’t bear to watch them watching me die. When my doctors admitted they could do no more and I’d at most two years to live, I resolved to run away. I considered suicide, but I believed while life remained, there was hope. Perhaps a cure would be found. In Ziga, Zenina is rarely mentioned. They trade with us but try to pretend Zenina doesn’t exist. The medical authorities view Zeninan healing as ‘alternative medicine,’ and argue our cures are suspect.” Charles ground to a halt again. Bromarsh prompted him, “Go on, please.”
“I had two years to live and I’d not been off the planet of my birth.
I wanted to see some of the universe before I died. I cashed in a small inheritance from a relative, left a note for my parents and set off on my travels. For a while I was in remission. It was as if doing something made me better. I kept taking the drugs but they only relieved the symptoms. Then the hemorrhaging restarted. The ship I was on, off-loaded me at the next port. My money went in medical help but it only lessened the pain. I stayed in a small hotel. I had outlasted the two years by two months when I collapsed in the street.”
“I came to in a brothel. I’d been picked up by a Zeninan Green whore who took pity on me. She made me drink some sweet blue liquid. I didn’t realise it was her blood. It couldn’t cure me of course, only Gold or Silver blood could, but it put the disease back into remission. Magdaza was her name. She told me if I made it to Zenina, I could be cured.”
“It took me over two years to get to Zenina using what money I had to get to the next planet, then working at anything I could, to find the money to move closer. I was close to death when I got here, but quickly cured. Everybody back home thought I was dead. I could hardly go home and start where I left off. All I had learnt about healing was less than an untrained child could do in Zenina. Medicine had been all I ever wished to do; now I had no direction. The Resettlement Office suggested different occupations and destinations, none of them appealed. I had lost my way. I went from a young man training for a caring profession to being a bum. I was emaciated after my long illness and had little experience with women. I moved in with a Green lady who fed me for a while, but soon tired of me. She must’ve felt sorry for me. I went through a string of women who kept me for a time, I felt fitter, put on weight and a little muscle. I found life on Zenina not so bad after all.”
“I never worried about being enslaved, I was here four months and no one showed much interest in me. I started working for a small house. Not Jazna’s, she’s top-rank, one of the back-street ones serving Blues and Greens. There is little other work for men in Zenina. I didn’t earn much, but I ate and was given a small attic room. One day I earned enough to eat for a week and a bit over. I celebrated. I got drunk. I upset a Silver woman in the bar. I think she made a pass, but I was too full of drink to notice. She carried me home. The next day I woke in her bed with a filthy hangover and her tattoo on my breast-bone.” Charles laughed bitterly before continuing.
“I was very resentful; she beat me which didn’t make me like her more. After colour-change she sold me to Calaza, a merchant who kept a lot of slaves for entertainment purposes. I started weight-training there, primarily because she kept her slaves naked.”
“You become very self-conscious like that. So I tried to make my body look good. As I got fitter, I got better at my job, but I had no proper training. Dalzina killed Calaza in a fight, selling her slaves. Jazna bought me and had me trained. I stayed with her for four years before Marina asked if I’d like to be purchased by her. That was nearly ten years ago.”
“Don’t you mind being a slave?”
“It wasn’t being a slave that mattered to me; it was how I felt about my owner. Life was fairly happy with Calaza and Jazna. It has not always been happy with Marina, but not because she’s unkind. But for Calaza and Jazna I was little more than an employee. With Marina I’m more and less than that. Every day I worry about when she tires of me, I’ll have to start again with a new owner.”
“I don’t think I could cope with it, Charles.”
“It does not suit everyone. Anyway here are those death certificates.”
They ran through the certificates of officers who died from heart attack and strokes. Most were certified by the same army doctor. The officers who died in the Headquarters Building itself, or collapsed there and were dead on arrival when they reached hospital were a very high proportion of the total. Whilst they examined the certificates, an envelope was delivered containing the computer report predicting Ga’Mishrin’s intentions translated into Markaban, attached was a memo.
Neatly written in Markaban it stated “Report attached, Comments please. Colonel Bromarsh is to report to Lt. Col Vlama, Army HQ tomorrow 08.00 hours. Charles is to chaperone, Marina.”
Meanwhile the Markaban woman whom Marina now knew was Karella Cantansun was delivered by one of her guards to her office. She was a pretty woman with long light brown hair and a vacant expression. Marina dismissed the guard, asking her to sit. She looked around vaguely before finding a chair in front of her and sitting on it. Marina called Bromarsh into her office. He was about to apologize as he had not finished reading the report, when he saw the woman.
“Karella,” he said “What are you doing here?”
“Do you recognise this woman?” enquired Marina.
“Yes she’s Karella Cantansun. She was my father-in law General Hindenhan’s secretary. She asked to meet me, I never found out why, because she didn’t show up. But it sounded important. I waited in the Subidan woods for hours for her. Then I returned to base. The massacre took place during those hours and I couldn’t prove where I’d been. I wanted her to give evidence at my court-martial but she’d disappeared. If she’d given evidence she asked to meet me there, I could’ve got off. Not everyone believed me guilty.”
The girl sat still whilst he spoke, not talking or moving, staring straight in front of her.
“Is your name Karella Cantansun?” Marina gently asked her.
For a time it looked like she would not answer.
“Is that my name?” she said slowly, “It could be, I don’t know. Karella sounds like someone I knew a long time ago.”
“Do you recognise Major Bromarsh?”
“Major Bromarsh, I don’t know him,” she said but there was a touch of some emotion, perhaps fear in her voice as she looked at the Major.
“What about Tippy, do you recall Corporal Joavime Tipstrang?”
“Tippy, Tippy, I remember Tippy, he’s my boyfriend. Where is he? Where is my Tippy? I want to see him. If only I could remember.”
“You will see Tippy shortly. We’ll take you to see him. Do you remember seeing doctors who were trying to help you?”
“I remember lots of doctors. First there were male doctors, then a lot of female ones. They all asked boring questions I didn’t know the answers to and then did lots of tests but none of it helped.”
“We believe you have been brain-wiped, do you understand that?”
“You mean I’m not sick, someone did this to me. Why would anyone do this to me?”
“We think you knew something they didn’t want you to talk about. You and Tippy, Tippy was brain-wiped too.”
“Is he all right? Does he remember?”
“He is better but doesn’t remember everything. He looks different now. His skin colour is Silver; but he’ll be able to change to his old colour in a week or two. He’s in hospital where we’re trying to help him remember. We’d like to do some tests on you too, but we can’t promise they’ll help at all. We are learning about what was done to you and until we understand what was done we cannot reverse it. You’ll have to be patient.”
“Patient, I’ll be patient. I want to see Tippy.”
“We’ll go shortly. Have something to eat, we’ll fetch you.” The Green guard entered, escorting her out of the room.
When she had got on top of her workload she took Karella and Bromarsh to the hospital and reunited Karella with Tippy. Karella and Tippy recognised each other and clung together.
Tippy welcomed Marina and Major Bromarsh by name. Tippy told Bromarsh what he had remembered which was not much. Bromarsh fired questions at Tippy.
“Do you remember General Hindenhan? What about Major Hulavan, do you remember him?”
No, that name rang no bells for Tippy.
“Captain Lammedan?” asked Bromarsh desperately, “Do you remember Lammedan?”
“Yes, Captain Lammedan. I remember him. He asked me to see...I can’t remember who, but it was important, he said, a special mission. I would get promotion and a citation, he said.”
&nbs
p; “What was the mission? Did you carry it out?”
“I don’t remember. I don’t think so, but Captain Lammedan was involved, I’m sure of it.”
Princess Marina left the room briefly and called up Sexgua at Security. Two minutes later, she re-entered bearing a sheath of images.
“Tippy and Karella,” she said “I’d like you to look at these. They are people you may have known. Don’t put names to them or try to remember if you have seen them before. Tell me, very quickly as you look at each picture if the man or woman is good or bad. If you’re not sure say, neither. You go first Karella.”
Karella picked out Maurain Lammedan and General Hulavan as bad straight away. She passed over several of his former colleagues as good or don’t know but picked out General Hindenhan as bad and here was the surprise she also picked out Geran Vendang.
Red Poroash she was certain was good but she picked out another two men as bad, men like Hulavan that Bromarsh had not known very well. From the images of officer’s wives, girlfriends and mothers supplied, she had only two strong feelings. Chloxena Hulavan was put in the bad group and Lady Antana Vendang was put in the good.
Tippy’s reactions to the pictures were similar, but there was some confusion over Geran. He said bad, then he said good hesitantly.
“He was involved but I can’t remember. I feel he changed sides somehow, did not like what was happening, didn’t want to be involved. It was probably the Kurgians that put him off.”
“What Kurgians?”
“The Kurgians were the soldiers who massacred the people in the village of Xandabal. I remember now. That was how I knew you weren’t involved, because the men who killed the villagers were not Markaban soldiers at all, but Kurgians dressed as Markaban.”
“Where were you when you saw this?”
“I’m sorry, I can’t remember.”
Only bits of Tippy’s memory were coming together, Bromarsh could not explain why both Tippy and Karella thought Geran had been involved, but he knew more now and he would find the rest of the answers to his questions. For a few gratifying minutes, he considered interrogating his ex-wife. He had always disapproved of violence to women, but thought if he frightened her enough she would probably give him the answers he wanted without actually needing to torture them out of her.
Heroine of Zenina Page 9