Matushka

by Nina M. Osier

  Only now she wasn’t lying naked under him in a bedroom in his home on Kesra. Now she was in a starship sickbay, she was (damn and blast it!) the former commander of this and every other ship in the whole Star Service fleet, and that meant he was on her turf whether or not his vanity would allow him to see that.

  Why hadn’t she seen it, until this moment? What in hell had happened to her eighteen months ago on Earth, anyway, when the order ejecting the scramblers from the Service had come down from civilian authorities above her and Linc had started getting sick for the first time since she had known him? He’d been wounded in battle before, of course; but her husband had never once been ill. Morthans, the species that healed others, did not get sick.

  And that had scared her, that had made her helpless. In just the same way, in spite of the drastically differing contexts, that being physically violated by George Fralick had temporarily robbed her of all that gave her personal power and self-confidence even though her yielding to him had been a conscious choice.

  A terrible choice, but one she knew that thousands—hell, more likely millions—of other human women had made before her, when trapped by circumstances that made yielding a lesser evil than the consequences of offering resistance.

  She wasn’t helpless now. But Linc was, and Maddy was, and she was the only person in the universe who could protect them. She said to Marin, “Comm, if you please, Commander!” And then when he held one out to her, with shock in his golden eyes, she said into it in the same tone: “Captain Giandrea. This is Fleet Admiral Catherine Romanova, Retired. I want to lodge an official complaint against George Fralick, citizen of Kesra. I’m charging him with attempting to kill three citizens of other Commonwealth Accord worlds. Myself and my daughter, Madeleine Romanova, citizens of Narsai; and Lincoln Casey, a citizen of Terra by his father’s birth and a citizen of Mortha by his mother’s birth.”

  “Admiral Romanova! You made it, you’re alive!” Giandrea answered her promptly, and his relief carried plainly over the comm. “Ma’am, that’s wonderful news. But I have to tell you that this ship was placed at Ambassador Fralick’s disposal by the order of my superiors, and that even the diversion back here to Narsai to cooperate with the Corporate Marshal—”

  “He wouldn’t have acceded to that if he’d had the kind of authority that he seems to think he has,” Romanova said sharply. She lifted her eyes, and looked straight into Fralick’s eyes.

  And knew she was right. She went on, “If he couldn’t say ‘no, we’re not going back’ to a Corporate Marshal, that means he’s still expected to obey all the normal laws of the worlds that are part of the Commonwealth. And it also means that if you’ve allowed him to bully you into cooperating while he’s violated the rights, and the person, of a civilian who has neither been charged with a crime nor made any threats against anyone you’re supposed to be protecting—”

  “It’s my understanding, ma’am, that I’m under Mr. Fralick’s orders. If he had told me to ignore the Marshal’s hail, I would have done that.” Giandrea had hesitated, but now he was plainly making up his mind and digging in his heels. “I’m sorry, but that’s how it is. So I’ll record your complaint, but until we reach a Star Service base or until I receive other orders….”

  “That does it,” Romanova said, much too quietly now. This she had not wanted to do, this she probably was going to regret five minutes after she did it; but under these circumstances that hardly mattered. If she failed to use the one weapon she had at her disposal now, Linc was going to die—she probably was, too—and although she did not believe George Fralick would deliberately harm his own child, the man plainly didn’t understand the implications of his actions well enough for her to have confidence that he wouldn’t wind up killing Maddy, too. So to hell with it, she would sort out the moral issues later; and in the meantime she would use everything she had to protect those for whom love had made her responsible.

  She said, “Get me a yeoman, Captain Giandrea. And you get down here, too, because I need a command officer to witness what I’m about to do. Which is respond officially, on the record, to a ‘recall to duty’ order that reached me a few hours ago in my father’s office. I’m going to accept that recall, and then I’m going to countermand the order you were given that puts you under Mr. Fralick’s control. And don’t try to tell me I can’t do that, because I know Archangel’s home port is New Orient and that means your orders were issued by a commodore. So I goddam well can do that, or anything else I see fit to do, unless you want to contact Fleet Command on Terra and let me make my complaint to my successor there! And I would love to do that, Captain. I almost hope you’ll let me.”

  CHAPTER 14

  Johnnie Romanov was thankful, immeasurably thankful, that his daughter and her husband had not appeared here; and that he knew his grandchild would not be doing so because that grandchild’s university was not located on Narsai. His heirs knew all the proprietors’ secrets about the farmstead, and right now his most pressing concern was to make sure the landing party from the Archangel went on being ignorant of those secrets.

  If the missing trio had made it into the tunnels, and if they had managed to get the ancient railcar operating, they would arrive at the Wang Farmstead sometime tomorrow. If the rail system failed them (which it very well might, testing it was something that hadn’t been done within Johnnie’s memory), walking that many klicks would take them…how long? He didn’t know, and when he thought about how pregnant that female gen already was he wondered if she could make it that far. Or if Reen could, because although his wife was in good health that would still be asking a lot of a woman who was accustomed to working hard but not to forced marches.

  But Archer would be able to do it, the man was in his physical prime and looked as if he hadn’t slacked off endurance training after he had been kicked out of the military. So someone would be coming up from the underground at the Wang place, and now Johnnie needed an excuse to go there without being trailed by the Service people who were still swarming all over the ruins of his own home.

  A complex that dated back to colonial times had been laid waste. That should be bothering him terribly, but until he found Reen and held her safe in his arms again it wasn’t going to trouble him at all.

  How long since Katy and her child had been ported up to the starship? He checked his chrono, and was astonished that it hadn’t yet been thirty minutes. He felt as if he had wandered around the wrecked farmstead for hours, getting in the landing party’s way and trying to learn whatever he could about his wife’s fate without leading those people anywhere near the tunnel exits that might still be intact.

  “Mr. Romanov! Comm for you.” The landing party’s leader, a harried-looking lieutenant junior grade, had been remarkably sympathetic both in his response to Katy’s and Maddy’s desperate need for medical assistance and to Johnnie’s own need to be allowed free access to what had recently been his home. He could easily have bundled the Narsatian man back into his aircar and told him that this site was off-limits to civilians until his people were finished with it, but instead he had merely kept a personal eye on the bereft farmer’s movements.

  Johnnie moved back into the aircar, preferring privacy for whatever communication this might be. Hopefully it would be the Wangs, asking if he was all right… and that would tell him what he wanted most to hear.

  Instead Katy’s voice greeted him, and so did her image in the aircar’s tiny holoscreen. “Johnnie! Anything to report yet?”

  “Not yet. Katy, I didn’t expect you’d be back on your feet this fast! Is Maddy all right, too?” Romanov slumped into the pilot’s seat. Suddenly he was aware of how long it had been since he’d got out of his bed that morning—almost yesterday morning, now—and of how alone he’d been feeling, after his cousin and her child had left him.

  “We’re both fine. Johnnie, I didn’t have a choice. I had to accept the recall, getting myself sworn back into active service immediately was the only way I could see to solve what was
going on up here.” Katy’s familiar face was tense, and she paused to glance away from the pickup for an instant before she continued. “What I can’t do, unfortunately, is pull that landing party back until they’ve satisfied the Marshal as to whether Ms. Kane died aboard the Triad or whether she’s still a fugitive. We aren’t at war, so there’s no state of emergency that would justify me in countermanding a standard mutual aid order like the one Marshal Vargas is operating under.”

  “Where IS this Marshal Vargas, anyway?” Romanov had been wondering that all along, and now he hoped to get an answer. That Katy had abruptly reversed herself on the recall question, was an event that hardly registered with her cousin just now. It didn’t matter to him, not compared to finding Reen alive.

  “No one seems to know, Captain Giandrea included. And I don’t like that, Johnnie. I don’t like it at all.” Katy glanced away from the pickup again. Then she said, “Tell me what I can do to help, I’m giving orders that you’re to be put through to me immediately whenever you call. That’s all I can do right now, as far as I know—correct?”

  “Unfortunately, yes. But thanks, Katy. I’m glad you and Maddy are all right now. And Linc?” Johnnie’s brain was foggy with a mixture of fatigue and worry, but he did remember that Katy’s husband was up there on that ship and that he had been taken there as a hostage against her. But that should have changed, now that she’d acted in the last way George Fralick had expected she would act.

  Somehow Johnnie Romanov wasn’t surprised. He had quit being surprised by anything Katy did, on the day when she had commed to him from the Star Service Academy on Terra to tell him directly about her entrance there instead of at the civilian university she’d supposedly gone to Earth to attend.

  Sweet, compliant little Katy, pushed too far in a direction where she didn’t want to go, suddenly turning and doing exactly what she wanted and needed to do instead of what everyone around her was telling her she had to do. Yes, he’d seen that phenomenon before. More than once, in fact; but somehow whenever she did that she usually astounded those her reversal affected the most.

  “He’s waking up and he needs me, I have to go.” The comm went blank, and as it did so Katy’s image was already moving swiftly away from its pickup.

  Johnnie Romanov sat for a moment longer, then realized that if he did not move out of this comfortable seat he was going to doze off. He shook his white head violently, heaved his big frame out of the aircar, and trudged back across the scarred dirt to find out what the scanning crew was doing as they swarmed through the remains of his devastated home.

  “Shhh, it’s all right.” Katy said the words with both her voice and her thoughts, and as she did so she stroked her husband’s head.

  How long had they had him sedated, anyway? Not too long, because he hadn’t been a prisoner for a full standard twenty-four hour starship day as yet; but during that time he had been stunned, knocked out chemically, put into stasis where he had come close to dying—and then pulled back just in time for his body to win its desperate fight to live. So she didn’t wonder that he was drifting groggily back to consciousness, and that she felt fear and remembered pain and terrible aloneness as his thoughts found hers and clasped her tightly.

  For these few moments she must depend on Giandrea to hold things together on her behalf, and if the man deserved to be a captain at all then he should be capable of doing that. She had given him the legal foundation he needed to stand on, now she must trust him to keep George Fralick in check until she had done what no one else could do—which was make sure Linc recovered from what had almost been his death.

  A stupid, pointless, and downright ignominious death it would have been, too, for a man who had served the Commonwealth so long and so well. Not that most deaths weren’t stupid and wasteful, Katy had long ago learned that the noble sacrifice was the exception rather than the rule for those who gave their lives in service; but what had almost happened to Linc was beyond excusing.

  And now she was trying not to blame herself, because she knew perfectly well that if she had answered that recall order from the surface of Narsai it would not have made a difference. George would never have let her get aboard the Archangel, any way but the way she had come—in an emergency that he hadn’t anticipated and had not been able to control, so that she was there before he could prevent it. As it was she suspected that only the distraction of Maddy’s presence, with the child’s life in even more peril than her own, that had made it so simple for her to snatch control of the situation from under Fralick’s nose.

  Linc’s arms were reaching for her now, the doctor had raised the head of the medical bed enough so that was possible. And she was leaning into his embrace, and then she was cradling him against her.

  “My love, my love, my love.” Holding him was like holding some severed, and now restored, part of herself. He quieted in her arms, slowly relaxed, and finally managed to speak to her—although it was in a voice she scarcely recognized.

  “Katy. How long?”

  “It’s 2349 hours,” she said, glancing up at the chrono near his bed. “Linc, I had to take command. After you were brought up here a recall to duty order caught up with me, and I was dodging it and trying to figure out what to do about it; and then when my bastard of an ex-husband had you put into stasis, I started dying along with you and so did Maddy. We were brought aboard, the doctor here took you out of stasis against George’s orders—and when I got my wind back, the next thing I did was yell for a yeoman and a command-grade witness.”

  “Admiral Romanova,” another voice said, with apology in its tone. “I’m sorry to interrupt you right now, but you need to know this.”

  Katy sighed, and turned her head toward the comm. She did not move away from her husband; in fact she tightened her arms around him as she said tautly, “Romanova here. What is it, Captain?”

  “Ambassador Fralick has left the ship. He and Madeleine were ported to the Corporate Marshal’s shuttle, just a couple of minutes ago.”

  “Damn! Oh, damn, damn, damn, damn!” Katy heard the series of monosyllables exploding from her lips, but her mind was listening to her husband’s mind and he was listening with all his fast-returning strength for someone else’s thoughts.

  “I can’t find her, Katy. But that may not mean a thing, she may not have regained consciousness yet from what my going into stasis did to her.” Regret was in Casey’s thoughts, poignant and sincere. “Damn, I wish being attuned to me didn’t have that kind of effect on either of you!”

  “It’s not your fault,” Katy told him, still without audible words. “And I accepted feeling pain with you a long time ago, Linc. I know you could have shielded me, and you would have, if you’d been conscious instead of sedated when the stasis field started working—but if you had done that, I’d never have found you in time. But Maddy—”

  “I know. Fralick probably thinks he’s protecting her from me, Katy. And maybe this time what the man’s trying to do is right, maybe it really isn’t safe for the kid to be around me if anything that harms me is also going to harm her. Damn, I didn’t have this kind of spillover from my mother’s mind—not when I was Maddy’s age, anyway!”

  “But your parents didn’t have the kind of telepathic connection you and I have, you’ve told me that,” Katy objected, taking the time for this exchange even though she knew Giandrea was waiting on the other end of the open commlink for her instructions and probably couldn’t comprehend why she was hesitating. The Morthan doctor, of course, knew why. He was courteously not intruding on the married couple’s communion with each other, but he knew perfectly well what was happening between them in sickbay’s apparent silence.

  “True. My father found telepathy repulsive, unlike most humans who take Morthan mates he avoided that part of being intimate with my mother as much as it was possible for him to avoid it. I—don’t think they slept together all that much, in fact, because you and I both know what effect that has over time on mind-to-mind bonding!” There was a f
lash of rueful humor in Casey’s thoughts, which he squelched quickly. “I never knew what it was like to have his mind touch me while I was in my mother’s womb. Which I realize now is probably exactly why I got stunted the way I did, I always assumed that because he was human it shouldn’t have made a difference—but now I think it sure as hell did. Because it’s pretty clear that my being around you while you carried Maddy did something to her. Something I started off thinking was wonderful when I finally got to meet her, but it doesn’t seem very wonderful now that it’s damned near killed the poor kid once and it’s caused Fralick to haul her off.”

  “If it helps, my love, Maddy thought it was wonderful too.” Katy kissed her husband as she sent that thought in his direction, and with it she sent every gram of love and reassurance that she was capable of projecting. “You’ll be okay now. There wasn’t a recall order for you, so for now at least you’re still a civilian. Stay that way, all right? Until it works better for you to be something else, at least.”

  She took her arms from around him then, and she rose from his bedside and turned away. He let her go, but not without trailing a hand along her arm so that his fingers brushed against hers to maintain their physical contact through the last possible second. She said crisply to the younger golden-eyed man who was standing nearby, “Take good care of him, Doctor. Captain Giandrea! I’m on my way to your office. When I get there, I want Ambassador Fralick standing by on comm to talk to me. And tell Narsai Control to get ready to punch a transmission through to Fleet Command, the next thing I’ll want to do is talk to them.”