Nagor shook his massive head. “No one beat the female.”
“Drew, son of… Dammit! is not pleased with her condition. He demands an explanation from me. I request one from you.”
Nagor inhaled and exhaled noisily, his features darkening. The lemonade on his breath was overpowering. Holchuk leaned as far back in his chair as he could without openly insulting the big alien.
“He demands?” growled the Nandrian.
“From me.”
“And what do you wish?”
Holchuk paused. He would have to be careful now. As expected, Nagor was asserting his own right to honor by choosing to favor a request from a friend over the official claim of a higher-ranked stranger. In Nandrian society, a friend did not ask to be given anything specific; he stated his need and allowed the one granting the favor to decide how best to meet that need. Honor accrued to both sides that way.
Nagor waited patiently as Holchuk searched his mind for the correct words. At last, he was able to put them together: “I wish truth and justice. Truth to help you. Justice for the female.”
Nagor slumped a little in his seat. “Wishing cannot bring back the dead.”
“The female isn’t dead, Nagor, just unconscious.”
The alien made a sound between a snort and a wheeze. “She grieves for her animal.”
After years of conversing with Nandrians, Holchuk knew he should be accustomed to this by now. Non sequiturs, leaps of logic… The more they talked, the worse his confusion generally became.
“Her animal is dead?”
“Eaten.”
“So you’re saying that justice for the female is impossible, because her animal can never be returned to her?”
Nagor nodded with ponderous finality.
“And what of truth, Nagor ban Nagoram?” Holchuk persisted.
“I have shared my truth.”
“By itself, it does not help you or me,” Holchuk pointed out.
Nagor sighed sonorously. “You wish us to wake the female.”
“So your truth can be confirmed.”
“This would be unwise. She is hartoon.”
A new word. Great. “Can you translate that?” Holchuk asked.
Nagor was silent for a moment. “No.”
“Then can you give me another example of someone who is hartoon?”
The alien tilted his head in surprise. “I know of no one else who is hartoon,” he pointed out reasonably.
Holchuk forced himself to sit absolutely still. He counted slowly to five. Then he gave it one more try.
“Nagor, what would have to happen to me to make me hartoon?”
He thought for a second. “If your mate were tortured to death by an escaped criminal who then took his own life, then perhaps…”
“…I would become hartoon?”
“Perhaps.”
“And what would I do, being hartoon?”
“You might attack the prison, killing every creature you found there.”
Suddenly, pieces of meaning began to fall into place. “Because the criminal I really wanted to kill would already be dead,” Holchuk mused aloud, “so I would shift the blame to those who had let him escape, and take my revenge on them.”
“You understand.”
“Was she hartoon when you brought her aboard your ship?”
He shook his head. “She came aboard. No one brought her.”
“She stowed away.” Nagor nodded. Encouraged, Holchuk continued, “To avenge the death of her animal?”
“To retrieve it.”
“She didn’t know it was dead?”
“Only the mishta knew.”
Another new word. And they’d been doing so well!
“Who or what is the mishta?” Holchuk asked wearily.
“Spaced. It died.”
Conversing with a Nandrian was hard work. Holchuk could feel sweat beginning to trickle down his back and sides.
“Died of what, Nagor? What killed the mishta?”
The alien did something with his shoulders that vaguely resembled a shrug. “Her animal.”
“But you said her animal was dead.”
“The mishta ate it,” Nagor said patiently. “The female saw…”
“…and became hartoon.” Holchuk sighed, feeling as though the Nandrian were leading him in circles, ignoring his larger questions. “Nagor, how did the female’s animal come to be aboard your ship? Did you trade for it?”
Nagor nodded. “With her nestbrother. He was glad to see it gone.”
“So, her brother trades away her pet behind her back. She stows away to try to retrieve it, but by the time she reaches the aft hold, one of the other animals has already killed and eaten her pet. She sees… what? Little hind legs sticking out of the mishta’s mouth? A little carcass lying on the floor of its cage?” Nagor nodded. “She goes berserk. She kills the mishta?”
“Already dead. She attacked the mishta’s cage. Destroyed it. Then she crawled inside the ventilation shafts and began attacking the ship. She was hartoon. She broke into the crew quarters, damaged our environment control system, even tried to sabotage the engines.”
“She was seen doing all this?”
Nagor nodded. “By my crew. They reported it to me.”
Of course. Holchuk swallowed the next question, rather than appear to cast doubt on the veracity of Nagor’s crew. Instead, he asked, “Was the female aboard during a tekl’hananni match?”
“Four days ago? No.”
So her condition was not the result of the primal bloodlust released by tekl’hananni. Some of the bruising might have been self-inflicted by someone who’d gone a little crazy and was bouncing off the walls. But the rest of it — the scrapes and scratches, the tattered clothing, not to mention the obvious lies told to Nagor by his crew…! Holchuk could feel his own rage swelling inside his chest.
“Nagor, she is one little Human female — a child!”
He made that snorting, wheezing sound again. “She was hartoon, Holchuk. Filled with wild strength. We tied her. She struggled. We put her into a cage. She threw herself against the bars, injuring herself. Finally, we had to put her to sleep.”
His choice of words sent icy tentacles straight down Holchuk’s back.
“She belongs with her own clan, Nagor.”
“And so we brought her here.”
“And she needs to be awakened. Nothing less will satisfy Drew, son of… Dammit! He has told me that if you refuse his request, you will be dishonoring both the female and this station.”
It was strong language for a friend to use. Hopefully Nagor’s ‘hair of the dog’ had mellowed his senses, and he wouldn’t take exception to it.
Nagor nodded sadly. “Our Medical Officer will cooperate with your Doctor Ktumba,” he promised.
Chapter 18
“Do you believe his story?” Teri demanded, frowning.
Holchuk shrugged. What he believed or disbelieved was immaterial at that moment.
They were standing in Med Services and Doc Ktumba was on the comm, in quiet discussion with the Nandrian Medical Officer. Holchuk couldn’t make out any of her words, but her expression looked relaxed enough. They were probably arranging for the delivery of the antidote to the alien stasis drug.
Meanwhile, Teri stood beside him, darting uneasy glances around the room. “Shouldn’t someone have notified Townsend?” she murmured.
Holchuk shook his head. “We can handle this. The boss man’s got a bigger problem on his plate right now.” And a huge mess on his desk, he would have added, if the Doc hadn’t thumbed the comm switch to ‘off’ and leaned back in her chair with a gusty sigh.
“It’ll arrive in ten minutes,” she told them. “Jane Doe should be all right until then.”
Teri wandered over to study the young girl�
�s face. “She looks like such an angel, doesn’t she?”
“They all do, honey,” the Doc chuckled. “Ask any parent. Children look all sweetness and innocence when they’re sleeping. Then they wake up and they’re hell on wheels.”
That was what Nagor had said, too. Hell on wheels. Lashing out. Seeking revenge. Holchuk purposely kept his distance from the examining table. He wanted to believe his friend; and yet, from the first time he’d seen Jane Doe, it had seemed inconceivable that this slight Human female could be anything but a helpless victim.
Had he misunderstood the meaning of the term hartoon? How could anyone, bound hand and foot and thrown into a cage by Nandrians, still be wild with grief over the death of a pet? At that point, it seemed far more likely that she would be cold sober and terrified about her own possible fate.
“I think there’s more going on here than anyone is telling us,” he remarked quietly.
Suddenly, the Med Services door hummed open and a Nandrian crewman lumbered into the waiting area. He glanced around curiously, finally spotted the Doc beckoning him into the Trauma Clinic, and ducked his head again as he came through the entrance to join them. Holchuk had never spoken to this alien, but he did recognize the science insignia on the front of the brown and yellow uniform. And he noticed the crewman’s eyes. They were green, an unusual color for a Nandrian.
Wordlessly, the alien scanned the little group for a moment. Then he reached out and deposited a small purple vial in the Doc’s hand. “Five, then five, then two. Wait for changes before proceeding,” he told her, turning to leave.
“Wait a minute,” she said sharply. “Are you sure this is the correct dosage for a Human female with her body mass?”
Her tone of voice was a challenge, just short of an insult. The Nandrian locked eyes with her and bared his upper fangs. Unimpressed, Doc Ktumba stood her ground, her chin jutting stubbornly, and after a moment the alien growled and backed down.
Involuntarily, Holchuk smiled. Right or wrong, nobody argued with the Doc.
“This dosage will counteract the amount of sleeping drug she was given,” the Nandrian snarled. “Body mass does not matter.”
“The hell it doesn’t,” she retorted, her voice stopping him from leaving once again.
Holchuk heard Teri’s soft gasp echoing his own. He held his breath, his skin prickling an urgent warning. The Doc had had plenty of dealings with the Nandrians and knew how they reacted to real or imagined slurs. What the hell was she playing at? Did she really want to bait this big alien into attacking her?
The Nandrian spun to face her. Holchuk’s heart began sledgehammering his ribs and pounding in his ears. He had never actually taken down a member of this species, but if the crewman went for the Doc, he would have to try.
Holchuk glanced at Teri, the pit of his stomach telling him that the expression on her pale, frightened face probably mirrored his own.
“You are not the Medical Officer of your ship,” said Doc Ktumba, her voice teetering on the edge of scorn.
Grudgingly, the Nandrian tilted his head to indicate a negative response.
“Well, I hold a Human life in my hands right now, and I’m told it was your Medical Officer who put it there. I want him present when the antidote is administered.”
“Then the female hartoon will continue to sleep,” he declared sullenly. “Stran Dakin’s time is filled with more important matters.”
“And you speak for Stran Dakin? I find that difficult to believe.”
The alien lowered his head like a bull about to charge. Holchuk calculated the distance between them and slid closer to the Doc. He was unarmed. He was also coiled tight and full of adrenaline. He hoped it would be enough.
“Doc…” he muttered, but she waved him silent, never taking her eyes off the Nandrian’s face.
“I know Stran Dakin,” she went on, each word dagger-sharp. The alien’s expression grew even uglier than before. “I don’t know you, and I doubt whether he knows you either.”
It was raining ice in Holchuk’s stomach. “Doc…!” Again she waved him silent.
He pressed the send button on his wristcomm and raised it to his lips. “Holchuk to Security,” he said, just loudly enough for the alien to hear. “I need a team in the Trauma Clinic right now.” It was posturing, that was all. Security on Daisy Hub consisted of two uniforms and a nightstick. But posturing sent a message the Nandrians understood.
The crewman scowled at Holchuk and thrust his huge, clawed hand, palm up, toward the Doc.
“Give it back and do without,” he growled.
They heard the soft hum of the Med Services door working.
“Oh, I’ll give it back,” she said with a mirthless smile. “But not to you.”
On cue, the Trauma Clinic door sighed open behind the big alien, admitting four more uniformed Nandrians. Holchuk recognized Nagor as he stepped forward and took the vial from the Doc’s hand.
“You understand much,” he said, then turned to address his crewman. “Rostol, go with these officers to your cell.”
Evidently, they had him dead to rights for something. Rostol dipped his head to his superior, then went quietly.
When the three Nandrians had left, Nagor bowed ceremoniously to Doc Ktumba. “I am deeply indebted for your assistance.”
She bowed back and replied, as scripted, “I am honored to accept your gratitude.”
Holchuk’s jaw had dropped open. He closed it.
“Son of a gun,” Teri murmured beside him. “There was something going on.”
Nagor beckoned the fourth Nandrian forward and introduced him. “This is our Medical Officer, Stran Dakin. It will be his duty and honor to assist you in awakening the female.”
More bowing. More “duty” and “honor” and “privilege”, while Holchuk, near to bursting with curiosity, waited impatiently for the formalities to be over so that he could open a script. “Nagor ban Nagoram, I have many questions.”
The alien made a sound between a snort and a wheeze. “And I have answers, Gavin son of Samuel. But my throat is dry.”
A friend stated his need and allowed the other to determine how to meet it.
Holchuk smiled. “Why don’t we continue our discussion in the caf?”
***
At this hour of the afternoon, the caf was virtually empty. Nagor sighed as a mouthful of cold lemonade trickled down his throat. “So much has happened. Where to begin?” he wondered aloud.
“Let’s begin with the scene I just witnessed in Med Services.”
The alien tilted his head. “But you were there. You saw.”
“I think I saw you and the Doc spring a trap on Rostol. That wasn’t the real antidote he was delivering, was it? It was meant to kill her.”
“Stran Dakin and the Doc,” Nagor corrected him, nodding. “You understand.”
“How did they know?”
“They suspected. They came to me. It was enough.”
“But what made them suspect?” Holchuk persisted.
“The fluid sample,” he replied after a pause.
“From the girl?” Nagor nodded. “The Doc must have sent a sample of the girl’s cerebral fluid to Stran Dakin for analysis.” He nodded again. “And he discovered…?”
“The stasis drug.”
“Wait a minute. Didn’t Dakin administer the drug in the first place?”
Nagor tilted his head no.
“Then who put her to sleep?”
“Rostol is Stran Dakin’s assistant.”
“With access to all the drugs, of course. But if he wanted her dead, why put her in a coma? Why not simply give her something lethal in the first place?”
“Rostol is ignorant and impetuous. That is why he is a failure.”
Suddenly a light went on upstairs. Holchuk could see Rostol, anxious to kill the girl immedi
ately, rushing to Dakin’s pharmacy and hastily grabbing a vial of something he thought would do the job. Except—
“He gave her the wrong drug,” Holchuk exclaimed. “Only by accident, it was the right drug, the one Dakin would have used.”
“You understand,” said Nagor, his measured voice giving a solemn weight to the words.
For the first time, Holchuk realized what a huge compliment Nagor was paying him. Their conversations were a lot of work for a Human. The big alien spoke in riddles, made leaps of logic, and threw obscure clues and Nandrian vocabulary at him, forcing him to puzzle out the meaning. Nor did the Nandrian accent make following Nagor’s speech any easier. Holchuk had always assumed the alien didn’t care or didn’t notice what an effort it took for a Human to comprehend him. He’d been wrong.
Holchuk felt a rush of heat to his cheeks and realized with a start that he must be blushing, something he hadn’t done since high school. Nagor gave him the Nandrian equivalent of a smile, baring his lower fangs in approval.
“I don’t understand completely,” Holchuk told him, “but I think I’m getting there. If the Nandrian criminal mind operates anything like the Human criminal mind, then Rostol probably wanted to silence the girl, to prevent her from talking about something she knows or something she saw.”
Nagor nodded his agreement. “When she awakens, she will tell you. You will tell me.”
***
Stran Dakin had already returned to the Nandrian ship when Holchuk arrived in Med Services with Yoko.
It was probably best that Dakin not be present. There was no telling what the girl might do if she woke up and saw a Nandrian standing over her.
To be honest, Holchuk wasn’t sure what she would do when she woke up and found a large white rat staring down at her. Nonetheless, they had to take the chance, just in case Nagor had been right and she was still hartoon. Yoko was the closest thing they had aboard the station to her own lost pet.
The crew of the Hub joked incessantly about Robbo and the Überrat. Holchuk could understand why. Yoko had to be the most intelligent animal he’d ever encountered. And she’d picked to care for her one Robert O’Malley, who could at times be the most obtuse Human he’d ever encountered. Give him credit, though — O’Malley was astonishingly even-tempered. When the razzing began, he just smiled like the proverbial cat with a feather hanging off its lip and walked away.
The Genius Asylum: Sic Transit Terra Book 1 Page 13