By the time you read this I’ll have left Zenina. I have something I must do and I can’t take Opak with me, so I’m leaving him with you. I may be gone some months. If I haven’t returned within a year, consider me dead and find Opak a new mother.
I don’t expect you to be faithful to me whilst I’m away but I love you and miss you already. Please believe I wouldn’t leave you if I didn’t think it important. I hope you will forgive me and look after Opak.
All my love
Ondiella
Divak was confused and irate when he read her letter but knew she was long gone. With Marina gone from Zenina he had no way of tracing and stopping Ondiella. What she intended to do, he didn’t know, but it could not be right if she would not tell him about it. He made some quick decisions. First he fed and changed the baby. No reason for the little fellow to suffer. As Ondiella had already weaned the child after the death of Kerina, so feeding Opak was not very hard. Then he picked up the baby and transported to the Palace. He demanded to see his sister whom he stated acidly he believed was still the queen.
Not long after, he was admitted into her apartments. Plavina looked a mess. Her hair was matted and she looked unwashed. The skirt she wore to the Banquet two nights before had not been changed. Divak looked at her hard.
“I’ve come to say goodbye, Plavina. I’m going down to Marina’s favourite farm to stay. If I’m wanted I’ll be there.You must pull yourself together and if you can’t live like a queen, you’d better learn how to die like one. Marina never stopped loving you, so there’s no point blaming her. You chased her away. Do not disgrace her further by dying like a coward in your bed. Try for some dignity at least. My thoughts and love are with you.”
He hugged her once and left with Opak whom he’d dumped in Lahoda’s arms. Divak’s words shook Plavina up a little. She had her apartments cleaned, bathed and combed her hair. She put on fresh clothes, then sent for her lawyer and wrote her will. It took the rest of the day and night, but at least then Plavina slept for a few hours.
On the next day she summoned Father O’Flaherty and had him hear her confession and shrive her before her death. She asked him to arrange a simple funeral, and if the new queen would allow it, to inter her on the left side of her mother in her mausoleum.
“Leave the right hand side free for my younger and greater sister.”
Then she called her fourteen year old son Sebie and her father Kabaneev to her, held them both tightly and apologized to them for the trouble she had caused and would bring them. They both forgave her, remaining with her whilst she finished putting her affairs in order.
She summoned the royal architect and ordered the plans for the new Men’s parliament finished immediately and the building begun. She paid out personally the necessary sums from her private funds. Few Zeninan buildings once started were ever abandoned unfinished. At least she could ensure Kerina’s promise to Charles was kept. It was not much to show for her life. But she felt she had made one positive action, during her short reign.
After Divak left Plavina, he visited Vellina and Riyal. He advised Vellina of how things stood with Plavina, for she had a tendency to stand aloof from politics.
“Send Riyal off Zenina. Dalzina will be the next queen. Riyal will not be safe in Zenina. Marina has returned Mikkal to Zadina for protection from Dalzina and Ga’Mishrin. Riyal would make a suitable substitute as gift to Ga’Mishrin.”
Vellina agreed and that same day Riyal prepared to leave Zenina. He collected up his slightly diminished crew supplemented by several Zeninan ladies who had no intention of letting them leave without them. Riyal had laughed when he had first seen how Marina had everything refitted. It was the cleanest pirate ship he had ever seen. It would pass muster in the Zeninan Army fleet but now he had a mixed sex crew it was for the best. He could not imagine any woman he knew agreeing to crew on his ship as it had been. Well his men would have to get used to keeping it that way because he could see as they were now all Zeninan they would have to get used to women on board.
“Where are we headed?”
“I hadn’t decided. Bellatrix, I will go and offer my support to Princess Marina, she will know what to do.”
Divak did not know Kapalina was on Marina’s side but Dalzina had begun to have doubts about her loyalty. So Dalzina had not told Kapalina of Ondiella’s mission. Divak visited first Dalzina and told her of his intention to retire to the countryside for the time being. He then visited Kapalina, whom he told the tale of Ondiella and how she had left the planet straight after Marina, leaving him bereft of both sister and lover. With Plavina’s much expected death he would be without female protection. Kapalina offered to look after his interests as much as she could, but agreed with his decision to go to the country until things settled down.
Divak said goodbye to his nephew and his father, then set off for the farm in Marina’s hover car. After all she would not require it until she returned to Zenina, if she returned.
Chapter Thirty-one – Bellatrix
Marina had asked for volunteers only to accompany her to Bellatrix, so two elderly Gold Doctors and four young Silver Doctors of whom only one had a pilot’s licence accompanied her. Two Green nurses volunteered and the Ruby orderly Dinka who was accepted only because Marina was so surprised by the offer that she could not think of a polite way to refuse. Chilka came too, leaving Bona in the charge of her nurse.
Ivla came on board to pilot the new ship through the force rings, but realising only three members of the party were capable pilots stayed on board, calling back to her office and informing them that she was taking indefinite leave.
Marina shared the bulk of the flying with Ivla. Chilka managed the kitchen and the doctors organised their supplies and discussed interesting medical cases. The nurses and Dinka cleared up, wondering what exactly they had let themselves in for.
Marina mourned for her not yet dead sister and tried not to think about the people she had left behind her. She slept little, ate little and refused the offers of three of the young doctors to share her bed. Chilka did not worry at first, but noticed Marina took more sexual suppressants than was normal so few days from Zenina.
Every two days she donated blood with the young Silvers to boost the supplies they carried but Chilka knew she was not taking in enough nutrition to maintain the replacement supply. Three days from Bellatrix Chilka sought out Marina, who was resting in her cabin. Chilka tried to tell Marina she must start looking after herself, she wasn’t eating enough, she wasn’t sleeping enough, she wasn’t... Marina looked at Chilka and said.
“Don’t tell me you want to share my bed too?”
“Has it been that bad?” Chilka asked.
“Every time I try to sleep, another of them makes a pass at me; I’d prefer to sleep with a bunny.”
“I thought you were being so quiet because you were worried about Zenina.”
“I am, but I’d feel more like eating if I could sleep. Could you guard my door for an hour or two whilst I sleep?”
Chilka laughed and agreed, but she realised it was no joking matter. If Marina was attracting her colleagues in that way, something had changed about the way Marina was relating to people. She had not had serious trouble with women for years. Marina and Chilka went way back. They had been at school together and after Marina had come back from her “Trip off Planet” which was how her family explained her absence from court during her bout of catatonia following her forced rape, they had gone looking for men together.
Marina had at that time attracted many girls as well as men and had found the problem troublesome. Chilka had some idea how things had stood between Zadina and Marina and the duality of their feelings for each other. So Chilka with the true closeness of friends guessed what had caused the current problem and it also explained the suppressants.
Marina slept and having slept kept her promise and ate feigning enthusiasm, but her good intentions did not last and soon was only grabbing a piece of bread and a milky drink and apologiz
ing for not being hungry. Even a Gold could not punish her system like that indefinitely. They arrived at Bellatrix, landing at Bellatrude where the worst outbreak was centred. Marina bustled through the Mayor and his Councillors and went straight to the main hospital.
On arrival at Bellatrude General, Marina asked to see the Chief Medical Officer. Whilst waiting Marina and her team inoculated the receptionists, several orderlies and all the patients lined up on temporary cots and trolleys about the out-patients area. As Marina and her team injected everyone, each person was marked on the cheek with a small red flower design and the time and date, which indicated they had already been dealt with. The dye used would take about a week to fade which was usually enough.
A senior nurse was bustling down the corridor with an un-uniformed porter and a sheet-shrouded trolley. One of the Silver Doctors inoculated the nurse who seemed relieved and the volunteer porter, before passing on to others. Marina however lifted the sheet and looked down at the face of a young boy lying still.
“How long dead?” she asked the nurse.
“We don’t know, an hour or two at most. There have been so many.”
Marina checked over the body, but found no major damage. She inoculated the dead boy and started massaging his heart; she glowed a little whilst she concentrated. The Bellatrese nurse stood by in amazement as the child started breathing quite clearly. As Marina issued orders she followed them without question.
“Intensive care, oxygen for six hours, I want to see him in six hours’ time, have me paged, notify his parents if possible, When you’ve seen intensive care know what to do return to me. My name is Marina.”
“Yes Doctor,” replied the nurse and rushed off.
Just then a small official looking man came up and asked if he could help. Marina introduced herself and the man said he was the Deputy Medical Officer. The Chief Medical Officer had died two days ago.
“How many have died so far?” Marina asked.
“Over three hundred in Bellatrude alone, we’re still finding them dead in their homes. Where do you want to start?”
“Medical and nursing staff first please; then I’ll deal with any flu victims in the hospital without other diseases or injuries. It will clear some space. Third, can you organise lists of essential workers in the city. Don’t bother about the politicians; they’re always first in the queue anyway. Power workers, ambulance crews, water workers, Police, cooks and refuse collectors, that sort of thing. Do you understand what’s needed?”
“Yes I think so.”
“Have them report in batches of fifty one hour apart. Your staff should report while we do the medical staff.”
“Where should I send them to?”
“Which ward should we start on?”
“Six and seven, ten and twelve contain only flu cases but all the other wards have some.”
“Fine we’ll tackle them in that order, send any medical staff from other wards as soon as you can.”
Marina and her staff worked through the day and night. By dawn the next day most of the hospital staff had been inoculated and about half the patients.The young boy was now fully conscious and looking well. His jubilant mother was by his bedside and Marina instructed her to take the child home in the afternoon whilst inoculating her. The patients inoculated the first day were being signed out in large waves, but the wards were refilling as quickly as they were emptied.
Sometime in the night, the kitchen staff queued up to be inoculated and Marina insisted her team needed feeding and soon. Food arrived and they ate standing whilst dealing with another rush of patients. Three days later the city of Bellatrude was down to only ten new patients that day. Marina took the Silvers, Chilka and Dinka to New Vendenor which was in a desperate case. The two Golden Doctors and the green nurses went to a smaller town Bondagnu where they dealt with a local outbreak.
Ivla had collapsed after the first four days of trying to keep up with Marina and was left behind at Bellatrude where she was resting. Supplies of blood with instructions had been sent on ahead to New Vendenor Central Hospital, but there had been so many sick or exhausted amongst the medical staff little impact had been made of the onrush of sick and dying citizens. Marina slept only in brief snatches taken whilst fresh vials of blood were fetched or when she supplied blood herself at ever frequent intervals.
She slept during the whole of the journey from Bellatrude to New Vendenor and had to be shaken awake on arrival, five hours later. At least she was now eating, anything and everything she could lay her hands on and in addition she was giving herself regular mineral and vitamin injections, painful but necessary if she was to continue to be leeched of blood with such great regularity.
Again Marina and her staff worked day and night to bring the epidemic under control, working until they dropped. Some of the main cities had attempted to put their cities into quarantine, after the epidemic became serious and the results of this were now beginning to show. Few new areas were producing cases and those that were, were small and scattered. Clearing up these small pockets of virus was a simpler matter and could be delegated to the already inoculated local medical staff.
Now Marina insisted her team got some rest and she accepted her own prescription, retiring to sleep. She had been in Bellatrix three weeks and slept about fifteen hours in all that time. She slept another six hours before waking with the knowledge Plavina was dead. All of her team had grabbed more sleep than her and most of them had appropriated the bodies of their comrades or a healthy local intern or two in what quiet moments they could snatch. Marina had existed with little sleep or sex for over a month. The symbiotes in her body had been protesting loudly but Marina had just fed them more suppressants.
They demanded more than that. If she did not listen to what her body needed the symbiotes were going to make her. The sleep helped a little and at least she was now eating enough to refuel the regeneration of her blood cells. She was no longer supplying so much blood but she treated several hopeless cases, forcing their regeneration. Each of her regenerations exhausted her more.
Finally she fainted away and began to shimmer before Chilka slapped her conscious and put her to bed in the concrete tunnels below the hospital where her shimmering should do least damage. It was Chilka who located a couple of handsome young doctors and delivered them one at a time to the drowsy Marina.
She accepted her medicine and after the two doctors and six hours more sleep was revitalised. Now that the major crisis in Bellatrix was over, the politicians wanted to fete their heroines. So Marina and Chilka were billeted on the Mayor of New Vendenor, another worthy lady who was a queen-pin in the Bellatrese City States Council. She realised Zeninans had other needs than food and drink, and politely offered her guests the use of her husband. She was quite relieved when they declined her offer.
The news from Zenina had not officially reached Bellatrix, but Marina did not need it confirmed. Dalzina had challenged Plavina, who accepted and died. The fight had been quick, its result never in question. Dalzina now ruled Zenina even if not everybody knew it.
The influenza epidemic was under control. Marina spent a day in the hospital laboratory isolating the viral antibodies from the blood serum of several cured patients, patients who had not required Zeninan blood to cure them. From this she manufactured a serum to inoculate the rest of the population of Bellatrix. It would not prevent all other diseases like Zeninan blood but it would have no serious side effects. Local virologists were tutored to produce the vaccine and got on with it without further Zeninan help. Over a fifth of the population had been inoculated with Zeninan blood. Over eighteen hundred people had died.
Now the problems of the epidemic were over Marina had no real reason to stay, but where should she go? She knew she could not return to Zenina, she was not ready to fight. She still felt physically and mentally exhausted. She would stay on for a while and heal a few of the young chronically and terminally ill. It would be sufficient justification for her existence for the time being.
Chapter Thirty-two – Propaganda
Even though Marina and her friends were saving many lives at the expense of their own health, the media of Bellatrix had continued to pump out their own brand of anti-Zeninan propaganda. The screened news broadcasting was fairly uncontroversial if a little biased, but the newspapers had gone to extremes in pillorying and lampooning the Zeninan squad. In one day’s paper a particularly nasty cartoon showed a creature whose face was a most unflattering caricature of Marina, with a well-muscled but distinctly masculine body with the addition of two large nippled balloons. The figure was drowning the people of Bellatrix with the blood that flowed from her veins.
Chilka drew Marina’s attention to it, but Marina was not upset by it.
“The face is no crueller than some of the drawings of me by school friends. I resisted seeking surgery to correct my facial faults; I’ll survive this rag’s taunting.”
Marina picked up the newspaper and looked again at the cartoon. Upon the caricature’s forehead were written the words “Zeninan Assistance”, the figure was naked with a huge shark’s toothed mouth where the short ugly legs joined. A tiny Bellatrese had been half gobbled up by this maw and another young man was shown bleeding from a gaping wound where his manhood had been.
Marina had seen worse but it was worrying. She found the editorial beside the cartoon entitled ‘Medical Assistance?’ which denounced her team as harlots and corrupters of Bellatrese youth. ‘It was the worst day’s work the people of Bellatrix ever did to join the Zeninan Empire,’ the piece continued. ‘The crippling taxation on the products of their labour without representation in the Government of the Empire, the licentiousness of their arrogant soldiers, these were the foundation of Bellatrix’s malaise.’
Every problem of Bellatrix Society was blamed upon Zenina and the Zeninans. Marina, herself was picked out for special mention. She was called a fornicator, a murderer and a heartless slayer of young men’s dreams. The article was signed with the initials J.Q.A. Marina flicked back to the front page, which stated that the owner and managing editor was one J.Q. Atwelly. The front page was headlined with a statement of X trillion tax paid to the Zeninans. The article said the people of Bellatrix were being bled dry by the Zeninans’ cruel tax. The rest was in a similar vein, which was actually stating as truth several outright lies.
Champion of Zenina Page 12