by S. L. Viehl
“He want to kill Daneeb.” Resa studied his face. It was obvious that he wasn’t Iisleg—his skin and hair were the wrong color—but he looked almost familiar. “Kill woman he look for?”
“Perhaps.” Jarn, too, studied his features. “He may be one of the slavers from the windlord city.”
“But you help him.”
“For now.” Jarn bent close and held the scanner over the wound.
Resa looked around the room, went over to a box, and selected a container, which she brought to Jarn. “Use this man’s head?”
Jarn checked the markings on the bottle. “This is antiseptic.” Resa nodded. “Can you read this label?” She showed her the markings on the bottle.
Resa peered at them, but they were not like the few of the markings the people made that she had learned. “No read.”
“Yet you knew what it was.” Jarn studied her face. “You’ve had some sort of training as a healer.”
Resa frowned. “I not remember.”
Two male jlorra came into Jarn’s room and sniffed at the ensleg’s feet. The larger male yawned, flashing his lethal teeth before he nudged Jarn’s hand.
“No,” the healer said absently as she used the antiseptic to clean the man’s head wound. “You can’t have him.”
Resa smiled at the cats and went down on her haunches. Both cats ambled over and sniffed her thoroughly before rubbing their heads against her knees and arms. She gave both a good scratching around the ears and muzzle, smiling as they closed their eyes in silent enjoyment.
“You have an affinity with the cats,” Jarn said.
Resa stood. “Sisters say cats like you. Why people fear cats?”
“The jlorra are not particularly fond of people. They treat most of them like walking food.” Jarn lifted the man’s head to wrap a bandage around the back of it. “I don’t know why the cats like me. I have done nothing to deserve their affection.”
“Cats judge smell,” Resa said. “We not Iisleg. Maybe we not smell like food. We maybe smell like little cats.”
Jarn secured the bandage. “That is an interesting theory. They do treat me like a cub.” She glanced up. “How did you know I am not Iisleg?”
Resa pointed to her face. “You look more like me, not them. Cats bring you food?” When Jarn nodded, Resa chuckled. “Me, too.”
Resa noticed the larger cat sniffing the man’s leg and inspected the area. There was a hole in the material covering his flesh and flecks of blood. “Man hurt here, Jarn.”
“Jarn!” Daneeb’s shout echoed in the cave.
“I must settle this with her,” the healer said. “See if you can remove his pants so we can tend to his leg. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
Resa found the fastener for the man’s pants at his waist and had no trouble with it. The ensleg’s clothing was bizarre; ties were so much easier than the complicated things holding his together. Yet it seemed familiar, too, as if once she had worn such garments.
I am ensleg. Of course I did.
She worked the trousers down to his knees, exposing a wound on the side of his left thigh, from which a piece of blackened metal protruded. After a glance at the empty cave entrance, she pulled his trousers off and put them with his jacket.
The metal would have to come out; it was lodged deep in his flesh and would poison it if left there. She went to Jarn’s pack and found a probe, a pair of hand coverings, clear wash solution, and a suture laser. She also took a square transparent container and placed it between his legs, and folded a length of bandaging.
She probed the wound and felt around it with her fingers. The shrapnel was relatively small, but it had gone deep into his leg. If she removed it, there was a risk of more bleeding, but the edges of the wound were already an angry red. Carefully she tested the metal, wiggling it and tugging on it gently before stopping to observe. The flow of blood was minimal; it did not feel as if the shrapnel had twisted itself into his flesh. With the bandage ready in one hand, she quickly jerked out the metal and pressed the bandage down hard over the wound.
The wound bled freely, but not dangerously, and a quick wash showed minimal tissue damage. She used the suture laser to cauterize two bleeders, and examined the depth of the wound. He was very lucky; another two centimeters and the metal would have cut into the man’s femoral artery.
The rest took a few minutes. She was careful to repair the tear in the thigh muscle before closing the edges of the wound. He would need medicine to prevent infection and keep any fever from escalating.
Resa cleaned the leg and used another bandage to dress the wound, and then dumped the bloodied instruments and bandage into the container, which she set aside. Covering his legs with his jacket to keep them warm, she looked around the room for some water to use to clean her hands.
Jarn stood at the entry, watching her.
Resa suddenly felt uneasy and not a little confused. “I fix leg.”
“Yes, I saw you operate on him.”
“You angry?” Resa couldn’t see her face, and Jarn’s voice gave nothing away. She felt stupid for doing something like this without permission, but it had seemed so necessary when she saw the wound.
“No.” Jarn came over and checked the man’s leg. “Very good work. How long have you been a healer?”
Resa frowned. “I am a healer?” Jarn nodded. “I not remember.”
“Yet you remembered how to perform minor surgery on this man,” Jarn said, in a language that was not Iisleg.
Yet Resa understood her perfectly. It was the same language she herself had been thinking in while working to repair the man’s leg.
Terran.
Confusion became a whirlwind spinning through Resa’s head. Surely she could not be a healer. But she had known what to do; she had felt utterly confident while doing it. She could not tell Jarn what she had done; she didn’t have enough words, but even if she had, it would be difficult. There were no Iisleg words for some of the things she did.
And she had done it all while thinking in Terran.
Resa looked down at her hands. Her right wrist throbbed now, as hard and as painfully as her head. “You be healer, Jarn,” she said, groping for the words. “Not me. I … should not.”
“No, Resa.” Jarn came to her and placed her hands over Resa’s. “You don’t have to be afraid. You are among friends here.”
“Friends.” The word felt uncomfortable on her tongue, as if she was not accustomed to using it. “You and I?”
“We speak the same language.” Jarn smiled a little. “The language of this world, and that of the homeworld. It is all right for the two of us to speak Terran when we are alone. No one has to know.”
“Terran. Terra.” The words felt strange on her tongue. “Our homeworld.”
“Yes, for what it’s worth. Daneeb will be grateful,” the healer told her, speaking in Terran again. “She has never liked the work. She does not know how to do anything but kill them, and she refuses to learn.”
The work? Them? What was she talking about?
“War is coming.” Jarn’s voice went low. “There will be many like him, many who wish to kill each other. Many will perish, but there will be some who may be saved. Saving people is more important than killing them; do you agree?”
The throbbing eased a little. “Yes.”
Jarn went to the pack and took out a stiff circle of material. After a few moments, it seemed to melt into her hands. “Daneeb was the one who actually found this. It was in the wreck of a … a ship. It is alive. I think it knows what we think, because it makes itself into what I wish.”
It was a blob, and yet she spoke of it as if it were some magical thing. Resa’s stomach clenched as she regarded it. It was flowing over Jarn’s hands now, as if made of some thick water that would not drip. It changed shape as muscles did when they moved, only more so. “What is it?”
“I don’t know.” Jarn placed the thing in one hand, and removed her head wrap with the other. Then she placed the thing on
her face.
“Jarn,” Resa shrieked as the thing stretched out and completely covered Jarn’s face from scalp to neck. She ran to pry it away, to keep the healer from smothering.
Jarn lifted one hand. “No, don’t be alarmed,” she said in a perfectly audible voice. “I can still breathe, and see, and speak. It does no harm.” The thing on her face did not move. “When we go outside into the cold, it does grow stiff, but I can do the same out there.”
Although she knew it was a mask, Resa felt her stomach churn. “Why put on face?”
“It makes the Iisleg believe I am an instrument of the gods.” Jarn held her hand in front of her face, and the blob came off onto it. “To help them, we must first terrify them.” She looked at Resa. “Could you do that, to save a life?”
Before Resa could answer, a huge, explosive sound shook the caves, causing a shower of ice crystals from the upper roof to pelt the two women and the unconscious man.
Jarn and Resa both went to the ensleg and shielded him with their own bodies as a second, more powerful burst rumbled through the ice beneath their feet.
“Personally gone to inspect the hub?” Orjakis opened his eyes, disturbing the eyelash treatment the face drone was applying. He swatted the hover unit away and removed the delicately petaled mash from his brow, cheeks, and nose. He left the depilatory treatment on his chin and jaws, for the solution might create a rash if it had to be applied a second time in one day. “This takes precedence over answering our signal?”
“I see Janzil Ches Orjakis, Kangal of Skjonn.” The notch, who had lately taken to standing near or behind solid objects, looked around the treatment room’s doorframe. “The general’s second said he had gone to inspect the hub. It could never, not even in the imagination, take precedence over the Kangal’s signal.”
“You offend our nostrils and our ears, notch.” Orjakis waved a hand. “Go away.”
“I see and obey Janzil Ches Orjakis, Kangal of Skjonn,” the notch said, “and before I am delighted to follow the Kangal’s orders, I must inform the Kangal that the League liaison has arrived and is awaiting the Kangal’s pleasure in the Kangal’s receiving room.” The notch waited for the final dismissive hand gesture, which Orjakis gave him, and then scurried away.
Orjakis would have stayed in his dressing room and contemplated the magnificence of his visage while deciding how to disassemble Gohliya with a blunt blade, but the League liaison had traveled several dozen light-years to attend him. He would have to be allowed a glimpse and a moment of Orjakis’s attention. After the depilatory was finished removing the stubble from the three disgusting hairs that had resisted stim treatment and kept growing back on his face, naturally.
Orjakis chose glorious gold and severe black as his color theme and, once properly adorned, permitted a half-ceremonial presentation. Full would have been more appropriate, of course, but he wanted time to deal with Gohliya, and so enjoyed only the partial deference due him as he was escorted by his attendants into the receiving room.
The humanoid male waiting for him did not look anything like Colonel Andrew Robert Stuart, that lying, murderous walking refuse heap of a being. No, this male was much worse; unsightly with age and overweight, he wore the same drab brown uniform, but the fit was ill to the extreme. He also reeked of misplaced authority; he was not even making a motion to go to his knees.
Orjakis nearly withdrew to change his garments to a thunderous crimson purple of offended sensibilities, but his ears were already being assaulted by the League male’s voice.
“I have been waiting here for three hours,” the officer said, without the slightest note of respect in his tone. “I’m Captain Hark Deyin. Who are you?”
Orjakis had never actually fainted, so he had no basis of comparison, but felt what he suspected might be very close to it. “Clear the room,” he said in a trembling voice.
The drones and his attendants disappeared. It was left to Orjakis to seal the doors himself. He did so to give himself the chance to compose his outraged senses. There was no question that Captain Deyin would die before the sun moved another inch through the heavens. But how he would die—now, that required careful consideration, even more so than the matter of Gohliya. Orjakis thought he might have to spend several days thinking it over.
Deyin would simply have to wait in the death pit until he had settled on something.
“Is this thing not working?” Captain Deyin muttered, checking the translation device on his wrist. “Who are you?”
“We are Janzil Ches Orjakis, Kangal of Skjonn.” Orjakis realized he had never had to tell anyone his name. Not once since the day of his birth. Deyin’s tongue would be the first thing he would pry out of his head. “We are ruler here.”
“You signaled League Headquarters to inform us that a”—Deyin looked away from him to study a datapad—“Colonel Stuart, Andrew R., was killed on this world by rebels.” He finally made eye contact. “Is this correct?”
“You know nothing about Toskald protocol.” Orjakis circled around him, oddly fascinated by the man’s fearlessness. “Not how to behave, or speak, or look upon us? Do you?”
“I am not a diplomatic liaison.” The League officer actually waved a hand in front of his bulbous nose to disperse Orjakis’s mood scent. “We assumed this was a civilized, progressive world. If you want some sort of honorific, I’ll need to talk with your chief protocol officer, but I’d rather hear more about what happened to Stuart.”
Orjakis considered the fact that this ugly, ignorant, abusive, offensive, fecal-brained ensleg had no idea whatsoever that he was a dead man for his words alone. He represented the League, however, and Orjakis wanted them to avenge Aledver more than he wanted the man’s death.
Just a beating, perhaps. Something to cripple and disfigure him for life.
“Such protocol is hardly necessary, under the circumstances,” Orjakis lied. “This Colonel Stuart came asking permission to search for a woman whose ship crashed on the surface two years ago. We granted it, but sent one of our men with him. He killed—”
“Hold on.” Deyin was not looking at him again; he was fiddling with his pad. Suddenly he looked up. “Andrew Robert Stuart died weeks ago, two systems away from here. His body was stolen from a morgue and his death records erased. He’s never been to this planet.”
“That is how the man identified himself to us.”
“Do you have vids of the man?” Deyin squinted at him. “Your kind do know what vids are, I hope?”
Deyin would lose his eyes, long before he died, for that remark. “Yes, but then we Toskald are a slightly progressive, civilized people. Over here.”
Captain Deyin followed him to the room console that Orjakis had never actually touched. Pulling up the security stills taken of Stuart during his visit to Skjonn did not present a problem, however, as Orjakis frequently used the console in his privacy chamber to access the security system.
A pity Gohliya does not realize that. “The man,” Orjakis said, indicating each scan, “his vessel, and the identification he presented to us.”
“Brilliant forgeries. He must have paid heavy creds for these.” The captain peered at the screen. “You said he was here looking for a woman?” He jerked back from the console and stared at Orjakis. “Was it a Terran woman?” he asked, his voice shaking with some sort of strong emotion. “A Terran woman physician?”
Orjakis was fascinated by the complete change in the man’s behavior. Excited and fearful, over a slave. This obscene lack of respect had gone so far beyond any realm of Orjakis’s imagination that he was mesmerized.
“Yes, we believe that was how he referred to her. You may listen for yourself.” He replayed the audio recording of the reception.
Stuart’s voice came out of the panel. This slave female has knowledge of certain events which, if manipulated by our enemies, could prove damaging to League treaties…. I have been ordered to find her and bring her to Intelligence Headquarters for interrogation and detainment….
> Orjakis cut off the audio. “He spoke of the Jado Massacre.”
“There was no massacre.” Deyin scowled for a moment before he recovered his exhilaration. “I need to send a priority message over this panel. Did he find her, do you know?”
“We don’t know.” Orjakis came to stand behind him and watched as he typed furiously on the keys. Deyin might be the ugliest male that had ever offended the Kangal’s eyes, but his hands were attractive in their competence. I will have them cured and made into ring holders. “Shall we summon one of our drones to assist you in encrypting this message?”
“No, it’s already coded.” He finished the transmission and enabled the transponder. “They find her down there, they’ll give me a medal or something, you know that?”
“We knew how vital and sensitive the matter with the woman was,” Orjakis said, memorizing the code and the relay frequency and channel Deyin used. “Under the circumstances, we felt we had to contact the League.”
“Everything they say about her. I always wondered if it was true.” Deyin shook his head. “I’ve seen some of the records—QI keeps the good ones classified, of course—but they distributed the general-info file to every security detachment in the League.”
“Do you have that file on record in your database?” Orjakis asked.
“On my ship, yeah, but it’s League business.” The captain looked up from the console briefly. “Sorry, I can’t give you access.”
No offering of crystal. That made things simple. “Never worry, Captain.” Orjakis used one of the floor taps to signal his personal drone guards. “You may yet change your mind.”
Deyin, who wasn’t listening to him, stood up and turned around. “I’ll need to set up a security command post somewhere in this place.” He looked around as if seeing the room for the first time. “If you have some men you can spare to help me, I’ll need them, too, and some dignitary accommodations for when the old men arrive.”