Maryam

by Tracy St. John

  * * * *

  Pana sat next to Briel as Dr. Ihas com­mu­ni­cated with spe­cial­ists on Kalquor. Kels fre­quently in­ter­rupted them with ques­tions, cast­ing about for any op­tion of sav­ing mother and child.

  Pana had no words. He stared at his in­jured mate’s hand, which he held in his own. Look­ing at Briel’s face was im­pos­si­ble. Not be­cause of the hor­rific in­jury that had crushed part of her head, but be­cause he couldn’t stand how her fea­tures, once avid with an­i­ma­tion, had be­come still. Blank. Al­most un­fa­mil­iar.

  Med­i­cal was half-full of in­jured crew­man. Their voices rose and fell, a back­ground hum that Pana stopped notic­ing af­ter a few min­utes. He was barely aware of the three medics who con­tin­ued to at­tend Briel. They checked the medi-bed’s read­outs, the ma­chines that kept her body func­tion­ing, those that kept track of the un­born’s vi­tals. They worked around Pana, who sat like a rock that had some­how been cast upon the edge of Briel’s bed.

  The Imdiko rubbed his thumb over the slim hand in his. Soft and warm, with fin­gers that ta­pered grace­fully. The hand of the woman who’d de­served an Imdiko who loved her.

  He’d tried to. With all his be­ing, he’d done his best to love Briel. He’d been sure it would hap­pen even­tu­ally. While Pana had waited for that mo­ment when a mere glance or the sound of her voice would set his heart alight, he’d put forth his ut­most ef­fort to be a good mate to her. She’d ac­cused him of smoth­er­ing her, and per­haps he had—but he’d over­whelmed her with care to com­pen­sate for the ado­ra­tion his heart hadn’t yet dis­cov­ered.

  Why couldn’t I love her? Briel was smart. Ex­u­ber­ant. Ad­ven­tur­ous. Ea­ger to dis­cover plea­sures, car­nal and oth­er­wise. Was some­thing amiss within him­self? He should have been able to find that elu­sive spark, yet it hadn’t hap­pened.

  Maryam, an alien stranger, had elicited more fas­ci­na­tion in a few sec­onds than Briel had af­ter two years of courtship and clan­ship. He’d wished Briel was more like the Earther. The rec­ol­lec­tion filled him with guilt, though he al­ready drowned in it.

  “I’m so sorry, my Matara. I thought I had plenty of time to love you. You de­served so much bet­ter than what I gave,” he whis­pered.

  An­other wave of sad­ness filled him. Pana bowed his head and wept for what had never been. His sobs in­ter­rupted the hum of con­ver­sa­tion in the room.

  Some­one gripped his shoul­der. With­out look­ing, Pana knew it was Kels. He didn’t need to glance at his Dramok’s ex­pres­sion, sure it would mir­ror the dev­as­ta­tion he felt. Like him, Kels was no doubt over­come by the guilt of hav­ing failed their lifebringer.

  * * * *

  Der­gan ush­ered Maryam to Med­i­cal, nav­i­gat­ing fa­mil­iar cor­ri­dors though it was his first trip on that par­tic­u­lar de­stroyer. All ships of that class were the same, down to the beige floor­ing, com­put­ers set in the walls, and light-emit­ting ceil­ing pan­els. The crewmem­bers seemed fa­mil­iar too, with their black ar­mored form­suits and their busi­nesslike man­ner as they hur­ried here and there to per­form their du­ties.

  Der­gan’s thoughts were far from past as­sign­ments on de­stroy­ers. They cen­tered on the woman at his side, the lovely Earther he’d dev­as­tated his clan for.

  It wasn’t her fault, he re­minded him­self. The em­pire had is­sued the or­der to take her, and he’d fouled up the as­sign­ment to do so. Der­gan wasn’t sure if his ex­e­cu­tion of the mis­sion or the fact he’d taken it on had led to the tragedy. In any case, he was at fault.

  Even as he cas­ti­gated him­self for all that had hap­pened, Der­gan ac­knowl­edged how im­pressed he was with Maryam. Odak might have been fooled by her steady voice and as­sured man­ner as she’d recorded the mes­sage to Cap­tain Miller, but Der­gan had caught how her gaze shifted and the way she’d tapped her fin­gers against her legs. Maryam be­lieved her plea to be al­lowed to re­turn to her own kind would fall on deaf ears.

  She’d poured earnest ef­fort into it any­how. Aware of Earth’s dim view of women in ques­tion­able sit­u­a­tions, Der­gan gave her credit for try­ing.

  Her re­quest to re­turn to Briel af­ter­ward had im­pressed him greater still. De­spite the de­struc­tion his clan had brought upon them­selves, she con­tin­ued to care about the friend she’d made.

  Maryam would pay a heavy price, though she was in­no­cent of wrong­do­ing. If they didn’t kill her by at­tack­ing the de­stroyer, Earth would im­prison her for crimes she didn’t com­mit.

  I brought her to this.

  Der­gan’s strength wa­vered, on the brink of fail­ing. He grasped Maryam’s shoul­der. She jerked, gaz­ing up at him with blue-sky eyes.

  “As much as you hate me, it’s noth­ing com­pared to how much I hate my­self,” he rasped.

  Maryam’s star­tled ex­pres­sion deep­ened to greater shock. She halted to face him. “It’s hard to get a han­dle on how I feel. I’m an­gry, yes. Heart­bro­ken. Scared.”

  “Earth won’t take you back, will they?” He knew the an­swer but couldn’t keep from ask­ing to hear the aw­ful truth.

  “If they do, it’ll be to ex­e­cute me.”

  Der­gan’s heart stut­tered. Kels had heard ru­mors that such judg­ments had been handed down, but they hadn’t been able to be­lieve it. When Odak had passed along the mes­sage from Miller, that Maryam was to die with her ab­duc­tors, Der­gan hadn’t been able to credit such a heinous stance.

  A death sen­tence for be­ing ab­ducted, just be­cause sex­ual in­ter­course might have oc­curred? Even if against a woman’s will?

  “What the hell is wrong with your gov­ern­ment?”

  “Good ques­tion. When you find the an­swer, let me know.” Maryam twitched a hu­mor­less smile.

  His trans­gres­sion was worse than he’d be­lieved. Der­gan mo­tioned help­lessly, un­able to grasp how it had all gone wrong. “I can’t apol­o­gize, be­cause it won’t be enough. I can’t pos­si­bly atone for what I’ve done.”

  “I ap­pre­ci­ate you re­al­iz­ing that.” Her de­meanor had soft­ened. She looked at him with some­thing re­sem­bling com­pas­sion and seemed ready to say more.

  In­stead, she twisted around and re­sumed her course down the cor­ri­dor, hur­ry­ing to reach Briel. Lost in a fog of de­spair, Der­gan fol­lowed her.

  * * * *

  Choos­ing the side of the bed op­po­site Pana, Maryam sat next to Briel. Com­put­er­ized pan­els lay over the sense­less woman’s torso, blink­ing se­cret codes Maryam couldn’t be­gin to guess the mean­ings of. Yet they were eas­ier to stare at than the hor­rific in­jury Briel had suf­fered.

  It was dif­fi­cult to look at her suf­fer­ing clan too. Der­gan was the most stoic of the trio, prob­a­bly be­cause he had to wear the per­sona of the tough war­rior. Yet hurt dulled his pur­ple eyes and made his mus­cled shoul­ders droop.

  Kels stared into the dis­tance. His strong fea­tures weren’t formed for the lost-lit­tle-boy ex­pres­sion he wore. It sat oddly on his face, some­how mak­ing him more com­pelling than Maryam should have found him.

  Tears leaked down Pana’s cheeks as he held Briel’s hand. The Imdiko ap­peared ab­so­lutely de­stroyed. The oc­ca­sional sob tore loose, an ag­o­nized groan that filled the quiet med­i­cal de­part­ment.

  They were a clan in pain. Los­ing Briel was hor­rific, but with the baby doomed too, the mourn­ing was over­whelm­ing.

  It re­minded Maryam of her own losses. There had been a short sup­ply of hope dur­ing the dark time she’d tried and failed to have chil­dren. With so few women on Kalquor, Briel had rep­re­sented Clan Kels’s one op­por­tu­nity to re­al­ize their own de­sire for off­spring.

  Would it help them to hear of how ea­ger she’d been for the baby? Had Briel been as re­miss in telling her clan of how she an­tic­i­pated trav­el­ing with thei
r son as she’d been with Maryam?

  “She said the trip to Pelk Sta­tion was to be the last be­fore she gave birth. Briel was ready to put it all on hold for her son. She was ex­cited to dis­cover ev­ery­thing along­side him in­stead. She couldn’t think of any­thing more won­der­ful than that fu­ture.”

  Their star­tled gazes told Maryam they’d in­deed had no idea of their clan­mate’s feel­ings on the mat­ter. Pana, in par­tic­u­lar, gazed at her with less de­spair. “Re­ally?”

  “She told me. I could see how she looked for­ward to shar­ing the ad­ven­ture with her child.”

  He swal­lowed hard. More tears shim­mered in his eyes, but he man­aged a hint of a smile. “I’m glad she felt that way.”

  “We would have done all in our power to make it hap­pen. I wanted her to have the life she de­served—though I ad­mit to some con­cerns about whether she’d have been ca­pa­ble of the re­spon­si­bil­ity.” Kels gri­maced, no doubt hat­ing to crit­i­cize his Matara.

  “You would have been pleas­antly sur­prised. I be­lieve that with all my heart.”

  Kels con­sid­ered Maryam for a mo­ment be­fore nod­ding. Emo­tion warmed his vis­age as he glanced at Briel. “Thank you for telling us. It means a lot.”

  Hurt and care for his wounded mate warred freely for supremacy. Maryam watched him with dawn­ing re­al­iza­tion: kid­nap­ping aside, Kels was a good man. Though per­haps overly strict with Briel, he’d have done right by her in the end. It was there in how he gazed at her, naked for the uni­verse to see. He’d have gone to the ends of the gal­axy to make her happy.

  A man of morals, de­voted to honor, he must surely re­gret ab­duct­ing Maryam. It had led to the tragedy they now grap­pled with. Kels was ripe for re­demp­tion.

  “Dramok Kels, Cap­tain Miller of the Cho­sen won’t ac­cept sur­ren­der. This ship is in no shape to fight it off, and help won’t ar­rive be­fore we’re un­der at­tack again. We’re in a no-win sit­u­a­tion.”

  “I served on a de­stroyer. I’ve had my share of those cir­cum­stances.”

  “It only takes one to go badly,” Der­gan said in dark tones. “They’ll ex­e­cute Matara Maryam whether we sur­ren­der or they de­feat us.”

  Maryam blinked at him in sur­prise. He was on her side? The re­gret he’d ex­pressed in the hall hadn’t seemed like an act; now she was cer­tain of it.

  “I see one path out of this.” Maryam spoke with con­fi­dence she didn’t feel de­spite Der­gan’s con­tri­tion. What she would pro­pose had lit­tle prob­a­bil­ity of suc­cess, but it was her only op­tion.

  “I’m lis­ten­ing.” Kels watched her care­fully, his de­meanor sus­pi­cious.

  “Let me go. I’m sure Cap­tain Odak would give me a shut­tle on the off-chance the Earth ship would break off pur­suit. His crew would sur­vive, and you might reach help and save your child.”

  “You’d have us leave you to your fate? Or do you be­lieve you can talk sense to this Cap­tain Miller?”

  Re­call­ing how his se­cu­rity team had ran­sacked her quar­ters, Maryam held no il­lu­sions on that mat­ter. “I love shut­tle races. I’ve con­sid­ered com­pet­ing on the am­a­teur cir­cuit. On Pelk Sta­tion, I took ad­van­tage of the race pi­lot cour­ses that were of­fered. I’m pretty good, if I say so my­self. I might be able to elude the Cho­sen, es­pe­cially if Cap­tain Odak con­sents to a few mod­i­fi­ca­tions to the shut­tle he gives me.”

  Der­gan alone ap­peared im­pressed with her cre­den­tials. Sur­prised ap­proval twisted the cor­ner of his mouth up.

  “Where would you go?” Pana asked, his tone fear­ful. On her be­half?

  “Dan­tovon? Al­neu­sia? Ga­lac­tic Coun­cil space is open to ex­pa­tri­ate Earth­ers, and they don’t ex­tra­dite with­out just cause.”

  Kels’s vis­age seemed etched of stone. “On Kalquor, clanned to the coun­cil­man, you won’t have to worry about Earth ei­ther.”

  She couldn’t stop her­self from snap­ping at him. “I’m not en­ter­ing into slav­ery for any mo­tive. Let me go. It’s the only real chance any of us have of com­ing out alive.”

  Kels’s jaw set in stub­born lines. His brows drew tight over the bridge of his nose. “I refuse to al­low Briel’s life to be over for no rea­son. I’ve sac­ri­ficed her and pos­si­bly my child, and I won’t have it be for noth­ing. You are go­ing to Kalquor if I have to fight the whole damned uni­verse to take you there.”

  With that irate shout, he wheeled away and stormed out of Med­i­cal. Der­gan shot Maryam a pained glance be­fore he fol­lowed Kels’s exit.

  She’d tried not to pin too much hope on Kels re­nounc­ing his ac­tions, but the dis­ap­point­ment was nev­er­the­less dev­as­tat­ing. Maryam burst into tears.

  She hated her­self for the weak­ness, but she couldn’t keep from cry­ing. On top of be­ing taken against her will to be the sex­ual ser­vant to three men, on top of be­ing pur­sued by those de­ter­mined to ex­e­cute her for be­ing a vic­tim, in the wake of Briel’s mor­tal in­jury, her strength failed. Kels’s an­gry re­fusal to let her free opened the flood­gates.

  Strong arms en­folded her, and Maryam gasped. She glanced at Pana’s dis­tressed face.

  “Give him time,” the Imdiko whis­pered. “You’re right, Kels should let you go. That he won’t do so yet doesn’t mean he’s a mon­ster. It’s just—our peo­ple are des­per­ate, and with what’s hap­pened—he’s feel­ing cor­nered.”

  Though a part of her noted how won­der­ful it felt to be held, Maryam em­braced anger in­stead. She pushed Pana away. “He’s feel­ing cor­nered? How do you think I feel? My choices are to live on the run, be­come a sex slave, or be ex­e­cuted by my own peo­ple.”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t know what I can do to help you.” Pana raked his fin­gers through his sleek hair.

  “How about the de­cent thing? Talk to your clan­mates. Make them see rea­son.”

  “We’ll be ex­tinct within three cen­turies. What would you have me tell them? How can I talk them out of try­ing to save our species?”

  As lit­tle as Maryam wanted to ac­knowl­edge their side of the equa­tion, she was struck yet again by the Kalquo­ri­ans’ predica­ment.

  No. This was her life. Their prob­lems weren’t hers, and they had no jus­ti­fi­ca­tion to do this to her.

  “Your un­for­tu­nate fate doesn’t change that tak­ing me against my choice is wrong. Spare me the worth­less ex­pla­na­tions.”

  Maryam turned her back on him, the best way she knew how to end the con­ver­sa­tion. She could have said a lot more, but Pana was the least guilty of the bunch. Be­sides, he’d lost Briel. She couldn’t be heart­less when he so ob­vi­ously hurt.

  She pre­tended not to no­tice Pana’s mis­er­able ex­pres­sion. When that failed, she pre­tended it didn’t bother her.

  * * * *

  Kels was un­aware Der­gan fol­lowed on his heels un­til his Nobek spoke up. “Where are you go­ing?”

  Kels fol­lowed his star­tled jerk with a scowl. “To talk to the cap­tain. I want to know he’s do­ing ev­ery­thing pos­si­ble to get us to Kalquor.”

  “I have no doubt he is.” Der­gan put a re­strain­ing hand on Kels’s shoul­der. “My Dramok, we’ve placed Matara Maryam in an un­speak­able sit­u­a­tion.”

  Kels wheeled about to face him. “All the more rea­son to suc­ceed with our mis­sion. How else am I sup­posed to make this right for her? For us? Our child?”

  “I doubt we can. She doesn’t de­serve to be clanned against her will.”

  Kels’s heart lurched. Bile rose in his throat, but his anger wasn’t for his clan­mate. Nev­er­the­less, his tone was harsh. “Ex­e­cu­tion by her own peo­ple is prefer­able to her join­ing Se­bist’s clan?”

  “None of this good. In­clud­ing send­ing her off as a refugee to Ga­lac­tic Coun­cil space…but of all the choices, it’s the most de­ce
nt op­tion we can of­fer af­ter rip­ping her from the life she had.” Der­gan’s sto­icism crum­bled, re­placed by fury. Kels saw that side of him so sel­dom, he al­most took a step back.

  How­ever, his Nobek’s ire was for the sit­u­a­tion and their shared loss, not a threat against Kels. The Dramok had to main­tain Der­gan’s fo­cus on the mis­sion and their duty. “You agreed, for the sake of Kalquor—”

  “I was wrong. We were wrong.”

  Kels couldn’t ac­cept that. If he did, then he’d have to ad­mit his guilt for more than merely mak­ing a bad de­ci­sion. Ev­ery­thing in him screamed against it.

  “I didn’t sen­tence Briel and our child to death to not ful­fill my re­spon­si­bil­ity to Kalquor.”

  “My Dramok—”

  What­ever his glow­er­ing clan­mate was about to say was in­ter­rupted by the ap­proach of Cap­tain Odak. “Ah, Dramok Kels. I was com­ing to see you.”

  The de­stroyer’s com­man­der looked grim. Now what? Kels kept the build­ing des­per­a­tion out of his voice. “News?”

  Odak glanced at the var­i­ous crew­man hur­ry­ing past them in the cor­ri­dor. He jerked his head to­ward a nearby com­puter al­cove. The trio stepped into the space meant for no more than two, putting Kels nearly nose-to-nose with the cap­tain.

  Odak spoke qui­etly. “I’ve spent the past hour try­ing to get the Earther ship to re­spond to Matara Maryam’s mes­sage. We trans­mit­ted it re­peat­edly un­til we re­ceived an an­swer.”

  “And?”

  “If we re­turn her to them, they’ll ex­am­ine her. If she shows no ev­i­dence of hav­ing been sex­u­ally in­ti­mate with a man, no ag­gres­sion will be car­ried out against her or us.”

  Plas­tered against Kels’s back, Der­gan’s whis­per was loud in the Dramok’s ear. “No ev­i­dence of sex­ual in­ti­macy? She was mar­ried in the past. Preg­nant on mul­ti­ple oc­ca­sions.”