by Jim Rudnick
Now simple heat testing was the final set of tests. The temperature of a star ran from about five thousand kelvins up to about twenty thousand kelvins at the top end. The man was still standing after tests at six thousand kelvins, twelve thousand kelvins, and twenty thousand kelvins, fired at him by the energy pulse cannon built into the testing chamber. Now, for the final test of twenty-five thousand kelvins, and if the man still stood—alive—then the power belt was truly an invulnerable shield to anything that man, alien, or any creature could throw at it.
The scientist dialed up the final test on the console of the unit in front of him and smiled. Wearing such a belt would eliminate every single method that would harm the wearer. Wearing such a belt would make the wearer a true super-being.
Of course, it also, he knew, cut the wearer off from all contact with others around him or her. While you were safe, you were isolated, and that would mean that, for some at least, it was a singularly solitary existence.
He looked at the man inside the chamber via the camera, flashed the lights inside the required three times, counted to three, and then hit the big red button to have the energy pulse cannon shoot the full twenty-five-thousand-kelvin blast at the man.
As usual, the chamber AI closed all contact between the inside of the chamber and the scientist who stood outside watching. Still, there was a feel, he thought, to that much power being expended within feet of where he stood, and it may have been just an unconscious thought, but he flinched.
As his eyes opened, he waited until the camera was re-inserted back into the chamber, turned on, focused, and yes … there stood the man.
Alive.
Alone.
But alive … and he smiled while for the AI, he said slowly and succinctly, “Final test RX-117, of twenty-five thousand kelvins, proved the belt continued to be up and running fine. No effects to the test subject. And at eighteen thousand kelvins, that’s the same temperature as, say, Rigel inwards but yet well known. With this test, we conclude the testing cycle and acknowledge that the power belt is truly invincible.
“Test closed. File closed. Send file over to Factor, the capital city on Leudie, directly to the attention of the Rulers themselves under the official, if unused, name, the Leudie Trading Rules Group.”
They’d been testing this imported product for more than a year now, and now that the actual testing on live subjects had been completed, there was only one thing left to do. Find more and export them to the RIM Confederacy.
He smiled as he tucked his stylo into the large pocket protector in his lab coat’s breast pocket. It was time to let the RIM know that anyone who could afford one would be a god here on the RIM. This would be a tremendous revenue generator for the Leudi Rulers.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
For a lieutenant in the Barony Navy, this trip up to the Hospital Ship was more, Bram thought, than he wanted to be made public. Bram needed to be careful since he was there in different capacities for different reasons.
He was there to find out if there was anything new to learn about Gia and her mental state. He was also interested to know what he could find out from the medical team handling her case; he was sure that reading their minds would reveal additional information.
Any information he uncovered would have to be shared with two people, even if he kept some things back. His Master Adept expected him to be her mole within the Barony Navy and report his findings about Gia to her. If Lord Scott found out about his visit, he would expect Bram to share information about Gia with him. Bram had a close friendship with Tanner, and all of the machinations were weighing heavily on his conscience.
“Add to that,” he said to himself, “is the fact that I am hopelessly attracted to this beautiful assassin too, and that makes the whole position more than a hardship—it makes it all so surreal.”
He felt like he should—he must—be here to speak to Doctor Etter to try to solve some of the issues he faced. Yet he also thought he should have stayed on Throth with Ahanu and just gone hunting. The Throth quolls were now fully grown, and the hunting trip carried the risk of serious injury or even death, but when he weighed that against what he faced on the Hospital Ship, it seemed like an easier and better choice.
“Fat chance,” he said to himself as he walked down the landing ramp off the shuttle and moved along with the flow of other passengers to the moving walkway ahead. He took advantage of the well-posted directional signs, and as the walkway delivered him in the main ship’s huge towering lobby, he stepped off.
Calling ahead had gotten him an appointment with Doctor Etter, Gia’s psychiatrist. Since he was almost an hour early, he walked over to a seating bench along the one wall and watched the crowd of people around him.
Medical folks, he saw, still wore white generally, as every lab coat and short jacket was white, but they also wore scrubs. All the medical people he saw wore scrubs with matching light pastel-colored tops and bottoms. Almost all wore some kind of rubber or synthetic-soled shoes that gave great purchase on the metal deck plates. Almost all had, from the few dozen he’d seen at least, short hair with no real wild colorations—though a couple of Tillion medical people still wore those wide-brimmed hats.
Over to his left was a juice bar had a line waiting to order, and he was noting those folks when his eyes froze. Gia was next in line to order.
He slightly turned in his seat to look at her a bit closer, and he tried to make sure nobody, especially Gia, could tell he was staring at her. Her hair was cut off at her jawline and was a collection of light brown and blonde locks. Her back was straight, but she had an ability to look like she was flexed and ready to jump at any second—maybe he imagined that, he thought.
She looked like she was an athlete as she took those few steps forward to order her juice. She looked balanced and lithe, supple yet nimble, somehow after just those couple of steps. He couldn’t hear what she ordered, but moments later, she walked away with a large dark-cerise-colored juice drink. She walked away from him, but then she dropped into another bench on the opposite side of his and sipped away at the drink, lost in thought it appeared to him.
He sat and hid his glances at her, but he watched nonetheless. She sucked away at the straw, and the juice must have been a thick drink as she continued to suck heartily at it. She was wearing scrubs too, he just noticed, in a pale sea green color, and her shoes were sneakers. She wore the arm bracelet that all patients wore, and while it was too far away for him to read anything on it, he saw the color was bright neon blue. One hand was twisting a strand of her hair while the other supported the juice drink. One leg was crossed over the other, and she bounced that foot up in the air over and over.
She looked, Bram thought, as if she had not a care in the world. And he reached out with his mind to see what he might find.
He jolted back slightly, as the turmoil of what he saw in her head was a surprise. She was upset and feeling so righteous that she was broadcasting that state of mind forcefully. Not via her body or any outward signs, but her brain was going a mile a minute as she asked herself question after question, and Bram could easily see same.
Why did Tanner kill Nora?
Why did Doctor Etter say no, that didn’t happen?
How could the Branton government get to the doctor to poison his mind so that he would say that?
Why had Mom been so sure—Doctor Etter said she was wrong, but why?
Who else might be here on the ship that she should be afraid of?
Where could she run to for safety?
Why did Doctor Etter think that he was right and my Mom was wrong?
The thoughts were all jumbled together with no real pause between any of them. She went over and over the same questions, and they never stopped as they ran through her brain.
Bram wondered for a moment if he should enter the conversation and insert an answer, or even two, to some of those questions, but then he remembered that Doctor Etter was one of the best.
While not a psychiatrist hims
elf, he knew that any patient who asked themselves some of those questions—and then obsessed about them afterward—was somehow questioning more than the individual parts.
Something was up with Gia and her way of thinking about Nora, her brother, and, yes, her mother too.
“Good thing,” he said to himself. He nodded and said, “good thing” once more, as he rose and walked right by Gia as he went for the closest escalator to go up to D-198 and Doctor Etter’s offices. Five minutes later, he was seated in front of the doctor and they were still smiling at each other.
“Good to see you once again, Lieutenant,” Doctor Etter said, and he smiled and leaned across his desk to pat Bram on the arm. “Last time was—well, you know what it was. A day that is supposed to be one of the most hallowed days for a bride and a groom, and that was... well, ruined, I guess one might say. But that was months ago, and even us medical types know that time does heal,” Doctor Etter said, his voice calm and yet still on point.
Bram nodded and answered with the same measured tones. “Doctor Etter—Sam, if I might—yes, I agree with you. Last time was, well, it was a horrific experience. But that’s behind us, yes,” he added. Bram leaned inward a bit himself to make his pitch to the doctor. “Sam, I’m here today not on official Barony Navy business, but just for myself. I made the trip up to see you and hoped that I could convince you that the information I seek is not for me. Nor for the Navy. But for Tanner …” he said, hoping his voice conveyed his sincerity.
Sam nodded and then tilted his head to one side. “Bram—what do you need?” he asked.
“I want to know as much as you can tell me about Gia Scott—so that when I’m with Tanner, I can answer him honestly. I see it this way, Sam. That you’re a doctor and have oaths and position and yadda, yadda—all of which makes your own personal opinion kept away from the rest of the world. That what you have to say, need to say, are expected to say, to the world about Gia—is maybe not so much what you think or you feel. All I want is to be able to help Tanner find a way through all of this, Sam … can you help me here?”
He knew what he asked was honest. He knew that when he was close to Lord Scott, he saw inside Tanner’s psyche, and Tanner was undecided as to what to think and do about Gia. He knew not knowing what to do was a growing concern for Tanner, and Bram tried to make the doctor see that too.
Doctor Etter now leaned back and then rose to go over to the wall of bookcases beside him. Books, small knickknacks, and some plain-looking tchotchkes were all that was on his shelves, yet his hand went right to a small wooden box on one of the upper shelves. He pulled it down, sat again at his desk, and opened the box. From the box, he pulled out a fine feminine chain with a locket on it. Gold, Bram thought, or something like gold, and as Doctor Etter opened the locket with a thumbnail, he turned it so Bram could see inside.
One side held an old-fashioned photo of a young girl with very blonde hair, and the other side held what looked to be a sister with honey brown hair. Both girls were young, and both were showing big smiles and happy faces.
He pointed at the blonde girl and said, “Gia … at, I’d think, about ten years old.” Then he pointed at the facing girl and said, “And this is Nora at about eleven or twelve years old.” He set the locket on the desk pad in front of him. “Gia gave this to me a few months back, for safekeeping she said. She wanted to face what she said were the lies about Nora and her brother and not ‘sully’ the only thing of Nora’s that she owned—this picture. She said that her mother was right—that Tanner had killed Nora—and no matter what changes we’d be trying to bring to that narrative, she didn’t want Nora to be a part of it,” he said.
Bram said nothing and waited for the doctor to go on.
“It’s a sign—at least to a psychiatrist—that there is something ‘afoot’ in her brain. That any talk that might occur would not affect a photo—but in fact, such talk would affect the memory. It’s a good sign—and I wanted you to see that. But a caution, Bram?” he said, and his voice got steely for a bit.
“This is private between you and I. I do truly love and respect Lord Scott—and yes, I know that you are his best friend in the whole RIM Confederacy too. So I have opened up to you about this—but I will or would deny ever confirming this to anyone else ever. Gia is about twenty-five percent along in her treatment—with no real timeline either. So while I thank you for the effort to help Tanner, there is really not much new—other than this telltale,” he said as he gestured to the open locket on his desk, “to offer. I will keep a close eye, of course, on all issues.” He nodded to Bram as he picked up the locket and closed it. He placed it gently within the wooden box and slowly closed the lid.
As he took the escalator down to the lobby, Bram wondered what Gia was doing right now, and he smiled at the few patients around him on the way.
Doctor Etter had given him something to hope about at least; Gia was thinking for herself. He walked over to the juice bar and got in line. He smiled at those around him, and eventually he was at the front of the line.
Smiling at the youngster behind the counter, he said, “I saw someone with a juice I’d like to try. I didn’t get the name of it, but it was a dark cerise in color and looked awfully thick. Would you be able to help me with that?” he asked.
The young girl behind the counter smiled back. “We only sell one of those a day to this girl—some kind of a wrestler maybe—anyways, it’s Kinross Koodo fruit with double fruit—makes it a bit more expensive, though …”
Bram nodded and placed an order for the Kinross Koodo fruit. In less than two minutes, he was walking away with the same drink he saw Gia with earlier.
He put the straw into his mouth and took a healthy pull, another, and then another. While it took a few more pulls on the straw, eventually he got some of the juice into his mouth.
Tart and acidy on the tongue. A cross between pure lemon juice and an anchovy he thought maybe, and he continued to pull on the straw to get more. He wasn’t even halfway finished with the juice by the time the shuttle touched down on the Neres Navy base landing pad back on the planet.
One heck of a drink, he thought as he walked across the tarmac toward the Atlas and returned to his quarters.
#####
On Neen, just before dinnertime, it was almost time for the daily recap of all the news from the RIM that usually played out with few eyes watching. Enormous screens were spread out across Neen City that were looked up at infrequently as the pedestrian traffic walked below, intent on their own lives instead of what might be news on Randi or Madrigal.
Today was different, and the crowds below had all paused to stare up at the latest news. On-screen was a vid of some type that was jumpy and shook a bit at times, as it had been an undercover vid taped. From the camera POV, a row of tanks—each holding an embryo—stretched out for what must be hundreds of yards ahead and faded in the distance. The tanks were all gray and had clear areas at the head of the tank. Each tank held small embryos, each floating in some kind of liquid. As the camera panned first to the left and then the right before turning in a full circle, it was apparent to the watchers below that this was a major medical facility. Just a few yards away, up one level from the camera, a technician in a white lab coat was making notes on his tablet, and he moved away one more tank. The lab technician was Tillion, which was easy to tell as he wore the wide-brimmed hat of that race. He made some more notes, clicked some screen buttons, and then moved on again. He held the tablet toward another new tank, and there must have been some kind of a sync as he nodded to himself, the brim of his white wide-brimmed hat flopping. He made more notes on the tablet before going to the next tank. From the camera’s POV, there were more than a dozen of these white-coated technicians, all monitoring their own rows and levels of tanks.
The vid suddenly went dark, and a huge electronic board filled the screen—obviously a summary of various numbers and levels of tanks. As the image solidified on the screen, the crowd below, transfixed by the screen, gasped
. Some pointed up at the numbers, and others cried out as the import of what was on-screen became apparent.
There were more than three thousand embryos in total, the sidebar read, of which thirty-nine percent were dead.
Each of those dead embryos was female.
Each, it noted, would be purged, and the tanks would be refilled at the end of the next shift cycle.
Females. Dead females only.
There was a sense within the crowd that, for some reason, Tillion did not want females, and this was their way of ensuring that only males were allowed to be born.
Everyone knew about the Tillion abhorrence of all things female. They wouldn’t attend meetings with females. They wouldn’t eat any kind of female food and would eat male foods only. They went out of their way to stay away from all things feminine—everyone on the RIM knew that.
And here was proof—playing in full color vid right in front of them—that Tillions killed their own females.
The crowd was upset and some chanted, “Down with the Narrisol. Down with the Narrisol …” as they watched the vid closing out. The shock that was seen on every face increased when the voice-over and credits at the end of the video played.
“An investigation and release of the Duchy d’Avigdor,” the voice-over said, the words being displayed on the screen for a full ten seconds.
More gasps echoed from the crowd of duchy citizens as they realized their government had been the creator of this video, and more angry citizens cried out about the deaths to females only.
All across Neen, from city to city and from town to town, the voices were loud and yet, at the same time, somewhat ashamed of what had been played out on screens across the planet. And played across screens all across the Duchy d’Avigdor as well.