Her argument did not impress Jaca. “Radcliff is no good,” he snapped. “I’d back you in a physical fight any day, but that man won’t use his fists against you. Sheer, galling charm is his favored weapon, and he uses it only too well. You keep that hood in place. And remember, he and his kind are responsible for the deaths of many of our people, your brother included.”
“That had better not mean what it sounds like. You forget, I was there when they brought in Bendin’s body.”
“All I know is, Radcliff’s dangerous. You’ve got your com patch safely hidden?”
She nodded silently, her anger gone as quickly as it had come. She could hear the fear for her in Jaca’s voice. She huddled closer to him, seeking comfort. He relented at that and his arm came round her and pulled her in for a short, hard hug.
“Look after yourself, little Mimi,” he said, softly squeezing her hand as he rose to leave. The gong sounded just then for the beginning of the night rest period. Agnethe had told her of it. The natives had to be inside the large dormitories before they were locked for the night. All about her, others bustled past, hurrying round her silent, withdrawn figure.
“Riarda, girl, move,” Agnethe called as she passed. “You’ll miss out on a bed if you don’t hurry. There are never enough.”
As it turned out, the warning proved true and Marthe spent the night huddled on a cold floor, prey to a thousand thoughts.
CHAPTER TWO
Hamon Radcliff scowled at the man coming down the corridor towards him. Colonel Johne! As if this night weren’t bad enough already. There was no way to avoid a meeting, and right now he couldn’t afford to alienate his commanding officer more than necessary. Why must the man be down here now? This late in the evening, it should be safe to leave the gym unseen.
“Evening, Major,” said the commander, coming up to him and running a knowing eye over his junior officer.
“Colonel.” He gave the required salute then moved off. Not quickly enough to miss the smirk on the older man’s face. He knew its cause. The normal fitness regime compulsory for all members of the Terran forces occupying Hathe did not leave a man dripping with sweat and gaunt from exhaustion. Radcliff might resent the Colonel, but he didn’t underestimate his intelligence. A long-term career soldier, Johne would know exactly why his head of Special Services sought escape in exercising to the point of near collapse.
There were only two things either of them had ever agreed upon: Hamon’s forced conscription from his rule-free and independent civilian life to this posting on Hathe was a thoroughly undesirable change to the life of both men; and neither of them could do a thing about it. Radcliff was too well connected back home for Johne to touch, and Hamon was barred by an inconvenient sense of duty from organizing a release from his commission. What he did here was vital to the survival of Earth. The urgonium mined only on Hathe was their principal energy source, and Earth needed more of it very badly. Nor was there anyone else with his particular mix of skills and experience who could take his place. That was not a boast—rather, a cold-blooded assessment of fact that he wished with every particle of his being was not true.
But brooding could not distract him from the scream of abused muscles as he entered his quarters. He was so tired he must surely be able to sleep tonight. The briefest cycle of the cleanser was all could he manage, before throwing himself gratefully onto his sleeper … only to spend yet another restless night, tossing fruitlessly, prey to a thousand thoughts.
Now another day had begun. A beam of sunlight splashed through the long windows of the apartment, shimmering off the water droplets still clinging to the plants on the small balcony then falling in lazy patterns on the large, cream cube chairs dominating the inner room.
Hamon stared morosely out at the beautiful room, seeking some kind of ease in the familiar spaces. He had made of these rooms a refuge, the one place in this military fortress he must now inhabit that felt like home. With the dividing wall drawn back, he could look out from his secluded seat in the bedroom to the main room beyond, and past that to the freedom of the sky. It was why he had chosen these rooms for his own
Despite the air of comfort, there was a sparse feel to the apartment, the sole relief he had allowed from the dominant cream and ivory coming from the profusion of plants. Even these spoke of the sculptural in their placing and form. It was home to the outdoorsman he was at heart but must deny here, minimizing the constraints of walls, floor and ceiling to the barest noticeable. In the bedroom, the only furniture was the chair he sat in and a sleeper of subtly shifting translucence. The room held only one embellishment—a painting. It hung above the sleeper and showed a house of flowing lines and soft colors. A spire climbed to the sky while at the base a tide of tropical plants clung to the walls, doors and balconies. A beautiful home, but Hamon could not pretend it belonged here. Despite the presence of Hathian plants, his apartment was undoubtedly Terran. The house in the painting was not.
This morning, as always, it drew his eyes. He stood, paced a couple of times around the room then once again slumped into the chair, to stare at the painting on the far wall. The building’s clean lines only fed the fires within as memories crowded him mercilessly. He thumped down on the corner of his chair and leaped up to resume his pacing.
All the while, his gaze remained glued to the house as yet again he was thrust back in time to when he’d first seen it. Before Earth had invaded Hathe.
It had been a home then, filled with a constant procession of smiling faces. The visitors had included the most senior members of the planetary administration, coming to call on the good Dr Sylvan an Castre, a member of the Hathian Council and a scientist known throughout the Alliance for his work on interplanetary communication systems.
Others had come too. Younger faces, their voices calling merrily through the beams and spires. The doctor had a son, well liked by all, he remembered sourly, and two daughters, each unique in her own way. Both women had followed their father into the world of science: the elder in his own sphere while the younger was said to be destined for an illustrious career in the world of medicine. They were also very beautiful. His mouth twisted to a skewed smile. Many of the young men who came to visit their lively brother, twin to the second of the sisters, had stayed to chat with the lovely young women of the an Castre family.
He could see them still. Images bright with the sharpness of carved crystal. The elder sister had been blessed with the sea grey eyes of an ocean in repose—slow to anger and with a rock-deep sense of enduring strength.
Then there was the younger.
Ah, yes, the younger of the asn Castre daughters. A mountain brook was how he always saw her. Small and slender, with brown eyes alive with the ever-changing currents of a stream breaking on rocks or slipping into silent mystery under root shrouded banks—a small enigma in a family of tall guardians.
He grimaced. He, too, had wanted to meet the sisters. Particularly the younger.
Very badly.
His hands clenched as memory played back. His wants had counted for nothing in that long lost world. The brother made sure of that. The young man had already crossed paths with Hamon, and not to Bendin asn Castre’s advantage. A small smile of satisfaction creased Hamon’s mouth, but only for an instant. Too soon afterwards, he remembered, the Hathian had repaid Hamon fully and in kind.
Marthe asn Castre was like no woman Hamon had ever seen, before or since, and he had dared to seek an introduction. Someone had warned Hamon beforehand of the close bond between the asn Castre twins, but he’d thought nothing of it until he came face to face with the full fury of an enraged brother. What followed had not been pleasant or civilized, he recalled, and had ended in his summary ejection from the an Castre home. Terran scum was not worthy of a Hathian lady, Hamon had been informed as the doors of the house slammed in his face.
Looking back on his deeds of the past few years, Hamon was forced to concede that the arrogant Hathian may just have been right.
What had
become of them all? Was she still asn Castre? Or married and become an Castre? A sudden clench of denial at the thought of her with another, and he glared at the picture. The beautiful home, once so full of life, had been ugly with the decay of desertion when next he saw it, immediately after the conquest. It was protected from the attentions of his troops by the same deadly radiation that cloaked all the buildings of the people who had once ruled this planet: the Leigers, as the natives named them or the Haut Liege as they had termed themselves—the ruling class that had now so inexplicably disappeared, taking with them the secret of extracting the precious urgonium.
Earth could mine it, but only in quantities laughably short of what they needed. Urgonium, the rarest and most valuable mineral in the universe. The most efficient source of energy known in all the Alliance and found only on Hathe. Earth needed it, couldn’t survive without it, and Hathe refused to give them more. So they came to take it … and look what they found.
All that remained now of this world’s once vibrant society were empty shells and dull wretches—the peasants of Hathe, claiming to be only too glad to see the back of the Leigers who had treated them little better than serfs. Life under the Terrans was lenient in comparison. Or so the natives claimed.
Hamon shook his head and thumped the chair again. It wasn’t true. Over and over, the refrain jangled in his head. He may have visited here only once before the conquest, but he would have sworn it was not a society built on cruelty. Yes, he’d seen servants in the mansions of the ruling group. Proud and free people they had been, efficient organizers of the household routine, not frightened drudges like the native maid he now saw scuttle in through his service door. Something was terribly wrong. All of a sudden, he felt as if he and his complacent fellow Terrans were sitting on a time bomb set to explode right in their faces.
He rose and stalked through to the lounge. Ignoring the heavily shrouded maid, he stared broodingly at his vidscreen. At the moment, it was set to the view of the native courtyard, crowded at this time of day with scurrying Hathians
Those damn peasants. Ignorant, foul smelling, subservient. But try to get some answers from them, and you could almost see the mask falling beneath the hood of that all concealing outer wrap of theirs. The blasted thing was more effective than any wall in creating an impenetrable barrier to these people.
And underneath… He remembered some of the women he’d used to assuage the awful loneliness and isolation of this place. Some may not have been too bad, he thought, if he were less fastidious. Cleanliness was not a priority of the Hathian peasant. And the hair of the women! Custom dictated greasy, tightly woven coils, fortunately usually further hidden by a ragged cap though this added nothing to the wearer’s desirability. Thinking of those encounters, he grimaced in self-disgust. What was this world, this job making of him? A thing he could only despise? And whether he could live with himself afterwards was something he refused to consider.
His mouth twisted. At least he would live, unlike the millions of Terrans back on Earth if he failed in his duty.
And the women he used to help him survive here—used being the only word that fit what he did with them? For all his contrived charms, he had never learned anything from them, however many tears they had wept as he rid himself of one more failure in a long line of unproductive encumbrances. They swore of love and passion, but all refused to drop the mask drawn over life before the Terrans. All he had ever won for his troubles were trite and tired clichés. Those Leigers, they sneered.
Stars! Maybe they really were the unfeeling clods his fellow Terrans believed them to be and he should give up this stupid quest for truth. What did he care? But he did, and knew he could not avoid it. If he was right and failed to prove it in time, all of Earth would pay in lost lives and misery.
So he returned to it again. The dilemma that was driving him in ever maddening circles. He must try to find out what lay behind the hoods and the veiled eyes of Hathe. Starting with the subject in front of him—probably to as little use as usual, he admitted heavily, and he eyed the maidservant dubiously.
She was new. Despite the concealing robes, he knew she was not the same maid that usually came. The frequency of changes to his cleaning staff was one of the things that made him most suspicious. He stalked back into the room, a menacing assumption of ease in his gait.
Settling himself into one of the large chairs, one leg draped over the side, he gazed in apparent disinterest at the girl. He waited in silence, like a spectator at a play, noting each small twitch or jerk of his victim. He kept up the unmoving scrutiny for half an hour, deliberately creating an air of edgy expectancy in the room. The girl had become a challenge for him, a do or die last attempt. This time, he would split asunder that damned native dullness, he vowed, watching her as she meticulously cleaned each small speck from the spotless floor.
He noticed she avoided his one Earth plant. Its presence on Hathe contravened every biosecurity law in known space, but he had brought it regardless. He needed it. A piece of home to remind him why he was here. And he found the reaction of the Hathians to it very instructive. This girl appeared to be unaffected by it, ignoring it and carrying on regardless, but yet no part of her ever touched its shining green leaves.
“There’s more dust over there, girl. Behind the far seat.”
His sudden words after the tense silence reverberated throughout the room, as he had intended. He’d startled her but then saw her deliberately steady herself. Steady, then walk across to clean the pristine area. He increased the tension.
“While you’re there, the plant leaves should be polished every day,” he drawled in the most officious tone he could summon.
This time, the woman did show an infinitesimal stiffening, but still she bent to the assigned task. She left the Terran plant till last, hesitating fractionally as she approached it. As if she must force herself to obey him. Not as calm as she tried to appear, then, he guessed, and he allowed a nasty smile to spread over his face. This might be interesting.
He’d read his victim better than he could have guessed. So that is the way it is to be, thought Marthe angrily. Two can play that game, Terran.
She had been discreetly studying her target since he’d marched so cavalierly into the room. Why he chose to watch her working, she couldn’t imagine, but she again checked the escape routes she’d identified on her first visit with Agnethe. Jaca may think she could best the Terran if it came to a struggle, but now she’d seen him, she wasn’t so sure. The man was tall and lean, with a breadth of shoulder suggesting strength, and the easy balance in his gait was that of a trained fighter. It was possible she could take him, but only by using the kind of deadly tricks not usually known by a cowed and beaten Hathian maidservant. Her cover would be blown as soon as she tried any of them. No, the only hope she had lay in Jaca’s words of warning. Charm was this man’s weapon of choice. His guile against hers. So be it, Terran. She bent to rearrange the objects on a side table as per his latest, meaningless command, turning her head slightly as she did so in order to observe his face.
He scowled at her, eyes closely tracking her movements, and she was suddenly grateful for the concealing hood of her outer robe that hid her face from his scrutiny. In the feared Terran uniform and with his dark hair, deep earth-green eyes and sun-darkened skin, there was an air of real menace about the man. The downward twist of his mouth only added to it.
Yet a smile would have softened that hard face.
Her hand jerked, touching a small, translucent globe, a perfect circle of light caught in stone. It nearly toppled, saved only by a quick recovery of her hand that made the movement look deliberate, and she turned carefully to wait his next order, head bowed in submission and innards churning. Where had that thought come from?
He snapped the next command and she obeyed thankfully. She had herself in hand again but was ever more wary with each ridiculous command. Wary and rather angry at this game the Terran chose to inflict on her. She fought back in the only w
ay possible, and each increasingly humiliating order was obeyed with an unchanging blandness of demeanor. I will outlast you, Terran.
Hamon watched her in stony calm, his bored voice pronouncing his demands. Inwardly, he was fuming. This one was either particularly thick-skinned or far cleverer than any native he had yet come across. He stood, and quietly walked to a spot just behind her. She was carefully wiping an imaginary speck from the wall. His hand rose to twitch away the enshrouding headgear. Too late. Like a startled deer, she had sensed his movement and whirled out of reach, ducking her head. Her hands clutched at her wrists, fingers tapping a nervous staccato on her pulse.
“You require something, sir?”
“Yes, blast you. I require that you take off that stupid hood,” he snapped, angered at being caught out. “Come here and see how generous a Terran can be to a friendly young woman.” He softened his voice, let it deepen seductively, but at the same time his hand reached out to grab her arm as she sidled away. He held her still, not hard enough to hurt, but firmly enough to let her know she was going nowhere. “Stand still. You’ve had your little game. Now we play by my rules.”
She kept her face turned away as he drew back the hood from her head. Then paused. Something was not right. Here was the common cloth cap, dull grey this time and jammed down right over her ears. It was dirty enough, but his fingers felt drawn to touch all the same. She flinched back, but his hands were strong. He caught both her wrists in one hand, holding her tightly as the fingers of his other hand confirmed what his eyes suspected. He gripped the cap and tugged it back from her hair.
He stopped, shocked into stillness. What exactly he had suspected, he knew not. It wasn’t this. Here was no greasy, odorous mess. His hand resumed its motion with a mesmerizing slowness, releasing a cascade of rich, nugget brown waves, shining with the lights of sun and earth. As the cap slid farther back, he reached out in wonder. A wordless gasp escaped him as his hand lightly caressed the tantalizing strands. Gently, oh so gently, he reached to tilt her chin round, eager to see the face beneath this unique halo.
Resistance: Hathe Book One Page 3