Marthe took one look at the harsh green of his eyes and hastily agreed. A tense silence blanketed them for all of two corridors. Then they reached a stretch of passage free of monitors. He grabbed her arm, lurching her to an ungainly halt. Then exploded.
“I hope the new wedding plans are more pleasing to you,” he snarled, “but in future, talk to me directly, not through your lap dog.”
She breathed in deeply, not daring to reply while anger shone so brightly in those eyes. Green, brilliant green and cold as emeralds. Her gaze dropped lest he read too plainly her own eyes.
But that he wouldn’t tolerate. Wrenching her chin, he jerked her face upwards. “You did plan that farce together.” he said, his face suddenly bitter and weary in defeat.
Letting go her arm, he turned to leave. His back kept the defiance of its straight rigidity, but he couldn’t hide the faint slump of shoulders nor chase the grayness from the air. Even his hair, that great shock of wayward black, was as still as death, not a strand astray.
Desperately she clutched his arm, pulling at him to stop. “You’re wrong, you know. Wrong.”
“Am I?” The retreat continued.
“Yes. Don’t go like this.”
He wouldn’t answer her this time. Racing after him, she swung on his arm again, dragging him to a standstill. “Hamon Radcliff, you will listen to me,” she cried, driven by desperation. “I did not ask Jacquel to arrange a large wedding. I swear that on the spirit of my brother and mother.”
“Rather a momentous oath,” was all he said. Those eyes of his stared flatly at her, flawed and cloudy with betrayal.
“It’s the truth. I knew that he thought a large wedding more suitable but I didn’t ask for anything this public. I swear it.”
“And it never occurred to either of you that for the duration of this fairy tale extravaganza of yours, you will succeed in removing most of the staff of Earth’s central headquarters from their posts?”
“That’s ridiculous. What harm would it do anyway?”
“For one, your beloved peasants will be completely unguarded.”
“Then throw them a party as well. They’ll be too drunk to think of causing trouble. How do you think we managed the problem in the past? Threw them all in jail till we were finished?” she sneered back. Convincingly, she hoped, but hating the need to act. Did he even know that those few things she promised him were true, were real? She must lie about so much, but not when she gave her oath on it. It didn’t change what she must do now, and her stomach crawled with self disgust.
“So now the whole complex is crippled. Your military genius astounds me, madame.” There was no disembodied detachment now, his chin turning down in a stabbing thrust at her.
“You do still have soldiers, or had you planned to have them parading about the reception too? Stomp, stomp, stomp.”
“Stop it,” he suddenly cried out, driven to his limits. “This is our wedding we’re talking about. Just once, can’t you be honest. Or at least keep your lies away from our private life.” Jerking out of her hold, he turned to leave yet again, but she was there, barring his way in an instant.
“Not yet,” she said, goaded partly by guilt and partly by anger at his refusal to recognize where duty ended and Marthe began. “I had meant to spare you this, but you leave me no choice. Jaca’s main reasons for tonight are known to me, but they are not shameful, as he thought your actions to be.”
That stopped him, gave her the space she needed to continue.
“He was angry that a Terran should be so ignorant of the honor he gains by union with a Hathian lady that he failed to offer marriage. Then you do, but demand a hidden affair with the fewer Terrans who find out the better. Instead of which, Jacquel claims, all Earth should bow down and give thanks that a Hathian deigns to be joined with one from such a primitive, uneducated race. Yours! And I begin to think he may be right.”
“You arrogant witch!”
“You, of all people, know I have every right to be. You were here before the invasion, you tell me, and saw Hathe at its brightest. You heard its poets, saw its monuments, stayed at the hub of its politics. Can you truly compare your Terran cesspool with that?”
“Yes, I can.” he hissed. “I can compare an abundance of food with a chronic scarcity. A planet teeming with resources and practically empty of people, with one teeming with starving mouths. A few hundred years of minor challenges and stability to many thousands of years of tragedy, strife and effort. Your people act like brash youth faced with an elderly parent.” He flung his arms wide in frustration, then shoved them back against the wall again, trapping her. “And how do you treat us, how do you treat the first home of humanity? You desert us. You leave us to fight for our very survival while you thoughtlessly carry on, reaping all the benefits of our early care.”
“By the Pillars, not that great well of self pity again. The time honored Terran scapegoat: we gave you life, you must help now! As if we didn’t try. All the knowledge in the Alliance was going begging, if you had cared to look. The technology exists for Earth to manage its problems, but no, you had to do it on your own. The colonies weren’t going to tell you how to run your affairs. And now look: your medicine is twenty years behind, energy forty years and communications fifty, and your social structure relies on absolute tyranny.”
“You are too kind.”
“Do you know the final irony. We never realized. Not one single Alliance planet ever guessed. The only thing you were good at was keeping a secret, and the result? Your planet is dying, mine is dead, and I am to be married in a quiet ceremony, just like our old funerals.”
She had said too much, yet again; but it no longer mattered. Her voice as she finished was as flat as his had been earlier and she wouldn’t meet his eyes. So this was defeat. She could feel him watching her, but couldn’t pretend any longer.
“Very well,” he said, anger still in his voice. “The wedding shall be as grand as any of old Hathe.”
“The wedding won’t happen. How can it, after this?”
“It will,” he said firmly, “for without it, you win.” His hand caught her chin and steadily lifted her head to face him. Lines gouged the sides of his mouth and his eyes were as serious as she has seen them. “My child will know and respect its father, this I vow. Which means I can’t let you go. The wedding will proceed. What’s more, it will be celebrated with all the fanfare you could wish for. And afterwards, you’ll be bound to me for life, as I will be bound to you.
“It doesn’t bind you,” she said dully.
His head went up at that, but his eyes never left hers, snapping with a brilliant fire. “Your sheer incomprehension astounds me sometimes. Of course it binds me. You’re not getting a one-sided bargain.” One hand dragged through the thatch of his hair as he stepped back, pacing brusquely as his hand pulled through the heavy strands in frustration. Then the hand dropped and she saw acceptance and tired defeat in the grim lines of his mouth. When he spoke, it was in the formal language she knew too well as a politician’s daughter. The language of distance and enmity.
“It would be best if we leave this for now and retire for the evening,” he said. “May I have your pledge that you will go straight to our quarters?” He paused painfully. “I find that I would prefer to be elsewhere this night.”
She could only nod, and walk away, conscious of a pair of eyes watching her all along that endless corridor. The corner released her. She took to her heels then, fleeing wordlessly to the sanctuary of his quarters, to their great big sleeper. And her tears.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
It was to be a long and sleepless night, not helped at all by the demons of jealousy that asked, even now, just where he was sleeping. Please let it be on his own, she prayed. Why did the Council have to extract this payment? Was it so wrong to marry the enemy that even her wedding must serve as yet one more diversion for the gathering of information? Surely there was sufficient data on the Citadel already? In the end, she was forced to admit t
hat, no, there was not. She finally drifted into sleep—light, unrewarding, and beset by grief-ridden images of an empty future.
In the morning, she was still left wanting. Hamon sent word that she should call a guard if she wished to go anywhere. He would be unable to leave his work until evening. Her face closed and blank, she asked only to be taken to Jacquel’s quarters at midday.
It was a long morning, picking up and then discarding one task after another, her mind unable to concentrate on any but the one problem. Or person, rather. Where was he? Did the cold anger and disgust of his farewell still hold him in thrall? Had he relented? Or had it hardened into something else altogether, something that would kill all they had?
Even now, a shred of something held her back: honor, loyalty, she couldn’t say. Whatever it was, it kept her from rushing to do as her instincts commanded: to lay all before him and once again be enfolded in his arms, all barriers down.
Then again, perhaps it was only that she knew, deep within, that to give way to treason would finally kill all they had. Without that strong and abiding love of the culture that gave him birth, his fierce drive to somehow save his world from the threatening holocaust, would she love him as deeply? She sensed not. Just as surely, she knew that it was the Marthe who loved and cared for her people enough to sacrifice her own happiness that he loved, not the beautiful but shallow Lieger she strove so hard to appear.
It was with a heavy heart that she followed the guard later that day to see Jaca. The years of deception had taught her well, though, enough to ensure that not a sign of her inner turmoil broke through the elegant mask of her face as she greeted his two guests.
“Jocelyn, Helen, how delightful to see you both. I see my step-cousin has not taken long to avail himself of both surroundings and companions more suited to his graces.” She gazed around at the familiar Hathian touches: subtle splashes of color, an exquisite statuette, softly glowing panels of a changing luminescence lightening the standard issue tint of the walls.
“Quite an improvement on my old quarters,” grinned Jacquel, watching her take it in. “Dearest Jocelyn prevailed upon the Commander and my sweet Helen managed to procure these few odds and ends.” Somehow, he managed to keep both women purring contentedly at him, she noticed as she took the seat opposite the trio. “But my dear,” he added, turning back to her, “you look a trifle miffed. Radcliff still out of sorts with you?”
“You rather forced him into a corner.”
“Did the man really think he could get away with depriving us of a party? What cruelty. Don’t you agree, my pets?”
“Oh, completely,” said Jocelyn, curling closer into his shoulder. “It sounds such fun, and it’s far too long since we had any of that around here.”
“Is the man ashamed to be marrying you?” demanded Jacquel.
“I think he was hoping it would be more intimate celebration,” she replied, half apologetically. “I must admit I’d prefer a lovely, big party. A real wedding, like we used to have. Nevertheless, his reasons are honorable; and he was worried about the peasants if they’re left unguarded. Terrans have so little experience in such matters.”
Helen suddenly sat up. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“It’s no problem,” said Jacquel, pulling her firmly back. “You throw a party for the whole town and they all get blind drunk. Works a treat every time.”
“And if you’re at all worried about trouble, you drug the food,” added Marthe. “You forget, we’ve had to deal with them longer than you. The only consistent emotion they feel is hatred of the Haut Liege. So we always put in place safeguards. You Terrans are too easy on them.”
“Enough of the peasants,” cried Jacquel with a dismissive wave. “Surely Radcliff isn’t still insisting on a small affair?”
“No, but he does claim that you and I engineered last night between us. To think all I wanted was a proper Hathian wedding, just like Maman and Father’s. Do you remember when Laren got married, Jaca? My sister,” she explained to the two women. “You should have seen her. She was so beautiful. Everyone came, almost five hundred at the ceremony and a thousand afterwards. There was dancing and music, poetry and games for three days after. It took us weeks to recover. And Hamon gets in a huff over a mere few hundred and one night of revelry!”
She sat down next to the Terran ladies, a picture of complete misery. Jaca’s dancing eyes applauded her performance. Fortunately, both Terran women were too busy comforting her to notice her fellow conspirator’s barely stifled laughter.
“You leave Radcliff to me,” said Helen firmly. “I’ll have a word with him.”
“Oh, would you?” She let her most brilliant smile bloom on her face.
“Don’t you worry any longer. I know just how you feel; men can be so heartless sometimes.”
In a remarkably short time Hamon was made to feel the result of Marthe’s interventions, accosted by both of her new Terran allies with stern speeches of reproach. They made worse an already pounding head, the price of a sleepless night of soul searching. He was cruel and uncompromising, the women told him. If he continued in this vein, he would soon be the laughing stock of the Terran forces. He listened carefully to all they had to say, the hammering in his head mercifully preventing him taking in more than a quarter of their tirade. Promising faithfully to make all well with his grievously wronged fiancée, he at last escaped to the sanctuary of a dark, dark room.
But that was no good. All he could do there was think. Think of the duplicity, and the sheer talent for manipulation he was pitted against. And comprehending at last the threat, could feel only admiration, more than any other emotion—more, even, than he feared it.
Cursing himself, he stalked out of the room, bent on losing himself in work—work so absorbing that it excluded all else. He took the side door to his office, unable at present to cope with the idle greetings of his staff. The pristine black slab of his desk welcomed him to its safe harbor, and it was with an eager hand that he activated his screen. The very ordinariness of the shimmering surface materializing, then settling into cream and black report mode, settled some of his inner turmoil and he sat back to study the incoming data.
He had neglected his desk these last weeks, and the number of reports waiting him had clocked up steadily. What have I been thinking? he berated himself grimly. Then, as he read, a growing sense of disquiet overtook him.
There were too many paradoxes, too many unexplained happenings. Most disturbing of all to his cynically analytical mind, too much was going well. The output of the mines had imperceptibly increased over the months, to a level that almost matched requirements. Food shortages were infrequent, resulting in fewer riots and military rampages through the streets by frustrated soldiers, and the number of peasants reporting sick had declined in the work camps but not, he noticed, in the village clusters next to military posts such as this.
Some kind of climax was pending, he would lay money on it. But what, and when?
He had always suspected that the peasantry were involved. Now in the data scrolling down his screen he saw it confirmed. What were they planning, and why? Did they plan to take over the planet for themselves? Or maybe they were still helping their old masters, the mysteriously vanished off-world Liegers? Or was it as he first thought? Was the whole set-up here a complete fake?
His fingers tapped a drumbeat on the desktop. The first possibility wasn’t a serious worry. The peasants were too poorly equipped to be anything but a minor nuisance. The second, that they were helping hidden Liegers, was more serious but still not a major worry. The Hathians had fought bravely enough trying to keep the Terrans off planet during the invasion, but ultimately their lack of experience had beaten them. Nor would he expect the peasants to be eager to come to the aid of a class they claimed to hate so much.
As for the third option … now that was a different matter altogether.
“The problem is,” he said, talking it over with Ferdo later, “if the social system here wasn’t the
strict, class driven one we’ve been led to believe existed, then what was it? Are all those peasants a complete fabrication and this whole place carrying out one colossal masquerade?”
“Impossible,” declared his friend. “A whole planet of the best actors in the Alliance? That’s what they’d have to be. We’d have discovered such a cover up years ago. After all, we’ve been here nearly five years. No resistance group waits that long to fight back.”
“All true.” Hamon was forced to agree. It was so reasonable. He sat forward on the edge of his chair and drummed his fingers on Ferdo’s desk, on edge and unable to banish his suspicions. “Something’s boiling. I just know it. And the peasants are involved.”
“So it could be your first theory. In which case, why worry? It’s obvious that our two Lieger friends aren’t involved anyway.”
“Is it?”
“Of course. That Jacquel fellow wouldn’t have a serious thought in his head beyond wine, women and song. By the stars, does he know how to enjoy himself. He’s got half the women in his pocket already.”
“Exactly.”
Ferdo stared at him. “Where’s the harm in that. Even if he tried to pump anyone, no one would tell him anything.”
“Maybe, but des Trurain’s no playboy. I’ve checked the old files on prominent Hathians. His academic record is particularly interesting. He’s a highly qualified historian, well able to assess the sociological set up here, along with the general state of morale and who really pulls the strings among the Terran hierarchy. Very useful knowledge to any opponent.”
Ferdo was silent a moment, digesting this. He shifted uneasily, as if searching for a counter argument. “What can he do with anything he learns? A resistance large enough to be a threat would need a massive organization. You can’t hide anything that big from us, not for this long.”
“It depends. We’ve no idea what scale of technology we’re dealing with.”
“Nothing could be that advanced. There’s never been a resistance movement yet that wasn’t known to the opposition, and you haven’t got one concrete fact to back up your theories.”
Resistance: Hathe Book One Page 18