Resistance: Hathe Book One

by Mary Brock Jones

  Marthe had seen the anguish on his face, hidden to all but her. There was nothing she could do about it, but it didn’t make her feel any better about hurting him again. She hugged her arms as she watched Jaca sweep the room for bugging devices. He shook his head and grinned in reassurance.

  “By the Pillars, thank God that’s over,” she breathed, her rigid control breaking as she sank against him. He gave her a quick hug while at the same time urgently contacting base to learn what she’d been too scared to find out.

  “You can relax, Mimi. We hit the dummies.”

  She let out a whoop of joy and burst into tears at the same time. “I was so sure I’d missed.”

  “You’re not the only one. It’s so long since either of us has fired a shot. But we did it!” He leaped up with a shout, then was caught by the pain in his arm, and suddenly sat down again. “Damn them. Did they have to be so realistic? Our people may not like your marriage but they could’ve expressed it in less painful ways.”

  “Mmm,” she agreed, nodding her head vigorously then stopping abruptly as a sharp pain shot across her brow. That stone had been decidedly bigger than needed. “Come on. I can’t keep Hamon out of here for too long, and I need to find their cerebral scanner. My head’s not made of concrete, no matter what that idiot thought when he decided to chuck a boulder at me.” She sorted through the room, opening cupboards and recesses before coming upon the control panel for the cerebral scanner. She slid it out disbelievingly. “This can’t be it. It’s not even three-dimensional. Don’t these people know anything?”

  “It will show you something, though?”

  “Yes, in a time consuming and inaccurate fashion. I’ll have to take a whole series of oblique shots to get any kind of usable image. Here, press on this control pad when I tell you to.” Thoroughly exasperated, she fed in the brain scan program, then sat still while Jaca took a series of cross-sectional shots, and was partially satisfied to see no visible abnormality. But worse was to come. “They call this a neurometer?” she scoffed, glaring at the array of figures and tracings.

  “It seems to put out a great deal of information,” he said soothingly.

  “Yes, and a lot of use it all is to me. There’s no analytical or correlative function. It’ll take me at least an hour to sort out this rubbish, and it leaves out the two most important variables. That does it. My head will just have to be all right. Give me your arm. I should be able to fix that at least. They must have basic medical supplies.”

  If her head didn’t hurt so much, she would’ve been amused at the relief on his face. He never had liked being on the receiving end of her fouler moods. Fortunately, in tending to his wound, she managed to work off the better part of her pent up terror.

  “Feeling better now?” he asked shortly afterwards.

  “Yes. Sorry.”

  “No worry. I saw your face when that stone hit. Didn’t you know how much our people dislike your marriage?”

  “I do now. That man really meant it. Did you see who it was?” She’d seen, but needed his confirmation.

  “Your cousin Griffith, who else? He said he was best fitted to do it, apparently. He did promise not to make it too damaging—only enough to be realistic.”

  She grimaced. “Trust him. Griffith’s always disapproved of anything I do and can’t resist letting me know it. His throwing is as accurate as ever, though. That bruise will take days to come out properly.”

  “You do know he’s not the only one who disapproves of your marriage? Don’t go into town unguarded for now. This new program of civil violence our superiors have decided on may succeed in distracting the Terrans, but it’s also loosened a few too many restraints among our own people. The word’s gone round among the hotheads that you’re free game.”

  Jaca may have expected another outburst, but this was something she knew already. Volatile she may be, blind never. “Hopefully some of my less well known deeds will be published later or I may find myself in an awkward spot in the new regime,” she said dryly. “But enough of that. Is everything in place for this evening’s ceremony and the link-ups ready?”

  “Yes. The channels are booked for sunset. You’re going to have one of the largest weddings in memory, as long as you remember your vows.”

  “I’ve been practicing nightly.”

  “And afterwards, for the sake of our superiors’ questionable tempers, you will make sure you keep Radcliff out of the way for a while? You are having a honeymoon?”

  “Well,” She paused guiltily, “he hasn’t actually mentioned one.”

  “Then you’d better,” was her friend’s caustic reply. “That man has caused enough of a stir already. He has to be stopped. Instead of which, you seem set on spurring him to even more dangerous activities.”

  Her angry reply was stopped only by the arrival of the subject of their discussion.

  Hamon had finally lost patience and forced Citadel control to override the lock on the door. He still entered cautiously.

  “Is it safe to come in or am I liable to have that bandage thrown at me.”

  Marthe bit back her temper. “Sorry. Being hit by that rock rather annoyed me. Overly brave rabble,” she practically spat.

  “At least they’ve been reminded of reality,” soothed Jacquel, “and our Terran friends will hopefully exercise more care in future.”

  Hamon was shocked to see the underlying seriousness in the searching look the hated Hathian gave him. Just this once, they had a common bond, rankling though it was to both.

  “Just what would happen if you were let loose in the streets?” Hamon asked.

  “We’d be lucky to last ten minutes,” was the man’s matter-of-fact reply.

  “You seemed to have exercised a remarkable degree of control over the mob today.”

  “Armed, on a balcony and backed by soldiers,” Marthe reminded him.

  “You didn’t appear to need us. Your own powers of persuasion were most effective in quelling the rabble.”

  “That would give us the ten minutes mentioned,” said Jacquel sardonically. “In a pair, we might survive quarter of an hour, but alone, now that the mob have seen our faces? No, the chances are small. You have us under tight security, but there’s no real need. We’ve both spent five years hiding from the peasants, knowing they would kill us on sight if they realized we were Haut Liege. Right now, we’re safer than we’ve been any time since our people left.

  “My own men are not particular either, if it comes to that. Don’t count on Terran protection forever.”

  “We survive here by dint of the claim Marthe’s child has on you, and the rather tenuous fascination I hold for your female staff. We will not forget it,” said des Trurain coldly.

  “There is more between Marthe and me than the child,” snapped back Hamon.

  “You’d do well to remember it then,” said the Hathian, before taking his leave.

  Hamon glared at the departing back, hating the implication that he had other priorities that came before this woman’s safety. Yet it was only the truth. He still took the Hathian’s words to heart, hearing the underlying thread of deadly purpose in the man’s voice. He continued to stare after the closed door for quite some time and it was only the gentle stealing into his arm of a trusting hand that drew him back to his surroundings. His name was spoken softly. He turned, caught the tentative smile spreading across her finely rounded features. The glinting sparkle and flushed cheeks were gone, chased away by a questioning light in her warm eyes.

  He drew her within the circle of his arms, tilting her small chin up to let him gaze deep into her face. With delight, he saw the ever ready mischievousness rising in her, the sweet smile dissolving to a laughing grin.

  “Will there ever be a day when I see you and Jaca meet in friendship?” she exclaimed, half exasperated, half teasing.

  “Never,” he replied, forced in turn to laugh at himself, letting his face relax as he could only with her. “Does it bother you much?”

  “Of
course it does, you rogue. Just as it would bother you if Ferdo and I were unable to come within shouting distance without a danger of coming to blows.”

  “You can’t tell me that what des Trurain feels for you is a platonic friendship.”

  “Did I say that?” she retorted. “But if you expect me to fall into a decline because a handsome young man is attracted to me, then you’ve spent too much time in deep space.”

  “Finds you attractive? The man imagines himself to be madly in love with you.”

  “1 know,” she gloated, her dimple twinkling larger. “It would be a tragedy, if this fierce emotion hadn’t arisen just about the time I fell madly, passionately in love with you. Jaca has been as a brother to me as long as I can remember. It’s a bit late now to suddenly discover a fatal attraction,” and she reached up and pulled his head down to hers. The hunger in her soothed him as nothing else could.

  Ages later, he pulled back and, still holding her close, teased gently, “Don’t evade the issue, little minx. Didn’t you once say that you probably would have married the man?”

  “So I would have. A very good match it would have been, too,” retorted the practical side of her he’d noted more than once. “We would both have been perfectly contented, after a fashion,” she added with a gurgle. “Now come along, we have an important matter to discuss.”

  “Oh, and what might that be? The state of the world? Your intrusions into my security? Your safety?”

  “No, far more important. Our honeymoon.”

  The pronouncement left him in no doubt of the seriousness of the matter. “Our what?”

  “Honeymoon. Or do you count our marriage of so little consequence that you don’t plan to bother with one?”

  “What, by all the stars, is a honeymoon?”

  She stopped dead in her tracks, pulled him round, held him at arm’s length and fixed him with a gaze of utmost astonishment. “You’re joking, surely!” He no doubt looked as blank as he felt, but he really had no idea what she was talking about.

  “Earth has certainly lost much,” she said with a harrumph.

  “You’d better explain it to me, then.” He pulled her back into his shoulder as they wandered along to his quarters.

  Marthe hadn’t anticipated this. She hesitated, unsure how to begin. “It’s a sort of holiday. After the wedding, the newly married couple goes off on their own, to … get to know each other, I suppose.”

  “Rather like our time together after I had tortured you so abominably.”

  She heard the pain of memory in the harshness of his voice but chose to ignore his reminder. They both knew what that had cost him. “Something like that. Only now, there is… She stopped again, laughing ruefully. “Oh, it’s just too hard to explain. Really, a honeymoon is primarily an excuse to escape from the horde of relatives one is plagued with at a Hathian wedding!”

  Then his face relaxed, a dawning grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. “In other words, I drag you off to a secret hideaway to perform a variety of hideous ravishments upon your delectable body?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “Wench.” His fingers reached up to softly stir the dark clouds falling about her shoulders, already escaping from the formal style. “How can I leave this precinct with so much unrest?”

  She didn’t have to fake her disappointment. “You can leave orders for your men. I could spare you for possibly half an hour a day to keep track of things.”

  He looked long at her face, studying her till she wondered what he saw there. Then he smiled, giving her hope. “Is it important to you?”

  “Yes, Hamon, it is.”

  “Then it will be done. For now, though, you’ve had a busy morning and no breakfast. Would you join me for lunch, madame?” and he bowed her on with a flourish to his quarters.

  Her world sparkled into life again. “Thank you, kind sir; but afterwards I must get on to Jacquel’s rooms. I cannot leave for my wedding from my husband’s quarters, or the shades of a myriad great-aunts will come to haunt me.”

  It was a more relaxed lunch than any they’d had for weeks. For a time, she thought she’d managed to drive away his cares and suspicions, and even some of her own. The memory of it stayed with her through all the afternoon’s lunacy of preparation. Agnethe had come, checking that all was as it should be and doing what Marthe’s own mother would have done, if she’d been alive still. There was so much to be done. In a growing flutter of nerves, Marthe reread the vows again and again, doubting more and more as the time drew near that she would be able to remember anything at all.

  Jacquel was there too, to make sure that all should proceed as planned and according to the strict time schedule he’d been given by the resistance, so critical to a number of other engagements set for that evening. Little side affairs, as he termed them, which would have seriously vexed the Terrans if they’d known of them. It was ironic, signaled Jacquel through her patch, using the secret Hathian codes, that her great blunder and apparent treachery should turn out to be so useful to the cause. The resistance had never had such an opportunity to pry into the Terran section of the Citadel. Even her so proper cousin Griffith was grudgingly satisfied, he reported.

  As for the public unrest among the peasants, better to allow the release of dangerously hot air now than on the final, crucial day, had declared the Council, conscious as they were of the need for a peaceful return to power by the Hathians if they hoped to retain the backing of the other Alliance worlds.

  Unfortunately for her good standing in the eyes of her people, Marthe was unable to regard these political machinations as other than minor diversions, decidedly secondary to her own affair, the wedding. ‘Dried up old men’s ditherings’ she laughingly labeled the steady stream of incoming orders.

  “Do you have to go into hysterics every time we get an order from Central?” signaled Jaca.”

  “That last one wasn’t totally ridiculous?”she signaled back, feeling no sympathy at all for him. He looked like he’d swallowed a can of swamp worms anyway, as he struggled to hold in his own laughter.

  “So what? You know we can’t stop the surveillance in these quarters. Too suspicious. And what am I going to tell the Terrans if they ask what’s causing those giggling fits of yours?”

  Marthe just gave him a ‘what do I care’ look and switched back to watching Agnethe fix her hair. The older woman was far more sensible. She bustled on regardless, secure in her own priorities.

  However, even Jacquel’s determined air of authority was shattered by one request, and he was barely able to repeat the message. “They want an exact time for the ‘concelebration of the couple’s personal junction’, at which time they ‘feel that a visual survey of the Major’s quarters will go unobserved’”.

  “They can’t possibly mean… They intend to spy on us when we… No!” Marthe was so shocked that hilarity seemed the only safe emotion. “And to perform to a set time? Ask him how long he estimates such ‘concelebration’ to take,” she silently screeched via her patch. Her tapping in this case was so shaky as to be almost inaudible, but her meaning was blatantly clear to Jacquel, lying prostrate on the floor and vainly clutching his stomach in an effort to control his jolting chuckles.

  Hamon chose that moment to go into the Terran surveillance rooms to check on the vid monitors watching over the Hathian quarters. He wondered why everyone seemed to be glued to one monitor in particular, and strode over to join the group clustered around it and muttering in puzzlement. He shoved through the crowd and stared at the screen.

  The technician in control of the station looked up at him. “Some secret Hathian ritual?” the man said. “These Liegers are crazy!”

  Hamon couldn’t figure out what was going on either but knew Marthe well enough to realize that something was making her very angry. As well as decidedly merry. A sneaking suspicion entered his head.

  “Has any liquor been taken into that room?”

  “Only the occasional bottle, sir.”

 
“Yes, but what was in them?” he wondered out loud, surprised at seeing his bride apparently inebriated. Not that he should have expected any less in the company of that reprobate, des Trurain. He just hoped she wouldn’t be too far gone by the evening.

  Leaving the chamber, he spent an unprofitable hour trying to analyze exactly what it was he was getting in to. It didn’t help much. The only conclusion he came to was that he was a lunatic. What else would you call a man about to become joined by an anachronistic ritual to a woman who didn’t conform to any pattern of expected behavior in the known universe? Doing away with marriage was Earth’s only true gift to human civilization!

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The thought refused to be banished by the chaos of the afternoon and still buzzed in his head later that day when Hamon found himself standing in the main assembly hall, the centerpiece of an alien and entirely ridiculous ceremony. In a semicircle behind him stood the three witnesses required to stand up for him by Hathian protocol, with Ferdo in the middle as chief. Around again in an expanding ripple of gawping circles he could swear stood every single Terran who wasn’t absolutely needed elsewhere. He’d reviewed the security rosters himself, to make sure some staff were still on duty. If not, he suspected that the Citadel would have been left completely unguarded.

  The only break in the surrounding ranks of watchers lay in front of him—a path, three people wide, down which his bride would walk. Ranged on the outer and as yet apart from the rest waited the native Hathians—servants supposedly setting up the feast to follow the ceremony. To Hamon, eyeing them warily, there appeared far too many for comfort, given the events of the morning. He tried to still his fidgeting hands, wishing he could reach for a weapon.