by S. L. Viehl
And this was my reward.
“Give me the codes, Xonea.”
He came over to the terminal and inputted an override sequence. “I will remain with you.”
“Not necessary.” I accessed the ship’s logs first.
“You will have questions.”
“I’ll find the answers myself.” I turned away and began scanning the first report, and didn’t stop until I heard the door panel open and close. Then I got up, secured the panel, and leaned against the wall. Somehow I ended up in a huddle on the deck, hunched over, the heels of my hands grinding into my dry, burning eyes.
Jarn hadn’t just helped herself to my body, and erased five years of my life. She’d stolen my family from me.
And my husband had let her.
I didn’t waste my time weeping, or tearing out my hair, or otherwise collapsing into a helpless puddle of misery. It would serve no purpose, and if there was one thing I had been created to be, it was useful.
I spent the next forty-eight hours on the terminal in my quarters, reading first the ship’s logs and then sifting through the database for records of the other events I had missed. I stopped only for food, cleansing, and lavatory visits. I also blocked all the signals that were sent to my quarters from Command, Medical Bay, and several crew terminals.
Once I’d read through all the data available on the main database, I encountered several new and interesting safeguards protecting the more sensitive data available only to the ship’s commander and senior officers. Although neither my codes nor Xonea’s override would bypass them, I tried one I thought Squilyp might use—the birth date of his twin boys—and gained full access to the restricted areas.
There I found all the information they were trying to keep from me: records of my whereabouts and activities, surveillance of my personal quarters both on the ship and on Joren, field reports on my movements and sojourns, and enough audio and video to keep me staring at a monitor for several months. Three enormous files contained all the known details from my visits to oKia, Trellus, and Vtaga.
My, my, my. I had no memory of any of it; the slave girl had been in possession at the time. She’d illegally trespassed on oKia, gotten herself marooned on Trellus, and nearly started a civil war on Vtaga. But to her credit, she’d discovered a new form of crystal, stopped an alien butcher, and cured a plague.
She’d also brought Reever back to life on Vtaga after SrrokVar—now, there was a name I’d never wanted to hear again—had killed him.
I had hoped to get in a third day of study before they came for me, but the Omorr wasn’t known for his patience. He used a medical override to bypass the locking mechanism on my door panel and hopped in with the oKiaf and a Jorenian nurse in tow.
“Power down that terminal,” he told me. “You are coming with me to Medical.”
“I’m not deaf.” I switched off the monitor. “You don’t have to shout.”
“I am not . . .” He exhaled and inhaled before speaking in a softer voice. “Forgive me. I am deeply concerned about you.”
“Why?” I faced him. “I’m fine.”
“You are anything but fine,” he snapped. “You have shunned all interactions with the crew. You have not answered a single signal sent to these quarters. You are irrational, antisocial, and displaying obsessive-compulsive behavior.”
I folded my arms. “Squilyp, we both know that’s just me, even on a good day.”
“I disagree. I believe you are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.” He took a medical case from the nurse and opened it. “What would you classify a patient who for days refused to leave a computer terminal or sleep?”
“A busy insomniac who doesn’t want to talk to anyone.” I smiled. He turned a beautiful shade of dark rose pink whenever he was agitated. “I promise, I am not on the verge of an emotional collapse. How do you know I haven’t been sleeping?”
“Deeply traumatic events such as you have endured often trigger such breaks.” He removed a syrinpress and dialed up a dosage of something on it.
“No, that’s not it.” I glanced around my quarters, the quarters my ClanBrother had so thoughtfully arranged for me. “I didn’t think to check for recording drones. You must have gotten quite a show whenever I cleansed. When did Xonea decide to sanction gross violations of personal privacy?”
“We thought it prudent to keep you under close monitor,” the Omorr said, “in the event you required assistance.”
“No one wants to see me naked anymore.” I released a theatrical sigh and turned to Shon. “If the Senior Healer tries to sedate me, I will be leaving, and you’ll have to take him back to Medical and surgically remove that syrinpress from his esophagus. Are you up for that, or should I explain the extraction procedure to you first?”
“Enough of this, Cherijo.” Squilyp was shouting again.
Shon stepped between us. “Senior Healer, please.” He regarded me. “Cherijo, the captain has received orders to return at once to Joren. To do so, he must make two interdimensional jumps. Now.”
I’d never handled dimensional transitions very well. “That’s the real reason you wanted me back in Medical?” I asked Squilyp.
“Yes,” Shon answered quickly for him.
“Why didn’t you say so in the first place?” I slipped on my footgear.
Squilyp bided his time, following me to the lift and entering it along with the oKiaf and the nurse. All three of them tried to visually assess me while trying not to be obvious about it. Considering how small the lift was, that took some doing.
“I’ve been taking regular breaks to eat and cleanse,” I said mildly. “I’m not experiencing any weakness, sensory disruption, or pain. No headaches, vision problems, new memory loss, or any other abnormal or unusual symptoms, either. So quit worrying.”
“I do not worry,” Squilyp snapped. “Are you giving yourself stimulants in order to remain awake?”
“No. I haven’t felt tired.” It was partly true. Something was driving me now, something big and dark and seething, and I didn’t care to shine an internal light on it. “If it makes you feel better, I’ll probably lose consciousness as soon as the ship transitions. Then you can poke and prod me as much as you like until I wake up.”
If I woke up. No one questioned the possibility that the slave girl might come back instead, but they were all thinking it. So was I.
My calm demeanor was as much an act as my rational attitude, but they didn’t know that, and I didn’t want to go through transition alone. If I was strapped into a berth in Medical and something did go wrong, Squilyp was my best chance of surviving it.
I felt something soft and very warm touch my hand, and looked down to see Shon’s paw curling around my fingers. His fur was much finer and silkier than it looked, and his body heat topped mine by a good ten degrees. I also became aware of how good he smelled: like trees and earth and growing things. I felt like wrapping him around me, but the icy cold was deep inside me, where all that lovely warmth couldn’t reach.
I took my hand from his. If I was going to handle this, I couldn’t depend on the kindness of strangers. Especially one who had been in love with her, not me.
I hung on to that frigid calm until they put me in a berth in an isolation room and a nurse began to attach monitor leads to my head and chest. Then my muscles went on strike, first stiffening and then knotting as I began to tremble.
“Leave us,” the Omorr said as he scanned me.
I saw the oKiaf and the nurses go. “I’m all right.”
“No, you are not.” He checked his scanner and sighed. “Try to relax.”
By that point the berth was shaking along with me. “Se-se-seizure?”
“Your heart rate and respiration have doubled, you are perspiring heavily and presenting involuntary rapid fine tremors, your glucose level is dropping, and your glands are attempting to compensate by releasing a substantial amount of adrenaline into your bloodstream,” he said. “You are having an anxiety attack.”
“Your recent activities have resulted in a serious B complex deficiency, which is contributing to your condition. I am giving you a vitamin booster to augment. Please do not shove the instrument down my throat,” he added as he infused me and then finished wiring me to the equipment.
I clenched my teeth to keep them from chattering until the anxiety crested and then slowly dissolved. “Sedatives would have worked just as well.”
He sighed. “Over the last years you have become immune to them.”
But not to anxiety, evidently. The receding adrenaline left me feeling abruptly exhausted. “Would you do something for me, Senior Healer?”
“As long as it does not require you to leave this berth.”
“If I don’t wake up this time,” I said carefully, “put my body in stasis until you can figure out how to bring me back.”
“Cherijo—”
“Please.” In spite of my best efforts to control my emotions, I felt a single tear roll down my cheek. “Don’t let some alien take over my body again, Squilyp. Please. I’m begging you.”
Squilyp did something very un-Squilyp then: He sat on the edge of the berth, pulled me up, and wrapped all three arms around me. “I promise.”
He didn’t let me go, so shortly thereafter when reality was sucked into a dizzying swirl of colors, I was still in his arms. As my tired brain upended itself, a wistful sadness filled me, and I wished I’d asked Squilyp to send for Reever. Despite what had happened, I regretted that the last words we’d exchanged had been angry and bitter.
As bitter as the words I’d said . . . that I had signaled . . .
Memories began pouring into my mind, a series of vivid sensory flashes that blotted out the disorienting effects of the ship’s transition. I was back on the Rilken ship, jaunting toward the CloudWalk, only this time something was different. I saw myself on the deck, blood all over my face. The League soldier who had hit me lay across me, unconscious. I had to push him off and roll him to one side so I could reach the main console and initiate a relay. I watched myself doing those things, and felt as if I were doing them at the same time.
League command vessel, this is Dr. Cherijo Torin. I have to speak to Colonel Shropana immediately.
I didn’t receive a response, so I switched relay channels and repeated the request, but that made no difference. The console began picking up transmissions between League ships, however, and I saw myself listening to them, and then attempting to signal first the Jorenians, and then the League command vessel.
No one would respond to my relays. My transceiver had been partially damaged; all I could do was listen.
The Rilkens’ viewer displayed the CloudWalk as it fired on an approaching transport—a drone transport, according to the signals I’d overheard—programmed to provoke the Jorenians into an attack. I watched myself change tactics and try to send a signal to the Jorenians.
There are no living beings on that launch, I shouted. They are trying to provoke you into an attack. Cease fire.
All I heard in return was a satisfied male voice issuing an order to respond and destroy the CloudWalk.
ClanLeader Teulon, listen to me, I pleaded. You have to stop this right now. It’s nothing but a ruse. My husband and my daughter are on your ship. Shropana knows that. He’s doing this to get to them. To get back at me. Listen to me, please.
League ships began swarming around the Jado vessel. The viewer glowed brighter and brighter as explosions of pulse fire burst all around me.
No, please, Teulon. You have to cease fire. There are too many of them. Cease fire, for God’s sake—
I saw but didn’t see the League soldier rise up behind me. I kept sending my frantic transmissions until the viewer filled with white light, and the CloudWalk’s stardrive imploded.
The light blinded me just as the soldier clubbed me in the head.
I regained consciousness on what I assumed was the cargo compartment on the League transport. My head ached, and the restraints they’d put me in were cutting off the circulation to my hands and feet, but I was alive. They’d posted a heavily armed humanoid male as my guard; he was a canine species with narrow black eyes, a prominent muzzle, and brown-pelted skin. He wore combat-fitted body armor and looked as if he’d enjoy shooting me.
I knew Reever and Marel were not dead, but the part of me reliving this experience didn’t. I couldn’t breach the distance between our minds, and reassure myself. I could only feel the rage building again.
The Jorenians will come for you. Do you know what they do to anyone who harms their kin?
Keep your orifice shut. He had a magnificent set of sharp denticles. Or I will gag you.
I didn’t know what he had been ordered to do, but I could guess. The hostility in his black eyes made his threats into promises. If I pushed hard enough, he might lose control and do more, perhaps even execute me early. Which was fine with me. I didn’t want to live anymore, not without my family.
Your commander just wiped out an entire HouseClan, I told him. Since there are no Jado left now, the Jorenian Ruling Council will designate the dead as ClanJoren. Do you know what that means, murderer?
He came up to me and backhanded me. I have not killed anyone. Be silent.
It doesn’t matter. Every HouseClan on the planet will be coming for your commander. Your fleet. I spit out some blood onto the front of his chest plate. And you.
Let them come. They may join their kin in death. He didn’t sound quite as ferocious now.
They won’t be coming alone, I promised. While you and the Hsktskt have been playing war games, the Jorenians have been forming their own coalition with other neutral species. The treaties have included pacts of mutual protection against the League and the Faction. This massacre will not go unanswered. They’ll call on their new allies as well as their old friends, most of whom have just been waiting for any decent excuse to move against the League. They’ll disable your fleet. Then the Jorenians will board the ships and declare the crews ClanKill. I leaned forward, straining against the restraints. They’ll hold them down, one by one, and use their claws to eviscerate them alive.
He took an involuntary step back. How could you know any of this? You are a fugitive from Terra. You are not even classified as a sentient creature.
Is that what they told you? I asked sweetly. Whatever the League thinks of me, the Jorenians adopted me. And after I saved their planet from an invasion, they made me a member of their Ruling Council.
You were told not to interact with the prisoner, a familiar voice said.
I looked past the guard and saw the ugly, gloating face of one of my oldest enemies. Shropana.
Now you understand why you should have killed me when you had the chance, Cherijo.
Cherijo.
Cherijo.
“Cherijo.”
I opened my eyes, and saw my face reflected in something dark and shiny. When I blinked, the mirror image didn’t do the same. Only when cracks began spreading over it did I realize that I was seeing my face, encased in black crystal, and it was being slowly crushed.
I screamed.
Three
“It was only a bad dream,” I told Squilyp as he removed the monitor leads from my temples. “Or a hallucination, caused by the effects of the jump. Maybe I saw your face and thought it was something else.”
“According to the equipment, you never lost consciousness.” He brushed some hair out of my eyes. “And I do not think my countenance, distorted or not, could have frightened you enough to cry out like that.”
I hadn’t described to him what I’d seen. It was bad enough that I had to remember it. “Whatever it was, it’s over. Forget about it.” As soon as the last line was off me, I swung my legs over the side of the berth. “Are we there yet?”
“The ship will be landing on Joren within the hour. You are not leaving Medical until it does.” The Omorr handed me a stack of ceremonial garments. “If you feel well enough
to get up, you can get dressed.”
“I’m not wearing this. I look ridiculous in Jorenian robes.” As I realized why he’d given them to me, I dropped them on the berth. “Oh, no. You didn’t tell them I woke up.”
“The captain signaled the planet before we transitioned. The entire HouseClan has assembled to celebrate your return. You are supposed to be surprised by this.” He didn’t smirk or even sound amused. “There are others waiting on planet who also wish to meet with you.”
Uh-oh. “What others?”
“A diplomatic party from Vtaga. That is all Xonea told me,” he added, before I could ask. “I will send a nurse to obtain some garments from your, ah, from Reever’s quarters.” He gave me a sympathetic look before he hopped out.
I thought about using the isolation room terminal to signal Command and tell Xonea what I thought of his surprise party, but I was too busy trying to understand why an entourage of Hsktskt had been allowed on planet.
The last time the Faction had sent its representatives to Joren, it had been strictly for the purposes of invading it, stripping it of its resources, and enslaving the populace. I’d traded Shropana and an entire fleet of League ships to stop that from happening. Thanks to Reever’s own devious machinations, I’d also been enslaved myself, although eventually I’d freed myself and the League prisoners, and destroyed the Hsktskt slave depot on Catopsa in the process.
But that was no longer the status quo, as I knew from accessing Xonea’s secured files. Jarn had helped end the war between the League and the Faction, and then she’d cured a devastating plague on the Hsktskt homeworld. She’d even convinced the lizards to revoke the blood bounty they’d put on my head after I’d destroyed their flesh-peddling prison outpost.
“If I’m supposed to feel grateful for what she did,” I muttered, “everyone is going to be very disappointed.”