by Diana Palmer
He smiled, a slow, quiet smile that was almost affectionate. “If you must have a reason, call it repayment of a debt. Perhaps the next time you see the Holconcom commander, you may ask him to explain. Will you come?”
She followed after him, surprised at her own acquiescence. She must be cautious, she reminded herself, she must not be so ready to trust him. Whatever else he was, he was also the enemy. And she was Alamantimichar. Chacon surely knew that he could ask any ransom for her return, and Tnurat would tender it. An ambitious soldier possessed of such a captive could name his own price. She wondered what Chacon’s would be.
Another solar day had gone by, and it brought a new tragedy. Madeline and Hahnson were discussing a missing crew member with Stern.
“It’s Merrick,” Stern said. “He wasn’t at roll call, and I can’t find him.” He didn’t add that he’d had another of several peculiar blackouts just minutes before. The medics were already suspicious of him. He wasn’t going to let himself in for more questions and tests. Surely it was just a minor result of the concussion. He might even remember where he’d been eventually.
“Merrick.” Madeline sighed. “He’s been one of the most uncooperative of the crew since we’ve been on board.”
“It will get him in big trouble if he pushes any of the Centaurians,” Hahnson added.
He was about to add something else, but he stopped when Komak appeared beside them so silently that none of them noticed him until he spoke.
“Dr. Strickhahnson,” he addressed Strick, “please come with me quickly. There has been an…accident. Perhaps you should come, as well,” he told the other two.
Hahnson glanced curiously at his companions and started down the long passageway with them past other members of both crews.
Komak stopped at a sector marked only by a strange Centaurian scrawl and cautiously motioned the humans inside. Madeline stopped just inside the doorway for an instant before she joined her comrades.
While Hahnson knelt beside the blond human casualty on the floor, Madeline dropped to one knee across from him. “Merrick, you fool,” she muttered under her breath.
“What happened to him?” Stern asked curiously.
Hahnson was examining the crewman. “His neck’s broken,” he said at once. “Crushed would be a better adjective. The cervical vertebrae are literally shattered. A damned neat job of it, too. Quick and efficient. I doubt he knew what hit him.”
“Who?” Madeline asked curtly.
“The human was strong,” Komak broke in. His eyes wore a solemn blue shade. “And such ability is rare in humans. I think it must have been one of the Holconcom. I have sent word to the commander.”
“God!” Madeline exclaimed, rising. “I thought the trouble was over!”
“Only suppressed,” Stern guessed quietly. “At least we know why he was missing from roll call,” he added.
“I overheard him in the corridor a day ago, muttering about the Centaurians and how he hated them. I wonder if he provoked one,” she replied.
“I cannot believe,” Komak said, “that any of the Holconcom would dare disobey a direct order from the commander. It has never been done.”
“Indeed,” Dtimun said unexpectedly behind them.
They whirled at the curt tones, and Madeline wondered once again at the amazing ability of the Centaurians to move noiselessly. Dtimun eyed the dead human with angry, dark eyes.
He shot a question to Komak in Centaurian. The reply was equally unintelligible to the humans.
Dtimun’s towering form turned to Hahnson with a grace that was purely feline. “The manner of death is positive?”
“I’m afraid so,” Hahnson said. “This couldn’t have been done by a human hand—and the finger marks indicate that it was one hand, not two. It had to be one of the Holconcom.”
“Impossible!” Dtimun gave the word the ring of rock hitting steel.
“You can’t be everywhere, Commander,” Stern told him, feeling a strange urge from somewhere to argue. He stuck his hands on his hips and glared at the alien. “One demonstration doesn’t convince two warring ships’ companies, especially if the majority of one of them—the human one—didn’t even see it. Your men may be physically superior to us, but they’re a hell of a long shot from perfect.”
Madeline flashed a conspiratorial glance toward Hahnson; a glance that said, “He’s back to normal.” Hahnson winked.
Dtimun’s black eyebrows met over his elegant nose. “My compliments to your physician on your recovery,” he told Stern. “Now, before I brig you, what provocation would one of my Holconcom have for killing this human against orders?”
“Merrick had a temper,” Stern said. “Your men saw what you did to the Holconcom officer in the mess. No sane officer or enlisted man is going to admit to an offense that carries the death penalty. Merrick could have pushed him too far. Ask them,” he added, nodding toward the other humans.
Dtimun considered that for a few seconds. “You have much to learn,” he said finally. “About the Holconcom. And about me.” He turned to Hahnson. “Have the human cloned. I will seek out the assassin.”
“You don’t have a medical section, so where are we supposed to do the cloning, sir?” Madeline asked the commander, buoyed by Stern’s sudden strength. “Why couldn’t it wait until we reach Benaski Port? Assuming that we ever reach it at the speed we’re going,” she added.
“Madam,” Dtimun replied with flashes of angry brown lightning in his elongated eyes, “your concern is healing, not command of this vessel. Am I understood?”
Her temporary truce with him, since he’d healed two of her patients, expired under the whip of his temper. She stiffened. “Yes, sir!”
With a final, narrow glance at the body on the clean deck, he strode out of the compartment.
“You risk much,” Komak told Madeline gently. “I have never known the commander to be so lenient. Beware lest you find a sleeping galot with your prodding. He is not himself.”
“There’s a lot of that going around lately,” Hahnson said innocently, with a grin at Stern.
Stern actually flushed. Without a word, he turned and marched out into the corridor. Hahnson sighed. “Well, I’ll go get a levigurney to transport Merrick,” he said. “We can do the cloning in the kelekom section, can’t we, Komak?”
“Yes.”
Madeline started to go after Hahnson, but Komak stepped in front of her and prevented it. She looked at him curiously.
“There has been sabotage,” he told her very softly, so that his voice didn’t carry to personnel who were going to and fro on the deck. “We will not reach Benaski Port, I think. Soon, the Rojok fleet will have us encircled.”
“You should be telling this to Stern,” she began.
“No.” His eyes were a solemn blue. “You must ally yourself with me, if we are to survive the coming aggression. Your captain has a cold darkness about him that permeates. I know little of humans, but he makes my hair bristle. I do not trust him.”
Her lips opened to protest, but she couldn’t. She grimaced.
“Nor do you trust him,” Komak said suddenly, nodding when her expression became one of guilt. “One of our kelekoms has observed a shadow moving in the engine compartment. Adjustments were made and not discovered in time. The ship has slowed. In the time it will take to correct the adjustments, we will be captured.”
Everything she’d ever heard about Ahkmau rippled with terrifying clarity through her mind. “What can we do?” she asked. Not once did it occur to her to ask why this young Holconcom trusted her, a human, more than his own people.
“Keep a close watch on your captain,” he replied. “Come to me if you see behavior or actions that puzzle you.”
“You said the commander wasn’t himself,” she said quietly.
He drew in a long, harsh breath. “You specialize in Cularian medicine.”
“Yes.”
“This includes physiology of Centaurians.”
Her lips parted
on a quick breath. “Well…yes.”
“Your skills may become more precious than you realize.” He held up a hand when she started to question him. “All will become clear, in time.” He looked down at Merrick. “But make sure that during the cloning process, no one has access to this man. Especially,” he added coldly, “Holtstern.”
Madeline wanted desperately to talk to Hahnson about what Komak had told her, but she didn’t dare. She accompanied the human medical chief down to the kelekom unit, where the four operators sat in front of their glowing consoles.
She was less than useless with human cloning, which was strictly Hahnson’s area of expertise. But she kept a watchful eye around her while her colleague initiated the burst of genetic information to the protoplasm that constituted the heart of the cloning technology.
One of the kelekom operators was watching her curiously.
She glanced at him and smiled. “Living machines,” she said softly, her eyes quiet and intent on the glowing console in front of him. “They’re legendary, even among humans. You must feel very privileged here.”
“We do,” he replied in thickly accented Standard language. “We are bonded to our companions—we do not refer to them as machines,” he added gently.
She flushed. “Sorry.”
“You have little understanding of our culture, we know this and do not take offense. You may approach, if you like,” he added unexpectedly.
With a quick breath, she moved forward only two steps. “We know about the effect alien bacteria has on them,” she explained. “I don’t want to endanger your…companion.”
There were sounds like muffled human laughter. “We have taken the necessary steps for immunization,” the kelekom operator assured her.
“We know that you occasionally have to leave the ship, when you go on scouts,” she said. “But how do you lift so enormous a unit?”
With a wave of his hand, the kelekom began to glow. Seconds later, an oval panel, still glowing, detached itself and adhered effortlessly to the uniform front of the Holconcom, just at the sternum.
Madeline gasped. “That’s amazing!”
“It is, even to us,” he replied.
“Can you really see light-years ahead through them?”
“Yes. They have many capabilities which would seem quite fantastic to outworlders,” he replied. “They are capable of independent thought and, when necessary, action. Each operator is bonded to his companion for life. We have an agreement with their race, centuries old, which assures us of liaison with four of the more adventurous of their leaders. They live among us and in return, we send units of our finest Holconcom to live among them and provide protection to them from their own enemies.”
“Have they been studied?” she asked.
He chuckled. “One does not study them. One is studied by them.”
She laughed.
“Ready,” Hahnson said behind her.
She thanked the kelekom operator and his companion for their time and went back to join Hahnson.
“Initiating resequence,” he said, waving his hand over the control unit.
Just as he did, there was a sudden dimming of wall light and a surge in the engines.
“What was that?” Madeline asked uneasily.
Hahnson looked at the controls. There was a slight fluctuation in the numbers, but the unit kept working. He relaxed. “Must have been a power surge,” he said. “Nothing to worry about. It’s okay.”
“Thank goodness,” she replied, relaxing.
Farther along the corridor, Holt Stern eased out of the engine compartment, where a small fire in a disposal unit had momentarily diverted the engineers. He was smiling.
Another solar day passed. The accelerated growth potential of Hahnson’s makeshift cloning chamber, which the Holconcom had perfected from stolen Rojok technology, had already produced an exact copy of Merrick. A single cell from the original contained not only the blueprint for his physical restructuring, but his collected lifetime memories, as well. The technique, for all its sophistication, was only a century old. Cloning dated back to old Earth, in the Sol system, but stolen Rojok technology had refined it to a method of almost immediate replacement of soldiers killed in action. The ability to clone memory, as well, had given the technology a perfect place in war. No training was necessary when the clone emerged from his artificial womb; he forgot nothing between his death and resurrection.
But sadly, Merrick reawakened with his old prejudices intact, as well as an unexpected magnification of physical strength. It was the same magnification that Madeline and Hahnson had found in their respective physioscans of Stern.
Merrick moved out of the kelekom unit in his old uniform and went right up to a small complement of Holconcom security officers before Hahnson or Madeline could stop him.
“You damned cat-eyes, which one of you killed me?” he demanded, loudly enough that a small passing group of humans could hear him, as well. “Butchering us, you devils! How many of us have to die before we reach a neutral port and get off this space-going cat park?”
“Merrick!” Madeline snapped, but he ignored her.
“He’s a clone, who gives a damn what he thinks?” a human close by asked sarcastically.
“Well, he’s right, just the same,” another human interjected. “I want off this ship. I want to die fighting Rojoks, not wait for these cat-eyes to pick us off one by one!”
One of the Holconcom moved forward, and his eyes grew dark brown. “You are inferior,” he shot at the human. “You are weak and cowardly. You will run, not fight, when we go into combat. You will all die!”
“Not damned likely!” a human called. “Not if we get you first!”
“Yeah,” someone else echoed, and the humans moved forward.
“You beg for death, human!” the lead Holconcom said. “We are superior!”
As he moved, so did the rest of his small group, encircling the humans. A strange, low, deadly growl began to penetrate the murmured anger of the humans, who were feeling at their duty belts for Greshams they didn’t have anymore. The commander had confiscated them soon after the combination of the Bellatrix crew with his own.
“For God’s sake, not again!” Madeline said harshly, provoked into action. She stepped boldly between the Holconcom and Merrick.
“Butt out, Doc!” Merrick told her, and literally shoved her aside.
It was a mistake. Madeline had commanded a unit of Amazons, and she was far and away more dangerous than Merrick. She whirled, landed a kick at his temple and sent him flying into the nearby bulkhead, her auburn hair whipping around her pale face like a halo.
The Holconcom watched, agape. None of them had ever seen a female fight. She dived at Merrick and the aliens actually froze in place, fascinated, as she taught the belligerent clone a lesson in humility.
Someone was taking bets. In a matter of seconds, she had the clone on the deck, facedown, with her boot securely pinning his neck. Two of the Holconcom were actually grinning. Merrick muttered curses.
“You’re breaking my back!” he growled.
“Not to worry, I can fix it. I’m a doctor,” she reminded him with cold humor.
She looked around for some way to tie Merrick up. But before she could get her bearings, the intercommunications network exploded and diverted everyone’s attention with the angry whine of general quarters.
Forgetting the confrontation, humans and Holconcom alike reacted to their military conditioning and peeled off toward their battle stations.
Madeline twisted Merrick’s forearm painfully and gave him to Hahnson with a grin as she ran for her own sector. Merrick was going on report the minute they reached an SSC base, she promised herself. She shook her right hand, feeling a tear in the skin. She was probably going to be in trouble with Dtimun for brawling, as well. But right now, her only concern was her patients.
“All execs and department heads to the main briefing room,” the intercom blared, alternating between Centaurian and S
tandard. “All execs and department heads to the main briefing room, on the double!”
She did an abrupt about-face, and met Hahnson, minus Merrick, as she made a jump up on the interdeck access ladder. “Damn Merrick!” she growled. “Wait until we get back to Trimerius!”
“Cloning carries its own punishment,” Hahnson reminded her. “Merrick will end up in a medical supply unit as spare parts.”
She felt momentarily sick at her own behavior. “Strick…”
“No time. Move it!” he said as they reached the top of the access ladder that ended on the main flight deck at operations.
He jogged into the briefing room with Madeline at his heels. It surged with pent-up energy as Dtimun took his place at the head of the glowing, oblong table and called the group to order.
“We are surrounded,” he said coldly, without mincing words. “The Rojoks have just meshed us in force nets which our depleted emerillium banks are unable to blast away. Our only hope now is to sabotage the ship.”
“Commander!” Komak exclaimed, as if in disbelief.
The older alien looked straight at him, with black eyes. Jet-black. Madeline searched desperately in her memory for the meaning of that color. Black…death!
“You cannot!” Komak raged.
Dtimun glared at him, seeming to flinch as he whirled to face the younger Holconcom. “Debles ‘ha mechmal?” he growled furiously, and he shivered suddenly.
“Camache…” Komak began uncertainly.
Even as the guttural word fell on the sudden silence, the Holconcom commander fell, as well, crumbling onto the deck in front of his shocked officers.
Around the compartment, the Centaurian faces registered something like disbelief. Only Komak moved, dropping quickly beside his fallen leader, his long-fingered hand searching for a pulse.
Before he could speak, a shudder went through the deck, a metallic shudder followed by the sound of an explosion somewhere nearby in the corridor.
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