by Diana Palmer
CHAPTER TWO
SICK BAY WAS FULL. Not only were there combat casualties brought in from all parts of the battlefront, but a new type of influenza was making itself felt among members of the Tri-Galaxy Fleet. There was no vaccination so far, and hardly any treatment that worked.
“I remember Dr. Wainberg, head of the Exobiology Department at the Tri-Fleet Military Academy, lecturing us on viruses,” Madeline said as she and Edris Mallory worked side by side on combat wounds encountered by two Dacerian scouts who’d been ambushed near Terramer.
Edris laughed. “So do I. He and our human anatomy chief, Dr. Camp, gave lab exams that were, to say the least, challenging.”
Madeline grinned. “Challenging to cadets who thought they could pass those courses by dissecting holospecimens instead of the real thing. The medical sector didn’t tolerate slackers. They meant us to be taught proper surgical techniques, and we were.” She frowned. “You know, it’s still fascinating to me that viruses aren’t actually alive. They’re like a construct, an artificial construct.”
“Who knows,” Mallory agreed, “maybe they were originally part of some long forgotten engineered bioweapons tech.”
“Viruses are already dead, Mallory,” Madeline repeated.
Mallory frowned. “But, ma’am, how can they be dead if they were never alive?”
Madeline rolled her eyes. “That controversy still rages. They are alive in one sense, not in another. And I’m not joining that debate,” she added on a laugh. She finished a restructuring job and motioned for one of the medtechs to take the unconscious patient in his ambutube out to the floor. She stripped off her glove films and smiled at the younger woman. “We can debate that over a nice cup of java after lunch.”
The younger woman hesitated. Her blue eyes grew large. “Java? You don’t mean, real coffee?”
Madeline leaned closer. “I have it shipped in illegally from the Altairian colony on Harcourt’s Planet,” she confided. “Then I grind the beans and brew it in my office.”
“Coffee.” Mallory’s mouth was watering. “I dream about it. What passes for coffee in the mess hall is an insult to a delicate palate.”
“I agree.”
She pursed her lips. “Ma’am, are you going to tell me something I won’t want to hear? Is that why I’m being treated to such a luxury?”
“You have a suspicious mind,” her colleague replied. “Hurry up. We don’t have a lot of time. There’s a medical transport coming in from Terramer in about a standard hour and we may have more work.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I have to go over to Tri-Fleet HQ and report to the commander about this latest batch of casualties. You can flash me if there’s anything urgent before I get back.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
* * *
MADELINE LOCATED DTIMUN in his temporary office at Tri-Fleet HQ. It was smaller and more cramped than the one he maintained aboard the Morcai, but closer to fleet operations.
He frowned when she was admitted. “You have never reported to me directly on battle casualties. Is there a reason for this deviation from protocol?”
“Yes, sir,” she said, standing at parade rest. “It’s about Mallory.”
His eyebrows lifted.
“Lieutenant J.G. Edris Mallory?” she prompted. “My assistant?”
“Yes. What about her?”
“Sir, she needs to be familiarized with the routine aboard ship, in case I ever have to bring her with me on a mission.”
He stood up, cold and unapproachable. “I will not authorize the presence of a second human female aboard my flagship,” he said flatly.
“Only to observe,” she persisted. She let out an exasperated sigh. “What if I were captured by Rojoks on the battlefield?”
“I would send them my condolences,” he returned.
She glared at him. “You’d have nobody aboard who could save you from a health crisis,” she tossed back.
“It amazes me that you have never questioned the reason I carry no complement of Cehn-Tahr medics aboard the Morcai.”
She blinked. “They said you had a fine contempt for medics of your own species. I assumed that was the explanation.”
His eyes narrowed and became a steady, searching blue as they explored her face. “You know nothing about us except what we permit you to know.”
“You can pin a rose on that,” she returned bluntly. “I’ve had to resort to black market vids to find out anything at all about Cehn-Tahr society.”
His eyes flashed green with humor. “Those vids are made at Benaski Port...”
“...by pirates who never saw a live Cehn-Tahr, yes, I know. Hahnson informed me after it was too late to demand my money back!” she muttered.
The green grew broader in his eyes. He cocked his head. “It did not occur to you to ask me?”
She cleared her throat. “I wouldn’t dare!”
“I have found very little that you would not dare, Ruszel,” he retorted.
She shifted restlessly and averted her eyes. It would be embarrassing, even for a physician, to put any of her burning questions to him.
“I realize that,” he said softly.
She grimaced. “I wish you wouldn’t walk in and out of my mind, sir. It’s very disconcerting.”
“You are far too easy to read,” he pointed out. “Telepaths learn to block unwanted intrusions at a very early age.”
She lifted her eyes to his, searching them quietly. “You healed the little Altairian child with nothing more than your mind,” she recalled. “I’ve never spoken of it, but I think your mental abilities are greater than you allow us to see.”
“Much greater,” he said in her mind.
“You keep secrets very well, as a species,” she pointed out.
“Some are best kept,” he returned silently. “If your species knew the true nature of mine, few humans would feel secure enough to serve with us.”
That was a revelation. It disturbed her at some deep level. “We’ve seen you fight,” she said, assuming that was what he referred to.
His eyes became solemn. “You have seen a greatly restrained version of our fighting style,” he said surprisingly. “We modified it for the benefit of our human crewmen.” He looked at her closely. “Why do you think our emperor was able to conquer over one hundred and fifty worlds with little more than the Holconcom?”
That was a question she’d never asked. “I never thought about it, sir.”
“Some races who were victims of his first conquests still remember the Holconcom attacks. The fear alone kept them in line. It does, even today.” His face grew hard. “We are an aggressive, violent species. Mercy is unknown to us.”
“My little Altairian patient might disagree with you,” she said, smiling in memory.
“The child was not my enemy,” he pointed out.
She studied his hard face in silence. “Why don’t you want other races to know anything about your society?”
“It would serve no useful purpose,” he said curtly. “We never mate outside our own species.”
She felt cold inside. She wasn’t quick enough to divert her mind. He saw the sadness, and understood it all too well.
His eyes narrowed. “You are a fragile race,” he said.
She stared at him, uncomprehending. “I could remind you that I took down several Rojok soldiers when we were in Ahkmau.”
“I could remind you that only Chacon’s intervention saved your life during the escape.”
“Rub it in,” she muttered, flushing. “I was intent on saving a patient. I didn’t see the Rojoks rushing me.”
“Your impulsive nature could lead you to tragedy,” he said. “You must exhibit more control of yourself.”
“I do try, sir
. But human nature is what it is. We can’t change what we are.”
He grew contemplative. “No,” he said, an odd bitterness in his tone. “We cannot.”
“About Mallory, sir...”
“You can use the comps to give her a virtual tour of the ship,” he said firmly. “I do not need any more distractions aboard. You and your temper provide quite enough already.”
“My temper?” she exclaimed. “Look who’s talking!”
“Remember to whom you are speaking!” he shot back.
“I didn’t break a Gresham in half with my bare hands when I lost my patience...!”
“Dismissed!”
She almost bit her tongue off keeping the reply back that she wanted to make. She saluted sharply, turned and marched out of the office. Behind her, she heard muffled curses in Cehn-Tahr, and marched faster.
* * *
LIEUTENANT (J.G.) EDRIS MALLORY’S expression was one of pure joy as she sipped the illegal caffeine in Madeline’s office. The use of stimulants, even natural ones, was prohibited by Tri-Fleet regulations. Not that anyone enforced the law, especially since Admiral Lawson himself sneaked in java from the Altairian colonies. Of course, he was an admiral and could get away with it. Madeline might not fare as well.
Edris closed her eyes and savored the taste and scent as she lifted her head. “Oh, bliss,” she sighed.
Madeline laughed. “It is pretty special, out here in the big black, isn’t it? We’re so far away from anything that can’t be grown in solution.” She sipped her own coffee. “I have to talk to you about something.”
Edris grimaced. “I’ve screwed up again, haven’t I?” she asked. “I’m just not suited to life in our present age, you know. I washed out of combat school with a memorable low grade, after I couldn’t get accredited as a breeder. Now here I am doing combat medicine, and I fumble more than I fix...”
“You’re doing well,” Madeline interrupted. “All you lack is confidence in your own abilities. Well, that,” she added hesitantly, “and the ability to talk back to people. To the Cehn-Tahr specifically.”
The slender young blonde moved restlessly in her chair. “They’re very intimidating, especially the Holconcom commander,” she replied. “He glares.”
“You have to learn to glare back,” Madeline told her. “They’re a misogynist culture. Their own women are denied access to the military, much less combat. The Cehn-Tahr think our military is mad to permit women to serve in it, mentally neutered or not.”
Edris finished the last precious drop of her coffee. “I’m just glad it’s you and not me serving aboard the Morcai.”
“That’s what I want to talk to you about,” Madeline told her. “Since Holmes and Watts shipped out, you and I are the only experienced Cularian specialists on base right now. There are twenty in graduate school, four of whom are due to be assigned to Trimerius when they graduate. But if something happens to me, you’re the only backup around.”
“Nothing will happen to you, ma’am,” Edris assured her with a smile. “You’re one of the bravest people I know.”
Madeline hesitated. “Anyone can die. The Holconcom can’t function without a medic who can operate on Cehn-Tahr soldiers in an emergency. The commander hates medics as a rule, and he won’t permit the Dectat to assign physicians to him. He’s reluctant to have me aboard, but Ahkmau convinced him that it was lunacy not to carry a Cularian specialist into battle.”
“He scares me to death,” Edris commented, wrapping her arms around her slender figure. “I don’t know what I’d do, if I ever had to substitute for you in the Holconcom.”
“That’s just the point. The commander agrees with me, that we need to start letting you come with us on certain missions aboard the Morcai so that you can get used to the routine aboard ship.” She deliberately didn’t meet Mallory’s eyes as she lied to her. It was in a good cause.
Edris lost two shades of color. “No,” she said at once. “Oh, no, I can’t do that. I can barely manage here, when you’re away with the unit. I could never...I mean, I can’t...”
“You can,” Madeline said, and in a tone that didn’t brook argument. “You got through medical school. You’ll adapt to the Morcai.”
Edris bit her lower lip. She looked hunted.
“They’re just men,” she said, exasperated. “Alien men, but males are pretty much the same anywhere.”
“Not the Cehn-Tahr,” Edris argued. “I’ve heard stories.”
Madeline raised both eyebrows.
Edris hesitated, but the gossip was too juicy not to share. “They say,” she said in a conspiratorial tone, “that a Cehn-Tahr soldier ate a young Jebob recruit during the Great Galaxy War...ma’am?”
Madeline was doubled over, laughing. That story had gone through the ranks over the years like a fever. Some people did actually believe it.
“Well, they said,” Edris said defensively.
“Edris,” Madeline replied, wiping away tears of near hysteria, “I can give you proof that no Cehn-Tahr has ever eaten another soldier.”
“You can?”
“The C.O. has never eaten me,” she reminded her colleague. “And nobody over the years has given him more cause.”
“You do wear on his nerves, I hear.”
Madeline laughed. “His nerves, his temper, his patience. He’s dressed me down, grounded me, brigged me on occasion,” she recalled. “But he’s never taken a bite out of me.”
That was true. The battles between the commander of the Holconcom and his chief medic had assumed the mantle of legend. Once, Madeline had followed Dtimun off the ship raging about his refusal to let her suture a bone-deep wound in his leg. He trailed blood out the airlock and just kept walking, even when she threw a cyberclamp after him in impotent rage.
“Isn’t it amazing that he never busted you in rank?” Edris mused.
“He did try,” Madeline assured her. “But my father is a colonel in the Paraguard Wing and best friends with Admiral Lawson. They ganged up on the commander and refused to let the demotion go through.” She grinned. “The C.O. was livid! And did he get even! He requisitioned my billet for storage and I had to sleep in the cargo hold for a solid week. He only relented when I borrowed a player from Hahnson and flooded the hold with ancient human drum and bagpipe music.”
“I heard about that,” Edris chuckled. “Didn’t he break a Gresham in half...?”
“With his bare hands, and lucky for him that the power pack was drained.” Madeline nodded enthusiastically. She pondered that. “You know, they really are incredibly powerful.”
Edris toyed with her java cup. “Do I have to go?”
Madeline nodded.
Edris sighed. “Okay, then.”
Madeline smiled. “Good girl,” she said affectionately, as she would have to a younger sister; if she had one. The government restricted information about the parents of children raised in government nurseries. It was one of many laws that she simply accepted, because she was educated to accept it, without question. But after serving with the Holconcom, her attitudes about her government were undergoing some serious alterations. Not that she could speak of them to Edris. Not now, anyway. She went back to work.
* * *
EDRIS MALLORY HAD never been aboard a Cehn-Tahr ship before. Everything about it fascinated her, from the way personnel ran to and from positions down the wide corridors to the temperature, which was several degrees cooler than SSC ships.
“Their core body temperature is three degrees higher than our own,” Madeline reminded her as they jogged toward the Cularian medical sector. “They cool the ship to make them more comfortable.”
Edris was looking at the alien script on the compartment hatches as they passed them. She shook her head. “I don’t know how anybody ever reads that.”
“It�
��s not so hard,” came the amused reply. “It’s a lot like old Asian languages on Terravega, mostly symbols. Pronouncing it, though, that’s hard.”
“They pronounce names differently according to kinship and relationship status, too, don’t they?”
“Yes.”
Edris frowned. “Why are they so secretive? I mean, we know a lot about their physical makeup, but nothing about their culture or even their behavioral patterns.”
“They don’t volunteer information,” Madeline said, still smarting about her black market vids that had been a scam. “I’ve spent years trying to dig it out of Komak. He won’t tell me anything.”
“You could ask the C.O.,” Edris suggested.
“Only with a good head start,” Madeline assured her. “You just don’t bring up those topics with him.”
“I suppose not. I wonder if...”
“Who authorized you to bring Mallory aboard?” came a terse, angry deep voice from behind them.
Madeline stopped with easy grace and turned. Edris was frozen in place, her blue eyes like saucers as she stared uneasily at Dtimun.
“If I go down sick, you have to have a Cularian specialist aboard,” she said simply.
“You are never unwell,” Dtimun pointed out.
“I could catch that Altairian flu and be laid low for a week,” she replied. “We have to have backup, and there isn’t anyone else.”
“Holmes,” he began.
“Holmes shipped out to the Algomerian sector last week,” Madeline told him. “Besides, he wasn’t comfortable aboard the Morcai.” She said it with a hint of reproach.
Dtimun’s eyes narrowed and his jaw firmed. “I have competent physicals on my own planet, given by my own physician,” he replied. “I do not require the services of a Terravegan Cularian specialist!”
Madeline pursed her lips and smiled. “Ever?”
He glared at her while Edris tried to melt into the deck.
“If I hadn’t been at Ahkmau,” she began, “you’d be dead now. Sir.”
“Will there ever be an end to the constant revisiting of that medical procedure?” he wondered.