by Diana Palmer
“Well, not as long as I’m alive, sir,” she said with twinkling green eyes. “You are, after all, my greatest medical accomplishment.”
He didn’t speak. He was still glaring.
“Some surgeons couldn’t have managed what I did under laboratory conditions,” she continued, warming to her subject. “I did it with a couple of purloined tools and almost no pure water, with Rojok patrols right outside the prison cell.”
His lips were now making a thin line.
“You know, I don’t recall that you ever even thanked me for it,” she continued.
He bit off some comments in his own language.
“Sir!” she exclaimed.
He made a rough noise in his throat and turned his attention to Mallory. “Make sure that Ruszel acquaints you with shipboard protocol. No wandering is allowed, especially in the kelekom sector.”
Mallory saluted, rigid as a board. “Sir, I never wander. I’ve never seen a kelekom. I mean, I don’t want to see one. I mean, not that they aren’t interesting, I’m sure...!”
Dtimun turned back to Madeline, exasperated. “There is no one else?”
She glared at him. “Edris is perfectly competent.”
“To do what?” he demanded.
Edris made a hunted sound. She looked as if she wanted to hide under something.
“Sir, don’t you have some pressing military function to perform that requires your attention elsewhere?” Madeline asked pleasantly. “Lives must be at stake somewhere.”
“One day, warwoman,” he bit off.
She raised both eyebrows. “One day, what, sir?” she asked innocently.
He darted a killing glance at Mallory, another at Madeline and turned on his heel, muttering in his own tongue as he stalked off.
“Can you translate that?” Edris asked timidly.
“Oh, you don’t want me to do that,” Madeline assured her. “Let’s get you settled. It’s going to be a long few days.”
* * *
ON THAT SCORE, she was absolutely right. There was an emergency on one of the Coromat system planets near Terramer which required the skills of a Cularian medical specialist. Madeline elected to take Edris along, to let her get the feel of an away mission.
Sadly, no one had thought to tell the new recruit that the commander did high grav landings. He put down at six megs and Mallory threw up all over the deck. Dtimun was eloquent.
When he left the scout ship, Hahnson and Stern and Komak roared with laughter.
“Sorry,” Hahnson told Edris, “we aren’t laughing at you. It’s just that the C.O. does line himself up for these mishaps. I mean, who puts down at six megs?”
Stern raised his hand.
“Not in a Cehn-Tahr scout, you never did,” Madeline pointed out.
“I’m just so sorry,” Edris moaned, pressing a medicated wipe to her face. “I’m so embarrassed! I’ve never done anything like that.” She dotted an enzyme eraser onto the mess she’d made on the deck, cleaning it efficiently.
“I threw up the first time I did a high grav landing,” Madeline assured her.
“Not on Dtimun’s ship, you didn’t,” Hahnson reminded her.
“Oh, like you know,” Madeline muttered.
“Actually, I threw up, too, the first time I had to fly with Dtimun,” Hahnson confessed. “He’s just short of suicidal when he’s piloting a small ship. But that high grav landing really weirds out enemy combatants. They never expect it.”
“I suppose it would give us an edge in battle,” Edris commented weakly.
“I don’t suppose you’d know why the C.O. looks as if he’s been chewing on the hull plates?” Stern asked Madeline.
She gave him an angelic smile. “I’m certain it doesn’t have anything to do with me,” she assured him.
“What did you say to him?” Stern persisted.
“I only mentioned how lucky he was that I was with him at Ahkmau when he needed emergency surgery,” she replied. “And there was the matter of bringing Edris aboard.”
“But you said the commander wanted me to learn the routine aboard the Morcai,” Edris burst out.
“He did say that. Sort of,” Madeline hedged.
“What exactly did he say?” Hahnson piped in.
Madeline shrugged. “That I could give her a virtual tour of the premises.” She blinked. “Virtual, real, I mean, with the vid systems we have today, really, is there a difference?”
Edris put her face in her hands. “He’ll kill me.”
“Yes, but he can’t eat you,” Madeline assured her. “And we’ve already had that discussion. That Jebob soldier they said the Cehn-Tahr ate during the Great Galaxy War—he was actually eaten by a Rojok, wasn’t he?” she asked the men.
Edris covered her mouth with her hand and went pale.
“Rojoks don’t eat Jebob nationals,” Stern scoffed. “They’re far too stringy.” He yawned. “It was an old Altairian, and they’d just run out of rations...Mallory? You okay?” He winced. “Damn, and you just cleaned the deck already!”
Madeline hit him. He just laughed.
* * *
“I AM CERTAIN that I don’t want to serve aboard this vessel,” Mallory said when they’d treated the diplomatic patient and were safely back aboard the Morcai, heading back to Trimerius.
“You just had a bad introduction to Holconcom routines,” Madeline said soothingly. “First times are always difficult.”
“This first time will give me nightmares every night from now on,” Edris assured her. “How could you bring me aboard without telling the C.O.?” she moaned.
“Well, if I’d actually told him, he wouldn’t have let you come,” Madeline said reasonably, “and you have to learn someday.”
Komak came up beside them, running backward to keep pace. He was grinning. “Have you shown Lieutenant Mallory the kelekoms?” he asked.
“No, sir, and she’s not going to,” Edris interrupted firmly before Madeline could get her mouth open. “I’ve done enough damage for one mission. With my luck, I’d sneeze on one and give it some fatal disease.”
“They are quite used to humans now,” Komak chuckled. “It has been a long time since one of them was ill.”
“Has the C.O. had any luck finding a new partner for the inactive kelekom?” Madeline asked.
Komak shook his head. “Lawson will not provide him with any candidates.”
“Brave Lawson, to refuse the commander,” Edris murmured.
“He intimidates her,” Madeline explained to Komak.
“Who, Lawson?” he asked.
“No. The commander.”
“Oh.” Komak grinned. “He does not intimidate you, Madelineruszel,” he said.
“I’ve had all my shots.”
Komak frowned. “Excuse me?”
She chuckled. “Private joke.”
The intership speakers blared with Dtimun’s deep voice speaking in Cehn-Tahr.
Komak grimaced. “I am told to mind my own duties and refrain from delaying other crew members from attending to their own.”
“How did he know?” Edris asked, looking around warily.
“AVBDs,” Madeline said, bending the truth. She knew that Dtimun was a telepath, but she’d never told anyone. “They’re everywhere, except in the C.O.’s own office. You won’t see them,” she added. “They blend. See you, Komak.”
He smiled, turned and put on a burst of speed, leaving them behind.
* * *
“THAT OFFICER, KOMAK,” Edris commented as they jogged down the corridor of the Morcai on their way to the airlock, “he doesn’t seem a lot like the rest of the Cehn-Tahr.”
“I know. He’s spent so much time around humans that he’s taken on human characteristics,” Mad
eline laughed. “Odd, though, when we were in the death camp on Enmehkmehk’s moon, I was using Komak for blood transfusion for the C.O. When I synched and synthed compatibility factors, his blood seemed to have human elements.” She sighed. “And that’s impossible. We know the Cehn-Tahr never mate outside their own species.”
“Why?” Edris wondered.
Madeline blinked. “I suppose it’s their racial laws. It carries the death penalty.”
“Just like our military punishes any sexual fraternization with death,” Edris replied. “Isn’t it odd that both societies are so xenophobic?” she asked. “I’ve heard it said that all Terravegans were originally tea-colored with dark hair.”
“I’ve heard that, too,” Madeline said. “But I think you and I are proof that it’s just an old legend,” she added, smiling. “Your coloring and mine put paid to that theory.”
Edris fingered her blond hair and eyed Madeline’s reddish-gold hair and nodded. “Will the C.O. get over it? That I threw up all over the scout, I mean?”
Madeline stopped and looked at the other woman. “He’s amazingly tolerant sometimes,” she said. “He does have a temper, and he can be irritating and stubborn. But he’s the best commanding officer in the fleet. All of us would follow him out the airlock if he asked us to. Of course, he does have this deplorable, primitive attitude about medics being unarmed, and I do have to sneak weapons off the ship in my equipment bag...”
Edris’s eyes had widened and she was staring apprehensively over Madeline’s shoulder.
Madeline’s teeth clenched. “And he’s standing right behind me, isn’t he?”
Edris only nodded.
Madeline turned with a sigh. Dtimun was glaring down at her with both hands locked behind his back, looking stern and unapproachable.
“Shall we lengthen the period of your confinement to the base by two standard weeks?” he asked.
“Now, sir, why would we want to do that?” Madeline asked innocently.
He pursed his lips. “From now on, I intend to have your equipment bag searched every time we leave the ship.”
She groaned.
He nodded curtly, turned and jogged off down the corridor.
Edris, wisely, didn’t say a word. Dr. Ruszel’s face was almost as red as her hair with bad temper.
CHAPTER THREE
MADELINE WAS CATCHING up on reports on her virtual desk when a flash came in from Admiral Lawson.
She answered it at once. “Yes, sir?” she said respectfully.
He grimaced. “I hate to have to ask you to do this, Ruszel,” he replied, “but everybody else cut me off the minute I mentioned a personal dispatch I needed to send to Dtimun...” He waited. She didn’t protest. He grinned. “I knew you had the guts to do it.”
She sighed. “Everybody else is afraid of him, especially lately,” she confided. “He’s been in a sour mood. Not my fault,” she added at once. “I haven’t done a thing to upset him.”
Lawson reserved judgment on that, but he didn’t say so. “I’m flashing the dispatch to you. Top secret. Eyes only. I can’t trust anyone else to transport it.”
She blinked when it appeared, in solid form, in her cyberreconstitutor “in” tray. “Sir, you couldn’t flash it to the C.O.?”
He shrugged. “I could, if he’d answer his unit. He won’t.” His face tautened. “He won’t like the dispatch, but I have to give it to him. You’ll find him at the Cehn-Tahr embassy, by the way, getting ready for some big reception at the Altair center. He’s not happy that he has to go and represent his government. Their own ambassador refused to go and was recalled.”
She pursed her lips. “My, my, imagine that. It must be something big.”
“Something. Get going. He’ll be leaving shortly. If you have to chase him down to the Altair embassy, the Altairians will never let you through the door in uniform.”
“They’d have to,” she commented, “because I’m not changing my uniform for skirts even for diplomacy’s sake.”
He chuckled. “I don’t blame you. Not a lot of human females in the Holconcom,” he added with a grin. Her place as the only female in that crack unit made him proud.
“Yes, sir,” she agreed, smiling back.
He cut the connection. She looked at her screen with dismay. There were eight reports left to do. It was going to be a long night, she thought as she disabled the unit. But, hopefully, this wouldn’t take long.
* * *
SHE HAD TO GET a military skimmer to the embassy. The building was, like most things Cehn-Tahr, smooth and rounded and elegant, a fantasy of blue and gold lights, the colors of the Cehn-Tahr Imperial Royal Clan. She dismissed the robot transport and walked up the steps, declining the vator tube. She wondered how much trouble she was going to have getting inside the embassy. Humans weren’t exactly welcome here, even if a whole detachment of them served with the Holconcom.
A uniformed sentry waited at the door. With a hopeful smile, she started to present her arm, with its ID chip, but he saluted her at once and activated his comm unit.
“Dr. Madeline Ruszel of the Holconcom to see the commander,” he spoke into it.
Her surprise was visible. She hadn’t realized that she was known here. There was a long pause.
“Send her,” came the terse reply.
Madeline grimaced. “Oh, boy,” she said to herself. “He’s not in the mood for company.”
“It is the Altairian reception,” the sentry confided. “None of us like the Altair delegation...”
A rush of angry Cehn-Tahr poured forth from the comm unit.
“Yes, sir!” the sentry said into his unit, motioning Madeline through the door with a clenching of teeth and a look of apology.
Poor guy, she thought.
“You are not required to pass time with my subordinates,” came an angry, deep voice into her mind. “Why are you here?”
“You won’t like it,” she thought back.
“Lawson and his dispatch,” he muttered, adding a few choice words in his own tongue.
“Sir!” she protested, because she recognized some of them.
He stepped into the hallway. She almost didn’t recognize him. It wasn’t just the absence of facial hair that made him look different—he hadn’t regrown the beard and mustache he’d sported when the complement of the Morcai ended up in Ahkmau and Madeline had shaved him to disguise his face. It was his clothing that was different. He was wearing robes of blue and gold, the imperial colors, in some fabric as sleek as silk. The robes clung to the muscular lines of his body and draped over one shoulder to touch the floor at the tip of his highly polished black boots. He looked...different. Elegant. Regal. It was the first time she’d ever seen him out of a Holconcom uniform in the nearly three years she’d been part of the Morcai’s crew.
* * *
“HE SENT YOU,” Dtimun said with faint hauteur. “Why?”
“Because everybody else hid under a desk,” she muttered. She held out the dispatch.
A flash of green amusement touched his eyes. “You were afraid of me, too, at first.”
“That was years ago, sir,” she reminded him. Her own eyes twinkled. “As soon as I realized that the Cehn-Tahr didn’t eat humans, I stopped worrying.”
He chuckled. He read the dispatch. His lips made a thin line. “More predations on our forward supply transports. I cannot turn the Morcai into an escort ship. Lawson will have to find another way.”
“That was the job the Altairians were doing,” she reminded him. “Then the Terravegan ambassador, Aubrey Taylor, ticked them off and they withdrew their support vessels.”
“Taylor is what you humans call a bigot,” he replied.
“I could think of a few better names,” she murmured. Taylor had been vicious in his verbal attacks on the Ce
hn-Tahr, and the Amazon Division as well. He thought women in combat were a disgrace. She pursed her lips as she looked up at Dtimun. “You and Taylor should get along. He doesn’t think women have any place in combat, either. I hear he’s going to the Altairian reception, too—probably to tick off even more of their military. Pity you can’t think of some way to irritate him even more than you did when you withdrew his transport privileges on Cehn-Tahr vessels. Sir.”
He gave her an odd, intense scrutiny. “Sadly for you, I can think of a better way. You will accompany me to the reception.” He clapped his hands. Two younger men in uniform ran up and saluted. “Take Ruszel to the weavemaster and have him weave her robes to wear to the Altair reception. Tell him he has ten standard minutes.”
“Robes? Reception? I will not...!” she burst out.
“Does Lawson know that you brew contraband coffee in your med lab?” he interrupted smugly.
Her mouth stayed open. She closed it. “Admiral Lawson does it, too,” she began.
“He is an admiral.” He looked at his immaculate fingernails. “I understand the penalty is revocation of all base privileges for a period of four standard months.” He eyed her with evident amusement.
She glared at him. But she saluted, turned and followed the younger soldiers upstairs. She really hoped he was reading her mind on the way.
* * *
EXACTLY FIFTEEN STANDARD minutes later, she made her way down the winding staircase. Dtimun was looking at messages on his small virtual unit. He heard her steps—amazing, since the whole embassy was carpeted—and turned. His expression was too complex to classify, like the warping colors in his eyes.
She was enveloped in silken blue robes with gold trim. The robes covered her discreetly from her neck to her toes. The neck of the robes was draped in back just to the beginning of the creamy skin over her shoulder blades, displaying her nape. Her long reddish-gold hair had been pulled up and pinned in draping curls from a position high on her head by the weavemaster’s assistant, who had also applied the lightest touch of makeup. She looked elegant. Regal. Beautiful.
She felt awkward. She moved the rest of the way down the steps, watching carefully so that she didn’t trip over the unfamiliar skirts. “Next time could you just shoot me in the foot when you want to punish me, sir?” she asked.