by S. L. Viehl
There were more men than women here, and all of them were staring at me. This promised to be unpleasant. Hopefully I would not be stripped and beaten here. I saw no discipline posts or whips.
“Sit down, Healer,” the captain said.
I sat down in the chair Xonea indicated, to the right of his own and directly across from my husband’s, and waited. My face felt as immobile as a Lok-teel mask in a blast of ice wind.
“We have received an urgent relay from the Hsktskt Faction homeworld of Vtaga,” Xonea said, activating the central console. A data copy of the relay appeared on the screens set into the table before us. It was shown in a language I could not read, so it meant nothing to me. “As you can see, it came from SubAkade TssVar, the former general of the Faction armies, and currently the chief Hsktskt negotiator at the Jado peace talks. He has personally requested our immediate assistance. Specifically, he asks that Cherijo come to Vtaga.”
The other men were reading the relay. Their reactions appeared to be a blend of surprise, disbelief, and, oddly, anger. I recalled TssVar as the big reptilian who had been present when Raktar Teuton delivered his ultimatum after the rebels had taken control of Akkabarr. TssVar had not struck me as a being who would casually ask for anything—and how was it that he knew Cherijo?
Reever finished reading the relay. “No,” he said to Xonea.
“This is not a matter of simply refusing their request, Duncan.” The captain looked distressed, as if he did not wish to say those words. “There is precedence.”
“Not this time.” Reever looked at me. “Jarn, leave us.”
Surprised that my husband had called me by my name in front of so many who did not, I rose to my feet.
“Sit down, Cherijo,” Xonea said.
I sat down.
Reever folded his arms. “She is my wife. Jarn, leave.”
I stood.
“She is a member of my crew,” Xonea shot back. “Healer, you will remain.”
Bobbing up and down seemed ridiculous, so I stood and silently waited for them to sort it out. I belonged to Reever, but Xonea was the leader of the Torin and captain of the ship. Iisleg custom would have placed Xonea as the ranking male, but we were not on Akkabarr. The protocol officer’s briefing had not covered what to do when caught between two men issuing conflicting orders, or to whom I owed obedience under such unusual circumstances.
Someone would simply have to tell me which order to obey.
Reever noticed my expression and turned to Xonea. “She does not understand. I will speak for her here. Go back to Medical, Jarn.”
“You may not speak for her, Linguist. She is yet a member of the Ruling Council, and as such outranks both of us.” The captain eyed me. “You will stay here, Cherijo.”
This Ruling Council business was something else new to me; no one had mentioned it. Why would anyone elect a physician to rule them? Why had Cherijo not written about any of this in her journals? I did not wish to leave now, but I did not want to defy Reever.
“I have an objection.” Salo, the head of the communications department, stood up. A stern-looking Jorenian with many battle scars, he commanded instant attention. His daughter often came to visit Marel and had proved to be a cheerful, polite child. “One cannot follow two guides, or walk two paths.” He gave me a bleak smile. “Jarn, wish you to stay or go?”
I felt a small twinge of pleasure at being addressed by my true name by one of the crew. “Am I permitted to answer that?” I asked, keeping my voice carefully neutral. Tension made the air thick; I did not wish to be the cause of a fight between these men.
My husband came to me and rested his hands on my shoulders. “What will be said here will be confusing to you. Without knowledge of what has happened in the past, you cannot make this decision. You can trust me to decide this for you.”
Could trust, or had to trust? I did not know, but his logic seemed reasonable. If only I trusted him.
“I do not wish to make uninformed decisions.” I glanced at Xonea. “Is it permitted for me to stay so that I may know what is decided for me?”
One side of the captain’s mouth curled. “You can have no objection to that, Reever.”
My husband released me. “As long as it is understood that I serve as my wife’s proxy.” When Xonea nodded, he gave me a long, piercing look before he returned to his seat.
I sat down and released the breath I had been holding. I had traversed ice fields pocked with unexploded ordnance with less worry.
Naln Torin, the chief of engineering, occupied the seat next to mine. Another blue-skinned giant of a female, she had a gentle manner and had come to Medical each day since the accident in her section to visit Knofki and the others who had been injured. She bent her head so she could speak softly to me. “Need you explanation of anything said here, Healer, you have but to ask me.”
“I thank you.” I picked up a datapad to take notes, and to give my hands something more to do than clench with nerves.
“Very well, let us examine what details we have,” Xonea said, removing the relay transcript from the screens and replacing it with a star chart. “Here you see the Faction homeworld of Vtaga, where the unidentified plague has emerged. We have no live or recorded transmissions from the planet—the Hsktskt have never permitted such—but TssVar claims this disease is killing everyone who contracts it.”
“The plague itself is not lethal,” Reever countered. “He stated that in his relay.”
“True, but the symptoms induced by the contagion are driving the infected to extreme violence. More than two-thirds of the victims have committed suicide.” Xonea paused to reference another file. “The medical data provided show victims suffer from progressive psychotic delusions and brain dysfunction. TssVar assures us that these symptoms are not being experienced by the non-Hsktskt portion of their population—”
“Their slaves,” Reever said. “No humanoid is permitted to set foot on Vtaga unless they are in a collar and chains.”
“As you say, Duncan.” Xonea displayed current world population figures for the Hsktskt home-world. “TssVar’s physicians are unable to account for the spread of the plague, the source, or the means of transmission. That is all the information we have.”
“During the war, whole companies of Hsktskt chose to cut their own throats when defeated rather than be captured and taken prisoner by the League,” Salo said. “Is it possible this plague is more a form of mass hysterical response to the peace talks?”
“It seems unlikely.” Xonea frowned at my husband. “Duncan, you know these people better than any of us. What say you of Salo’s theory?”
“Some conservative Hsktskt might protest the end of the war and having equal dealings with the warm-blooded, but they would not be driven to violence and suicide by them.” Reever sounded slightly impatient. “It does not matter. After the liberation of Catopsa, the Faction levied a blood bounty on my wife’s head. Whatever TssVar may say, that bounty cannot be lifted by anything but her death or execution at the hands of the Hsktskt. She cannot go to Vtaga.”
“But I have died,” I said, drawing everyone’s attention. Moments such as these were why I wished I could wear a head wrap. “The death of my former self—her mind, her memories—occurred on Akkabarr, when the slave ship transporting her crashed on the surface.”
“That may serve as justification to lift the blood bounty,” Xonea said. “What other objection have you, Duncan?”
“Have you forgotten what happened the last time she went to stop a plague, Captain?” my husband asked, his voice soft and low. “They took her from us. Took her as if she were nothing but an exotic animal to be chained and caged and sold to the highest bidder.”
Another good reason not to recover Cherijo’s memories, I thought. I did not wish to relive any of what she had suffered at the hands of the League.
The captain’s skin darkened. “We will take measures to protect her.”
“As the Jado did? Every member of their House-Clan
save Teulon and his son died on that day. Our daughter and I nearly joined them in death.” Reever spoke without emotion coloring his words, which gave them a ghastly, appropriate emptiness. “From that day it took us almost three years to find her, only to discover that she had been attacked while wounded by primitives. Their brutality caused the brain damage that destroyed her memory.”
The captain sighed. “I understand this better than you think, Duncan.”
“If what you say is true, then you would not ask this of her.” My husband looked at all the other men in the room. “Forget that this woman is my wife, and your kin. Look upon her as a sum of her experiences. How much more must she suffer? When will she have sacrificed enough to have earned her freedom?”
No one seemed to know what to say.
Reever came from his place and drew me up from mine. “I made a promise to someone after I first met you,” he said to me. “I vowed that no matter what happened I would keep you safe. I have done a poor job of that in the past, but I am determined, if nothing else, to keep my promise now. That is why I must say no to this scheme. If you go to Vtaga, you will die there.”
This was the reason I had given myself to Reever. He had sworn to care for me and Marel, and protect us with his life. How could I undermine that by providing aid to a species that had wanted me hunted down and killed? “It will be as you say, Husband.”
Reever kept my hands in his as he addressed the captain. “You will signal SubAkade TssVar and refuse his request.”
Xonea looked angry—and a little relieved—before he replied with, “Yes. I will do so at once.”
Reever did not permit me to return to Medical Bay. Instead he signaled Squilyp from one of the command center terminals and informed him that I would be unavailable for the remainder of my shift. The Omorr must have heard about TssVar’s request, for he only asked if we were going to Vtaga, and seemed quite happy to learn that we were not.
I followed my husband to a lift, but instead of taking me to his quarters, he sent it spiraling to the very bottom level, an area the protocol officer had told me was used mainly for star-viewing through its transparent walls.
The entire level appeared to be a squared-off bubble. Not only were the walls transparent, but so was the lower deck. Only the strips of alloy between the fitted sonic buffer panels and the exit from the lift seemed solid; the rest made it seem as if we walked through space itself.
I kept thinking of this, to prevent my mind from traveling in other directions.
“You have not spoken much since the meeting,” Reever said.
Now he wishes me to speak. I turned away from him, and saw what appeared to be a crumpled, threadbare veil of red, yellow, and purple color pocked with tiny stars. Marel had once pointed it out to me from the viewport in Reever’s quarters and called it a nebula. It looked like the sun shining through one of the clear ice pillars near a vent shaft, and made me long again for the clean, spare beauty of Akkabarr.
“Jarn?”
Why was he using my name so much? I was not his beloved. “Yes?”
“Tell me what you are feeling.”
“Content. This is a pretty place. I like looking at the stars.” I dismissed all of the unhappy emotions from my mind and moved to stand in front of one deck-to-ceiling panel. “Will I have to report for an additional shift in Medical, to make up for the time I spent at the briefing?”
“No.” He came up behind me, but he did not touch me. “Why don’t you trust me?”
“I do trust you. You vowed to protect our child, and me, and I believed you.” Would he put his hands on me now? He had tried to do so once, the first week I had been with him, but I had avoided the contact. Now that I was more accustomed to his presence, and his touch, I thought I might tolerate more of it—but not in this open space, where anyone could walk in on us. “How long are we to stay here? If I am not to work a shift, I would return to your quarters.”
“Our quarters,” He turned me to face him. “They are yours as much as mine.”
They had been Cherijo’s; I was only a guest in them. I shrugged instead of saying this.
“We need time alone.” He moved his fingers over my cheek in a gentle manner; a caress like those an Iisleg man bestowed on a woman he wanted or who had especially pleased him. “I want you to stop sleeping in Marel’s room.”
That confused me. “Why? You never said I could not.”
“I wished you to have enough time to adjust.” He traced the lines of my mouth, his gaze intent.
“To adjust what?” I felt his body tighten and change, and then it became clear to me. When we had made this agreement, Reever had promised he would take no other women. To my knowledge, he had kept that promise. “You mean coupling with you? I do not have to sleep with you for that. I can go to sleep in the child’s room after it is done.”
His hand fell away. “You don’t want me.”
Want him? I hardly knew him.
“I am your wife, I know my duty. You had only to say.” We were talking too much; a male was supposed to take, not ask. I disliked this area, but the door could be locked, and one of the benches would serve. “If you will secure the entry, we can begin now.” I started unfastening the front of my tunic. “Should I take off everything? Is there something specific that you wish me to do?” What knowledge I had of coupling was very limited, and of ensleg ways I knew nothing, so I was sure I would need a certain amount of instruction.
“Stop it.” He caught my hands. “I am not going to take you on the observation deck.”
“Very well.” I waited, and then asked, “Where should we do this?” For all I knew, the ensleg had some special department on the ship for it. They had them for everything else.
“I will wait until it is something that you desire,” he said slowly.
He would wait a long time, then. “I may still sleep with the child?”
“No. Yes. I don’t care.” He turned his back on me. “Stop asking my permission for everything.”
“That is how it is done among my people, Reever,” I reminded him. When he did not reply, I added, “I do not wish to displease you.”
“You are not here to humor me.” Reever made a swift, cutting gesture. “You are no longer on Akkabarr. You’re free now. Stop acting like you’re still a slave to men.”
How easily he said that. So easily it made my blood run hot and my tongue grow reckless.
“Indeed. I did not wish to leave my Raktar or our people, but to be a mother to the child of my body, you said that I must come with you and be wife. Thus I am here, following your wishes, not my own. I do not know these Jorenians, but they say that I am their sister and must treat them as family. It makes me uncomfortable, and it is not my wish to be a part of their HouseClan, yet I have also tried to do this. Each day more than one of you put a mask on me—the mask of a dead woman—and call me her name, so that you may pretend she yet lives. I am not her, yet I again tolerate it and say nothing. Now I am prevented from attending to those who are in need on Vtaga, and you would tell me where I can sleep but that I may not attend to your needs as a woman should until it is something I wish.” I gazed up at him. “Tell me, how is any of this free, exactly?”
“This is your life, Jarn. One day, you will remember it—”
“No.” I stepped back, away from his hands. “I will not remember. I did not live her life. I was born when it was over. I am a woman of the Iisleg, a skela, a healer, and a rebel fighter. I killed a man during the war, to save the life of my Raktar. If not for the child, I would still be with Teulon and Resa. I would have gladly become his second woman to remain at his side.” I saw the pain in his eyes, but he needed to face my truth. “I am not Cherijo Torin, Linguist. Your wife is dead. She died when her ship crashed on Akkabarr, and nothing you say or do to me will ever bring her back.”
He stared at me in silence for a very long time. “I will not let you go.”
I knew that. “I am not asking you to.”
“Ve
ry well,” He turned to face the emptiness beyond the ship. “Go back to work, Wife.”
THREE
The Senior Healer showed surprise when I returned to duty, but asked no questions and permitted me to finish my shift as scheduled. Perhaps he sensed how uneasy I felt, for he did not force me to complete the disrupted halo-stim treatment, either.
Before I left, we spent a few moments in his office reviewing charts. The Omorr consulted with me on the various types of prosthetics made for paraplegics that the resident had recommended as suitable for Dapvea Adan, and we agreed that those made with reconstructed technology would be the most resilient and restore the widest range of function.
“Jorenians heal very quickly,” I mentioned as I made the final notes on Dapvea’s chart.
“Is there something bothering you?” Squilyp asked. “You seemed quieter than usual today.”
So he had noticed. “I do not understand some of your ensleg ways,” I admitted. “I will use the database later to find out what I do not know.”
His brow furrowed. “What don’t you know?”
“The ways of coupling. I do not know how it is done among your kind.” I checked my notes to ensure I had recorded the necessary details. “Reever wishes to make use of me, but I am not doing something right. He will not tell me what it is, and so we do not couple.”
The Senior Healer cleared his throat. “We do not, ah, discuss such matters openly.”
I looked up. “Speaking of coupling is taboo?” The protocol officer had not included it on his list of things I was forbidden to do on the ship.
“No, but it is … a private concern between the partners involved.” His hide turned dark pink. “You should ask Reever to explain such things to you.”
“I have already angered him by doing so, and he will not tell me.” I gave him a speculative look. “You know how it is done by Terrans, do you not? Is there some ritual involved? Some thing that must be said? You ensleg seem very fond of saying many words before you actually do something.”