Endurance

by Richard Chizmar

  “Really.” I wondered what else they’d been using the shafts for. Wonlee held out his arms and began trying to coax Jenner down from his perch. “Um, I don’t think he’s going to come to you.”

  “No, he’s not.” Wonlee dropped his clawed hands and gave my pet a disgruntled glower. “Ungrateful creature. I saved his life, you know.”

  “Did you?” I picked up the case, which was rocking back and forth from the furious struggles within. “Any particular reason why? I can’t imagine it was out of fondness for me.”

  “I came here to … talk to you.” Wonlee straightened his tunic.

  I’d already noticed the outline of a displacer pistol standing out under his tunic. “Your nose is getting longer, Lieutenant.” He gave me a puzzled frown, and I tightened my grip on the case. “You came here to kill me.”

  “All right.” He folded his arms. “Originally, I was ordered to come here to kill you.”

  “Maybe next time, huh?” I tucked the case under one arm, shielding it with my body, and backed toward the door panel. “Thanks again for saving my cat.”

  “Wait. We need your help.”

  “Is that right?” My brows rose. “Why would you need help from a traitorous Terran beast-lover like me?”

  He averted his gaze. “Doctor, we’re going to arrive at the slave-depot soon. Many of the crew are injured, and if the slavers decide we’re not worth selling …”

  The Hsktskt would have a cookout. The irony of the situation wasn’t lost on me, either. “Let me see if I follow. Major Devrak considered me unworthy of sharing the same oxygen with you people, and sent you here to assassinate me, but now you’d like me to treat the injured crew members so they’ll pass slaver inspection. Have I got this right?”

  He had the grace to look ashamed, then nodded.

  I was tempted to tell him where to shove his weapon, then I sighed.

  “I’ll see what I can do.” I opened the door panel, checked the corridor, then gestured toward the hatch. “You’d better crawl back there before you’re missed. And do something with that pistol before they find it on you.”

  He patted the weapon, gave me a grin, then hoisted himself up through the narrow opening.

  I thought about Wonlee’s earnest request as I made my way back to Medical. Were the League prisoners in such bad shape? Shropana had likely poisoned everyone with his lies, and the sick or injured might have been too afraid to report for treatment.

  Maybe I’d just let Patril have that heart attack.

  FurreVa was back in her foam cradle and being assessed by Vlaav when I came in and placed the last of her infants into the incubator array. I did a quick scan on the babies and found them in tolerable condition.

  “Schedule surfactum treatments for all of them,” I told the Saksonan when he came over to report.

  “Those require induction of an endotracheal tube.” Vlaav peered at the infants’ glittering teeth and audibly gulped. “Do I have to do that to these creatures?”

  “If you want to create the proper spaces in the bronchial tubes and aeviolii, yeah, you do.” I adjusted the incubator arrays to keep the internal temperatures warm and dry. “After you tube them, set the respirators to provide continuous positive airway pressure, so their lungs won’t collapse.”

  “You’d better have a look at the female. The graft work has sustained considerable damage.”

  “Wean them off the surfactum once the lung scans clear. Remember to use gentle shaking if they experience bouts of free-breathing apnea,” I told him as I cleaned up. “If apnea persists, we’re going to have to keep them tubed.”

  Before I could go and check their mother, a familiar figure stepped forward to block my path.

  I had no more patience, not even a millispec left. “What do you want, OverCenturon?”

  “You have been wounded.” He nodded toward my arm, still oozing blood from where the Hsktskt infant had taken a bite.

  “So?”

  He reached out and ripped the sleeve of my tunic completely off. Not to bandage it, of course. He jerked my arm around to display the wound. Beneath which should have been a PIC. “You have removed your identification.”

  “No, I didn’t.” I glanced around wildly. The medical staff couldn’t help me. Maybe I could get to a console. “It healed. Burning me doesn’t work.”

  His tongue touched my cheek. “I will make it work.”

  I should have screamed or fought or something, I suppose, but I was positive the nurses would carry out my orders and signal Command. Convinced, too, that Reever would come to the rescue.

  After all, he always came to my rescue.

  I told myself the same thing over and over, as GothVar marched me down the corridor to the launch bay, where the blood and gore-splattered discipline post still stood. I felt confident as he secured the door panel. I even smiled bravely when he bonded me to the post.

  “Reever won’t let you do this.” Would be nice if he showed up right about now, too, I thought.

  “HalaVar is not here. He cannot stop me.” Flat-Head stretched my wounded arm above my head and lashed my wrist securely. His heavy body crushed mine into the hard, crusted surface of the post. For a moment, our faces were only a centimeter apart. His repulsive breath made me hold mine. “I will drink of your pain, Terran.”

  “Herbal tea is much easier on the digestion.” Come on, Reever, now is the time to come charging in to save me. “I can prescribe something for you, if you’d like.”

  He wasn’t listening, only fiddling with something on the floor.

  “Why did you let FurreVa take the blame for what you did to those prisoners?”

  “She will capitulate.” His tail slammed into the post, just below my feet. “As will you.”

  What was he talking about? I leaned over to get a better look at him, and saw what he was fooling with.

  “You can’t use that.” Sweat that had been beading around my brow suddenly streaked down my temples. GothVar stopped for a moment to gaze at me. “Um, you have to do this with a laser.”

  “As long as the designation is legible,” he said, activating the thresher unit, “I can use any means I wish.”

  “No.” I said it again, louder, so he would understand. “Cutting is not the same thing as branding. For branding, you use heat.”

  FlatHead simply adjusted the unit to produce a focused, narrow beam and input something on the thresher’s panel. The low hum become a high, eardrum-piercing whine. Then the OverCenturon stepped aside, and waited.

  The displacer band hit my arm, and everything that had happened to FurreVa came back to me in a huge, terrifying rush of images. “Stop it!”

  He didn’t, of course.

  The thresher began cutting into my arm. Not like a lascalpel, which was hot, fast, and efficient. No, this was more like being gouged with a cold, dull eating utensil. I twisted, digging my heels in against the post, trying to get away from the beam.

  Reever, where are you? “Turn it off!”

  GothVar would leave it on, I thought, closing my eyes tightly, biting the inside of my lips to keep from screaming. He’d leave it on until it dug through my skin and muscle and bone. Until my body dropped to the deck. Until my arm was left hanging by itself on the post. That was where my ex-bondmate would find me, armless, cold, and white.

  Because this time, Reever wasn’t coming to my rescue.

  GothVar drew closer. I felt his claws hook into my slave collar, and I couldn’t bear his touch and the thresher chopping into me at the same time. I opened my eyes, saw the voracious alien gaze locked on not my arm, but my face.

  His mouth parted, allowing the black tongue to slide out and trail up and down my face. Tasting the droplets of sweat and tears, I realized. Licking them from my skin as though they were wine.

  My teeth stayed locked together, but I got this much out: “Get—away—from—me!”

  “More, SsurreVa,” he said, and ducked under the beam to crowd me from the other side. “Scream for
me.”

  He certainly liked to hear people screaming, and looked ready to chomp down on anything I moved. I kept silent and tried to hold still. It wasn’t easy. The beam had gotten through the first layers of derma and superficial tissue, and was now tearing into the deep fascia.

  How had FurreVa endured this? How could I?

  Like a mouth of flat-topped fangs, like his mouth, the thresher kept at me. The odor from the Hsktskt’s mouth and my own blood choked me. I couldn’t take a deep breath. The pain worsened, darkened from sharp and stabbing into profound agony.

  How long, how long can I stay conscious? My ears filled with the rush of whistling sobs. Not long, but I can’t pass out—he’ll leave me here to bleed to death. He’d leave me until the beam dices me up.

  GothVar’s voice inched into my ears … telling me … oh, my God, he was telling me what he …

  Something seized me by the throat, and suddenly I couldn’t breathe at all. I felt my lungs burn, my larynx strain around an unreleased gasp. Yet I couldn’t overcome that vise around my neck, couldn’t fight it. Whatever it was held me suspended and helpless.

  GothVar’s repulsive presence seemed to fade away.

  No, Cherijo. You can breathe. Breathe.

  My pulse roared out of control. Icy sweat glazed over my face. That voice behind my wide eyes was wrong, I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t unlock the paralyzed muscles. I was going to die here, like this, frozen, trapped, helpless.

  Cherijo, breathe.

  I couldn’t comprehend what was happening. I wasn’t having a seizure. Nothing was strangling me. The beast wasn’t touching me. There was nothing there—

  Lack of oxygen made the room transform into a shifting, vague blur. Eventually it left me, all of it, the room, the thresher, the pain. Trapped inside my own body, listening to the sound of my heart as it slowed, beat by beat, I didn’t care anymore, not knowing …

  Cherijo!

  Someone pried my mouth open and filled it with something hard and round. Delicious, sweet oxygen pumped into my lungs. I drew it in eagerly, then shuddered at the resulting rawness as it left me on a ragged exhalation.

  Breathe.

  The voice in my head forced another breath into my lungs. I wasn’t sure I wanted to do that. The other way was easy, I wouldn’t have to deal with the Hsktskt or the arm he’d hacked off my body by now. I wouldn’t have to be a slave.

  Breathe for me.

  Another rush of oxygen poured down my throat. It reconnected me with more than I wanted—the horrible pain of my arm, the wrenched, contorted muscles of my body, and the force that held me between two solid struts … not struts … arms.

  Human arms.

  Reever?

  Old memories flashed in brief, swift sequence.

  Ana Hansen, smiling. Cherijo Grey Veil, this is Duncan Reever, our chief linguist.

  Jenner, winding in and out of Reever’s ankles. That’s why they’re called pet, Reever. You pet them.

  Hands that carried the scars of a terrified child. I think of the ritual often now.

  A birthday present I’d received while serving on the Sunlace. It’s to keep my hair tidy.

  A list of dead and wounded, one that didn’t have Reever’s name on it. What have you done to yourself?

  My own face, for once open and alive with yearning. We belong together. I can feel it, when I touch you, when I look at you. When I hear your voice.

  Reever, the first time I’d seen him. Sitting alone, dressed in black, looking at me. The cold, handsome face that never changed. The eyes that never stayed the same.

  Touch me, Cherijo. Someone pressed my hands against warm, smooth skin. Look at me. I opened my eyes, saw his face. Listen to my voice.

  Gently he removed the tube from my mouth. “Breathe, beloved.”

  My petrified lungs slowly expanded, dragging in a shallow breath that rasped over the swollen tissues of my throat. As I released the burning gulp of air, I knew I would live.

  The problem now was wanting to.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Catopsa

  A few days after GothVar’s attempt to part me from my right forearm (which failed), the L.T.F. Perpetua arrived at Catopsa.

  The OverCenturon, according to Reever, had been reprimanded about his actions in the launch bay. Apparently he wasn’t subject to discipline for branding me with the PIC, as that was standard Faction regulation.

  Pity. I would have liked to watch him get chopped to pieces.

  Reever had ordered me to remain in his quarters, but I ignored that. Work kept me busy. I made daily rounds in Medical and the Detainment Area. FurreVa and her infants were kept in an isolation chamber, and I performed a somewhat delayed postpartum. She would need more skin work, and two of the infants suffered from continued respiratory distress, which I treated.

  “You would have me thank you for this,” the OverSeer said as she gazed over at the reinforced incubators housing her vicious offspring.

  “Not really.” A ghost of my former humor emerged briefly. “After all, you’re going to have to raise the little monsters.”

  I dealt with the rest of the caseload without much problem. Someone had assigned a pair of centurons to shadow me, and they kept the League prisoners from getting out of hand. Much was muttered about that as I made my rounds, by both patients and League staffers. None of it good.

  I didn’t care. I could do my job without much conversation. When someone stepped over the line, TssVar’s guards made the appropriate threatening gestures. FlatHead never showed his ugly face in Medical. Reever left me alone.

  As long as that remained the status quo, I’d be fine.

  Why I suddenly had guards didn’t concern me. Thoughts of what GothVar had done hovered on the fringe of my mind, but I didn’t dwell on it. I functioned quite well in a safe, comfortable haze, and I had absolutely no intentions of leaving it.

  I liked the status quo.

  Shropana’s former ship went into orbit above Catopsa just before I came off my shift, or so Reever informed me when I walked into his quarters.

  “That’s nice.” I went to the cleanser and stripped. The soft support brace on my forearm was waterproof, so I didn’t have to remove that. Judging from the slight problem I was having with lateral mobility, I’d have to deal with it later. For now, I was content to let it heal on its own.

  Reever’s voice drifted in over the hiss of the sprayers. “We will be transporting everyone to the surface.”

  I frowned, vaguely annoyed. Couldn’t I take a shower in peace? “That’s nice.”

  The hot jets felt good against my skin, and I stood under the port for a long time before I attended to the business of deconning. When I got out, I dried off and noticed absently that I’d lost more weight. Weight I could put back on, of course. After I got around to fixing my arm. It didn’t matter.

  Nothing really mattered.

  Reever waited until I was dry, then handed me a fresh set of garments. He always seemed to be doing helpful little things like that lately. When he wasn’t bugging me.

  “Cherijo, we have arrived at Catopsa and are scheduled to jaunt to the compound within the hour.”

  “I heard you.”

  I pulled on my clothes, went to the prep unit, and absently prepared Jenner’s evening meal. He ignored it and started weaving around my ankles, rubbing his head against me. I gently pushed him toward the dish, then drifted over to my vanity unit.

  Should cut my hair, I thought, surveying the excessive, damp length. It tangled like crazy, and was such a chore to brush out and braid every day. Where had I put my trimmer?

  I searched through my storage unit until I found it, then sat down and carefully applied the comb to the mess. This was going to take awhile; there were knots upon knots.

  Reever took the comb and trimmer out of my hands and set them aside. “I want to talk to you.”

  He wanted to start an argument. So I’d do the trim job another time. I got up and cruised past him toward the prep u
nit. I wasn’t hungry, but a server of tea might be nice.

  Hard hands spun me around and shook me. “Cherijo!”

  I eased out from under his grip. Maybe I should try being more direct and polite. “Please don’t do that.”

  He didn’t let up. “What did the OverCenturon do to you before I arrived at the launch bay?”

  The launch bay. No, I didn’t want to think about what had happened there. I backed up a wary step.

  “Cherijo?” Reever came at me again. “Answer me.”

  “Nothing.” Nothing I wanted to remember. The throbbing in my arm got worse. So did the tightness in my chest. Why did he insist on continuously yelling at me?

  “You’re lying. Tell me.”

  Something trickled into my veins, something hot and fast. I resisted the pull of the unreasonable anger. I wanted to go back into my fuzzy, safe lethargy, and he wasn’t letting me. “Leave me alone.”

  Instead of turning me loose, he dragged me over to the viewport. “Look.”

  Below the Perpetua, there was an immense, sparkling white sphere. At first I thought it was a dwarf star, then realized we couldn’t be this close to one and remain unimpaired. A satellite? I glanced from side to side, but spotted no mother planet. No icy plume trailed from it, so it wasn’t a comet. An asteroid then.

  Just another hunk of space rock. “Okay. I see it.”

  “That is Catopsa.”

  Correction. Just another slave-depot.

  “We leave on the first launch to the surface in one hour.”

  Jenner came between us and started meowing plaintively, rubbing against Reever’s shins. My cat had lousy taste in men. Just like me. I lost interest in the view. “Then I’d better pack.”

  Reever said some other things, but I didn’t listen. I floated away from the viewport and concentrated on deciding what to pack for a lifetime of enslavement.

  The Hsktskt loaded as many of us as they could fit into a launch, then sent it down to Catopsa. Reever went with my group, and I spent several minutes squashed between him and Jenner’s carrier. My cat swatted at the grid with his paws until I stuck my fingers through it and absently stroked what fur I could reach.