Endurance

by Richard Chizmar

  Understanding. Reconciliation. In a pig’s eye. “Sure you don’t want to harvest some cell samples?”

  “I look forward to the day I can apologize to you in person. Until then, I bid you farewell, daughter.”

  The signal terminated. I sat there for a long time, staring at the blank screen. I wasn’t buying his change of heart, of course. Surely he realized I wouldn’t. Just what was he up to now?

  I returned to Medical the next morning, and pulled my chart before Squilyp came on duty.

  Adaola, who was primary for the shift, hovered nervously around the desk as I reviewed the laboratory series.

  “The Senior Healer will be glad to discuss your test results as soon as he arrives, Healer.”

  “I was the Senior Healer, Adaola. Stop pestering me.” I looked up and gave her a wink. “Besides, that Omorr could probably use a good fight about now.”

  “Or a syrinpress.” Squilyp hopped in through the door panel. “As I expected. All is well, Adaola. You may prepare your shift notes while I deal with our impatient intruder.”

  “Thank you, Senior Healer,” Adaola said with sincere relief, then departed.

  “I’m not impatient.” I found the blood profile and studied it in silence. “I’m …” A protein level caught my eye, and a faint buzz began ringing in my ears. “Oh, boy. I’m in trouble.”

  “No, you are not.” Squilyp took the chart out of my numb hands and tossed it aside. “We will deal with it, Doctor.”

  He might be able to, I thought as I got to my feet. I was petrified. The buzz grew louder. A moment later I was sitting back in the chair, with Squilyp pushing my head between my knees.

  “Breathe slowly. You have had quite a shock.”

  That was the understatement of the century.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The Last Captive

  Squilyp and I argued for an hour after I nearly fainted, then decided on a course of action to our mutual satisfaction.

  “I expect you to report to Medical as I’ve indicated.” The Omorr handed me a copy of my treatment schedule. “Or I will have you restrained to an inpatient berth.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I’ll be here.” I climbed down from the exam table. “I bet you’re going to enjoying ordering me around.”

  “Of course I will.” He finished his notes and switched off my chart with a snap. “You certainly enjoyed being my supervisor when you were Senior Healer. Actually, this has a sort of poetic justice to it.”

  His smirk really annoyed me. “Oh, go jump in a pressure lock!”

  Later that day, the Jorenians began bombarding the surface again, and dodging the reflected sonic fire. Since my condition wasn’t anything that would slow me down for a while yet, I’d convinced the Omorr to let me work a shift. Good thing, too, since the few crew members reporting with minor injuries soon became a steady stream.

  “We’ve received a signal from the stockade,” one of the communications officers told me as I splinted his sprained knee. “League captives have been effective in taking control of several tiers.”

  So Wonlee’s plan had started to work. “What about the rest of the compound?”

  “It remains under Hsktskt control.” The officer didn’t want to tell me the rest, but I harassed him until he did. Less than optimistic reports had also come in, that the centurons had begun methodically executing prisoners inside Hsktskt-controlled areas.

  I signaled Xonea, and requested that I be transported back to the surface.

  “That is impossible, Cherijo. We have ground forces preparing to invade the compound.”

  “Then I’m going with them.” When he would have yelled at me, I shook my head. “I have friends down there, Captain. And you need someone to head the medevac team. There will be plenty of work waiting for me.”

  Reluctantly Xonea granted my request. That made Squilyp throw his own temper tantrum, and upon hearing I was returning to the surface, half the inpatients in Medical began verbally threatening to mutiny and throw me into detainment.

  “I know the compound better than anyone on the assault teams,” I said, crossing my arms and looking down the row of grim faces and emerging claws.

  “In your condition—”

  “Space my condition,” I told the Omorr. “There are over fifteen thousand prisoners down there—the Hsktskt are shooting them, and I left a first-year resident in charge of the infirmary.”

  He glowered at me. “Just remember, Doctor, you have other responsibilities.”

  Before I reported to the launch bay, Salo relayed a direct signal from the Hsktskt Central Command, sent by OverMaster HalaVar.

  “Reever?” I took a medevac pack and slung it over my shoulder, then accessed the signal. “What’s your status down there?”

  “OverSeer FurreVa and a portion of the guards have deposed SrrokVar and placed me in charge of the compound.” He looked sweaty, and grime streaked his hair, but other than that, he could have been having tea with the Hanar.

  “Why’d they do that? I thought you weren’t a member of the Faction anymore.”

  “Upon arrival on the Hsktskt homeworld, TssVar officially reinstated my rank. The order to depose SrrokVar came from the Hanar himself.”

  “That was nice of him.” I checked to make sure I had enough suture packs. “Tell FurreVa to stop executing the prisoners.”

  “I have. There are still some centurons loyal to SrrokVar, however, who have disregarded my orders.” He turned away for a moment to consult with a waiting centuron, then addressed me once more. “Stay with the Jorenians, Cherijo.”

  “Uh-uh. I’m on the way.”

  “You will not be safe.”

  “You’ve got wounded down there. I’m coming back. Tell the guards not to shoot at me or the launch.”

  “They won’t.” He paused. “As long as you officially surrender to me.”

  There was always a catch. “Fine. I’ll be there in an hour to give myself up.”

  The surface was littered with shattered black crystal and the smoking remains of Hsktskt launches. I insisted the Jorenians stay out of firing range as I went into the main compound entrance.

  Xonea didn’t like that, and told me. At length.

  “I’ll keep you informed as to what the situation is in there. Keep monitoring this.” I tapped my slave collar, which had been removed, altered, and refitted to transmit audio signals directly to the launch and the Sunlace. “For now, you’re going to have to sit tight and wait.”

  Reever and a detachment of centurons stood just inside the compound pressure locks. As soon as I stepped through, rifles were activated, and my pack was confiscated.

  I held out my empty hands. “I’m unarmed. I surrender.”

  One of the guards grabbed me by the collar, but Reever stepped forward and ordered him to release me.

  “You will return to the infirmary and treat the injured,” he told me. His voice may have been as flat and cold as ever, but there was an edge to it that made me look at him sharply. “Come. I will take you there myself.”

  He sent the centurons to work riot control in the tiers, and marched me down the corridors. Once we were out of sight of the beasts, he released my arm.

  “Half the guards have been drugged and disarmed by the prisoners,” he said.

  “I know. Have you convinced them to surrender?”

  “The Hsktskt do not relinquish their territory to inferior species.” He turned a corner, then stopped me in the middle of an empty corridor. “This may end with a fire fight, Cherijo.”

  “Not if Wonlee has distributed enough of his quills.” If only we had an extra edge … of course, the pel! I felt like smacking myself in the forehead for forgetting about them. “See what you can do to talk them into it. The Jorenians are starting to get tired of orbiting this rock.”

  The infirmary was in complete upheaval. Wounded prisoners lined the passages for hundreds of yards leading to it. A couple of them I stopped to check before I entered and yelled for Vlaav.

>   He yelled back from a treatment room. “Over here, Doctor.”

  The next several hours were devoted to emergency care and restoring some partial order to my facility. The nurses had become overwhelmed, and the renewed orbital attack did nothing to calm the prisoners. In addition to that, several centurons had reported with serious injuries, and got nasty about priority.

  I’d just cleared the last serious case when someone gestured to me from the back of the infirmary. It was Wonlee. I hurried back and saw him point to a section in the wall.

  “Noarr?” I asked, and he nodded. I pulled a privacy screen over and dodged behind it. The passageway opened to reveal the silhouette of a tall cloaked figure.

  “God.” I ran, threw myself shamelessly at him, and groaned as his arms closed around me. “I was so worried.” I lifted my head and then thumped him on the chest. “Are you trying to make me go insane?”

  “I am glad to see you, too, woman.” He drew me back into the passage and closed the entrance. “It is time we liberated the population. I will need your help.”

  I grinned. Good thing I’d remembered about the one ally we had that no one else knew about. “Not just mine.”

  I turned and placed both hands against the wall, and concentrated. A minute passed, then a clear, gelatinous glop oozed down from the tunnel’s ceiling. It dropped between us and collected itself into an amorphous, shimmering form.

  *pel*here*

  “Pel, this is Noarr.” I looked at my lover’s astonished expression and bit my lower lip before continuing the introductions. “Honey, meet the rock.”

  Once we’d managed to communicate what we wanted to the pel, the Jorenians, and the Aksellans, Noarr left to attend to freeing the prisoners in the tiers still controlled by the Hsktskt. I went back to the infirmary to get things ready there.

  Zella and the nurses handled triage, while Vlaav and I prepped the patients for transport.

  “The Aksellans have landed outside the compound,” one of the prisoners told us. “We saw their tethers through the walls.”

  I briefed the inpatients on what we planned to do once the liberation forces took control of the compound, then sent every staff member to put together field packs of supplies. Wonlee appeared briefly with instructions on where to go and how to find enough envirosuits to outfit the patients.

  Everything was going well when a detachment of battered-looking centurons burst through the door panel, led by a very unamused former-OverLord SrrokVar.

  “I expected to find you here, Dr. Torin.” He came at me, and I grabbed a syrinpress. He knocked it away with one flick of a limb. “Your misguided sense of compassion will be the death of you, my dear.”

  “Zella,” I called out, never taking my eyes from the madness gleaming down at me. “Clear the infirmary. Evacuate the patients. All of them. Now.”

  “You have proved resilient and resourceful. I particularly admire your Terran survival instincts. I had thought releasing FurreVa’s brood in HalaVar’s chambers would be the end of both of you.”

  So he was the one responsible. “I heard you got fired by the Supreme Lizard,” I said, hoping the taunt would keep him from firing on the fleeing patients. “Guess TssVar was pretty convincing, huh?”

  I didn’t have a chance against a psychotic Hsktskt, so I dodged SrrokVar’s next blow and dove around him. Dropping and crawling under an unoccupied berth gave me a few seconds to collect my wits. I rolled out just as SrrokVar lifted the berth and tossed it out of his way.

  “You cost me my research, my mate, and my command. Now we will settle accounts, Doctor.”

  I didn’t have time to get out of the way. Three limbs began descending with lethal force. I closed my eyes.

  Because I did that, I missed watching the displacer pulse burst behind SrrokVar.

  “You harmed my brood!”

  He turned, and lunged toward the door panel. That’s when I propped myself up and saw FurreVa fire her rifle again.

  The thermal uniform he wore seemed to dispel most of the blast. He pulled a weapon from his lab coat, aimed, and shot the big female directly in her chest. The impact sent her crashing into a diagnostic array.

  The closest thing to hand were two of the largest bonesetters, the ones we’d used on Devrak’s guard. I disabled the auto-adjust clamp, ran up behind SrrokVar, and shoved one around his thick neck. After knocking the pistol from his claws, I jammed the other around the center of his skull.

  Bonesetters normally contract until the clamp unit aligns the broken bone. Since I’d disengaged the sensor, the device kept contracting. SrrokVar tried to come after me, for a few seconds. I danced away as he stopped and started clawing at his neck.

  “Now we’ll see how much you enjoy physical tolerance ranges,” I said, and stayed out of strike range to watch.

  SrrokVar managed to wrench the bonesetter from his throat, but the time he spent doing that was a mistake. The one around his face was now cutting into the tissue, forcing his kinetic skull to bow out.

  “Take it off!”

  For once, I ignored my calling. “No.”

  He bellowed with agony as he stumbled past us, then disappeared down the corridor.

  Too bad. I would have liked to watch his brains pop out of his eye sockets. I went to examine FurreVa.

  She was in bad shape. A huge pulse burn smoldered on her chest; there was a deep gash in the side of her neck. I tried to drag her out into the corridor, but she was too heavy to move. Zella and Vlaav had already evacuated everyone, so there was no help in sight.

  “You didn’t have to defend me, you know,” I said as I pressed a sterile pad to the spurting wound. “I was doing just fine.”

  FurreVa’s lungs rasped as she tried to breathe through the blood. “I was wrong about him. Wrong about you, Terran.”

  “No talking.” I managed to control the bleeding and ran a scan over her abdomen. Her vitals were dangerously weak. “You’re hemorrhaging, so no moving either. Somehow I’ve got to transport you up to the Sunlace.”

  “No time.” She coughed up more crimson fluid, then reached and took my hand. “My young are safe. You are safe. It is enough.”

  “Shut up.” I infused her with adrenalysine, hoping to trigger the hibernation process before she bled to death internally. “You’re going to live.”

  “SsurreVa.” Two claws traced the invisible path of her former injury, then touched my cheek. “Friend …” She surrendered to the drug, and went into the beginning stage of natural suspended animation.

  She wasn’t dying on me. Not after all the trouble I’d gone to. I sat back on my heels and activated my wristcom. “Xonea. I need a medevac team to come to the infirmary, as soon as you breach the compound.”

  I went over to the wall, and placed my hands against it. We need your help now, pel.

  The wall undulated beneath my palms, then melted between my fingers.

  *pel*help*

  I left FurreVa on life support (rigged around her on the floor, since she was far too heavy for me to move to a berth), and convinced one of the centurons to watch over her. Then I went to Central Command.

  Reever and a large group of Hsktskt were gathered in the prisoner reception area. Dozens of rifles clicked on and pointed at my head as I walked into view. I displayed my empty hands and waved at Reever.

  “I hate to interrupt, but I was wondering if I could evacuate the compound now.”

  Reever ordered the centurons to stand down. Several of them hesitated, and I wondered just how much control he had over his troops.

  “You heard the transmission from the home-world,” Reever said to them. “OverLord TssVar’s orders were clear.”

  Reluctantly the last of the centurons lowered their weapons.

  Reever walked over to me. “The liberation forces have not breached the outer security grid. We have time.”

  “Actually, no.” I leaned against a wall, and pointed to another. “You don’t.”

  The wall opposite the group shattered
, spilling shards all around us. The pel poured through the new opening and collected itself just in front of the aghast Hsktskts.

  “Shoot it!” one of them shouted, and a few of them started firing their weapons into the transparent mass.

  “It absorbs energy,” I said in a helpful tone, when it became apparent the displacer blasts were having no effect. “It can also reflect them at will, so I suggest you knock it off.”

  The pel flowed around the beasts toward me, where it formed a barrier protecting me from the rifles.

  “What do you propose, Doctor?” Reever asked me.

  “I propose you pack up what you can carry and you get out of Dodge,” I said, running my hand over the undulating pel. “Because in exactly one hour, the pel is taking over the compound.”

  “She’s lying,” someone yelled.

  I rubbed a hand over the back of my neck. Why hadn’t I put the man in traction when I’d had the chance? “Shropana. It would be you. Someone want to lend me their rifle for a minute?”

  “She’s staged this hoax with that slave-runner lover of hers.” The League Commander limped out into the Central reception area, carrying a Hsktskt pistol, and aiming it at me. “I know where he is. Give me back my ships and I’ll take you to him.”

  Shropana hadn’t a prayer of getting his fleet back, but he could railroad the evacuation and possibly get Noarr killed. I turned my head, and concentrated.

  Hundreds of Lok-Teel crawled into the reception area, and encircled Shropana.

  “Filthy creatures!” He fired at one of them, but it avoided the blast. The pel shot out a solid stream of its mass and enveloped the pistol and Shropana’s hand completely.

  I walked over, pulled the syrinpress from my tunic and pressed it to his neck. “Say goodnight, Patril.”

  He fell to his knees, then over onto the waiting Lok-Teel. Obeying my silent command, they quickly carried him back out of the area. I was tempted to tell them to eat him, but decided against it. The Lok-Teel shouldn’t have to consume waste all the time.

  “Gentlemen.” I swiveled and addressed the beasts. “Shall we get this evacuation underway?”