Not much I can do about any of it now. Just keep my head down and try to stay out of sight.
She was nearly late to work, which would have been disastrous for the second day on the job. Not only that but she’d barely made it into the changing room when Gretta appeared.
“Mrs. Trang is here today. She wants to interview you,” the manager said. “Hurry up, finish dressing.” She waited while Carialle hastily donned her blue clinic uniform and fastened the new work shoes. Then Gretta hustled her into the hall and took her to the administrative annex, where she’d not been before.
“Any advice for me?” Carialle asked, trying not to wince at the way her new shoes pinched her toes. There’d be blisters by morning, she was sure.
“She’s all business so be concise in your answers.” Gretta glanced at her. “I told her what a good job you did last night and Peters also put in a good word.”
“Thank you.”
“I wouldn’t mention Mrs. Galaganos, not unless she asks you. The two of them don’t get along too well. It’s an old story.”
Reading her companion’s emotions, Carialle picked up the hint Mrs. Trang was afraid her employees might gossip with the old lady about patients or other clinic matters. Apparently Gretta had come close to losing her job at one point for talking too freely to the garrulous landlady.
“Here we are.” Gretta paused at an imposing door, took a deep breath, brushed the creases from her already crisp jacket, and knocked. The portal swung open and the manager said, “I’ve brought our new probationary employee, as you asked, Mrs. Trang. This is Carialle Smith.”
As Carialle advanced into the well-appointed office, her pulse raced. The stern woman facing her from behind a massive desk was one of those humans lucky enough to be genetically immune to her powers. Carialle would be able to read her basic aura but not to exert any influence over Mrs. Trang. She wasn’t invited to sit, so she stood at attention, hands by her sides.
The door clicked shut. Evidently Gretta wasn’t invited to join them.
“You have no papers, Miss Smith?”
“No.” Carialle wasn’t going to offer any explanation. She was hardly the only person in this district to be travelling off the grid.
“And Mrs. Galaganos sent you to us?” Trang sat perfectly quiet and composed, her hands clasped on the desk in front of her. She stared at Carialle as if she was equal parts bored and annoyed by having to interview a new employee.
“I rented an apartment there. I don’t know her personally—I’m new to this district. But she did suggest I apply for a job here, as well as a few other places.” Carialle stretched the truth a bit. “She was trying to be helpful.” Not being able to use her powers to influence or compel others as she normally could was terrifying, like walking on a tiny bridge over a yawning abyss. She was annoyed at the anxiety making her pulse race but the clinic owner reminded her of the Combine bosses she’d met. Defiantly she sent a thread of her power out to read the woman’s colors—gray, green, a hint of black. Not encouraging. But all she wanted from this person was a steady paycheck and no questions asked.
“My employees said you did a thorough job last night and were most respectful. Eager to learn.”
“I’m glad they were pleased. I tried really hard.” Carialle could make herself sound naïve and humble if required.
“Since this is a medical facility, the utmost discretion is required. We maintain absolute confidentiality about anything involving our patients, or of any procedures performed here, do you understand?”
“Perfectly. I’m just a janitor, Mrs. Trang, medical stuff goes over my head anyway. I want to do my job and earn my credits, nothing else.”
Mrs. Trang was silent, her sculptured face giving nothing of her thoughts away.
Carialle forced herself not to fidget. There are other jobs on this planet, after all. She decided to risk a placating remark. “I don’t want people discussing my personal business, so the last thing I’d ever do is betray confidences from my place of employment. You’ll find I’m a loyal employee.”
“Very well. You may remain here this week on probation, as Mrs. Nestrum explained to you. I’ll leave it up to her to decide whether to keep you on or not after the week is up.” Mrs. Trang leaned forward and pointed her right index finger at Carialle like a weapon. “If I hear of a single problem with your performance or any hint of your gossiping about my patients or my staff with your landlady, or anyone else, you’ll be out. No second chances, understand?”
“Yes, ma’am. Thank you for taking a chance on me. I’m so grateful—”
“Don’t fawn and don’t babble. Get out.”
Carialle fled, bumping into Gretta outside the door. The manager steadied her with one hand. “Our boss lady is in a class by herself, isn’t she?”
“I never met anyone quite like her,” Carialle agreed. Scary Mrs. Trang would fit right in at the Combine if she ever got tired of the medical field. “But she said I could keep the job, subject to your approval at the end of the week.”
“Terrific. I expected as much. Well then, you have your cleaning assignment for the night, right?”
Carialle nodded her agreement. “I’ll check with Peters if I finish early.” And I’ll make a concerted effort not to be in Mrs. Trang’s vicinity ever again.
A week sped by, then two. The routine at the clinic wasn’t taxing, since she didn’t mind cleaning. Peters showed signs of finding her attractive, which she subtly repelled with her empathic gifts. Even then, he made excuses to seek her out and talk to her, which was disconcerting. This was her first encounter with an individual requiring repeated doses of her power to modify their behavior or emotion, much less their actions toward her personally. Apparently Peters’ fixation on her ran deep. He didn’t harass her, or try to touch her like Matikian did a few times, but his advances were an annoyance.
One of the military men on the closed ward died on her day off but since she didn’t know any of the patients, Carialle wouldn’t have been disturbed by the death, except for the odd colors flickering in the auras of certain employees. It was as if a few of the staff were relieved he’d died, or felt a degree of guilt about the death. Others like Matikian had the green of greed mixed with the pale blue of eagerness. Carialle couldn’t make sense of the conflicting emotions, unless the old man had left his favorites on the staff a few credits in his will. Since she’d never seen any of these patients in a conscious state, she wondered briefly how the deceased could have made such arrangements. Deciding it wasn’t her problem, she pushed away the vague uneasiness caused by the attitude of her co-workers, chalking it up as another mystery of the gloomy vegetative patients’ wing.
The man was elderly and in a hopeless vegetative state, and in due time he’d passed away, despite the excellent care. End of story.
Nothing to concern her.
Peters requested her to clean the now empty room first, including the medical equipment, which he’d begun to trust her with, in desperation after another orderly quit without giving notice.
“Of course, but what’s the rush?” she asked.
“New patient coming tonight. Mrs. Trang will be here so I’d advise you to stay out of her way. She can be a bit abrupt when doing intake on a new person.”
“After my job interview with her, I can easily believe she’d be brusque on every occasion—say no more.”
Hoping to avoid the owner, Carialle rushed to the now empty room and was finishing the last touches when she heard a commotion outside. Hastily she gathered up her tools and supplies and directed her robo cart into the corridor. Coming toward her was Mrs. Trang, talking to an officious man dressed all in white, while behind them was an anti grav litter escorted by four husky orderlies. Peters and Matikian trailed behind. The patient on the litter was shouting incoherently, fighting the restraints, cursing. He seemed to be in the grip of a delusion about being captured by Mawreg, the deadliest enemy of the Sectors civilization, against whom war was constantly being waged.
Appalled both by the man’s violent behavior and the cruel way he was restrained, Carialle flattened herself against the wall and watched as the litter was floated into the room, rocking precariously from the vehement struggles of the ill man. It took all four of the attendants to transfer him to the bed and shackle him tightly to the rails, as Peters slid the medical unit over the lower half of the patient’s body. Matikan jabbed an inject into the man’s neck with a force that made Carialle wince. He enjoyed that.
The patient convulsed and collapsed, going limp against his bonds.
“I’d keep him well under control,” the man in charge said. “Fully sedated. For his own good,” he added with a wink.
“Yes, doctor, of course.” Mrs. Trang was all smiles as she agreed with the suggested course of treatment.
Carialle was shocked to find the owner’s aura full of the bright green of greed, banded with the rusty red of evil and the corroded gold of improperly used power. She lingered to watch the patient as the others left the room, inhaling sharply as her still active senses ‘read’ him.
At his core was the blue fire of a true warrior of Thuun. His aura blazed with it.
Small patches of the dull gray intruded around the edges of the flames, probably from the inject he’d been given. The flames were distorted in a disturbing fashion she’d never seen before, blurry. Odd pools of oily black drifted in the center of his aura, three of them, walled off from each other by twisted knots of bright white so glaring she had to shut down her observation, which had never happened to her before.
“Hey, you ok?”
She jumped as Peters tapped her shoulder. “Sorry, I—I was surprised at how agitated the man was when he was brought him in.”
“Yeah, the patients are usually a lot farther gone by the time we get them. He’s a big prize.”
“What do you mean?” Disturbed by her vision of the blue flames, as well as those mysterious black pools confined by the white lights, Carialle kept walking toward the next area she was due to clean. Mustn’t appear to be slacking off, especially with the owner on the premises.
“Sweetie, what do you think Mrs. Trang is running here?” Peters kept pace with her.
Puzzled, she said, “A rehab clinic.”
He shook his head. “Yeah sure, in the other part of the building. Over here, she keeps them alive so she can scrape their veterans’ benefits. And she takes the payments for all the fancy therapy, nutritious foods, supplemental meds and special care they’re supposed to be receiving. Nice little racket. Her and the doc are in it together. He directs suitable patients her way and she gives him a kickback.” Peters leaned closer, as if the way to her reluctant heart was to share his employer’s secrets with her. “This new guy ain’t even supposed to be here. He was Special Forces, badly injured in action, then got himself tortured by the Mawreg before he was rescued. The military ran him through rejuve regeneration to fix his body but his mind is fucked up. He was supposed to go to a fancy, high end rehab clinic on the eastern continent but Trang and the doc diverted him here. Forged the records. No one will ever know he existed. Much less find him.”
“Why?” Horrified, she exerted pressure to keep him talking for once. This new patient wasn’t her problem, not at all, but the glimpse of the blue flames rattled her to the core. Assisting a warrior of Thuun was the highest duty of a priestess. But I’m not a priestess and he can’t be a warrior of my god—he’s human. I don’t know him, I owe him nothing. But despite her frantic denials, she was under a compulsion to understand the situation more fully.
“Special Forces are awarded a more generous pension than these other poor bastards who were regular military, maybe five times as much. What she really wants from our new resident though is his veterans’ acres. He’s entitled to prime real estate, courtesy of the grateful Sectors.”
“How will she acquire land meant to be his?”
“The drug she gives them, toranquidol? It destroys the mind over time but there’s a point in the process where free will is gone but the victim retains certain functions. She can make them do anything she wants. She’s gotten rich off of having these poor bastards change their wills, sign over property, you name it. Even married one or two of them along the way for the death benefit and life insurance payouts. He’ll sign the forms to give her the veterans acres.” Peters chuckled, sounding as if he admired Mrs. Trang’s ingenuity at scamming. “I guess what the Sectors authorities don’t know won’t hurt them. I mean, who cares, right?”
“But don’t the patients’ families—”
Peters shook his head. “She and the doc pick their targets carefully. No family, no one to ask awkward questions. Or interfere.”
An orderly was walking down the hall toward them so Carialle bit her lip and compelled Peters to forget he’d told her anything. She parted ways with her chatty supervisor at the next fork in the corridor and avoided him and all the other employees the rest of the night. The areas she was assigned to clean sparkled more brightly than ever as Carialle tried to stop her thoughts from wandering to what Peters had told her by scrubbing and polishing as if the area was about to be inspected by Mrs. Trang.
On the way out of the building after changing into her own clothing, she overheard Matikian on a personal com call, gloating to whoever he was speaking with about how the bonus he’d get for managing this new patient’s care would be his biggest yet.
Did he cause the last patient’s death at Trang’s command perhaps? Is that why he had greed in his aura? Does Mrs. Trang reward him for taking an active role in defrauding these poor men? Carialle repressed a wave of nausea and gave Matikian a casual wave as he glanced at her. He frowned and swiveled his chair in the other direction, lowering his voice as he continued to talk.
When she reached the sanctuary of her apartment building, she took a few moments to refresh her powers, lingering in the garden to pull energy from the plants and the planet slumbering below. She chatted with her landlady about trivialities for a few moments while they pulled weeds together and trimmed a few deadhead blooms from the flowering bushes. She checked on the all-important tree Mrs. Galaganos’s late husband had planted and was relieved to find it doing well, much stronger now the bugs had fled. New leaf shoots were appearing.
She escaped into her small space soon thereafter. Even though she accepted the fact the lodging was temporary and she’d have to leave probably sooner than later, she’d taken delight in fixing the place up a bit with colorful fabric for the curtains and tablecloth, and interesting bits and pieces from the local marketplace. Nothing too expensive, nothing showy. Her pay from the clinic wasn’t generous and her hoard of credits grew slowly. But after four long years as a prisoner, held in a grim gray cell, she delighted in even tiny opportunities to express herself and revel in colors and patterns.
Changing into one of her new, gauzy cotton dresses, Carialle brewed a cup of tea in the chipped mug she’d rescued from a pile of things left by a departing tenant. She’d been drawn to the whimsical depiction of feline animals under the glaze. Walking across the soft green-and-blue floral carpet remnant she’d also acquired, she sat on the bed, holding the mug between her hands. Against her will she saw the vision of the new patient, fighting his bonds, full of desire to live and rage at his captors.
“It’s not my battle,” she said out loud. “This isn’t Tulavarra.” But she had a sinking feeling she’d be drawn further into the situation anyway. Why else would Thuun direct her here, make finding a home and a job so simple, place her at the clinic, if not to help one of his warriors? Leaning against the pillows, she let the empty mug fall to the carpet and closed her eyes. This choice is unfair—I have my own life to live, my own difficulties. I’ve suffered enough.
The next evening she was assigned to clean in the general wing of the clinic but the night after she was back in the veterans’ area. The new arrival’s room was last on her schedule. As she and her robo cart entered the room, she was relieved to see he lay as motion
less as all the others, although he was securely restrained at the wrists and ankles. The medical unit delivering nutrients and fluids to his body and removing wastes hummed quietly as it did its work, positioned over his abdomen and groin, covering him to the knees.
Taking a nervous glance over her shoulder, even though she knew Matikian wouldn’t leave his chair at the central console, where he was occupied with his favorite vids, she stepped to the bed.
“Marcus Valerian.” She read his name from the settings on the medic unit, liking the sound of the syllables. The name suited him. She studied what was visible of his nude body, well-muscled, sturdy. No scars or tattoos but she supposed the marks had been eliminated in the regeneration process. His face was handsome, with a strong jaw and high cheekbones. At well over six feet tall, he had the look of a formidable soldier. His muscles would inevitably atrophy as he was kept in the bed, drugged into a motionless stupor and the realization bothered her on his behalf. Marcus must have worked hard to maintain his body.
The beds were equipped with sensors and tech to prevent bed sores and to keep the skin clean, but the process was more for the benefit of the staff and Mrs. Trang than the patients’. Less care required if the body stayed healthy externally. In Carialle’s time at the clinic she’d never seen any physical therapy performed on the ex-military patients.
She‘d done a little research earlier in the day on the cheap AI she’d bought refurbished at the marketplace and watched a popular trideo drama about a Special Forces team. Truly these men and women were incredible warriors, capable of nearly miraculous feats. Unable to stop herself, she touched Marcus’s arm, stroking her palm over his skin from cuffed wrist to elbow in a gesture meant to be comforting even as she scanned his aura. With her touch, she transferred a bit of healing power. “You’d hate what they’re doing to you,” she whispered. The blue flames at his core were still vivid to her eyes, although there were more patches of the dull gray intruding. The meds were working quickly. Maybe Mrs. Trang ordered a higher dose.
Two Against the Stars Page 3