Chamberlain's Folly (The Terra Nova Chronicles)

by Robert Dean Hall

  Morning Grass fought harder against the restraints.

  “Major Russo,” she yelled. “Where is Major Russo? I want to see her, now.”

  “Why,” Stiles inquired. “Tell me why you want to talk to Major Russo.”

  “I just do,” Morning Grass cried. “Where is she?”

  “I’ll call her for you,” Stiles promised. “I’ll have her in here very soon. Just please tell me, do you know where you are right at this moment?”

  “I’m strapped down on a damned couch about to burn alive,” Morning Grass screamed.

  Stiles pulled out her locator and paged Russo.

  “Close your eyes and try to calm down, Morning Grass,” she requested as she prepared a syringe with a strong sedative. She was careful to stay out of the feline’s field of view with the needle.

  “Russo is on her way,” Stiles assured Morning Grass. “I’m going to give you something to make you cool down. The burning is about to go away.”

  As soon as Stiles administered the injection, Morning Grass’ breathing slowed and she became calm.

  “I want you to go back to sleep,” Stiles said. “When I count to three, you will sleep again. One. Two. Three.”

  Russo bolted through the door. Stiles motioned for her to sit on the other side of the room out of Morning Grass’ view.

  “Major Russo is here, Morning Grass,” Stiles said. “Was there something you wanted to ask her?”

  “Why are you allowing this to happen,” the feline asked. She was much calmer now and in another deep trance.

  “Allowing what to happen,” Russo asked.

  “They hurt me again. You promised not to let them,” Morning Grass said.

  Russo and Stiles shot each other surprised looks. Stiles motioned for Russo to keep interacting.

  “Who hurt you,” Russo asked. “What did they do to you?”

  “The men in uniforms,” Morning Grass replied. “They tied me to the table again and stuck me with needles. It hurt so much.” The feline’s voice took on the quality of a child.

  “I gave you an injection earlier to calm you, but nobody else is sticking you with needles, Morning Grass,” Stiles said. “You are here in my office. Nobody can hurt you.”

  “Okay. Alright,” Morning Grass said. “I believe you.”

  “Where are you, Morning Grass,” Stiles asked.

  “I’m in your office, Colonel,” the feline replied, calmly.

  Stiles tried to take back control of the session. She motioned for Russo to remain silent as she questioned Morning Grass further.

  “When did Major Russo promise not to let anyone stick you with needles, Morning Grass,” she asked.

  “I can’t tell you,” the feline replied. “I’m not supposed to remember. It hurts to remember.”

  “There is nobody here who can hurt you, Corporal,” Stiles said. “I’m in command right now and nobody can touch you unless I say and I don’t want anybody to hurt you, ever again. So relax and don’t worry. I need you to tell me when Major Russo promised not to allow anyone to hurt you or stick you with needles.”

  Morning Grass took on the demeanor of a child that was being asked to implicate herself in a cookie theft. She pleaded with the colonel not to order her to tell.

  “It burns when I try to tell you,” she said.

  “Can you tell me where you were when Major Russo made her promise, then,” Stiles asked, changing her ploy. “Were you here on the Armstrong?”

  “No,” Morning Grass blurted out. She tensed as if she’d been struck by lightning. “It wasn’t here. It was on the Ark.” Once the words were spoken she relaxed. The sudden release of tension made it appear as if Morning Grass had fallen into the couch from a great height.

  Stiles looked at Russo. The two were more perplexed than ever.

  “I want you to rest now,” Stiles said. “Just go to sleep and wake up when you feel ready to. You will remember all of your language lessons, your daily briefings and anything your friends said to you while you were in the tank. You don’t have to remember anything else right now. When you wake up, you will feel rested and calm.”

  “Yes, Colonel,” Morning Grass said.

  Stiles and Russo remained until the feline fell into a deep sleep. Stiles then got up and motioned for Russo to join her outside the office door.

  “I don’t expect her to stay under for long,” Stiles said. “I will have to be there when she comes to.”

  Stiles then gave Russo her assessment of the session.

  “I don’t know why, but she is confusing you with somebody else,” Stiles said bluntly. “Unless, you have been promising her you would keep the techs from poking her with needles.”

  “I’ve had no such conversations with her, Peggy,” Russo replied. “I have no idea where she came up with that. We sure as Hell haven’t been together on the Ark.”

  “Of course you haven’t,” Stiles replied. “I need to find out who she thinks her mother is and why she seems to be confusing her with you.” Stiles smiled. “I think I know why she is bonding to you unnaturally strongly, and I believe I have more than a hunch as to why she has a problem trusting humans.”

  “Is it Stockholm Syndrome,” Russo asked.

  “Doesn’t fit the profile,” Stiles answered. “We’re dealing with a trauma of some sort, but I think the person or people who perpetrated it aren’t necessarily those she was looking to for protection. What has Teacher said about the feline upbringing?”

  “Only what I’ve told you so far,” Russo replied. “He also suspects that Morning Grass was mistreated on the Ark, but he insists there was no wholesale abuse of the feline children by the humans. He doesn’t know of any experimental psychology perpetrated against the felines at large, either.”

  “We’ll get to the bottom of it,” Stiles said. “I should get back. I don’t want her waking up alone in the dark. You should join me.”

  When the two returned to Stiles office, Morning Grass was awake and shaking. She was drenched with sweat and tears.

  “Thank Heaven you’re back,” she sobbed. “I had a nightmare.”

  “What was it about,” Stiles asked as she adjusted the back of the couch to a sitting position and loosened Morning Grass’ restraints.

  “I was in a darkened room, on a cold metal table,” Morning Grass said. “Someone was shouting at me and I couldn’t move.”

  “Was the voice that of a man or a woman,” Stiles asked.

  “A woman,” the feline replied.

  “Do you remember what she said to you,” Stiles inquired of the shaken feline. “Do you remember anything at all?”

  “I can’t remember anything she said,” Morning Grass replied. “But I was crying and asking for my mother. It doesn’t make sense. I don’t have a mother.”

  Stiles knelt beside her and tried to calm her down.

  Once Morning Grass seemed calm enough to talk lucidly, Stiles asked her to try and explain why the dream had disturbed her so.

  “I need you to follow me on this, Morning Grass, because it is important for you to understand what I am about to tell you,” Stiles said. “I think your memory has been tampered with. I don’t know by whom or for what purpose, but it’s clear to me they have a secret they don’t want you to remember, or share with anyone else.”

  Morning Grass looked back at Stiles and nodded as an indication she understood what the doctor was saying, but her expression showed she was unclear as to what the implications were.

  Stiles then asked the feline point blank, “Can you explain to me why the nightmare has you so upset? I realize it is unpleasant to be yelled at, and if it happened to me it might be enough to make me cry, but I want to know why you personally are so upset.”

  “Because I wanted my mother and I didn’t know where she was, I guess,” Morning Grass replied.

  “You just told me you didn’t have a mother,” Stiles stated matter-of-factly. She wanted to catch the feline off guard. If the memory loss was a defense mechanism an
d the feline slipped, the answer could be telling.

  “I had a mother in the dream,” Morning Grass said. She was starting to sound defensive.

  “What was her name,” Stiles asked.

  “I don’t know,” Morning Grass said.

  “What did she look like,” Stiles fired back.

  The color drained from Morning Grass’ face. She shook her head as if she didn’t believe what had popped into her mind.

  “What, Morning Grass,” Stiles asked firmly. “What do you remember? Tell me now.”

  “Major Russo,” the feline replied. “I didn’t see her in the dream, but I somehow know that my mother looked like Major Russo.” Morning Grass looked directly at Stiles and asked, “What does that mean?”

  Stiles didn’t know what she should say. She didn’t want to tell Morning Grass that she was hallucinating. For all she knew, Morning Grass could have had a human mother that looked like Russo.

  “I think it was just a nightmare,” she told the feline. “It’s too early to tell if that has any real significance. You should try and write down anything you can remember from now on about your dreams and nightmares, though.”

  Stiles asked Russo to sit with Morning Grass while she left the office to arrange for a few things. When she returned, she handed Morning Grass a personal locator.

  “I’ve secured some quarters for you off the hospital deck,” she said. “I think it’s time you got out of here. I’ll arrange for somebody to give you a tour of the ship and its facilities. You’ll still report to the gym every day for your physical therapy and I want to start seeing you twice a week.”

  Morning Grass smiled enthusiastically. “Thank you, Colonel,” she said.

  “You’re welcome, Morning Grass,” Stiles told her. “Somebody will be here in a minute to show you to your quarters and teach you how to use your locator. I’m responsible for you, so I expect you to stay out of trouble. You’re still considered a foreign national so there are parts of this ship you may not visit unescorted. You must also carry the locator with you at all times.”

  “I understand, Colonel,” Morning Grass replied.

  There was a knock on the door. Stiles opened it and asked Morning Grass to go with the security guard who was on the other side. After she was gone, Stiles told Russo to have a seat.

  “Are you ready for a trip down the rabbit hole,” Stiles asked the befuddled Russo. “This is going to get stranger, and it could happen very quickly.”

  “We aren’t dealing with a simple case of transference, here are we,” Russo asked.

  “I’m afraid not,” Stiles replied. “I didn’t want to say too much in front of Morning Grass, but I think she is never going to be completely well. She will always have trust issues. She was tortured by humans. I’m certain of that now. I don’t really know how or to what end, but whoever did it doesn’t want her to remember any of it. I’m wondering if during her time in the tank she was completely disassociated and peaceful, or if the drugs that kept her in the semi-comatose state somehow caused her to relive incidents in her childhood. She seemed to have some separate events mixed together.”

  Russo felt sick. “Are you sure she isn’t confabulating,” she asked Stiles. “At least the part about having a mother that looks like me?”

  “That’s an interesting idea,” Stiles said. “But, if she needed to create a mother to transfer the emotional attachment from, who was it that she was attached to in the first place? You’re talking about something pathological if that is the case, and I don’t think so.”

  “Morning Grass’ imagination and fantasy results on the personality battery fell squarely inside the first standard deviation. I don’t believe that she is delusional,” Stiles assured Russo. “There also isn’t anything in the results that indicates a need to invent grandiose memories to make up for the childhood she’s lost. My gut tells me there was a person, probably human, whom she once saw as a parent. Not a parental substitute. Whether this person looked like you or not, I can’t say, but I’m certain there is something about you that reminds Morning Grass of that person.”

  “Where does this put me as her doctor,” Russo asked. “Should I turn over her physical therapy to somebody else to complete?”

  “That is always a possibility,” Stiles replied. “But, let’s wait. Unless, of course, you are highly uncomfortable with this. Whatever this is, it isn’t going to go away if you step down. Morning Grass is beginning to trust me and the others, but she is strongly attached to you. I would like to be able to tell you to run like Hell, but at this point, it might do more harm than good.”

  “Damn it, Peggy,” Russo said. Her frustration at not getting a definite answer to her question came to the surface. “I’m not in the best place, myself, right now,” she yelled. “And, less than a month ago, you told me you wanted me to back off.”

  “Say the word and you’re off this case,” Stiles replied. “But, don’t be surprised if she goes looking for a way to pull you back in. At least right now, you can use the doctor-patient card to keep your distance.”

  Russo was agitated. She genuinely cared for Morning Grass. She wanted what was best for her and she was confused now what that might be. She was also concerned that her own isolation from her family and friends back on Earth could be causing her to form an attachment to the feline that might cloud her professional judgment. The last thing Russo needed was an ethical dilemma that might not be easily resolved if the attachment grew any more.

  “Are you sure that this won’t bite the two of us in the ass,” Russo asked. “I don’t want any more heat from the Forward Command.”

  “I can’t tell you it won’t,” Stiles replied. “But, I will say I believe for now Morning Grass might need you to be more of a friend.”

  Stiles then smiled at Russo and tried to reassure her she would be there to help.

  “I promise to watch out for the both of you,” she said.

  Chapter 24

  08-May-2210

  Morning Grass embraced Teacher. It was their last evening together before Teacher left for Special Forces training.

  “I’m going to miss you terribly,” she told him. “I don’t know what I’ll do with myself while you’re gone.”

  “You’ll stay busy getting your new arm and leg strong and healthy,” Teacher replied. “Besides, I’ll be returning on leave a couple of times before the team heads for the orange sun. The time will pass quickly. You’ll see.”

  “You’re going to miss me, too, aren’t you,” Morning Grass asked. She wasn’t hiding her frustration with Teacher. He never seemed to say the right thing at the right time. She was well aware there would be plenty to do while they were apart. Her physical therapy schedule was aggressive to say the least. The hour a day at the beginning had now grown to three.

  “Of course I’ll miss you,” Teacher told her. “That goes without saying.” He showed some frustration of his own with Morning Grass’ constant need for verbal confirmations of his feelings.

  “But it’s always nice to be told,” Morning Grass said, tightening her embrace.

  “You’re right,” Teacher responded. His tone was slightly apologetic. “I promise to try and remember that.”

  “Please do,” Morning Grass replied without skipping a beat.

  Teacher smiled at the reply. He would not have, in times past, but of late, Morning Grass was less moody and she had even developed a sense of humor. He attributed that to her new friendship with Russo and the therapy sessions with Colonel Stiles.

  Morning Grass didn’t always realize that some of the things she said or the observations she made were humorous, but she had stopped becoming offended when others laughed at her comments. She joined in the laughter when she saw the joke. Teacher was sure that the nurturing Morning Grass got from her new relationships must be helping her regain something that was taken from her.

  Even before the two paired off, Teacher had looked upon Morning Grass with great affection. He remained by her side even wh
en her outbursts had offended others to the point of avoidance. She had effectively isolated herself from most of the feline community, but Teacher refused to stand by and see her friendless. She had always seemed like a scared child to him and although it was not his responsibility, he took it upon himself to look after her.

  Recently, there was more of a sweetness and innocence about her. It was also apparent she was maturing; something Stiles told Russo and Teacher not to expect. However, Morning Grass was growing out of her childish tendencies, to everyone’s delight. She displayed more patience and her once ubiquitous temper tantrums had become an endangered species.

  “Teacher,” Morning Grass said. There was a hint of pleading in her voice that made him pay special attention to what she was about to say. “I have been thinking about a few things. First of all, I need to tell you how proud I am of you.”

  “Thank you,” Teacher said. Morning Grass rarely complimented anyone; least of all, him. Many times the more tender feelings she had for Teacher also remained unspoken.

  “You also need to know I love you,” Morning Grass continued. She had often said it, but it was only recently she was given to showing her affection without prerequisite or reservation. Teacher had to admit it meant much more to him when she said it of late.

  “I also believe that what you are doing is the right thing,” she said.

  He pulled back from her embrace and looked her in the eye. He could see she was sincere.

  “I think it would be wise for me to follow your lead,” she said. “Major Russo told me she would be happy to sponsor me. I will have to allow myself to be deposed by the JAG Office because of the incident in the Regeneration Recovery room, but the major thinks it will only be a formality…”

  “What do you mean, exactly,” Teacher asked her.

  “I think I should join the CEF,” she replied. “I agree with you that our future as a race is inescapably intertwined with the Earth humans. Technically, we are their children. Their genetics and ours are enmeshed. If the felines are to have a future, we must look to Earth for help. We won’t be able to continue on unless their science can find a way to assist our efforts to reproduce.”