“It’s Doctor asn Castre,” she tried.
“And when you are better, you may be called that, but right now, Madame an Castre, you are my patient and you will lie quietly here until you are in a fit state to do otherwise.”
With which the woman ruthlessly pressed Marthe firmly back onto the bed, pulled up the single sheet covering her and tucked it tightly, and straightened the pillow under her head, then gave her a shot of a sedative that finished the argument for the time being.
When next she woke, Marthe remembered enough of her last time to lie still and consider before moving.
She stared at the walls, the bed, the nutrient fluids infusing her and the shut door beyond. Nothing encouraged her to move, not yet. There was a sensor on the bed and a surveillance vid on the wall. If she more than blinked, her privacy would be gone.
Memory was coming back, and something more. Her fingers felt an unfamiliar ridge on her left hand, a ring that hadn’t been there when she’d worked these wards. And something more. The nurse had called her Madame an Castre, not asn.
She was married.
Then it came back. All of it, years and years of it—the long fight for freedom and the deeply personal. Her hand strayed to the mound of her stomach. She was pregnant and married. She clenched her hand protectively over the rounding of her belly and remembered hard—all the strife and uncertainties she had endured—but try as she might, none of it came back as strongly as that last day, that one cataclysmic moment.
She had shot him. Hamon Radcliff. Her husband and the father of her child. The man she loved.
Now she had lost him.
She must have moved, or the bed registered the tight clench of her left hand. There was a beep and the sliding of a door. Outside, she glimpsed soldiers in the new uniforms of Hathe. Her guardians or her guards? Probably both, she guessed, given the ordinary Hathians view of her by the end of the occupation. Then she heard footsteps coming in to her room. Not the dragon nurse. Please not.
“How are you today,” said a beloved voice, and her father walked in.
She couldn’t help it. She tried hard to stop them, but the tears wouldn’t obey.
“I’ve lost him.”
The strong arms and warm smell of her father enfolded her. “Yes, I fear you have,” he said, and told her of the offer they had made her husband. Then her father held her for a long time.
After that, the days in her bed seemed interminably long. There was little for her to do but rest, eat and sleep. Her doctors allowed little else. “You must avoid all stress,” they told her. “You are badly underweight and worn out. If you want your baby to live, then do as we tell you.”
“Not knowing what’s going on is more stressful than anything,” she said to her father on his daily visit, fretfully tugging at the bed cover.
He was uncharacteristically silent. When she’d been a child and hated being laid up in bed, he would chide her and tease her into enduring it. She looked up sharply and caught the strained look he swiftly hid.
“Out with it.” She hitched herself upwards and glared at him. “What are you hiding?”
“Nothing, nothing.”
She took a guess. It wasn’t too much of a leap. She’d learned how the world worked in too harsh a school. “The soldiers outside. They’re there both for my protection and to keep me under control? I’ve become an embarrassment.”
Her father shrugged, and she saw the recognition in his face. He couldn’t fool her, not this time.
“Both. There’s too much anger out there still bottled up. The public has no release for it. We can’t mistreat or take action against the Terran prisoners—not if we want to maintain good relations with the other Alliance planets—and, right now, we badly need their good will to help us recover.”
“But I’m still the wealthy, spoiled daughter of a prominent family who betrayed her world.”
Her father nodded grimly. “In the gutter press, at least. Your actual history has been published, but not widely reported. It doesn’t make such a sensational story.”
She saw something else in his face, something he still hid. She crossed her arms and waited, waited until he sighed in defeat. “There’s more,” he agreed.
His hands had tightened on the chair arms and he avoided looking her in the eye. He really didn’t want to tell her this part, but she wasn’t about to let him use her health status against her. “If you want me to get better, then tell me the truth. All of it. I need to know what I’m fighting.”
He nodded in defeat “We can’t take action against the Terrans. Not even put them on trial for what they did here—not if we want to be a part of the force sent in to run Earth and ensure they don’t mount a second invasion. The Alliance has made that quite clear.”
“If you don’t want a second invasion, then you better do something about the disaster that must be unfolding there now,” she retorted.
“I’d heard you had petitioned the Council.”
“Everything I said is true. I couldn’t live with another occupation, but I also can’t live with what I know will be happening on Earth now. They’re dying, and we have to stop it, have to teach them more advanced energy technologies. There’s no other way to bring peace.”
“I have a feeling you are right on this one, and I promise we’ll do something about it.”
Something in her relaxed at that. Her father didn’t give his promises lightly. She could trust him to get the Council to act, but she wouldn’t let him think he was finished.
“Now you can tell me the other thing you’ve been avoiding.”
He glared at her. Then slumped back and stared at the ceiling, before taking a deep sigh and turning to her, his face filled with such sadness.
“They can’t put the Terrans on trial, but they can try you.”
By the end of the first week of captivity, Hamon had been forced to hear Ferdo telling him how well the Terrans were doing once too often.
“None of it would have happened without your leadership. Look what you’ve achieved,” Ferdo would say.
He had a point, Hamon supposed sourly, sitting in a corner of the screened-off area he’d earmarked as his personal retreat. From here he could watch the rest of the Terrans if he wanted, or pull the makeshift screen of old tunics across and grab a moment of precious privacy.
Today he watched and was forced to acknowledge the truth of what Ferdo insisted on telling him so often. Seeing the way the Terrans moved as they went about their duties, he could see a lighter step in them as a sense of purpose once more guided them. All of them were working tirelessly to learn as much as they could of the new regime, without letting their captors know. Colonel Johne had met with the Hathian authorities on behalf of the Terran forces, with more meetings to follow, though Hamon doubted their captors were fooled about whose words Johne spoke. The man had finally learned to listen to his despised second and had let Hamon brief him fully beforehand. Thankfully, the Hathians allowed their facade. He didn’t feel like talking to the Councilors himself. Not after that last meeting.
One gain Johne had made at the meeting was permission for the prisoners to watch local newscasts. Though he probably didn’t have to try too hard for that one, mused Hamon grimly. All the casts showed the Hathians to be in full control of the planet and spoke of the trouble-free incarceration of the Terran forces. Ferdo’s team had managed to break into the Hathians’ communication network, and confirmed the reports to be all too true.
Building on what little he’d learned from Marthe’s wrist patch, added to secret recordings of every Hathian device that came within range of his team, his group had discovered the fundamental difference between their own equipment and that of the Hathians.
“It’s quite simple to master, once you unravel the basic workings,” Ferdo enthused to Hamon a bit later that day, when he’d foolishly asked how they’d managed it.
“Oh?” He supposed he should be interested, but there were too many other things on his mind. Yet what
Ferdo was learning was vital to the Terran cause. He dutifully stopped a few moments longer to listen.
“It’s their intramachine transmissions,” explained Ferdo, a look of real passion on his face. Hamon looked at him blankly, having no idea what he was talking about. It didn’t stop Ferdo, too full of the simple genius of what he’d discovered. “In our system, when you give a machine an instruction, by finger, voice control or whatever, an electromagnetic pulse is activated. The Hathians, on the other hand, use an entirely new system. Our physics can’t even explain it, not fully, but it creates a very tightly banded signal with minimal energy loss. That’s why we couldn’t detect it. There’s no leakage from their devices. We tried copying their stuff with our own equipment, but it was useless. I had to filch some components from the food dispensers and adapt them to our needs. Absolute wonders of micro-engineering they are.”
“But can you use them?” That was all Hamon wanted to know.
“Yes, but—”
“Then do so,” he said gruffly, before stalking off to oversee the work of yet another group.
But Ferdo wouldn’t let him go. Not this time. He felt his arm grabbed and pulled back.
“What?”
“That’s my question. What is the matter with you? We’ve achieved so much, and everything is going so well, all thanks to your leadership. Yet you stalk around here like the hounds of hell are on your heels … when you’re not skulking away in that curtained-off area of yours, that is.”
He looked at his friend’s hand on his arm, thought about hitting him, then looked up and realized all the anger inside him must be written on his face. It was beyond him at the moment to hide it. Ferdo dropped his hand, but still refused to leave.
“Not now, Ferdo. Not now.”
Ferdo tensed then stared back at him. Finally he shrugged. “Your funeral,” he said tightly and stalked off.
Hamon could feel only relief. He turned and gave in to Ferdo’s prediction, making for the security of his sleeper. Once there, he pulled across the screen of tunics, blocking out the rest of his fellow prisoners then made sure everything in his space was pristine, lined up in tidy lines. This at least he could control.
Lying on his bed, eyes squeezed shut against the pain that throbbed always behind them, he wished he could have handled his friend better. Ferdo was right, after all. Just a few minutes, a bit of rest, and he’d go out there, keep it all going. He had to. There was no other option.
In the coming days, he kept up the pressure on the Terrans, helped by an endless stream of incoming reports that strengthened the resolve of every one of the captives. Ferdo’s team was working round the clock to monitor as many Hathian transmissions as possible. They all told the same story, of a well planned program of repair and return to normality, flawlessly executed. Already the broadcasts spoke of the resumption of diplomatic and trade links with the other Alliance planets. The entertainment groups were performing again and the schools had reopened. As if from nowhere, all the mighty infrastructure of the planet had magically reappeared. The spaceport was open again and the cities once more bustling, though how that could be, considering the deadly radiation levels that had coated those places during the occupation, he was at a loss to know.
He also seemed to be the only one not starstruck by what the Hathians were doing outside their prison.
“And of Earth, and ourselves? What do they say of us?” was all he wanted to know, cutting ruthlessly through the childlike awe of the Terrans at the great process surrounding them.
“Rarely mentioned now,” admitted Ferdo sheepishly. “Just that the hostages are securely interned in conditions which satisfy Alliance prisoner-of-war codes, and that Earth has been informed of our return in due course.”
“Nothing of how Earth is surviving without urgonium?”
Hamon could see the dawning on their faces. In all their wonder, they had forgotten their home world. A horrified silence crashed down. Earth held scarce any stores of the precious mineral; too badly needed was every particle sent back for day-to-day energy production. Now, no more supplies would be arriving. Hathe was the only mineable source of the mineral, Earth’s primary energy source. Even if the Alliance authorities hadn’t already seized any consignments in transit, no longer constrained by Earth’s control of Hathe, the Hathians would assuredly stop any further exports to the Terrans’ home world. Earth would soon be without urgonium and the whole planet would grind to a deadly halt.
While they stood here congratulating themselves so heartily on each small success, many of the basic amenities on Earth must already have closed down. Heating, ventilation, and most of the transport system would have gone. Only those services essential to the production and distribution of food could remain. The riots would worsen as, inexorably, more and more citizens were struck off the infamous list of useful producers. No longer eligible to queue for hours for the plain but highly nutritious fare, millions of Terrans were doomed to a slow and miserable death.
“You see how vital is our little game of resistance?” Hamon’s voice was harsh, uncaring of the shocked faces about him. He’d been living with the spectre of a devastated Earth since Marthe an Castre had first drawn that blaster. His spark lit, he strode away to the privacy of his cubicle, there to lie rigid while the wildfire he’d started spread through the Terrans.
After that, a grim purpose took hold of the Terrans. Hamon saw it and wished he could rejoice. Even when Colonel Johne announced that they had been given permission to visit their former quarters to retrieve personal effects, not one had a thought but to hunt for anything that may be of use. Here was a chance to leave the hall and see for themselves just how strongly entrenched the Hathians were.
That hope was short-lived, as Hamon saw, gazing about his beautiful rooms. So neat, with so many painful, hurting memories, and so meticulously stripped of those things he needed by one who had known where to look. Even the pot of healing salve he had acquired on Cantor was missing, the one he’d used to such good effect on Marthe. It was a pity, for he was beginning to be in rather desperate need of it.
The others were as unsuccessful. They had more clothes, their personal treasures about them, but that was all. The Citadel, it turned out, was almost deserted, cast off as useless by the Hathians and, looking out his balcony window, Hamon had noticed a shimmering iridescence in the sky. Presumably a second, confining field surrounding the entire fortress. It served only to strengthen his resolve. He would either destroy the Hathians or escape and wreak what havoc he could. Somehow, he had to get back to Earth while a society still existed to be saved. He was even prepared to go cap in hand to the Alliance planets, begging them to intervene before anarchy and starvation preyed too deeply. The Alliance planets with the exception of Hathe, that is. That once admired world was now only the object of a bitter and abiding hatred.
He could find it only cruelly ironic, then, that when help did come, it was from a totally unexpected and unwelcome quarter.
Gof deln Crantz had been watching the prisoners’ endeavors with increasing concern. Disdainful amusement turned to a wary watchfulness when monitoring showed the first recordings of Hathian transmissions, a development as surprising as it was unnerving. Hurried messages flew from his office in the small garrison in the Citadel to the new HQ in the city. Everything was going so well. The last thing needed now was trouble among the Terrans.
“Jacquel des Trurain should know how to handle these Terrans. Especially this troublemaker, Radcliff,” one of the Councilors put forward during the daily session of the new governing council.
“I don’t know that it would be politic to send him,” countered the troublemaker’s harassed father-in-law.
“Nevertheless, there is no one else available.”
Deln Crantz leaned back in satisfaction as the vote was called and carried unanimously. One problem solved—or buried. Right now, he didn’t care which. He moved the Council on to other matters.
So it was that Jacquel discovere
d he was to be sent back to the Citadel, to deal with this one annoying Terran who refused to accept defeat. After barely two weeks of freedom, he had no desire to return to the dreary coils of the imprisoned, despite the roles being reversed. In particular, he did not want to face Major Hamon Radcliff again. After all the bitterness between them, he just didn’t know whether he could deal with the man as fairly as was required. Did he even want to try?
He stared through the monitors at the Terran captives.
“Zoom in on Radcliff,” he said glumly. The man was walking stiffly across to the food counters. Once there, he spoke to a woman who immediately moved off elsewhere. “Still ordering everyone in sight.” Jacquel could feel the old, familiar anger at the sight of the Terran. What, by the Pillars, was the man doing here instead of among the Hathians looking after his wife as he ought to be?
He gestured to the soldier beside him.
“Major Radcliff is requested to report to the Hathian command,” blared across the speakers in the hall. Nervously, the Terrans stopped and looked towards the troopers constantly in attendance just outside the field—except Radcliff himself. With barely a pause, the Major continued his course towards the cleaning area where he could be seen checking the hygiene rosters.
Jacquel allowed him ten minutes then gave the order for his men to follow him, blasters at the ready. Once in the hall, the field surged forward with them, protecting them as they moved out among the Terrans. The hostile glares on the faces surrounding them told clearly the wisdom of their precaution. At least Radcliff made no attempt to escape. Instead, he turned, leaning nonchalantly against a partition wall to await their arrival and barely demurring as the field enveloped him. There was only a stern look at a nearby man, recognized by Jacquel as Captain Ferdo Braddock.
“You play fair,” noted Jacquel dryly.
“Just accept certain inevitabilities,” was the even drier reply from his prisoner, gallantly refraining from flinching as the man on his left grabbed at his arms, dragging them roughly behind his back and binding his hands with tape. There were some growls among the nearby crowd, but a look from Radcliff quelled any protest.
Pay the Piper: Hathe Book Two Page 3