The Morcai Battalion (9 page)

“To reveal them would be catastrophic,” Dtimun replied. “Especially for you.”

“I live and die at your command,” he said with a smart fist to heart salute. He grinned.

“One day,” Dtimun threatened, “I will make soup with your bones.”

“You will become the first cannibal of your Clan, and my ghost will avenge me,” he shot back.

Dtimun’s eyes burned dark brown.

Komak held up both hands, palms out. “I know, we never speak of Clans. Forgive me. I shall return to duty immediately. I would make very bad soup.”

The boy saluted again and ran for his life.

Dtimun moved back to the ambutube that contained the young Altairian. The boy’s eyes opened. Dtimun placed his hand over the boy’s heart and stared into his eyes with a deep blue gaze. After a minute he nodded. The child smiled faintly and once again went to sleep.

On his way back to the bridge, the C.O. stopped in the
kelekom
sector. One of the operators, the current supervisor, gave him a worried look.

“The
kelekoms
have been following the Rojok pursuit,” the operator told him. “The Rojoks have modified their sensors to detect our faint heat signature. They have turned and are approaching.”

Dtimun drew in a long breath. “Who commands the pursuing fleet? Is it Chacon?”

The operator shook his head sadly. “It is one of their most fanatical captains,” he replied. “The
kelekoms
infer that our capture would mean
Ahkmau
almost immediately.”

“Keep me informed,” Dtimun replied quietly, and left them. As he started down the long corridor, he felt a sudden, stark pain in the center of his breastbone, between his two hearts. He stopped, caught his breath and managed to regain his composure before approaching crewmen saw any weakness in his posture. So it was beginning now, a year too soon. And at the worst possible time. He must speak to Komak quickly, in order that the chain of command would be intact if the worst happened…

Admiral Jeffrey Lawson was downing a quick cup of java while he waited for the first report from Terramer. His lined face showed the effects of only an hour’s sleep. He was impatient for news; for confirmation that it had been Holt Stern’s crew that the Holconcom had rescued.

He got up and paced the dim confines of his office. His mind still
balked at the idea that Chacon had led the merciless attack. The wily Rojok commander-in-chief’s code of honor in battle was legendary. An attack on a defenseless colony of clones was hardly in keeping with that reputation. Mangus Lo would be capable of such an atrocity, but would Chacon submit to an order that conflicted with his code of ethics? Lawson shook his head. Perhaps the patrol he’d sent to Terramer could provide some answers.

“Sir!”

The sound of his adjutant’s voice froze him in thought.

“Yes, lad?” He activated the automatic door and strode quickly into the outer office. “Any word?”

“Yes, sir.” The automatic comtech translated the message as it began to come in on the intersystem scanner. “The scouts report fatal magnabeam radiation blanketing the planet now. All the casualties seem to have been removed. The patrol’s just beginning to search the area. Sir, they have found one thing in the wreckage of the sci-archaeo ship—carefully hidden inside a bulkhead.”

“Well, what it is, boy?” Lawson demanded when the younger man hesitated and grimaced.

“A body, sir,” he said reluctantly.

“Only one?” Lawson’s brows drew together. “Can they give us an ID?”

The adjutant sighed and lifted his eyes to Lawson’s. “Yes, sir. The officer in charge knew the victim personally. Positive ID. The body, sir…it was Captain Holt Stern.”

Hahnson’s scowl was the darkest Madeline Ruszel had ever seen on his face. He was alone in his office, beyond the closed and soundproofed hyperglas door behind which Holt Stern lay in an ambutube.

“You’ve been corrupting Centaurians,” she told Hahnson.

He shrugged. “Only Komak. We could call it improving his education in Terravegan slang,” he replied. He folded his arms across his chest, his expression worried. “Look at this, Maddie.”

She moved to his side and looked at the diagnostic screen. In seconds she was scowling, as well.

“That’s what I was afraid of,” she said quietly. “I ran the same scans and came to the same conclusion. Stern,” she added, meeting his eyes, “is definitely not himself.”

He nodded.

“You aren’t trying to pacify me, are you?” she queried, used to arguments from her colleague. “I haven’t gone space-happy.”

“I know that,” he said. “I matched his bioscans from a month ago to these new ones and got the same result you did. The change is too radical to be natural. Someone has altered Stern’s mental patterns.”

“Yes,” she agreed, lowering her voice. “Does he know, do you think?”

He nodded. “Let’s say, he suspects. It’s an amazing alteration, too,” he agreed reluctantly. “There are no definite signs of tampering except for the rogue cells and the bioscan patterns. If we’d been less detailed physicians, we’d never even have suspected. He seems perfectly normal most of the time.”

Madeline glanced at him and wanted, so badly, to tell him what she suspected about Muldoon. But she didn’t dare. Now that she knew the
Morcai
carried AVBDs, she couldn’t risk it.

“Strick, you don’t think he’s a clone?” she asked suddenly, and felt such a sense of loss that her eyes almost watered.

He gnawed on his lower lip. His broad shoulders moved uncomfortably. “I don’t know.”

“You suspect something,” she persisted.

He drew in a painful breath. “It wouldn’t serve Rojok purposes to leave the original alive if they deliberately replaced Stern. But we have no proof of that, remember? It may be just what it seems—a strange pattern due to a head injury.”

She folded her arms tightly across her chest. There was a deep, throbbing pain in her very soul. “The three of us have been together for so long—” Her voice broke. If she hadn’t been so involved in the theory, she might have realized that it was rare for her to feel such a burst of emotion. “We’ll have to watch him closely until we get to Benaski Port,” she added. “If we’re still convinced by then that he’s showing signs of brain pattern alteration or brain damage,” she said heavily, “I’m going to have to file a Section 10–010 with the portmaster.”

“That could cost Stern his command,” he reminded her.

“Don’t you think I know that?” she asked with tortured, pale eyes. “Strick, he dragged me out of a moga swamp and carried me two miles to an aid station on Signus Four. He could have left me there to die, and no military tribunal in the galaxy would have charged him for it. But he didn’t. He’s my friend,” she added simply.

“He’s mine, too.” He looked drawn. He glanced down at her with concern. “I’ve been relegated to medicine because the emotion suppression didn’t work on me. It was the only way I could stay in the SSC. But you were a combat officer.”

She realized what he was saying. Her green eyes lifted to his. “Apparently the emotion drain didn’t completely work on me, either, Strick.” She smiled faintly. “I don’t share that tidbit at HQ, and you mustn’t, either. I’m still an Amazon reservist. I don’t want to lose my status.”

“You know me better than that.” He studied her curiously. “How did you get past the scans? And why didn’t the drugs work on you?”

She leaned closer. “My dad is Lieutenant Colonel Clinton Ruszel of the SSC Paraguards, Royal Legion of Earth,” she reminded him. “He took an unusual interest in how his donation to the sperm bank was being used. I’m his only progeny, and I understand that he was having me watched almost from birth. I think he may have had something to do with the drugs’ lack of effectiveness. Even when I served with the Amazon squad, I had problems.” She looked up at him. “You know Dad, don’t you?”

He nodded. “I fought with your father and Dtimun in the Great Galaxy War,” he reminded her. “He and Dtimun were even closer than the commander and I are, and that’s saying something. Our temporary C.O. hates most humans.”

She nodded. “Dad mentioned having served with the Centaurian divisions, but he didn’t mention the C.O. by name.” She frowned. “I wonder why?”

Several sectors away, a pair of laughing, green elongated eyes stared down at a remote vidscreen with real humor.

She shrugged off the question. “I’m going to miss Muldoon. He was a pain in the butt, but he was a hell of an engineer.”

Hahnson had graduated best in his class at the Tri-Fleet Medical University. He gave her a steady look. “Muldoon never screamed in his life, you know,” he said pleasantly.

“Don’t!” She grimaced, looking all around. “He’ll think I told you!”

A pair of amused green Centaurian eyes behind a monitor disputed that.

He cleared his throat. “Yes. Well, we won’t discuss it outside this room. But just between us, I never believed the spacing to begin with. Or, for that matter, the way he dealt with his officer in the mess hall. The Holconcom never scream, either, you know.”

She gave him a curious look.

“I told you that I served with Dtimun in the Great Galaxy War,” he reminded her. “The officer I knew was above such methods to control crewmen.” He smiled. “He and Chacon were cut from the same cloth.”

“I wouldn’t agree at the moment,” she said on a sigh. “Chacon has lost his mind if he ordered that shoot and strafe on Terramer.”

“Chacon wouldn’t do it in a blind fit of rage,” Hahnson said firmly. “It was the Rojok emperor, Mangus Lo, or I’m a wimbat.”

“You do look a little like a wimbat, Strick,” she mused. “Especially when you haven’t slept in forty-eight hours.”

“Watch it, or I’ll tell Stern you set him up with that Mervician shape-shifter the last time we were at Benaski Port.”

She held up a hand. “Okay, okay, I withdraw the comment. But you carried the vidchip about her to him for me.”

“One slip in a brilliant career.” He chuckled.

She smiled at the memory. “We’ve had good times, even though we’re not supposed to be allowed to feel camaraderie.”

He glanced at her. “Outcasts, all of us,” he agreed. “But Stern has never been the same since he lost Mary.”

Her smile faded. “He still carries that blue ribbon around with him everywhere,” she said. She frowned. “I wonder if we might use that memory…”

“…and ask him about it?” he wondered. “What if he’s lost it somewhere?”

She cleared her throat, unzipped her sleeve pocket and produced the ribbon. “He gave me this bit of it on Montclair Colony two months ago,” she reminded him. “I saved him from a nasty
chova
bite and shot a bat creature that went for the blood.”

“I had it the last time, when I pulled him out of the moga swamp with a broken leg.”

She fingered the ribbon gently. “Mary was wearing the main part of it that Stern kept when she died,” she whispered, feeling the pain. Mary had been a colleague of hers and Strick’s, a brilliant surgeon.

“Holt always thought of it as a medal,” he replied. “Because she saved two children from certain death by throwing herself in front of the captured
Gresham
handgun when the Rojok fired it.” He shook his head. “I thought we’d have to bury Stern with her. He wasn’t the same for months. The neutering didn’t work well on Stern, either.”

“But not like he is now,” Madeline said, putting the ribbon back in its place. “I think we should show him the ribbon.”

“So do I. But not today. We don’t want him to become suspicious. And if he has been altered for some dark purpose, where does our allegiance lie?” he added. “Can’t you imagine the damage he could do when we reach Tri-Fleet HQ? He’s done enough
aboard this ship in one day. Not to mention,” he added heavily, “that we’re still being followed by a Rojok fleet that seems bent on our capture.”

She grimaced. “I know.”

“You don’t like Dtimun,” he said out of the blue. “But he’s an honorable man. He’s legendary, in his use of tactics and his courage. He—”

“He brings out my stubborn side,” Madeline interrupted. “But I respect him.” She smiled. “He’s a lot like my father. He doesn’t back down. I like that.”

The unseen pair of green eyes twinkled even more.

“Be careful how you talk about him when you think he isn’t listening,” Hahnson chuckled. “There are things you don’t know.”

“I don’t discuss people except with you and Holt.” She felt sad. “I don’t want to think about him being altered, being a stranger. I don’t want to—!” Her voice broke and tears threatened.

He caught her arm, firmly, and shook it. “Watch it!” he said shortly. “You’re having too many of these episodes lately. It will be noticed. You could be thrown out of the service for any display of emotion, you know that. Even your father couldn’t save you.”

She swallowed, and then swallowed again. She drew in a steadying breath. “I don’t understand it. Emotion is drugged out of us the minute we enter the military. It’s chemically erased. I took all the required drugs when I first enlisted!”

“In one percent of subjects,” he reminded her blandly, “the process reverses itself spontaneously.”

She hadn’t remembered that. She looked absolutely horrified. “Do you think that could have happened to me?” she asked, lowering her voice.

“I think it’s very possible,” he said.

She laughed humorlessly. “Maybe I’m a clone.”

“Bite your tongue,” he uttered. “You’d be sent to an organ supply house on the spot.”

“Yes,” she sighed. “In our society, clones are nothing but spare part banks. The Centaurians may be prehistoric in their attitudes toward genetic engineering in their main population, but they treat the clones of the Holconcom with great dignity and respect. We treat them as disposable organic donors.”

The remote eyes narrowed and darkened with anger.

“Maybe that will change someday,” Strick said gently, “when people realize that they’re sentient beings. They deserve better treatment from a so-called civilized society.”

“They do.” She sighed. “But none of this solves the problem of Stern.”

“Dtimun already suspects that there’s something wrong with Holt,” he told her. “Whether or not we discuss this with him, he’ll be watching.”

Her eyes widened suddenly and she started looking around the room like a fugitive from justice.

Hahnson turned away. “We’d better get back to our patients. Stern isn’t going anywhere for the moment. Let’s keep watch and hope for the best.”

She turned and followed him. “I guess you’re right.” She locked her hands behind her as she walked. “I wanted your opinion on one of my Jebob patients…”

Stern felt the pain slowly begin to ease. His head was throbbing, but he could manage. He sat up, grimacing when it briefly increased the discomfort. He didn’t know himself anymore. He had memories of his distant past, but the recent part of it was blurry and incomprehensible. His mind was still a blank, but the memory of Muldoon’s horrible fate intruded and left him weak.

“My mind’s going, isn’t it, Strick?” he asked the husky medic, who was finishing up a test.

Hahnson spared him a glance and a grin while he turned off his scanners. “No more than mine,” he said. “Relax, Holt. It’s only a minor irregularity in the bios, after all. Probably due to that bump on the head you got on Terramer. You’ll be yourself in no time.”

“Sure,” he said, unconvincingly. He sat up on the table and shook his head. “Funny,” he said with a hollow chuckle, “I think Muldoon was one of my engineering officers for years, but I don’t remember anything about him.”

“Memory lapse. Understandable.”

“Is it, Strick?” He eyed his friend. “Or have I really changed so much in a few days that my own men don’t know me?”

Hahnson laid a heavy hand on his shoulder. “I know you. Cut out the questions.”

He sighed wearily. “The C.O. How did he kill that Holconcom so easily?”

“Let’s just say,” he replied, choosing his words carefully, “that he has an uncommon gift of both strength and mental abilities. I don’t know if the gift isn’t more curse than blessing.”

“Who is he?”

“Who knows?” Hahnson shrugged. “His Clan is as secret as his private life. I served with him for two years, and it might as well have been two days for all I learned. Even Komak doesn’t know him well, and he’s Dtimun’s executive officer and his friend.”

“Somebody wants that cat-eyed terror pretty bad,” Stern remarked, “to throw a whole fleet of ships against a single Centaurian ship.” He frowned. “Fleet of ships…” He sat up quickly and clasped his head because of the sudden pain. “Are they still following us?”

“As far as I know, yes,” Hahnson said worriedly. “Nobody’s talking about it right now.”

Stern scowled, rubbing his eyes. “How do I know that they’re after the C.O. and not the ship?” he asked blankly. “How can I know that?”