There was a rustling, and they glanced at each other. The Draka waited for a moment, then continued in a tone of weary distaste.
"Stubborn. Fools. All right… Who's a Yankee heah? I have a special and particular dislike of Yankees." The big eyes slid down the line. Gray, with a rim of blue.
Colder than any I've ever seen,
Cindy thought. She could almost have preferred a sadist's glazed sickness; it would be less intelligent.
The eyes settled on the Merkowitz family. A gloved finger pointed. "They two slugs look repulsive enough to be Yankees.
Fetch me the pretty little bull beside them, an' make a steer of him."
A dozen of the Draka had been hanging ready by the opposite wall. Two crouched and sprang, blurring across the lounge, twisting end-for-end and landing one on either side of young David Merkowitz with balletic gracefulness, they grabbed his arms and leaped again, releasing him just before they touched down. The warriors let their legs cushion impact like springs, coiling; the teenager from Newark landed against the wall with a soggy impact. Stunned, he floated for an instant until they spreadeagled him on a table. Others moved in to hold and secure; one of the Draka reached over her shoulder and drew something as long as her forearm.
Cindy felt a glassy sense of unreality as she recognized the tool. It was a cutter bar, a thin film of vacuum-deposited diamond between two layers of crystal iron-chrome. Alliance models had the same backward-sloping saw teeth, although they did not come to the sort of wicked point this one did.
The Draka spun the tool in the air, a blurring circle, then reached in. The hilt slapped into her palm—bravado; that edge would go through fingers as if they were boiled carrots. She raised it in mocking salute to the prisoners and swaggered over to the boy; one of those holding him had stuffed a cloth into his mouth to muffle his screams, and was holding up his head so that he could not help but see.
The Draka with the cutter bar paused, turned, slashed the edge down on a metal table-frame. The steel tube parted with a ringing sound, and the woman smiled. She smiled more broadly as she pulled off the undersuit briefs, wet one finger and drew it up young Merkowitz's scrotum and penis. He convulsed and made a sound that was astonishingly loud; she gripped the testicles in her left and and raised the knife with taunting slowness.
"No." That from the man at the head of the line. He moved forward towards the table with the interrogators. Cindy looked at the Draka commander, who had been hanging relaxed, smoking a cigarette and looking up at the ceiling; the American saw a slight tension go out of the enemy commander's shoulders.
"Very well," the short blond woman said. "Hold it there, cut him if any of the rest make trouble." The Draka with the cutter bar lowered the weapon and waited, loose-alert as she faced the prisoners. Her other hand stayed on the teenager, stroking lightly. He began to weep.
"Name."
Yolande looked aside at the prisoner. A wench in her late twenties, with two picknins floating near; the children had been shot with dociline and were just coming to, still muzzy and vague. She was ruddy-olive, quite good looking in a slimmish sort of way, spirited from the calm tone she used, which was a relief. The sniveling from some of the others had been nauseating, even for feral serfs—especially when you considered that she had not done anything of note to them yet. Not that this whole business was very pleasant, at all; necessary, but distasteful.
Find it easier to kill them from a distance, eh?
she thought, mocking herself.
To desire the end is to desire the
means.
"Cynthia Guzman Lefarge," the wench was saying. She was the last of them. "My daughters Janet Mary and Iris Dawn.
Master's degree in Applied Biosystems from the University of Anahuac in Mexico City. Going out to meet my husband on Ceres; that's his picture there."
Yolande looked at the timer display on the sleeve of her suit.
Less than an hour from boarding, good time. A disappointment that the compcore had been slagged, but only to be expected.
Still… She looked down at the picture in the booklet.
"Wait." Her hand slashed down.
Impossible
. She could feel herself start to shake as she looked at it. Impossible. With an effort greater than any she could recall, she took a deep breath.
One. Another. The shaking receded to an almost imperceptible tremor in her fingers as she lifted the record book. Square face.
Dark eyes. Dress uniform, not the mottled night-fatigues.
Same
face,
the same face, the Indian night and its hot scents, the smell of Myfwany's blood. The broken body in her arms, jerking, mumbling the final words around a mouth filled with red. Gone.
Gone forever, dead, not there,
gone.
The face in the night.
"Sttt—" She cleared her throat. "Stop." Her voice sounded strange in her ears. She leaned toward the wench, seeing with unnatural clarity every pore and feature and hair. There was a sensation behind her eyes, like a taut steel wire snapping.
"That's enough," she said. The tone of her voice had a high note in it, but it was steady. Somewhere, a part of her not involved in this was proud of it.
"Separate the prisoners," she said, without taking her eyes off the picture. "The aft section is cleared out? All the children, put them down there. Decurion, get a working party, transfer supplies from the foodstore; it's on this level. Enough, then weld the door shut, get the picknins down there and weld the hatch to
this
level shut. Wait, that wench and that wench,"—she pointed at two of the mothers, ones who had listed no occupation—"with the children.
Move
. No, not these two picknins, leave them with the wench here."
There was a shift, movement, kicks and thuds and shuffling, wailing. A bit of confusion, before the prisoners realized that to Draka serfs were only children up to puberty. Yolande turned to consider them, the booklet gripped tight in one hand. "Docilize the adults," she said. Breathe. In. Out. "Shift them across." She keyed her microphone. "Number Two, how's the mass transfer goin'?"
"Should have the last of it in our tanks in 'bout ten minutes,"
he said. "Back up to sixty percent. Everythin' all right?" That in a worried tone; he must be able to sense something. Later.
"Good," she replied. "I'm sendin' ovah the prisoners, docilized.
Repressurize Hangar B, secure them to the floor. Make arrangements fo' minimal maintenance until we get back to the task fo'ce." There would be plenty of room there; inflatable habitats had been brought along. "Set up fo' a minimum-detection burn."
She turned to the Centurion. "Get those bodies," she said.
"Transfer them to the cold-storage locker on this level. Strip everythin' else out, 'cept cookin' utensils, water an' salt, understand?" He nodded, impassive; she had a reputation for successful eccentricity.
Yolande reached back over her shoulder and drew the cutter bar, handling it with slow care. She walked toward the American woman, and held the booklet up beneath her face.
"I know yo' husband, wench," she said, almost whispering.
"It's an hereditary trust to hate all Americans," she continued.
"But he… took somethin'… that I valued very much. So much so that iff'n I had him in my hands, not a lifetime's pain could pay fo' it." She halted, and waited immobile until the sounds of movement had died away behind her. The last of the work party shoved the mass of cans and boxes through the main hatch and into the cabin area beneath, then welded the hatch with a sharp
tack
of arc-heaters. Then there were only she and the Yankee and the two drugged children. Forget them, they were
his.
"So tell yo' husband, tell him my name. Yolande Ingolfsson, tell him that. Tell him to remember the red-haired Draka he killed in India; tell him hell curse that day as I've cursed it, and mo'. Because befo' I come fo' him, I'm goin' to take everythin' he values and loves, and destroy it befo' his eyes; his ideals, his cause, his nation, his family. And then I'm not goin' to kill him, because… Do yo' know what the problem is, with killin' people, slut? Do yo' know?"
Silence that rang and stretched, with her eyes locked to the honey-brown of the prisoners.
"Answer
me!"
Yolande touched the cutter bar to the other's cheek. Skin and flesh parted, a long shallow cut; blood rilled out, misting across her eyes.
Carefully,
carefully.
The other woman gasped, but did not move. "Answer me."
"I don't know."
Yolande moved the cutter to the other cheek, sliced the same controlled depth. "Because being dead doesn't hurt. It's in livin'
that there's pain, wench." Another silence. "Do yo' understand?
I'm leavin' yo' here. Lots of space. Plenty of water. Air system's good fo' two months, easy, an' they should be here fo' you in, oh, minimum three weeks, maximum seven. Yo' can even leave, iff'n walking buck-naked in vacuum dosen't bother yo'."
"But, but, how shall I feed my children?" the other asked.
Yolande forced herself not to look at the slight drifting forms, pushed the image of Owen's face aside. Instead she smiled, and saw the American flinch as she had not at the touch of the knife.
"Try the meat locker!"
she shouted, and leapt for the exit.
Twenty-nine days later, Colonel Frederick Lefarge was the first of the boarding party from the
Ethan
Allen
through the airlock of the Pathfinder. His eyes met those of his wife.
They screamed.
DRAKA OFFICER CONVICTED IN ABSENTIA [NPS] The Alliance Global Court today announced that Yolande Ingolfsson, an officer in the Domination's Aerospace Force, had been convicted in absentia of war crimes and crimes against humanity during the notorious
Pathfinder
incident. Testifying at the trial were…
San Francisco Tribune
Editorial Section
January 3, 1983
MERARCH YOLANDE INGOLFSSON RECEIVES
SOUTHERN CROSS [CMS]
When asked her opinion of the laughably presumptuous sentence recently passed on her by a group of feral serfs styling themselves a "court" Merarch Ingolfsson responded with amusement. "They've already tried to kill me, and come off rather the worse for it." she said, on the steps of the Palace.
"They're welcome to try again."
Our heartiest congratulations to Merarch Ingolfsson and her kindred, and our gratitude for showing that this frontier province has become a breeding-ground of the true Drakon spirit.
Leading Article
Nova Italia Magazine
Florence, District of Tuscany
Domination of the Draka
January 15, 1983
CERES BASE
SPACE FORCE MEDICAL CENTER
JULY 20, 1982
"How are the children?"
Frederick Lefarge reached up and touched the handhold over the door. It was a pressure-door, and the wall around it was rock; the hospital was in the oldest section of the base, put in a decade ago when the Space Force had burrowed into the heart of the rock to put five hundred kilometers between their sick and an attack from space.
The specialist laid a hand on his shoulder. "We think… no permanent damage," he said. "It's a miracle. Your wife used the Dyleaze from the medical chest to keep them asleep most of the time; it's one of the more recent ones, genuine sleep, not unconsciousness. Just woke them up occasionally for fluids, and they… did get some protein, after all. A year of complete rest, with no stress, appropriate hormonal treatments, and there should be no physical ill effects except for a little growth lag. And children are resilient, Colonel."
Lefarge swallowed again. "And my wife?" he husked.
The doctor looked aside. "Much worse. We've taken her off the critical list, but—" He looked back at the officer. "We can correct most of the cosmetic damage, replace the teeth with buds eventually. I'll be honest with you: she came as close to terminal coma as you can get and not actually die. There's kidney and liver failure, loss of function from other internal organs,
possible
neurological damage. The medics on the
Ethan Allen
did their best, and believe me, you were right to risk high acceleration."
"Was I?" Lefarge said wearily.
"Your wife would have died if it had taken longer to get here,"
the doctor said bluntly.
"I have extraordinary authority," Lefarge said. "I used it —and because of that, the
Allen
may not be back in the inner system in time, if she's needed."
The solitary non-disaster about all this is
that
Hayakawa managed to kill himself before they could
question him in depth
.
So the Project isn't
compromised
. "They had shifts going around the clock on
Washington
and her sister when we left… What's the prognosis?"
"We're bringing her back up to full metabolism for a day," the doctor replied, tone clinical once more. "Then down to fifty percent for six months. That way we may be able to restore function, or failing that get her well enough for transplants. I warn you though, Colonel, she's never going to be very strong again. Certainly, you won't be able to have any more children.
And there may be irreversible loss of brain function, aphasia, or, other complications. Not to mention psychological damage and trauma. Thank Cod that isn't my department."
"Let me see her," he said, waiting for the other's nod before ducking through.
Little of Cindy's body showed through the forest of tubes, wires and blinking screens. The room was silent save for minor noises of machinery, pumps and compressors. Most of the body functions had been taken over by the support mechanisms, to give the wounded organism a chance to recover. Her head was held in a padded brace, with only a nasal tube to hide what had happened. What he saw was nearer to a skull than a human face; the eyes were sunken, and wrinkled lips collapsed over an empty mouth. What hair was left was wispy and snow-white. He stood by her side and bent to kiss the brow with infinite tenderness.