Resistance: Hathe Book One (18 page)

I,
Hamon Radcliff, First Union son of Representative Radcliff and
Administrator MacDiarmid, succumb to ‘overwhelming emotional
stress’? That fool woman,
he fumed, conveniently forgetting his
swirling thoughts on waking. Stars, let me out of this bed and I’ll
show her. There must be a hundred and one things waiting me. First
up, that damn native girl needs sorting out.

He
grimly forced all thoughts to the contrary to a deep, dark recess
where they were no danger to him. Should he let it be said that
Major Radcliff was losing his touch, could no longer cope—even, the
stars forbid, be sent home?

Home,
to his father’s scorn. Or, more unbearable still, home to add one
more sorrow to all those that so cruelly sapped the youth from his
mother’s face. She had an intolerable load already, inhuman
decisions which must be made each and every day until she had
become but a grey shell of the loving woman of his childhood. No,
he would not be the one to increase her burden.

He
felt himself drifting. Just imagine his mother in that splendid
house of the an Castres, he mused. Free to enjoy the light, the air
and the music. What would she have been? Her grace, the beauty of
his childhood still there, still alive in her face rather than
buried deep by the lines that dug in, deeper and deeper each time
he saw her

Even
that picture was a lie, though; the house, that whole amazing city
of his memory, was false—a dream world built on a nightmare of
slavery and bleak drudgery, if what the peasants said was true.
Fact or fiction? Only Marthe asn Castre could tell him. Marthe, who
had been suffering the Pillars knew what for five days—and again
the crashing pain gripped his temples.

He had
put her through a session. He was no better than Johne’s
men.

Yes,
but you made sure she lived.

This
time, instead of drifting back into oblivion, he fought against it,
struggling to a sitting position as he cursed in the blackest words
he knew in every Alliance tongue. It was one of the few useful
skills he had learned in his years of gypsying, he reflected
cynically. The only other skill he had acquired of any use to him
had been an ability to disregard injury or weakness—a necessity in
some of the places he had visited. He called on it now to lift his
body from the bed, denying the racking pain that squeezed his head,
his body, every part of him. It wasn’t real. There was no physical
damage. That’s what the nurse had said.

It
felt damned real. He had to hold onto the side of the bed until the
room finally agreed to stop rolling around him. Ignoring every
warning from his abused body and head, he walked slowly across the
room and out. He had to leave. He forced himself to keep
walking.

From
the look on Ferdo’s face, he had no doubt that he looked as bad as
he felt.

“
Hamon, What in hell are you doing up? Have you looked at
yourself lately?”

“
I’m
fine, Ferdo. Don’t fuss.” Yet he sank gratefully enough into the
offered chair, quelling further solicitude with a black look. “Five
days wasted. What have I missed and what’s the talk.”

“
You’ve missed nothing and the only talk going round is that
you needed a rest after the hours you’ve put in lately. By the look
of you, it was pretty accurate. Either that or you’ve been on an
almighty bender.”

“
Something like,” Hamon conceded, forcing a grin through the
waves of pain. “But enough of me. I need to know what happened to
that native girl we questioned?”

“
She
was sent back to the cells. Reports are she’s had a couple of
sessions with the guards, but nothing came of it. The medicos tell
me that coma she fell into is normal for Hathians. Their eyes glaze
over, and any further treatment is a complete waste of time.” His
brow creased and he shook his head. “Why Johne persists in using
sessions on prisoners is beyond me—unless it’s to give those thugs
of his a bit of a thrill. Go ask the guard on duty if you want to
know more; but not now,” he added hastily, as Hamon began
struggling to his feet.

“
No
time. I have to get to the bottom of that girl urgently, and I’ve
already lost five days.”

“
You’re not fit. Stay a bit longer.”

He
left Ferdo protesting to thin air.

Marthe
was woken by the clash of the outer door then her own cell door
shot across.

“
Up,
girl. Major Radcliff wants you,” from the surly guard was her sole
warning before the tall figure of the Terran officer briefly
glanced in and snapped at the guard to bring her to his quarters.
Then there was only the major’s rigidly held back, striding a few
paces in front of her.

He’s
in pain, was her second thought. He should still be in bed, she
decided next, watching his stilted gait and the tautly held head as
she was hurried on behind him by the guards. Her professional eye
analyzed her memory of that brief glimpse of his face: the pallor,
the harsh darkness of the hollowed eyes. What could have caused
them? For an instant she recalled a distraught man clutching her at
the end of that session, but dismissed the memory almost as quickly
as she shoved away the strange sense of worry it brought her. She
was still in a puzzle when they arrived at his rooms.

“
That’s all. You may leave the prisoner with me,” the major
growled in a tone even harsher than usual. The guard obeyed only
too quickly, clearly recognizing this was no place to
linger.

“
Now, girl. You’ve had five days’ reprieve while I’ve been
otherwise occupied. There’s no time for more stupid prevarication
from you. Take off that silly hood and let me see if you are as
much a liar as ever.”

“
Sit
down before you fall down,” came her equally sharp retort. “Even in
prison the guards gossip, and you shouldn’t be out of the medical
wards yet.

He
gasped in anger, pulling his shoulders up stiffly as if to deny her
claim. “They gossip too much.”

Hamon
had spoken too loudly, far too loudly for the hammers banging in
his head. He winced, and hated the sign of his weakness, even if it
did get him what he wanted. The girl threw back her hood, revealing
the hair he had once thought so beautiful but now could only dimly
notice. She took his arm and led him to the nearest cube chair,
forcing him gently down.

“
Major, you’re not well. I can help you, but for now you must
sit still. When did you last eat?”

He
shook his head carefully. “Not sure.”

She
disappeared, causing a momentary worry. Hamon had just begun to
struggle to his feet when she returned, carrying a bowl of hot
broth.

“
Shh, lie back. I’d only gone to fetch a snack. You have my
word I will not leave. Please, Hamon, lie down.”

Some
part of him marked her first use of his name and liked it. The rest
of him was beyond caring. She soothed the hair back from his brow,
slowly easing him down, before offering the broth spoonful by
careful spoonful.

He
eyed her suspiciously, too conscious of the closeness of her
yielding body as she cradled him to her shoulder. For a few moments
more, he held back. This was Marthe asn Castre, his enemy and the
woman he had dreamed of for so long. But none of that mattered now.
With a silent sigh, he relaxed, allowing his throbbing head to find
solace in the peace of her cushioning arms.

“
Your head’s on fire isn’t it?” she whispered softly, seeming
to know what loud sounds did to his jangled nerve ends. “Do you
remember much of the last few days?”

“
Not
much,” he admitted. “I woke this morning for the first
time.”

“
Yes, and left the wards rather sooner than you should have.
Do you never admit mortality? No, don’t answer, just drink up.” She
leaned over to place a kiss on his forehead.

It
seemed that a reverse had occurred, and at the touch of her chaste
lips a part of him wanted to reach up and grind her mouth under his
to assert his ward ship over her. But later, he again shrugged, as
he let himself slip into deep and dreamless sleep.

For a
long time Marthe sat there, at peace in a way she had not dreamed
possible as she sheltered in her arms this strong and arrogant man.
In repose, the stern face was softened, a smile lurking about the
thin mouth; but it was offset by the dark shadows under the eyes,
the gauntness of the high cheekbones and the pale, shocked skin.
The doctor in her could not be silenced. A stress coma, she would
have said. If he’d been under her care, she wouldn’t have brought
him to consciousness so soon. But, then, what else could be
expected from primitive Terran hacks.

After
eons, his hazel eyes opened lazily and looked upwards. Entranced,
she returned his searching gaze, all thought of purpose, duty,
role, fleeing out the windows of space, and saw—something. A
commitment. The linking of that part of each, unencumbered by
loyalty or tribe, unique to them.

“
Truce,” she heard or felt. She nodded dazedly. Then drowned
in the warm lips reaching up to enfold hers.

In the
following weeks, Marthe barely recognized the person wearing her
voice and body. The truce of that strange evening persisted, as if
both had agreed to call ‘time out’ in their battle of wills, had
sealed with that overwhelming kiss some mutual pledge. Hamon made
no apology for what he had put her through—he couldn’t, both of
them knew that—but it was there in his care of her and in the
secure isolation he created for her, free of other Terrans. The
weeks became a time of exploring what little each of them was able
to offer openly. Marthe was still Hamon’s prisoner, as was Jacquel;
and she guessed, from the secret transmissions she received from
Jaca, that her friend’s treatment remained cruelly different from
her own.

It
troubled her less than it should have. She reasoned it was because
she could do nothing to change Jaca’s conditions without putting at
risk her own cover. Or tried to imagine she was distracting Hamon
from inflicting any worse damage on her friend. She filed the
matter of Jacquel as
business pending
and gave herself
instead to daydream days spent wrapped in the fragile bubble of her
growing enchantment with her Terran captor. For now it was only
Hamon and Marthe. Anything else they refused entry.

Together, they explored this world of hers. She showed him all
the gaunt wonder of the upland plateau’s grasslands, etched in
clashing beauty under a full moon. First, the bright iridescence of
the primary, Dromorne. Then, on one memorable night, there was the
rarely seen, translucent glow of the smaller Mathe. They sampled
music, and the simple delight of sharing a meal, then afterwards, a
kiss and, one night, almost, there was more.

But
not yet. For all that this man made her sing in a way she had never
known before, she was not yet ready to let him take her fully. If
her masquerade were to succeed, it would be inevitable—or so she
told herself, knowing it for a half truth. She had come to want
this man, this Terran, as she had never wanted a man before. Yet
for now, she held onto this one thing, the inner hold of self, this
one part of herself that she still owned.

It
didn’t fool him. By now he knew her, waited for the first, upward
tilt of the outer corner of her mouth before she suddenly relaxed
into laughter, gloried in her acceptance of him, knowing that she
could be one with his thoughts in a way he had never till now
found. Certainly not in the entanglements of his family, or the
grappling, mercenary place-seeking necessary among his friends as
he grew up. It was the search for such understanding that had first
driven him to leave Earth. He had roamed the galaxy, acquiring
qualifications in various Alliance universities, or dipping into
the less exalted schools of the docks, the factories and the ships
that happened upon his erratic passage, ever searching but never
finding.

Now
the loneliness could be banished. In this woman of his enemy, he
had found his other half, though had not yet made her his own …
maybe never could. Too much lay between them.

There
was no time to change that. This was only an interlude, temporary
as were all such. One inevitable day, reality shoved itself back
into their life. Hamon was called to his colonel’s office and in
short, chilling sentences, his commanding officer destroyed any
hopes that Hamon might hold to the contrary.

“
Have you made any progress at all,” the Colonel finished in
an exasperated tone.

There
was a worrying threat implicit in the words. Both men knew the
mantle of Hamon’s Earthside connections limited Johne’s authority
over his subordinate. The Colonel resented it with all the
bitterness of the also-ran, and right now Hamon dared not forget
it. Within that protective mantle, he could keep Marthe safe, but
only if he could furnish a reason.

And
then there was duty, never to be long forgotten. Who was he to put
the only chance at joy he might ever have ahead of the lives of
millions of his fellow Terrans?

He did
not answer his commander immediately. For days he’d been arguing
with himself. Now, he used all those arguments he’d been turning
over in his head, all the for and againsts, trying to find what
would work best. He began to talk.