Resistance: Hathe Book One (19 page)

He
could yet disarm her, he said. Trick her into revealing what she
knew, as he had first proposed. Since then, he’d learnt even more
of the toughness and courage she tried to hide and was convinced no
other method would work. He’d tried harsher methods on des Trurain,
the other Hathian Lieger, to no effect, and he had no reason to
believe that Marthe asn Castre would react any
differently.

“
What about the other men who were caught wearing patches?”
the Colonel asked at the end, having heard him out in a
discouraging silence.

“
We’ve nothing on them. Des Trurain was the only one to appear
in our pre-conquest records. The rest have been given routine
interrogation and are being held pending further
developments.

“
Are
they a security risk?”

Hamon
had to shake his head.

“
Is
there any point in holding them for longer?”

“
No.”

“
You
can’t keep them in custody if you want to gain the trust of the asn
Castre woman. Especially if they are her confederates, as you
claim,” pointed out the Colonel. “Put it out that you can find no
case to answer and release them back to the Citadel workforce.
Under full surveillance, of course. As for des Trurain, bring the
two Leigers together. If they’re in collusion, something should
happen.”

Hamon
nodded, giving no sign of his inner dismay, and knowing it had
nothing to do with duty or his plans to break open the peasants’
secrets. He did not want Jacquel des Trurain anywhere near Marthe.
‘
We would have married.’
The words rang in his brain, a
constant companion to all his encounters with the Hathian
man.

There
was a nasty smile on Johne’s face at his junior’s reticence. “You
could always release des Trurain to house arrest in one of the
guest quarters. See what happens if he has the freedom to mingle
with the girl in company.”

“
Not
a good idea, sir,” was all Hamon could come up with.

The
colonel eased back in his chair, one hand fingering the badge of
his rank pinned to the hat placed on one side of the desk. He
surveyed Hamon, standing to attention before him. “The girl—is she
your mistress yet?”

Hamon
felt his body go rigid. “That is none of your business,
sir.”

“
That’s where you’re wrong, Major. I want this girl broken.
You can continue with your scheme, but I expect you to give it your
fullest attention—and that means the use of
all
your
considerable talents.”

Hamon
could almost smell the stink of degradation. Not that he didn’t
want Marthe, and in exactly the way Johne implied. He needed very
badly to explore her body as he had begun to explore her mind; but
he had hoped to do it in their own time, needed her to come to him
of her own free will.

Time
had just run out.

Marthe
welcomed him home that night with a friendly smile, and anything
else she felt at the shadow she saw in his eyes locked tightly
down. He was exceptionally tender with her as they lay together for
hours, bringing her to delight with the treasures gleaned from his
eclectic education and with the caresses of his hands and lips and
body.

And
almost she would have let him love her, if she had not recognized
in his careful embraces the end of their idyll. His hands traced
her body as if trying to imprint her shape on his mind, as if she
were some fragile memory to be stored away in the protective tissue
paper of his deepest heart. It was an ending. Tomorrow would see
the start of the ugly game they must play. For this one, last
evening, Marthe would remain herself.

CHAPTER TEN

Hamon
felt the tension brimming from Marthe. They were locked together in
the shielded cab of an all terrain rover driving towards the
irradiated and abandoned capital city of the Haut Liege and forced
by the small space inside the vehicle to sit close together. He
could feel the rigid tautness of her body and, with just a slight
turning of his head, could see the tight set of her jaw. More was
hidden by the all enveloping outer mantle she wore today, a finer
version of the peasant’s concealing robe.

“
Would you rather we hadn’t come?”

“
No,
no.” She spoke too quickly. “I haven’t been back here since the day
of the fall, that’s all.”

“
If
it’s the radiation you’re worried about, don’t. We have full hazard
level shielding in this thing, and I brought our best protective
hazbubble with us. Or is something else bothering you? You’re
acting like a cat facing a large dog. Unsure whether to run or
stand.”

“
Nonsense, I’m fine. It’s only that I haven’t been down this
road since the day your people landed. When I walked out of town
that day, I never expected to be able to return.” Under the fall of
her sleeves he saw her hands twisting into knots. A sudden tilt of
chin as if she swallowed, yet her voice held firm as she added in
explanation, “The Council had given plenty of warnings they were
going to put the field in place to make sure your people couldn’t
touch the City. The peasants all knew to get out if they wanted to
survive.” More twisting of hands. “What’s a cat anyway?”

“
A
small Terran animal, once kept as a pet, and don’t bite my head
off.” He leaned over to draw her close, only partly in
reassurance.

He’d
known The City might distress her, but he also knew her well enough
now to be aware of the steel beneath her gentle exterior. So why
this barely held, tightly coiling of nerves? So different from his
entrancing companion of the last weeks. The memory of those weeks
shunted his guilt burden up a notch and it was high enough
already.

Those
weeks had been a precious gift of time. Ephemeral, yes, but during
them she had allowed him glimpses of the woman he remembered from
that long ago visit to Hathe. The woman he had fallen in love with.
Her courage and grace he knew; her delicious sense of fun had been
a rare bonus.

All
that was now banished and it was back to work after the holiday. He
had known to expect it as soon as Johne had issued his ultimatum,
but that didn’t make the change any easier to bear. At the same
time, and despite hating himself for it, his professional side
couldn’t stop puzzling over her reaction to this place. The grief
he had expected, but why the fear?

Sensing his curiosity, Marthe attempted to quell her growing
sense of doom. She fixed her gaze on the passing scenery, taking
care not to look ahead at the white spires, the dreadful emptiness
of the once great city now filled only with a sprawling scramble of
shrubs and trees that still showed signs of the radiation which
protected the capital city of the vanished Hathians from its
enemies—or, rather, the machine readings of radiation the Terrans
thought protected the City. What would happen if they discovered
the deadly levels registering on their equipment were as false as
everything else they thought they knew about Hathe’s people—that
the signals, the burnt traces of exposure on the plant life, the
deadly readings from the small animals that still haunted the area
were all a fabrication, a vast blanket of deceptive camouflage
blasting out from the resistance’s planet-wide network of
transmitters? The Terrans had no idea of the level of technology
available to the Hathians and had nothing in their own techno
arsenal to detect it.

They
would remain in ignorance only as long as she could keep her
secrets from this man beside her, this wonderful man who could see
her soul, this man bringing her to the one place that could break
her resolution.

The
City, home for her and all her family and friends. So secure and
safe, we thought—teeming with the life of the metropolis and
housing Hathe’s government. It had been a place of bureaucracy and
individuals—such individuals! But she must not remember, for they
had children, sons and daughters who had died in the last battle,
children and grandchildren now hiding on Mathe, or eking out a
perilous existence planetside, their very lives threatened if any
hint of the startling truth should be leaked to the Terrans. The
faces of people long gone crowded in on her.

No,
don’t think of them. Look to the side. See the beautiful Pathan
tree, the long leaves still swooping in gentle cascade to the
ground, so wonderful as shade for picnics.

“
The
Pathan trees, they used to be lovely at this time of year,” she
said too brightly, as she strove to break the echoing
silence.

“
Those drooping ones?” he asked. “They still are, despite the
energy burn scars. Particularly the one up on that small
rise.”

He was
startled to catch a glimpse of a tear, quickly flicked away as she
moved back a strand of hair. “You know it well, I daresay.” he said
casually, hating himself.

She
nodded. “It was a favorite spot for lovers.”

She
took swift revenge,
he thought savagely.

“
Bendin and I used to spy on them as kids.” A half sobbing
laugh accompanied this, then silence.

“
I
wonder if your people, wherever they are, also remember
it.”

“
My
people?”

“
The
Haut Liege. I don’t suppose you have any idea where they had
planned to go?”

“
No,
no.” She stumbled over the words. “Somewhere far away, waiting for
the day you decide to leave, I presume. When the urgonium runs
out.”

“
Oh,
we don’t plan to leave. Earth is so overcrowded that the empty
spaces of this planet are as valuable as your mineral
wealth.”

He saw
her shock despite her swift attempt to hide it. “You can’t mean to
stay forever?”

“
Why
not? The peasants wouldn’t know the difference. Serfs to Terrans or
Hathians, what does it matter?”

He
watched her closely. The slight signs of her face betrayed to him
the struggle within. Then the conflict was over, and she turned,
her entrancing smile on her face.

“
You
are so right, they wouldn’t. Although it’s a shame that my people
should have to live out their lives in exile, there’s no doubt they
are quite comfortable wherever they have fled. They certainly took
enough with them to have no need to return.” She laughed in brittle
denial. “Now, what would you like me to show you first? For this is
still my city, however angry I may have been at my
father.”

She
snuggled in against his broad shoulder and Hamon knew a huge sense
of loss. The holiday was truly over. The beautifully charming
Marthe he would have but that was all, she had just declared. The
real woman he had glimpsed again these past days belonged to those
unknown others who held her loyalty and, of a sudden a fierce,
personal hate for his foes seized him, never fully to leave him
again. I, too, have my duties, he reminded himself grimly,
retreating into the refuge of cold professionalism.

“
Your city for now, my little enchantress.” He lowered his
voice, using a tone he’d never thought to use with her, smooth and
heavy with a slick seductiveness. It was the cynical voice of
countless seedy bars in space station layovers. “What would I like
to see first? Let me see. I have seen already your government
buildings, your libraries, museums and the public rooms of your
home. What could compare with those?” He planted a slight kiss on
her brow, lingering to nibble at her ear. True to her role, she
moved slightly in her seat to ease his attentions … but not too
much, he noted.

So the
reserved Marthe had not been totally buried.

“
You’re right, you have seen our best, but the remainder is
still very impressive.”

“
No.
Give me no poor imitations. Let’s go instead for a contrast. The
peasants’ quarters, that’s what I shall see,” and his treacherous
hand moved quietly around her shoulder to caress, oh so casually,
one round breast.

He had
surprised her. She gasped and made to pull away, but he had trapped
her too well, and kept her firmly in place with his elbow as his
hand wandered where it willed.

She
glanced briefly at his face and, for an instant, he dared to hope
his own Marthe had returned. But no. Her resolve held and he
watched as she abandoned herself to the purely physical pleasure
roused by his attentions, turning slightly to accommodate his
exploring fingers as they folded back her veiling wrap and lifting
her head to display the long, sensual line of her neck. Stars,
she’s becoming more Terran than me, he thought in despair, before
returning to his role in this inhuman game of theirs.

Switching the controls to automatic, he devoted himself fully
to her, the piled-up experiences of years of dalliance coming to
his rescue. Nuzzling one, delicate ear, he whispered softly, “After
the peasant’s quarters, where next? The kitchens, the garbage
disposal plant?” His voice dropped a fraction lower. “Your
bedroom?” His mouth engulfed hers and, to his disgust, a
tantalizing softening answered his probing tongue.

Beneath her melting exterior, Marthe’s mind was cold steel.
Mathe be praised for the obviousness of his practiced technique,
she thought, as she deliberately lost herself in the physical
sensations he alone could rouse in her. It was so much easier to
sink into pleasure than face the haunted streets of her home. He
pulled up outside a house, one familiar to them both. It was the
house of the picture in his apartment, the home of the an Castre
family, her home. It was a huge effort, but still she held her
cover, merely lifting an eyebrow at his choice of destination as he
activated a hazbubble around them and helped her out of the cab.
That look was all she could manage. She was beyond speaking. So
many memories, tearing and clawing at her. Too many, bringing her
too near the point where the final strands of her control would be
torn away and she must be lost. She, and all the hopes of the
people of Hathe.