Resistance: Hathe Book One (37 page)

She
had to admit it would be very advantageous to have the
Administrator here on F-day. Madame MacDiarmid knew all the details
of Earth’s food distribution system and would be a valuable
hostage. Dare she attempt to arrange it? She settled for a
noncommittal reply, avowing her delight at his mother’s visit
whenever it should suit the Administrator’s busy schedule. His
brows lifted in spurious disbelief.

“
You’re sure it won’t be too much for you?” He was staring
lazily out the window, his fingers playing idly through her
hair.

“
Not
at all. Make it as soon as possible, if you like,” she replied,
swallowing nervously. Goosebumps jumped to life under his caressing
fingers.

“
Probably within days, then. She’s currently on an audit of
our base at Outer Georgia, as it happens, so it’s only a short hop
to here in this phase of the Hathian system’s gates. Mother said
that she didn’t have enough time to get to know you on her last
visit, so hopefully she can stay longer this time. Or would you
rather we left it a few weeks?”

She
hastily began calculating interstellar times and possibilities. It
could be done, just. “Within a few days would be fine,” she said,
falling badly into the open pit.

The
hand stopped suddenly and he turned back towards her, a cynical
twist to his lips. “Thank you, my dear. That was all I needed to
know. You’ll be happy to know that your own imprisonment will last
only a matter of days also. How long, would you say—three, five, or
maybe nine?”

By all
the Pillars! What had she done? She dragged back a lock of hair
falling in her eyes, hastily scrabbling the alert code on her patch
as she did so, then tapped out ‘re-run recording’.

He
watched her, amused at this habit of hers of pulling on her ear
lobe whenever his words hit too close.

It was
the only sign she let him see of the turmoil he’d aroused.
“Whatever you wish. I hadn’t planned to be going anywhere for the
next three months,” she said, looking pointedly down at the bulge
of her waistline.

“
I
hope it will also be possible for me to remain here that long,” he
tossed back at her, both a question and a challenge in his hard,
green eyes.

“
Why
ever not?” she said in a flash, daring him to bring into the open
what lay beneath their words. In the event, he only grinned as if
in applause, before quixotically reverting to the playful lover she
knew so well, holding her easily and planting a light kiss on her
brow. As if the past moments had never been. She reached up to
inactivate the alert code, pensively listening to her husband as he
asked her what she wanted for dinner that evening. Almost banished
was the stranger of the last few minutes.

Or was
he? This easy chat tore more at her nerves than the hard-eyed,
interrogating officer ever could. This man she almost knew. She
said little through dinner, unable for once to copy Hamon as he hid
behind a chorus of banter. What had he discovered? What had changed
everything so suddenly? And how was she going to distract him from
some unknown event? God, there were but four days to go. Surely all
would not be lost at this last moment, just because she’d
failed.

Restless, plotting and weaving still as they retired for the
night, she was finally defeated by sleep.

Hamon
lay beside her, watching the machinations flit across her unusually
expressive face. He did nothing, could not move to comfort her.
Just lie here on guard, closed off and silent, torn between triumph
and dread. How many more nights would they have?

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Marthe devoted the next day to serious socializing.
Fortunately for her cover, Hamon had put out that he was worried by
the increasing threat to the two Hathian Haut Liege from the
peasants’ violence, telling anyone interested that Marthe and
Jacquel had chosen to keep to the security of their quarters. She
knew he did it only to stop other Terrans from interfering with his
imprisonment of her and Jacquel, but his story meant he couldn’t
stop them using the vidphones, barring calls to each other. Marthe
made full use of the privilege while it lasted.

Her
first call was to Helen Ravensbot, the Terran woman she was most
friendly with … but not close to. The hardness at the core of the
Terrans always repelled Marthe, but in Helen she sensed one who, if
reared under different circumstances, would have been a delight to
know, full of the joy of living. As it was, she retained a
delicious sense of fun which insisted on bubbling up through the
careful cynicism displayed by all the Terran troops—a cynicism
understandable in her case. Daily, Helen’s Stores department faced
a battle to keep enough of Hathe’s bounty on-planet to supply the
garrison, in spite of ever more avaricious calls from her crowded
and desperately needy home world. Simultaneously, she had to
somehow wring the equipment the Hathe-based troops needed from an
Earth reluctant to grant anything to a colony from which had leaked
back unbelievable tales of wealth and luxury.

Marthe
had listened in surprise when she’d first heard Helen complain.
Privately, she judged the Terran quarters and rations to be merely
adequate. To her, they lacked an element—call it style, finesse,
whatever—but the years of scrabbling for every last necessity had
stripped something from the Terrans.

It was
only in Hamon’s rooms that Marthe felt truly comfortable. The other
rooms were furnished as expensively, enhanced with personal
fripperies, but it was as if some basic essence of life was absent.
Or perhaps buried, to burst forth occasionally in the elegance of
Hamon’s rooms, or the cheeky laughter of the pretty brunette now
grinning at her from the Tri-D chamber.

Her
use of the chamber was one more thing to mark Marthe as different.
She persisted in using the most energy expensive mode of the vids
whereas Helen used the small vidscreen only, considering the
life-size, full projection of the chamber as wasteful for a mere
chat.

“
Helen, you can’t tell me there’s an energy shortage on
Hathe.” It was an old argument, a ritual of every vidcall, without
which neither would have felt comfortable.

“
Marthe, that’s restricted data, as you’re well aware—even if
I did know the answer,” remonstrated the other, completing the
formula. “Tell me instead of this dreadful threat to you. I can’t
believe the peasants are capable of causing any real harm.” She
shivered theatrically, the hint of danger bringing a delighted
sparkle to her eyes.

“
I
shouldn’t think so,” said Marthe soothingly. “I don’t know what
Hamon’s so stirred up about. I suppose the threat is from the
natives.”

Helen
stared. “Marthe! You can’t think it comes from our own forces.”
Marthe smiled to herself. If only Hamon could hear that ‘our’. He
seemed to be the only Terran who always remembered that she and
Jacquel were not from Earth.

“
I
don’t know what to think. Hamon would surely have told me all the
details if the threat came from the peasants, so that I’d know how
to keep safe, but he’s said nothing.”

“
But
who would do such a thing, and why?” Helen leant forward,
deliciously mystified.

“
Who
knows? Mind you, silly jealousies often surround a woman able to
wear beautiful clothes and do them justice, as you of course know.
Maybe that’s all this is.”

Marthe
was amused to see Helen’s glow at the flattering inference. All her
life, Marthe had been forced to listen to comments about her
vaunted beauty. Only her twin Bendin, equally blessed himself, had
treated such talk as it deserved, and even he had admitted she
‘didn’t look half bad … if you like squirty little midgets’. Today,
though, Marthe needed any advantage offered, and if comparing the
looks of the pretty but not uncommon Helen to Marthe’s more
dramatic beauty would help her, she’d swallow her embarrassment and
do it.

Helen
giggled, then stretched in pure, sensuous joy. “Marthe, dear, I
know exactly what you mean,” she replied, in a languid drawl,
clearly borrowed from their other friend, the sultry Jocelyn Harp.
The effect was ruined by the grin that rapidly followed. “Just
imagine, fisticuffs in evening gowns. How luscious.” She laughed
out loud and Marthe sighed ruefully. Helen was right. It was
ludicrous to think any Terran would endanger her favored position
on Hathe for such a trivial emotion as envy.

“
If
that’s not it, then what is the problem? Why the big mystery? If
it’s restricted data, why doesn’t Hamon just say so? He always has
before,” she added with considerable force of feeling. “What’s so
different this time?”

Helen
didn’t answer immediately and Marthe cursed. She’d been too
vehement, showed too much of the anxiety that racked her. She
watched Helen study her and saw the instant that recognition hit
the Terran woman: Marthe was not, in fact, from Earth.

She’d
muffed it. Worse, she was suddenly forced to excuse herself,
overcome by a wave of nausea.

When
she returned, she saw the shock on Helen’s face. Marthe had pinched
her cheeks before she left the bathroom, breathed deeply and
scrubbed at her cheeks. Anything to disguise the washed out face
she’d seen in the mirror. It didn’t work. She couldn’t hide the
haggard planes, the deep shadows beneath the eyes, the skin
stretched taut over barely covered bones, all too starkly defined
by her sudden pallor.

“
Stars, Marthe, you look like a lower level, non-producer on
Earth. When did you last eat?”

“
It’s merely the pregnancy,” said Marthe, a touch too offhand.
“I’m one of the unlucky ones who get stuck with nausea right
through, the doctor says.”

“
Pregnant women don’t usually look as bad as you.”

“
Thank you very much. It’s so nice to be reminded that I’m am
starting to look frumpy and bulging.” She made herself laugh, one
hand protectively over the gentle swelling of her belly.

“
You
want that baby very much, don’t you?”

Helen
smiled, but Marthe wasn’t fooled into thinking it was sincere.
Helen was too much the product of a planet where a baby was but
another mouth to feed. She doubted expectant mothers on Earth
openly displayed the joy Marthe felt at the thought of her baby.
Yet she couldn’t deny it.

“
Of
course I do,” she said now. Then changed the subject before she
might further remind Helen of the differences between them.She put
on her brightest face, and threw herself into the normal gossip of
their chats: talk of friends in common and those not so well liked,
of trivia and scandal and all the small doings of the fortress,
anything to dredge up some clue to the strange happenings of
yesterday.

Helen
joined in, but Marthe could see much of her mind was busy
elsewhere. When Helen excused herself soon afterwards, Marthe
contacted Central and got them to plug her into Helen’s
vidlines.

She
had been right to worry. Helen almost immediately put a call
through to their other friend, Jocelyn. And the topic of
conversation? Marthe and Hamon, of course. She listened with
growing dread as she heard the two women indulge in a half hour of
mutually enjoyable character shredding.

Helen
couldn’t wait to tell Jocelyn of her chat with Marthe and described
her loss of looks all too vividly. From there, it was a very short
step to the kind of speculation Marthe least needed. Was all not
well between Hamon Radcliff and his beautiful Hathian? Could
Radcliff be cooling?

“
He’s already kept her far longer than any of us expected,”
she heard Helen say. “It’s been nearly six months now. How
romantic.”

“
And
how stupid,” replied Jocelyn, as they both laughed
cruelly.

From
there, it didn’t take long for the two women to move on to
wondering about the sudden confinement of the Hathians. Could there
actually be some truth to Radcliff’s scare mongering? Marthe
couldn’t listen to any more. She left the rest for central to
record and analyze. She’d heard enough.

From
this tiny ripple, the damage quickly spread in ever widening
circles of distrust. Increasingly, she noticed a new coolness, a
tightening of the Terran ranks signaled by ever more frequent
apologies and refusals to talk when she put through a vidcall. Jaca
was soon on to her as well, demanding to know what was going on. He
was getting the same treatment, and neither could do anything to
stop the ripples gaining momentum. By the following evening, her
reports told her, they lapped at Hamon’s feet.

A
sharp salute from a soldier was Hamon’s first sign that his
position was changing. It was so unusual, so different from the
normal half-hearted hand jerk he got these past months that he was
shaken rudely from his current worries. It was obviously time he
took as much notice of the Terrans as he did the Hathians that
threatened them. And once he did, the new air of alert readiness
among the troops was unmistakable. Even more unsettling was their
growing willingness to cooperate with his staff’s orders. That was
almost frightening in its novelty. Nevertheless, he used the change
to his full advantage, grateful for any help.

The
presence of Johne’s ferrets hanging around his office signaled that
the Commander was finally taking an interest in the changes. Or
more probably, thought Hamon cynically, Johne was worried that if
he didn’t take action, he was in danger of losing all authority to
his so-called ‘junior’—something the man would never
countenance.