Resistance: Hathe Book One (4 page)

“
Look after yourself, little Mimi,” he said, softly squeezing
her hand as he rose to leave. The gong sounded just then for the
beginning of the night rest period. Agnethe had told her of it. The
natives had to be inside the large dormitories before they were
locked for the night. All about her, others bustled past, hurrying
round her silent, withdrawn figure.

“
Riarda, girl, move,” Agnethe called as she passed. “You’ll
miss out on a bed if you don’t hurry. There are never
enough.”

As it
turned out, the warning proved true and Marthe spent the night
huddled on a cold floor, prey to a thousand thoughts.

CHAPTER TWO

Hamon
Radcliff scowled at the man coming down the corridor towards him.
Colonel Johne! As if this night weren’t bad enough already. There
was no way to avoid a meeting, and right now he couldn’t afford to
alienate his commanding officer more than necessary. Why must the
man be down here now? This late in the evening, it should be safe
to leave the gym unseen.

“
Evening, Major,” said the commander, coming up to him and
running a knowing eye over his junior officer.

“
Colonel.” He gave the required salute then moved off. Not
quickly enough to miss the smirk on the older man’s face. He knew
its cause. The normal fitness regime compulsory for all members of
the Terran forces occupying Hathe did not leave a man dripping with
sweat and gaunt from exhaustion. Radcliff might resent the Colonel,
but he didn’t underestimate his intelligence. A long-term career
soldier, Johne would know exactly why his head of Special Services
sought escape in exercising to the point of near
collapse.

There
were only two things either of them had ever agreed upon: Hamon’s
forced conscription from his rule-free and independent civilian
life to this posting on Hathe was a thoroughly undesirable change
to the life of both men; and neither of them could do a thing about
it. Radcliff was too well connected back home for Johne to touch,
and Hamon was barred by an inconvenient sense of duty from
organizing a release from his commission. What he did here was
vital to the survival of Earth. The urgonium mined only on Hathe
was their principal energy source, and Earth needed more of it very
badly. Nor was there anyone else with his particular mix of skills
and experience who could take his place. That was not a
boast—rather, a cold-blooded assessment of fact that he wished with
every particle of his being was not true.

But
brooding could not distract him from the scream of abused muscles
as he entered his quarters. He was so tired he must surely be able
to sleep tonight. The briefest cycle of the cleanser was all could
he manage, before throwing himself gratefully onto his sleeper …
only to spend yet another restless night, tossing fruitlessly, prey
to a thousand thoughts.

Now
another day had begun. A beam of sunlight splashed through the long
windows of the apartment, shimmering off the water droplets still
clinging to the plants on the small balcony then falling in lazy
patterns on the large, cream cube chairs dominating the inner
room.

Hamon
stared morosely out at the beautiful room, seeking some kind of
ease in the familiar spaces. He had made of these rooms a refuge,
the one place in this military fortress he must now inhabit that
felt like home. With the dividing wall drawn back, he could look
out from his secluded seat in the bedroom to the main room beyond,
and past that to the freedom of the sky. It was why he had chosen
these rooms for his own

Despite the air of comfort, there was a sparse feel to the
apartment, the sole relief he had allowed from the dominant cream
and ivory coming from the profusion of plants. Even these spoke of
the sculptural in their placing and form. It was home to the
outdoorsman he was at heart but must deny here, minimizing the
constraints of walls, floor and ceiling to the barest noticeable.
In the bedroom, the only furniture was the chair he sat in and a
sleeper of subtly shifting translucence. The room held only one
embellishment—a painting. It hung above the sleeper and showed a
house of flowing lines and soft colors. A spire climbed to the sky
while at the base a tide of tropical plants clung to the walls,
doors and balconies. A beautiful home, but Hamon could not pretend
it belonged here. Despite the presence of Hathian plants, his
apartment was undoubtedly Terran. The house in the painting was
not.

This
morning, as always, it drew his eyes. He stood, paced a couple of
times around the room then once again slumped into the chair, to
stare at the painting on the far wall. The building’s clean lines
only fed the fires within as memories crowded him mercilessly. He
thumped down on the corner of his chair and leaped up to resume his
pacing.

All
the while, his gaze remained glued to the house as yet again he was
thrust back in time to when he’d first seen it. Before Earth had
invaded Hathe.

It had
been a home then, filled with a constant procession of smiling
faces. The visitors had included the most senior members of the
planetary administration, coming to call on the good Dr Sylvan an
Castre, a member of the Hathian Council and a scientist known
throughout the Alliance for his work on interplanetary
communication systems.

Others
had come too. Younger faces, their voices calling merrily through
the beams and spires. The doctor had a son, well liked by all, he
remembered sourly, and two daughters, each unique in her own way.
Both women had followed their father into the world of science: the
elder in his own sphere while the younger was said to be destined
for an illustrious career in the world of medicine. They were also
very beautiful. His mouth twisted to a skewed smile. Many of the
young men who came to visit their lively brother, twin to the
second of the sisters, had stayed to chat with the lovely young
women of the an Castre family.

He
could see them still. Images bright with the sharpness of carved
crystal. The elder sister had been blessed with the sea grey eyes
of an ocean in repose—slow to anger and with a rock-deep sense of
enduring strength.

Then
there was the younger.

Ah,
yes, the younger of the asn Castre daughters. A mountain brook was
how he always saw her. Small and slender, with brown eyes alive
with the ever-changing currents of a stream breaking on rocks or
slipping into silent mystery under root shrouded banks—a small
enigma in a family of tall guardians.

He
grimaced. He, too, had wanted to meet the sisters. Particularly the
younger.

Very
badly.

His
hands clenched as memory played back. His wants had counted for
nothing in that long lost world. The brother made sure of that. The
young man had already crossed paths with Hamon, and not to Bendin
asn Castre’s advantage. A small smile of satisfaction creased
Hamon’s mouth, but only for an instant. Too soon afterwards, he
remembered, the Hathian had repaid Hamon fully and in
kind.

Marthe
asn Castre was like no woman Hamon had ever seen, before or since,
and he had dared to seek an introduction. Someone had warned Hamon
beforehand of the close bond between the asn Castre twins, but he’d
thought nothing of it until he came face to face with the full fury
of an enraged brother. What followed had not been pleasant or
civilized, he recalled, and had ended in his summary ejection from
the an Castre home. Terran scum was not worthy of a Hathian lady,
Hamon had been informed as the doors of the house slammed in his
face.

Looking back on his deeds of the past few years, Hamon was
forced to concede that the arrogant Hathian may just have been
right.

What
had become of them all? Was she still asn Castre? Or married and
become an Castre? A sudden clench of denial at the thought of her
with another, and he glared at the picture. The beautiful home,
once so full of life, had been ugly with the decay of desertion
when next he saw it, immediately after the conquest. It was
protected from the attentions of his troops by the same deadly
radiation that cloaked all the buildings of the people who had once
ruled this planet: the Leigers, as the natives named them or the
Haut Liege as they had termed themselves—the ruling class that had
now so inexplicably disappeared, taking with them the secret of
extracting the precious urgonium.

Earth
could mine it, but only in quantities laughably short of what they
needed. Urgonium, the rarest and most valuable mineral in the
universe. The most efficient source of energy known in all the
Alliance and found only on Hathe. Earth needed it, couldn’t survive
without it, and Hathe refused to give them more. So they came to
take it … and look what they found.

All
that remained now of this world’s once vibrant society were empty
shells and dull wretches—the peasants of Hathe, claiming to be only
too glad to see the back of the Leigers who had treated them little
better than serfs. Life under the Terrans was lenient in
comparison. Or so the natives claimed.

Hamon
shook his head and thumped the chair again. It wasn’t true. Over
and over, the refrain jangled in his head. He may have visited here
only once before the conquest, but he would have sworn it was not a
society built on cruelty. Yes, he’d seen servants in the mansions
of the ruling group. Proud and free people they had been, efficient
organizers of the household routine, not frightened drudges like
the native maid he now saw scuttle in through his service door.
Something was terribly wrong. All of a sudden, he felt as if he and
his complacent fellow Terrans were sitting on a time bomb set to
explode right in their faces.

He
rose and stalked through to the lounge. Ignoring the heavily
shrouded maid, he stared broodingly at his vidscreen. At the
moment, it was set to the view of the native courtyard, crowded at
this time of day with scurrying Hathians

Those
damn peasants. Ignorant, foul smelling, subservient. But try to get
some answers from them, and you could almost see the mask falling
beneath the hood of that all concealing outer wrap of theirs. The
blasted thing was more effective than any wall in creating an
impenetrable barrier to these people.

And
underneath… He remembered some of the women he’d used to assuage
the awful loneliness and isolation of this place. Some may not have
been too bad, he thought, if he were less fastidious. Cleanliness
was not a priority of the Hathian peasant. And the hair of the
women! Custom dictated greasy, tightly woven coils, fortunately
usually further hidden by a ragged cap though this added nothing to
the wearer’s desirability. Thinking of those encounters, he
grimaced in self-disgust. What was this world, this job making of
him? A thing he could only despise? And whether he could live with
himself afterwards was something he refused to consider.

His
mouth twisted. At least he would live, unlike the millions of
Terrans back on Earth if he failed in his duty.

And
the women he used to help him survive here—
used
being the
only word that fit what he did with them? For all his contrived
charms, he had never learned anything from them, however many tears
they had wept as he rid himself of one more failure in a long line
of unproductive encumbrances. They swore of love and passion, but
all refused to drop the mask drawn over life before the Terrans.
All he had ever won for his troubles were trite and tired clichés.
Those Leigers, they sneered.

Stars!
Maybe they really were the unfeeling clods his fellow Terrans
believed them to be and he should give up this stupid quest for
truth. What did he care? But he did, and knew he could not avoid
it. If he was right and failed to prove it in time, all of Earth
would pay in lost lives and misery.

So he
returned to it again. The dilemma that was driving him in ever
maddening circles. He
must
try to find out what lay behind
the hoods and the veiled eyes of Hathe. Starting with the subject
in front of him—probably to as little use as usual, he admitted
heavily, and he eyed the maidservant dubiously.

She
was new. Despite the concealing robes, he knew she was not the same
maid that usually came. The frequency of changes to his cleaning
staff was one of the things that made him most suspicious. He
stalked back into the room, a menacing assumption of ease in his
gait.

Settling himself into one of the large chairs, one leg draped
over the side, he gazed in apparent disinterest at the girl. He
waited in silence, like a spectator at a play, noting each small
twitch or jerk of his victim. He kept up the unmoving scrutiny for
half an hour, deliberately creating an air of edgy expectancy in
the room. The girl had become a challenge for him, a do or die last
attempt. This time, he would split asunder that damned native
dullness, he vowed, watching her as she meticulously cleaned each
small speck from the spotless floor.

He
noticed she avoided his one Earth plant. Its presence on Hathe
contravened every biosecurity law in known space, but he had
brought it regardless. He needed it. A piece of home to remind him
why he was here. And he found the reaction of the Hathians to it
very instructive. This girl appeared to be unaffected by it,
ignoring it and carrying on regardless, but yet no part of her ever
touched its shining green leaves.