Resistance: Hathe Book One (40 page)

Ferdo
stared at him, wide-eyed and slack-mouthed. “Stars, you’ve killed
him,” he spat in disgust, any lingering trace of friendship for
Marthe banished from Ferdo’s voice. That was something at least.
Ferdo needed to understand exactly what kind of enemy they were up
against here. If he didn’t, the cool disregard in her voice should
have told him.

“
It
is no more than your people have done to mine often enough,” she
said.

Hamon
bent down to inspect the man and saw the steady breathing, the
scorch mark of a low grade charge against the back of his neck and
the faint pin mark on his neck . He looked up, eyebrows raised.
“Drugged?”

She
nodded, the blaster rock-steady in her hands.

“
For
how long?”

“
Twenty-four hours, unless I give him the antidote
sooner.”

“
And
will you?”

“
Only if he shows signs of a serious adverse reaction. I can
last as long as I have to, if that’s what you’re
asking.”

“
So
we’re next?”

She
shook her head. “I carried only one dart pin.”

“
If
you want to stop us, you’ll have to shoot Ferdo—or me.”

His
eyes held hers in challenge. She never flinched.

“
Yes.”

Would
she do it? He didn’t know and dared not risk it. Not yet. For now,
he must give way. There was time yet. He let his lids droop down to
hide his frustration as he turned and stood, moving to take a
nearby chair.

Unfortunately, Ferdo wasn’t so sanguine, not with one of his
own staff lying unconscious on the floor.

“
Hamon, stop talking and do something!”

“
Do
what, exactly? Marthe appears to hold the upper hand at present.
Don’t you, my dear?”

Marthe
nodded grimly, already hating this game of taunting mockery he’d
chosen.

“
I
don’t know,” cried Ferdo, “but there are two of us, against a mere
woman.”

“
Well trained and, let me point out, with a blaster of greater
capability than our own. I assume it has a destruct function?” He
looked at her, as if to clarify an interesting detail, and again
she nodded grimly.

“
Yes, but she wouldn’t use it. By the stars, under their law
she’s your wife.”

“
I
assure you, my
wife
is quite capable of blowing us both to
perdition.”

The
cold anger seeping through the mockery sent a chill through Marthe.
For an instant, she glimpsed an icy fury and knew he was fighting
to control it as hard as he was fighting her. So many hours to go.
Could she do it? She must. The penalty was a thousand deaths if she
failed.

“
Thank you for your vote of confidence,” she said, making her
voice as cool and mocking as his.

Ferdo
gasped angrily and began to stride towards her. One blast to his
foot sent him reeling backward. He caught his breath then looked
down. His foot was untouched, whole and safe.

“
Neuroillusion. A small refinement we picked up from you,” she
said. “The next time, it will be for real.”

Ferdo
retreated angrily to the far chair. Hamon merely hooded his eyes,
hiding from her the rage written in their shining brilliance. She
saw enough, saw they had become brittle shards of emerald green.
There was no trace left of the soft hazel glow she’d seen in them
just that morning, the color that said he loved her.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Hamon
waited until he judged the strain must be starting to tell on her,
despite any outward sign of it. Only then did he choose to speak
again, in a light tone as if continuing an academic discussion.
“One thing puzzles me still. Where do the peasants fit
in?”

“
There are no peasants. It was a hoax.”

“
A
very well acted one. Who were the peasants at our wedding,
then?”

She
ignored his reminder of intimacy. “Various relatives at hand. My
cousin, Griffith an Castre, stood in for Father.”

The
inner door slid open just then. Hamon tensed, then saw that the
newcomer was a native and that the outer door was already closed to
prevent the escape of any sounds. Imperceptibly, he slumped in his
chair.

Marthe
didn’t look away from her hostages, having already been alerted by
Central of the arrival of the replacement technician. Once she was
again confident that the room was secure, she turned to the
newcomer. Startled, she met the clear, grey eyes of her
sister.

“
Laren? What are you doing here?”
she signaled in
astonishment.

“
I was the only one available with the necessary
expertise,”
Laren signed back.
“Everyone else is too busy
and this function is vital. We can no longer hold control via
remote without compromising other channels. But I’ll talk later.
For now, we both have work to do.”

Her
soft smile belied any harshness and, despite her worry, Marthe was
grateful for the rock-steady presence of her sister as she settled
complacently in front of the console.

Hamon
had watched closely as the native entered carrying a food tray, as
cover he supposed. A female from her walk. He saw the few gestures
of hand and cloak, so subtle one might almost think them imagined.
Then the woman settled at the console, patently familiar with the
instrumentation.

Marthe
made no effort to speak, but he noted her continual fidgeting, her
fingers tugging and tapping at her ear. Code? The newcomer
confirmed his guess.

“
Marthe, will you stop jabbering in my ear.” Laren spoke in
Harmish. “I’m trying to concentrate on these archaic
controls.”

That
voice. He lifted his head and stared at her in shock. He’d last
heard that voice more than five years ago. Laren an Castre was
skilled in communications, but surely not here and now. It was too
great a coincidence. Then his mouth straightened in self-derision.
After the events of the last hour, was anything too great a
coincidence?

“
From the Major’s politic silence, I’m quite certain he knows
who I am. Isn’t that so, Major?”

“
As
astute as ever, Madame asn Castre,” replied Hamon also in Harmish
and using every ounce of the duplicitous courtesy he’d learnt from
his diplomat father, exaggerating his urbane politeness further
when he saw how much it set Marthe on edge.

“
An
Castre,” Laren corrected, untroubled by his manner and using the
same polished tones in which, years ago, he’d heard her present a
paper at the college. “I’m a matron with two children these
days.”

“
And
as beautiful as ever, I’m sure.”

“
Jorven thinks so, anyway,” Laren replied, chuckling. “But I
am remiss, Major. Welcome to the family. Or may I call you Hamon.
It seems only right in such a case.”

“
Of
course, and my thanks, madame. Though I didn’t expect to meet my
wife’s family in such circumstances.”

“
No?
And we had always assumed you were fully alive to the real
situation here. Surely you realized it would have to come to this
one day?” She spoke as one mildly scolding a small boy. He refused
to admit she was making him feel like one. “Never mind,” she added,
“it will all be over soon, and you can do your manly stomping then.
You will find, Marthe, that men never can be angry silently, but,
then, I am forgetting your own temper.”

“
Thank you, Laren,” said her sister dryly.

For
her part, Marthe was grateful for Laren’s diversionary tactics in
this game of nerves with Hamon.

Now
Ferdo also came to her aid, though she doubted that was his
intention. His bottled up anger finally boiled over as he listened
to the overly polite tones of the unknown exchange between Hamon
and the peasant who’d had the effrontery to take over his control
post. He jumped up and made for the control chair, obviously
planning to drag the insolent native out of it, and probably send
out an alarm as well. Marthe hit him with a burst of blaster fire.
Amazingly, he ignored it, fighting against the pain and pressing
on. She was forced to switch the setting. Still he came on. Two,
three steps more.

It was
Hamon who dragged him to a halt, and held him hard to keep him
still.

“
Let
me go, you traitor,” Ferdo snarled. “No illusion is going to stop
me doing my duty.

“
By
the stars, Ferdo, look at your damned foot. It’s no illusion this
time,” snapped Hamon. “Look, you fool.” With one, strong arm, he
forced the other’s head downwards, to see there the smoking
remnants of what had once been toes. And still Marthe held her
blaster on him.

“
One
step closer, Captain Braddock, and you will lose a leg, not a toe.
After that, your life.”

Ferdo
looked into her face, and Hamon saw his shock as Ferdo recognized
what Hamon had known since the moment she’d pulled her blaster. She
did not bluff.

“
Very wise, Captain Braddock,” said Laren, switching to
Alliance Standard. “Marthe is one of our best shots. Now perhaps
you could numb that foot for the poor Captain, Marthe—if he will
behave.”

The
Terran captain gazed in horror at where his toes had been. His face
blanched and pinched with pain, he nodded in dazed agreement and
sighed in relief as Marthe switched the setting back to the lowest
possible, angling it over the nerve endings, and a welcome numbness
spread over his foot.

“
Lie
him down on the floor and prop the foot up on a stool,” ordered
Marthe, partly glad to have eliminated an opponent; but there was
another part of her, one that demanded to know how she could
inflict such pain on a fellow human. She heard the echo of it in
Hamon’s voice.

“
Congratulations, Madame Wife. You’re whittling the numbers
down very neatly. Only one to go. What are you planning for
me?”

“
Boiling in oil,” she snapped back, not caring if her
momentary loss of control afforded him the greatest satisfaction,
though never did she let her hand on the blaster waver.

“
Now, now, children, such tantrums,” Laren scolded. “Hamon,
you haven’t introduced me to your angry young man.

“
My
apologies, madame. Your sister will insist upon these minor
interruptions,” he said, gesturing to Ferdo’s missing toes. “Madame
Laren an Castre, may I present Captain Ferdo Braddock, head of our
communications section. Ferdo, my sister-in-law.”

Hamon
bowed as he finished, using the ironic flourish to put his hands
momentarily out of sight. Almost immediately, a burning heat
slashed along his left side. Just in time, he drew his hand back
from the smoldering remnants of the tiny handgun he always wore.
Damnit, he’d hoped she’d forgotten about it.

“
Marthe, a bit radical, dear,” said Laren, staring at the
apparently senseless shot.

“
My
husband carries a small blaster in a pocket on his left side,
Laren. He drew it then.”

Marthe
could feel herself shaking. How could it have come to this, to be
forced to shoot at the man who, the stars forgive, she still loved
above all else?

“
Your memory does you credit,” drawled Hamon in mocking
congratulation.

He
revolved slowly to inspect the charred hole in his suit, carefully
pulling the edges together to conceal from the others the fiery
welt rising on the singed skin.

That
shot had shaken his confidence. While his mind had told him she
would shoot, his heart still believed that he, at least, must be
immune. No longer. For an instant, he nearly succumbed to the black
depression hovering over him. He thrust it back, glancing at the
clock. There was still time. The guards could be called out in an
instant. He could still win, unlikely though it may seem to his
opponents—as he must think utterly of the two Hathian
women.

“
Are
you all right,” asked Ferdo from below.

“
Don’t worry. Nothing more than a singed tunic. Lie still and
leave everything to me.”

They
spoke Terran Local rather than the Standard that was the usual
lingua franca of the troops on Hathe, but his hope that they
wouldn’t be understood was killed by Marthe’s laconic translation
to Laren—solely, he knew, to inform him of her command of Earth
dialects. For the present, then, he would have to wait, and he
cursed the long sleep he’d gone to such pains to allow her last
night. Yet still the shadows lingered beneath her eyes and the skin
clung to her bones in high relief. Soon the strain must become too
great and the debilitating spells of nausea return.

There
was also the sister to consider, but instinctively he knew her
experience didn’t match Marthe’s. She lacked the alert readiness
for action that branded Marthe a trained agent. As was he, he
reminded himself grimly. His enemy had five years of war service
and superior weapons. He had ten years gleaned throughout the
Alliance and the knowledge that no weapon is superior to a simple
gadget used to best advantage. Idly, his eyes swept the room,
marking potential weapons and noting possible positions of attack.
As he did so, he deliberately strove to appear relaxed, settling
back in his chair and checking on Ferdo from time to time. All the
time, he watched Marthe, stared coldly at her and set his voice to
taunt her, sending it to slam against the hard shell she’d flung up
against him.