Eternity Row (43 page)

“Does it have a name?”

“At present”-Duncan shifted Marel back away from the console-“it has only a numerical designation. However, I believe my wife knows its name.”

“I do?”

“Mama’s dar,” my kid said, and smacked a key. The imager zoomed back out, and she crawled up on the table to stick her finger in some of the lights. “See? Two dars, one big dar, four widow dars. Make a fwower.”

“Honey, please get down, you…” I stopped and slowly rose to my feet. I didn’t have to look at my husband to know what he was thinking. “No, Duncan. Pick another planet.”

He was already signaling someone. “Relay the data up to here.” A moment later, another, very familiar chart came up and superimposed itself over the original.

“They match.” Xonea studied the grids. “What say you, ClanSister?”

“I say, no way.” I took my daughter down from the console and tucked her on my hip. “So some of the stars match. That doesn’t mean this planet is the one.”

“Captain, this is the same world recorded on the discs given to Cherijo by the alien female.” Reever didn’t look the least bit ashamed as he wrecked my whole day. “It is Jxinok.”

“Tell me something, sweetie,” I said as I tucked Marel in for her nap that afternoon. “How did you know about that star chart your daddy showed us?”

“Free dars.” She blinked, and nestled down into her pillows. “Make fwower wid pree dars.”

I left her sleeping and went out to where my husband was manning the console, still studying Maggie’s star chart. I reached over, shut down the file, and popped out the disc. “Why are you doing this to me?”

“If we are ever to live free and unafraid, we must discover who Maggie is and what she wants.”

“She’s a ghost who’s stuck in my head and nothing else.”

“That’s what you want her to be.” He got up and tried to pull me in his arms, but I was still too angry to do the kiss-and-make-up thing. “Cherijo, why are you so afraid of knowing the truth about yourself?”

“I’m not afraid. I’m a mother now. It’s not just me this affects.” I looked at Marel’s room. “What happens if we find out everything Maggie has said is true? That I’m not human, that I can’t die, that there’s some other reason I was created? It’s bad enough I can’t tell her about her grandfather, the sadistic bastard, or any of her uncles, until she’s old enough to know what monsters are. How much more do you want to dump on this kid?”

“Marel is not your clone, and she also deserves the truth.” He got up and walked away.

I followed him. “Why, so she can have a bounty put on her head? So some scientist can wrap her in nerve-web and see how much pain she can take? So she can watch people she loves die trying to protect her? Look at me, Duncan!” His eyes went from blue to gray as he met my gaze. “This isn’t your decision to make, it never was. And yet you go right ahead and push aside my wishes so you can satisfy your curiosity. That’s really what this is about-you can’t stand it, not knowing. Well, I can.”

He stroked my cheek with his fingers. “If you wish, I will not go to Jxinok. You never have to tell me what you find there.”

“That was the only good argument I had,” I said through gritted teeth. “Thanks for blowing it away.”

“The first thing I loved about you was your courage,” he said in a very soft voice. “You would crawl through fire to save another’s life. I have seen you shot and stabbed and burned and beaten and none of it stopped you. That is what Marel needs-her mother’s courage, not her fear.”

I gave in, and stepped into his arms. “You’re going with me. I need you to go with me.”

He rubbed his palm over my hair. “Always.”

After a few moments, I stepped back and handed him the disc. “Let’s look at it again.”

Duncan pulled the charts back up, and the data coming in from a long-range probe he’d launched the day before. “The environment appears innocuous, and the atmosphere amenable for the Jorenians. The higher nitrogen content may make you feel light-headed, until you adjust.”

“The Captain wants us to revive Hawk tonight, see how he reacts.” I looked at the ancient star chart from Maggie’s disc as my husband superimposed it on the more modern version from the ship’s database. “Why aren’t they identical?”

“Some of these stars are now novas, or black holes.” He tapped a couple of unmatched pinpoints of light. “Others have formed in the interim between surveys.”

“How long does that take?”

“I’m not certain.” He stared at the console. “My best estimate is at least two million years.”

“How could she have a star chart that old?”

“There is only one way.“ He met my gaze. ”Her species, like you, is immortal.”

“Don’t start that with me again.” I grabbed my work tunic and shrugged it on.

“Cherijo, she’s alive.”

“No.” I swiveled around. “She’s not. I watched her die. I buried her. She’s decomposing in a hole in the ground on Terra.”

“Why didn’t she choose to be cremated? That is the standard funerary disposition of bodies on Terra now.”

“How the hell do I know?” I threw up my hands. “She was a strange woman. Practically everything she did was socially unacceptable!”

“And yet Joseph kept her on staff and allowed her to supervise you for eighteen years.” He switched off the terminal. “Joseph, who you will agree was more conservative than most Terrans.”

“She told me they were lovers. Maybe he kept her because she was good in bed.” I finished fastening my tunic and headed for the corridor. “I’m going to work.”

“Wait.”

I waited. He came up behind me, and rested one hand on my neck. “What?”

“Don’t change your mind about going down to the surface.”

“I won’t, but I’m going to complain about it,” I said, and went out the door. “Frequently.”

In Medical, Squilyp and the nursing staff were prepping to remove Hawk from sleep suspension. I didn’t say anything as I joined them, still in knots over Duncan and Marel and Maggie’s stupid discs.

“We’ve already observed a tolerance for rysperidyne,” the Senior Healer said as he removed the suspension shroud and deactivated the support unit. “Given the serious prolactin elevation, conventional drug treatment is out of the question.”

“The obvious choice would be a dibenzodiazepine,” Qonja said. He had recovered in record time from his transplant surgery, and showed no signs of rejecting the bioengineered organ. “Clinical studies on Joren have shown that drugs such as clozapyne increase delta and theta activity, and slows dominant alpha frequencies. They also exert potent anticholinergic, adrenolytic, antihistaminic, and antiserotonergic activity.”

“Yeah?” I turned on him, glad to have a direction to vent. “Last time I was in Medtech, clozapyne use was strictly limited to totally nonresponsive or highly intolerant patients. Maybe because it causes agranulocytosis, tachycardia, and seizure in most patients. Or did you forget to attend that class, resident?”

“The patient has been given two courses of chemically unrelated, conventional antipsychotic drugs and responded to neither.” Instead of being miffed, Qonja sounded almost amused. “What other course of action remains unexplored, Doctor?”

“Why don’t we wake him up first and see what we’ve got to work with?”

“I agree,” Squilyp said, before the psych resident could protest. “Administer the neutralizer, nurse.”

Savetka administered the mild stimulant, which roused Hawk within minutes. His eyelids fluttered, then opened as his drowsy eyes tried to focus. “Patcher?” he said, his voice raspy.

“So far so good,” I murmured to the Omorr as I moved in and checked Hawk’s vitals. “How are you feeling,
hataali
?”

“Strange.” He looked from me to Squilyp, and then turned his head toward Qonja. “What happened to me?”

“You’ve been ill, so we’ve had you in sleep suspension for a couple of days.” His pulse jumped under my fingertips, and I felt sweat dampening his skin. “Easy, now. Everything is going to okay.”

“I want to go home.” He sounded like a scared little boy. “Please take me home.”

The expression on his scarred face made me fold his hands between mine. “I wish I could, pal.”

The next thing I knew Hawk had clamped his hands around my neck, dragging me across the berth, while Squilyp and Qonja struggled to free me.

“I am the lifeblood of the world!” he screamed in my face as he choked me.

Qonja did something fast with his hands. I heard bones snap, then Hawk howled with pain.

“Sedate him now!” the Omorr shouted, wrestling down one free arm and pulling me off the berth. I fell to the deck, holding my throat and coughing, my eyes fixed on Hawk’s spasming hand as my boss strapped his arm in restraints.

All the fingers on one of Hawk’s hands were broken.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Mirror of Confrontation

Qonja didn’t bother to duck my signal when I came off duty. Nor did he raise any objections to accompanying me to an environome.

I ignored him at first, warming up the way Wonlee had showed me a few days before-what he called “a quick start after a long lull.” I wasn’t sure what I was feeling, outside of a determination to get to the truth, but I had no intentions of leaving that environome until I got what I wanted.

My target politely refused to arm himself against my
goreu
, and spent the next hour expertly dodging my attacks.

“This serves no purpose,“ he said, just like he had the last time.

“You be sure and tell my husband that. I signaled him right before I came to get you.”

The door panel slid open behind us. “Cherijo.” It was Reever, and he didn’t sound happy.

“Hello, honey. Qonja here was just getting ready to tell me who he is. Aren’t you, Qonja?”

The psych resident looked past me and his expression went from strained to relieved. “Captain.”

Xonea approached us from the side, clearly upset himself. “ClanSister, what are you doing?”

I twirled my staff. “I’m going to beat some answers out of this man, if he ever holds still long enough.”

“I shield the representative,” Qonja blurted out. “This was not her doing. I- I provoked her by my actions, and I beg forgiveness of her for doing so.”

Reever took the staff from my hand, and threw it across the room. “Does this satisfy you now, Xonea? Or would you see her kill him?”

I ignored that, and stared hard at Qonja. “What representative? What are you talking about?”

He remained on his knees, until Xonea made an impatient gesture, then Qonja rose and gave me a formal bow. “You, representative. I was ordered not to reveal this information to you by our Captain, until the Jado arrived.”

“What information?” I turned to Xonea. “What is he babbling about?”

“A vote was taken some weeks ago, by the people.” My ClanBrother put a big hand on my shoulder. “Qonja was sent to guard you until we could transfer you to the
CloudWalk
.”

“
Why
?” I shouted.

What he said then was something so bizarre it barely registered. “You have been appointed to serve on the Ruling Council, Cherijo. You are now one of the leaders of Joren.”

Before I could say anything, my husband dragged me back away from Xonea. “You are responsible for this.”

My ClanBrother slowly nodded. “I made the recommendation to the other ClanLeaders. She will be taken back to Joren and kept safe from the League and the Hsktskt. No one would dare attack a world leader.”

Which made sense out of the whole mess. Of course, Xonea would think having me appointed to the Council would protect me. He lived on a decent world, where people respected the rights of others.

I doubted my newly elected status would impress the League or the Hsktskt one bit.

“By doing this, you have attempted to violate the bond between me and my mate,” Reever said, in flawless Jorenian.

“Wait.” Panic made me grab him. “No, Reever, Xonea didn’t violate anything.”