he had a peculiar habit of trying to give her things. She didn’t understand why he was so intense about it. He offered her everything from virtual pets to virtual flowers. She always refused, because the very intensity of his gift-giving made her uneasy. He was good-looking and kind. It didn’t matter. Her emotions were centered on one very unpleasant member of his species, one who didn’t want her interest.
Rhemun noticed Mekashe’s visits to the sick bay.
“Why does he come here so often?” he asked Mallory coldly. “Mekashe is in perfect health.”
“He’s interested in Terravegan customs, sir,” she replied, standing at attention.
“Yes?”
She swallowed. His tone was openly hostile. “He’s curious about humans.”
His dark eyes narrowed. “Let me give you some advice, Lieutenant,” he said quietly. “Never accept anything from him.”
She stared at him uncomprehendingly and flushed. “I...well, he’s very kind,” she began hesitantly, “and I don’t want to hurt his feelings. But I can’t, I mean I don’t, accept gifts from him. Ever. Sir.”
He lifted his chin. The way he looked at her was unnerving. She couldn’t quite decide what that look really was. It was possessive. As if she belonged to him and Mekashe was trespassing. What an odd, and stupid, thought. She closed her mind on it at once. He hated her. She didn’t need words to push that point home.
“I cannot speak to him about it,” he said stiffly. “It is a breach of custom, a social taboo. But you must continue to refuse any gifts offered.”
“I already do. Sir.”
He nodded. “Very well. Dismissed, Lieutenant.”
“Yes, sir.” She saluted and almost ran from him.
He couldn’t tell her that the giving of gifts was a prelude to courtship, or that Mekashe, unlike his own Clan, had accepted all the genetic modifications that Dtimun had. If Mekashe attempted to mate with the little blonde human, he would kill her.
As much as he disliked Mallory, he was also fond of Mekashe. They had been friends since boyhood. He didn’t want the death of Mallory to lie heavily on Mekashe’s conscience for the rest of his long life. Of course, that was why he was concerned. He turned and walked back toward the bridge. It was on Mekashe’s account that he was concerned. Only that.
* * *
THE ENDLESS DRILLS continued aboard the Morcai. Rhemun timed the men on their response and rated them when they fell short of his idea of perfection.
“This is difficult for the men,” Btnu cautioned gently. “Dtimun did this, but only at first, when the unit was formed after Ahkmau.”
Akhmau was a sore spot. He had not shared that horror with the crew, so he didn’t have the comradeship with the humans that Dtimun had forged. He was an outsider. They let him know it in many ways, most of which involved referring to their time in the Rojok concentration camp. It irritated him when the humans did it, but he hadn’t expected his exec, Btnu, to join in.
His eyes narrowed over darkness. “We must have adequate response time. It might mean the difference between victory and defeat. When I captained the kehmatemer, these drills were conducted daily.”
Btnu cocked his head in a very human way and even smiled. “I know, sir,” he said gently. “But you were a bodyguard unit. Infantry. This is mechanized cavalry. They are different disciplines. As well, the kehmatemer was a very small group of men. We have hundreds aboard ship.”
Rhemun didn’t fly at him. He felt like it. “We might say that the difficulty is on both sides, but it remains that we must perform efficiently in combat.”
“On that point, I agree,” Btnu replied. “However, I will remind you, respectfully, that Dtimun led his troops more by affection and respect than by command alone.”
Rhemun’s jaw tautened. “I have no wish to befriend them.”
“I know your past. The humans do not. You judge them by a tragedy. They are not evil. They have courage and good hearts.”
“A human was responsible for my father’s death,” Rhemun said coldly. “A human killed my son.”
“Yes.” Btnu went closer and put a hand on Rhemun’s shoulder, as a fond father might. “But these humans did not.”
Rhemun felt cold. The memory of the past was covering him up, like ice. He never smiled. He never laughed. His heart was dead. And he was imprisoned here with the humans on a ship in space, because of his Clan status, because he was next in line to command the Holconcom. He wanted to go back to the emperor’s bodyguard, but there was no escape.
“I do not belong here,” he told Btnu, the words dragged out of him.
“You will belong here,” the older Cehn-Tahr said quietly. “But first you must make the effort to earn the humans’ trust.”
Rhemun didn’t reply with words. But he sighed, and nodded curtly.
Btnu smiled and went back to work.
* * *
THEY WERE ORDERED to Ondar, to pick up refugees from an ongoing conflict between a mixed culture community and a group of renegades who opposed Chacon’s entry into the Tri-Galaxy Council with all the member worlds of Enmehkmehk’s empire. The renegades struck unexpectedly, and efficiently, taking supplies, equipment, and sometimes even people when specializations were needed for some project.
Nobody could track them down, because they had no fixed base. The refugees were in a camp outside the largest city-state on the continent. This was where Madeline Ruszel had first encountered Tnurat. Edris had heard the story many times, so that she could almost picture it in her mind before Rhemun set the medical staff down in the camp and she saw the reddish landscape for herself.
“Prepare the refugees for transport,” he told Edris and her staff. “Hurry. The renegades strike quickly, and thanks to their depredations, they have equipment that equals our own.”
“Yes, sir,” she said, saluting him without quite meeting his eyes.
She led her medics into the camp, performing triage as she went along. There were only a couple of serious cases. One was a young Altairian boy who had suffered plasma burns when he ran unexpectedly between a Rojok and a colonist who were exchanging fire. The other was an elderly Altairian female with a concussion. Edris took care of the boy while Tellas, her assistant, treated the concussion.
Mekashe and several other soldiers who formed Rhemun’s personal bodyguard unit had come down with them.
Ensign Lawrence Jones, the young blond weapons specialist, had accompanied them because of his prowess with a sensor cannon.
He paused beside Edris. “Ma’am there’s a signal I can’t read,” he said.
She glanced at his monitor unit and grimaced. “That’s a casualty,” she pointed out. “See the life signs? It’s Cularian, too.” She looked past him. “Who’s missing?”
“Not sure, sir. I don’t see Mekashe, though,” he added worriedly. Like Edris, he was fond of the commander’s friend.
She finished healing the boy’s wounds, smiled at him and reassured him in Altair that he would heal and be whole again.
“You speak Altair?” Jones asked, grinning. “It’s really hard to learn, Ma’am.”
She smiled at him. “Really hard,” she agreed. “I’m so slow that it takes me forever, but I’ve picked up quite a few languages in the past few years, even some that are an archaic form.”
“I’m slow, too, Ma’am. Don’t feel bad.”
She nodded. “It’s okay, Jones. You’re doing great.”
“Thanks.”