Recon Marines III: The Marine's Doctor (16 page)

“
How would that be
better?” Mak started off again. “I’ll never be able to stop knowing
it.”

“
Me either,” Hector
agreed. “I don’t even want to sleep tonight. What kind of
nightmares am I going to have?”

Molly hadn’t any words of comfort,
dreading what her subconscious might create for her dreams. Mak’s
next words added a layer of sadness over the horror.

“
You’ll have the kind of
nightmares I’ve had since my earliest memories, Dr. Loren. Some
things once seen dirty a spot on your soul that can never be
cleansed.”

Chapter Nine

Mak pulled on a form-fitting deep dark
blue uniform suitable for onboard wearing. He’d showered twice and
stood under the heat laps to dry. Yet he still felt unclean. They’d
left Dewell behind twenty-four hours ago, but the image of the bone
pile and the half-eaten villagers remained as clear in his mind as
when he’d first seen them.

He’d witnessed many terrible things in
his years as a Recon Marine, but nothing had disturbed him quite so
much. He’d pitied the poor, disfigured man with his dirty rags and
piles of junk. His initial guess had been the monster visited the
village out of loneliness, confused about why the lab had shut
down. Perhaps looking for his brothers or his trainers.

A chirp alerted him to an incoming
message. “Hell.” Mak looked at his bunk with longing. He hadn’t
slept for almost two days except for a two hour nap in the pilot’s
seat.

“
Mak, we have a
preliminary report ready.” Even through the radio Molly’s fatigue
could be heard. “Please join us in the lab.”

“
I’m on my way.” Mak
pulled his boots out of the cleaner. His body armor hung in there
also. All his things smelled fresh as a sunny day though his
imagination remembered only the stench of putrid flesh. He put his
belt on, leaving most of the attachments on his weapons shelf. He
thought about checking in with Pender on the bridge but
procrastination wasn’t the marine way.

The three doctors waited for him at
their small table with their AI tablets lit up and working with
graphs and figures scrolling on the screens. Dr. Loren and Molly
appeared pale beneath the lab’s bright lighting. They looked up at
him with the haunted eyes of young soldiers after their first
bloody battle. Dr. Shear gave Mak a grim nod and started the report
as he settled into a chair.

“
All the grotesque body
typing found in this sample was done during the teenage years. They
inserted genetic material from other species to produce thick bones
and muscles efficiently. It appears some further gene manipulation
resulted in the unusual height. Other radical changes in the DNA
might have resulted from excessive amounts of synthetic hormones
administered, again during the teen years.”

As with their other reports, one
doctor took up the report smoothly from another. Dr. Loren tapped
away at his AI. “I’ve uploaded the identity capsule data along with
samples of DNA from the dead one and the skulls. We’ll send it to
General Drant as soon as we get in range. Since these…men were in
the lab for years, we believe it was set up concurrent to the space
lab. They ran multiple programs with each trying different
approaches.”

Molly cleared her throat. “We’re
afraid another lab was started, combining the two methods. It
appears the one you killed had been starving and perhaps that’s why
it turned to cannibalism. The brain tissue and muscle tissue both
showed signs of degeneration due to a poor diet. Hector and I found
signs of experimentation on the immune system of the lab
subjects.”

Mak held up a hand. He didn’t care
what diseases the man might have been vaccinated against. “Were
those men abandoned here? I don’t understand how they ended up out
in the woods and the villagers didn’t know about them until
recently.”

The doctors shrugged with only Molly
offering a guess. “The bones had been there for a while. On the
body scan we found old wounds on the one you shot. The scientists
may have killed them and dumped the bodies, but one wasn’t quite
dead. The bite marks on the bones were old. Perhaps he was hurt and
ate his dead mates until he recovered. Though he had a normal-sized
brain, we don’t know how much reasoning he did. But he must have
understood the people running the lab intended to kill him. He
might have run away or at least kept his distance until hunger
drove him back to his place of origin.”

“
Some of the people
involved in this are out there.” Mak wondered if a person capable
of this would look evil or could they hide among the unknowing
population? Enemies were harder to spot in civilian
society.

“
Maybe we’ll catch up to
them.” Dr. Loren sounded frightened. “They might still be on this
next base on Arid Four.”

Mak stood up, having heard enough. “If
we do, doctor, you’ll get to meet the real monsters.”

****

Molly caught up to Mak as he came out
of the crew quarters where Andy rested his broken ribs. It was the
first time she’d cornered him alone since they’d left New Venus.
“Mak, wait. I need to talk with you.”

He paused at the door to his room.
“Was there something you forgot in your report? I can read it
later.”

“
No, but I….”

“
Then I have to get some
sleep. We’ll be in range to contact the general in five hours.” He
opened his door but Molly slipped in before he closed
it.

She pushed it shut and leaned against
it. His room was small, built for a single person, but with Mak
staring at her the walls seemed even closer. He didn’t look happy.
She took his hand, lacing her fingers through his. “Dewell upset us
all, Mak.”

He disengaged his hand and sat down on
his cot. After pulling his boots off Mak looked up at her. “Recon
Marines don’t get upset. I need some sleep.”

She sat beside him on the cot. Except
for his boots sitting near his feet, the room looked as if no one
occupied it. Spartan even by military standards. “So if Recon
Marines don’t get upset, what do you call your reaction to what we
found?”

Mak pressed his lips together as if he
didn’t intend to answer, drawing Molly’s attention to his mouth. “I
was disgusted the same as you.”

“
Not the same as me. None
of this is the same for you as for me.”

He blinked once and then again. With a
sigh, the tension leaked from his body though his posture remained
as alert and upright as always. “He spoke to me.”

“
What?” She knew whom he
meant, but she couldn’t quite comprehend it. “Why didn’t you tell
me?”

He shook his head. “It distracted me
when it spoke. My mistake got the corporal hurt. He could have been
killed.”

“
What did it say?” Molly
noticed they tended to refer to the monster as an
it
rather than
he
since they’d
discovered its terrible secret.

“
One word.
Who?
I think it
recognized that I was military. Maybe my uniform or the weapons
wakened some memory. I should have shot it.”

She rubbed his back, offering comfort
as she might to a fearful patient. “No, you did the right thing. If
we could have communicated with it we might have learned a lot.
Andy told me his injury was his fault because he left his
post.”

“
After what we discovered,
I don’t think we wanted to hear anything it had to say.”

“
We might have learned
what led it to that. We could have learned what cognitive abilities
it had, what degree of socialization.”

His lips quirked. “Socialization? It
lived alone in the wood and sought out other people as a source of
food.”

She surprised herself by laughing. “I
guess we can make pretty accurate assumptions from
that.”

“
I guess what bothers me
is that language is a building block of civilization.”

“
So marines get bothered
not upset?”

His lips curved again. “Questions I
don’t know the answer to bother me.”

She couldn’t resist his closeness.
Rising up a little she pressed her lips to his, but he pulled
back.

“
The general gave me
strict orders regarding interactions with you.” He started to stand
but she took his arm and urged him to stay seated.

“
Do you know how old I
am?”

“
Someone told me women
consider it impolite to know their age.”

“
It’s impolite to ask. I’m
thirty-three.”

“
I know.”

“
So you thought it was
impolite of you to know my age so you lied about knowing
it?”

“
I didn’t lie, I just
didn’t inform you that I knew.”

“
How did you
know?”

“
I looked up your
bio.”

“
When?”

Mak’s face darkened. “After I met
you?”

Warmth spread through her.
“Why?”

He stood up, shaking her hand off his
arm. “The general gave me orders, Molly. No personal interaction
between us.”

She stayed seated on the bed. “I
suppose you read my educational history. I’ve been a practicing
physician since I was sixteen and have earned three more degrees
since then.”

“
Your intelligence
quotient is in the top one half of one percent of the human
race.”

“
Yes, but that wasn’t my
point. I worked in a hospital from the time I was sixteen, living
on my own away from my father. He may be the general to you and the
supreme commander overseeing this mission, but as my father he has
no say in my behavior. Nor can he order you to stay away from me
because I’m his daughter.” Molly had always been blessed with
patience, and she needed it now as Mak stared at her. Deep blue
glinted in his eyes as the emotions never heard in his voice
crawled behind his gaze. She was accustomed to men, especially army
officers, making quick snap decisions in action and conversation.
Mak acted quickly in hostile situations but gave each of his words
thought.

“
I think he can order me
to stay away from you.”

“
Do you want to stay away
from me?”

Again his thoughtful pause before
answering. “Recon Marines don’t take action on what they
want.”

She stood up and put her hands on his
chest. His thin shirt outlined every muscle of his torso. Beneath
her hand his heart gave away the answer he’d avoided speaking. “I’m
not asking the marine. I’m asking the man.”

“
Molly, what we’ve seen so
far….”

“
Let’s forget it for a
little while.”

“
I can’t. Those men, those
monsters we’ve seen, they came from the same place as I did. The
same kind of people made me….”

She stretched up and kissed him to
stop his tortured words. When he would have pulled away, she
wrapped her arms around his neck. Then he was kissing her back,
holding her so tight to him that she had trouble getting her
breath. Or maybe it was the way his kisses made her feel that left
her lightheaded.

The room spun for the space of a
second and then she was on her back on his bed. Mak’s hands pressed
into the pillow on either side of her head and no part of his body
touched her except his lips. They were enough for her to know she
wanted more. But then he stopped. She reached for him but he tugged
her to her feet.

“
We can’t do
this.”

“
Why not?” Molly struggled
to find her breath.

“
Your father wouldn’t want
me….”

“
Mak, don’t bring up my
father when we’re about to make love.”

“
Make love? You mean
engage in sexual intercourse?”

His words cooled the lustful heat
driving her. She did want to have sex with him and experience the
lean muscular body naked against hers. But it wasn’t a physical
desire that had driven her to kiss him. Not this time and not the
first time. “Have you ever made love, Mak?”

His intense eyes clouded, leaving them
the dark bluish black of an approaching storm. “No. I’m not sure I
would know love.”

Of course he wouldn’t know. She
touched his cheek. “Maybe someday you’ll find out. Why don’t you
take a nap? You look exhausted.”

He raised his eyebrow, totally unaware
how charming it made him look. She swept past him and out the
door.

Helen still worked in the lab, giving
Molly privacy in their shared room to mull over Mak. During her
teen years, she’d immersed herself in her studies, proving herself
over and over again to medical professors who didn’t care to have a
youthful genius showing them up. Her strong facial features and
rangy body didn’t attract many men and those it did soon were
intimidated by her intellect. Or frightened away by her father’s
position. Not that she longed for male company. Her life was full
with her travels and her research. She had friends among her
colleagues and respect from her peers. Her father had never
introduced her to many of his military officers. Many times he’d
told her to avoid marriage to an army man though her mother had
never complained.