The Empty Warrior (37 page)

As soon as the door slid shut behind the aberrant and Pellotte, Valessanna looked at Cyanne and shook her head dejectedly. “I know,” she said. “You don’t have to tell me.”

“I am deeply sorry, Val,” Cyanne said. “But his ideas are utterly barbaric. He appears to be beyond reclamation. After what I have heard tonight I simply cannot recommend to my mother or any other high councilor that the Union make any attempt to use this man to aid or advise us. It would seem that our effort to gain information from the aberrant world has failed, and that there are sound reasons for the laws of quarantine. But we mustn’t lose heart. We will pursue other avenues, and we
will
find a solution. We will find a way to open pathways of communication between ourselves and the Vazileks on our own. Then we will put an end to this madness.” She turned to face Beccassit. “Are you absolutely certain of your findings, doctor?”

“Without a doubt,” he answered, speaking with great self assurance. “As he is from the aberrant world, his mentality has been shaped by a short lifetime filled with violence and cruelty, but he simply is not a danger. He would defend himself if necessary and could quite possibly hurt and even kill others in an attempt to escape detention, but that is the totality of what I have found his propensity for violence to be. As incongruent as it may seem, all his personality scans indicate that his essential nature is responsible and benevolent, albeit terribly warped by his experiences. In short, he could quickly become a danger if provoked, but then the same could be said for any of us who sit at this table if the provocations became severe enough. After all, our own people commit every crime that his do, they simply do it far less often. The only absolute difference between the violence of his society and our own is the organized and institutionalized nature of the mass killings they employ to resolve disputes between their various political partitions.

“As to his involvement in the those murderous orgies, most participants in these conflicts are viewed in his culture as merely defending themselves, as if entering into a kill or be killed situation, even in situations where that is obviously not the case. His mind is aware that his actions make him responsible for the deaths of many, and there is remorse. Yet, despite that he in no way believes himself to be a murderer. It is my opinion that had he come of age under normal circumstances he would be no more prone to violence than your average, garden variety Akadean, perhaps less prone to it than many. He simply had the misfortune of being born into an extremely hostile and unforgiving environment.”

“That may be true, Merco,” asserted Cyanne, “but the things he said. How can a sane and balanced person advocate such behavior?”

“Wait just a moment. All I said was that he wasn’t by definition dangerous. But I am in no way ready to vouch for his sanity. And speaking of that, I must beg to differ with your assertion that he is beyond help. It may take quite some time, but we can remediate his mental state just as we have repaired his body.”

Valessanna spoke up from her end of the table. “As long as we are on the subject of his mental state, is it possible that he is somehow projecting a false image to the personality probes? I’ve heard there are people capable of that.”

“I’ve heard that as well,” the Doctor answered. “But there is really no way to verify it as the few people suspected of that capability have consistently denied it. And even if deception were possible, those few accused of it were aware that they were being scanned. Hill believes the scanner to be a tool that Kira uses to check his physiology after a transplant. His mind has been completely open on every occasion. No, the data we have gotten is authentic. I’d stake my reputation on that.”

“Then perhaps there is another opportunity here,” Cyanne said thoughtfully. “If he is not inherently dangerous, and his mind is open to adjustment, it may be that intense psychiatric treatment would not only be beneficent to him, but might also give our scholars a more accurate conception of comparable Vazilek psychology, allowing us to form a more coherent strategy for dealing with the current crisis. Therefore I suggest, rather than expecting help from him in the form of advice or counsel, that immediately upon our arrival at Sefforia we dispatch the aberrant to the best psychiatric facility available there. It could be that psychiatrists would have a better chance of mining useful information from him than anyone else, especially if he were accompanied by someone he trusts—perhaps you, Merco?”

Beccassit nodded in assent. “Yes, it is quite possible that might work out very well,” he said. “But you have hit upon the key to his cooperation, Cyanne, when you mention trust. If you simply dispatch him to an institution, without his agreeing to such a step, it will gain you nothing. Although he has, like most of us, an innate desire to please, he can also be exceedingly stubborn when he feels he is being mistreated. And I fear he feels that way already, if you don’t mind me saying so, Mrs. Nelkris.”

“I take it you’re saying,” Valessanna asked, “that our present course of action only increases the danger to ourselves and the aberrant rather than mitigating it?”

“Yes,” the doctor said, with finality. “It is of the utmost importance that we begin using persuasion to gain his cooperation rather than simply demanding it.”

“All right,’ Valessanna said resignedly. “I see your point. Colvan, end the surveillance of his quarters, except of course when one of our own is in there with him. Give him his privacy. Retain the guards, but move them away from directly outside his door. And from now on no one will enter his quarters without his permission. Give the orders now, if you please. And doctor, let’s have no more scans, either. If he is not a danger I cannot justify the continuing lack of respect for his rights. What he has done on his world is their business, not ours.”

“Valessanna!” Busht cut in stridently. “Do you really think that is wise?”

“Colvan, whether or not it is wise is not the question. It is the law that we have all sworn to uphold that is paramount. So far we have taken this man from his world when we were forbidden even to have contact with him. We have imprisoned him. We have implanted a chip in his brain. We have probed his mind. We have monitored his living space. And we have done all these things without his knowledge or consent. All of this has happened on my watch, most of it on my direct orders, so I am ultimately responsible. When we get back, I’ll be lucky to avoid a long stint in rehab, much less retain my commission, just on the basis of what we have already done. I simply cannot authorize any further deviations from the law. No, from this point forward we do things strictly by the book. He will be kept away from the general population of the ship in so much as that is possible, in order to uphold the laws of quarantine. That will necessitate him spending most of his time confined to his quarters. Other than that there is nothing more that I can do.”

The lift Pellotte had ordered up was slow to arrive, so she, O’Keefe, and the guards were still occupying the car when one of the guards’ comm units activated. He acknowledged the message in the softest of whispers, but in the boxy echo chamber that was the lift there was no possibility of him hiding his response. O’Keefe had no idea who had made the contact, but the guard had answered in that stilted and supplicatory tone that subordinates generally fall into when speaking to those in command. Whatever it was that had been said to him, O’Keefe was fairly certain it had not been a personal message, and it bothered him that one of the guards would get an official communication so soon after they had departed the Lindys’ quarters. O’Keefe figured it was a good bet that his only recently won privileges had now been suddenly rescinded.
Well, that’s what you get for speaking your mind
, he thought.

As the lift doors opened O’Keefe stepped out into the passageway behind Pellotte while both guards followed, as they always did, but this time only after the one who had spoken into his comm unit held the other back and whispered closely into his ear. The group traversed the short distance to O’Keefe’s quarters and the door, recognizing the Earther, slid aside as he walked toward it. He stepped briskly through it with Pellotte on his heels. But before she could follow him, she was lightly restrained by the hand of one of the guards on her arm.

“Sorry, Ms. Pellotte,” he said. “New orders have been given. Nobody gets in anymore without the, ah, gentleman’s permission.”

O’Keefe turned at the unexpected sound of the guard’s voice. “Oh, yeah,” he said. “When did this start?”

Surprisingly enough, the guard actually answered. “A few moments ago,” he said. “On the orders of Executive Officer Busht.”

O’Keefe was too flabbergasted to speak. It was the first time either of the guards had acknowledged him in any way, and now not only had one of them spoken directly to him, O’Keefe had at the same time suddenly found himself the master of his own accommodations. Pellotte, however, did not miss a beat.

“In that case,” she said, firmly prying the guard’s hand off her arm, “may I come in?”

“Well, yeah, of course,” O’Keefe answered haltingly.

“Thank you,” she said sweetly as she swept past him. She turned to wave at the guards still standing outside. “Bye, boys,” she said as the door whispered shut behind her.

She led O’Keefe to the sofa, playfully pushing him down into a seated position before lightly hopping into his lap. Both her arms entwined comfortably around his neck while he locked an embrace around her waist.

“So tell me,” she asked, “just how long has it been since you’ve had sex?”

“Damn,” he said, flustered by her directness and using the English word. “I don’t really know. Forty-some years, I guess.”

“About time you got back in the saddle, don’t you think?”

“You don’t waste any time on pleasantries, do you?”, O’Keefe said, somewhat taken aback.

Pellotte smiled warmly at him. “Well, I’m a medical professional. It’s my job to take care of you, to make sure that your convalescence is 100 percent successful. That includes your sexual convalescence. After all, with what you’ve been through we have to be sure all the plumbing is genuinely repaired and working at top efficiency. The two of us can verify that the old-fashioned way, or you can opt for Beccassit and his reality simulator helmet.”

“Oh, I’ll go with option number one, no doubt,” O’Keefe answered, smiling back at her. “It’s just that yesterday I was nothing more than a dangerous animal to you people, and now tonight I’m going to sleep with you. That’s a rather drastic change of mindset, don’t you think? I’m wondering what it all means.”

Pellotte’s smile widened, and she looked at O’Keefe slyly, almost wolfishly. “First of all,” she said, “we are not going to sleep together. I’ve been doing this since long before you were born and trust me, I am going to keep you wide awake for the duration of our little tryst. As for the rest, why worry about it. Tonight I’m all yours, and I want to do whatever it is that pleases you. Isn’t that enough?”

O’Keefe thought about that for a moment, until the swelling in his crotch made her logic utterly unassailable. “Yeah, it is,” he drawled. “And what would really please me right now would be for you to undo that top.”

Pellotte laughed lightly, and then reached behind her neck with both hands, beneath her long mane, and released whatever held the flimsy fabric of her outfit over her bosom. It fell in gentle cascades to her waist, revealing her ample brown breasts. She arched her back slightly, holding them forward, as if offering them to O’Keefe, and looked up into his gaze. He nodded slightly, took her face gently in his hands, and pulled her lips to his. Then he kissed her, hard on the mouth.