Warrior Chronicles 5: Warrior's Curse (23 page)

“Are you going to get hurt again?”

Cort stopped and squatted down in front of the boy. “I never plan on it, buddy. But sometimes it happens anyway.”

“I heard Momma talking to Admiral Thoms. She said she wasn’t sure if you would be the same this time.”

Cort sat cross-legged on the deck. He motioned the Jaifans around them to close off the corridor, and Bane put his head on Cort’s thigh, as Shart did the same when Dalek sat down.

“I’m sorry I get hurt so much. I try not to.”

“But you want to protect people?”

Cort smiled. “Exactly. Most of all, though, I want to protect you and Momma. Sometimes that means I have to get hurt.”

“So we don’t?”

“Yes. So you don’t get hurt. Do you remember when the bad people took you?”

“Not really. I remember Bazal singing to me, though. He did that a lot.”

“He was protecting you, too.”

“Everyone protects me. I want to protect people like you do.”

“You’ll have to some day. Hopefully you won’t get hurt like I do, though.”

Dalek’s face became serious. “Will I have a little boy to protect?”

Cort smiled. “Maybe. But even if you don’t, you will have our family to protect. That’s our job.”

“Is Clemmer family?”

Cort hesitated. He stood up and took Dalek into his arms and said, “That’s up to him.”

--

On the
Remington,
Cort walked beside Liz and listened to her talk about the modifications that she had made for the refugees.

“We printed housing for all of them. Most of the women want to sleep alone. But the men seem to prefer sleeping in groups. We’ve also kept the ones who have seen Jaifans separate from those who haven’t.”

“That’s probably good thinking. How are they adjusting?”

“We are processing them as quickly as possible. Some of them have committed suicide since being rescued. Some haven’t spoken a word. But the ones that bother me are the ones who don’t seem to be affected by it all. Even some of them who have seen Jaifans seem unfazed by it all. It’s disconcerting.”

“Liz, I don’t need to tell you how much damage they could do if they snapped. Keep close tabs on them. Once we get back to our universe, if Bazal is still around, he’ll have his hands full.”

“I hadn’t thought of that. I mean, about Bazal. I wonder if any of them will still be around when we get back.”

“We just have to get back there as soon as we can, and hope to see our friends again."

“It’s strange to think of how much time has passed over there.”

Cort stopped walking and turned to his companion. “Liz, the last few weeks…” he began. “I’ve read the reports. I know what’s happened down on the planet. But that time is gone for me. What did I miss?”

Liz remembered the feel of Cort’s hand against her body and blushed. “Cort, you weren’t yourself.”

“That’s not an answer, Liz. But your reaction is. What happened?”

Liz looked around, and seeing they were alone, told Cort about him grabbing her. It was his turn to blush. “Liz, I’m so sorry.”

“Sir. It was the stroke. I was over it before I left your bedside. It was just a medical anomaly. We’ve been through worse together.”

They began to walk again, in silence. As they entered the magazine-turned-housing area, they passed a pair of men talking. Both were heavily bearded, something modern humans weren’t capable of, so he knew they were both refugees.

“One good thing about this is that the refugees who choose to reproduce will reintroduce a lot of genetic traits that were lost in the early iterations of synthetics.”

“Yes. Ceram has brought that up several times. He’s taking blood samples to make sure nothing is lost. Even if the refugees don’t reproduce, we should get back a lot of things that were lost to the
Cull
.”

One of the bearded men had caught up to them. “‘Ay mate, who’re you now?”

“I am General Addison. Who are you?”

“I’m Billy
by damn
Rogers, General.” Rogers looked at his partner. “A
general
no less. Now I’ll get something done! Not that e’s my bloody general. But e’ll do!”

“What is it that you want to get done, Rogers?”

Bane’s nape stood up as he placed himself between Cort and the man.

“When’ll you be takin’ me back to my Mary,
General
? This bloody mess has gone on long enough!”

With his last word, Rogers poked Cort in the chest with two fingers. Bane reacted by taking the hand in his jaws and pulling the man away from Cort.  Rogers’ friend immediately kicked at the wolf, and Cort punched him. Cort called Bane to his side and looked down at the man he had hit. It was clear that his jaw was broken. Rogers was holding his hand, broken bones showing the force with which Bane had bit him.

Cort raised his hand to stop the two FALCON-clad Marines that were running toward him and said, “Now listen to me, Mr. Rogers. I am trying very hard to appreciate your situation, but if you ever touch one of my Marines or one of my wolves again, I will kill you. Do you understand me?”

“I’ll ‘ave the King’s men on you, you bloody ape!”

“Do you understand me?” Cort repeated slowly. A crowd had gathered around them and the two Marines moved closer to Cort and Liz. Behind the crowd, Cort could see several CONDORs approaching.

“Rogers, the world you left doesn’t exist anymore. I’m trying to be considerate of that, but do not try me. My wolves mean much more to me than you do.” Cort waved over the pair of CONDORs. “Take them to medical.”

As the men were carried away and the crowd dispersed, Cort asked Liz if there had been many other problems with the newcomers.

“Nothing serious, but it’s clear that the abductions were random. There are a few dozen we have confined to their quarters.”

“What’s the current headcount?”

Liz sighed. “Seventeen thousand total. Of those, six thousand are non-
homo sapien.
Another twelve hundred are children.”

“Does that include the handicapped children?”

“Yes.”

“Where are they?”

“The children? I have them in another area. They are essentially orphans. We’ve been able to match up three of them with their parents. All pre-cull.” Liz’s tone was sober. “Cort, you know about the food, right? What they were feeding them?”

“Yeah, I know. And I want to keep that under wraps. No one discusses it at all. Not even privately.”

“I’ve already given those orders.”

“Take me to see the kids. Not the babies. I can’t face them right now. Just the kids.”

A few minutes later, Cort and Liz turned a corner into the area that had been set aside for the children. There were pods that had been printed to form a school. There were three dozen rooms surrounding a courtyard, all with clear walls on the side facing a printed park. In the park, wolves were socializing with children. There were only human adults visible, but Cort could see images of Jaifans and other species on screens in some of the classrooms.

It was at that moment a little girl approached him. She was pale and clearly malnourished, but he knew from Liz the children were being nursed back to health.

The little girl looked him up and down. “Your clothes are funny, like Elizabeth’s.”

Cort realized that he and Liz were the only two people in the school who had military uniforms on. The teachers, who had been taken from the Marines and ship crews, were in simple light blue tunics, and the refugee children were all in brightly colored clothes. Cort suspected they were somehow color coded, but wasn’t concerned as to how. His focus was on the little girl.

“Yes, they are. Your clothes are very pretty though.”

“Teacher says our pretty clothes are proof that the monsters can’t hurt us anymore. The monsters didn’t let us have clothes.”

“They didn’t?”

“Nope! We had to be naked. Even when we were cold. Now I have
lots
of clothes. Well, kind of. I only have one set, but every day I get a new one that is a different color. So I know the monsters aren’t here.”

The girl was incredibly cute. She had a very slight Chinese and British accent, but she spoke clearly. Cort suspected she had been abducted from Hong Kong. “Well, we do have some people who don’t look like us, but they are aren’t monsters. And you don’t need to be afraid of them.”

“The Jaifans? I know about them, they helped rescue us from the real monsters.”

“Yes, the Jaifans. They look like monsters, but they aren’t.” Cort led Liz and the little girl to a nearby bench. When they sat, Bane stayed at Cort’s side but nuzzled the girl’s hand until she began to pet him.

“Is he really a wolf? I thought wolves were mean.”

“He can be. He would be if someone tried to hurt me.”

“Even me?”

“No. Wolves know when people are really mean. They try not to hurt good people.”

“What about the monsters?”

“Bane, that’s his name, wouldn’t be nice to them at all. He would fight them.”

“If I had a wolf, I wouldn’t be afraid of them anymore.”

“What’s your name?”

“Melanie. What’s yours?”

“Hi Melanie, my name is Cort. The grownups have to call me
Sir
or
General
. But you can call me Cort all the time, okay?”

“Okay, Cort.”

“Melanie, it’s okay to be afraid of the monsters. Everyone is afraid sometimes. But you don’t have to be afraid anymore.”

“I still have bad dreams about them.” Melanie’s cute face wrinkled into a frown.

Cort’s flexpad vibrated. “Excuse me just a moment, Melanie.” He looked at the pad, then at Liz who had watched the exchange with tears in her eyes. Cort tapped out
Are you sure?
Liz nodded and he reread her message.

Her parents are confirmed dead. I’ve been coming here every day and talking to her. I’m going to adopt her, so don’t get your heart caught the way I did, Cort.

That’s great, Liz. Have you talked to her about it?

A little. She wants to start staying in my quarters. I was waiting to talk to you about it.

You have my blessing, Liz.

“Do you like it here, Melanie?” Cort focused again on the little girl.

Melanie pointed at Liz as she said, “I like the wolves, but not the school. I would rather spend my time with her.”

“Well Melanie, I am the boss around here, so I’ll make you a deal. If you will come to school every day, I will make sure you get to play with the wolves, and you can stay with Elizabeth at night. Would you like that?”

Melanie jumped up and threw her arms around Cort.
“REALLY? YES! YES! YES!”

Liz began to cry. The little girl immediately let go of Cort and ran to her. “Why are you crying?”

“They are happy tears, honey. I didn’t know I loved you until I met you. So I am happy the General is letting you stay with me.”