Against the Tide

Chapter Twenty-seven

Bast boarded the last boat out with Mirta and one of the other women. She slapped the seamstress on the arm and shook her head.

“I can’t believe Paul Bowman would be stupid enough to take you for some sweet young thing,” Bast said, grinning.

“I can play the game as well as you, ancient one,” Mirta grinned back. “By the way, did you see Megan? She looked as if someone hit her between the eyes with an oar.”

“Herzer was just as bad,” Bast said, shaking her head. “It’s like the first time Edmund saw Daneh. Sheida had just been killing time, but her sister, wooo-hoo! Going to have to break in new boy-toy.”

“They’re both trying so hard to play like nobody notices,” the other girl said.

“Bast, this is Ashly,” Mirta said, her mouth working. “We’ve had our times, but right now we’re in a state of armed truce.”

“Mirta,” Ashly said, shaking her head.

“Oh, can see this is going to be a lovely voyage,” Bast said, chuckling. “If it comes down to cat-fights, though, putting money on Mirta.”

“I’ve spent a lot of time building up a reputation for harmlessness,” Mirta said, frowning. “I’m not sure I’m up to changing that now. So are we going straight to Norau?” she continued, looking over at Bast and ignoring Ashly.

“Don’t know,” Bast admitted. “Think not. Large battle going on. Invasion force reaches Norau… today, maybe tomorrow. Will need the carrier.”

“So we’re going from captivity to a battle?” Ashly snapped. “That’s insane.”

“Whole world insane,” Bast said with a grin. “Did you not know?”

“This is just insane,” Rachel muttered tiredly.

She still was the only doctor in the hospital and as the enemy fleet approached, the injury rate had just gone up. She had taken to sleeping on the ward rather than in the rather nice suite that had been set aside for her quarters; since she knew she was going to be called in just about every night it wasn’t worth the fifty-meter walk.

In addition to the injury cases, the legion had been sending over their post-op patients. On one level it made sense; the hospital was far better quarters than a leaky tent. But, on the other hand, she didn’t have the staff to handle the soldiers as well.

During the day, between one crisis and another, she had been training her staff, most of the time, unfortunately, in practical exercises. The two PAs were barely adequate as nurses and the nursing staff was only up to simple instructions. She had finally had to open up the internal injury patient but by the time she did it was too late and the experience was nauseating. The nurses didn’t even know the instruments or internal structure; expecting them to assist in a difficult operation was clearly a bad idea. But even with the best nursing staff there was no way she could have saved the patient. His spleen had been ruptured and there was damage to the liver. He’d survived the operation but he’d just… gone during recovery.

She’d set the two best of them to memorizing internal diagrams and had them assist on two “easier” operations, putting together comminuted fractures.

On a larger level she felt totally out of her depth. She was far superior in training and knowledge to the rest of the staff but she knew she was still a rank tyro. Every time before when she had a major question she had been able to fall back on her mother’s enormous level of knowledge. Here it was only her.

Furthermore, she wasn’t getting nearly enough sleep and neither was the staff. And now, with the invasion force only a day or so away, half the staff, including both PAs and one of her “trained” surgical nurses, had disappeared. It was just insane. There was no way to provide decent, or any, care under these conditions.

“None of them are in their quarters,” Zahar said, shaking his head. “The whole town is evacuating; I don’t see where I can blame them.”

“I can,” Rachel said, bitterly. “You don’t just leave patients!”

“The word is that the legion won’t be able to hold them,” Zahar said, unhappily. “They’re outnumbered almost four to one and there’s too long of a line to hold. And who knows where the fleet is?”

“The fleet, which is under my father,” Rachel noted, “is doing what it has to. I think you can be sure that Balmoran is in the forefront of his mind. And that, whatever it is doing, it is effective.”

“Doctor Ghorbani,” Keith said, sticking his head in the door to her office, “there’s a patient from the legion on the way. Severe head injury. The legion physicians say they aren’t qualified to handle it, so they sent him to you.”

“This is just insane! What next?”

“What’s going to happen next?” Edmund said, unhappily. The fleet was pitching through a heavy storm, groping northward for the remaining New Destiny carriers and hoping that the UFS fleet would find New Destiny before New Destiny found the Hazhir.

“Unfortunately, what is going to happen next is even worse winds,” Shar said. “Reports from the back side of the storm are high winds from the northeast then a large high-pressure system.”

“Which means no winds,” Edmund said.

“Correct.”

“Word on the Hazhir?”

“They’re to the north of the storm, sailing eastward. Also to the north of the New Destiny fleet. They’re trying to run the gap between the combat fleet and the invasion fleet. The dreadnoughts are to the east of the main storm and making decent time north to Balmoran. All we can do is ride it out and then get back in the game.”

“Is there some way to work the edges of this?” Edmund asked. “Come around it and avoid the high pressure behind it?”

“We can sail inshore and follow the dreadnoughts,” Shar mused.

“That would catch us between the land and the New Destiny fleet,” Edmund pointed out. “With limited maneuvering room.”

“True,” Shar said. “To the east the storm apparently extends all the way to Briton; no getting around it that way.”

“Head west,” Edmund said. “We can’t afford to be becalmed for two days. Especially those two days. We’ll take the chance on getting caught in the vise.”

“The legionnaire doesn’t look very good, Doctor,” Keith said from the door of Rachel’s office. The orderly had been hanging around a good bit, she wasn’t sure if it was because she wasn’t panicking from the invasion or because he found her attractive and at the moment she didn’t really care. She just wished he’d leave.

“No, he doesn’t,” Rachel replied, not looking up from the medical text she was reviewing.

“And he’s not breathing very well,” the orderly added.

“No, he wouldn’t,” Rachel said.

“What’s wrong with him?” Keith asked, not deterred. “Besides having the side of his head stove in?”

“Subdural cerebral hematoma,” Rachel said, sighing. The legionnaire had been struck, rather hard, by a post that was being set up in the Balmoran defenses. She knew she was going to have to do a trepan operation, basically open up his skull to relieve the pressure on the brain before it swelled to the point of necrosis. She’d assisted in a trepanning operation before, but she’d never actually done one and after losing her first major surgical patient she was not feeling particularly lucky.

“Subd… sub… what?”

“Call it ‘brain bruise,’ ” Rachel snapped. “Look, Keith, I’m rather busy here…”

“Sorry, Doctor,” the orderly said. “Who is going to assist you?”

“Ms. Katherine,” Rachel replied.

“Uhmmm…”

“Don’t tell me she’s gone as well!”

“Doctor, I think it’s just you, me and the administrator,” the boy said, looking unhappy.

“Wh…” Rachel stopped and then looked at him and shook her head. “Why are you still here?”

“Nowhere else to go, miss,” the orderly replied.

“Well, in that case, go scrub up,” Rachel said. “You’ve just been promoted to nurse.”

“Are we just going to sit in the cabin the whole trip?” Shanea asked.

Megan looked up from the light sculpture she was working on. She had been examining the extent of the power available to her, now that she actually had some free time. There wasn’t much; enough for one teleport a day, assuming there was anywhere to teleport that didn’t have a block, and a very few other programs. Not enough to ken or create anything worthwhile. But enough for some slight telekinesis and to create light sculptures. She was experimenting with them. If she could create a real enough illusion it might be worthwhile.

“I’m going to stay in here most of the time,” Megan admitted. She looked over at the girl and shrugged. “I think I sort of got used to being mired in a room. Frankly, the great outdoors has gotten a bit too great.”

The ship was sailing westward under easy winds, but she’d gone up on deck once and been surprised, and displeased, with how uncomfortable even the light breeze felt. It was cold, for one thing, and the vast expanse of the ocean had actively frightened her.

For that matter, the attitude of the crew had bothered her; they treated her like some sort of goddess. Even Shanea and the other girls had been treating her differently. Some of that, she knew, was because of the brutal way that she had removed Paul Bowman; apparently while she was picking up the pregnant women some of the girls had looked in and seen what happened to him. But, beyond that, she was surrounded with the mystique of a council member. The crew treated her as if she might make them disappear, or be Changed into a toad, if they bothered her in the slightest. The girls, either for the same reasons or picking it up from the crew, were beginning to treat her the same way. As if she’d turn them into a toad or pour acid all over them.

There were only a few people who didn’t seem uncomfortable around her: Bast, Amber, Shanea and Major Herrick. Bast was generally skylarking up in the rigging, Shanea and Amber generally visited her in the cabin and Major Herrick… She didn’t really want to think about Major Herrick. And he seemed to feel the same way. At least he seemed to be actively avoiding her. Every time she had the officers to dinner in her cabin he had “other duties.”

And, of course, there was Baradur. He was, as ever, sitting by the door to the cabin. As if the marine on the other side wasn’t enough of a guard.

“You ought to at least go talk to Major Herrick,” Shanea said. “I know you like him.”

“Shanea…” Megan said, then sighed. “I do like him. But I think I’ve had enough men in my life lately.”

“Only Paul,” Shanea said, honestly perplexed. “I don’t think Herzer would be like that. From what I’ve heard he’s a pretty good guy in bed.”

“Shanea!” Megan said then paused. “I really don’t want to talk about it, okay?”

“Well, I’m going to go for a walk,” Shanea said. “If you don’t mind.”

“I don’t,” Megan replied with a grin. “Just because I’m playing hermit, it doesn’t mean you have to as well.”

Herzer had just come up from the dragon deck when Shanea stepped onto the maindeck and he nodded at her.

“How are you this morning Miss Shanea?” he asked, formally.

“Oh, call me Shanea,” the little blonde grinned. “And I’m fine. How are the dragons?”

“Doing well,” Herzer said. “And the councilwoman?”

“The councilwoman has decided to hide in her room for the rest of the voyage,” Shanea said as Bast dropped from the rigging. “Hi, Bast!”

“Heya, Shanea,” Bast said. “How’s tricks?”

“Haven’t pulled any lately,” Shanea said, frowning. “Do you think I should?”

“Maybe after we get to shore,” Herzer interjected, hurriedly. “Is Mistress Travante okay?”

“She just doesn’t want to come up on deck,” Shanea said with a shrug. “She just plays with light sculptures all day.”

“Light and more,” Bast noted. “I can feel the power wielding. I think she learns what she can do.”

“Well, that’s to the good,” Herzer said.

“Why don’t you go visit her?” Shanea asked. “I think she’d like that.”

“I… don’t think so,” Herzer replied. “I… have to go talk to the captain. I hope to see you later.”

“What time?” Shanea asked. “And shouldn’t you ask Bast?”

“That wasn’t… I need to go see the captain,” Herzer said, giving her a two-fingered salute and retreating to the quarterdeck.

“What did I say?” Shanea said, turning to Bast.

“If I wasn’t such a good judge of humans,” Bast replied, “I’d think you were toying with the poor boy. As it is… I probably couldn’t explain it. How’s your head for heights?”

“Fine?”

“Good,” Bast said, grabbing her arm, “I’ve something to show you in the rigging.”

“I have something to tell you,” Shanea said, as she mounted the ratlines.

“Aye?”

“I prefer boys for fun.”

“Well, nobody would believe me but that wasn’t what I wanted to show you.”

“Captain,” Herzer said touching his forelock. “Permission to come on the bridge?”

“Granted,” the captain said with a grin.

“I heard there was a report of an orca pod,” Herzer continued, glancing over at the chart. The charts had come back out as soon as Edmund’s plans became apparent and he blanched when he looked at the updated positions. The Hazhir was sailing between the New Destiny combat fleet and the invasion fleet. They were apparently trying to slip through the gap and make it to Newfell Base. If either fleet noticed them the combined fleets could fall on them like wolves on a sheep.

On the other hand, this sheep had teeth made for more than shearing grass.

“Tricky, isn’t it?” Karcher said, giving one of her catlike grins. “The worst bit is that we’ve got a high-pressure system bearing down on us; we’re going to lose this wind in a bit. Then we’ll be becalmed between both fleets. That’s why I sent the mer and delphinos to check out the orcas; I didn’t want them to know that there were any dragons around. Out here they could only mean a carrier.”

Herzer opened his mouth and then closed it again.

“And, yes, I considered the possibility of an underwater attack,” Karcher said with a grin. “But we’re doing nearly forty klicks. A kraken would be hard pressed to keep up with us.”

“If you don’t mind, ma’am, I’d like to put a wyvern up prepped for launch,” Herzer said. “Both a Powell and a Silverdrake. Just in case.”

“No, it’s a good idea,” Karcher said. “See to it.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Come in,” Megan said at the light knock.

“Heyo,” Bast said, striding in and flopping on the cot that was one of the few places to sit in the room. “Been in here a long time.”

“I’m more comfortable in here,” Megan said, primly. “And I don’t interfere with the working of the ship.”

“And don’t have to see the sky,” Bast said. “Don’t have to look at water stretching away on every side to the horizon, nearly infinite, what if something happen, what if ship sink, what happen then?”

“Bast…”

“People always say that, never work, even for council member,” Bast said, her face solemn. “You know what makes people people?”

“No?” Megan said surprised at the apparent non sequitur.

“Interact with other people, mix in tumble of society,” the elf said, doffing her sword and obviously preparing to stay a while. “Hermit only thinks own thoughts. Most of time bad thoughts. Think about fear of outside, think about fear of power, fear of failure, think about fear all the time. Fear reinforces fear.”

“I was courageous enough to kill Paul Bowman,” Megan said, hotly. “I just… don’t like the sea.”

“Too big,” Bast said, nodding. “Swallow up as if never exist. Understand. More fear there, though. Fear of self, methinks.”

Bast waited as Megan played with a sculpture of a flower, muttering under her breath. Then the sculpture turned black and collapsed.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Megan said with a shrug.

“Need to, though,” Bast said, then waited again.

“Do you think you can outwait me?” Megan replied, gesturing up another sculpture. This one started as a face and seemed to morph itself into a skull as if against her will. She waved it away as well.

“Thousand years old,” Bast said. “Gonna outlive you much less outwait you.”

Megan started to call up another structure then her hands dropped.

“Sometimes…” she said after a long pause and then stopped.

Bast pulled a stoppered flask from her belt and tossed it to Megan.

“Have a drink,” Bast said. “Have two, then toss back. Going to need some myself.”

“What is it?” Megan asked, sniffing at the opening. It was alcoholic, she could tell that much.

“Would make mysterious noises if real elf,” Bast said. “Is Navy rum. Very high proof. Have big drink. Put hair on your chest.”

“I don’t want hair on my chest,” Megan said, taking a swallow and coughing. “God that’s rough!”

“Also burn hair off,” Bast admitted. “Useful as paint thinner. Have another drink. Then start at beginning. Where meet Paul?”

So Megan started at the beginning. How Paul had found her washing clothes. She had been a general maid for a local couple. She had many skills that would have gotten her better jobs but not in the small Gallic town she had washed up in after the Fall. At the time she was glad enough to get the table scraps while she tried to figure a way out of the hole. She had clawed her way to relative power in the harem and stood it when her time came with Paul. But it was not so much the rape, or the constant strain of maintaining her position in the harem while planning to kill Bowman, that had shaken her. It was the feelings that arose in her as the months and years went by. As the words, halting at first, began to spill out of her it seemed as if the ship must have hit a storm for all the waves out the window looked the same. Her tosses to Bast were going all over the cabin and she couldn’t catch anymore. Finally she moved over to the cot and Bast sat at the end.

“I didn’t want to love him,” Megan said, almost pleaded. “And in the end, I didn’t want to kill him either. I don’t trust myself. I have this… weakness I found for servility. It disgusts me.”

“But if had not found, would have gone mad or ended up like Amado,” Bast pointed out, turning the flask upside down. “Blast, not a drop left.”

“Mirta didn’t,” Megan pointed out.

“Bet you a dollar,” Bast responded. “Could not fight and win. Could not lay out and succeed. Did the best you could, body and brain took over. Think you did very well, even ignoring killing Paul Bowman.”

“Even ignoring falling in love with him?” Megan said, bitterly. “I just feel… broken. I feel as if there’s no metal left in me.”

“Yet held onto metal and killed Paul,” Bast said. “Plenty of metal there. Fine and hard, harder than before your test.”

“But what about this… instinct to servility?” Megan said. “Everybody wants something and I find myself wanting to please. I never felt that way before… this. And I really loved Paul.” There were tears now to go with the cracked voice. “How do I trust myself? How do I trust my feelings about…”

“Herzer,” Bast said with a grin. “Is okay, plain as day to everybody on ship with eyes. Herzer very easy man to love, trust me.”

“But how do I know I didn’t just glom onto the first reasonably presentable guy to show up?” Megan asked, bitterly. “Herzer is the first person I’ve seen who is… presentable.”

“Malcolm Innes?” Bast asked.

“How do you know about him?” Megan said, thinking back. She’d mentioned him in passing but not described.

“Could write book,” Bast chuckled. “Good looking fellow. Older than looks. Quite ‘presentable.’ ”

“I couldn’t live among the Gael,” Megan shuddered. “I admire them. I even, sort of, understand why they live the way they do, the necessity of it that is. But I couldn’t live there. Even as queen of the Gael or whatever. I’d end up ripping half their heads off.”

“Not bad looking, though,” Bast pointed out. “Feel the same way about him as you do Herzer?”

“No,” Megan said in a small voice. “Besides, he was nuts.”

“Wants to be king of Briton,” Bast said, shrugging. “Lots of others in history with same madness. All Gael mad. Should have met Boadicea, now there was a woman with a problem with servitude.”

“Boadicea?” Megan said then frowned. “She was a Celtic queen in the time of the Romans. I’m sorry, Bast, but pull the other one, that was way before your time.”

“Tell me if I lie,” Bast said, her face straight, holding up two fingers as if in an oath. “Where you think legend of elves comes from? Point is, Malcolm may be crazy but it’s regal madness. Plenty of women have fallen for it over the years. Eight wives of Henry for example, poor girls. Went to the slaughter like so many charging infantrymen in Somme and that’s sort of the point. Women work one way, men another. Men charge the walls for the women, once more unto the breach and all that, women charge the men for the gene. If didn’t fall for Malcolm, pretty, pretty Malcolm with as much power as anyone has these days, then aren’t addicted to men, aren’t addicted to servitude. So, feelings for Herzer are real feelings. Feelings to trust. Hell, not the first to fall for Herzer, I could tell some stories. But first that Herzer has fallen for.”

“What about you?” Megan asked.

“I charge the walls and the gene,” Bast replied with a merry chuckle.

“No feelings like you’re inadequate?” Megan asked. “That, maybe it would be better if you just let the menfolk take charge?”

“Ain’t human,” Bast said, grinning. “Thousand years get tired of saying it. Elves are not humans. Don’t have same wiring. Can play submissive game but not submissive at all. Humans talk about ‘fight-flight.’ Isn’t binary, quaternary: fight, flight, bluff, submit. Every human is different pattern for different conditions, but all humans have all four to an extent. Elves don’t. We have fight, flight and bluff. NO submit. All human interaction works on those four responses, including what you went through. You used bluff as much as anything with girls. With Paul you used submit. Had to. Now you fear it. Don’t. Don’t have to use it, most of the time, but is part of you. Watch it, don’t fear it, know it. Going to be interesting with Herzer, though.”

“Why?” Megan said, blearily. The rum had really started to kick in.

“Most prototypical heterosexual dominant you’ll ever meet,” Bast said with a wicked grin. “Knows it, now, controls it. Understands it and accepts it, now. But under ‘heterosexual dominant’ in the Net has picture of Herzer in armor.”

“But what…” Megan gulped and wished there was more rum. “What if that’s… okay?”

“Hmmm…” Bast said, nodding. “Bed and office two different things. For you has been the same and that’s hard to handle. But with Herzer… you in position of authority and order him, off he goes like good little soldier. In bed… that’s different. Just know that that’s you and not Paul. Understand?”

“Understand,” Megan said, yawning.

“Here,” Bast said, handing her another flask. “Water. Otherwise gonna have spectacular hangover.”

“Thank you,” Megan said, taking a big drink and then lying back on the cot. “I’ll think about what you said. When I wake up.”

“And I’ll see you out on deck,” Bast said, buckling on her sword. “Tomorrow.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Megan giggled.

“Good dreams,” Bast said, covering her with the sheet.

And they were good dreams. Megan couldn’t remember them the next day but she did remember who was in them. And it hadn’t been Paul Bowman for once.