Massoud (Massoud Chronicles Book 1) Read online

“I think it was jealousy.”

  “Ah, yes. That was a foul feeling. I would not willingly experience it again. I could not bear to think of him with you, and yet it is improbable that you would ever have been a couple. Reason says otherwise. I could never understand your interest in him.”

  “I can’t believe I was so obvious. I was never really interested in him, not in any important way. He was just my physical type—nothing more than that. How come you noticed?” She got back to work.

  “Pheromones. Even when using nasal inhibitors daily, I could smell your pheromones. Otherwise, your observable behavior was appropriate.” He twinged with pain. The aim of the med-shot went off target so that he had a line of healed flesh perpendicular to the rest. “You never showed any amorous interest in me while we were on the Constance, observable through olfactory means or otherwise. I have been startled by your enthusiasm for me over the last few days. Maybe you were thinking of him when you were with me.” He looked at her dejectedly.

  “No, definitely not. Look, on the ship, I never thought of you in that way. You were always so aloof and distant,” she said as she continued to work. “Also, you were the senior officer on board. That put you off-limits. I respect the rules, you know. Well...in normal circumstances, anyway. It’s not that I didn’t think well of you or like you even. I actually enjoyed your company.”

  “Your company was not always irksome.”

  She smiled uncertainly. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  She rested again. About half the wound was healed but she had used more than half the capacity of the med-shot. The device only healed superficial wounds. If the captain had damage to his deep tissue, there was nothing she could do. It was fortunate his heart had not stopped, especially since she had been too alarmed to resuscitate him.

  The skin where the knapsack strap would rest was restored. Reducing the intensity of the healing device, she used it to partially heal the remaining area of his wound. That would reduce the likelihood of blistering and the chance of infection. Pleased with her logic, she depleted the tool. She had been told that the med-shot energy-pack worked longer if it was kept warm, so she placed the device under her arm for some time, removed it and it sputtered for a few moments longer.

  “That is enough, Massoud. It is finished. We should get some rest. I need rest quite badly,” the captain said weakly. They settled under their separate rescue sheets, not sharing covers or body heat for the first time since arriving on the planet.

  Despite his resolution to rest, Teloc spoke again. “Massoud, you do know that Engineering took a direct hit. McKenzie was scheduled to be on duty. Chen too. Takei might have been there also. He was spending an inordinate amount of time with the new engines.”

  “I know,” she answered somberly. “But I saw Takei in the mess hall just before we were hit. He may have still been there.”

  “I hope so. Quite unwisely, I have been speculating on the probability of survival for each member of the crew. Such speculation is unproductive, and even rash in my current condition. It has been excessively stressful. It may have contributed to my anger today. I am very sorry I attacked you, very sorry indeed. You understand, however, that I may engage in further violence. In that light, my apology will have little value to you.”

  “It may sound unbelievable, but I really do understand what’s going on with you. I’ve been feeling a little out of control myself recently, and a little unhinged. We should forgive each other for the things we can’t control.” Her words hung in the encroaching darkness. “I’m glad I didn’t kill you, by the way.”

  “As am I.”

  The stress of the day overwhelmed Massoud and she slept deeply, waking up the following morning groggy and stiff. Remarkably, Teloc was still asleep and Massoud watched him for several minutes. In sleep, he wore the composed expression that belonged to his normal self, her captain. What did she really feel for him? Were her current feelings just a hormonal response? Her old feelings for him had been respectful and friendly. Perhaps that was all she would feel for him when things got back to normal.

  Finally, she admitted that her interest in him would not evaporate easily. She cast her eyes over his prone body—tall, lean, agile. He was a magnificent specimen of a man. His strange near-white skin appealed to her now; she loved the contrast with his black hair, and his peculiar blue eyes could be so expressive. He looked as if he were in his mid-thirties, but he was likely to be closer to sixty, since Gnostians aged so slowly. Maturity and beauty were an intoxicating combination. He was vulnerable too, sometimes like a little boy still trying to understand the world—the world of emotions anyway. She was irrevocably attracted to him.

  It was improbable they would serve together again on the same ship, now that the Constance was destroyed. Would he keep in touch, write to her, or meet with her on those rare occasions they were both at Denison Base? And what if he did? His communications would be dry and impersonal. He would be stiff and unresponsive in her company. A clean break would be best. The man she loved, and sometimes feared, would disappear in a few days, and the captain would be back—reminding her of her lover, but without the capacity to be him.

  The truth intruded into her thoughts. They would never return to Denison. They would never be rescued. Nobody would be sent for them. If war had broken out, the fleet would be otherwise deployed. A random ship, travelling in this sector, might make a passing check but, if there was no food on the planet, the crew would not last that long. It was not even certain that the automated distress call had been sent. Perhaps no-one would miss them for another six months. They would be dead by then.

  “This is my one chance to be truly alive, to love and be loved. It will be so very brief, but I shouldn’t question it. I should give my whole heart to it and not think about the future. This is it. There will be nothing more. Live it, Elizabeth.”

  Teloc slept on. This worried her because he usually slept so little. Most likely, his extended sleep was a response to his injury. Considering it best to let him wake naturally, she left the tent, to find a stream of reasonable volume to bathe in. She had been as careful about her ablutions as the circumstances permitted, both for her own sake and mindful of Teloc’s intolerance of strong smells.

  There was a lazy, but usable, stream not too far from the camp. The water was stingingly cold, but she stripped and sat in the flow, rubbing her skin, lying down to clean her hair and upper body. Her clothes were left to soak, pinned under a rock to prevent them from floating downstream. She would have to wring them out to thoroughly dry them, nothing more.

  The cold water refreshed her injured left arm most of all. The darkening finger marks on her forearm seemed huge and cautionary, reminding her of battered women who claimed their man loved them, no matter what he did. Was she one of them? Teloc had manipulated her into an intimate relationship. He had given her an ultimatum rooted in violence. He was not responsible of course. He could not help himself, but he had done it. It was Teloc she was intoxicated with, not the captain. She had fallen for the aggressive individual; yet she had never experienced passion for the civilized captain. What did it mean? Was she like her mother?

  She shook off these thoughts. Life was literally too short for these misgivings. She had no options. She was going to spend the following days alone with this man. She might as well see only the positive in him. She could not indulge in negative thinking. They needed every resource to survive, including optimism.

  She shifted herself in the stream to better rinse her hair, experiencing in the same moment a sharp and sudden pain in her injured shoulder. It was a new and localized sting. Sitting up, she turned her head to see the offending part of her body produce a watery trickle of blood. A cut, as long as three fingers were wide, further flawed her bruised flesh. Surprised, she looked for the cause and found a glassy stone directly beneath where she had lain. From its appearance, it had recently cracked and still had sharp edges. Even a small new wound would be problematic; the captain would n
eed her to bear more of the weight of this expedition than she had hitherto.

  She quickly completed her bathing, wrung out her clothes, dressed, and returned to the camp. The captain was awake and sitting up.

  “Captain, I need you to dress this for me.”

  She pulled her jacket down and showed him the red gash in the flesh over her shoulder blade. He examined it grimly.

  “This cut is relatively deep, Massoud. If we still had it, I would have used the med-shot to heal it. However, there is a small supply of anti-bacterial treatment. I will apply it and some of the first aid protectant plus a dressing. I trust that will be adequate.”

  After treating the wound, they packed up the camp. They were on the cusp of entering the last flat plain that separated them from the crew. It was the widest of the bland landscapes they needed to traverse on this footsore journey. Although he made no complaint, it was clear the captain was moving more slowly and more stiffly than before. Massoud insisted on taking additional weight in her pack, but he still carried the largest load. They agreed, without commentary, to make more frequent stops during the day.

  For once, the captain maintained the slower pace of the two. Neither of them remarked on the reason. Their mood was cheerless, and only necessary conversation passed between them. Massoud was glad of their frequent stops. The backpack felt heavy on her beaten body and the weight rubbed against her laceration. The effect of nearly a week on two-thirds rations was becoming evident. Close to mid-day, they agreed to return to full rations for the last few days of their hike. They needed the nourishment to mitigate the effects of their injuries. The captain was quiet, making his mood difficult to determine, but she suspected he was despondent.

  They set up camp after traversing about one quarter of the expansive plain. They clasped each other under the rescue blankets, simply holding each other. They were utterly exhausted.

  Once again, the captain slept later than Massoud. It alarmed her to think that his injury had been so serious as to have this result. On the other hand, she knew little about Gnostians’ healing processes, so perhaps there was no significance to his prolonged sleep.

  After he woke, they proceeded in the same manner as they had the day before. The backpack rubbed Massoud’s cut raw as they tramped across the terrain, and she asked the captain to re-dress it at the end of the day. He examined it carefully, his face pensive and concerned.

  “The wound is still open and is showing signs of infection. I will dress it, but you cannot carry anything tomorrow, Massoud. It would open the wound further. I understand you will object, and I admit it will be difficult for me to carry the entire load. We will adjust by walking a shorter distance.”

  Massoud could not protest what she knew to be the truth. She could not closely examine her lesion, but she could feel it was worsening. The idea of slowing their pace was dispiriting, but the need to do so was indisputable. She recognized that Teloc’s physical condition had deteriorated too. Neither of them could maintain the impressive pace that had characterized the first few days of their trek.

  Once again, they slept in a close embrace, too weary to seek pleasure in each other’s bodies. Massoud was saddened. The captain was becoming dominant, and Teloc was disappearing. He would not make love to her again. Any affection he had experienced for her was being supplanted by a more appropriate sense of duty. This change darkened her mood, but she would not express her despair openly. Even though they were only two souls, it was important to maintain a show of resilience, and to promote morale. If the captain became what he once was, she rationalized, she should be encouraged. She could be less watchful, less guarded, and she would have a more reliable comrade. Such solid reasoning did not comfort her aching heart.

  By the next evening, Massoud’s wounded shoulder was nearly immobile. She could see a humped swelling when she turned her head, but the cut itself was hidden from view by the red drumlin of flesh. It hurt. It hurt enough that she could think of nothing else. By morning she was feeling unwell, a little shivery and a little fuzzy. The captain asked nothing; he understood what he saw.

  “Massoud, we have another forty to fifty kilometers to travel. Once we reach the others, we can use their med-shots and you will recover promptly. In the meantime, I must ask you to continue. I will assist as much as possible and we will rest frequently. You must communicate any change in your condition to allow me to make informed decisions.”

  “Yes, Captain,” she said quietly, conserving energy even in her speech.

  The captain held her hand the entire hike that day, not as a sign of intimacy, but to steady her. Their progress was slow. It was difficult to control her footfall or to stretch her gait much beyond an amble. She did not ask how far they travelled when they halted and made camp. The light was stronger than when they usually stopped; it was earlier in the day than normal. She sat shivering while he prepared the shelter. He assisted her into the tent and gently covered her with both rescue sheets while he pulled out rations and water. He helped her sit up and encouraged her to eat, his arms around her, supporting her weight.

  “Eat for strength, Massoud. We will walk another two days at most. You must continue. Do you understand?”

  She nodded, and then he let her down to rest.

  A short time later he woke her. It was morning. It was hard to wake up. He insisted she eat and drink. She was cold. He said that, no, she was hot. She wanted to wrap herself in a rescue sheet. He made her remove it, to let the air cool her. They continued on, an ungainly pair—he carrying an awkward pack, arm around her waist, and she stumbling over the uneven ground, shivering and wretched.

  At their first rest point, he placed her on a rock protruding from the vegetation and walked on. She watched him, unthinkingly, not even questioning his behavior. He returned some time later, without the backpack. Her addled brain could not determine his purpose until he picked her up in his arms and set off in his original direction.

  “You can’t carry me. It’s too far—difficult,” she said weakly, resting her head against his chest passively, too drained to lift it. “Leave me. Best for you.”

  He did not answer, but after what seemed a long time, he placed her down again, beside the backpack that he had placed along the trail earlier. After taking some water and offering her some, he headed off again in their direction of travel, carrying the supplies.

  Massoud slowly pulled herself to standing after he had left, concentrating as best she could to prevent the ground from wavering in front of her. She took uncertain steps in the direction of his receding form, determined to shorten the distance between them, to minimize his efforts, and to increase his chance of survival. She knew he would not leave her. There was no point in suggesting it again. She had walked perhaps a hundred meters when her feverish body lost cohesion and she was forced to stop, dropping down onto the ground. Even travelling such a short distance would help him, she was convinced.

  He chastised her on his return, brushing her hair from her face where it was glued by her sweat and the heat from her own body. He found a hygiene cloth among the small supplies he carried at his waist, washed her face with brilliantly cold water from one of the multitude of rivulets that crisscrossed the plain. He ate some rations. He offered her some, but she could not swallow the innocuous gel. He finished her share, picked her up and continued. She could hear him breathing hard. He paused frequently to catch his breath, and to steady himself. Then he set her on a large rock to keep her off the damp ground, picked up the backpack he had deposited there earlier, and paced ahead.

  He repeated this process twice more before the end of the day, each trip being somewhat shorter than the one before. After he made camp and had placed her in the tent, he encouraged her to take sustenance before collapsing into a deep sleep himself. She spent the night in a feverish state, neither awake nor unconscious, and with a perception that the body she inhabited was not quite her own.

  The next morning, the captain roused her gently.

  “G
ood news, Massoud. I have seen the plume of a campfire through the viewer, perhaps some fifteen kilometers away. We shall reach the crew soon. I am setting a fire of our own, to alert them to our presence. I will use the weapon to ignite some of the drier materials. Do you understand?”

  She nodded weakly and was pleased when he left her undisturbed. It seemed like no time had passed before he returned. He lifted her out, and she saw, through bleary eyes, a smoking mess of heather near the tent.

  “I will leave our supplies here, Massoud, with the exception of water and rations for today. We will reach the others by the end of the day. I promise you.”

  She wasn’t interested at all.

  To avoid pressure on her wound, he placed her over his shoulder. Every step he took reverberated through her frame, causing pain to course through her. She slipped in and out of consciousness. She had a sense that he placed his hand on her back at times to check she was breathing. He stopped at least twice, placing her on the ground with a nauseating impact that shuddered through every joint. She had no sense of time. There was no such thing as time, only pain.

  There was a hazy perception of a voice. She was dropped from his shoulder but did not hit the ground. There were other arms, a different voice. A female voice, drifting behind her—“I’ll stay with him.” A male voice close to her saying, “I’ve got you, Commander.” Speck? More voices, muddled together, anxious and relieved. Colors but no forms. The doctor’s voice. Then solid ground beneath her, soaking her up, drifting her away.

  6. Weakness

  T he captain sat, alert though riddled with fatigue, on the ground by the doctor. The remainder of the crew was gathered around them in a circle, listening attentively to the conversation.

  “I used all the med-shots we had on Garcia. It was the only hope I had for him, though it was a wasted effort. Without the tools of the trade, I’m little better than a boy scout,” Dr. Foster stated.

  “Doctor, can you think of nothing? Can you not revert to first principles and determine a suitable course of action?”