Chapter Thirty-nine
No Good Deed Goes Unpunished
Malcolm Reed
We're at the comfort house again. Apparently, the local council, needing to fund a junket to Corfu or Mallorca or Hawaii or some such, has decided to start logging in the forest outside of town; but first, they needed to dismantle the illegal refugee camp that had grown up there over the past decade or so. The raid happened at night, as they usually do, so most of the people who lived in the camp were there and got captured, probably to be press-ganged into clear-cutting their home in the next week or so. But some of the people who lived on the outskirts of the camp and most of the children who were too young to be put to work got away or were left behind, and they came here.
This comfort house, Gary tells me, is a known safe haven to the local underground. Anyone who's hungry can get a hot meal for the asking; anyone who's cold can come in and warm up.
According to him, Viv, who I've come to notice is considerably more robust than the average woman, even keeps a closet full of clothes to hand out – not just the salvaged items we bring her, but things her customers leave behind as well, to give out to anyone in need.
Viv has a patron, Gary says with a knowing wink. Someone with influence. Someone who keeps her safe from the local police and imperial scrutiny.
Gary says a lot of things. I reckon half of it's a load of bollocks and the other half is embellished to make a good story.
But regardless of what Gary says, there are a lot of people here tonight, and we've responded to an emergency call for provisions, medical supplies, and volunteers.
I don't like emergency operations. They're shoddily planned and poorly staffed. You end up taking whoever's available, not necessarily whoever's right for the job, and you don't always know what you're getting yourself into until you've got there, by which time it's too late to change plans.
For example, since Viv requested medical supplies we assumed she had patients needing medical care, which she did, but not at all in the way that we were expecting. We came prepared to treat phase pistol burns, broken bones, exposure and serious traumatic injuries. We brought Liz, because she's the best medic we have.
We've arrived to discover a teenager with two broken fingers, a woman with a sprained ankle and an old man with a cough. There are also about twenty others of varying ages who are mildly malnourished, exhausted, in need of warmer clothing, and shocked over the loss of their homes, hovels though they may have been.
Oh, and the infants. Six of them. Still on the tit, and no mothers or milk to feed them. One of the refugees, a woman about my age, says the mothers were forced to lay their babes down in the dust and walk away – nursing babies would detract from the time their mothers would be able to work. She, and most of the others here, watched it from the underbrush or up in the trees, and when the council's militia had gone, they came back to the camp, gathered up what they could of what was left, collected the babies, and came here.
In the years since Trip Tucker saved me I've changed and learned. I understand kindness better now, though it's still not something I can show or accept easily; but when I make the effort, I'm usually glad I did. But the depths of compassion these people have shown in rescuing these infants, the heights of stupidity when they've little enough for themselves and nothing, literally nothing with which to care for these new dependants, boggles my mind. The old General Reed, who still lives in the back of my brain, curses them all for a hundred different kinds of fools and rants that they would have been wiser and (sarcastically) kinder to have snapped their little necks and put them out of their misery.
But the me who I am now makes the effort and encourages the woman – I know Trip would have approved of her kind heart. "You did the right thing," I tell her, hoping she doesn't hear my doubts in my voice. "We'll take good care of them."
Did I mention Liz is the best medic we have? Well, between what she learned from Miguel Salazar, Jeremy Lucas, Grandmother, and yes, I suppose, even a little bit from Phlox, damn that slimy Denobulan bastard, I'd wager she's the best medic in the underground.
As soon as she's briefed on the infants' situation, she raids the supplies we've brought. She finds several cases of meal replacement bars and starts reading the label on one of the boxes.
"Whey protein, oats, peanut butter… These will do." She starts checking out the other boxes and asks, "Didn't we bring some sardines?"
"Over here," Gary says. "How many do you need?"
"Two tins will do." She goes over to the medical stores we've brought with us and pulls out what's known as a banana bag, a full litre of intravenous nutrition and electrolytes. "Viv, do you have something to pulverize and mix this stuff? A blender or a food processor? And a fine mesh strainer would be helpful, too."
This comfort house has a bar. It sells drinks to the patrons while they wait. Viv has a blender and a strainer, and spares.
"Now we just have to hope none of them are allergic to dairy, peanuts, chocolate, or seafood."
She instructs Viv on how to mix the cobbled-together formula – "No more than thirty millilitres from the yellow bag and then thin it with water, if you have to. Too much of the yellow stuff and you could poison them. Refrigerate the rest" – and borrows my knife to fashion substitute nipples from the IV tubing.
While she and a couple of other volunteers get on with sorting the babies' needs, the rest of us get on with dealing with the now homeless refugees. Yet another round of tea is produced – that timeless cure for all ills – and people sip it. The worst of the shock is wearing off by now, and reality is setting in. They had almost nothing in the world, and now even that's been taken away from them. They sit with grey faces, trying to imagine what they can do, where they're going to live, how they're going to feed their kids. The cost of the aperitifs alone at that last banquet I attended at the Imperial Palace would feed them all a decent meal a day for a year.
Among the helpers I notice Zenobia. She wouldn't be trusted to handle hot liquids safely, but she's carrying around a big plate of biscuits. She's wary of the adults, but she likes the children and strokes their hair gently when she thinks the parents aren't looking. Some of the littlest smile at her as they take a biscuit, not understanding she's ugly and ruined and dangerous.
Now and again I get the creepy sense that someone's looking at me, but I sedulously don't meet her eyes. I've more than enough to do without asking for trouble.
Within an hour we have six swaddling infants lined up on a whore's bed (her personal bed that she sleeps in, not the one where she services customers), hungrily suckling a revolting but apparently satisfying gruel from tubes affixed to a hot water bottle that hangs from the top of the bed's canopy. The whole setup gives me the cold chills, awakening some uncommonly dreadful memories.
"Well, that's working better than I thought it would," Liz says happily.
"Not to cast aspersions on your cooking, but I can't believe they're eating it," Gary replies, watching with incredulity as the babies hoover the stuff down.
"They're too young." She grins at him. "Their taste buds haven't developed yet. They don't know that sardines don't go with chocolate and peanut butter."
"Good for them, I guess."
"But this is not proper nutrition," Liz reminds us. "It'll keep them from starving, sure, it has plenty of calories and pretty close to the right balance of protein, fats, and carbs, but babies' nutritional requirements are very different from an adult's. If we don't find them proper formula or women willing to nurse them, they're going to start showing symptoms of deficiency diseases within a few weeks, and, no offense, Viv, but they need proper homes where someone can watch over them, too."
"No offense taken, sweetheart," Viv replies in her melodic tenor. "I have a friend who can help with that."
Maybe Gary isn't as full of shit as I thought.
"Now, it's almost daylight," she continues, and I'm pretty sure I see an Adam's apple bob when she swallows. "And somehow, I get the feeling that you fine people are even more creatures of the night than I am. While you and Stuart were busy making the feeding station here, I had one of the girls show Gary where to hide your truck and another one made up a couple of rooms at the front of the house for you. We rarely have more than three or four guests during daylight hours, so I'll just keep them at the other end of the hall and you three can get some sleep before you disappear into the night this evening."
Viv is a lovely, thoughtful woman – if woman she be, and if not, who cares. She's not wrong about us preferring to travel at night. Given the kind of cargo we usually carry, even if it was obtained legitimately, the sheer quantity of it would raise some awkward questions if we were ever stopped. Travelling at night, we're less likely to be stopped simply because officers don't much like standing alongside the road in the dark, and if we're pulled over and do have something in the back of the lorry that requires further investigation, it's easier to run away and lose oneself under cover of darkness.
All these years haven't killed or even blunted the suspicious side of me. I don't mind working with Viv, in fact I appreciate what she seems to be trying to do, but I only trust her as far as I could spit her, and I don't trust Gary much more than that. I have nothing against either of them, except that they're Human. I know to the last stop in the score that people are terrifyingly fragile, and when they're frightened or in danger – or especially when someone they love is threatened – most of them are weak. When I was interrogating anyone, the best crowbar I could ask for was the existence of someone they cared about. Martin Roberts comes to mind as a prime example. However courageous he might have been on his own behalf, the moment I threatened his mother and sisters he was prepared to give me whatever I wanted. I wanted him dead, and when I 'carelessly' left him alone in a room with a phase pistol, he obligingly shot himself in the head. Most people give up or give in very, very readily to protect those they love.
In all my life, I have only ever known a handful of people with the courage to stand up and fight when the danger to their loved ones was real. Those are the people I trust, and the one of them who is standing right beside me now has the heart of a lioness. So, when Liz looks at me with imploring eyes, pleading with me to accept the promise of a soft bed, a hot shower, and some privacy – three luxuries we lack at our base – I stifle my natural suspicion and agree.
It pleases me to see her do a little dance of pleasure even as a wary tendril of doubt slithers through my mind as to whether this is at all the good idea that it seems.
=/\=
We sleep soundly enough, feeling ridiculously pampered by a hot shower followed by lovemaking in a warm, comfortable bed. It seems so long since we had these luxuries and an impossible length of time since we took them for granted.
The room even has an en suite bathroom. Waking as I usually do in the grey hours of the very early morning, I slide from the bed without waking Liz and walk to the toilet. Usually there would be work for me to get on with so I'd make a start on it, leaving her to have a lie-in, but our lorry will be empty on the return journey and we have fake IDs that will pass, so we can afford to travel in daylight, safely anonymous in what passes for rush-hour around here. I'll treat myself to an extra hour or so snuggled up and enjoying the comfort, and then it'll be time for all of us to get up and get on the move.
Time was when I could hold my urine a lot longer than this, but even though I regained control of my bladder thanks to my patient carers, Phlox's kind activities with my insides ensured that I never quite regained the capacity I'd lost. For by no means the first time I think to myself darkly that it was just as well he got blown up with Jupiter Station's sickbay; if I'd have got hold of him afterwards he'd still be alive, though not necessarily sane and certainly not happy.
Having completed the necessaries, I wash and dry my hands and amble back into the bedroom.
And there is Zenobia, staring at me, not quite blankly. Liz is still asleep, and whatever happens here, I have to protect her. Zenobia moves forward, and I fight the urge to recoil. I'm not afraid of her, but I find her pathetic and repulsive, disgustingly fallen from her former status in the Pack. I don't fear her, I just don't wish to be soiled by her. I step quickly to interpose myself between her and Liz.
She moves forward again, a swift, jerky motion. I shove her back with some force and whisper harshly, "No!"
She's bewildered. She hunches her shoulders, bows her head, rolls her eyes to look up at me with a pleading expression. Then she turns her head to show me her good side and expose her neck, a part of me suddenly realizes; and she whines, soft and low in her throat, like a puppy seeking comfort.
Hell's bells. She remembers. She remembers being Pack. Somewhere in that smashed-in head, she remembers who she was and what she was, and what I was to her, and she wants to submit to me. She wants me to accept her submission. She wants me to be her alpha again. She wants safety – comfort – protection.
How long has she been like this? Cut off from her Pack by isolation, isolated from Humans by her damaged mind. She must be so very lonely. I know all too well what that degree of loneliness feels like…
Somewhere on the periphery of my consciousness, I'm aware of Liz shifting in the bed. Whether she's merely sensed my absence or is aware of the tension in the room, I don't know, but I'd bloody well like to have this resolved before she's fully awake.
When Zenobia's gaze turns towards her, I move again to block her view. If she should see Liz as her potential rival, with all the instincts of Pack and possibly none of the reasoning of a Human, the results could be catastrophic. I growl softly, warningly, and immediately her attention is back on me. She offers her neck again, and I know what I have to do.
I pass my muzzle over her and in a long-remembered greeting, nip lightly at the delicate skin, and then soothe it with my tongue. She yips like a lost pup who has found her pack round the next bend in the trail, pants happily and licks at my chin. Licks at my mouth, begging for the act that will confirm I accept her.
"Stuart?" Liz is fully awake now, and even in her confusion and fright she remembers not to use my real name when she's speaking aloud. When she sighed it in my ear last night it felt as if I'd come home, as if I'd reconnected to reality. As if I was me again.
Zenobia growls. I bite her shoulder – hard – and she yelps in pain.
"It's Towneley. Zenobia Towneley. Remember her?"
"Oh my god." She puts her hands to her mouth. "What are we going to do?"
"There are only two options." I speak through clenched teeth as my Pack subordinate whimpers and licks the underside of my jaw, begging for forgiveness; her fingertips paw lightly, anxiously at my shoulders. "I can accept her – or I can kill her."
"No – can't you – can't you just order her to go – tell her to forget she ever saw you?"
"I could if she was in her right mind." I rumble low in my throat and Zenobia cowers, anticipating an attack, before returning in cringing appeal to another attempt to win me over. "But she's brain-damaged, Liz. Only a human brain could obey that order. It's too complicated for Pack."
I'm turning over in my mind how we could dispose of the body. I'm not saying it couldn't be done, but the risks are appalling that somewhere along the line something would go wrong. As for a reason why I had to kill her, she's already got a history of attacking a customer; I only have to say she took it into her head that I fancied her and wouldn't take no for an answer, and tried to have a go at Liz. I know perfectly well how to make a death look accidental.
But I don't want to kill her. Not now. Not with all my Pack conditioning aroused by the submissive behaviour of a female. The human half of me feels pity and disgust. The Pack half … understands. And, worse, responds.
Liz is my priority now. More so than ten thousand Zenobia Towneleys. I have to protect her. I have to…
…kill…
"Stuart." My wife speaks levelly. "I don't want you to kill her."
I swallow. "Then you might want to leave the room."
