“Excuse me?”
“The government agency overseeing breeding decides from year to year which traits are acceptable, and as the board changes, so do the prejudices. The members of the board determined that recessive genes should be purged from the genome, so anyone who strongly depicted them was automatically rejected.”
“Explain recessive genes.”
“In a few words, blond or red hair and light-colored eyes.”
“These traits are quite admirable,” Rhemun replied. “Dr. Ruszel has beautiful coloring.”
Hahnson wouldn’t have touched that remark with a pole. He was aware that Rhemun had a soft spot for Ruszel, which had caused some problems between him and the former commander of the Morcai before Dtimun and Ruszel bonded.
“Well, the board makes the final decision, sir,” Hahnson replied tactfully.
“May I ask what those two rejections have to do with Mallory’s current situation?” Rhemun asked after a minute, obviously impatient.
“It puts her in line for Reboot if she gets a third black mark on her service record. Sir.”
“Reboot,” Rhemun scoffed.
Hahnson frowned. “You know about it?”
“Yes. I know about it.” He turned away. “Was there anything else?”
Hahnson was diverted. He hadn’t realized that anyone outside the Terravegan medical corps knew the painful, horrible truth of that process. “May I ask how the commander knows of it?” he persisted.
“I was involved in a case where it was invoked. I will speak no more of it.”
“Yes, sir.”
Rhemun’s eyes were dark with anger. “You humans protect your worst specimens in a manner that is repulsive to me.”
“Sir?”
Rhemun waved a hand. “Dismissed.”
“But, sir, about Dr. Mallory...”
Rhemun just looked at him. The look was enough. Hahnson saluted, turned and left the room.
How did Rhemun know about Reboot? Hahnson asked himself. And not only that, why was he so dismissive of it, if he knew the truth? It disturbed him, but he wasn’t going to try the alien’s patience by referring to it again. Meanwhile, he’d do what he could for Mallory. Which was going to be precious little, he imagined.
* * *
EDRIS MANAGED TO get herself back together, after a fashion, but something inside her would never be the same after her brush with death.
She saw the alien face in her mind night and day, saw the horrified expression as life drained suddenly out of him. She slept badly, even with the sedatives. Her mental state made her more likely to make mistakes. When she did, the commander of the Holconcom was always ready to pounce.
“You have marked the wrong status on two of my crew,” he growled at her when she’d presented him with the latest casualty list after a brief skirmish with renegade Rojoks on an asteroid colony world.
Edris looked at the padd and winced. “I’m sorry, sir,” she said formally, still standing at attention. “It won’t happen again.”
He glared at her. Small. Blonde. Fair. Long, almost-platinum-colored hair tortured into a tight bun on top of her head. For one split second he wondered what it would look like loosened, and hated himself even for the thought. She was the image of a nightmare figure from his past, from a tragedy that he could never speak of to the humans aboard this ship. But it gave him reason to hate them, especially this one.
She swallowed. His hatred was almost palpable. She felt sick to her stomach. She didn’t know what she’d done to create such antagonism. Well, she did snap back at him when he was at his worst. But that didn’t really seem provocation enough for the anger he directed at her.
“Hahnson tells me that you aren’t adjusting well after your...incident,” he said after a minute. He lifted his chin and a cold little smile touched his chiseled mouth. “I suggested that a change of military assignments might be applicable.”
She went pale. Her mind flashed with images of laboratories and body parts and agar in petri dishes.
Unknown to her, Rhemun saw those images. He didn’t understand them. But, then, he understood very little about humans and their mental processes. However, her discomfort gave him pleasure. He felt a brief skirl of shame at his own behavior. An anniversary was upcoming. He couldn’t share its import, but it was connected to his opinion of Mallory and her race and culture. He hated both. He hated the anniversary. His life was replete with torment, from adolescence onward. He had lost his father in a most terrible manner, in a way that shamed him and his mother even today, despite the emperor’s kindness and support. Then he had lost another, to a human’s stupidity. He closed his eyes. The pain was almost palpable.
“Sir?” she prompted, surprised at the anguish on his face.
He opened his eyes. They were dark brown, anger almost gone to rage. He hated her compassion. He didn’t want it.
He handed her back the padd. “No more mistakes.”
She saluted. “No, sir.” Her tone was subdued.
His eyes narrowed. She was still pale. Why would the thought of reassignment be so disturbing to her? That was, after all, what Reboot was. The humans didn’t punish their officers, not even for murder. They just reassigned them.
“Dismissed,” he said in a cold tone.
“Yes, sir.” She saluted and hurried away.
* * *
IT WAS ONLY going to get worse. She knew that. But she had no alternative, no place else to go. She was stuck here, Madeline Ruszel’s replacement but never an acceptable replacement to the commander of the Holconcom, who revered Ruszel and hated Mallory.
“I should have known I couldn’t make it here,” she mumbled to herself as she ran blood samples through her small lab.
“Excuse me?”
She turned as Holt Stern entered. He was really a dish, she thought, smiling—dark wavy hair and dark eyes and a glorious physique. She wished she still had the crush on him that she’d had when she first served aboard the Morcai. But her heart was tugged elsewhere, to a person who didn’t want her interest, who found her actually repulsive.
“Hey, Cap,” she said with a grin. “How’s things?”
He chuckled. She wasn’t Maddie Ruszel, but he liked her. “Rough,” he remarked with a sigh. “None of us are dancing with joy over the changes around here.” He shook his head. “I never thought a court-martial would appeal to me more than staying in the Holconcom.”
She lifted her eyebrows.
“Nobody back at Terravegan HQ knows I’m a clone,” he pointed out. “If they found out, I’d be drummed out of the service. So would Hahnson. Only use we’d be then would be in some top secret government lab.”
Sort of like me, she thought, but she only smiled. “It’s not so bad. We just have to learn to get along together.”
“Not going to happen, Doc,” he replied, leaning back against a bulkhead. “I’m not the only one who has a problem. The new CO hates humans. Didn’t you notice?”
She averted her eyes. “He’s just not used to us yet,” she said. “After all, he commanded the emperor’s personal bodyguard for decades. All Cehn-Tahr. No humans.”
“He makes his contempt for us known,” Stern said quietly. “He doesn’t even try to hide it.”
“He wasn’t with you at Ahkmau,” she pointed