“Sir, I beg your pardon, but I never said I was...”
“You hardly had to say it,” he shot back. “Apparently Stern finds you desirable, so perhaps I should send him to rescue you. Would that be more acceptable?”
She closed her eyes. “Sir, please...”
“Commander, we’ve got the last of them!” Stern called over, almost as if he knew what was going on there against the cliff. “Does Dr. Mallory need any help?”
Rhemun looked at Mallory as if he could have happily cut her throat. “Yes,” he said. “She could use assistance.” He turned and jumped lightly across the ledge. “Make haste,” he added coldly. “These Rojoks may be only a splinter of a larger rebel group.”
“Yes, sir.”
Stern jumped across the distance almost as easily as Rhemun had. He was a clone, but with greatly advanced genetics, courtesy of the Rojok scientists who had cloned him from his original during the attack on Terramer. He was almost the equal of a Cehn-Tahr in strength, even without the help of the microcyborgs that the entire crew wore.
“Come on, Doc, I’ll get you across,” he teased. He bent and lifted her. “Old man giving you hell, was he?”
She nodded. “Thanks for the lift, Captain,” she replied, and smiled up at him.
“Now, Stern!” Rhemun called angrily.
“Oooh, somebody’s in a red-hot rage,” Stern whispered in her ear, and she suppressed a nervous giggle.
“Coming, sir!” he called back to Rhemun with an angelic expression on his handsome face.
He landed in front of Rhemun with his soft burden, but he put her down almost at once when he registered the fury in the alien’s expression.
“My hearing, like that of all Cehn-Tahr, is acute,” he informed the captain, who was by now standing at stiff attention alongside Mallory. “Another infraction,” he added softly, “and you will be up before a court-martial panel by the end of the day. Do I make myself clear, mister?” he added.
“Clear as mountain water, sir, yes, sir,” Stern replied formally.
Rhemun looked down at Mallory with barely bridled anger. “Dismissed!”
The two of them almost ran for cover. Mallory didn’t dare look at Stern. She was trying not to laugh at the brief glimpse she’d had of his rolling eyes before they left the commander standing there.
* * *
THE CAPTURED ROJOKS were turned over to a patrol ship for transport to the second of Memcache’s moons, where prisoners of war were kept in a spacious, comfortable facility. One of the Rojoks was overheard telling his comrades about one of the humans who spoke the ancient tongue.
Hahnson wondered who they meant. He didn’t know a single member of the human crew members who could even speak more than a few words of Standard Rojok.
He’d noticed that Edris had come back aboard even more depressed than usual, which prompted him to pay her a visit in her sector.
“How are you doing?” he asked.
She glanced up from lab results on a small padd. She smiled sadly. “Not so good. The CO’s mad at me again.”
“What did you do this time?”
She shook her head. “It’s better not to discuss it,” she said. She was wary of the AVBDs. It wouldn’t do for Rhemun to catch her crying on Hahnson’s shoulder.
He understood without a word what she was trying not to say. He closed the door and pulled out that little white ball and activated it.
“Nothing can hear through that, not even telepaths,” he reminded her. “Spill it.”
“I jumped across a crevice to treat a wounded Rojok and the rock displaced, so I couldn’t jump back. The CO offered to ferry me across, but I wouldn’t let him touch me.” She winced. “He just went ballistic...”
“Humans aren’t allowed to know such things about them,” he pointed out. “They’re very protective about their private behaviors, especially mating behaviors.”
“Dr. Ruszel told me that,” she replied. She drew in a long, heavy breath. “I know that if Cehn-Tahr males touch females, sometimes it triggers the mating cycle, even if I’m not allowed to know it. I wasn’t sure if it was the same for females of other races...”
“It is,” he interrupted.
She frowned. “I wasn’t trying to insult him,” she began.
“And how did he arrive at the idea that you had?”
“He hates me. He hates humans, but especially me,” she corrected. “He was insulted that I would think myself attractive to him at all.”
“I see.”
She lowered her eyes, almost in shame. “It’s probably not noticeable to anyone except Cehn-Tahr,” she began slowly, “but I...react...to him.”
He frowned. “React?”
“Outbursts of pheromones,” she said stiffly. “I know he can probably smell them, and that just makes it worse. Do you have something that inhibits hormone production?” she added plaintively.
“You get those at the same time you’re mentally neutered for service,” he began.
“Yes, but I tried to get into a breeding camp, remember? They did reject me but when they gave me the drugs later, I purged them, because I thought the board might reconsider my application. Bad move. Very bad move. Can you...?”
He sighed. “Yes. I can give you something. But there may be problems down the line. A lot of servicewomen who take them later in life have allergic reactions after a time.”
“It doesn’t matter about later, just right now,” she replied. “I don’t want to make things any worse than they already are.”
“Okay, kid,” he said gently. “I’ll have my assistant bring them over when we get through talking. I noticed that it was Stern who ferried you over the chasm,” he added with a grin.
She laughed. “Yes. Oh, I had such a flaming crush on him when I first came aboard the Morcai.” She shook her head. “In a way, I wish I still did. He’s mourning for the woman he lost all those years ago, so it wouldn’t be a problem.” She looked up with a grimace. “Why am I getting a case on my hateful commanding officer? Sheer cussedness, you think?”
“You can sure pick them,” he pointed out.
She grinned. “It’s like people who hate cats, and cats always want to sit on them, you know?”
“He is a cat...”
“He has cat genes,” she returned. “Besides, he doesn’t want to sit on me. He wants to get rid of me. Maybe curtailing my pheromones will help.”
“Maybe.” He wasn’t sure of that. No medicine known to science could completely override the human body’s natural response to stimuli of that sort. Mallory had to know it.
He picked up the white ball. “Just try to stay out of his way. Maybe, eventually, he’ll grow fond of us.”
“Oh, sure.”
He made a face and walked out.
NOT SURPRISINGLY, THINGS got decidedly worse on the Morcai after Mallory’s involuntarily action on the cliffside. Rhemun gave her hostile glances every time he saw her.
He seemed to be the only Cehn-Tahr in the entire Holconcom who disliked her. Even old Btnu was kind,