The night was crisp and clear with the stars twinkling brightly above the Zevian desert plain. Casir walked aimlessly through the rebuilt spaceport, his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his warm, quilted jacket.
He stopped under the newly constructed observation tower, took out a mildly euphoric cigarette, and lit it, sucking its pungent smoke deep into his lungs. He'd worry about the side effects later; right now he needed its mellow euphoria.
Mother, he missed Jana and Delara---especially on a cold night like this. It certainly didn't help to remember how they had pleaded for him to join them when he commed them earlier. They made him wish he hadn't extended his stay on Zevus Mar. They hadn't wanted him to come in the first place, and he'd almost changed his mind until he learned Hankura was coming, too.
He just couldn't leave Hankura now, not when his friend still needed him. Jana and Delara understood, even though they weren't quite happy about it. Hankura was their friend, too. Casir had hoped they might come join him on Zevus Mar, but the time was drawing near for their babies to come out of the fetal Nurtury. They wanted to be there. Casir didn't blame them; so did he. They were excited about Oltarin and seeing Hankura and Chelle. His wives sent him their hugs and kisses and told him how much they both loved him and missed him. But the words didn't give him much comfort as he stood alone in the darkness under the stars.
Casir threw the remainder of his cigarette on the ground and smashed out the embers with his boot. Shoving his cold hands back into the warmth of his pockets, he walked on toward the com center to check in with his foreman Bren before he turned in for the night.
"How's it going?" Casir asked, taking the offered mug of hot jern from his friend.
"We're moving right along now. They just finished rechecking the primary pad. It should be completely settled before dawn---just in time for the first shuttle touchdown," Bren told him. "Why don't you go ahead and get some sleep? You look tired."
I'm dead on my feet, but I doubt I'll sleep much. Casir's pale cat's eyes met Bren's over the rim of his mug.
Bren gestured to a molded chair and lowered his bulk into one just like it across from Casir. Pushing back a strand of unruly dark-reddish hair, he reached for his mug and drank deeply of his already cooling jern. "Seeing 'em on the telecom only made you miss 'em more, huh?"
Yeah. You never think you'd miss them like that until they're not around when you need them. Casir breathed a long sigh, cocking his head introspectively to one side.
"Well, you'll be seeing them soon. We're pulling out after we finish the star port, aren't we?"
Pursing his lips, Casir shook his head no, still not speaking. We're signed to start on construction in Medrin as soon as we finish here. I wanted to stick around and make sure Hankura gets a good start at putting his life back together. I've been pretty worried about the two of them since they got here.
With good reason. He was a wreck when he got here and it didn't take any mind reader to see that. How is he doing now? Bren stopped bothering to talk aloud; Casir always knew what he was thinking anyway. Talking was just a habit that was hard to break. Some of the others resented Casir's prying into their minds at times, but Bren had never really felt intimidated. He and the fair-haired telepath were good friends and the honesty had never hurt their relationship.
Hankura's coming along, but he's worried about an old friend of his who came and settled here from Aledus about five years ago. A lot of people know of him but they don't seem to know what became of him since the invasion. His agricomplex outside Elran is deserted. Mikal had two wives and a kid by the name of Lanimer---he was a Psion---the reason Mikal left Aledus in the first place.
That's rough. Bren shook his head musingly. A lot of people were lost in the invasion. It might be months or even years before Hankura ever learns what happened to him---and if he does, he may wish he didn't know.
Yeah, I've thought of that. But, if he were a friend of mine, I'd have to know---so if you hear anything, let me know.
"Sure thing, Casir," Bren nodded, speaking out loud again. "I'll ask around."
Casir was feeling only a little less cheerless when he left Bren to go back to his quarters. He sensed her presence even before he saw her shapely form in the dim light of his room. It was Sianne. She'd been waiting for him for quite a while.
She got to her feet from a chair in the corner when he came into the room and went to him, putting her arms around his neck and pressing close to him. Sianne was warm and supple and all woman, a combination normally hard to resist for Casir. But she was the wrong woman, and tonight, her offer didn't interest him. He needed to be more than a user---he needed his own women. If he couldn't have them, he'd rather be alone.
As she turned up her mouth to kiss him, he gently pushed her away. "I'm sorry, Sianne. If you don't mind, I'd rather sleep tonight."
She gave him a wounded look, then finally shrugged. "If that's what you want." Sianne turned on her heel and strode to the sliding portal, hardly waiting for it to open before she burst through the opening.
Then, Casir was alone---more alone than he had felt in a very long time. He took off his clothes and crawled wearily into bed and lay staring at the gray ceiling for a very long while. He could see their faces in his mind's eye; he could almost hear their laughter and feel their touch. Gradually, sleep drugged his mind, and his dreams took over, taking him back through his memories of their last hours together. They would sustain him until he could be with them on Rego.
The first of the monstrous shuttles touched down in Medrin on the newly laid landing pad just after dawn. It came packed with a load of droid trams and prefab Quonset warehouse structures in which to store some of the next four shuttle loads of goods and equipment. Before the shuttle even finished unloading, Casir's day crew was at work setting up the temporary warehouses just outside the star port's perimeter.
Shuttle crafts came and went all day long from the huge freighter orbiting Zevus Mar. It was one of those huge cargo ships that were so large that most of its original construction had taken place in space. Close to the size of a small city, just one of them carried several thousand crew members and their families and millions of tons of cargo. One of that day's shuttles brought several thousand inflatable tents, food, medicine, and self-contained com units that were sent out to the ruined villages by droid trams.
The bubble tents were set up outside the villages to house those people evacuated from the ruins so a five-man military team could start leveling the rest of the wreckage with a heavy artillery blaster from the Federation Defense Force. As soon as this was done, construction crews and materials were brought to the villages to begin reconstruction.
Since the food and medical supplies weren't likely to be unpacked and sorted until sometime the next day, Hankura and Chelle left for Nestis, the only village they hadn't visited yet. They were pretty low on medical supplies, but they were anxious to check over the survivors there. Three hundred kilometers west of Medrin, no one official had been back there since the Tregans had been driven from Zevus Mar.
There were reports that about two thousand people were scattered around that general area scraping out a living. When Hankura and Chelle arrived, they found a fair-skinned Master Tech and his two Zevian free-mates working to treat the people of the area with what was left of medical supplies they had salvaged from their tiny bombed-out treatment facility.
Perrin was never so glad to see anyone as he was to see Hankura and Chelle that day. He had half a dozen desperately ill Zevians suffering from a cholera-type disease probably caused by the contaminated food and water. There wasn't a dose of antibiotics in the entire village. All Perrin could offer was common sense supportive care. Some lived, but most died.
"This should take care of it." Hankura handed him their last three vials of the needed drug. "When we get back to Medrin, I'll try to have some more supplies sent to you. The shuttle hadn't been unloaded when we left. They'll be sending you a portable com unit sometime later today, and the supplies should follow by tomorrow."
"Christ, you don't know how glad I am to hear that. I've already lost close to fifty people since the Tregans pulled out. I ran out of this antibiotic three months ago, and my attempts to synthesize it have been unsuccessful. I've no equipment."
"Believe me, I know," Hankura assured him. "We'd have come a lot sooner if we had known your trouble. We've been here only four days, and all of the other four villages were in bad shape. Let me tell you, it's been a very long four days."
"The Federation sent you?"
"No. We have friends in Elran who asked us to come and help them," Hankura told him. "As it stands now, we'll be staying until the new medical team arrives to run the Elran clinic."
"I knew a guy who worked there before the invasion---guy by the name of Mikal. He came to Zevus Mar 'bout five years ago on the same ship as I did. His elder wife is a Psion," Perrin remarked. "Nice people."
"Have you heard anything about them recently?" Hankura asked eagerly. "Mikal is a friend of mine from Aledus. We used to work at the Salla Medical Center."
"I'm sorry. I haven't been in touch with him since before the Tregans came." Perrin gave them an apologetic look, studying Hankura for a minute. "Hankura---? Yes, I remember him talking about you a long time ago---you and your Terran wife. He spoke well of you both---said you had a pretty rough time on Aledus. You're both Psions---no damn wonder." Perrin was a little in awe of them, but not really nervous.
"We thought a lot of Mikal, too," Chelle put in. "No one seems to know what became of him. We have no way of knowing where he was during the bombings. We're planning to go out to his agricomplex as soon as possible."
"We hoped to get in touch with him when the Searching Star put in for supplies, but the Tregans attacked the ship. No one's found his body, so we hope for the best."
"I'll let you know if we hear anything," Perrin offered his hand to Hankura. "I don't expect we'll know anything before you do, though."
"Thank you." Hankura shook the offered hand firmly. "We'll be on our way then---if there's nothing else we can do for you. Contact us at Galaxy Construction base on channel M3 if you need us. Leave a message for us, so we'll know you got your com unit. Okay?"
"Sure, I'll be in touch," Perrin agreed. "I hope you find Mikal. Will you let me know either way?"
"Yes," Hankura said grimly. He sensed that Perrin didn't hold much hope. Hankura felt his own waning.
The indignant young supply clerk's face reddened under Hankura's scrutiny. He wished this damned Psion physician would get off his back and go harass someone else.
"Look, I've got nothing to work with. It's been two days. Are you going to release those medical supplies or not?" Hankura demanded at the front desk in the warehouse.
"I got no clearance to do that. Those supplies are supposed to stay in those crates until the Techs arrive from Kena."
"When the hell is that?"
"Two weeks, maybe three."
"What?" Hankura all but exploded, very close to losing his temper. "Just what the hell do you think I am a service droid? I'm a physician! My wife is a Master Tech, and we have sick people who need meds now, and I want it for them NOW!
"We served on the Searching Star, and you damn well better find out how to get clearance. My patients are not going without the medicine they need when it's sitting here in crates."
"But sir---! My hands are tied. Delmran'll have my head."
"Ah!" Hankura grinned suddenly. "Now we're getting someplace. So, tell him I stole it. I don't care. I'm taking what I need, including one of those bubbles to set up a temporary treatment room in Elran. If he doesn't like it---ask him who beat him last chackrin match on the Searching Star."
"You?"
"My wife," Hankura said furtively with a sly glint in his emerald eyes. "It was a dirty trick, but she did."
"Are you crazy? He'll kill me if I tell anyone that," the young man laughed.
"But, he'll know you know," Hankura asserted. "So will everyone else if he doesn't fix it with the brass so I can have those supplies. Just take my print and give me what I need. Don't worry about it. A tram will get it in the morning."
"Tell me something."
"Why didn't I just get clearance?" Hankura had known the question before he spoke. "Because half my patients could be dead before the request ever got through channels; and if the Federation didn't always do things ass backward, Zevus Mar wouldn't be in this mess. They should have clamped down on the Tregans after they took Lux Fe and Veldis Lar ... and they should have been here to help us a lot sooner!"
Hankura jammed his thumb on the ID plate just long enough for it to register and left the young clerk staring after him.
The portal of the busy dining hall opened, and Hankura looked up from his plate in alarm. There stood Chelle unexpectedly face to face with Jess. Casir had changed her shift, and they hadn't seen her in a few days---just as well. Now he tensed, sensing his wife's inner emotional struggle, and watched almost helplessly, fearing another setback.
Chelle's eyes widened, and she couldn't find her voice for several tense seconds. "I—I’m s-sorry, Jess. I---wasn't paying attention," she said at length. "I'm getting tired of food supplements, so I thought I'd join Hankura and Casir."
"Chelle, you okay?" the other woman looked at her anxiously. "I didn't mean to upset you the other day. I just thought you'd be interested in what's going on back on old Earth. It was stupid of me not to think it might make you homesick."
At that, Chelle actually laughed. If you only knew the truth. "Aw, Jess. It was really nice of you. I-I do want to see that micro disc," she managed with only a slight quiver in her voice. "It just threw me when I saw you the first time. It---it was like seeing a ghost," Chelle paused, struggling to keep control. "You look so much like her---it hurt so much to lose her ... so much. I ... it wasn't anything you did or thought."
Jess frowned for a moment not really certain she understood what Chelle was telling her and trying not to say it straight out. Then she met Chelle's eyes with a look of understanding.
"I'm so sorry," Jess murmured, uneasily, but she meant it. "I could always have facial reconstruction," she added half seriously.
Chelle laughed then, mostly to keep from crying. Jess was trying so hard. She wanted so much to be Chelle's friend.
"Good heavens, no! You have a lovely face." She averted her eyes. "When can I see the discs? It's been six years now since I've heard much about Earth."
"Bren and I finish shift sixteenth hour tomorrow. We could meet after that," Jess suggested eagerly. "Maybe Hankura would like to come, too?"
"I think he would. We're only going to Lessat tomorrow. Why don't I get in touch when we come back?"
"Okay, we'll do that." Jess gave her a happy, open smile and slipped past her with several others who were now backed up behind her in a hurry to make their shift on time.
When she could finally get inside, Chelle walked quickly to the table already occupied by Hankura and Casir and sat down in the chair between them before her knees buckled under her. Only they knew how she was trembling inside. "Why did you set that up?" Hankura asked finally.
"I had to, Hank. She looks like Kaara, but she's Jess. And Jess is a nice person. I really hurt her feelings before," Chelle nodded. Her cleared her throat and picked up Hankura's half-filled mug of jern and took a swallow, licking her lips. He never finished a mug after it started to get cold---just the way she liked it. He pressed for another steamy mug full from the dispenser at the table.
"Kaara is dead . . . I've accepted that. There's no reason to hurt Jess because of Kaara. Jess wants to be my friend; she wants to take away the pain. She can't, but she can help me look ahead. We can be friends," Chelle murmured and swallowed hard, clenching her hands around the mug. "I need to do this for both of us."
"Besides," Chelle went on, "I like her---not because she looks like Kaara---because she's Jess, a unique person all her own.”