"I've got both," Casir assured him. "It's been a long time since we've shared a couple of bottles---since Velran." He pursed his lips and blew out his breath in a low whistle. "Seven standards---Mother, it seems like a lot more."
"Doesn't it?" Hankura muttered, rinsing the soap from his face. "Sometimes, I think I'd be a lot better off if I'd never left."
"That's refuse, and you know it," Casir retorted. "As I recall, you couldn't wait to launch that Mran of yours and find Chelle."
"Yeah, I know. Anyway, twenty years at the University was enough."
"You're telling me. It was a nice place to hide away. But---we had to grow up sometime."
"Some of us never do," Hankura grinned wryly. "So why'd you come here? It's not your style."
"I don't mean to sound immodest, but I'm the best man for the job. When we got the contract, I didn't want to come. I heard what the Tregan's did." Casir sensed Hankura stiffen inwardly again, but he let it pass for the time being. Hankura would only resent it if Casir tried to probe him then.
"Then, I found out they were planning to send my crew with Starrek. Blast, I wouldn't have anyone left if I let them come with him in charge. He won't use droids at all, and he takes too many unnecessary risks. The ashes of half my people would be spread on this dirtball."
"I'd have done the same. Can you finish the job in time without risking any more lives?"
"Huh, you haven't changed much." Casir frowned---another sore spot.? What the hell? He shook his head, eyeing his old friend curiously for a moment. "Most of the risky business is done. They leveled the building as soon as we got Cran out."
"You'd better hope it's done unless you want to help me put more of your people back together."
"No, thanks! I never had much stomach for your business. That's why I gave it up when I did. I still do a good neural block though, don't I?" Casir brightened, hoping to lighten Hankura's somber mood.
It partly worked. Hankura grinned faintly. "And you're still full of yourself, too."
"Watch it, friend, I nearly beat you in the last chackrin contest. You might just get me in the mood to try again."
"Ah, don't tempt me," Hankura retorted amiably. He knew exactly what Casir was trying to do, and he gave in to it for a while. "How are Jane and Delara?" They were Casir's two wives; the four of them had shared company many times on Velran.
"Gorgeous as ever," he beamed happily. "We're pregnant." Of course, it was a figure of speech.
"They carrying?" Hankura, interested.
"Are you kidding? It'd cramp their style too much while I'm away," he chuckled. "They carried just long enough to deliver the fetuses to the Nurtury on Rego. They said a natural start was good enough."
"So what'll you have?"
"Delara has a female and Jana, a male. They both come out at the same time."
"I'm happy for you. Nice work."
"Work, hell! It was the best time I'd had in six months. Of course, the Sepex helped," he chuckled. "Mother, I miss those two. It's been another six months since we've been together."
"Oh, I'm sure you found someone to warm your bed in the meantime. You always did."
"Certainly---but she's not the same. She's not one of my ladies," he sighed wistfully. "I like Sianne, and she's a good lay, but that's about what she thinks of me. I must be getting old or something."
"Aw don't give me that," Hankura scoffed. "You're thirty-seven same as me. Sex is great, but it doesn't always fill the gap, especially after you have touched another mind in love as you coupled. You had that with Jana and Delara, and I sense you have not shared that with Sianne."
"She's not psi. She just wants to get laid, no ties." Casir sighed. "It's not enough."
"Sometimes, even touching minds is not enough. It wasn't enough with Carianne. She always sensed Chelle pulling me from her."
"Does Chelle know about that---and the rest?"
"Sure. There isn't much she doesn't know about me."
"I suppose not. Was it worth it? Is psi-mating all you dreamed?"
"Sometimes, it's been pure rapture . . . most times." Hankura jammed his thumb on the button to turn off the water. "And for a while, it was pure Hell---like after the Tregans caught us on the Searching Star ...”
"Chelle was with you?" Casir ejaculated. "Oh, Mother of Life! I didn't know."
Hankura pulled out the offered chair and sat down at the small round plastic table in Casir's room. His friend set two goblets on the table between them and poured each half full of thick magenta carava. He handed Hankura one and sat down in the chair across from him.
Sipping his drink slowly, Casir said, "All right, are you going to spill it? I've never seen you like this. I heard you were on the Searching Star. No one hinted that Chelle was with you." They hurt her just like the others, didn't they? Casir couldn't quite find his voice to say the words, but Hankura knew what he meant.
"Yes!" The Aledan hissed through clenched teeth, his face twisted in anguish. He gulped from his cup and tears misted his eyes, partly from the fiery liquor and partly from his memories. Beat her, raped her, half starved her ... tormented her until I broke free and killed them both.
Tears spilled down Hankura's cheeks, and his knuckles whitened as he clutched his goblet. Trembling, he brushed the wetness from his face and took another gulp, letting Casir share freely in the horror of his memories. Most of the story didn't need repeating. There were few people in Sector Four who didn't know what had happened to the Searching Star. Exactly how they'd escaped seemed a well-kept Federation secret.
Hankura was a physician; he was sworn to protect human life---not murder people. Sometimes he thought it was murder, and others, he felt justified; the Federation considered the killings justified.
Hankura had to get Chelle away from those animals before they killed her ... or she killed herself. Sometimes, that hurt most of all---that she might have deserted him like that. Other times, he was sure it was his own fault because he hadn't got to her sooner. Mother of Life, would he never be free of the guilt? Only once before had he ever really wanted to kill anyone. Now, he couldn't even remember for sure how many men he did kill. He killed them over and over in his dreams for what they'd done to Chelle and the others. Somehow, it never seemed enough. Killing the Tregans didn't change what they had done.
"I never wanted anything to hurt her again, Casir," he murmured unevenly. "You should have seen her when I found her." And Casir did see her in Hankura's thoughts---bruised face, thin and weary, hurt and crying; Casir shuddered in the aura of Hankura's remembered anguish.
"I'd have helped you kill those bastards!" he swore. Because Hankura loved her, Casir loved Chelle as well. They were family to him. Casir trembled in rage at the atrocities committed against those he loved. "They weren't men. They were subhuman creatures."
"Yeah, sometimes it helps when I tell myself that ... sometimes nothing helps---not even carava." Hankura brushed his eyes again with the swipe of his hand and gazed into his glass a numbly.
After a time, he grinned slightly and let out a half-hearted chuckle. "I remember when she first tasted this stuff. It took her breath away." Hankura drained his cup and shoved it toward Casir for another refill.
Casir raised his eyebrows; Hankura had already drunk most of their second bottle. But, he refilled his goblet without comment.
"Did you have much trouble finding Chelle when you got to Earth? I remember you didn't expect to." Casir was curious, and he was trying to steer Hankura toward a more pleasant subject.
"I had no trouble finding Chelle....” Hankura shared the memory. “She was coming to find me as I was looking for her...” I loved her even before I laid eyes on her.
Hankura pulled back as his memories became too personal and private even to share with his closest friend...
Casir waited patiently for Hankura to go on with the story.
"... But I sure had trouble getting to Earth. The damn guidance computer in the Mran malfunctioned and ate away most of my Verlian crystals---sent me light years off course." Hankura's speech was slurred as the carava took hold. "Let me tell you, that's a helluva place to land---I nearly got myself killed when Chelle and I went to Farringay to get some new Verlian crystals." He belched and went on: "The place is run by thugs. I wonder if they will ever be completely civilized again. How could the Federation let the mother world come to that?"
"So, what happened?" Casir persisted. Hankura looked into his friend's eyes and again let the memories flow from his mind to Casir’s ...
I nearly got myself killed just like you feared by a Tregan. There had been rumors even back then that the Tregan Empire is experimenting with genetic engineering to produce biologically superior men of war. They are immune to psi probes and interrogation drugs. The only way out was to kill them.