The Morcai Battalion: The Pursuit

“Of course!”

* * *

STRICK HAHNSON LOOKED more like a wrestler than a physician. He had been with the Morcai Battalion since its creation, in the horror of the Rojok death camp, Ahkmau. At least, his original had been. The true Hahnson was tortured and killed by the Rojoks, who were trying to find an almost fatally ill Dtimun hidden in the camp by his cellmates. Dtimun had cloned the physician for Captain Holt Stern and Dr. Madeline Ruszel as recompense for snatching them out of the Terravegan Strategic Space Command and into the ranks of his newly formed Morcai Battalion. It had been a bittersweet reunion. Stern, too, was a clone. In the old days, the two of them would never have been able to return to Terravegan society because they were clones. There was a terrible prejudice there. But the emperor, out of gratitude for their help in saving his son, had given all the humans of the Morcai Battalion Cehn-Tahr citizenship. The clones of the Holconcom, and the human ones, had meshed quite well together.

Hahnson looked up, surprised to see Mekashe walking into his lab. He grinned and locked forearms. “What a nice surprise,” he enthused. “How in the world did you get here without the ship alerting everybody?”

“The holon,” Mekashe said easily, and with a smile. Hahnson was one of only a handful of humans who knew about the holon tech. “I have a very personal matter to discuss.”

“Still amazes me,” Strick said, walking around the Tri-D3-d image to study Mekashe. “I can even touch you,” he added, doing it, “and you feel real.”

“It suffices, when mates are separated,” the other male remarked wickedly.

“Well, sit down. How are you liking your new job? And why are you here?”

Mekashe took out the white noise ball and put it on the table. “New tech,” he told Hahnson. “It can even block the emperor. You did not hear me say this, because I am not here.”

“Absolutely,” Hahnson agreed, grinning.

“You were bonded to a Cehn-Tahr during the end of the Great Galaxy War, were you not?” Mekashe asked, very solemnly. “I apologize for bringing up such a painful subject,” he added quickly when he saw the look on Hahnson’s face.

“It was a long time ago.” Hahnson took a deep breath. “I have all the memories of my original, including that one. She was a suicide. After all the years in between, it still is an agony to remember.”

“A suicide?” Mekashe asked, stunned.

“You didn’t know. It’s all right. Only a very few people do.” He sat down. “It’s something I don’t talk about. But, yes, we were bonded.”

“Which is why I’m permitted to discuss something quite intimate with you,” Mekashe hastened to add. “You know what rigid rules of culture permeate our society.”

“I do,” the other male said.

Mekashe locked his hands together and studied them. “I have met a female. A human.” He managed a faint smile. “For many years, I had a vision of such a human. I knew her, without knowing her, almost all my life. I thought at first that Edris Mallory was her personification. But in my visions, the female found me equally attractive, and Edris had eyes only for Rhemun.” He lifted his eyes to Hahnson’s. “Now I have met the true female, the one from the visions. She is everything I knew, all that I expected. But the attraction I feel for her is growing too quickly. I have no desire to frighten her or shock her. Like most humans, she has no idea about the mating rituals, how deadly they can be to other males. I want to touch her.” He bit off the words and made a face, like a grimace. “But I dare not. I was wondering, hoping, that there might be some bit of medical tech that could permit touch without the danger of triggering a mating behavior.”

“I think I have just what you need,” Hahnson said, moving to his medicomp. “In fact, you’re in luck, because this is cutting-edge tech, only just released. It was meant for diplomatic use, but I understand that it has been employed covertly for a number of other reasons.”

“What does it do?”

“It coats the skin in nanobytes,” Hahnson said. He pulled up a top secret vid, showing the range of protection it encompassed. “It’s undetectable, much like certain poisons developed on old Earth millennia ago.”

“And it can be trusted not to fail?” the alien asked with some concern.

Hahnson shook his head. “Well, as far as we know.” He hesitated. He was the physician for the human element aboard the Morcai, not their resident Cularian expert who specialized in Cehn-Tahr, Rojok and other alien species. But he heard from Tellas, Edris Mallory’s former assistant, that Mekashe had physiology much like Dtimun, who was the product of generations of genetic improvement.

“Something disturbs you,” Mekashe perceived.

Hahnson shrugged. “It’s probably nothing,” he said after a minute. “You know that there can be issues between different species, especially in intimate contact.”

“Yes, I know of this,” Mekashe said easily. He smiled. “It is not a concern.”

What he meant was that he knew Rhemun had no difficulty in mating with Edris, and he also knew that Dtimun and Madeline Ruszel had mated and produced two children. He had no idea that Rhemun’s branch of the Clan had no genetic modification or that Madeline had to undergo genetic modification to mate with Dtimun.

Hahnson, who assumed that the other Cehn-Tahr had made him aware of the issues, just smiled. “Okay, then. I’ll just create a few vials of the tech so that you won’t run out. How long is this trip going to take?”

“Several weeks,” Mekashe said with a wistful sigh. “I look forward to getting to know Jasmine.”

“Jasmine. A lovely name.”

“She is a lovely creature,” Mekashe replied softly. “I have never encountered such a being in all my travels. She has no hauteur at all, no sense of superiority. She is humble and sweet and—how did she put it?—scattered.”

Hahnson’s eyebrows went up and he chuckled while he worked. “I like her already.”

“Her father seems quite nice,” he added. “He will be the first Terravegan ambassador to Memcache. An intelligent man, with a background in history and politics. He was a professor of political science on Terravega.”

Hahnson frowned. “An odd choice for an ambassador.”

“I thought this, as well. Most political figures are, well, less than brilliant.”

Hahnson grinned. “And, in fact, some of them are stupid.”

“I would put the former Terravegan ambassador in that class without fail,” Mekashe recalled. “Although Taylor was never allowed to set foot on Memcache. Dtimun hated him.”

“So did most of the humans in the Holconcom, especially after he denied permission for us to launch a rescue effort when Madeline Ruszel’s ship went down on Akaashe.”

“Those were dark days. Taylor was executed for treason for his collusion with the Rojoks during the war. I did not mourn. Those were dark days.”

“Very dark,” Hahnson replied. “Madeline was special. She is special. She and Stern and I served together for ten years. We’d have gladly died for her. Ambassador Taylor not only refused permission to search for her crashed ship, he recalled all Terravegan personnel from other services. We actually had to mutiny to stay in the Holconcom and go with Dtimun to save her.”

“A noble undertaking.”

Hahnson smiled. “Noble, indeed.” He finished programming the medicomp and glanced at his companion. “Did you know that Chacon himself went to negotiate with the Nagaashe for Madeline’s release?”

“Chacon and also the emperor, if gossip serves,” Mekashe replied.

“Absolutely. She had powerful allies, even back then. She saved the emperor’s life on Ondar.”

“We heard about that from Rhemun,” Mekashe said. He chuckled. “He was fascinated with her even before they met. Dtimun had some small jealousy of him, in fact, before Komak was born.”

“It wouldn’t have mattered. Madeline was crazy about the CO almost from the beginning.” He shook his head. “You can’t imagine the shock when she and Dtimun came aboard the Morcai after their trip to Benaski Port to save Chacon’s life, and Madeline was pregnant. Talk about gossip that went on for days...!”

“I imagine it was intense.”

“Very, especially under the circumstances,” Hahnson agreed, not understanding that Mekashe had no idea what he meant. “In the history of the Cehn-Tahr, there had never been a child born of a human mother and a Cehn-Tahr father.”

“Because of the racial laws,” Mekashe agreed.

“Well, that, too,” Hahnson conceded. He tossed the vials into a vacuum bag and passed it to his former crewmate. “That should be more than enough. But just in case, you can flash me and I can have more couriered to you aboard the passenger ship. You know to watch for signs of allergic reaction, right? Any swelling, redness, sore throat, rash, things like that.”

“I have an amazing constitution.” Mekashe chuckled. “I am never allergic to anything.”