Alien Skies, page 4
part #3 of Wakanreo Series
The whiskey was a dark, smoky green, with a faint, bitter odor. Kamuhi tipped his glass and drank and then choked as it went down his throat.
Guhlhan was surprised. “Haven’t you had Miloran whiskey before?” he asked in Miloran. “Jasoahn said you knew our language so I assumed you had visited my home.”
Kamuhi shook his head. “No, sir.” He spoke in Miloran, but there was a catch in his voice from the whiskey. “I’ve never been to Milora. I thought I’d had Miloran whiskey before, but I think it’s safe to say it wasn’t the real thing.”
“But you speak Miloran?”
“I knew a little of it when I came here, but I’ve picked more of it up from you and Jasoahn. You speak it a lot when you’re together, but you mix in some words in Standard, so sometimes I can figure out what you’re saying.”
Guhlhan pursed his lips into a circle, a curiously dainty gesture in such a large being. “You learned Miloran just from listening to us for a month and a half? Schaibacanh! You must have quite a gift for languages.”
“I’m not really fluent yet,” Kamuhi protested.
The Miloran huffed, half a laugh, half an indignant snort. “We’re having this conversation in my language. You sound like a native, too. How many languages do you speak?”
“About twenty. I can get by in half a dozen others.” Kamuhi looked down at his glass. “What do they put in this?” he asked, cautiously trying another sip.
“You don’t want to know,” Guhlhan said, switching back to Standard. He drained his own glass and put the bottle away. “Let me ask you something else, Hailoaka. Why haven’t you put in for OPI?”
“I’ve thought about it. As a matter of fact, Captain Ibori told me I’d been signed up, but I never put in for it myself.”
Guhlhan tapped his teeth with his fingers. “She did? It wasn’t in your file when I asked for you to be transferred to Security. I checked.”
Kamuhi shrugged. “Maybe whoever signed me up changed their mind?”
“Just a minute.” The lieutenant went to the desk and punched some buttons on his terminal. “Ha!” he said after a moment. “It’s back.”
“What’s back?” said Kamuhi, with difficulty, because he had swallowed too big a gulp of Miloran whiskey.
“You’re signed up for OPI starting as soon as you’re eligible. That’s in about two and a half months. They did it to me again!”
“Who did what?” Kamuhi felt suddenly light headed. He stared down at the empty glass in his hand.
“You’d better stay away from that stuff,” Guhlhan told him. “You don’t seem to have any head for it at all. Anyway, just about the time I get you trained to the point where you’d be some use to me, they’re going to take you away and make an officer out of you. It’s happened to me before, and no doubt it’ll happen again.”
“What? Why would someone sign me up for Officer Prep—without asking me by the way—and then un-sign me up? I mean—” Kamuhi gave up trying to express the conundrum.
The Miloran shook his head sadly. “It’s the pattern. Bright young recruit, lots of talent. Nice and big, too, in your case. They dangle the recruit in front of Guhlhan, get him to work his tail off making the kid into a hotshot, can take care of himself in any situation, and then what happens? They yank the kid away, that’s what.”
The lieutenant’s referring to himself in third person pushed Kamuhi over the edge into incomprehension. “Excuse me, sir,” he said, putting down his glass. “Could you explain that again, please? I’m having a little trouble following you.”
The lieutenant looked him over. “Stand up, Hailoaka.”
Kamuhi stood up.
“Now walk across the room.”
“Yezzir.” Kamuhi made an effort and walked in a straight line, but there was a faint suggestion of a sway after he stopped.
“Aw, geez,” Guhlhan said. “Never drink, kid. Take my word for it.” He went to the door and ripped it open. “Barker,” he yelled. “Get someone in here to take Hailoaka home.”
Chapter Three
Yulayan was surprised when a Miloran woman in a ThreeCon uniform showed up at her door with Kamuhi almost literally in tow. Kamuhi was having trouble standing without assistance, so the Miloran woman was holding him up.
“Kamuhi!” Yulayan cried. “What happened?”
“The lieutenant invited him into his office for some whiskey,” the Miloran woman said. “I don’t think he should drink it, if it’s ever offered again.”
“Good heavens, how much did he have?” Yulayan asked.
The Miloran woman grinned. “It doesn’t take much, ma’am—not if you’re not used to it.”
Kamuhi smiled sweetly at her. “I’m fine,” he said. “You can let go now, Jasoahn, really. My wife will get the wrong idea.”
Jasoahn laughed out loud at this, but she didn’t let go of Kamuhi until he was sitting down in a chair. She said goodbye to Yulayan, patted Malia on the head, and took her leave.
Kamuhi smiled just as sweetly at Yulayan. “Hello, darling.”
“Kamuhi,” Yulayan said, “whatever possessed you to drink that stuff? It sounds as if it’s incredibly potent.”
“It was, but I didn’t know that. Besides, I’d been baring my soul to him, and I wasn’t inclined to be picky when he offered me a drink.”
“Baring your soul? What do you mean you were baring your soul?”
“He wanted to know why Jared Harlengin had stunned me. I guess he needed to be sure I wasn’t a dangerous lun- lunatic.” Kamuhi’s tongue seemed to trip over the word lunatic but he finally got it out.
“What? How did he know Jared had stunned you?”
“I mentioned to Barker that I had once been on the wrong side of a stun gun. So when Guhlhan heard about it, he called me on the carpet and demanded an expl- explanation.” The word explanation gave Kamuhi even more trouble than the word lunatic had. “So, I had to give him one, you see.”
Yulayan frowned. “So you told him about me and Inchauro?”
“I never mentioned the fareesh’s name. But I told him about Wakanreans and shahgunrah.”
Yulayan tried to rein in her anger and failed. “Why, Kam? Why did he have to know? What business is it of his?”
Kamuhi sighed. “I didn’t want to tell him, guisha. He was very insistent.”
“Yes. And you signed away the right to say no to him for ten years!”
“I’m sorry, Yulayan. Once I’d started, it all came out. And then he gave me some of that noxious green whiskey and started blathering on about OPI and my file.”
Yulayan frowned again. This was getting hard to follow. “What about OPI and your file?”
Kamuhi had put his head back and was staring at the ceiling. “I feel a little strange. It’s very peculiar. I’ve never felt like this before.”
“What about OPI and your file?” Yulayan said again, more insistently.
“It almost feels like I’m going to pass out,” Kamuhi said, with a certain scientific detachment. And then he closed his eyes and went limp.
Yulayan was exasperated. She was only a few centimeters shorter than he was, and kilo for kilo, she was stronger, as Wakanrean muscles were denser than Terran. None of this changed the fact that, as dead weight, Kamuhi was very heavy. She got him onto their bed, removed his boots and unbuttoned his tunic, and then she left him to sleep it off while she put Malia to bed for her nap.
LATER that evening, Yulayan heard her husband stirring. She had hardened her heart to whatever he might be suffering until she heard him moan in pain. Finally, she relented.
“Here,” she said, coming into the bedroom to hand him two capsules. “These should make you feel better in a while.”
Kamuhi took them but he didn’t seem optimistic. “I will never feel well again,” he said with conviction.
“You’d better not drink any Miloran whiskey again,” Yulayan said sternly.
“Miloran whiskey? Was that what did it? I don’t remember buying any Miloran whiskey. What day is it?”
“Kam!” said Yulayan in exasperation. “Don’t you remember what happened? You went to work at noon, but a Miloran woman brought you home early. She said the lieutenant had given you some Miloran whiskey.”
Kamuhi sat up suddenly and then seemed to regret it. He cursed softly in a language Yulayan didn’t recognize.
“My god!” he said. “Lieutenant Guhlhan! I remember now! He asked me—” Kamuhi stopped and looked up at her. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I told him about Wakanreo.”
Yulayan shrugged. “It’s all right, Kam. You told me that already. I was angry, but I’m over it now. It’s not like I’m ashamed of what happened to me. It’s just that it’s private.”
“I know. I wish I could have found a way to reassure the lieutenant that I’m not a dangerous criminal without dragging out all the details of your personal life for him to see.”
“You could have,” Yulayan said. “It’s called lying. But if you were the kind of person who would lie, I probably wouldn’t love you in the first place.”
“If it’s any consolation,” Kamuhi said, laying his head carefully back on the pillow, and closing his eyes, “I’m paying for it now.”
“It’s no consolation. I don’t want you to suffer. I do want you to tell me what the lieutenant said about your file and OPI.”
“What?” Kamuhi opened one eye to look at her.
“This afternoon, before you passed out cold, forcing me to carry you all the way to the bed by myself, you mentioned that the lieutenant was talking about OPI and your file.”
“He was? I don’t remember.” He scrunched his eyes closed for a few seconds, and then opened them and propped himself up on his elbows. “Wait a minute; it’s coming back to me. Guhlhan asked me why I hadn’t put in for OPI. I told him what the captain said, that I was signed up for it, and he said that there was no mention of OPI in my file.”
A twinge of hope stirred in Yulayan. “Does that mean that they’ve changed their minds and you don’t have to go away without us?”
Kamuhi shook his head and then cringed as if the movement hurt him. “No, I’m pretty sure Guhlhan checked my file right there, and he said I was due for OPI as soon as I’m eligible.”
Hope died and Yulayan frowned. “Had he made a mistake, then?”
Kamuhi put his hands over his eyes. “This is where it really gets fuzzy, guisha. I think he said it had happened before. He’d get a likely candidate for Security, someone who looked really promising, and ‘they’ would let him take this person, train them, and then all of sudden the person would have to go off to OPI.”
Yulayan tisked. “It sounds like he had too much whiskey, too.”
Kamuhi started to shake his head and then grimaced and stopped. “No,” he said. “I might be remembering what he said wrong, but I’m quite sure that Lieutenant Guhlhan was showing no effects whatsoever. That’s one reason I thought it was safe to drink the stuff. He tossed it back like it was water. He must have a durasteel stomach and a head to match.”
“Well, you can ask him about it tomorrow. Would you like some dinner?”
Kamuhi moaned softly and sank back onto the pillow. “Please, guisha, if you truly love me, you won’t mention food, not for a long time.”
Yulayan advised him to get some more sleep. She turned out the light and went back to the main room to review the state of her dissertation.
IN the morning, Kamuhi felt much better. He reported for work at noon as usual, but he kept a wary eye on the lieutenant.
Guhlhan had suffered no ill effects that Kamuhi could see. The lieutenant sat in his office chair with his feet up on the desk, an impressive sight when it was Miloran feet that the desk was supporting. Kamuhi was on duty with Jasoahn and a Terran named Sukarno who was even newer to Security than Kamuhi. Jasoahn had a running duel going with Sukarno, who was convinced that he could throw the Miloran woman if he just practiced enough, something not even Barker could do with regularity. Jasoahn was good natured about letting him try, but as yet, Sukarno hadn’t even come close.
Jasoahn greeted Kamuhi when he came in. “Feeling better, Hailoaka?”
Kamuhi felt his face flush, but he nodded. “Yes, thanks. I appreciated your help.”
“Your wife is very pretty. She’s not a Terran is she?”
“She’s half Terran. The other half is Wakanrean.”
Sukarno looked up from studying the duty roster. “Wakanrean? I think I saw her at the commissary the other day. Aren’t Wakanreans the furry ones with the claws?”
Kamuhi nodded. “Yes, they have fur on their bodies, and retractable claws on their hands.”
“Handy,” Sukarno said. “You’d never need a letter opener.”
Kamuhi wasn’t amused, but he said nothing.
Just then, Guhlhan’s voice called out to him through the open doorway. “Come in here for a minute, Hailoaka!”
When Kamuhi stepped through the doorway, he found the lieutenant still sitting back in his chair with his feet up on the desk.
“Shut the door and have a seat,” Guhlhan said.
Kamuhi shut the door and sat down.
“I want to apologize,” the lieutenant said. “I needed to find out what had happened, but I didn’t know it was going to drag out all that personal stuff about your wife.”
Kamuhi gave an abortive shrug. “There was no way to tell you why Commander Harlengin did what he did without going into the details. I hope you’re reassured about me now, sir.”
“Sure, kid. Except now I know you can’t hold your whiskey. I’d better not ever catch you with so much as a whiff on your breath. You have no tolerance for the hard stuff.”
“I think your whiskey may be a little harder than I’m used to, sir,” Kamuhi admitted.
Guhlhan chuckled. “Some of us are more used to it than you, son.” He put his feet back on the floor and sat up as he asked Kamuhi a question. “This Harlengin. Did you know him personally before the incident?”
“Yes, sir. Why do you want to know?”
“Just curious. Not many people make it to the rank of Planetary Commander. It’s interesting that you should know one personally.”
Kamuhi said nothing. He wasn’t entirely sure where this conversation was leading,
“How did you meet him?” Guhlhan asked.
“He and my wife’s father are glynunshahai. That’s a Wakanrean relationship that could be described as blood brotherhood. Two people who aren’t actually related swear that their friendship will be as strong as blood kinship. They make a symbolic cut on each other’s arms to seal the promise.”
“Fascinating.”
“Yes, sir. Almost as interesting as the fact of my being due for OPI moving in and out of my file depending on who’s looking at it.”
“Harumph,” said Guhlhan. “Actually, Hailoaka, I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t mention that I brought that up with you.”
“Certainly, sir. Perhaps you’d care to enlighten me as to who it is that’s pulling the strings around here, so I know to whom I shouldn’t mention it?”
Guhlhan sighed. “I don’t really know, kid. And that’s the truth. We get thousands of youngsters like you every year—most of them a little younger, it’s true.
“Every now and then I’ll find one or two that are right for Security, and they let me keep them for a while. I teach my trainees everything I know about hand-to-hand combat, handling drunks and angry people, who to watch for in a crowd. I leave the gadgetry and the systems stuff to the techies, and I stick to the people skills.”
Kamuhi had to hide a smile at Guhlhan’s classifying fighting as a people skill.
Guhlhan went on. “Anyway, generally I get these recruits for long enough to make it worth my while—three years usually. Barker will probably go in a year or less, Jasoahn even sooner. They send them to space stations, planets, ships, all kinds of places. If the kids are happy with the work, they often do the rest of their hitch in Security.
“But a few times—not that often, maybe four times—they didn’t let me keep them. They let me transfer them and train them, but within a few months, the really smart ones got sent to OPI. It pissed me off really bad, and I had started looking in files to see who had requested OPI before I asked to transfer anyone into my group. I guess someone caught on. They wanted you folks trained, regardless of my convenience.”
“Who do you mean by ‘you folks’?” Kamuhi said. “Sir,” he added.
“Bright youngsters with a future in ThreeCon,” Guhlhan said. “People worth keeping an eye on. It seems someone thinks they need a little extra training in case they wind up in a tight spot.”
“But you don’t know who this unknown someone is?” Kamuhi asked.
The Miloran shook his head. “Nope. I wondered if, in your case, maybe your PC was behind it. What’s he like?”
“He’s devious enough,” Kamuhi said. “And plausible. He could sell lawn mowers on a space station.”
“Then maybe it is him? Don’t sweat it. You’ll find out one of these days.”
“‘Don’t sweat it.’” Kamuhi repeated. “That must be the unofficial ThreeCon motto. That’s what Captain Ibori said to me.”
“Well I’m pretty sure it isn’t her pulling strings. She’s a good officer, but she hasn’t got enough imagination to think up anything devious.”
“Yes,” agreed Kamuhi. “That’s what I thought, too, sir.”
Guhlhan had clearly lost interest. He waved a massive hand. “You’re dismissed, Hailoaka.”
Kamuhi went back to work. He spent the next two weeks on second shift; it was unusually quiet, and Kamuhi was bored. His first day back on first shift, he was working out with Jasoahn while Sukarno watched them spar. The Miloran woman was methodical. She would show Kamuhi an attack, then the block for it, and then repeat it over and over. Kamuhi was pleased that he was able to take her down once, although he suspected her of letting him do it. Apparently, Sukarno thought so, too.
