With a sharp intake of breath Soamosa pulled away from him, looking up into his face excitedly.
"We are going to rescue the Benisur Amos?" Her blue eyes shone with a fierce joy.
Karak closed his eyes and swallowed hard.
"That is impossible," he said in a toneless voice. "My father has ordered him to be taken to the technicians who will prepare him for his journey."
He watched her brow darken and her eyes begin to sparkle with outrage. Grasping her upper arms, he gave her a little shake.
"He will be safe, little one. It is your people that are in danger, and they are in danger from him. We must get away to warn them."
He watched, and saw her face harden with resolve. His back relaxed in relief; this arguing was more trying than just giving orders.
"You are right," she said reluctantly. "It is what the Benisur himself would say to me." Then another idea took hold and she started as though struck. "The Captain! If we cannot bring the Benisur Amos away with us, then we must save Captain Sung."
"The Captain is…" he trailed off. He felt a queasy sensation in his stomach, something unfamiliar, that grew worse when he thought of what had been done to the man.
"You told me that he was still alive!" Soamosa protested. Her face showed her puzzlement and her eyes regarded him uncertainly. As though she had just realized that this could easily be one of the famous cruel jokes the Kolnari loved to play.
"He is alive. But not in any way that he would wish to be. It would be a mercy to leave him to be killed, Soamosa. No one should have to live as he is now."
She backed away from him, frightened and furious.
"What have you done to him?"
"I have done nothing to him. This I swear by my love for you. My father put him in with the Benisur to be sure that his plan would work. In just a few hours, the Captain took infection through simple contact with the Benisur, and now he is mindless. He is incontinent, Soamosa, he drools and weeps like a baby. And he is terrified of the Kolnar. If I go near him he will scream and howl and run away."
Karak threw up his hands in exasperation at the mulish look on her face. "How are we to escape while we are hauling around a man who is screaming and trying to escape?"
She bit her lower lip and looked down, her brow furrowed in thought. Then she sighed shortly and looked at him with confidence.
"You can knock him out and we will carry him," she said.
The unfamiliar sensation in his gut turned to one he recognized easily: fear. Not quite the same sort of fear that his father's whip or a siblings knife would cause, but similar. Because I am going to do it for her. It would be much easier to knock Soamosa out and carry her off to Bethel. But she would never forgive him and he couldn't bear that.
In all of his life no one had befriended him but his brother, and even he had never understood Karak.
"In all my life," he said, looking into her blue eyes with his brass-yellow eyes, "only with you have I felt at home. Therefore I will do this thing for you, even though it is dangerous and makes no sense."
Losing her was inconceivable, death far preferable. He closed his eyes.
"All right," he said. "We will take Captain Sung with us."
"Oh!" She threw her arms around him and hugged him tightly enough to surprise an "Oof!" from him. "Let us go," she said brightly.
Belazir took a sip of the zirse he'd prepared for himself and sat down before the screens in his quarters. He stretched out with a contented sigh; his strength and speed had not fallen off-not much, or he would be dead at a rival's hands-but his bones ached. He dug his hand into a bowl of raw meat chunks and threw one to a plant. Spined leaves gripped home around the morsel and a thin humming filled the air. Tendrils groped towards him, and he threw another piece; it was doubly satisfying, a remembrance of lost Kolnar and a fitting end for the man who'd annoyed him so; the fingerbones were in a necklace around the shoulders of his personal joss, over in the corner.
His eyes stayed on the screen. From here as on the bridge he could view any place on the ship, and a few selected places on the other ships as well. Hoping that he hadn't missed any good comedy, Belazir called up Soamosa's cell.
And found it empty.
A little thrill of something like alarm flashed through his middle. He gave an irritated grunt. He'd missed a great deal obviously. Where were the young lovers?
He instructed the monitors to show random scenes throughout the brig area and waited impatiently as he watched various Kolnari at their daily tasks. Then he came upon a scene from a farce.
Captain Sung ran around the small cell he'd shared with Amos with incredible speed and agility; hopping from bunk to commode to the floor, screaming all the while like a lost soul.
Or like a pig in torment, Belazir thought. He had seen pigs on several of the planets the High Clan had sacked, back before the attack on Bethel.
After him, looking eager to do murder, came Karak, muscular arms outstretched, long-fingered hands curled to grab. Following him came Soamosa, her bright hair flowing in the wind of her own passage, speaking breathlessly, but softly, urging gentleness and restraint. Her little hands reached for Karak, ready to restrain him.
Belazir laughed out loud. The damned pursued by a devil, pursued by an angel, he thought. It just keeps getting better.
At last, with a desperate lunge, Karak got hold of the Captain. The man tried to fight him off, batting ineffectually at Karak's hands and keening in a high-pitched wail.
"Be gentle!" Soamosa insisted.
Through gritted teeth Karak told her, "Little one, it is impossible to knock someone out gently."
"Captain," Soamosa said, "Captain listen to me."
"He no longer knows what a captain is, Soa; call him by his name." He just wanted to hit the man, but Soamosa obviously wanted to calm him down first. Though what purpose that would serve he couldn't see.
"His name? Uh…, James, no no, J-J-J, Joe, no, Joshua? Josiah! Is that your name, Josiah?" she looked hopefully at the Captain. The man calmed slightly at the sound of her voice, stopping his futile jerking at the iron grip. "You must be very brave, Josiah. We will take care of you, but you must help us."
Sung watched her fascinated, he reached out and took a lock of her hair. Then he tried to put it in his mouth. That's when Karak punched him, and Sung dropped like a rock.
"Oh!" Soamosa said. "You did not have to do that! He would have come quietly."
"Perhaps. But he would not have stayed that way. Think of him as an infant, Soa; he will react emotionally and loudly to whatever frightens him. I frighten him. We can not take the risk that he will suddenly decide to mention that at the top of his lungs." He hoisted Sung over his shoulder
"Stay by my side," he told her, "act frightened, pretend to weep."
Soamosa glared at him and opened her mouth to speak.
"My people will expect it," he said through gritted teeth. "If you walk by my side like a queen consenting to be escorted they will wonder what is going on. And we do not want them to start thinking. I know how brave you are, surely that is all that matters." He leaned over to kiss her lightly on the lips. "And after all, we have Bethel to consider. Do we not?"
She managed to look both chagrined and flattered.
"Yes," she muttered resentfully. "But I do not like it."
That said, she opened the door of the cell and allowed Karak to grasp her slender wrist in his great hand; her head drooped, and her shoulders shook with muffled sobs.
Belazir watched the scene unfold in vast amusement. At some point, however, he realized that his son was facing the highly infectious Captain Sung without any protective gear. He'd seen him immunize the girl, but not himself. No doubt he never even thought to protect himself, Belazir thought. Despite the deaths from The Great Plague that left us so weak, he never even thought that he might become infected. Belazir wondered if all the Kolnar still dared to be so arrogant.