Ascending - James Alan Gardner [127]
“Damn!” Uclod panted. “That was one tough honey.”
“Her partner was not tough at all,” I said. “He is no longer breathing.”
“Christ!” Festina cried. She raced toward me and dropped to her knees, touching her fingers to the fallen man’s throat. Her face turned even more anxious; after probing the man’s neck at several points, she said, “I can’t find a pulse. Shit!”
With desperate urgency, she dragged the man off me, flat onto the floor. Kneeling beside him, she tipped back his head, blew two breaths into his mouth, then began pushing down on his chest. Under her breath she whispered, “One and two and three and four and five and…”
“Oh, missy,” Uclod said, hovering behind Festina’s shoulder, “this is not good. They only had zappers and stun-grenades. We had no justification for using deadly force…”
Lajoolie, still crouching beside the crate of platinum, let forth an anguished sob. “I just…” She buried her face in her hands.
Uclod rushed to her side, calling out to the whole room, “It’s not her fault. She didn’t know her own strength.”
“I do,” she moaned, “I do know my own strength. Over and over again, they told me never to hit people or else…or else my brother…” She sobbed and crumpled.
“I’ve got bad news,” Sergeant Aarhus called from a few paces away. “This woman isn’t breathing either.”
He was squatting beside the red-faced admiral; he had placed his hand on her throat in the same manner as Festina had touched the man. “No pulse,” he said.
“Both of them?” Festina broke off pumping the man’s chest and sat back on her heels. “Shit—the League is going to love this.”
“Yes,” agreed Aarhus. “To lose one opponent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.”
Festina stared at the man she had just been attempting to revive. “How the hell could we kill them both?”
“Perhaps these Shaddill are shamefully weak and fragile,” I suggested.
“These people aren’t Shaddill,” she told me. “This man is Jhimal Rhee, Admiral of the Brown. The woman is Gunsa Macleod, Admiral of the Orange. They’re members of the navy’s High Council; I’ve met them a few times.”
“Oh goody,” Aarhus said, “I just helped snuff a high admiral. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’ll bet that’s a court-martial offense.”
“Rhee and Macleod?” Uclod asked. “Killing them isn’t an offense, it’s a humanitarian service. We should all get a bounty.”
The little man was holding Lajoolie, stroking her shoulders…and for once, she was no taller than he, for she had sunk to her knees and was hunched over almost to the floor. She wept piteously—the sort of weeping when the weeper seems terrified to make the tiniest sound, so it is all choked whimpers and sniffles. Uclod squeezed her and spoke gently. “It’s all right, sweetheart, you don’t have to worry. You’ve read the files on these bastards. Rhee and Macleod were two of the worst on the council. Rhee arranged for that colony to starve to death, remember? He tampered with the food shipment schedules. When the colonists were dead, he sent in settlers of his own and claimed the whole planet for himself. As for Macleod, she killed her first three husbands for their money. The files absolutely proved it. Remember that, honey? Rhee and Macleod were both dangerous nonsentients, and the League doesn’t give a self-righteous crap what you do to them.”
“I do not understand,” I whispered to Festina. “If these humans were dangerous non-sentients, how could they journey through space? Would the League not prevent them from doing so?”
“Damn right it would.”