Dirge - Alan Dean Foster [93]
Tse glanced expectantly at Chimbu, who looked reluctant but eventually nodded. “A small sirloin,” he could not forbear from adding.
The elegant soldier was hesitating, spurring Mallory to prompt her. “Go ahead and ask what you will. You won’t upset me. I’ve done my time in upset land.”
“Very well. Mr. Mallory, I’m sure you know that everything that has happened in your vicinity since you were brought here has been carefully monitored. I’m sure you must understand that given the reception the Pitar have been accorded here on Earth and elsewhere, coupled with the fact that over a period of some five years they have displayed nothing even remotely like the behavior you have described—the story you just told is difficult for the rest of us to accept.” The hospital room was dead silent as everyone waited to see how the patient would react.
Mallory’s reply was low, but perfectly intelligible. “So you think I’m a liar?”
“Nobody said that,” another officer hastened to add. “Nobody’s calling you a liar.” He looked to the woman, then back down at the ravaged figure in the bed. “You’ve been through a terrible ordeal, sir. It’s a miracle that you survived, much less with your body and your…” Aware he had stumbled into awkward territory, he broke off.
Mallory finished the thought for him. “My mind intact?” His eyes searched the attentive gathering. “You think I may have hallucinated what happened on Treetrunk? How about the six hundred thousand dead or missing?” His voice rose perceptibly. “That’s one hell of a hallucination.”
“No one disputes the destruction of Treetrunk.” The female officer’s tone was tender, but hardly condescending. “That is something no human being would dare try to deny. What Major Rothenburg and the rest of us are wondering is if you actually saw what you say you saw, or if your mind, overwhelmed by the horror, invented something, however implausible, to mask or blot out an even worse reality.”
“Worse reality? Worse than genocide? Worse than female reproductive organ evisceration and theft?” He shook his head slowly. “Ma’am, all I can say is, you must have a greater capacity for inventing horror than I do.”
From his position near the end of the bed, Chimbu spoke up. “Mr. Mallory, Colonel Nadurovina is an eminent military psychiatrist specializing in combat and combat-related disorders. She doesn’t mean to impugn your veracity. Like the rest of us, she only wants what’s best for you—and to get at the truth.”
“The truth!?!” His voice bordering on hysteria, the patient leaned sharply forward in the bed. Nearby, a medtech activated the osmotic hypo he held behind his back and started forward. Startled by the unexpected violence of his response, Tse let go of Mallory’s hand. But she did not stand up or retreat from her position alongside him. Seeing the sudden fear in her face, he made an effort to regain his composure.
“I’ve told you the truth. Whether you believe it or not is up to you.” Staring hard at the circle of the curious, he added warningly, “You’d better, because there’s no guarantee the Pitar won’t try something like it again. Unless, of course, they got everything they needed from Treetrunk.”
“Human female reproductive organs?” Rothenburg’s tone laid bare his skepticism. “You’ll excuse me, Mr. Mallory, if that doesn’t strike some of us as unsound grounds for rationalizing an assault on a colony. To gain a strategic advantage or base, yes; to acquire a world rich in rare metals and minerals, perhaps; or even to try and intimidate the occupying species into conceding possession, possibly. But what you say makes no sense.”
“Deliver us from the blindered workings of the military mind,” he muttered. “What’s the military doing here anyway?”
“When six hundred thousand people are slaughtered without mercy or warning, it becomes a military matter,” a man behind Rothenburg replied stiffly.
Mallory grunted and leaned back against his pillows. “For what it’s worth, it doesn’t make any sense to me, either. Pitar