Slave Empire III - The Shrike by T C Southwell

to return.
    Tarke sighed
and bowed his head to kiss the back of her hand. The door chimed,
and he clipped the mask on before unlocking it.
    Vidan entered,
casting a sad glance at the comatose girl. “How is she?”
    “The same.”
Tarke stood up, replacing her hand on her chest. “What is it?”
    Vidan held out
a scribe pad. “Another request from her brother, to see her.”
    “No.”
    “It can’t do
any harm.”
    “Or any
good.”
    “He divorced
his wife five years ago.”
    The Shrike
shrugged. “It makes no difference. He gave up his rights when he
let the Atlanteans take her from his house.”
    “He couldn’t
have stopped them.”
    “He didn’t
try.”
     
     
    Vidan was sure
Tarke knew perfectly well that he was being unreasonable, but could
not blame him. He had a right to be bitter about what had happened,
and he was the least vengeful man Vidan knew. Tarke probably blamed
himself most of all, and he did not deserve the burden of guilt on
top of his sorrow at her loss. Of all the people Vidan had ever
known, his boss deserved happiness the most. Fate had been
particularly cruel to him, and now Vidan almost wished Tarke had
never found Rayne. At least then he would not be going through this
now. He had already suffered enough. Vidan contemplated the
plethora of paraphernalia in the room. Some of it was necessary,
some experimental, left behind by the hopeful doctors who had
brought it. Soft lights bathed her, a machine produced additional
oxygen, and humidity and temperature were controlled, while fans
circulated the air.
    A bevy of
attendants saw to her every need, fed and bathed her, stretched,
massaged and stimulated her muscles with electrical apparatus.
Tarke refused to put her on life support, insisting that she was
cared for by hand and partaking in her care himself. Because of the
excellent care she had received, she showed no sign of atrophy. She
looked as she had done when she had arrived, and as she probably
would in five hundred years’ time. Her arrival was etched in
Vidan’s memory forever. The sight of Tarke emerging from the ship,
carrying her, had brought tears to his eyes. Tarke’s devotion did
not surprise him in the least. Antians remained loyal to their
spouses even after their death.
    Tarke spent two
hours with her every day. The Shrike’s people still wore black
armbands to signify their mourning, but, since he wore mostly black
anyway, he had not needed one.
     
     
    The old
freighter approached Atlan in maximum deceleration, her Mansurian
captain watching the scrolling holographic readouts. Two of the
three crewmembers gazed out of the thick screens that gave a
restricted view of Atlan’s pearly orb, which they had seen
countless times before. One man yawned and scratched a two-day
stubble; the other stretched and rubbed his neck. They had made
this trip so many times they knew exactly which orbit they would
end up in, and even who their neighbours might be. Only the pilot
was busy, stretched out on his couch, his hand in the sensor slot
that connected him with the ship’s neural net.
    The youngest
crewmember watched a holographic readout that twitched and
flickered, wishing Captain Drogar would get it fixed. The trouble
with hauling low-grade ore, Solon mused, was that it hardly paid
the bills, and the ship badly needed a refit. One day the failing
repeller on the starboard side would give up, and then they would
be in trouble. The young Mansurian’s focus sharpened as a clot of
unusual figures formed a bright spot on the hologram. The pilot was
oblivious, locked into the ship’s neural net. The numbers increased
at an unbelievable rate, and turned red as they reached
astronomical amounts, the sort of readings a sun would give. The
youngster was about to draw the captain’s attention to the problem
when the screens filled with light.
    Solon leapt to
his feet with a shout of alarm. Captain Drogar gripped the arms of
his chair and stared. A vast globe of Net energy formed in