Jan felt as if she’d been plunged into ice water. She tried to sit up but then saw how badly she’d been hurt and lay back on the hard deck, wrapping her arms about herself in the hope of keeping her body from falling apart.
When black oblivion finally closed in on her consciousness it was very welcome.
Chapter Fourteen
Jan thought she looked ridiculous and said so.
“Nonsense!” cried Mary Anne in her high, trilling voice. “You look absolutely beautiful!” Then she added, in a lower tone. “All things considered.”
‘All things considered’ meaning, thought Jan wryly, that for a physically deformed amazon, not to mention a tainted earthworm, she was passable. Though passable was not a word that Jan would have used to describe her present appearance. She continued to stare at her image in the full-length mirror. The only thing she liked about it was the lovely shade of deep blue of the gown she was wearing. The gown itself was bizarre, as was her shape. Thanks to the variety of constricting undergarments that Mary Anne had insisted she wear, her waist was ludicrously narrow; but below it the gown ballooned out over her hips, forming a bell-shape that extended all the way to the floor.
If she was totally concealed from the waist down the situation was almost entirely opposite from the waist up. The tight-fitting fabric on her upper torso was cut low at the front in a deep curve that exposed her breasts almost to her nipples. But even with the halter she was wearing, designed to push her breasts upwards, there was no way she could match the expanse of mammary being displayed by Mary Anne standing next to her. These people, Jan decided, definitely had some kind of odd obsession about breasts.
To complete her bizarre appearance were the billowing sleeves of the gown, the black ribbon around her throat, the white powder on her face, the red dye that stained her lips and the jewelled tiara on her hair. Mary Anne surveyed her handiwork with a satisfied smile. “Even your own mother wouldn’t recognize you,” she assured Jan.
“If my mother had ever seen me looking like this she would have run me through with her sword,” Jan said grimly.
“Ooo, don’t say that!” cried Mary Anne, looking shocked. “You must put that awful amazon way of life you led out of your mind, Jan. That’s all far behind you now. Instead, look forward to your future with us. From now on your life is going to be very different.”
“It certainly seems so,” agreed Jan softly. Once again she experienced a strong feeling of unreality—as if she was in a dream. These feelings had come often during the last twenty-four hours since she had been brought into the Aristo section of the Lord Pangloth. But then she’d been having similar feelings ever since regaining consciousness after being attacked by the Hazzini. She glanced down at her exposed chest. The scar had faded to a thin white line. The crude stitch marks were almost gone as well. But perhaps she was really dead after all. Maybe this was all a dream that the Mother God had created for her as an ante-room to Paradise. The meals she’d had, the scented baths, the luxurious bed she’d slept in—all had had a feel of paradise about them.
“I’m still alive?” had been her first surprised words, in faint whisper, when she’d opened her eyes and seen Milo leaning over her.
“Barely, little amazon,” he’d told her, with a smile. “The members of the Medic Guild on Pangloth are little more than butchers but at least they are capable of stitching up wounds, even one as long as yours. None of your internal organs were damaged. It was the loss of blood, and shock, that almost killed you. But the worst is over. With your powers of regeneration you’ll pull through all right. And won’t even have a scar to show for it.”
She had murmured, “The Mother God is with me,” and fallen into a deep sleep.
The next time she woke Milo had given her some water to drink from his canteen. She became aware of her surroundings. She was back in his cubicle. She tried to lift her head to see what condition her body was in but she was too weak. “I … don’t … feel any pain,” she whispered.
Milo held up a device she recognized. A hypodermic needle. There had still been a number of them at the hospital in Minerva. “I’ve been injecting you with a hormone that activates your internal pain killers. Cost me a lot to get it. A Freeman in the village has a direct supply route from one of the Aristo pharmacies.”
“Thank you. …”
“My dear little amazon, don’t mistake my generosity for altruism,” he said, grinning. “Remember our agreement. I have almost as much interest in you in getting that young body of yours back to normal.”
She’d managed a faint smile.
“So do you feel strong enough to tell me what happened?” he asked.
“Got lost …” she whispered. “Wandered around … for hours. Then saw … Hazzini. Chased me. Clawed me … Thought it had cut me in two. …” She couldn’t go on.
He ran his fingers though his non-existent hair and regarded her silently for awhile. Then he said, “Do you know that you are a heroine? The general assumption is that you came across the Hazzini, grabbed its Old Science cutter and incinerated it with it.”
She frowned. “Cutter… ?”
“The thing it had used to cut through the outer hull, and was about to cut through the inner hull with when you interrupted it. The theory is that a Hazzini nest selected their best flyer, equipped him with a cutter that they must have found in some old ruin, and instructed him to sneak into the Pangloth and sabotage one or two of the gas cells so that the Pangloth would drop in altitude and be within reach of the other Hazzini. Trouble is that the creature didn’t realize that the cell it was about to penetrate was full of hydrogen. The Hazzini would have got quite a surprise when the Pangloth had fallen out of the sky in a ball of flames and landed right on top of a bunch of their nests.”
He suddenly clutched her shoulder, his eyes cold.
“I know what really happened up there. And I know what you planned to do. You and the Hazzini had a similar goal in mind that night,” he told her harshly.
“What do you … mean?”
“You know what I’m talking about. It involves that precious Minervan relic of yours—the ‘rod of authority’ that you were going to protect with your life. You appear to have lost it.”
“Have … I … ?” She was finding it hard to think now. She wanted to go back to sleep.
“Oh, stop pretending. I was suspicious of the thing all along but I gave you the benefit of the doubt. And in return for my trust you planned to incinerate me along with everyone else when you set off your bomb. For sheer ruthlessness you Minervans can probably teach the Sky Lords a thing or two.”
“No … no …” she protested weakly, trying to shake her head. “I couldn’t do it … when the time came. Couldn’t. So I gave up. …”
He stared hard at her. Finally he said, “I suspect you’re telling the truth.” His expression then softened. “So having given up your mission you then blundered into the Hazzini. You must have used your bomb to kill the thing. The idea of you grabbing that cutter from the grip of a full-grown Hazzini and using it on him is absurd.”
“Yes …” she said and told him what she’d done. He started to smile again. “Right up his proboscis, eh? How apt. If he’d penetrated you with that thing he’d have sucked you inside out. Human blood is a delicacy for the Hazzini.”
“Will … will they find the pieces … of the bomb?” she asked.