Chapter 2

"Yeah, I guess so." Dave hid his disappointment; the Ranger was counting on him! "We've got to be awfully careful, then. They were holding you hostage, weren't they?"

"Yes--to get His Majesty to give Lord Robert a Sector" Tarlac chuckled. "The last I heard, anyway; by now, his Lordship may have decided he wants to be Sovereign."

"He won't be," Dave said positively. "No one who'd take a Ranger prisoner could possibly be qualified as Sovereign--even if Prince Forrest hadn't been elected Successor."

"True, but that doesn't keep some people from trying." Tarlac shifted, bit back a groan. "I think the quidine's wearing off, Dave. Do you have anything stronger?"

"No--and I wouldn't give it to you if I did." Dave braced himself against the objection he anticipated from the Ranger. "Quidine's almost too much of a risk itself, for someone who's been hit with stingweed."

Tarlac sighed. "You know more about it than I do; I won't ask again."

"Yes, sir." Dave echoed his patient's sigh. Tarlac's acquiescence helped--but this was not going to be fun!

And the next couple of hours were hard, for both of them. As the quidine wore off and the stingweed poison grew stronger, Dave wished his patient would pass out--for both their sakes. Eventually, Tarlac did; Dave made sure he was covered snugly, then turned down the lamp and arranged the remaining blankets into a nestlike bed for himself.

He didn't really think he could rest, with all the excitement and problems going on, so he decided he might as well make what plans he could. They had two days before they could expect rescue, and the Ranger thought the rebels would know they'd escaped, rather than being blown up. That meant he should try to make their cave defensible--he snorted at the implausibility of one boy with a disruptor holding off well-armed rebels, but he'd have to do his best--plus play doctor and nurse to a man who had about as much chance of living through his wounds and poisoning as the two of them did of holding off the rebels.

He opened his eyes to more light in the cave than the lamp had been giving off. Scrambling to his feet, he grabbed the disruptor and moved cautiously toward the entrance--then dropped it to his side as he realized the light was morning sun, not rebel field-illuminants. Good, that would give them a break!

He took advantage of the safety to relieve himself, then he went back into the cave to check on his patient. Tarlac didn't seem to have moved, which Dave thought was probably just as well; at least that way he wouldn't irritate his injuries. But he swallowed hard when he pulled the blanket away from Tarlac's back, then had to run outside before he threw up all over their refuge. He'd read about stingweed poisoning in his first aid and survival courses, even seen holos in his father's medical texts--but they hadn't prepared him for the sight and smell of it in someone's living flesh.

He wiped his mouth when he finished, the bitter taste in his mouth an echo of his bitter thoughts as he re-entered the cave. He'd have to do better than this, if he wanted to keep the two of them alive! He went to the spring for water, put some on the lamp to heat, then braced himself and knelt beside his patient. Tarlac's wounds were oozing thick greenish-yellow fluid that would have to be cleaned off, as often as Dave could force himself to endure the sight and rotten-cabbage stench. At least the medikit had surgical gloves, he thought as he put a pair on, so he wouldn't have to touch the stuff or risk getting the poison into his own system through a cut or hangnail.

Tarlac woke to a smell so bad it made him gag, and eyes that felt glued shut, so he couldn't see whatever seemed to be scrubbing his chest with a metal brush dipped in acid. He started to protest, trying to sit up, but the only result was a wave of dizziness and nausea. When he gave up on that and tried to rub his eyes, the scrubbing stopped and hands grabbed his wrists.

"Don't--you'll just make it worse." Dave was unpleasantly surprised at how easy it was to restrain his patient. "Your eyes are all crusted over--I'll need to soak them to soften the crusts." He put a warm, wet cloth over the Ranger's eyes, then went on. "I'll finish cleaning you up while those soften. I did your back while you were asleep."

The scrubbing started again, and Tarlac let out a yell.

Dave stopped. "I'm being as careful and gentle as I can, sir. I don't want to hurt you, but I do have to get you clean." He frowned. "It won't make you better, though. All it'll do is keep you from getting worse as fast--but there's nothing else I can do."

Tarlac sighed, managing not to groan. "Your best is all I can expect, Dave. I'll try to be quiet about it."

"Yes, sir." Dave went back to work, grateful that the injuries, bad as they were, were limited to the Ranger's upper body. If Tarlac had been beaten all over with the poisoned whip, he probably wouldn't have survived the night. This way, he had a chance of lasting until he could get real medical help. Not much of a chance, Dave thought grimly as he began cleaning his patient's eyes, but a chance. "There," he said at last. "You should be able to open them now."

Tarlac did manage, though it took most of his strength. His vision was blurred at first, but blinking soon cleared it enough for him to see the strain in his rescuer's face. Well, he probably wasn't looking too good himself, he thought--and that stink! "What's the smell?"

Dave grimaced, pulling a clean blanket up over Tarlac's shoulders. "Stingweed poison, sort of. You don't want to see what it looks like." He shrugged. "It does have one advantage, though. It'll heep animals away, so that's one thing we won't have to worry about."

"I can certainly understand that," Tarlac said dryly. "I'd certainly keep my distance from a prospective dinner that smelled this bad."

Dave managed a slight smile. "So would I, actually. Especially since it's probably the only thing that'll keep away any owner of a cave this nice." He hesitated, then decided he might as well go on; they were in no position to worry about luxuries like privacy. "The medikit instructions say the poison may not let you go to the bathroom--but you should try, if it feels like you have to."

"I don't." Tarlac thanked the impulse that had led him to go on a low-residue diet over the last week, though he was less grateful for the rebels' refusal to give him a drink of water.

"It says you should try to drink, at least, and eat if you can--do you want to try sitting up?"

"Yeah." Tarlac made the effort, groaning, but he needed Dave's help, and was gasping by the time he was propped semi-erect. He was too weak and dizzy to hold the cup Dave offered him, and had trouble forcing a couple of swallows down a throat that felt raw and swollen. He winced at the pain, but made himself drink more. Whether his kidneys had quit functioning or not, he knew he'd lost blood and was feverish; he couldn't afford to let himself get dehydrated, too.

Food was out of the question, though, he discovered when Dave tried to feed him some stew made out of survival rations. It wasn't bad stew, and he knew he'd need whatever strength it could give him, but he simply couldn't get it down. He shook his head, immediately wishing he hadn't when the dizziness got worse. "Dave--what can I expect?"

Dave put the stew down. He didn't want to answer, but a person had a right to know the truth. "I've never seen a case before, so I can only tell you what the book says." He took a deep breath. "Massive stingweed poisoning--and you've been given as bad a case as I've ever heard of--starts off by making you sick and feverish."

"That fits the way I feel," Tarlac said dryly. "Go on."

"The fever'll get worse," Dave said reluctantly. "Bad enough to make you delirious. They you'll go into a coma, and if you don't get first-class medical attention, you'll die."

"I've heard better news," Tarlac admitted. "Just what can you do about it?"

"Not much, I'm afraid," Dave said. "I don't dare give you any drugs, even ones as simple as a fungicide or antibiotic, because they're like painkillers--too unpredictable on stingweed cases. I don't have either the equipment or the skill to monitor you, or take corrective action if you should have a bad reaction, and I sure don't want to make things worse. I can keep the wounds clean and use cold water to help keep the fever down, and . . . well, I'll do anything else I can think of to slow the poison down. But it won't be a whole lot."

"I appreciate the honesty." And, Tarlac thought, the fact that he'd been lucky enough to be rescued by someone who could appreciate the fact of his own limitations! Not too many people of any age, in his experience, had that much judgement. Too bad Dave's assessment was so negative--but from what he'd said, Tarlac was able to take grim amusement in the fact that he wouldn't be worrying about it much longer. This mess would be a lot harder on the youngster than it would on the one who should be in charge-- He broke off that pointless line of thought. "Just keep me breathing till Friday morning, if you can-- the Marines will be landing as soon as it's full light, and there'll be Navy mediteams with them. If they can get me into a lifepod, I'll have a pretty good chance."

"I'll do what I can, of course." Dave frowned. "That's less than forty-eight hours . . . the rebels'll be looking for us too, but I don't think they'll get to us very fast."

"Don't be too sure," Tarlac cautioned. "Lord Robert is a fanatic, and he thinks I'm his key to ruling at least a Subsector. He'll be after me, and I'm willing to bet his people have the equipment they need to find us."

Dave shook his head. "It's not as easy as you make it sound, sir. People who've wanted to be found have been lost in these mountains for weeks. We don't want to be--and we're in a cave, which'll make it that much harder for them." He hesitated, a thought surfacing. "Unless they search on foot, and happen across us. If they do, I guess it'll be up to me to decoy them away."

Tarlac didn't like that idea, but he also didn't have Lord Robert's convenient ability to ignore unpleasant reality. A Ranger was, to put it bluntly, far more valuable to the Empire than any youngster. It was a hell of a note, he thought sourly, that he had to look at it that way; Dave had saved his life once already, and it would be his doing if Tarlac lived through the next couple of days. The fact that Dave would get a substantial reward if they made it out wasn't a lot of help; dammit, part of his job was protecting Imperial citizens! Still . . . "I'm afraid it will."

To his surprise, Dave grinned. "That shouldn't be too hard. Those rebels're city people; they don't know what real mountains're like. Chaos, I don't think they'd even know to avoid something as simple as a trapper vine!"

"This is no holo show," Tarlac cautioned him. "If they do find us, we've bought it."

"I know--but Mom was a Marine for thirty years and never even saw a live Ranger. I go on a camping trip, and end up helping one, against a bunch of rebels!"

Looked at that way, Tarlac conceded with some amusement, it did have something in common with a holoshow. And maybe having Dave treat this as an adventure wouldn't hurt--might even help, by keeping his morale up. It was a good bet the youngster would need all the pluses he could find . . . he damnsure wouldn't be one! The way he felt, he wouldn't even be conscious much longer. Which would be a definite improvement . . .

* * * * *

Dave spent the rest of that day alternating between caring for the unconscious Ranger and watching rebel aircars crisscross the sky in what seemed, from the little he could see through trees, to be ever-widening search patterns. The rebels did think they were alive, then, but didn't have enough of an idea of where they might be to mount a concentrated search. So far, so good--though if things stayed this way, it would work against them later, when the Marines landed and they wanted to be found.

That was more than a day away, though, he thought as the sun began to set. He rigged a door out of blankets, to block any lamplight that might get past the turns in the cave. He should have done that the night before, he told himself, but it simply hadn't occurred to him; it was just luck that they'd gotten away with his lack of foresight.

The night passed, but more slowly than he'd realized would be possible. Tarlac was delirious for several hours, and Dave spent most of that time wrapping him in cold-water-soaked blankets, wiping his face, and trickling water into his mouth. Shortly before dawn, to Dave's combined relief and worry, delirium deepened into coma and Dave's fatigue forced him to take advantage of the silence for a nap.

When he woke, he heard aircars again. They sounded closer than they had the day before, and worry turned into fear. The rebels might not be wilderness experts, the way Nemra's Rescue Service people were, but it didn't take that kind of expert to tell the difference between a mountain-prowler's yowling and a sick man's fever-induced cries. He'd been concerned about that all night, but hadn't been able to do anything about them--and now it looked like the rebels knew at least their general location. Only the general location, he hoped, since they were still searching from cars. That was standard procedure for the Rescue Service, at least, so he tried to ignore them while he cared for his patient.

He'd gotten used to the smell, for which he was grateful. That and the fact that Tarlac was beyond the reach of pain were the only good parts he could see. The poison was spreading steadily, but--as long as he kept the oozing fluid cleaned off, and kept Tarlac's temperature as low as he could--slowly. Maybe slowly enough that he'd live through the next twenty-four hours, if Dave could keep going that long. And if he didn't have to leave the Ranger alone to play decoy.

He frowned, thinking as he worked. Playing decoy if the rebels got close had been his idea, and he was still pleased that Tarlac had thought it a good enough one to agree with. It still would be, and it would work, Dave thought, if Tarlac were strong enough to be left alone--and preferably were able to defend himself, just in case. But he'd put Dave in charge precisely because he wasn't able to do for himself!

It was scary being responsible for someone else's safety, Dave was realizing. Especially when you were a commoner, the someone else was royalty, and a powerful noble--a crazy, traitorous noble--would stop at nothing to recapture him. Dave glanced across the cave to the small ledge where he'd put the disruptor--out of the way, but easy to get to--and shivered. The only alternative he could see to playing decoy was using the cave as a fort if the rebels found them, and that didn't sound much better now than it had the first time he'd thought of it. One disruptor without even a single spare powerpack wasn't much to build hopes on. He'd do what he could, of course, but he still couldn't help wishing he hadn't ventured into Lord Robert's camp and gotten himself into all this!

He sighed. He had gotten himself into it; now, if he could, he'd get both of them out. The first step was to get the Ranger to as much safety as the cave held--which meant the spring. Good thing it wasn't far!

Half an hour later he'd filled his emergency containers with a day's worth of drinking water and settled Tarlac as comfortably as possible into the runoff stream. It wasn't ideal, but at least it would keep the fever down and the injuries mostly clean while he did what he could to make the cave defensible.

He discovered quickly that he could do very little. Wood from fallen limbs and whatever brush he could cut with the stolen hunting knife would provide little protection from stunner fire, and none at all from the blasters or disruptors he thought the rebels were likelier to use. And there wasn't enough loose rock--in sizes he could move, anyway--to block the cave entrance. He supposed he could use his disruptor to enlarge that crack in the wall just inside the cave mouth, but that would be asking for trouble; the rebels couldn't possibly miss that kind of energy release. And he didn't dare waste his firepower on that; he didn't have much to begin with. He'd just have to hope the rebels didn't find them, and retreat to one of the side passages for shelter if they did.

He spent the next few anxious hours alternating between Tarlac and the cave entrance. The Ranger was doing as well as Dave had dared let himself hope, but rebel cars were moving by more often, and seemed to be centered closer to the cave. Once, he could have sworn he glimpsed an Imperial Marine troop lander, but decided that had to be wishful thinking; if the Marines were getting ready to land, the rebels should be running for cover, not continuing to search for escaped prisoners.

A little after noon, what he'd been dreading happened. Half a decade rebel aircars descended, and moments later he heard shouts and the sound of people forcing their way through brush. He checked the disruptor one last time, then moved back to the side passage he'd chosen. He wasn't as frightened as he'd thought he would be in such a situation, even though he was certain he'd be dead soon. He was more angry at the unfairness of the whole situation than anything else, and he intended to make the rebels pay as heavily as he could for their two lives.

Waiting for the rebels to get to the cave entrance, Dave had a vivid memory of his mother's amused disgust at war holos. "In combat, the idea isn't to play fair," she'd said more than once. "The idea is to stay alive while killing your enemy. You don't let yourself be seen if you can avoid it, and you certainly don't warn your enemy that you're going to shoot!" Well, he had the best cover he could get, and he didn't plan to issue any warnings. All he needed now was a target . . .

Light flooded the cave, and someone called out. "They're here! I see bloodstains--"

That was as far as he got; Dave fired toward the light. It went out, and there was a sharp "crack" as air imploded where the rebel had been.

There was a brief silence, then someone cursed, and half a decade blaster-bolts seared past Dave's hiding place, about chest-high. He dropped to the cave floor and fired back without looking.

The exchange of fire continued for several minutes, with the only result Dave could notice being that the cave was getting uncomfortably hot. Then he heard yelling, and the incoming fire stopped abruptly. Moments later, an amplified voice called out. "You in the cave--this is Captain Heidi Chiun, Imperial Marines. Come out with your hands up."

Dave started to obey, then hesitated. He thought he'd seen a troop lander, yes--but he wouldn't put it past the rebels to try tricking him, since they hadn't yet managed to kill him. "Send one of your people in here," he called back. "If you're really Marines, you'll be safe in power armor, and I wouldn't shoot anyway."

"Hold your fire, then." Dave heard crunching steps, like something massive moving, then the light from the cave entrance dimmed. "I'm inside," another voice said.

Dave risked a look around the corner, then stood with a sigh of relief. The person at the entrance was wearing power armor, which satisfied him that she was what she was supposed to be. "I'm tossing the gun out," he said, doing so. Then, raising his hands, he stepped out of cover. "Boy, am I glad to see you! Ranger Tarlac needs a medalert team, with a lifepod."

"He's here?"

"Yes, sir--I'll show you."

"Wait one." Dave couldn't hear what she said next, but what his mother's stories had led him to expect was confirmed when she said, "They're on the way. Let's go."

Dave led her to his patient, not at all surprised when she swore bitterly before picking up the unconscious man. "The team'll meet us outside--they'd never get a pod in here."

"Yes, sir." Dave led the way again, blinking as he emerged from the dimness into bright afternoon sun. A couple of decade Marines in power armor were guarding the perimeter of a new clearing, while several more in camouflage battledress held a number of rebel prisoners at gunpoint near one edge. The medalert team had obviously been in readiness nearby, because a lander with medical markings was already settling toward the clearing's center.

An armored Marine with captain's bars and "Chiun" stencilled on her helmet gestured the one carrying Tarlac toward the medical lander, then turned her attention to Dave and stood silently looking at him for several moments before she removed her helmet and smiled. "You'd be David Scanlon, then?"

When he nodded, surprised, she gave him a half-bow--people in power armor didn't offer to shake hands--and said, "Captain Heidi Chiun. Pleased to meet you. Now that we have Ranger Tarlac safe, an assault group will be hitting the main rebel camp. The Empire owes you some powerful thanks, young man."

"My pleasure," Dave replied, wanting to be polite though he wasn't quite sure which statement he was responding to. Then curiosity took over. "How did you know me? And why're you here now instead of tomorrow?"

"Two questions, one answer." Chiun frowned. "One of the rebels reported the torture and rescue to us, through the local IntelDiv office. Unfortunately, we couldn't get him out; he was killed while he was still on the screen. That's something we don't intend to have happen to you; His Majesty invites you to stay on the Empress Lindner until it's safe for you to go home, probably sometime after Ranger Tarlac recovers and holds a Tribunal on this mess."

The rebel who'd been killed had to be Theo, Dave thought. That was too bad--but right now, at least, he couldn't seem to feel much except mild regret. His own problems were more immediately interesting. He hadn't expected protective custody, although when Chiun mentioned it he realized he should have; it was common enough on the news as well as in holoshows. He'd never heard of it being phrased as an invitation from the Emperor before, though! The effect was the same, but it was nicer than being put under arrest. Even if he'd rather be going home . . . "I accept the invitation, of course. Can I call my folks and let them know?"

"As soon as we get to the ship," Chiun promised. "Ranger Tarlac will be taken up first, then we'll ride up with the prisoners."

"Okay." Not that he had any choice, Dave thought. And he admitted to himself that he didn't mind all that much; it would be pretty exciting, being His Majesty's guest aboard one of the tremendous Imperial Battle Cruisers. He'd have to get something to prove it, though, or the kids at school would be certain he was making it up. "Uh . . . he will be all right, won't he?"

Chiun gestured toward the lifepod, now being loaded aboard the lander. "He was alive when they got him in the pod, and an IBC has damn good medical facilities. I think it's safe to say he'll be fine, yes."

* * * * *

Her prediction was accurate, though Tarlac would carry scars from the beating for the rest of his life, and they were still an angry red when he held the Tribunal. Tarlac didn't mind; at least he was alive to have scars, thanks to Dave Scanlon. And it had been no problem deciding on a reward for the youngster; as Emperor Davis had pointed out, Imperial law made provision even for something so unusual.