GENELLAN: PLANETFALL(148)
Holding the baby's head above water, Buccari rolled over and side-stroked shoreward with her free arm. Tatum, distraught, panting and gasping, met her neck deep in the water and relieved her of the lifeless child. He stumbled from the water, his single arm holding his baby high in the air. Buccari swam several more strokes before she touched bottom, and then she struggled to drag her exhausted body from the frigid water. Still knee-deep, she collapsed, spent. She vomited.
On the bank, Tatum held Honey upside down by her leg. With his one good arm he shook the child in spasmodic jerks. Water poured from the child's tiny mouth.
"Beppo! Slap her!" he shouted. Schmidt followed orders, the technician's face contorted with tragic concern. "Harder!" Tatum shouted, his deep voice grown shrill, the frustration at having only one arm written across his countenance. Nothing! Just the pitiful claps of a strong hand against the small frame of an infant.
"Hold her head up!" Tatum bellowed. Schmidt brought the small face upward, and Tatum covered it with his own. Desperately holding his strong lungs in check, he blew softly into Honey's bloodied nose and mouth. On his third breath she burped; her small hands jerked and her eyes opened. Honey coughed, regurgitated water, and coughed again. And then she screamed, a strong scream, a mixed scream—a scream of pain, but more importantly, a scream of anger—a healthy scream of anger. Tatum roared in ecstasy, holding the child to his trembling breast.
"She's alive, Lieutenant!" He sat down in shallow water next to Buccari, the bruised and battered child bellowing in his lap. "You saved my baby's life!"
Buccari, still awash in the river, looked up and smiled at the overwhelming affection shown by the tall Marine. She reached up to pat Tatum's knee, and Tatum grabbed her hand, kissing it and holding it to his tear-streaked cheek.
"The horses," she gasped. "Where are the horses?" She raised her head and was relieved to see the horses standing where they had been left, staring down from their vantage point, grinding mouthfuls of grass. She had not wanted to disappoint MacArthur.
* * *
Chapter 36
Scars
"You old fool! What more do you know of this matter?" Jook thundered.
Et Kalass's facile mind searched through his alternatives and their consequences. He decided to hold to plan. It was the closest to the truth.
"My concern for Et Avian overcame good judgment, Exalted One," the minister said. "I promised on his father's deathbed that no harm would come to him."
Jook looked down from his throne, fuming darkly. "Ah! No harm ever? A foolish promise, Minister. So another case of the nobility and their children! How tender!" Jook simpered.
Et Kalass dared to speak, "Et Avian' s discoveries—"
"General Gorruk would have your head!" spit the Emperor-General. "I should give it to him! Using boosters without authority—a gross assumption of power!"
Since the rout at Penc the war had gone badly. Gorruk was consumed with fending off vicious counterattacks. Missiles had resumed falling on northern territories.
"But Great and Powerful One—" Et Kalass started.
"Discoveries! You speak of discoveries," Jook preempted imperiously. "What do we know of the aliens? It is said that Et Avian has captured an alien alive."
"True, Your Greatness, though—"
"Bah! Why am I talking to you? Where is Avian?"
"In grave condition, Greatness. He faces multiple surgeries and extended rehabilitation."
"He has managed to survive an interplanetary acceleration. You are withholding something." Jook rose to his imposing height and glared down. "Bring Et Avian to me."
Et Kalass turned and scurried from the imperial chambers.
* * *
After three days Buccari's buttocks and thighs were chafed and bruised. And the obstinate beast had just given her a painful nip on the shoulder.
"You okay, Lieutenant?" MacArthur asked, his voiced concerned but his face smug—his first spoken words to her in days. He galloped up and grabbed the balky mare's reins, leaping from his stallion. "You can't be turning your back on that horse."
Buccari rubbed the tender spot and concentrated on holding her temper. Coming on the salt mission was her idea; MacArthur had not wanted her along, fearing for her safety, but she persisted.
"I guess I missed that on the checklist," she responded.
"Beg your pardon, Lieutenant?" MacArthur asked.
"Nothing! Nothing. Just a little pilot humor. Give me a boost." She grabbed the reins and moved over to the port side of the four-legged creature. She straightened the leather blanket, tightening the knot in its girth strap. MacArthur bent down and grabbed her left boot and the back of her thigh. On three, he lifted and she jumped, swinging her right leg over the animal. She landed with a painful grunt. MacArthur quickly turned away and swung up on his own mount, his shoulders gently shaking.