Ice gelled in the pit of my stomach. “Without souls?”
“You feel it too?” Maire cast me a sharp look. “But then you would, being one of our elite, the talented few. You know as well as I do that science and logic aren’t all there is to life. Those three out there have been touched by a great evil and that’s what ails them.”
I was impressed at her perception. “I think you’ve the talent yourself, Maire.”
“I haven’t. They put me through all the hoops when I came here—I’m a flat zero.” A trace of wistfulness backed her words.
“On their quasi-scientific tests perhaps, but you have something beyond that, something they can’t measure.”
“And what would that be?”
“Magic.”
She giggled, for all the world like an enchanted child, out of place in a middle-aged body in its starched white uniform. “You’ll be telling me I’m a witch next, by all accounts! Be off with you, Anna, or I’ll turn ye into a frog!”
I let her chase me into the ward, hopping and trying to croak through my laughter. Maire shook her head and returned to her duties, and her gaiety deserted me rapidly in the clinical sanctum of the unit. The three sleepers lay out under the vicious lights, lulled by the rhythmic sighing of their ventilators. More drip lines had been added to the plastic spaghetti that swathed their bodies, more sensors to sample and monitor, more IV ports to add food and subtract waste. I went to the foot of each bed in turn, a senseless ritual. I spared Meeka only a minute or two, yet our enmity seemed petty in the face of this. Lyall I watched for longer, venturing into the telepath’s head. All the lights on and nobody home.
Without souls.
I moved to the end of Chandre’s bed. Chandre, my friend, a woman with a passion for collecting pre-Dark blue-and-white china, riding half-wild horses and listening to madrigals and jazz, a woman who had always been kind to me. Nothing here now but a shell, and her precious plates would sit gathering dust on their shelf, her beloved music would be mute, and her painted ponies would prick their ears up in vain, never again to hear her footsteps crunch on the gravel of the stable-yard. I’d defiantly told Michael Collins that I’d willingly go down into Hell for Chandre and the irony of that lightly-meant remark chilled me to the marrow. To save these three I would have to descend into the abyss, and that fate waited for me on Tambouret.
A scream cut off my dismal train of thought, a scream that reached into my skull without passing through my ears. It was wordless, intense, the primal terror of an immature mind, and before I’d consciously decided to go, I’d jumped to its source.
No torture chamber this, just a small room in the centre of the building, featureless, scarcely more than a cell. Michael Collins sat with his back to me, intent but impatient, Beth Ayres stood to my left, chewing at an over-used lower lip, and on my right was the human half of a Zenith pair. It might have been any one of us, but with her twisted sense of proportion Fate had to make it my old friend and sometimes enemy, Paul. The object of his mental assault seemed pitifully tiny in the huge brown swivel-chair—Angel Jansen. Her eyes were clenched shut and her mind was fuzzy. I guessed they’d given her something to keep her calm, a tip of the hat to compassion, but the drug couldn’t hold back all of her fear. Her little body twitched and although no sound came from her, her incoherent mental shrieks slashed at me like shards of glass.
“Stop it!” I yelled. “Now!”
My precipitous arrival halted Paul’s attack. He and Beth turned to face me and I saw that the good doctor was milk-white and afraid.
“Get out, Anna.” Michael never moved and his voice was level. “You’ve no business here. Paul, begin over again.”
I ducked past the unprotesting Beth and grabbed the child, cradling her in my arms and drawing her within my own defences. By pure reflex she clung to me and I let her fear leak away into me, giving her calm in return. She was a dead weight, her limbs loose and floppy, and I balanced her on my hip. I felt warm tears trickle through my hair and onto my neck.
“Hurts,” said a little, snuffly voice, very quietly, close to my ear. “Want Mommy.”
“Sorry, sweetheart, you’ll have to make do with me. Don’t be scared. You’re safe now.”
“Alright.” The child’s thoughts were blurring as she relaxed, misting over, sinking towards sleep. “Go home...?”
Paul fired a medium-strength probe towards her, which I batted away without effort.
“Anna?” A frown creased his dark brows. “Our prime-agent?”
“You knew me once, before they mindwiped you and rendered you fit only to attack weak and helpless infants!” I said viciously. “What the hell are you doing here, Collins? I thought torturing children was beneath even the likes of you!”
“Don’t interfere.” He didn’t rise to my goading. “Must I remind you that you’re suspended from duty? Get out of here and leave us to our work.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” Now I’d declared myself Angel’s champion, I couldn’t abandon her. “And what were you doing to the child anyway, at three a.m., in secret? All very proper and above board, for sure!”
“Don’t look at me as if I were a monster!” Michael laughed nervously. “We need to know exactly what happened to Chandre, and that knowledge is locked up in the child’s head. I thought that a little gentle questioning with the help of a telepath might give us some clues.”
“Gentle questioning? Michael, the child was in agony! What do you think brought me here, if not her fear? You can’t ride roughshod over a young mind like hers without damaging it. I gave you the definitive version of events on Tambouret. Angel doesn’t know anything.”
“I told him that.” Beth added. “He wouldn’t listen!”
“Shut up!” Collins snapped. “I was aware of the risks, but it seemed worth it to shed some light on the cause of Chandre’s coma. I don’t understand your objection, Anna. This child means nothing to you.”
As he said it, Beth’s mindshield wavered, revealing the agitation beneath. I realised she must know of Angel’s true identity, perhaps even have been party to the creation of Erik’s so-called daughter. Almost as soon as it had lapsed she shored the blank wall up again, but I’d seen it wobble, and Paul had also glimpsed her guilt and fear. He swung back to look at me, his eyes narrowing as he compared my honey-coloured hair with the child’s, as he remembered that her eyes mirrored mine. Beth saw him complete the sum and black misery outlined her aura.
“What is it?” Even Michael, sans talent, in fact, sans much in the brain department, was aware of the soaring tension in the little room. “Beth, what’s wrong?”
She couldn’t answer him, her distress obvious. Collins scowled, transferring the question to Paul. “Well?”
“Don’t answer that!” I hit Paul square on his mindwall, rattling his battlements, hinting at power enough to overwhelm them and more. Perhaps I was a touch heavy-handed—I heard Althea, his Zenith, squeal her panic down their link.
“Do you obey her orders or mine?” Fury soured Michael’s voice.
Paul reeled, recovering from my blow. “Yours, doctor, but she’s threatening retribution if I speak and I don’t doubt she has the muscle to back up her threats!”
“Don’t push him, Michael.” I warned. “Don’t force me into injuring one of your pairs.”
Collins paused, then a gradual smile crept across his lips yet never warmed his eyes. “A skeleton in your closet, eh? Something so very awful that you’re prepared to fight to prevent me from discovering it? A little secret that you share with my colleague, Beth? How amusing! Paul, you may leave us. I’ve no further need for your services.”
Relief haloed the agent-pair at the timely dismissal. “Yes, sir! Thanks for pulling your punches, Anna. I owe you one.”
“Your debt to me is much greater than that,” I said sadly. “Be grateful you can’t remember—sometimes I wish I didn’t.”
I saw bewilderment on his face before he vanished, and then we were three in t
he room, along with Angel, who I classed as a non-combatant. Collins was the enemy and Beth I might count as an ally before the night was out.
“What’s your deadly secret?” Collins glanced at me, then pinned his hopes on Dr Ayres. “Do tell.”
She went whiter, if that was humanly possible, and shook her head.
“There’s nothing to tell.” I cut in quickly. “You’re imagining things again, Mikey-dear. Tonight’s your time to see non-existent demons!”
“Have it your own way, but I’ll dig until I find the reeking bones of it, believe me. Not now perhaps, but given enough time I’ll haul them out into the light of day.” He smiled, a cruel, goblin leer, mirthless. “Good night, ladies, and unpleasant dreams!”
I watched him leave, tracking the smug glow of his mind through the passageways, down and out of the building. Beth didn’t look up from the floor and it fell to me to break that silence. “Jansen told you.” I accused. “How else could you have known?”
“He said nothing to me.” Her tone was bitter. “You knew the man—he wouldn’t share something like that with his juniors. He gave me the material and instructions on how to process it and, like an idiot, I complied. I didn’t know for sure until a few minutes ago.”
“You speak as if Michael has this place wired for sound.”
“Hasn’t he?” She dropped her mindshield and shaped the conversation clumsily in her subvocal levels. All I did was preserve your tissue and freeze it down. Jansen had the clone made by an outside agency, without my knowledge. Alarm bells should have gone off in my head when I saw his newborn daughter, but it didn’t seem that sinister for her to be blonde and blue-eyed like her father. I’m so sorry that I let it slip—that was unforgivable! I swear to you that I’ll cover up all the traces, even if it means putting Paul under mindwipe and taking it myself. Michael must never know who the child really is.
You’d undergo mindwipe for me?
She grimaced as I implanted the words inside her skull. Not for you, but for the child’s sake, yes. I care about Angel, and Meeka is a dear friend of mine. The truth would destroy both of them, don’t you agree?
Certainly. I slipped back into speech as she was so uncomfortable with telepathy. “Beth, I know what’s wrong with our sleepers.”
She raised an eyebrow. “When did you pass out of med school? No matter—try your theory out on me.”
“The demon stole their souls. Until that essence is returned to their bodies, they can’t wake.”
“That’s madness!”
“To science, perhaps, but you can’t measure what happened on Tambouret against your sane and logical standards.”
“Demons? Souls?” She shook her head. “What do I use to explain it away? Theology or pure magic? I don’t deal in such uncertainties.”
“Then you shouldn’t saddle plain ordinary folk with artificial psi-power, and you shouldn’t seek out others with the real thing if you aren’t prepared to study metaphysics.” Angel was asleep in my arms and I stroked her hair before placing her carefully back down in the chair. “Take care of her, Beth. Keep Collins off her back until I return.”
“Where are you going? Back to Tambouret?”
“Whatever name you give it, the solution to our mystery is there.” I saw the determination to keep Angel safe in Beth’s aura and that was enough for me. “Tell Collins I’ve gone to bring back an answer.”
“I will, if he asks.” She smiled painfully. “But I think the fact that you’re gone, period, will be all he wants to know.”
***
I landed in the centre of the ring of stones, under a sky filled with the liquid grey light that heralds dawn. I stood there for a while, mesmerised by the unceasing dance of the lake’s surface, then I sent a mental whistle down the link. Zenni was back on-line in a millisecond and I shared my experiences with him; a child ill-used, a cat nearly sprung from its bag and a thorny revelation.
Lovely as it is, I’m not sure I want to visit that world again, was all he said. I’m in no hurry to go back to the Forest of Dreams and its sinister, fallen stone. What did SantDenis call it? Hell’s Maw?
I recalled its other names. I prefer Sorrow’s Rest or the Wish-stone.
Anna. Zenni triggered a proximity warning—one man, behind me, naked and unarmed. When I turned around, Jeb was standing out on the porch, wrapped only in our patchwork quilt. He watched me, his eyes as grey and empty as the arctic sky.
“You’re leaving today, for Tambouret.” Not a question—it was a statement. “I’d expected you to go sooner.”
“I don’t want to go back there!” I shivered at the thought. “Come with me?”
Jeb gathered up the hem of the quilt and joined me inside the henge, leaving a dark snail-trail in the dew-soaked grass. “I saw what you’re aiming to fight, briefly, but that was plenty.” His face was grim. “And I had to listen to Zenni’s babbling before I snapped him out of the cybernetic variant of shock. Collins might have thought he’d blown a fuse, but I put those fuses in there. Demons are way over your head, little girl!”
I tried for some humour. “You could give us some pointers, maybe teach me an exorcism or two?”
He didn’t even smile, settling himself down at the heart of the stone ring and offering me a share of the quilt. I sat in the circle of his arms, still feeling adrift and cold.
“Do you remember when we hadn’t known each other long, that time we played truth or dare?” Jeb asked.
“Of course.” A new path in the conversation—where would it lead? “Truth.”
“I don’t have any magic.” Jeb sighed. “All my stupid little spells, the fortune-telling, the thinly-veiled hints that I walk the shadowy paths of the occult—it’s all pretence, sheer vanity. I like to make people think I’m some kind of wizard, because it makes me feel good, superior to the common herd. Best of all was when you believed the lie. I could pretend I was special, not some dumb arsehole of a psi-zero, ordinary, mundane and of no account in the cosmic scale of things. There, I’ve burst the bubble. Do you hate me for lying to you, Anna? Give me the honest truth—I don’t care how deep it cuts.”
“I could no more hate you than I could hate Zenni, no matter what either of you did. And you’ll always be my own magician—damn it, I’ve seen some of your spells work!”
He leaned forward to plant a kiss on the pulse-point of my neck. “Dare—don’t go back to Tambouret.”
“I have to.” I felt a thrumming in the link. “We have to, Zenni to look his nightmare in the eye and me to redeem my failure. Dare—come along for the ride.”
“No way, not on a suicide mission!”
“Quit being so defeatist!” I scolded. “I can beat anything!”
“Don’t humour me, Anna. My maths isn’t so poor that I can’t predict the result of this equation—one brave, resourceful agent-pair versus the awesome power of that infernal creature. I admire you, girl. You’ve got the guts to go back, knowing it’ll probably destroy both of you. I’m only ashamed to say I don’t have the balls to go with you.”
“You’re better off out of it.” I smiled, but there was no joy in it. “What will you do while I’m gone?”
“I’m going down south for an interview.” His grin was as hollow as a skull. “A little company called Delany—do you know it? There’s a post going in R&D, and the whisper on the grapevine is that it involves the Zenith 7000 series. With my experience, I just might get the job.”
“I’m sure, Dr Lucas, that you’ll scalp me if I even so much as suggest slipping a word to a few friends down there that you’re just the man they’re looking for!”
“I don’t need favours like that, woman!” His eyes glittered. “It’s a matter of pride. A man needs to know he’s being picked for his brains, not because he sleeps with the boss!”
“I promise not to say a word, but if they don’t offer you the job, don’t blame me. Blame that half-grown straggly excuse for a beard!” A sudden breeze out of the south-west bristled the hair at th
e back of my neck and I shuddered.
“You’re cold,” Jeb said, swaddling me up in the quilt and lifting me like a baby. “I’m taking you back inside.”
Neither of us spoke of Delany Corp or Tambouret again that day.
Chapter Twelve: Venom in Aspic
It was Carnival in Krystallya, Mardi Gras in the hollow mountain.
The malls and plazas of the carved city were awash with revellers, Tambou and off-worlders alike, and constructs of myriad shape and form, a zoological masquerade. I saw stags with candles set among their great antlers, pacing with graceful dignity in a haze of hot wax, swift gazelles and springbok darting through the crowds with clusters of beribboned gifts tied between their horns, bright flashes of colour that were parrots and birds of paradise flying overhead with notes clasped in their beaks, and troops of marmosets and lemur-things handing out samples of sweetmeats or nips of punch or wine. Lions walked out with fatted calves, wolves with lambs and leopards with lop-eared kids, and little children led them. In the broadest ways of the city a white elephant danced, strands of tiny bells tinkling on its feet and a psychedelic swirl of paint on its forehead and trunk. I moved through this happy chaos, lost in the wonder of it.
Krystallya herself was adorned in as much splendour as her citizens, each span of her arched ceilings hung with lanterns, lovely, filigree things of every imaginable colour, and in between were mirrored baubles of silver and crystal that flung light in wild kaleidoscopes across her pearl-hued stone. Everywhere were clusters of musicians, playing flutes, pipes and a strange assortment of percussion instruments, acting as nuclei for dancers trying to distil some sense from the dozens of heady rhythms that drummed through the passageways. Anywhere there seemed to be a morsel of space stalls had been set up, draped with vivid silks and satins, selling food and drink of a thousand varieties, or strings of bells, masks and ornaments to add to the costumes of the celebrants. Everywhere was noise and heat, with the press of eager bodies mingling sweat and perfume, until the clear air of the city was musk-sour, thick with the scent of the masses. In spite of all the crowds and confusion, the mood was one of joyous celebration, the singing and dancing sweeping on without pause. Carnival spilled over a whole week, a party nonpareil. Dedicated to a whole morass of petty saints, angels and assorted imps, the event was justly famous across the galaxy. The number of tourists had swelled by a factor of ten since my last visit and I was glad of the enhanced alien presence. It was ideal camouflage.
The Beauty of Our Weapons Page 24
