“A dart. I think it was made of wood.”
That broke her concentration. “Sounds like an assassin’s weapon, which means it was poisoned. Which antidote did you take?”
“I didn’t.” I realised my mistake as soon as I’d spoken. “It wasn’t poisoned.”
Doubt creased her brow. “Perhaps not, since you are still alive. Look, I’m going to drain this abscess in your palm and, believe me, it will hurt. I can give you local anaesthesia or general. I know if it was me, I’d take the latter.”
“Local.” I was still lucid enough to want to stay conscious in the enemy camp.
You shouldn’t take that view of them. Zenni scolded. All of EI have the potential to be your friend, if only you’d let them.
Friends are more dangerous than foes. I’d drifted part-way back into the brightly-hued mists of delirium. They hold the two supreme weapons—trust, to misuse, and love, to betray. Enemies can only defeat or kill you, but friends can hurt you worse than death, as I’ve hurt Chandre.
He turned away, knowing better than to pity me. I felt his desire to weep. Poor Zenni, I’d gifted him with more of my humanity than he could bear.
The startling sound of torn cloth hooked me back to reality. Beth had ripped the seam of my sleeve, seeking a spot to deliver the charge in her impact-syringe. Something in her manner suggested duplicity and I caught her wrist with my good hand.
“Never forget who I am.” I found a tenuous strand of TK and used that to restrain her, releasing my physical grip. “Don’t imagine that you’ll get away with lying to me about the contents of that drug capsule. Even sick, even in this state, I could still kill you.”
“Oh, I believe that!” Where Collins would have laughed and mocked my weakness, Beth was sincere. Her serious facade slipped, revealing a small, insecure smile, and removing her forever from the enemy trenches. “I’m not used to being threatened by my patients, so I’ll tread carefully. This contains a pain-reliever, very potent and with some sedative action. It’ll relax you and you may sleep, but that’ll be your own doing and not mine”
“I’m sorry.” Unwelcome tears surfaced in my eyes. “I’ve been wrapped in so much illusion that my judgement is sour. Go ahead, Beth. I won’t question you again.”
I recall little of the treatment. Beth’s anodyne carried me deeper into the fever world and I lost all hold on the threads of reality. I wept copiously, complained incessantly about the discomfort and babbled incoherently on and on, about nothing in particular. Encapsulated in hallucination, I was hauled into dreams that might have been nightmares had the drug not slowed my movements to a languid crawl and buried my fear under its thick, drab pillows. I couldn’t place the point at which I passed into deep sleep, didn’t realise that I had until I woke.
***
That awakening was gradual and without urgency, a sliding state up into warmth and well-being, with a smile of reassuring welcome from the onlooker within my skull, although he didn’t speak. Peeping out through my lashes, I expected the clinical white of a hospital room, but the walls were a subtle green and there was a rich green glow of light, from the noon-day sun flooding through heavy curtains. I drew on the link for a cautious scan, then flinched at the double shock of finding someone at my side and recognising them
“Jeb!” I rolled over to face him. “What are you doing here?”
“Take it easy, Anna.” There was a gauntness to his features under the burgeoning beard that eased as he smiled. I guessed he hadn’t been sleeping well. “And stick to the script, will you? The first line’s either ‘where am I?’ or ‘what happened?’—take your pick.”
“I know all that stuff! Tell me how you come to be here.”
“R&D gave me the job. Hell, they practically crawled to make me accept it. It was so embarrassing!”
I picked up on his implied question. “No, I’m not to blame for that. Honestly, Jeb, I never so much as mentioned it. They took you on your own merits, not mine, or maybe it was your pedigree. How could they resist Aneeta Freeberg’s son?”
“I didn’t tell them that part—thought I’d save it as a surprise for later!” All of his humour was back. “I start work next week, but I’m here on what they call an orientation course—tours of the site, psych-games and pep-talks, that kind of thing. I guess it’s a gentle introduction to EI, the good-guy propaganda before they make me sign an oath to keep my mouth shut on what really goes on here.” If his words were cynical, his grin mocked them. “So today I turn up for a morning of personality and psi-tests, and that doctor-lady of yours wheels me in here. I nearly freaked when I saw you, Anna-love! I’d no idea you were back on Earth, let alone lying half-dead in the Eye’s secret hospital!”
“I’m sorry, I should have let you know.”
Let me take some blame for that, Zenni said. I should have called him.
Jeb grinned and took my hand, the contact giving me a clear window on his emotions, glorious relief and delight. “I’ll take that apology. Now, am I going to sit here for an hour while you give yourself a sore throat telling me the whole story, or are you going to infodump the lot straight into my head?”
“Are you sure you want to allow me access to that seat of genius and source of academic success? Didn’t they put a clause in your contract to the effect that no rogue telepath should mess with the goods?”
“To think I doubted if you were better!” He dropped his mindshield so abruptly that I was inside, almost without trying to be. My regret at not contacting him dissolved in his forgiveness; his fears for my health melted as he tasted my renewed well-being and bouyant vitality. In that microsecond we were happy again, as happy and carefree as ever we’d been before Tambouret had crashed into our lives. I started to run the images for him, of Carnival and meeting SantDenis, of the terrorists’ plans and the Vice-consul’s aid, of the trapdoor beside the Wish-stone and Draoi’s fortress, but at that point he shook his head and broke our rapport.
“Why don’t you want to know?” I asked, out of the bottomless abyss of my curiosity.
“There’s too much hurt tied up with those memories, Anna. They’re too fresh to tell and too full of horror. I’m not ready to hear them, just as you’re not ready to speak of them yet. This isn’t the place or time for such naked truth.” Jeb squeezed my hand. “They’ll wait. For now, all I need to know is that you’re safe.”
And he was right. I shivered—sometimes his wisdom scared me. “How long have I slept?”
“Dr Ayres said you’d been out of it for around twenty hours. How’s your wounded paw, little pussycat?”
I drew it out from under the covers. My entire hand was enveloped in plas-dressing, flexible and transparent, stiffened over my palm to curtail its movement. The fierce redness of the wound had gone and it was only pink, and the edges of the incision Beth had made were held together with a line of brown skin-glue. I wriggled my fingers, pleased to find that everything still performed to order and to feel only a mild throbbing in protest. “Beth’s worked a minor miracle on this. In a few days it’ll be as good as new.”
The door opened, mouse-quiet, but we both heard it. Dr Ayres peered around its margin, then entered.
“I wish I could give you more time together, but I’ve stretched it as far as I can,” she said quickly. “Dr Lucas is due at a lecture in ten minutes and will be missed if he doesn’t attend. If you could spare me a lunch-hour sometime this week, we can run through the tests you should have taken.”
“Lay on the sandwiches and I’ll be there.” Jeb shrugged. “But you might as well write me off as a psi-zero, right, Anna?”
“No way, musician, you’re far better than that. High empathy, above average scores at telepathy, and I’ll bet you’ve never even tried TK!”
“Perhaps you could teach me?”
“Anything’s possible.”
Beth glanced between us, trying to catch the absent joke. “Are you serious, Anna? TK is an innate ability—surely it can’t be learnt?”
; “It’s a whole lot easier than language. You can learn French, Russian or even Lysseyan—everyone has the capacity to learn one language, while others master a whole lot more the hard way, without cheating with imprints. Why not psi-tricks too?”
“Book me in for an hour’s tutorial at the weekend, teacher!” Jeb chuckled. “Now, I’d better catch my more mundane class. See you ’round, sweetheart!”
“I owe you one for that,” I said, after the door had shut. “Jeb was the best tonic you could have prescribed for me, but if Michael ever finds out, he’ll have your guts pinned to his office wall, alongside mine.”
“Michael has as many eyes and ears as our dear, departed Professor Jansen, but even he can’t know everything that goes on in this building. I have a few informants of my own and I happen to know that Dr Collins is in his office at present. He extends an invitation to you to join him for a late breakfast.”
“Did he force you to tell him I was here?”
“The news of your return was leaked by one of my staff.” Anger splashed her aura with scarlet. “No doubt he’ll bawl me out later for withholding that juicy fact, but for now, you’re his prey. I understand he has another guest—a certain Ms Marteen.”
“Chandre’s awake?” I sat up abruptly. “When?”
“This morning. The man, Lyall, recovered first, then Chandre, and Meeka was the last. They’re all fine—I checked them over myself.” Her eyes narrowed. “What did you do to them, Anna, before I found you in the unit? What miracle cure did you bring back from Tambouret?”
“Nothing that your science could measure.” I snatched a fresh jumpsuit out of the air, black and gold, to match my mood of caution and delight. It was followed by boots, then my toilet bag and mirror. I fluffed out my hair, put on a spritz of up-front spicy cologne in lieu of a shower and painted my pallid face into some semblance of glowing health. Beth waited patiently until I’d dismissed the kit and was ready to face my audience. Without speaking, she led me out of the recovery room and back to a corridor that I recognised. “Thanks, Beth. You’ve been kinder to me than I deserve.”
She paused and I saw the decision gel in her mind. “I think Michael intends to debrief you, Anna. He had the drugs sent up to him this morning.”
“Why would he want to do that?”
“None of the others remember much of what happened. You’re the only one who knows the whole story and Collins believes that you’ll conceal the truth.”
“He’s right.” I admitted. “How can I spin him a tale of illusion, shapeshifting demons and a descent into Hell? It sounds like the plot of a lousy B-holo! He wouldn’t buy it—I barely believe it myself!”
She smiled warily. “I wish I could be a fly on the wall to this conversation! I can’t wait for the official report. They’ll edit out the best bits, but I’m getting good at scanning around the lines.”
“Go see Lyall. If I know him, he’ll be listening in through Chandre. He might even have a spy-eye in there as well. Ask him to patch you into the circuit—tell him Anna says so.” I saw that she would follow my suggestion and smiled. “And thank you for the warning, which increases my debt to you. If you need the sort of favour that only an agent-pair are good for, give us a call.”
I left her standing at the edge of her territory and made my way up to Michael’s domain.
Chapter Seventeen: God Was Out to Lunch
Up on the tenth floor, in room 394, I was expected. A titian-haired lovely with a minscule skirt and a baby-pink pout conducted me into the office at high speed, as if I might explode if made to wait. The desk had been shifted, the brass lion relegated to a shelf, and an oval table had been set in the suntrap of the windows. Michael sat with his back to the light, with the glass selectively opaqued so that Chandre suffered no discomfort from the vivid sun, but so that it fell directly into my face.
Bastard! I observed. That’s such a cheap trick!
Always works though, doesn’t it? Here’s a solution for you, the appropriate counter-measure.
It was a pair of contacts from my collection, clear, with central shaded circles that coincided with my pupils. I ’ported the lenses directly into my eyes, blinking them into place before joining my host.
“Anna, my dear!” Chandre rose to hug me, her thoughts spilling over with more gratitude than she dared voice. She looked tired and her skin was sallow, but her eyes and grin were as bright as ever. “It’s marvellous to see you up and about! You look so well!”
“Dr Ayres led us to believe that you were seriously ill,” Michael said.
“I heal fast.” I sat at the extra place, poured myself some black coffee and washed the salty taste of the night from my mouth.
“Beth said that you’d been wounded with a poisoned arrow.” Chandre resumed her seat. “How did you cheat that one?”
“With an ancient family potion, a theriac made from honey and herbs.” She would have gone for the lie, so I signalled the joke with a grin. “No, not really. There was nothing on the dart, except for some vicious little cocci that thought they could eat me.”
“But our Anna’s as invulnerable as ever, even when pitted against the bacterial kingdom!” Michael grunted.
“So disappointed at my survival? Forgive me if I don’t apologise for it.” Even Michael’s black mood couldn’t dispel my joy at having Chandre restored to health. “You don’t know what a relief it is to see you awake, boss-lady!” And you don’t know how much it cost me to achieve that state of affairs, I added privately.
How much it cost both of us. Zenni corrected, out of habit. Why haven’t you told them about the Xha venom?
Because then I’d have to explain how I dealt with it, which they wouldn’t believe, and so then I’d have to prove it. One thing would yap at the heels of another, and it would probably end up with Michael suggesting that Beth injects me with something lethal, first a little, then in higher and higher doses, and then they’ll progress to more sophisticated toxins, until they find something I can’t overcome.
A cascade reaction?
And all in the interests of science. I wrinkled my nose. Better avoided, don’t you think?
“Please sit down and have some coffee.” Michael frowned at my lapse in etiquette. “Do feel free to help yourself!”
“You surprise me, Michael.” I took a croissant, spreading it slowly with jam. “I hadn’t imagined that this was a social visit.”
“It isn’t. You’re here to be debriefed.”
“We thought an informal chat would be more suitable, under the circumstances,” Chandre added rapidly. “Please tell us, in your own time, what happened after we faced that magician character on Tambouret.”
I chewed thoughtfully. “How much do you remember?”
“Nothing!” Her vehemence was a surprise, the flood of frustration in its wake like a physical blow. “I was in that clearing facing that red-haired madman, then Lyall snapped me into trance. When I woke, they told me I’d been in coma for over three weeks. Almost a whole month, Anna! Twenty-four days that I have no recollection of, a chunk of my life lost without any explanation! Beth said that there was nothing wrong with us, that she could find no reason for either our unconsciousness or our sudden recovery. If you can shed any light on it, please tell me. I need to know why!”
“What does Lyall recall? And Meeka?”
“She remembers as little as I do. Lyall, well, I think he knows more, but he refuses point-blank to tell me!” Her face folded into an uncharacteristic pout. “He says I wouldn’t want to know.”
“He’s right. Believe me, Chandre, you’re better off knowing nothing at all about the whole affair.”
“We do have some idea of what went on.” I had the impression that Collins was curbing his irritation and waiting for something, but he held a mindshield over his thoughts like a dark cloak. “Our information came from an unlikely source, a man called Sheridan from the Terran Consulate in the Tambou capital. His report speaks of a plan to destroy the planetary orbital stations
by the same anti-technology cult that kidnapped Chandre, a plan that failed due to a warning given by you. He also tells of the capture of one of the upper echelons of the group, again by you. What passes for Tambouret’s news-net is jabbering about treason, bomb attacks and a near-disaster averted by a local policeman, Saint Dennis, or something like that.”
“SantDenis. Trust Herculeon to grab the glory! Will they give him a medal, do you think?”
“He’s the hero of the hour. They declared an extra day of carnival in his honour.” He frowned at that, disapproving of such frivolity. “Sheridan also tells of the discovery of a body at the terrorist headquarters, subsequently identified as one Nansi Ruhanna. What have you to say to all that?”
“I killed Nansi, after she did this to me.” I waved my injured hand. “She was a member of the Sisterhood of Grace.”
Anger crackled in Chandre’s aura. The source of Lyall’s blood-thorn!
“A dark-sister?” Michael curled his lip in a sneer, to disguise the fact he was impressed. “You have proof of that?”
“Oh, my! I was so busy brawling with the woman that I clean forgot to get a signed confession out of her!” I was developing an allergy to this man, as if he got under my skin and brought me out in nettle-rash. “What did Mr Sheridan have to say about the leader of the cult?”
“Apparently the man known as Draoi isn’t yet in custody. He wasn’t found at the cult’s stronghold.”
“But he was there, seriously injured. He couldn’t have got far...” I trailed into silence, belatedly making the obvious connection, so bloody obvious that it should have slapped me in the face, yet I hadn’t given it a moment’s thought. I’d assumed that the demon had possessed the man and that the manticore had been a separate entity to his master, but what if Ahriman had actually been Draoi, and the archdemon as well? We’d never encountered any of them together, and we’d witnessed Druj shapeshift. Perhaps they were all fragments of the same personality, the being I had met in the glass fortress of Crystallia. Stupid of me not to see it sooner! We were conned, partner, by a master of trickery and illusion.
The Beauty of Our Weapons Page 32
