by M. K. Wren
But now he forced himself to look at Julia Fallor, and the sick disgust was renewed. He’d succeeded in shaking her smug hauteur; he’d succeeded all too well. She leaned across the table toward Alton, coming between Alexand and Adrien, listened avidly as Alton passed on a vulgar bit of gossip, then threw her head back with a high pitched laugh.
Alexand downed half the contents of his glass in one swallow, more concerned with the anesthetic qualities of the brandy than its taste. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Alton take a small, jeweled cylinder from the sleeve of his surcoat, but it didn’t make an impression on him at first. Not until he heard Elianne’s squeal of anticipation.
“Oh, Alton, you darling!”
Alton laughed, aquiline features drawn into a cold, masklike grimace of amusement, his pale eyes, despite the dilation of the pupils, alert and rapaciously alive. He opened the cylinder and spilled the contents in the center of the table with a mocking flourish, and it was only then that Alexand’s attention came into full focus on this byplay, and his hand moved unconsciously to turn off his earspeaker; he didn’t want distraction now. He stared at the triangular blue tablets scattered on the table.
Eladane. Instant euphoria. And for the careless, or those sensitive to its chemical properties, instant insanity, or even death.
He was well aware that Alton, Elianne, and Cadmon had already indulged in maricaine; he even suspected that Julia had, probably unknowingly. Adrien had taken nothing; her first drink, a mild liqueur, was still almost untouched. The use of maricaine was so common, it had only disturbed him because it enhanced the atmosphere of manic hilarity. But eladane was a far more serious matter, psychologically, physically, and, above all, legally. Conpol might wink at maricaine, but not at eladane.
Elianne swayed against Alexand as she reached for the pills, her green eyes avid and intent. But Alton, grinning sardonically, clamped his hand on her wrist.
“Ah-ha! Me fine Lady—just what the hell d’you think you’re doing?”
Again, the pealing, child’s laugh. “Oh cousin mine, you wouldn’t hold back on a sweet thing like me, would you?” Her tone was syrupy, and there was nothing cousinly about the sloe-eyed look she sent him.
Alton leaned across the table toward her with a grotesque leer. “What’s it worth to you, Elianne, little Cuz?”
“That all depends, darling, on what you had in mind.”
He raised her hand to his lips, eyes fixed on her face, and, still grinning, bared his teeth and bit at her finger, making a growling sound in his throat, and this gaucherie called up a chorus of laughter. Alexand stared at Julia, aware of the length of her fingernails resting on the table, the predacious curl of her hands.
Alton joined the raucous chorus, then, with great deliberation, dropped one of the tablets in Elianne’s glass.
“Far be it from me, Cuz, to deprive you of anything.” Then he swept up the tablets and, suddenly magnanimous, extended his palm first to one then another. “Takeoffs on me, friends! Time to liven up this soddy party. Jamie boy, don’t be shy! Here.” He dropped a tablet into Cadmon’s drink. “Enjoy yourself. Adrien?” His grin faded as he encountered her cool gaze. “Hey, love, you’re supposed to be having a good time. Come on, try one of these.” He leaned close to her, but she didn’t move, not even to withdraw from him. “You’ll love ’em, I guarantee you!”
“I’m forced by convention to accede to your whims, Alton, but not to this extreme.” Her tone sent a livid flush into his cheeks.
“I’ll try one, Alton.”
Alexand tensed. Julia. He made no overt move, but his voice sliced through the brittle laughter.
“Julia, that’s eladane. Leave it alone.”
She drew herself up haughtily. “I don’t recall asking your advice, Alexand.”
“You’re getting it anyway. Leave it alone.”
She hesitated, then stiffened at Alton’s jibing laugh.
“Julia, darling, you didn’t tell me you were Alex’s little automaton. Tell me, do you do everything he asks?”
The hectic, laughing chorus again, and Julia reddened.
“I do exactly as I please, Alton!” And she reached for one of the tablets.
“Julia!” Alexand lunged for her hand, but too late; she’d swallowed the pill. He watched helplessly as her eyes widened and she sank back into her chair, giggling softly.
He turned on Robek. “Alton, damn you, if—”
“ ’Zion, what’s the matter with you, Alexo? Let her enjoy herself.” Alton looked at Julia and laughed with sadistic relish. “It’s her choice.”
Alexand said coldly, “It is her choice, but the responsibility is entirely yours.”
“So it’s all mine. Why not?” He laughed again and extended the palmful of pills. “Hey, Alexo, how about you, m’lord? Huh? Little joy ride?” Again, the laugh, vicious and sibilant. “Come on, don’t be such a damned stiff! You can’t tell me you never take off now and then. Look—I’m offering free tickets to happy town!”
“And I’m offering a warning: Back off, Alton.”
Alton’s glittering eyes narrowed, lips drawing back.
“I’m all a-quiv. A thousand pardons. Wouldn’t want to corrupt our noble and fearless Leftant Woolf.”
Alexand felt the blood drain from his face. His first thought was to leave before his anger got out of control, and if he hesitated, it wasn’t because of Julia Fallor, lolling in her chair, tittering inanely at Alton.
Adrien. She was pale, eyes averted in helpless repugnance. He couldn’t leave her, desert her to Alton and his games.
Alton leaned back, his derisive laugh underscored with triumph; Alexand hadn’t answered the challenge implicit in that reference to Leftant Woolf.
“All right, Alexo, have it your way. You want to miss all the fun—hey, Elianne, flying high, Cuz?”
Elianne was on her feet, arms raised, hands pressed against the curve of the pod. She laughed, tossing her head back and forth in a steady rhythm.
“Oh, glory! Oh, Alton, darling—look at the music!” She did a quick pirouette, crashing into the wall, and, still laughing, fell against Alexand. He caught her before she collapsed onto the table.
“Elianne! For the God’s sake—”
Her arms twined around his neck, her mouth pressed to his, tongue moving against his closed lips. He pushed her away, fighting the impulse to bring the flat of his hand across that pretty, child’s face, but she only laughed as he shoved her unceremoniously into her chair and a moment later blithely turned her amorous attentions on Cadmon.
Alexand closed his eyes, feeling himself immersed in a new nightmare, bludgeoned with that incessant laughter. He looked across at Adrien, but she was intent on Julia, who was slumped with her elbows on the table, eyes half closed, her mouth a grinning red smear. Adrien was frowning as if she were puzzled. He reached for his glass and tipped it up, finishing it off in one swallow.
And through the distorting lens of the plasex, he saw Adrien’s eyes turn toward him, that puzzled look still there, then sudden realization and a warning that came too late.
A second later it hit.
He was spinning in emptiness, and yet he hadn’t moved. His muscles and flesh told him he was still sitting steadily in his chair, but his mind sent conflicting signals: the terrifying reality of falling.
Eladane.
He lurched forward, his hands coming down hard on the table, the glass leaping out of his grasp, skipping across the surface. His field of vision was filled with explosions of color, every sound doubled itself, fading out first, then rushing in on him, a hideous cascade of cackling. He fought for control, some isolated bastion of reason in his mind deploying for a desperate, last-ditch battle. The pod shifted, upside down, whirling; the babbling-screaming-cackling beat at him, pulsing in agonizing bursts of orange and red, e
choing with the moaning anguish from the fields of Alber.
And finally rage engulfed him, a white, molten rage burning through the smoke black fog of chaos. And with it came some measure of control. The dizziness was still there, his vision blurred, the sounds still distorted, but as he came to his feet, the babbling chorus was stopped at its source.
He steadied himself with one hand on the table, his eyes making a slow circuit of the suddenly fearful faces wavering grotesquely in the racked lens of his vision. Only Adrien’s face was clear.
Finally, he focused on Alton Robek, slack-jawed, stuttering, “Now—now, Alex—Holy God, loosen up! Just—just ride with it, or you’ll—”
Alexand moved suddenly, the timing and precision an agony of self-control. Left hand braced on the table, right hand lunging across to close on the crest medallion at Alton’s neck, a turn of the wrist, tightening the chain, jerking him forward. His spastic reaction sent glasses tumbling and called up shouts of alarm.
“A-Alex, look, it—it was only—Alex!”
His hand tightened on the chain, wrenching out that final cry. He stared down into Alton’s purpling face, and knew himself capable of tightening his hold until something broke, and knew it might be Alton’s neck.
“Alton, you foul-minded, arrogant fool! One last warning—from now on, stay out of my path!”
Abruptly, he released the chain, watching Alton fall backward in jerking slow motion. He felt himself swaying with the shifting of his own equilibrium and held on to his rage doggedly; it was the only way he could keep the drug at bay. He looked once at Adrien, but he was incapable of explaining or apologizing for leaving her. He only knew if he didn’t leave, he might lose control entirely.
“Julia!—” The rage burned hotter as he brought her startled, waxen face into focus. “I’m leaving. Are you coming with me?”
She hissed, “Leave me alone!” The words were slurred, as irrelevant as her attitude of pained indignation.
“Very well.” He looked around the pod, a savage irony in his tone. “My lords and my ladies, good night.”
“Alexand, wait! Don’t—”
Adrien came to her feet, but he had stepped out of the pod; she saw him fall slowly until he caught a guide-strand, then began working his way unsteadily toward the lift. She whirled around, black eyes flashing.
“Alton!”
He was fastidiously wiping some spilled liquor off his doublet; he looked up at her with a twisted half smile.
“Let him go, Adrien. He’ll get over it.”
“You’d better hope he gets over it! Holy God, you are a fool! Even if he isn’t sensitive to eladane, he’s in no condition to fly a ’car. How do you expect him—”
“That’s his problem.” Alton’s laugh was openly malicious. “Might be an interesting ride, though. Knowing ol’ Alexo, he won’t call for help.”
Adrien took a step toward him, her open palm meeting his cheek with a resounding crack. “You’re worse than a fool, Alton. You drugged him—you and this simpering bitch, Julia!”
“Why, you damned—” He surged to his feet, but stopped mid-sentence, silenced by the imperious, unflinching contempt in her eyes.
She said softly, “Alton, see Julia home. I’ll find my own way.”
She turned on her heel and stepped out of the pod.
5.
Phillip Woolf had left the sounds of revelry behind, left his wife to smile and beguile the remaining guests in the ballroom and wonder what he had heard on his ’com to precipitate his abrupt departure. Now he strode down the silent corridor toward Alexand’s suite; he didn’t recognize the chill within him as fear, or count the accelerated beat of his pulse. He passed through the anteroom, his hand struck at the doorcon, and when the door slid open, he was five paces into the bedroom before he came to a stop.
It was a soft sound that was both laughter and weeping; an irrational sound, gone in a moment.
Alexand.
He lay staring blindly upward from his bed, his body half covered, naked. A biomonitor was strapped to one wrist, and Dr. Stel was studying the readings. Rich was at the bed, too. He turned now, the chair humming toward Woolf.
“I thought you should know about this, Father.”
“Rich, what happened?”
“He was drugged. Eladane.”
“Eladane!” Woolf stumbled to the bed. “The God help us. Alexand?”
There was no response. His eyes were dilated, nearly black, staring up out of his pale, gaunt face, reflecting a bleak despair that was numbing.
“My lord, I don’t think he can hear you.” Dr. Stel was watching Woolf from across the bed, his manner sober, but reassuring, as it always was.
Woolf straightened. “How serious is it, Marton?”
“At this point, there’s nothing to worry about.” The doctor glanced down at Alexand. “I’ve given him an antidote and a sedative. He’s reacting very well. He isn’t sensitive to the drug, fortunately. That would’ve have been apparent by now.”
It was typical, Woolf thought, that his parental anxiety turned to anger once it was assuaged. He tried to keep it in rein, tried not to think about Alber, but he’d had Alber thrown in his face with varying degrees of subtlety all evening.
The anger sagged out of him; it was so meaningless with his son’s unguarded, haunted face before him.
Alexand, if I could only understand.
“How did this happen, Rich? Eladane, for the God’s sake.” He looked around at him. “Why?”
“Why what?” His steady, cognizant gaze made Woolf frown, and he didn’t attempt to reply. “Father, what are you thinking? That Alex took eladane voluntarily?”
“No. I . . . can’t believe that.”
Rich smiled. “I’m glad to hear that. Come—there’s someone waiting to talk to you. She has all the answers, and we shouldn’t detain her too long.” He turned the chair and moved toward the door into the salon off Alexand’s room.
Woolf felt confused and despised the feeling. She. Who was he talking about?
The salon was lighted with a single stabile shimmera on a small table near the windowall. Woolf was startled by the towering Bond standing beside the door; the man was vaguely familiar. But he was distracted from that enigma.
Adrien Camine Eliseer had been seated by the small table, and now she rose and stood waiting, caught in the shimmera’s light, ghostly and luminescent in a gown of white—no, a gown of pearls.
Woolf stopped, staring at her. At first, he thought it was only because her presence was so unexpected, but finally he realized it was because she called up a memory that was equally unexpected. He was remembering in the finest detail, as he hadn’t for years, the first time he saw Elise. She had been younger and in appearance very different from Adrien Eliseer, yet there was some elusive quality they held in common.
The hum of Rich’s chair roused him. Woolf followed him toward Adrien, smiling to put her at ease.
“My lady . . .”
She bowed her pearl-starred head, a restrained gesture that still conveyed the respect of a full curtsy.
“Good evening, my lord.” But the restraint faltered when she looked at Rich. “Rich, how . . . is he?”
“Still in limbo at the moment, but Dr. Stel has it under control. He’ll be all right, Adrien. Don’t worry.”
Her dark eyes closed, and her only response was a nod.
Rich turned to his father. “I know all this seems puzzling and even improper, but keep one thing in mind: after he was drugged, Alex—being unreasonably proud and in fact incapable of being reasonable—intended to make his way home unaided from the Outside in central Concordia. You can guess his chances of survival in his condition. Adrien probably saved his life tonight.” He paused, but Woolf stood in stunned silence. “Adrien will explain everything, Fath
er. If you’ll both excuse me, I’ll go back to Alex.”
Woolf listened to the hum of the chair, heard the door open and close, and the room seemed oppressively quiet. He absently waved Adrien to her chair while he drew up another, watching her, hardly aware that he was doing so.
“My lord, I hope I can explain everything to your satisfaction.”
He nodded distractedly. “I hope so, too.” Then he glanced back over his shoulder at the huge Bond.
“I can ask Lectris to leave, my lord, but he’s already deeply involved in this out of necessity. He was at the float, or rather, waiting patiently outside. At home, they call Lectris my shadow; I seldom go anywhere without him, and I’ve found it . . . convenient to continue the practice when I’m with Alton. Lectris was on the landing roof, and I knew I could trust him, and so can you, my lord. He flew Alexand’s car for us.”
“He has a ’car permit?” That was unusual for a Bond; as unusual as the gun he carried.
She smiled obliquely. “I don’t like being surrounded by strangers. I have only two personal servants, both of whom I’ve known since childhood, and both Bonds. I know them and trust them. But Lectris and Mariet have to do multiple duty. Lectris is both my bodyguard and chauffeur. At any rate, when we reached the private landing roof here, Lectris had to help Lord Alexand to his suite. I’d ’commed Rich, and he made sure there were no guards at the entrance or in the halls. No one saw us bring him in, but his condition was such that Lectris’s assistance—and strong back—were absolutely necessary.”
Woolf frowned slightly; he wasn’t pleased at putting so much potentially damaging information in the hands of a Bond.
“My lady, perhaps you’d better tell me what happened at the float.”
“Of course, my lord.”
She calmly unfolded the story, a succinct account uncolored by emotion. That she despised Alton Robek and his friends couldn’t be doubted, yet she allowed herself no overt expression of her feelings, and Woolf was as shaken by her self-possession as by what she told him. He was reminded of Alexand; she had the same capacity for detached containment. He recognized it as something Alexand had learned from him, an exigency of survival for a First Lord, but in this lovely young woman it seemed sadly incongruous.
