Guilt in Innocece

by Keith R. A. DeCandido

  But she had proven difficult. For starters, she actually enjoyed being an Ori-Inu. Most agents accepted their lot in life, but few showed Folami's enthusiasm.

  Plus Tobi couldn't actually read her.

  Bad enough he couldn't read Oranmiyan—but nobody could, ever since that incident when he was a trainee. Oranmiyan couldn't be read, couldn't be mindwiped. It made him a useful ally and a powerful foe.

  Not being able to read Folami, though, made it difficult to find the right way to bring her over. Worse, she was too talented to simply be subdued—as she had proven when she escaped from L'owuro.

  "Flight deck to War Chief Tobi."

  With a sigh, Tobi finished off his brandy, placed the glass down with a light clunk, and reactivated the intercom. "Tobi."

  "Sir, Doctor Ogumefu on Olokun is requesting to speak with you. He says it's urgent."

  Had it been Modupe with an urgent call, Tobi wouldn't have bothered, as L'owuro's medical officer had a very different definition of urgent than Tobi did. However, Ogumefu was not one for hyperbole. In fact, he mostly preferred to stay out of Tobi's way and simply do what he was told, which was why Tobi had recruited him for Ojiji in the first place.

  "Put him through."

  "Yes, sir."

  "War Chief, this is Doctor Ogumefu," came a voice in clipped tones. "I just arrived at the medical quarters, and there's a bit of a problem. Orisha Hembadoon is still present, but there's the corpse of a Nide on the ground—I believe it's the new recruit, Abeje. According to the security feed, Oranmiyan went mad and killed her."

  Tobi put his head in his hands. "Thank you, Doctor. Have a detail of cavalry dispose of the body and you proceed with the Orisha."

  "Very well."

  "Good. Also, I think it's time we boxed up. Olokun's no longer tenable. Let's have Apara pack away the Nide and prepare for a move to the second site."

  "Very well, but that limits how much of an examination I can do of Orisha Hembadoon."

  "Get started at least. It'll be a few hours before we'll be ready. Keep me apprised of your progress. Out."

  Tobi then alerted the flight deck to put out a security alert for Oranmiyan and have him report to him on L'owuro.

  He sighed. The war chief had known the risks with Shango-oti, but he had been informed by scientists who claimed to know what they were talking about that it would only adversely affect one in five telepaths.

  However, it seemed that that those scientists were talking out of their hindquarters. Oranmiyan succumbing to the madness was particularly disturbing, as he was one of the first exposed, and his stability had been a major contributing factor to Tobi's decision to go ahead and make the Shango-oti widespread among the Ori-Inu he'd recruited.

  Not that Oranmiyan had been much of an asset of late in any event. Tobi had had to go around Oranmiyan to make sure that the Nide on Oshun eliminated anyone who had been exposed to Shango-oti in the refinery explosion.

  Damned Oyo spies, ruining my plans. And now I have to lose the station. He had a backup in place, of course, but the second site wasn't mobile the way Olokun was. It meant that Ojiji's options would be more limited.

  With luck, though, Ogumefu would be able to figure out what it was about Hembadoon that was different. Unlike the other people who'd been exposed to Shango-oti, Hembadoon's telepathy only went up a single level, despite full exposure to the gas.

  Of course, it could just have been an anomaly about the Orisha. But it was worth having Ogumefu run a few tests before they killed him.

  Or maybe recruited him. For all his bluster, Tobi knew that Hembadoon would be willing to betray Isembi if the circumstances were appropriate. There was no better finder or trainer of telepaths alive, and when Tobi ruled, he would need someone with those talents.

  "Flight deck to War Chief Tobi."

  "Now, what?" he muttered, getting up to pour some more brandy. "Tobi."

  "Sir, we've found Ebun!"

  Tobi dropped the bottle of brandy, ignoring the expensive liquid that splashed all over the floor as the thick glass shattered against the metal deck. "I'm on my way. Disengage from Olokun immediately and pursue."

  The war chief set a land-speed record getting to the flight deck. As soon as he entered, Cavalry Master Ama said, "War Chief on deck!"

  "Status report," Tobi barked as he took his seat.

  Ama said, "We've detected Ebun on an intercept course with Olokun. ETA in twenty minutes."

  "Not hardly." Tobi looked at the main viewer, which was at its default of a forward view, which showed that L'owuro was still attached to Olokun. "Cavalry Chief Adejola, why aren't we moving?"

  Adejola didn't miss a beat. "Docking clamps disengaging in five, War Chief. Three, two, one."

  L'owuro started to drift away from the asteroid when Adejola finished his countdown.

  "Set an intercept course for Ebun and engage at maximum."

  "Course laid in, sir," Adejola said.

  "Full scan," Tobi said to Ama.

  "Regret to inform the war chief that Ebun has been modified with a scan-resistant hull. We cannot get solid readings of the ship's interior."

  Tobi pounded the arm of his command chair. He should have expected such a modification, and he made a mental note to punch Hembadoon in the nose at the earliest opportunity.

  "Engaging course," Adejola said. "ETA in three minutes."

  Tobi frowned. If L'owuro moving at maximum cut the ETA that much, Ebun couldn't have been moving very quickly.

  As if reading his mind, Ama said, "Picking up one odd reading, sir."

  She hesitated, prompting Tobi to turn and glower at her. "Well?"

  "Uhm, well, the ships the Orisha use have dual Sogba engines."

  "Cavalry Master, my interest in the minutiae of engineering is all but nonexistent."

  "My point, sir," Ama said quickly, "is that, as far as I can tell, only one of the engines is working. The ship may be damaged, sir."

  "Full tac alert," Tobi said. "She may be damaged, or the Ori-Inu may want us to think she's damaged so we'll get cocky." He turned back around to face the forward viewer. "Pretending you're more hurt than you are to lure your foe into a false sense of security may be the oldest trick in the book, but that's because it still works. Proceed with caution, Cavalry Chief."

  "Yes, sir."

  It wasn't until they were within docking range that the cavalryman at communications said, "Sir, we're receiving a disaster beacon from Ebun—Code 47."

  Ama said, "What? But nothing's changed. Why wait until now to—"

  And then Tobi realized what Folami had done.

  Leaping to his feet, Tobi cried, "Reverse course, Adejola, now! Before—"

  The lights on the flight deck all suddenly went red, and a three-beat klaxon started going off.

  "Mogbe," Tobi muttered.

  "I've lost helm control!" Adejola said.

  "My board's down," Ama added.

  The comm officer said, "I can't get a response from my console, either—but we are getting an incoming call from Ebun."

  A recorded voice sounded over the speakers. "Attention—your vessel has been commandeered by an Orisha for a Code 47 emergency. Please do not be alarmed. The Orisha will communicate with you shortly."

  Tobi shook his head. "Gotta give the little buruku credit—she really is that good. Ebun will hold us until there's instructions from Hembadoon—who won't be giving any from the medical quarters on Olokun."

  "Sir, we have to prepare for boarding. She probably did this to cripple us so she could take over the ship."

  "Hm?" Tobi turned to look at Ama. "All right, go ahead and do so on the off-chance that I'm wrong, but the Ori-Inu isn't on that ship and won't be on this one."

  "Sir?" Ama sounded confused.

  The war chief sat back down in his chair, wishing he'd brought his brandy bottle to the flight deck with him. "She wants to stop Ojiji, Cavalry Master. This was just a diversion to get L'owuro away from the asteroid. Olokun's her target."

>   Then he got back up. There was nothing he could do here in any case. "Cavalry Master, I want this ship back under our control as soon as humanly possible, if not sooner. The faster it's done, the less likely you'll be busted down to cavalrywoman, am I clear?"

  "Yes, sir," Ama said.

  "Good. I'll be in my cabin."

  FOURTEEN

  Olokun Station

  Oranmiyan knew that the whole thing was just totally completely thoroughly utterly messed up.

  He had to do something about that.

  Yes, yes, yes he did.

  He had to stop everything from going totally completely thoroughly utterly wrong.

  Abeje would be able to help. That was why he wanted Abeje along, because he knew that she would be running the program, right by his side with them together just like it was back during training, when it was her and him and Folami and they were Hembadoon's best trainees and they were going to be the best of the best of the best of the best.

  (Abeje's dead.)

  No, Abeje wasn't dead. Abeje was helping him.

  (She's dead.)

  It wasn't supposed to be this way.

  When he was growing up in the slums of Benin, he had thought he knew how life was going to go. Grandma tried to raise him her way, but he didn't have any truck with her voodoo nonsense. It got her through the day, and that was just fine, but Oranmiyan didn't have anything to do with that foolishness.

  Grandma was respected, so people left her alone. In his neighborhood, that was huge. It was everyone for themselves there, and if you didn't protect yourself, you were doomed.

  The way Grandma protected herself was to serve the community. People didn't have much to believe in, so she gave them something.

  It was all messed up, but Oranmiyan didn't care. It kept Grandma alive.

  (Grandma's dead, too.)

  Oranmiyan's way of getting through the day was to be bigger and smarter than everyone. Either one by itself would've been fine, but he was both. Nobody pissed him off, and nobody did anything to him.

  It was when Hembadoon showed up that he realized he was a telepath. He told him what he was and what he could do. He was to become an Ori-Inu, fight the good fight. He believed in the program, believed in using his abilities to make the system a better place for everyone.

  The training with Hembadoon with Folami and Abeje—those were the best times. Sure, there were problems here and there, but they were the best of the best of the best of the best of the best of the best.

  He lead them. He and Abeje and Folami.

  (Abeje is dead.)

  Everything was great.

  At least until that crazy Eso super-soldier.

  (Yeah, and he's dead, too.)

  (Everyone's dead.)

  (Except Folami.)

  The Eso super-soldier didn't just make him unreadable.

  The Eso super-soldier didn't just make him immune to mindwiping (which he didn't tell anybody).

  The Eso super-soldier opened his eyes.

  The Eso super-soldier made him free.

  Not that he was thankful or anything. The Eso and the Oyo rebels they slaved for were a blot on the universe, the final convulsions of an empire that was already dead, and Oranmiyan had taken pleasure every single time he killed one of them.

  But they made him free.

  Free to see the Hegemony for what it was.

  Free to see what they were doing to telepaths like him and Folami and Abeje and all the rest of them.

  (Abeje's dead.)

  (You killed her.)

  (You broke her neck.)

  He couldn't convince them that they were wrong, though, because their program was written, and he couldn't override.

  So he faked his own death. He left his comrades, his friends, behind. But he swore that one day he would rescue them.

  (You're not dead.)

  And then he met Tobi.

  (He lied to you.)

  That buruku Tobi.

  That murderous buruku Tobi.

  That murderous lying buruku Tobi.

  (He's still alive.)

  No! No, Tobi introduced him to Shango-oti. Showed him how psis could be more than just the limited Ori-Inu that the Hegemony turned out.

  Oranmiyan was more powerful now.

  He could take on anybody.

  Kill anybody.

  (Like Abeje.)

  No! Abeje wasn't dead!

  (Yes, she is. You killed her.)

  "Noooooooooooo!"

  "I said stand down, Oranmiyan! Orders from the war chief!"

  Oranmiyan looked around. He had no idea where the three armored personnel had come from.

  (They're from Rufiji Company.)

  All three of them were pointing their weapons at Oranmiyan.

  If he hadn't been so distracted by his worries that everything was going to hell, he would've noticed.

  But now he was surrounded.

  One-point-five seconds later, he was no longer surrounded.

  The cavalry chief died imagining the look of surprise on his wife's face when he pointed his Bayo pistol at her and her lover. The cavalrywoman died wishing her father would leave her alone. The cavalryman died wondering what would be for dinner tonight.

  They all lay on the floor of Olokun Station, blood oozing out of their eyes, ears, and noses.

  Oranmiyan didn't give the three people he'd killed a second thought. He had to find Abeje.

  (Abeje is dead.)

  No! He just had to find her.

  (You killed her.)

  He ran toward the lab.

  Folami hadn't been prepared for so much emptiness.

  Her plan had been a simple one: bring Ebun to a spot that was far enough away from Olokun Station that L'owuro would need to disengage from the station to investigate. She'd use the Ori-Inu priority—that blessed authority that Oba Isembi had said was in full effect for this mission—to trap the cavalry vessel for as long as it would take L'owuro's techs to work around it.

  But by the time L'owuro arrived, Folami would be long gone. Because neither L'owuro nor War Chief Tobi was her target.

  The heart of Ojiji was Olokun Station, and Folami was determined to destroy it.

  She put on the EVA suit, made sure the air supply was filled and functioning, likewise the thrusters, and armed herself with the two grenades and three guns. Then she used Ebun's computer to calculate the trajectory required for her plan.

  Once the ship was in place, and the program to neutralize L'owuro put on standby pending the ship's arrival, Folami stood in the exact spot in the depressurized airlock that the computer dictated, and kicked off from Ebun. Once she was clear of the ship, she activated the thrusters, which shot her off directly at one of Olokun Station's two emergency airlocks, at a speed that would get her there in two hours.

  Thus far, the plan had worked. She was able to hear the thoughts of Tobi and his crew as they traveled from the modified asteroid to Ebun's location. She herself was too small to register on their scanners unless they were specifically looking for her.

  She also felt the frustration of the crew as the Ori-Inu priority program she'd initiated crippled L'owuro pending instructions from an Orisha—instructions that would, of course, never come.

  But from Tobi, she only felt his usual bland affect. Only now did she know that his preternatural calm was a façade, one that she was unable to penetrate. She wondered how powerful he really was.

  As she flew unfettered through the vacuum of space, she found herself overwhelmed by how empty everything was. There was literally nothing around her. All her other trips through space were done in ships, mostly surrounded by other people, and her previous EVA experiences were all proximate to ships, planets, and/or stations. There was always something nearby, some point of reference.

  But soon enough, both Ebun and L'owuro were too far away to be anything other than a small point in the distance, indistinguishable from hundreds of other small points. Olokun was the same. And she was too distant t
o sense the thoughts of anyone on L'owuro or in Olokun.

  She was alone.

  With a start, Folami realized that she'd never truly been alone like this in her life.

  There were no other thoughts nearby.

  A huge smile broke out on her face.

  Absolute quiet. So this is what it's like!

  The smile expanded into a laugh. She laughed so hard that she feared she would send her suit off course—a potentially fatal occurrence, as a course alteration of just half a degree would send her careening into space where she'd get to enjoy the quiet for a great deal longer.

  Folami was happy. She hadn't been this filled with joy since the night of her tenth birthday party. That was her last happy day before her parents sent her to Olorun.

  Then she started to sense the thoughts of the people in Olokun Station, and she screamed out loud, "No!" Her hands reached out to grab something that would make her stop her forward motion, but the same emptiness that had embraced her was now denying her, keeping her from her bliss.

  The thoughts became clearer as she got closer—nothing too distinguishable, nobody she recognized, but the definite feel of people.

  Ever so slowly, the point in front of her enlarged until it was obviously an asteroid. And ever so slowly, her joy dissipated.

  And ever so slowly, her desire to destroy Ojiji intensified. That was twice now that they had restored her misery after she had set it aside.

  Once she got within a kilometer or so of the asteroid, she flipped herself over so that her feet faced the station, and fired the boot thrusters again, this time to slow herself down.

  When her velocity was down to almost nothing, she let herself drift gently onto the rocky surface of the asteroid. The station had rotated more than she'd realized, and was several meters from the emergency airlock that she had been aiming for.

  That was only a minor inconvenience, though. The fingers and palms of the gloves and the balls, heels, and fronts of the boots of the EVA suits could adhere to most surfaces. She was easily able to clamber across the rock until she reached the solid metal door of the emergency airlock, which had a keypad next to it, both embedded in the rock.