Alarmed, Bellona followed her.
As they moved out into the cavernous landing deck, the lights came up to daylight normal. Thecla walked a sweeping curve around the pile of cast-offs and the smaller sorted mounds dotted around its perimeter. She wove through the dark fighters and their stubby wings.
As they walked, the murmur of running water grew louder. There were also human voices, talking quietly.
Bellona’s heart sped up. What had Thecla done?
Thecla stepped around the noses of a group of fighters that had been pushed together, as if they had been shoved out of the way, then stopped. Bellona halted next to her and looked in the direction Thecla waved her hand.
Bellona gasped, for taking up a large portion of the back corner of the flight deck was the lagoon from Ledan.
The wall was there. The moss and creeper-covered rocks. The tumble of the stream down into the deep blue lagoon was almost the same, as well. The lagoon itself was very nearly an exact replica. There was a crescent of sandy beach and thick vegetation on the far side of the water. Water lapped at the sand, little wavelets created by the rush and tumble of water from the stream.
The Ledanians were all there, along with Sang.
Thecla put her hands in her pockets. “I’ve been making things,” she said, sounding self-conscious.
Hayes waved. “Come and look, boss! Even my garden is here.” He’d taken off his boots and stood with his toes curled into the sand. He wore a huge grin. Bellona couldn’t remember seeing that delighted, childish expression on his face since Xenia had helped him plant fresia seedlings one morning.
Bellona moved closer.
The “ground” sloped up toward the water, giving her a clue as to how Thecla had managed the illusion of a fifteen-meter-deep pool of water. “How deep is the water, really?” she asked, stepping onto the sand.
“Ankle deep,” Thecla said. “If ever we have to move Demos, the water can be sucked into a tank so it doesn’t fly lose around the deck. The rest is color and light and illusion.”
“It’s wonderful,” Bellona said truthfully. “Hayes loves it,” she added, as she watched the giant crouch down on the other side of the rocks to touch a row of green sprouts there.
“We all do,” Fontana said, coming up to her. He held out a glass with ruby liquid in it. “Eriuman wine—the nearest a Karassian assembler can manage, anyway.”
She smiled at him and took the glass. “Is that a real garden?” she asked, as Hayes gently removed leaf litter from around the seedlings.
“Probably the one useful aspect of the whole project,” Thecla said. “Hayes can grow real food there.”
Bellona looked at the peaceful lagoon once more. “I don’t think it’s the only useful aspect.”
Vang came up alongside her, studying the water as well. “Maybe the Karassians planted a need to return here in all of us,” he said. “I can feel all the heat in me evaporating, just standing here.”
“A homing instinct?” Bellona asked, startled. “Pulling us back?”
He shook his head. “If it was a true compulsion to return, we would have all had far more problems than we do. I think they encouraged inertia and unquestioning peacefulness in all of us. Maybe keyed to the lagoon. That would keep us all complacent, when we were there.” He grinned and looked up at her. “I can’t see even a platoon of guards holding us back if we’d got it into our minds we wanted to leave.”
Bellona smiled. “Me, either,” she admitted. “They made us want to stay right there, ignorant and happy.”
“Now we’re wiser, yet still happy to see the place,” Vang finished. “I resent that I’m responding like a dog to a bell, but damn it, I like looking at the water.”
Hero pushed through the sand, her feet bare. She was carrying a tray with snacks on it, her gaze steady upon Bellona. Perhaps she was daring Bellona to react.
Bellona caught her breath, her fingers tightening around the wine glass.
Vang was watching her, his expression dispassionate. “You’d shoot the messenger?” he asked softly. “She only said what all of us already knew. What Khalil knew, too.”
Bellona tried to relax, to ease the tightness in her chest.
“She spoke the truth,” Vang added. “If you would prefer everyone lie to you from now on, punish her for it.”
Hero stopped in front of Bellona and held up the tray. “No poison,” she said softly. She didn’t have to speak loudly, for everyone had fallen silent and was openly watching them.
Bellona made no move to take something from the tray. “Vang defends you,” she told Hero. “He says that you spoke the truth. I agree with him on that point.”
Hero didn’t move. She didn’t blink, or even quiver. She might have been made of stone, except that Bellona could see the pulse in her neck beating furiously.
“What I am angry about is the cruel way you delivered that truth,” Bellona added. “You cannot move through life without regard for others’ feelings. You do not have Vang’s excuse, yet even he shows more consideration than you. I will not allow any general of mine to trample roughshod over others.”
Hero remained quite still. A large tear collected in the corner of her eye and rolled down her cheek. She made no move to wipe it.
Bellona lifted her voice, so that everyone, even Hayes sitting in his garden, could hear her. “All of you lived as Ledanians. All of you emerged to learn you had been treated with a callousness and lack of regard that is inhuman. Would you deliver that same cruelty upon others? If you think you should, if you can stomach the idea of hurting others in that way, then you should leave this ship now. I will not stop you.”
She paused, her heart thudding, waiting for any of them to move, to turn and walk away.
No one seemed to breathe. The stillness on the deck was broken only by the tinkle and rush of the stream down the rocks.
“If you stay,” Bellona said, “then you are signaling that you agree with me that the harm and the injustice must stop here, with us. We don’t let it spread. We make a choice to starve it and root it out wherever we find it, because what happened to us cannot happen to anyone else. We teach others by our example how they can halt the infection, too.”
She looked at them one by one, meeting their gazes. Even Hayes had crept onto the little beach and when she met his gaze, he nodded.
“Say aye and tell me you agree,” Bellona told them.
“Aye!” they shouted back. Hero, too.
Bellona reached out and picked up a miniature potpie from Hero’s tray and bit into it, meeting her eye.
Hero drew in a deep breath and let it out.
* * * * *
The party was still going when the airlock lights and alarms sounded, the force fields dropped over the entrance and the big doors opened.
“It’s me, Connie! Turn off the proximity guns!” Connie shouted in Bellona’s ear as the slice of star field beyond the opening doors grew larger.
Thecla and Fontana felt their own ears, too, wincing.
Sang turned to look at the door. “I’ve disabled them, Connie,” he said, speaking so everyone could hear. “You’re safe to come aboard now. Is Khalil with you?”
“He’s in the hold with the man,” Connie said, her voice rich with disapproval.
Thecla met Bellona’s glance. The blonde woman raised her brow and turned to Hayes. “When Connie lands, go straight up the cargo ramp. It’s possible Khalil will need a helping hand.”
Hayes looked at Bellona. She nodded and Hayes padded barefoot across the sand and stepped onto the decking.
Connie’s streamlined curves came into view, the pale metal hull pulsing different colors from the proximity lights flashing on the outside of the docking doors. She eased through the doors with little room to spare, for the height from floor to roof in the docking bay was designed for personal fighters not much taller than men, while Connie was a luxury yacht with several decks and a bridge level. She fit, but only just and there was little maneuvering ro
om for her once she was inside the docking bay.
She floated over to her usual place at the far edge of the bay, where they had cleared out fighters by pure muscle, dragging them, hauling them and shoving them out of the way. With minimal bursts of her positioning thrusters, she dropped onto the deck.
Hayes got his foot onto the lower edge of the descending cargo ramp as soon as it was low enough, hauled himself up, climbed the ramp and disappeared inside, as everyone else gathered around Connie.
Behind her, the docking bay doors closed again.
For a moment, nothing stirred, not even the group of them at the foot of the ramp.
Muffled yelling sounded, growing swiftly louder. Hayes’ head appeared first, at the top of the ramp. He seemed to be straining to carry something.
Then Khalil appeared. As they moved closer to the top edge of the ramp, the struggling burden they carried between them came into view.
The man was small, blond and covered in blood splatters. His hands and feet were bound with unbreakable cord. There was something stuffed in his mouth, fluttering around the edges. Bellona recognized the cloth as one of Khalil’s shirts. The man—Ferid, she presumed—was screaming or yelling without cease, despite the gag.
His writhing was making Hayes and Khalil stagger. Their grips on the man’s arms slipped and he went down heavily, making the ramp shudder. Khalil swore and shook out his hand, which was covered in blood, too. He used his foot to push at the man, rolling him down the ramp.
He rolled faster and faster. Everyone backed out of the way as he reached the bottom, where he came to a halt. A groan issued from him. He was face down and couldn’t turn himself over for his hands were bound behind his back. At the back of his neck, above the collarless neckline of his jacket, the lip of a plug socket showed, drilling down into his neck.
Khalil waved his hand. “I give you Ferid, of the Karassian Homogeny. Biocomp assassin and intelligence gatherer.”
“This is really him?” Bellona asked. “The one who located Benjamin Arany for the Republic to kill?”
Khalil moved down the ramp. He looked tired and dirty. “If I took that rag out of his mouth, he would tell you himself. I’ve listened to eighteen hours of his bragging. He’s proud of what he has done.” His mouth curled down. “Don’t take his bindings off unless there are more than two of you in attendance. I think he has been Ledanian trained. Not all the blood is his.”
“You need medical assistance?” Vang asked.
“I’m patched up well enough,” Khalil said.
Bellona looked down at the little man. He was squirming again. Shouting against the rag in his mouth. “Take him to one of the empty rooms. Make sure it is stripped of everything. Strip him, too. Assume he is sneakier than any of you and prepared for occasions like this. Hero, you know ways the human body can be booby-trapped. Turn him inside out if you need to. Find any surprises he might have on him.”
Hero nodded. She wasn’t smiling and she wasn’t bouncing as she normally did.
Hayes and Thecla picked the man up by his elbows, not bothering to turn him over first. He kicked and bucked. Vang grabbed one of his ankles and held it against his side. “Retha, the other one,” he said.
Retha stepped over and grasped the other foot and anchored it.
Still the man writhed. They hung on to him with effort.
“Two of you in the room with him at all times,” Bellona told them. “I want to talk to him. I’ll come in a minute.”
Everyone hurried away with the struggling biocomp, leaving Sang and Bellona at the foot of the ramp and Khalil standing half-way down it.
Sang looked up at him. “Is there anything I must know before I go to help the others?”
“Don’t leave, Sang,” Khalil said, walking slowly down the ramp. He stopped in front of Bellona. She kept her hands at her sides with effort.
Khalil frowned heavily. “I told you he would not shut up. He boasted about every assassination, every high-risk assignment he had ever completed.”
Sang edged closer to both of them. “What else did he say?”
Khalil was looking at her, though. Watching her. She could feel the wariness in him.
Bellona moaned, as she saw where Khalil was leading her. “Max,” she whispered. “He killed Max.”
Khalil grasped her arm. “I’m sorry, yes. He contrived to send Max a message that sounded like you. He’s a biocomp. Faking credentials would be easy for him. Max thought you had run away from Cardenas again, that you were stuck on Antini and needed his help.”
Bellona nodded, her eyes stinging. “The one thing that would bring him running with no questions, and with no military at his back.”
Sang stepped closer. “Was Ferid speaking the truth? Can anything he said be verified?”
Khalil’s gaze didn’t move away from her face. “He knew what had been done to Max. Down to the arrangement of the limbs.”
Bellona’s gut cramped.
Khalil shook her arm. “Don’t kill him until you have sucked every last byte of data from him. The information in his head—names, dates, military leaders, spies and more—it could give you untold advantages.”
“He’s a biocomp,” Sang said. “We could tap directly into his brain and servers and just take it, without having to listen to him.”
“Don’t do it with a computer you can’t spare. Isolate that computer from any others,” Khalil told him. “I suspect his mind is as lethal as Hero’s body is to her enemies.”
Bellona nodded. “We will be careful. Thank you.”
“You’ll stay to help, won’t you?” Sang asked him. “Manipulating computer minds…that’s your expertise.”
Bellona sighed. She knew what Khalil’s answer would be before he shook his head.
“You’ll have to make do, Sang, in your usual competent fashion,” Khalil told him.
Sang frowned.
Khalil picked up Bellona’s hand and she held her jaw together tightly against the sensations created by his familiar touch.
“I’m of no use to you here,” he said, his voice low.
Sang sighed and turned away.
“No, Sang, stay and hear me out,” Khalil said quickly.
“I should not be here,” Sang replied.
“You must stay,” Khalil replied. “Bellona will need you now, more than ever.” His eyes met hers once more. “I have no place here. Out there, I can help you.”
“What will you do?” Bellona asked.
“Arany’s people, the free states…they know me. They know my family. I can talk to them. Pave the way for you.”
Bellona nodded. She didn’t trust herself to speak.
“Stay in contact,” Sang said urgently. “Let us know where you are.”
“If I can,” Khalil said heavily.
“I will,” Connie whispered in Bellona’s ear. For once, her voice was subdued, her volume bearable.
Khalil looked as though he had more to say. He hesitated. Then, with a squeeze of his fingers, he let her hand go, turned and walked back up the ramp and disappeared.
Sang tugged Bellona away from the ship, back to the lagoon. They watched Connie rise and drift back out through the opening doors and curve out of sight.
Chapter Thirteen
Demosthenes, Alkeides System
The first working prototype bridge forge was finished four days after they executed Ferid.
It took eight days with little sleep to draw as much out of the biocomp as possible. While two or three Ledanians guarded him at all times, Bellona stayed in the room with him. She didn’t know if he thought that talking would win him leniency. She did not hint that it might and neither did anyone else.
Perhaps that was why Ferid talked. He had nothing to lose and he knew that everything he said and did was being recorded. He was a Karassian. The search for celebrity was built into their bones. Maybe he thought that he might live on in this way.
While Sang worked to completely isolate an expendable AI and Vang developed
a jack to connect Ferid to it, Bellona listened and Ferid rambled. She didn’t try to pick out the truth, or facts that might be useful. Everything he said would be closely analyzed later.
Her presence encouraged him to talk. Her reactions goaded him. Her questions guided. She listened, with her gut churning and her heart running too fast, as Ferid poured out the sum of his life. The murders. The torture. The lessons he had learned from watching people die by his hand. His delight in unexpected human acts. After a while, Bellona forgot that Ferid had been born, not made. His constant search for evidence of human spirit that was missing in him made him less a man than Sang.
She took a lot of showers in those eight days, using real water.
On the seventh day, Sang pulled her from the secure room to tell her the AI was ready. “It’s as isolated and secure as I can make it,” Sang said as they stood in the corridor outside, with Vang listening.
“What if Ferid can blow it up, or kill it, when we tap him?” Bellona asked.
Vang shook his head. “I don’t think he will, even if he could. He knows he’s going to die. We haven’t hidden that from him. If everything he knows and remembers is sucked into the AI memory, then in a way, he’ll live on. He won’t ruin that.”
“If the Karassian military knew how he was talking, they’d kill him themselves,” Bellona said. “Once we dig beneath the boasting, what we will learn about the power holders of the galaxy will give us unbelievable leverage.”
“He is Karassian,” Sang said. “Their individuality is more important than loyalty to the state.”
Bellona sighed. “Let’s do it tomorrow,” she said. “I can’t stand to listen to him any more today.”
The next morning, while six of them held Ferid down, Sang jacked into Ferid’s brain and, through the brain connection, to his internal servers. It took seven hours to take everything from him.
“I’m moving the data, not copying it,” Sang told them. “The more that is shifted over, the less of Ferid that will remain.”
In the last two hours of the transfer, the body that had been Ferid lay placidly, blinking at the ceiling with a peaceful expression on its face. They no longer had to hold it down. It did not have the mental capacity to consider escape or rebellion.
Suns Eclipsed Page 13
