The tall wing-backed chair swivelled finally, and in it sat a large, powerful man. His shoulders were broad, the cording on his neck belying their strength, but the years sitting behind a desk had made him soft, fat enough that he was almost perfectly round, his hair thinning and his eyes small and darting. “Halud,” he greeted him.
Halud braced for the worst. He had faced the First Speaker many times before from this chair, taken dictations and collaborated on newsfeeds for the folk. But Halud had defected and shown his true colours, and that made this meeting very different from all the rest.
“How was your holiday?” Hap said, mirroring the receptionist.
Halud blinked. “W-What?”
“I hope you had a lovely visit with your family.” Hap smiled pleasantly.
Heart suddenly pounding in his chest, Halud glanced at the door — the only exit from the office — and found it still firmly closed, guards, no doubt, waiting beyond. He was alone with the Speaker of Strength.
The mask slipped from Hap’s face, cold voice cutting like laz-fire: “I trust it was enlightening.”
Halud gulped, sinking down, instinctively trying to disappear.
“You see,” Hap said, rising from his chair and moving in front of Halud, leaning over him, “I saw that you were struggling with your faith in the Power of the Gods. You were unfocussed, unemphatic in your writings. Sometimes, it even seemed as though you intended to say something else, something more than what was written.” The warmth of his breath soaked Halud’s face , his entire body stiffening. “Imagine my surprise when I discovered Augment 005478F had the same surname as you. Imagine when I discovered you were an orphan, with no records before you were twelve. Imagine when I left Sarrin DeGazo’s file on the computer for you to find, and you took it within minutes.”
Halud swallowed with difficulty, the lump in his throat refusing to move.
“I looked after you, Halud. I took you under my wing when we were at the Academy together. I even made you my Poet. And now you’ve gone and done a stupid thing like this.”
Halud gritted his teeth. “I only befriended you to find her.” He never would have said something so brash, but what did it matter now? His life was forfeit, he knew it the minute he arranged passage on Gal’s ship.
Pathetic, bumbling, drunk Gal.
And Sarrin — was she even safe? Had he managed to change anything at all?
“Look where it’s gotten you: your friends are dead, the freightship destroyed. And you fled in your little shuttle only to find yourself standing in these offices once more, my pawn returned. Everything has come full circle.”
Halud gripped the arms of his chair, tearing into the soft plastic fabric. It wasn’t true, he was no pawn. He’d risked everything to save Sarrin. “There were Augments on that ship,” he spat at Hap. “They were left alive, which means you wanted them for something. And now you’ve killed them all.”
Hap laughed sharply. “Yes, and good riddance.” He turned, facing a particularly gruesome scene on the mural: Strength swung he long club against a pack of grey, shape creatures, their blood flowing freely like rivers across the ground. “The Gods are powerful, Halud. I hope your holiday will serve as an eternal reminder. We have your sister, and now, the researchers will find out just how powerful she is.”
Anger flashed before Halud’s eyes, bathing the room in white, hot light. He thought of Sarrin, broken and ragged. He thought of Kieran and Hoepe, dead on the moon. Already he felt weak, but Hap was unrelenting.
“Unfortunately, you have become the face that the folk trust. And I hope now that you have seen the error of your ways, your behaviour will fall into line.”
Halud paused. Could it be that after all he had done, they wanted him to continue to write? That they needed him? “I could have been lost on that ship too. What would you have done then?”
Hap crossed his fat arms. “But you weren’t. You’re quite predictable, Halud, and the Gods know what you will do, long before you do it. Like finding Sarrin’s file and travelling on Gal’s ship, you will do this too.”
“Why would I ever? I despise you. I despise what you’ve done to her.”
Hap turned again, sharply, viciously grabbing the edges of Halud’s chair, pinning him in place. “You will do this. You will cower in your apartments, and you will write the words of the Gods — as I ask you to and nothing more and nothing less. You will smile for the feeds and you will pray to the Gods for forgiveness. You will do all this because we have your sister, and this is the only way you can keep her safe.”
Hap grabbed a tablet from his desk and shoved it in Halud’s face. There, in a high-definition video, was Sarrin, held up by her arms, screaming. Her face contorted, she was barely recognizable. Halud recoiled, heart pounding, but it was impossible to tear his eyes away as she writhed and cried. The girl looked barely human.
The clip finished, and Hap took it away. Halud eyed him warily, bile burning in the back of his throat. “How can you call that safe?”
“If you do as I say, we won’t hurt her anymore.”
“That video means nothing,” Halud said. “It must be a week old, they could have killed her by now.” Thankfully, the words came out sounding much stronger than he felt. “How do I know she’s still alive?”
Hap glared. He sat on the desk directly in front of Halud, leaning forward into his face. “This is nothing. She can survive like this for weeks.” He showed him the tablet again, frozen on a scene of Sarrin screaming, blood trickling from the corners of her eyes and ears. He growled, “The warship will return to Junk, and I need to know what orders to send with it — her fate is your decision.”
“You’ll kill her.”
Hap curled his lip into a menacing grin. “You don’t know the first thing about your sister, do you?”
Halud frowned. Of course he knew his sister — didn’t he? But the thing in the video barely resembled the girl he knew.
“When you stumbled so cleverly on her file, did you even bother to read past the first page? All you cared about was where to find her, never mind what sort of thing you would find.”
Halud felt as though he was falling back through his chair. He hadn’t. Hadn’t wanted to know. “It doesn’t matter.”
“The doctor is just getting warmed up,” snarled Hap. “Her body can withstand much, much more.” The man leaned back, smugly. “Her mind is a different story. I’m told it will break long before the body does, and then she will be exactly what we need.”
Halud’s heart hammered around in his chest and breath refused to come. He tried to close his ears to the screams of his sister, his baby sister whom he had promised to always take care of.“What are you going to do to her?”
Hap shrugged. He activated the video again, her screams echoing until it seemed as though they were coming from the walls themselves. From the rivers of blood on the mural, from Strength himself.
Halud pressed his hands to his ears, but the screaming was in his own mind. Finally, he shouted out, panting. “If I do as you say, you won’t hurt her?”
A cold smile told Halud he had nowhere to go. “That depends how well you play your part.”
* * *
Commandant Amelia Mallor scowled as the traitorous Poet was brought out of Hap Lansford’s office, shaken and pale as an entourage of guards escorted him down the circular staircase she had just ascended. Surrounded by her own entourage of crewmen, she waited until the summons came from within, and she entered the office alone.
Reaching the middle of the room, she snapped to attention. The full council had assembled in the minutes before her arrival: all Five Speakers and each of their generals. They watched her closely, eyes wide and wary. It was not unusual, her height and ferocity often made people nervous, a fact she frequently took great pleasure in. But today, she felt the coldness of their glares, and she attempted to slouch and soften her appearance.
Hap Lansford asked for her report, and she saluted, five fingers pressing into the spo
t above her heart. “Augment 005478F has been successfully captured. The subject is being held on the planet Junk. The doctor, Guitteriez, remains to continue his study.”
“And the others?” Lansford asked.
She paused, tongue pressed to the tip of her teeth. “Believed dead.”
“Believed, Commandant?” Hap Lansford rubbed his belly in displeasure, sending a frown over his shoulder to his general, Oleander Nairu.
A moment of uncertain emotion caught her by surprise, necessitating she clear her throat prior to continuing. “They escaped to the freightship, Ishash’tor.” An unfamiliar empty pit opened in her chest, and she sucked in breath. “After engaging in a firefight, the freightship entered the debris ring around Junk. Their course was obscured by the debris and they lost control, crash landing on the seventh moon. Our readings showed they were travelling at over one-hundred-thousand kph. The entire crew is presumed dead on impact.”
“Were there life signs?” General Nairu asked. Something in his expression caught her attention: his face sat in its usual stone, but the general’s eyes had clouded, intensity shifting to vulnerability.
Hap turned a scolding eye on him.
She answered his question anyhow, “The moon had a powerful magnetic field which baffled the sensors.”
Nairu — that had been the name of the pathetic commander of the Ishash’tor who had tried to surrender. Her features were similar enough to the general’s.
Hap frowned again. “So, you did not confirm their death. I am disappointed, Commandant.”
She bowed her head. Her heart hammered in her chest, another unusual sensation. “It was not possible to bring the warship through the debris field without almost certainly suffering crippling damage.” She heard her own voice shake — impossible — what was happening to her? “My orders were to return the Poet to you as soon as possible. To perform a gravity-well jump or use thruster power to travel to the far side of the planet and return to examine the moon under thruster power would have taken an additional day. Given the extreme odds against their survival and your stated urgency, I elected to return despite the uncertainty.”
General Nairu hit his fists on his thighs in an uncharacteristic display. His eyes gleamed, deep brown surrounded by red.
“Oleander,” chided the First Speaker.
The general grunted.
Amelia dropped her head again, as was proper. She stared at the ground and sucked in air that felt harder and harder to obtain. She felt the laser-glares of the Speakers and generals fall on the back of her neck.
The grey carpet swam, morphing into bright white — a ceiling in place of the floor. A face loomed overtop, a surgical cap and mask. Her heart raced.
“Commandant?”
She gasped. It was not the first time her mind had played a trick, showing her things that weren’t there, but it was unnerving all the same.
“I am sorry for your loss,” she said to the general, blurting it out before she could think. Almost certainly, his daughter had been lost aboard the freightship. The ship her vessel had hunted and caused to loose control. Nearly three dozen Augments had been held at Junk and escaped, only to be killed. That she had killed.
A strange emotion welled within her making her feel small and regretful. She had killed the general’s daughter.
But she had killed hundreds before.
These thoughts were not her own. Something was missing in her mind. A wall, a support, something, and her neurons wheeled to get around it. There was something more, something she couldn’t see.
“Commandant!” the First Speaker snapped. Behind him the other Speakers shared worried glances. Hap stared at her, fists clenched by his sides. “You will return to Junk to examine the moon.”
A question fell from her lips before it even registered in her mind: “Sarrin. What will happen to her?”
The Speakers leaned back in their chairs, pushing as far from her as possible.
Sarrin — that was the girls name. A girl with long tangled hair and a sad smile.
How did she know that?
The Speakers all turned to face the First, their faces tight, accusing. “What’s going on?”
Hap shook his head once, dismissing them as he addressed her. “The Augment is no concern of yours,” he snapped. “Return to Junk, examine the moon and ensure everyone on the freightship is dead. The Augments are dangerous.”
“Yes, of course.”
“Strength,” the other Speakers demanded his attention, and Hap spun to face them. “How does she know the Augment’s name? Is this not concerning?”
“The doctor has assured me everything is fine.”
Amelia nodded in agreement. She had been to see Dr. Davidson just prior to her appearance here. Her hand reached to the fresh sutures that lined her temple, the vile chip that connected her to the Augment 005478F removed successfully.
“Guitteriez reported a stronger connection that expected with the frontal lobe implant,” said one of the Speakers.
“Dr. Davidson has worked extensively with Dr. Guitteriez on this project and assures that any residual effects will wear off shortly,” Hap replied.
Amelia nodded once again. Memory bleed, Guitteriez had called it, when the visions of a dark medical lab had woken her in the night — 005478F’s memories. Fascinating, he had said.
She must still be experiencing the girl’s memories.
“Is there a risk she’s starting to revert? To remember more?” asked one of the Speakers.
What more could there be — the memory bleed was temporary — everything else she remembered perfectly. Her recollection was excellent, eidetic.
“No. I am assured. Likely Guitteriez used the name and she learned it there.”
But she could not remember a time when the doctor had called the girl by anything other than her assigned identification.
Hap turned. “Commandant, you have your orders.”
“Yes.” Augments still roamed the stars. She would not rest until they had all been destroyed and the rest of humanity was safe once again.
“Your ship awaits.” Hap held out a black data tablet. “Please pass this directly to Dr. Guitteriez.”
“What is it?” she asked instead of taking it, the question, as before, slipping out unbidden.
He glared. “It is not for your knowledge.”
She ducked her head submissively, an unfamiliar flush warming her cheeks.
“Do not disappoint me,” he said, thrusting the tablet towards her again.
In an instant, she felt as though she was strapped down, in a place far away. A dark hand passed a black tablet over her prone body. Luis Guitteriez’s crooked, scarred face swam in the darkness.
A scar Sarrin had put there — 005478F had put there.
How did she know that?
The same way she knew Hap’s had been the gloved hand.
She took the tablet, and raised herself to her full height, standing inches above him. She stared into his eyes. An intensity of anger that was not her own flared full force.
Beneath her, Hap Lansford, First Speaker and the Voice of Strength, caught his breath.
Then, she came back to herself, and strode from the room without a word. There were deaths to confirm.
SIX
KIERAN TAPPED ON ONE OF the consoles in the engine room. Behind him, Sarrin crawled through the long access tube running through the centre of the gravity drive, exploring the engine for salvageable parts — both to fix the ship and for her weapon to destroy the warship. Engineering was quiet, a crew sent to Junk to search for supplies, and the rest on a night cycle. Only a few Augments puttered around the main bay.
He fingered the memory chip in his pocket, double checking the engine room was clear, then took a chance and dug into the computer’s programming. A quiet subroutine he had installed automatically recorded the ship’s data. There was too much happening for him to write a simple report to send back to the Observer ship; he would collect the data and then g
o through it when he was home, safe.
And with a copy of the warship’s database too — a grin spread across his face. The subroutine activated, lines of data flashing by too quickly to read.
Heavy footsteps echoed on the engine room floor, and he slipped the chip back into its hiding place at the same time as he cleared the computer screen. Rami grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around, Kieran falling back against the wall. “I want to talk to you.”
“What?” he snapped reflexively, pushing Rami’s hands away. “There’s easier ways. You don’t hafta grab me.”
Rami crossed his arms, and Kieran braced himself. Normally, he could slip on an easy grin and turn people into friends, but Rami had resisted all attempts for the last week. “I came to apologize.”
“What?”
“Grant’s a good friend, and he hates commons almost as much as I do.”
Kieran balked, but he pressed his lips together and tried to seem relaxed.
“He says I was wrong. So I’m apologizing for what I said about you on the bridge, and for what happened earlier.”
Kieran blinked in surprise, realized his slack jaw was flapping open. “Yeah, I appreciate that.” Regaining his compute, he stretched outa hand, clasping Rami’s in his own. “I’m lookin’ forward to workin’ with ya.”
Hesitantly, Rami pulled him in closer, initiating, however reluctantly, an Augment greeting.
Kieran shut his eyes, allowing himself to relax. Without Rami causing trouble, he could breathe a little easier. There was still the overwhelming amount of repairs and the constant threat of the warship, but at least he wouldn’t have to worry about Rami interrupting the repairs.
“What’s that?” Rami suddenly stiffened, pushing Kieran away and brushing past him. To the console.
Too late, Kieran realized the subroutine had not shut down entirely, a prompt screen still flashing on the display. He slapped his hand out to stop it.
Rami glared, voice laced with ice. “What was that?”
Traitor Page 8