Nika snatched up a suit, put the helmet over her head, linked it. “Hello, aircar that’s passing overhead. Hello. Hello.”
The aircar circled, came back.
“They heard us.” Nika sounded as if she hadn’t believed they would. Alistair certainly hadn’t.
They waited while the aircar landed. It scared the salynxes away, but not for long, and not far. Alistair could see the boldest of them already bellying back.
The door opened. A man jumped out. Same engaging smile as ever. “Alistair.”
He was alive. Really, truly alive.
Alistair went forward to hug him. “Cam.”
“Alistair.” Nika yelled and shoved the genemod machine at them, knocking him to one side and Cam off his feet.
Cam spun away. Dropped.
“What the hell?” Then the stench of burned human and cloth assaulted his nose. Blaster fire.
Alistair looked at the aircar. A man stood in the doorway, a smoking blaster in his hands. Leonard Wickmore.
Wickmore smiled. “Hello, Nika.”
34
NIKA RIK TERRI
Alistair Laughton was paranoid about salynxes, so when he started forward to greet Cam, Nika kept watch for the flickering shapes that were all she could see of the creatures. A movement out of the corner of her eye made her look up, to the aircar door.
Leonard Wickmore. Raising his blaster. Aiming toward . . . Cam. Or Alistair.
“Alistair!” She shoved the antigrav trolley forward as hard as she could, pushing both of them out of the way.
Cam went down in a sickly smell of burnt flesh and burnt cloth.
Too slow. She’d failed, and Alistair had the only blaster.
Cam rolled over.
He was alive. Wickmore had missed getting him square on, but by then Wickmore had turned his blaster toward her.
“Hello, Nika.”
She stood behind the Netanyu, seeking what flimsy protection it offered. It wasn’t much. Alistair swung around, hand reaching for his blaster. Josune would have fired by now. But then, Wickmore would have aimed for her first, knowing her to be the dangerous one.
“Leonard Wickmore. Like a bad smell you can’t get rid of.” She looked down at the injured body in front of her.
Josune would have told her to never take her eye off her enemy.
“Drop your weapon, Agent Laughton,” Wickmore said. “My blaster is aimed. I’ll fire before you can.”
Think.
All she could think about were salynxes. Her brain didn’t want to think about the rest. They’d never be rid of Wickmore, not unless they killed him. “Should we pick Cam up before the salynxes get him?”
“What?”
It was a stupid question, she knew. But Cam was still breathing. For how much longer, she couldn’t tell.
Alistair Laughton wasn’t a stupid man, but she’d bet in all his years in the Justice Department, he’d probably never been directly threatened by a company executive. Or maybe he had. He was starting to pull himself together.
“Talking of salynxes,” Alistair said, “they will be back soon,” and his eyes flickered in a specific direction.
“Your weapon, Laughton.”
Alistair dropped it to the ground.
“Kick it away.”
He kicked it—toward where he’d indicated the salynxes were. Nika didn’t know if it was deliberate or not.
“Now, Nika,” Wickmore said, “let’s be sensible about this. Come inside, or I’ll kill the two agents.”
Nika edged in the direction of the blaster, keeping the Netanyu between her and anything that might attack them. “Please, Leonard. We know each other better than that. You’ll kill them anyway. You’ve never been a man of your word.”
Alistair had better understand the message in that. Wickmore wouldn’t save them, no matter what he promised, no matter what deals Alistair tried to make.
“I kept Alejandro away from you for two years.”
“Because it suited you.”
She edged farther away.
“Of course.” Wickmore came out of the aircar, blaster high, ready to fire. “Stop creeping away, Nika. There’s no escaping me. I said get inside.”
He sounded so much like Alejandro she flinched.
“Down, Nika,” Alistair yelled, and she dropped, felt the wind of something small as it jumped her. Another landed on Wickmore’s arm, clung, teeth shredding the flesh.
Wickmore fired the blaster. It went wide. Two more salynxes charged for his legs. He attempted to shake them off. Couldn’t. He dropped the blaster and dragged out a knife. Three salynxes down. How many were there?
Nika rolled toward the blaster.
A salynx tore into her back, ripping skin off. She screamed.
She didn’t see Laughton snatch up his blaster, but a wide sweep of blaster fire swept around her.
Salynxes ran.
Alistair thumped her back, hard, with the barrel of the blaster and dragged a salynx off. She was sure half her back went with it.
Nika snatched Wickmore’s blaster and scanned for more. Nothing that she could see. Wickmore was bleeding, but he would live. Unfortunately. She tightened her grip on the blaster and bent to examine Cam, one eye on the executive. Excruciating pain sent her to the dirt.
“Aircar is secure.” Alistair’s voice cut through the haze. He bent to pick up the younger man.
“Don’t move him,” Nika said. “His injuries are bad. Have the salynxes gone?” Her back was on fire, but she could move. She pushed the pain to the back of her mind to deal with later, after she’d seen to Cam.
“For the moment.”
“Good. Watch him.” She indicated Wickmore. “Get me power from the shuttle.” She emptied the contents of the Netanyu onto the floor of the aircar. And yes, there was some nerveseal. There was a god. “Strip him.”
“Wickmore?”
“Cam.”
Wickmore moved a hand toward his knife, which he’d dropped close to his body. “And get his knife.”
“Do you have a priority list?” But at least Alistair was thinking, for he got the knife first.
She finished emptying the Netanyu. “Put Cam in here.”
“We can’t fit the Netanyu in the aircar.”
“We don’t have time to take him to a hospital.”
“We don’t have a hospital on Zell.”
Why was he arguing, then? “Just put him in.”
Nika tucked her blaster into her waistband. “And cut off his clothes.”
She connected the feeds with fast, experienced hands. “Get me some power to connect to the Netanyu. When you’ve done that, I need you to spray some of that nerveseal on my back.”
Wickmore moved. Nika grabbed her blaster and swung around.
Alistair pushed her arm down. “Don’t kill him.”
Rage tore through her. For a moment she couldn’t see. If Alistair hadn’t been stronger than her, she might have used the blaster on him instead. Leonard Wickmore and his people had chased her and her friends across the galaxy; they’d framed them; they’d tried to kill them. And while Wickmore was still alive, none of them would be safe. She wanted him dead.
“He’s going to stand trial,” Alistair said. “Let’s do it legally, Nika. You don’t want murder on your hands.” He unwrapped her white and clenched fingers from around the blaster—carefully—and took it from her.
Nika shook his hand off her arm. “Do something about him, then,” she said coldly. “Since he’s planning to escape. I don’t want to watch my back all the time.”
Wickmore smiled.
They weren’t finished, she and Wickmore, and as soon as Nika got him somewhere private, and she had a blaster in her hands again, they would finish what Wickmore had started, so long ago.
Alist
air must have seen by her face that she meant it, for he raised the blaster and clubbed the side of Wickmore’s head.
“Make sure he stays that way.” She jumped into the aircar to connect the power, yelped at the pain in her back. No point waiting for Alistair. He was dragging Wickmore into the aircar.
At least he thought to tie the executive’s wrists to one of the support bars. It would have been easier, and safer, to kill him. Unfortunately, it went against even her morals to shoot an unconscious, tied captive. Although, with Wickmore, she might have made an exception.
The Netanyu ran smoothly, despite its crash, despite its use as a barrier. Something to be grateful for. She snapped in the most important feed—mutrient. Turned to Cam, whose eyelids were flickering. “Relax, Cam. It’s Nika. We’re putting you into a genemod machine. I know you’re in pain, but it’ll be gone soon. Just relax.” She made it as reassuring and as confident as Cam needed.
Alistair hadn’t removed the clothes.
“Where’s that knife?”
“What are you going to do?” but Alistair let her take it.
“Sorry about your clothes, Cam. I know that’s nen-silk, but it’ll get in the way of your healing.” Two quick slices through the front of the jacket and everything he wore underneath it, another two on each sleeve. She pulled the cloth out and away from underneath him. It must have hurt, but he didn’t utter a sound.
She wadded the cloth into a ball. Cam could go through his own pockets later.
“Nen-silk, huh. It always looked so muddy, and—” Alistair shrugged.
Nika sat back with the semiprotection of the aircar at her back, the Netanyu in front of the doorway, and watched the figures as the machine started its diagnostics. What was Alistair seeing right now? “Can you see his body?”
“I can see a shape. It’s warm.” Alistair fired over the top of the Netanyu. “Are we staying here till he’s fixed?”
“I can’t fix him fully. Not out here. Not with what we brought.” Snow would say this was typical Nika, bringing him out before he was cured, but Cam needed a Songyan for proper healing. He was like Roystan.
She hoped there was still a Songyan to work with.
She looked out over the bleak marshes. “We have to stay awake and fight salynxes?” Half a statement, half a question.
“Not sure. They’re attracted by heat and by scent.” Alistair checked the marshes too.
Nika looked back at Wickmore, lying still against his restraints. Or maybe not so still, for she saw his eyes blink. Once. Twice. Thrice. Four times. Five. The right lid glowed.
He was in communication with someone.
She grabbed the knife, scrambled over to him. “Wickmore, close down.” She held the knife at his throat.
He opened his eyes. Smiled. “You can’t stop me, Nika.”
Oh, she could. She could kill him. Alistair was watching her too closely to let her do that. But she had removed an eye-link once before. She prized his eye open.
“What are you doing?” Laughton demanded. He reached over to grab her arm.
“You think he doesn’t have friends on-world? Either I kill him or I do this. And if you fight me, I’ll cut his eye out by accident.”
“You’re insane.”
“Watch Cam. And for salynxes. I promise I won’t kill him. This time.” She studied the back of the eyelid. There. That was the wire that transferred the link to his synapses. And all she had was a knife big enough to stab someone in the ribs and kill them.
Wickmore stopped smiling.
Alistair looked at the Netanyu, looked at the knife she held to Wickmore. She could see he wanted to grab it.
She put the blade to Wickmore’s eye. “This will hurt. Don’t move, or you’ll lose your whole eye. That will be a lot harder to fix.” She nodded at his eye, said to Alistair, “See that light? He’s still in contact.” She sliced up and across. A clean cut that severed the wire and any links he’d had open.
Wickmore screamed.
“Don’t be a baby. I’ve seen you do worse to your own staff.” She sliced off a sleeve of his jacket and made a pad to sop up the blood. He backed as far away as he could.
“Stay still. Unless you want to bleed out.”
The silence was strained, only broken by Wickmore’s heavy, agitated breathing. Or was it Alistair’s?
She took the pad away. Looked critically at the eye. The bleeding was easing. “You know, that’s the same angle as Tamati Woden’s scar was. All we need to do is take the scar up higher and bring it all the way down across your mouth.”
“You are disgusting,” Wickmore said.
“No more disgusting than you, who had a team of assassins do your dirty work for you. No more disgusting than you, who threw acid into an employee’s face because he made a mistake. No more disgusting than your friend, Captain Norris, who tortured a man to get information out of him.” She noted the widening of Alistair’s eyes. Yes, let him think about that.
She shrugged and tossed the sleeve at Wickmore. “Hold it to your eye. You can manage that. And remember. It’s thanks to him it’s only your eye, because you and I both know that if I had my way, you’d be dead.” He’d be dead as soon as Alistair left her alone with him, but she kept that to herself.
She turned back to the Netanyu. Cam was stable, repairing nicely.
“I’m going to call the settlement,” Alistair said.
“Do you trust them? Cam came with Wickmore. Presumably they came from the settlement.”
At least she didn’t have to convince him Wickmore was the enemy. He’d shot Cam in cold blood. If Alistair had been through as much as the crew of Another Road had, he would have killed Wickmore too. He thought he was experienced, with Santiago trying to kill the people of the settlement, but he was still naïve.
So was Cam.
Alistair blasted at something behind the genemod machine. Another salynx, she presumed. “I don’t know who to trust.”
Right now he sounded as if he didn’t trust her either. That was mutual. She glanced at the scorched ground around them. “If they come, ask them to bring something large enough to fit a genemod machine, will you.”
* * *
• • •
They came, in an aircar large enough to take heavy machinery—which, based on the mud tracks on the floor, was the last thing it had carried—and ten workers. Four of the seats were occupied.
Alistair knew them all. He hugged one of the women, whom he introduced as Melda.
He looked around the aircar. “This is new.”
“Not ours,” Melda said. “Theirs,” and gestured a thumb at the man who’d been introduced as Barry.
Alistair frowned at the mud. “They’re getting into mining?”
“Not mining. Building. You won’t recognize the place, Alistair. It’s tripled in size since you left, and it’s still growing.”
The look that flashed across Alistair’s face made her wonder what he was thinking.
“When did Cam arrive?”
“About that,” Barry said. “The Justice Department here, Alistair? Tell me it’s not your doing.”
“I can’t tell you that.”
Barry looked at him. “You took a risk.”
Alistair stared back. “You must know that the first thing I did was report what had happened here.”
“And you know that report disappeared.” He gestured at Wickmore. “What’s Eaglehawk doing here? How did they come prepared? Armed.”
Alistair started to laugh. They all looked at him as if he’d taken leave of his senses. He kept laughing.
Nika finally leaned over, patted his cheek gently. “Alistair. They slap your face for hysterics.” She made it quiet.
Alistair tried to sober up. It took him two tries. He finally took a deep, hiccupping breath. “Sorry.”
“Are
you okay, Alistair?” Melda asked.
“I am. I’m fine. It’s just been . . . are the Ort—?”
“They’re still here. They got excited when he”—she nodded at Wickmore—“and Cam went out to collect you. They wanted to come too.”
A pity they hadn’t. Wickmore might not have tried to kill them all, then.
“They think you have Cam’s body modder.”
“I do. I didn’t introduce her properly before. Nika Rik Terri, who modded Cam. And who, by the sound of it, created a machine that Leonard Wickmore was desperate to get hold of.” He looked at Nika, to see if he was right.
She nodded warily. Was there going to be more demand for her to create a monster machine? Somehow she was going to have to remove all trace of the notion that there had ever been an exchanger.
“So desperate he sent a merc ship after her. What happened to the mercenary, by the way?”
“Caught in the Vortex,” Melda said flatly. “That and the ship it was chasing.” She shuddered. “A terrible way to die.”
A shuttle-sized rock inside Nika hit the bottom of her stomach. “Both ships?” Melda didn’t mean it. Couldn’t mean it.
Leonard Wickmore sneered. “Didn’t you know your precious captain and his ship had been destroyed?”
“I don’t believe it.” It couldn’t be. Not Josune and Roystan and Snow and Carlos and Jacques. Not her friends. “I had an apprentice. I’m supposed to look after him.”
She turned numbly back to the Netanyu. It wasn’t supposed to happen that way. They were supposed to be saved. Roystan had agreed with her, told her they’d be all right on board the ship.
Wickmore laughed and kept laughing all the way to the settlement.
* * *
• • •
The whole settlement, it seemed, had turned out to welcome Alistair back. There was also the well-dressed, well-modded woman in cream nen-silk, the woman Alistair had called from the shuttle. She stood apart with her own group, all of them suited, although none as immaculate as the woman at the front.
“What’s going on, Alistair?” the woman demanded. “And why did I have to hear about the attempted massacre of this settlement from the Honesty League, not from you?” She indicated the four sober-suited people behind her.
Stars Beyond Page 34