Lips pulled back from his teeth, Rudy slapped the door control and pulled the trigger the instant he could fit the nose of the stunner through the opening door. When there was no backlash, he followed his shot inside the cabin with a quick stride, closing the door behind him. Back against the wall, he scanned the room.
Then Rudy whistled under his breath. “Seems I’m not the only one curious about our Michael,” he muttered, eyes searching for the source of the sound that had alerted him. It wasn’t easy. Clothes were strewn about the deck. Every piece of furniture had been dismantled, and not carefully. The bed had been sliced apart, its jelly core now runnels of melting purple. Sheets of plas might have been dropped by a whirlwind.
Amateurs, Rudy complained to himself, even as a groan and clatter of falling shoes drew his attention to what remained of Cristoffen’s closet. He jumped over the jelly and grabbed the being trying to regain his feet, hauling him clear of the rubble.
“Leee—goofme—I’m yourrr superr—superiorrr—Rud—y?”
“Kearn?” Rudy switched his hold from one able to snap a neck to something that helped steady the other.
“Wassssa do?” Kearn’s pupils were dilated with alarm as he reeled back and forth. “Waasssa do tomee?”
“Stun,” Rudy informed him. “Zapped the voluntary muscles. It’ll pass. You should sit down.” Before he could look for an intact chair, Kearn obediently folded and sank to the floor, smearing the puddle of mattress jelly.
Rudy crouched so Kearn could see his face. “While you wait, think of a reason I shouldn’t kill you.”
The alarm faded to understanding, then something like desperation. Kearn’s head rolled from side to side as he tried to form words. “Es-Esen—no answer. Noanswerme! Here!” One arm jerked up and around spasmodically. “Why noanswerme—must be here! Find—Rud-y!”
Esen? Rudy’s hands shot out and took Kearn by the shoulders to keep him still. He resisted the temptation to shake loose the answers he needed. It might satisfy his impatience. It wouldn’t help. “Concentrate on breathing. Slow, steady. Don’t keep trying to talk. You can’t make any sense yet.”
“Keep—look!”
Rudy nodded, understanding that much at least. “Fine. I’ll keep looking.”
Kearn’s search hadn’t been amateurish, Rudy judged, it had been frantic. The other hadn’t known what he was hunting for—that much was obvious from the attention given to potential hiding places of any size, from the mattress to boxes of readers. As Rudy poked through the resulting mess, he kept glancing at Kearn, waiting for the tremors to stop shaking the Project Leader’s limbs. Questions were piling up faster than answers. What was so important Kearn had ransacked his assistant’s room the moment Cristoffen was safely off the ship? Had he sent Timri following Cristoffen to watch him—or to keep her out of the way?
Aha. The only object Kearn hadn’t ripped apart, perhaps because it was under an avalanche of once-tidy reports. Rudy nudged it clear with one finger.
An envelope, no bigger than his hand, as yet unopened. Plain, bearing Cristoffen’s name and a Sacrissee delivery glyph.
“Care-careful.”
Startled, Rudy looked at Kearn. “It’s a little late for that, don’t you think?”
A shake of the head, more controlled, though Kearn remained hunched and shivering. “Kraal—tech.”
Rudy pursed his lips grimly. “There’s always that,” he said, more to himself than Kearn. The Kraal had added Botharis to their confederacy five times during the last sixty years, bloodless shifts of government no more inconvenient at the local level than a change in tax rates and the occasional curfew. Their hardware, however, had been a more lasting problem. As a patroller, Rudy had dealt with more than his share of obsolete but functional Kraal military tech—some abandoned in fields to become a threat to livestock, most sold to those on the fringe of the law.
Every item came with at least one booby trap, to catch the uninformed.
The envelope could definitely wait.
Instead, Rudy scoured the room, methodically but without wasting time. He’d done enough work on Michael Cristoffen to be unsurprised by what had been relatively Spartan quarters. It had been a wild shot; there would be no secrets here.
Or were there? He stooped to retrieve a small book, its cover a plain black until the light caught its silver tracery of broken shells, ruined feathers, and wide-eyed skulls. He wiped a streak of jelly from the dainty, macabre thing and held it where Kearn could see. “Did he keep this by the bed?” he asked. At Kearn’s nod, Rudy opened it.
Not a book. A notebook of—he counted—sixteen pages, each filled with a language Rudy didn’t recognize. Handwritten. He’d seen samples of Cristoffen’s writing; it stayed between the lines, free of independent flourishes. These strokes strayed in and out of patterns, bold and lovely, the script of someone who viewed words as art. “Do you know what this is?” He held the open book in front of Kearn.
Kearn managed to lean closer, staring at the pages. “Can’t—be,” he said, eyes wide. One hand reached up; Rudy brought the book to meet it. Kearn felt the page and ran his shaking fingers over the words. “Can’t be,” he repeated, more strongly, as if the denial helped him fight off the stun.
“Can’t be what?”
He took the book in both hands. “This—is new. The writing—old. Too old.” His throat worked as he swallowed; he rose to his knees, holding the book up to Rudy. “I’ve seen—this. Lecture on extinct languages. Human. This script is Naskhi. Dates two—three thousand years before our species left its home system.”
Rudy shrugged, mildly disappointed. So much for his clue. “Feel up to walking?” he asked.
Somehow, through the remnants of stun disorientation, Kearn managed to look offended. “You don’t unnn-understand.” He lurched to his feet with Rudy’s help, still clutching the small book. “This—impossible. The lettering—Naskhi. The words are Kraal.”
Rudy put the impossible book and the unopened package on Kearn’s desk, while Kearn leaned against his office wall, as if the trip up the lift had sapped all of his energy. Unless it was guilt, being caught rummaging through a junior officer’s belongings. “What were you planning to tell Cristoffen about his room?” he asked, rather curious.
Kearn rubbed one hand over his scalp. “It doesn’t matter. The main thing is you’re here. If here is anywhere safe.” He tapped one ear, then waved his hand around the room.
His meaning was obvious, even if nothing else seemed to be. Kearn used to record conversations throughout the ship himself; for all Rudy knew, he still did. As for outside eavesdroppers? Timri had been in charge of ensuring Kearn’s office was clean; it was a convenient way to install devices of her own, to listen for Paul. Did Kearn know and want to prevent her hearing what was said today? Or did he fear someone else?
“Why” didn’t matter, Rudy decided grimly. Privacy suited him even more if Kearn were guilty. “Nice to be back,” he said, his voice deliberately cheerful. He unbuttoned his shirt and began pulling components from pockets in the vest he wore underneath. “It’s been too long since I was on a Commonwealth ship.” Two components snicked together forming a tube. “The Russ’ looks good.”
Kearn watched, his back against the wall. His voice had lost its stun-slur, but didn’t quite manage casual. “F-funding has helped. Resdick is getting a new translight com at our next layover.”
“Having problems with the existing equipment?” Rudy added the third and final component, then switched on the detector.
For some reason, this drew a small smile. “A recent one, yes.”
Rudy walked around the office, eyes on the detector, then stopped at the chair behind the desk. Not there, but nearby. He checked the drawers. Ah. One precise stab with a pen destroyed the tiny transmitter hidden inside.
“We’re clear,” he pronounced. “And I’m ready for some answers.”
“As am I,” Kearn said heavily. He walked over to his chair and sat, closing his eyes briefl
y as if to stop the room from spinning. “Thank you for not killing me, Rudy Lefebvre, although I confess it feels as though you tried.”
“Day’s young.” Rudy sat on the desk, staring down at the other Human, noticing but not understanding the lack of uniform, the fitter body, the worn expression. “What’s going on, Kearn? I came here—well, I came convinced you were behind Cristoffen.”
“Behind?” Kearn repeated bitterly. “Goes nicely with ’last to know’ and ’blind fool,’ doesn’t it? I’d thought I’d found someone to help me with my work, maybe even carry on. Instead, I found a monster.”
Rudy frowned. “I thought your work was monster-hunting.”
“My work is finding the truth.” Kearn straightened as he spoke. “I’m not the Fenedens’ Shifter Hunter. Not anymore.”
“But your Cristoffen has other ideas—”
“You were following him, weren’t you?” Kearn didn’t wait for an answer, going on almost eagerly. “I knew you couldn’t be here in answer to my messages, not so soon.”
“You sent for me?” The puzzle pieces weren’t just falling apart, Rudy decided, they were assuming new shapes and multiplying out of control. “Why?”
“I need your help,” the other said simply. “Cristoffen is being controlled by a Kraal. He’s already caused the death of a—friend of Paul Ragem’s. He’s obsessed with Esen, with what he sees as the threat of her kind. He’d do anything to find her. Anything!” Kearn’s face seemed to crumple. “I’ve tried to reach her—to warn her. She promised to answer me. But there’s been nothing.”
“What did you say?” Rudy asked, feeling numb.
“Cristoffen is a murderer!”
“Not that.” Rudy found himself standing, looming over the smaller Human. “What did you say about Esen? You said ‘you called her,’” he said, repeating the incredible.
“Yes. ‘If you ever need me, I will come.’ That’s what Esen told me. I sent her a message as soon as Timri could get me a secure com, a warning about Cristoffen. But there’s been no answer.”
“Called her how?”
“I left a message at Cameron & Ki. I’m not a blithering idiot.” Whatever Kearn saw on Rudy’s face brought a faint color to his own. “Despite what I admit has been substantial evidence to the contrary. Your lies and evasions were well-intentioned, necessary, in fact. I don’t dispute being their enemy.” Then Kearn looked rather wistful, and Rudy wasn’t sure he spoke to him, or to a memory. “But only an idiot refuses a new, better paradigm. Whether you choose to believe me or not, Rudy, I’ve known exactly where to find Esen-alit-Quar and her friend, Paul Ragem, since Esen surprised the hell out of me in that closet.”
“You were hallucinating—”
“Which you had me believing until,” almost a smile, “she told me I wasn’t.”
Rudy expressed his reaction with several choice and colorful phrases, ending with: “She’d better hope Paul never finds out.”
“Indeed.” The two looked at one another in an instant of perfect understanding.
Rudy suddenly understood how Kearn must have felt, facing that crisis of belief. He faced one now. Did he keep his suspicion, treat this new version of Kearn as he had the old? Or had he a chance to gain an unexpected ally, a powerful one, with the capabilities of a starship and the authority of the Commonwealth?
Had Esen been foolish? Rudy wondered abruptly. Or had she been the wisest of them all?
As if he sensed Rudy’s doubts and needed to answer them, Kearn said, “It wasn’t easy.” He broke off and rubbed his forehead, his hand trembling. “You deserve to know that. When Esen contacted me the second time, and I finally believed it was her, my first reaction was to be terrified. One reason, I suppose, I was so quick to accept Cristoffen. You’d left. The rest of the crew—Timri—there was no one I could trust to tell me the truth. But I had to have it. I had to know, Rudy, if I’d been wrong. So I hunted it for myself.”
“Where?”
Kearn took his hand from his forehead, frowned at it, then pointed at the shelves and stacks of abstracts. “In here,” he said. He tapped his head once more. “Here. I spent months examining everything I knew—or thought I knew—using a new hypothesis. There is variation in every species, in every group of individuals. I asked myself: what if there had been two creatures like Esen, fifty years ago, with the difference that only one of them had acted in a way we’d call evil? It was a difficult question. I was—and am afraid of her abilities.”
“I had a nightmare or two when I found out,” Rudy said, returning honesty for honesty. “Not that Esen deserved them.”
Kearn’s eyes grew haunted. “Nightmares. Yes.” He blinked and went on more briskly. “I should never have let mine twist my work, blind me to what I could have found within my own research. I grew angry at myself for wasting time. I accepted the hypothesis and expanded it. If there was an ‘evil’ ’shifter, could there be a good one? What if Esen had been trying to help us, acting against this evil one of her kind? The folklore I’d collected supported the concept; it fit the evidence from the attacks. And,” Kearn almost smiled, “it finally made sense of Paul—what he’d done and sacrificed. I think that’s what convinced me, in the end.”
“You aren’t the only one,” Rudy said ruefully. He studied Kearn’s face and saw nothing but a tired openness, a relief he found he shared. Acting on impulse, he stood and offered his hand.
Kearn copied the gesture without hesitation, their hands meeting in a firm grip.
“I don’t suppose you have anything drinkable on board,” the former captain of the Russ’ said lightly as he sat back down. “I think I could use it.”
Now Kearn did smile. “For some reason, I developed a taste for brandy after you left.” He looted one cupboard for glasses and a drawer for a bottle. Hurrying back to the desk, he poured them each a drink, then lifted his own glass. “A toast, Rudy. To Paul.”
“To Paul,” Rudy echoed, then raised his eyebrow. “Any reason in particular?”
“For recognizing goodness, regardless of its shape.” Kearn gave a short, self-conscious laugh. “And for knowing when not to follow my orders.”
21: Abyss Morning; Surface Dawn
I’D BEEN ready to confront my web-kin and battle for Paul’s life. At the very least, I’d been ready to tell her exactly what I thought of her behavior in as many languages as had profanity, and could be expressed using only a larynx, tongue, lips, and two arms. And scowling. I’d planned to avoid foot stamping, given I’d found no shoes that fit.
Of course, being so prepared, it shouldn’t have surprised me to find Skalet had left while Paul and I were dressing in our stolen clothing.
“She’s locked us in,” Paul said, coming back to me. He looked more relieved than concerned, something I understood. Skalet was uncomfortable company at her best.
“And left a note,” I told him, pointing to a piece of parchment that looked as old as me—and probably was, knowing how rarely Skalet came down to the Abyss. The parchment was stabbed to the stone of the tabletop by a long, delicate pin. Skalet-memory contained far too much detail of how such a pin, if inserted into critical points, could inconspicuously cause convulsions or death in a depressing number of species. It was, as if I cared, easily hidden in hair or clothing. I couldn’t bring myself to touch it.
Paul might not be intimately familiar with a Kraal assassin’s pin, but he wisely chose to read the note where it was, rather than touch anything Skalet might have booby-trapped. “ ‘We leave in three hours. Rest or not, as you wish.’” He checked his chrono. “Not the Busfish, then.”
“No.”
He walked to the nearest wall and rapped it with his knuckles. “Can you get through this?”
“No.” Though I smiled at the suggestion. Humans could take anything for granted.
Paul sighed and rolled his eyes at me. “Esen, is that ‘no’ as in ‘can’t’ or ‘no’ as in ‘won’t’?”
“Both.” I stood beside him, pressing my smal
ler Human hands flat against the opaqued wall. Instead of its usual varied pastel tones, this clearfoil was dark and shot through with pearlescent streaks, like a semiprecious stone. It chilled my palms, so I rubbed them against the fabric of my skirt. “She must have activated a transmitter in here to set the clearfoil. It can’t listen to me.”
“And the ‘won’t?’ ”
I peered up at him sideways, through wisps of hair that had needed cutting my last time in this form. “There’s no need for a lecture. Skalet wants me Human, so Human I’ll be. For now.”
Paul’s finger looped the hair behind my ear, letting me see the unhappy look on his face. “I wish you weren’t.”
Ah. I hunted for what to say, knowing, as he did, that this was another trap Skalet had laid—as potentially deadly as the poison. “Try to feel otherwise,” I advised him. “You understand the difference between your purely Human reaction to this form and the reality of me. Skalet doesn’t know you. She expects your parental instincts to cloud your judgment, to interfere with our partnership.” I stuck my tongue out at him and he forced a smile. “It gives us an advantage.”
“Maybe.” Paul traced my cheek and shook his head, making entirely too much sense.
“Keep thinking: ‘Old Blob,’” I suggested. “Meanwhile, let’s see if there’s anything to eat around here.”
“That you’d trust?” An incredulous look.
I shrugged, already looking around. “Skalet doesn’t believe in wasted effort. You’ve been dosed and she can hardly poison this form if she wants me to stay in it.” I was careful where I stepped. Skalet had made no effort to clear the floor of crystal shards. I was sure she’d think I deserved to cut myself, having made the mess in the first place. But having no intention of needing more time with the med kit, I took the smallest of the animal pelts from the floor and began using it as a broom to push the shards into a corner.
As for resting? I might not fear poison, but I wasn’t closing my eyes.
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