by Jack Conner
“Good luck,” Avery told her.
She squeezed his hand and returned to the debate.
Avery, Janx and Hildra glanced at each other.
“Well,” Janx said, “I don’t know about you lot, but I could use a drink.”
“Me, too,” Hildra said. “Doc?”
Avery frowned. “Yes,” he said. “But first I have someone I need to speak with.”
Chapter 8
Sheridan didn’t so much as flutter an eyelid as the door slammed behind Avery. She sat cross-legged on the bare floor directly beneath the naked bulb. The bulb flickered, and for a moment Avery feared it would die and plunge him into utter blackness alone with her.
The air was hot and still. Stifling. How could Sheridan handle it all so calmly? The way she sat ... cross-legged, eyes closed ... was she meditating? She had always been such a person of action—fencing, skeet shooting, fighting—it had never occurred to him that she might have a contemplative side.
“Jessryl,” he said.
Her eyes remained shut.
“Jessryl!”
She opened her eyes. They latched onto him, all smoke and gunmetal, and he was tempted to suck in a breath. It had been stifling in here before, but now he felt ten degrees colder. She was like a viper, coiled and ready to spring.
“Doctor,” she said. Like most people, she rarely called Avery by first name. He didn’t know why, but he had always inspired a certain deference in others, or at least distance. Sheridan, however, called him that out of some other feeling—mockery, perhaps. It was hard to say. He had never understood her, even when he thought they were on the same side.
Feeling suddenly uncomfortable under the weight of her scrutiny, he dug through his pockets and produced a pack of cigarettes and a book of matches.
“Here,” he said, passing them to her—careful not to let her touch him. “I asked for your old pack and lighter, but Captain Sygrel refused. Said it might have some device in them.”
“Wise man,” Sheridan said. “It didn’t, but it could have.”
“And just so you know, Sygrel’s ordered the guards outside to show no mercy. If you try to use me as a hostage and escape, they’ve been ordered to fire at you, whether you have a human shield or not.”
“You’re taking a risk, then.”
He did not reply, and she sort of smiled.
She tapped out a cigarette and placed it between her lips. Started to set down the pack, then thought about it and offered him one. When he shook his head, she lit a match. It hissed and flared in the tight room. She put flame to tobacco. It crackled, and she took a deep breath, at last emitting the smoke in twin plumes from her nostrils. Her eyes dilated, still locking him in their gaze.
“To what do I owe the honor of this visit?” she said.
“You know why.”
She tilted her head to the side. “You want your daughter back.”
A fist closed around his throat. “What ... what is she doing on the island? How did you bring her there?”
“Easily. I had her transferred from the custody of Dr. Wasnair to the custody of one of my agents in Fort Brunt, and he had her brought to another, less secure lab, where she was smuggled out. From there it was even simpler. I had her transported to Lusterqal as a scientific oddity, so our boys could see what yours were up to. Our resurrection attempts so far have been unsuccessful. This is one area in which your scientists have outmatched ours, and when I pointed this out to certain people here it was child’s play—pardon the pun—to have her brought over.”
Avery had to fight to get his breath. “So she’s ... she’s an Octunggen lab rat?” He sagged against the door, struggling to maintain the strength to stand.
“She was a lab rat in Ghenisa, Doctor. So she is here.”
“But Ghenisans aren’t ... Octunggen scientists are notorious for ...” He couldn’t finish. Blackness started to seep in around the edges of his vision. The thought of his precious Ani undergoing the brutal experiments of the most ruthless scientists in the world was too much. Much too much. He gasped for breath that wouldn’t come.
“I told you that’s what would happen if you defied me in Cuithril,” Sheridan said. “This is the price you must pay. That she must pay.”
“But—” He wanted to sink to his knees. He wanted to strangle her.
She smiled, and it was almost warm. “I told you, Doctor: I’m her guardian. It was a condition of her being brought here. I permit the eggheads to study her, within limits I set, for a few hours a week. Only. That is all. And I set those limits quite narrowly. Blood cultures, allergy tests, that sort of thing. Nothing too invasive.”
The blackness began to retreat. He breathed easier. Strength started to return to his legs. “Really? You’re telling the truth?”
“Yes.”
“How do I know you’re not lying?”
“You saw her yourself. Did she look damaged? Traumatized?”
He pictured Ani in his mind, as he had been doing nonstop since he’d seen her in the cathedral. “No,” he said, his voice like a prayer. “She seemed ... normal. Sad but normal.”
“She is,” Sheridan assured him. She let her eyes bore into him. “However ... if I do not return ... she will be handed over to our scientists, and they will remove my limitations.”
He swallowed. “I’m not going to help you escape.”
“Not even to save your daughter?”
“Save her for what? To be used by scientists—and you? What sort of life would I be condemning her to? Even if she got out of the labs! Brainwashing? Made into an Octunggen mind-slave? A sacrifice?”
“So you’re saying, if I could arrange her escape, you could arrange mine?”
He blinked. He hadn’t even been thinking that. However, now that she said it ...
“I’ll take one of those.” He snatched a cigarette and lit it hastily, burning his fingers. Smoking and pacing in the tight confines, he said, “What did you want with her, anyway? Why did you have her brought here?”
“To use against you, of course.”
“What? How did—? How?”
She smiled thinly, cigarette gripped between two strong fingers and poised over her lips. Smoke curled across her face like the fingers of a lover. “I knew the Sect was poisoned. I knew you would be on your way to them. I could only hope that, somewhere along your journey, you learned of the gathering of Collossum and decided to investigate. It made sense that it would be you they’d send. I tried to convince my superiors to arrange for others to lay in wait for you, but I could only convince enough to let me do the job. As a sort of atonement, I suppose.”
“Atonement? What do you mean?” With every word she spoke he only grew more confused, and more afraid that he was falling into her trap—willfully and blindly.
“You do not think my superiors were pleased at my handling of Layanna’s capture, do you? You do not imagine they gave me a parade or a promotion? No? Good.” Her voice was sharp and hard. Stabbing her cigarette in the air for emphasis, she said, “They were quite displeased. I was, as you might say, raked over the coals. I’ve been stripped of command, position and placed under a sort of house arrest while my fate is decided.”
“You were in no house I saw.”
“I was not permitted to leave the island. I could wander its outer ring, but that was all. I believe the idea was for me to attend the services and beg the Collossum to forgive my sins. To grow closer to enlightenment. Hells, maybe even to offer myself for the Holy Road. Well. Hoping that a pretence of faith might appease them, I did attend the services—but with the aim of snaring you. And I nearly did. I missed you on the way in, but with all those people I think that’s understandable. I knew you’d have to leave after the gathering, however, when the congregation would have thinned, and that’s when I’d planned to take you. But I didn’t count on one thing. I should have thought of it, but ... You posed as a priest.” She made a bitter face. “It was your willingness to manipulate the parishioners’ bel
iefs that kept you out of my grasp. Your threat to have them turn on me. And they would have done it, too. Stupid of me not to think of that. The price I pay for being a nonbeliever, perhaps. Underestimating the faith. Not even taking it into consideration. And so, because of my stupidity ... here I am.”
“Here you are.” He’d stopped pacing and was staring at her, wondering how far he could trust her. Not far, he supposed. “With my daughter’s salvation in your grasp.”
She blew out a cloud of smoke. “No, Doctor. In yours. If you help me escape, I’ll help her escape. But first you have to make a choice. You chose Layanna over your daughter before. But now Layanna’s safe, and the Device, I assume, is being completed. Layanna’s danger has passed. That being the case, perhaps your daughter has a new importance in your life.”
“She has always been important!” He glared at her, then chuckled mirthlessly and shook his head. He’d just shown exactly the reaction she wanted.
She didn’t gloat. She just stared at him through the smoke-filled room, her eyes visible one moment and hidden the next by the shifting roils, and said, “The choice is yours, Doctor.”
* * *
Fuming, wanting to punch something, Avery left her and stalked down the halls, making for his own cell, a few halls over from Sheridan’s. Let Janx and Hildra have a moment alone; he was in no mood for company. The tunnels of cement, wood, aluminum and mud-brick glimmered with spider webs around him, their walls marked by graffiti so old it was historic, and he thought of what a strange world he had walked into. He just wanted peace and normalcy, to read his book by the fire. To hell with ruined cities and alien gods.
Inside his room he found a bottle with a few inches of whiskey still in it, some clothes and a cot. He grabbed the whiskey and flung himself down. Pulling at the bottle, he tried to quell his thoughts. Of course he wouldn’t help Sheridan. Of course not. Even if ... Ani ...
He drank. The picture of Ani he had in his head wouldn’t leave him. It superimposed itself above all other thoughts and images. He dug out the recent photograph, the one Sheridan had given him in Ungraessot, and compared it to the one in his head. Though crumpled at the corners and creased in the middle, it was the same. The same girl. His girl. The long nose, huge eyes, disarrayed hair, a mouth meant for impish grins now in a thin line. She was tense in the picture, and worried. Scared. She had been the same at the temple.
Mari, I could save our daughter. I could do it. Oh, Mari, what would you have me do? But his wife did not answer.
Suddenly he doubled over and wept. Great racking sobs ripped out of him. They burned his chest. His vision blurred. He cried. I saw Ani today. For four years he’d mourned her and her mother. He had just been climbing out of his depression, pulled up by Layanna and his new sense of purpose, when Sheridan had revealed Ani’s new life to him three months ago. Seeing that picture of her, so forlorn and frail, but alive, had torn him to shreds. It had reawakened all the old pain, all the old grief. And it had given him a new purpose, one that might be at odds with Layanna’s.
Ani, I’m so sorry. What could he do to help her? Surely there was something.
Suddenly he realized just how small he was. Even if he were the size of Janx, he still would’ve been too small. This was too big for any man. The war was huge. Octung was a monstrous, headless enemy. Sure, it had an Archchancellor, but he was just the face of a large and well-structured government with much in-built redundancy. Octung was vast and formless, great, groping tentacles stretching everywhere, tearing up the land. And then there was the Collossum at its center. The R’loth. Undefeatable and unknowable. It was all so hopeless. Why not just do what he could for his family and keep his head down? Why not just help Sheridan?
It was a tempting line of thought. But false. His daughter would not be helped by Octung winning the war, and that’s what would happen if he helped Sheridan escape, he was sure of it. Somehow she would find a way. He did not think he overestimated her abilities.
Avery drank more and at last fell into a deep, uneasy sleep. He dreamed of Ani, of shadows circling her, round and round, getting closer every second, issuing horrible gnashing sounds, teeth chomping, chomping, chomping. Shadowy limbs reached out to grab her—she seemed so tiny!—and she lifted her head and SCREAMED—
Avery jerked up in bed, gasping.
To his surprise, Layanna lay beside him. She had pulled up another cot. His shock over that almost overcame his panic. Panting, sweat oozing from his pores, he noticed that she had curled up on her side, facing away from him, her rump and lower back pushed up against him. She murmured in her sleep and turned toward him. One of her hands reached out and rested on his fluttering belly. He didn’t wake her. He knew she must be exhausted.
His sudden movement must have shaken loose the hold sleep had on her, however. She blinked and looked at him. Then she smiled and kissed him. He thought she would go right back to sleep, but she said, “How did it go? With Sheridan, I mean. I heard you went to see her.”
“It went ...” He didn’t want to talk about it. “As well as it could, I guess. How are things with the Sect?”
Her eyes shone. “They’ve agreed! They’ll work round-the-clock on the Device till it’s finished.”
“That’s wonderful.”
They kissed again in celebration, although he sensed a certain hesitation in himself as he did it, and, unbidden, an image sprang into his mind—the two worshippers offering themselves to her earlier, the young boy and girl. Brother and sister. Eyes bright, cheeks pink, their curly golden hair aglow. Even as he kissed Layanna, he couldn’t resist the awful thought, Did you eat them once I left?
“What’s wrong?” she asked. “Still thinking about Sheridan?”
He didn’t answer.
“What?” she pressed. “Please, tell me. Obviously something’s bothering you.”
“I don’t know ...”
She made her voice firm: “Tell me.”
He took a breath. “Can you ... is there any way you can forego accepting human sacrifices?”
Comprehension entered her eyes, and with it pain. “I ... Francis ... you know I need my strength to complete the Device ... and I’m the only one fully functional ...”
“I know. It’s just ...” He grimaced. “It’s hard to ... to kiss you, to be with you, knowing you eat people.” He saw her wince at the feeling in his words.
She started to reply, but then she paused, thinking, and he waited, half dreading what she would say.
“I can see that it’s very important to you,” she said.
“I don’t mind so much if they’re enemies, Layanna, or if they’re killers or rapists, but innocents—these worshippers of the Sect—it’s murder. Even if they’re volunteers. You brainwashed them into volunteering.”
“Francis …” She leaned in to kiss him, to calm him, but he pulled away, and she sighed. “Not exactly an aphrodisiac, is it?”
That was a bit flip for his mood, and he said nothing, only frowned.
“Francis, I don’t ...” She studied him, seemed to come to some arrangement with herself, and smiled. “Fine. For you. I’ll forego eating any innocents.”
He let out a relieved breath. “Thank you.”
He kissed her, and this time he meant it.
She settled back into sleep, while he stared up at the ceiling. His mind turned back to what had been occupying it before, turning it over and over. Sheridan’s offer still burned in him. It might be his last, desperate hope of saving Ani.
At last he realized he wouldn’t be able to sleep until he had settled this issue. He threw on his clothes and stalked back through the halls. The guards at Sheridan’s door searched him and admitted him.
He expected to find her in the same pose as before, cross-legged in an attitude of meditation, eyes slitted and shining through roils of smoke, as if she were some eternal cobra ever ready to strike. Instead she was stretched out against the far wall, sleeping, even snoring slightly, and the smell of piss filled the chambe
r from the bucket in the corner; Sygrel had at least given her that much. For some reason this made her even more formidable in Avery’s mind. She was human and at the same time a cobra. Her humanity made her monstrousness all the more monstrous.
She stirred and cracked her eyes. “Doctor,” she said, her voice only slightly slurred.
He didn’t waste time on greetings.
“I won’t help you escape,” he said.
She was quiet a moment. “That’s your final word on the matter? You know Ani’s life, and the quality of that life, hangs in the balance.”
“What I will do is this. Once the Device is activated, and the Black Sect have decided to relocate, I’ll try to arrange your release. After that, you won’t be able to hurt us. You won’t know their location. But you can still help Ani. You’ll still get your freedom ... in return for hers.”
“But, under present circumstances, my freedom is to be returned to house arrest. What’s in it for me?”
“You won’t be under house arrest long. The Octunggen war machine will begin to collapse after the Device is activated, and her armies driven back. They’ll need you, then. They won’t keep you locked up.”
“So you’d release me to be turned into cannon fodder. Tempting.”
“I doubt they’d use someone with your skills as cannon fodder. Listen, it’s the best offer I can make. And you really have no position to bargain from. I want to help my daughter, but not at the expense of the war. That’s the best I can do, Sheridan. Take it or leave it.”
Again she fell silent. He began to grow agitated.
“Well?” he demanded.
Maddeningly, she closed her eyes, as if to go back to sleep. “If you’re unwilling to negotiate with me because I have no position from which to bargain, then I suppose we’ll have to speak again once I have a better position.”
A chill coursed up his spine. “It’s not going to happen. The captain of the guard wants you killed out of hand, and I’m afraid he’s going to find many supporters. What little influence I have will be barely enough to keep you alive, and I’m only doing that for Ani.”