by Jaleta Clegg
The far end of the room was walled off with a glass panel and a clear door to a reception area on the other side. I was looking at the back side of a chair and desk and lots of security monitors. I pushed the door open and went in. The monitors showed empty corridors. I pushed a button and changed the views. Still no people. There was a computer on the desk, a single icon waiting patiently in a corner. I sat down and tapped the icon. The computer came to life.
Someone had been typing a message. It was still up on the screen. I read it with growing interest. A planned evacuation? They had left in a hurry when they heard the Patrol moving insystem. Where had they gone? The message didn't say. I flipped through more scenes of empty halls and empty labs. I caught motion on one camera. It was Paltronis. She was dragging Mart by one arm. He walked as if he were drunk, reeling from side to side. Not drunk, I knew, he was in shock.
"What did you find?" Beryn asked behind me.
"We're alone here," I said. "They hid among the other scientists when the Patrol came in. Querran has them in custody. At least for now."
"Lowell said he'd be here a while. He wants us to check farther in."
"What do you think the chances are of them having some kind of map?" I started rifling through drawers and papers.
Beryn was thinking a lot straighter than I was. He closed the message and had a map of the lab on the computer within a few seconds.
"Records," he said and tapped one room. "We're here. I think this is what we're looking for." He touched a room at the end of a long hallway, a large room labeled specimen pens. He lifted a com and pressed a button.
"What?" Paltronis's voice snapped out of the com.
"We're alone here, at least for now," Beryn said without preamble. "Where are you?"
"In a very nasty place," Paltronis said. "Mart says this is where they mind wiped them. Looking at the equipment here, I believe him."
Beryn tapped an area near the specimen pens. "Head to the left of that area. You should pass a security checkpoint in the hallway. I'll meet you just beyond it." He clicked off the com.
"Lowell," he called through the open glass door. "We're going."
"Half an hour," Lowell said without looking up.
"Come on," Beryn said and headed out of the reception area. I was at his heels. I was heading towards Mart. The closer we came, the faster I walked. I needed him, I couldn't stand being so far from him. The bond was pulling us together. I couldn't fight it, I had tried.
I knew before we turned the corner that they were waiting for us. Paltronis twitched her fingers nervously over a security panel. She heard us coming and yanked out a wire. The panel sparked blue and went dead.
"This area was secured," she said. "We should be clear, but they'll know someone was here."
"We just need evidence," Beryn said. "Lowell's going through their records. We've got half an hour. Well, less now."
"Then what are we waiting for?" Paltronis turned down a new hallway, this one dim and somehow sinister. "This place is getting on my nerves."
"I didn't know you had any," Beryn teased her.
I couldn't help myself. I touched Mart on the arm. The emotional tide between us was staggering. He turned towards me and slid his hand into mine.
"You shouldn't have done that," he said.
"I chose to, Mart," I said, knowing he would feel the decision I'd made. I couldn't live without him, not now. We would find a way to work things out.
He squeezed my hand. We followed Paltronis and Beryn into the secured area.
The hall had wide metal doors with heavy latches on both sides. Paltronis wrestled the first one open. She froze in the doorway. Mart felt her revulsion at what she saw. Beryn turned away from the door, his face twisted in disgust. He fumbled the recorder up and turned back to film whatever was inside.
I went to the other side of the hallway and opened the door there. The latch was heavy, it took both hands to lift it up and away. The door squealed as it opened. I looked inside. And wished I hadn't.
There were people in the room, stacked in beds six deep. They lay unmoving, staring sightlessly at the bottom of the bed only inches above their noses. Tubes ran to each bed. Medical monitoring equipment lined the end of each row of beds.
The people in the beds were naked, stripped of any dignity they might have possessed. A man in the bed nearest the door suddenly choked on drool. He coughed, a reflex action, nothing more. The monitor beeped. The bed twitched to the side. Straps held him, keeping him from rolling off onto the floor. His head flopped to the side. The coughing stopped. The bed rolled back. He lay as flaccid and sightless as before.
I backed out of the room, wanting to throw up. They weren't people anymore. Mart's reaction confirmed my guess. He squeezed my hand. He knew these people, he'd lived with them on Jericho. They'd been mind wiped until they were vegetables, only bodies kept alive by machines.
"They wanted their genes," I said. "On Zanius, the scientist said the cloning technique would only work with lots of genetic material."
I saw comprehension on Beryn's face. Paltronis narrowed her eyes.
"He wants an army of telepaths. He found a way to change adult humans to be telepaths." I didn't want to explain any farther. I wanted to be sick.
Beryn grimly crossed the hall and documented the room I'd opened. I saw at least a dozen more doors farther down the hall.
"They'll go mad," Paltronis said.
"I don't think he cares." Anyone who could do this to hundreds of people didn't value life in the least.
We moved down the hall to the next set of doors. It was more of the same. Banks of people, mindless people, artificially alive. After the fifth set of doors, I couldn't face it anymore. I turned away, heading back to Lowell and the records. Mart trailed after me.
We were halfway there when I heard the first alarm sound. Sirens echoed through the empty maze.
"They're back," Mart said. He started running, back to the nightmare of mindless bodies.
I tugged my hand free of his. "I'll get Lowell." I turned away from him and made myself run towards the records room.
Lowell hurried down the hall towards me. "We have to go. Now," he panted as he caught up with me. "Where are the others?"
"Back that way. We found the people from Jericho, what's left of them."
"You don't have to explain. I found their research notes. And their reports."
"Who's behind it?" I had to know. I had to put a face with the madness.
"Roderick is bankrolling it, although I don't think he knows what they're doing here. I can't see him being that twisted." He took my arm and hurried me towards the secured area. "I came across two names I found very interesting. It explains how Roderick managed to frame me."
"I don't want to go back in there," I said as we approached the first set of doors. "Who?" I asked Lowell to distract myself.
"Fleet Admiral Gustav Johnston and High Commander Dedrick Nuella," Lowell said.
The names meant nothing to me, but I was still surprised Lowell trusted me enough to share.
"Spirit of space," he said in shock when he looked into the first open door. "How could anyone do this?"
I couldn't look in the room. My own revulsion at what was inside was almost as great as Mart's. I hurried farther down the hall. Mart was there, just around the corner. He needed me and I needed him, something, anything, to counteract the horror of this place.
Lowell glanced into the open rooms as we passed by. I didn't.
I hurried around the corner. The doors here were different. There was an office at the corner, a glassed room with desks and monitoring equipment. I took Mart's hand. I needed the contact.
"If it makes you feel less guilty," Lowell said to Mart, "I found your records. You didn't betray anyone. You talked too much, but someone else gave them the codes."
"And you know who?" Mart asked, but he already knew Lowell knew.
"They had started on you when something went wrong with the equipment. You es
caped before they could finish wiping your mind. Who helped you, Martin?" It wasn't accusing, it was sympathetic. Lowell studied Mart, his silver eyes full of the horror of this place.
"I don't know her," Mart said. "She wasn't someone I'd ever seen before. I still don't know if I dreamed her or not."
"Myriassima has answers," I said. "I'm positive she knew what was going on. She knew who Mart was. She knew me. The bond between us didn't surprise her, she was expecting it. Why, Lowell?"
He shook his head. "She saw something in the future and she acted on it. Ti'uro is involved. She's Myria's student. They duped me, too." He turned to look down the hall behind us. "This place is an abomination. It should be destroyed. They deserve better than this."
Paltronis came up behind us, from deeper within the lab. Her face was pale, her mouth set grimly.
"Where's Beryn?" I asked.
"Puking in a corner. We found the children."
I made a move to go down the hall. She stopped me, grabbing my shoulder and pinning me to the wall.
"You don't want those nightmares."
"You documented it all?" Lowell demanded.
Paltronis nodded.
"Then set the charges."
Paltronis let go of my shoulder and slid her pack off her shoulder. She pulled out sets of explosives. I watched her place one near a bank of switches. She wired it to a detonator and moved down the hallway to set another.
I pulled away from Mart. "Let me help," I offered.
Paltronis handed me a bundle of charges and detonators. "Work your way back out. I'll bring Beryn with me."
The sirens hooted louder. The lights changed to red. I worked quickly, setting charges inside each room near the power distribution panel. I didn't look at the beds or the things in them. Mart was next to me, helping me. We worked our way quickly down the hall to the security station at the entrance.
"We've got to move." Lowell glanced at me. "That lock you destroyed must have been linked to a sensor somewhere. They know we're here. I caught the message on the computer in the lab."
Paltronis hurried up the hall towards us. Beryn was behind her. His face was white, his eyes haunted.
"We're set," Paltronis said and handed a control to Lowell.
"You should do it, Martin," Lowell said as he passed it to Mart.
We ran, heading for the exit. The lights were blinking, a warning red. The sirens wailed constantly. Thick panels lowered from the ceiling, cutting us off from the stairs, sealing us in.
"We aren't going to get out that way," Beryn said. "This way," he called and turned down a new hallway. "I thought I saw an emergency exit."
More of the panels blocked the halls. Beryn led us around them and into a back room. We found an elevator at the back of the room. The lights were still on, it still worked. We crowded in.
It lifted us up. Halfway to the stop marked with a one, the elevator shuddered. The lights flickered. We smelled smoke. The elevator creaked but kept moving upwards. I felt panic building. I hated being trapped, especially in small places. The smell of smoke was choking me. It was a relief when the doors finally opened. I was the first one out.
What had been a quiet and deserted building was now full of smoke and sirens. I dimly saw people rushing through the smoke. Blaster fire sizzled down the corridors. Lowell pushed me into motion, grabbing my arm and not letting go. My panic was building. This was too close to my nightmares. I had to get clear. I ran with him.
The halls were unfamiliar in the red, smoke filled light. We ran into a group of scientists in lab coats. They gaped after us as we crashed through them. One of them shouted and fired at us.
We stumbled over a body in the hall. Sprawled and lifeless, half of the face burned away by blaster fire, I tried not to look and failed.
"What is going on here?" Paltronis asked as we dodged another group with guns.
Lowell pulled me around another corner. "My guess is that Querran's escort was attacked. They really don't want anyone to find their secrets. Whoever is really behind this lab wouldn't leave it unguarded."
We slid around a corner and came into the wide front lobby. The glass windows, three stories high, that rose above the doors, shattered as we crashed through the doors. I ducked my head and ran, blindly following Lowell.
Patrol ground transports crowded near the entrance to the building. Lowell pushed me into the open back of one. He climbed in after me. Paltronis and Beryn scrambled up behind him. The transport lurched into motion.
"Where's Mart?" I asked, suddenly panicked. I couldn't feel him near. He was back there, in the lab. He was down below.
Lowell grabbed me and hauled me back into the transport. He pinned me against the side. I fought him, I had to get out. I had to go to Mart.
"The remote trigger couldn't send the signal through the shielding. Someone had to manually set off the charges."
"Mart!" I screamed, twisting away from Lowell.
He held onto me, keeping me in the back of the transport. "Listen to me. Martin chose it. He wanted to atone for his mistakes. He knew someone had to do it."
"Let me go!" I fought Lowell's hold, feeling the distance to Mart growing. I had to go back, I had to find him. I couldn't live without him.
I knew when Mart set off the detonator. I felt the wash of heat and the brief instant of consuming fire. The earth shook. Air roared past. Debris rained down. The bond pulled me after Mart. I slumped over in the transport. Nothing mattered now. I felt as if I were floating away, up into the smoky skies.
"She isn't breathing," Paltronis said.
Her voice faded as I drifted farther away. I looked down and felt only pity for the bundle of flesh lying in the bed of the transport. I was drawn away, out into a dimension I never suspected existed.
Mart reached out to me. He tore the bond between us, ripping it apart in an agony of pain. I'm sorry, it should never have been. The words hung in the air between us. Go in peace. Something in me snapped. I felt myself falling through red fire.
I was Dace. I was alone. I was myself and no one else. A tiny spark I'd thought had been extinguished by the bond flared to life. I am Dace. I am me. I am myself. I am Dace! The last of the bond shredded. What was left was not entirely me, I still had Mart in my soul and he still had part of me. But I was free of the bond. I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. I wanted to live, but part of me wanted to die with Mart. I felt myself pulled back to my own body, away from Mart, whatever and wherever he was now.
The pain was what I noticed first. Every thought, every emotion hurt. I blinked open aching eyes to find Lowell bending over me, tears in his eyes. He sighed with relief as he saw me move.
"He's dead," I whispered. I curled into a ball.
The skies overhead opened up with a drenching rain. We were soaked in moments. I barely noticed.
Chapter 39
"You blew it up?" Querran exploded herself when Lowell told her. "What proof do I have now? How am I going to explain this?"
Lowell handed her the recorders. "It's all here, justification for all of it. Including blowing it up." His face was gray and grim. "Who attacked your troops?"
"We don't know. They were hiding in the jungles away from the compound. My troops are still scouring the area looking for stragglers."
I huddled in a chair, trying to make myself want to live again. Every move hurt, every piece of my soul felt charred. We were in Querran's command post, a tent that did little more than keep the rain off. It wouldn't have mattered anyway. The rain was stopping, but the muggy heat saturated everything.
"Was it necessary? I could have done it later."
"It was necessary, Suella. I promise you that."
"But your man died."
I flinched. Lowell took Querran's arm and led her out of the tent, away from me where I couldn't hear. They argued, quietly but fiercely, out in the clearing.
Paltronis was the one who offered me a dry towel. I took it but seemed to have forgotten what to do with it. I sat
and held the towel and hurt.
"Chief?" One of Querran's aides hurried across the clearing towards the tent.
"Yes?" she snapped.
The man stopped, looking uncertain. "We've picked up a ship heading towards the planet."
"And?" she prompted. "Why does it concern me?"
"Their beacon identifies them as a ship that is wanted for piracy. The Avenger can take them into custody."
"What ship?" Querran asked.
"The beacon was tampered with, a patch programmed over the real beacon. We wouldn't have caught it except it wasn't a Patrol ship so we looked closer than we otherwise would have."
"What ship?" Querran asked again, her tone sharp.
"Phoenix Rising, registered out of Besht."
I felt painful hope rising again, dragging out of the bleakness.
"Should we pick it up, ma'am?"
"No," Querran said, giving Lowell a nasty look. "You will allow it to land. You will not make contact. You will not attempt anything. Do you understand?"
"They're wanted criminals."
"I'm painfully aware of that," Querran snapped. "You have your orders."
The man saluted and left, but not before giving us a very searching look.
"The four of you will be on that ship as soon as possible after it lands," Querran said. "You and that ship never landed on Calloway."
"Understood," Lowell said. "You will see that the evidence reaches the right people?"
She held the recorder, looking worn and old. She nodded. "It won't disappear. Is it as bad as your faces indicate?"
"Worse."
She nodded and tucked the memory chip from the recorder into her pocket. "Don't come visit me again, Grant," she said as she walked away.
The sun came out. Steam rose from the ground and plants all around the clearing. The smell of smoke lingered. Querran got into the cab of a transport. She didn't look at us as it drove away.
I heard a ship overhead. I knew that engine, I knew that silhouette. I almost cried from relief. Nothing would change the pain severing the bond with Mart had caused. But I had more ties than that, ones that I had chosen. I watched the Phoenix land not far away.