The stone slipped from Brendan’s hand, onto his lap, and from there to the ground near his feet. He took his glasses off, rubbed at them with his sleeve. Alex watched from a slow place.
“Humans are incapable of anything beyond greed. We’re so greedy, we don’t even protect our self-interest.”
Yes, Alex thought. He’s right. That’s why we say we’ll exploit the resources of the moon. That’s why he had to fight the Board on using the Planetoid. It was greed. But the moon was so beautiful, so full of richness, how could they be blamed for wanting it? He could feel her pull even now, though she hadn’t risen yet, in all her richness and resources.
“The women taught me that. All the women. But The Mother will take care of them.”
The Mother. Yes. She would take care of it. Alex seemed to know about her suddenly, as if he’d learned it from Brendan’s mind though he hadn’t made empathic contact with him. Had he? Or were they in constant contact, as if they were the same man, maybe all men represented by just the two of them sitting here in the rainforest trying to save The Mother from destruction. The last two good men willing to die and kill for The Mother.
“The Mother,” Alex heard himself say as if some part of his brain was working without him, “The Mother is a woman.” His voice sounded sluggish and distant. Confused. “The Mother is a woman,” he said again, this time with more certainty, as if he’d said something very important.
Brendan’s face grew tight. “Listen to yourself,” he said angrily, “That’s all you can think of. She’s a woman. Something for you to own and fuck and consume. You would, too. Any man would, because they make us want them. They make us fuck them and fuck them until we die from it. Then they blame us, twist it all around so it’s our fault. But they’re to blame, with their soft skin and their silky hair and their big eyes.”
Alex shook his head. No, he thought. No. Something wasn’t making any sense. Or maybe it was. Something was making sense. Ultimate sense. If only he could get unstuck from this slow place, this place where sound and thought were so thick and heavy.
“The Mother is a woman. Doesn’t she do that, too?” he asked, careful to make sure words emerged when he moved his lips which had gone thick and numb.
Brendan turned on him and put his face very close so that Alex could see into his eyes, like looking through fog into an abyss. “You know what she is,” he hissed. “You know what she’ll do. Make it so we never want them again.”
Never want them again, Alex thought. When he tried to say the words he found he couldn’t really speak any longer.
Brendan grabbed his shoulders urgently and shook them hard. “You know how it has to be. We have to bring the Mother back, so we won’t have to feel this way anymore.”
Not feel this way anymore, Alex thought. The appeal of death was that it wiped out the pain of desire. The desire for pain. Brendan was right. Desire was painful, and what did he have to look forward to except his continuing desire with no satisfaction, and didn’t she encourage that? She wouldn’t change herself, so he had to bear the burden of desire, painful, and constant. They give it to us, and use it against us, Alex heard Brendan say.
“You’d like to see an end to it, wouldn’t you?” Brendan said. He moved his hand across the plane of the horizon as if sweeping it clean. “Get rid of it. Make it all go away. Make it clean, for the Mother.”
Alex saw what Brendan saw. A planet cleared of human activity, of human presence and life. It was clean and bright and harmonious, following its own rhythms.
“How?” he heard himself asking. “How?”
“Kill them,” Brendan said. “The women. They’re the only link left.”
Link to what, Alex wondered. He looked at Brendan, asking without words, and Brendan heard.
“To life. The link to life,” he said. “And they torment us with it.”
Brendan held the stone out to him, and Alex almost touched it. Kept a finger moving toward it, but slowly, very slowly like the turning moon.
There’s a way to stop it.
Yes. There was. He could see that. A way out. A way that worked.
If she was dead.
If she was dead.
Alex felt searing pain course up his arm, run toward his heart as if someone had stuck a hot needle into a nerve. He jerked away from Brendan, stumbled to his feet and fell back onto the ground, his hands finding cool damp earth, his lungs seeking air, pulling it in hard.
The fog cleared from around him, and he sat in a clear space, feeling his feelings.
“Shit,” he said through clenched teeth. “Dammit, that hurt.”
Brendan put the stone back in his pocket and smiled knowingly. “I was like that at first, too,” Brendan said, “Afraid. But you’ll see. There are answers. You didn’t think there were, but there are.”
And Alex thought he was beginning to understand some of them already.
* * * *
Jaguar sat at the gleaming black conference table with her hands folded in her lap, wearing her best grey silk pantsuit, hair neatly braided, only one silver and obsidian earring in her left ear, the tip of her glass knife tucked well up her sleeve. She’d had to replace the one the cops took from her last night while she made her statement and answered questions. Then, this morning, she was called to this meeting with a bunch of Board governors. That didn’t look good.
Sometimes prisoners died in the course of their program, and usually after the Teacher involved wrote up a report they heard no more about it until they received formal notice that further investigation had proven them innocent of any wrongdoing.
She wasn’t sure why she’d been called in to this meeting, but she did know two things: she couldn’t find Alex, and none of the Board governors who shared the room with her were willing to make eye contact with her. Neither event boded well.
George Shafritz whispered in low tones to Hira Shilo. Miriam Whitehall read her files. Frank Goodall leaned back in his chair and hummed tunelessly at the ceiling, drank from his glass of water. They regarded her not at all, as if she was the body at a funeral, just an object to talk around before they got on with the more important business they had with each other, the still living.
The door to the room opened and Paul Dinardo, Board governor for her zone, entered. He cast a quick look her way, then averted his eyes as he found his seat and mumbled an apology for his lateness. Once he was seated, he pulled her file from his briefcase, tugged at his tie, and gathered in the others with his eyes.
“Review meeting come to order,” he said. Silence made its way around the table.
She noticed he continued to look at his file rather than at her. She noticed the small muscles in his jaw were working hard.
“Dr. Addams,” he said, “This is your account of the prisoner death dated 5/19, and all present have reviewed it. Is there anything you want to add to it at this time?”
“No,” she said. “It’s all there.”
Miriam leaned across the table toward her and said in silky tones, “We understand how difficult this sort of event is, Dr. Addams, and I’m sure you understand that our verification process must be complete and accurate. Since your report contained the briefest of paragraphs, Paul thought it might be good for us to have a fuller account.”
She blinked in surprise, then turned full face to Miriam. For one split end of time, she allowed herself to dip into Miriam’s eyes, feel the triumph that rested behind them. Before Miriam could respond in anger or fear, she pulled back.
“There’s no fuller account than the one in my report,” she said.
“Then could you repeat it for us, please?” Paul Dinardo asked. He was being polite. Formal. The worst possible sign of all.
“All of it?”
He looked to the other governors. “Just from the parking lot,” Miriam suggested.
Jaguar sighed. She’d told it about five times last night, then wrote it down, so she supposed she had it memorized by now. “I was engaged in part of the prisoner’s p
rogram in a parking lot outside Scarborough Mall, when she became violent and hit me. I fell to the ground, and the prisoner produced a weapon and threatened me with it. I told her to put it down, and she didn’t comply. I showed her my weapon – a knife – and she lunged at me, either falling on it or throwing herself on it. She was fatally wounded.”
She waited. Saw Paul’s face. Miriam’s face. The glances they exchanged.
“Dr. Addams, what happened to the prisoner’s weapon?”
“Happened?”
“Where did it go?”
She tilted her head at him inquisitively. “I suppose one of the guys from the cop shop picked it up after I went to the hospital with Karena.”
“After a careful search, no weapon was found. And where did your prisoner get a gun?” George Shafritz asked.
“I don’t know,” Jaguar said. She kept her face toward him. “Perhaps someone gave it to her in the mall.”
Miriam nodded as if she was satisfied. Jaguar had put her interaction with Miriam in her report, so she must be aware of it.
Hira shifted in her seat. “Are you suggesting anyone in particular?” she asked.
“No,” Jaguar said. The governors waited for elaboration. None came.
Hira raised her eyebrows at Miriam, who let a smile twitch across her lips. She transferred the smile to Shafritz, who passed it on to Frank Goodall, who tried unsuccessfully to relay it to Paul Dinardo. He sat with his head turned down toward his file, looking grim.
“Dr. Addams,” Goodall said, “your statement includes report of a meeting with Governor Whitehall at the mall. Are you in any way suggesting she gave your prisoner a gun?”
“No,” Jaguar said again. Again they waited for elaboration. Again she didn’t oblige.
Hira Shilo laughed nervously. “Then, what are we doing here?” she asked the others. “I mean, really. Our decision’s been rendered based on the report. There’s clearly nothing to add to it, and I do have a lunch appointment.” The others murmured, consulted expensive watches.
Paul Dinardo’s head jerked up and turned in Miriam’s direction. “Why don’t you just tell her what you told me, Miriam,” he said.
Miriam turned her hand over. “If you really think it’s important, Paul.”
“I do.”
She faced Jaguar. “You claim to have seen me at the mall, but at the hour in question, I was in a telecom conference with a business associate. The conference lasted an hour, and took place at the Governor’s Inn. There’s a record of it.”
Of course, Jaguar thought. No gun was found. Miriam was not at the scene. Alex had disappeared.
“Records are very easy to falsify,” she said, a statement rather than a challenge.
“But CEOs are not bought cheaply, and I’m not yet rich enough to buy off the perjured testimony of Lawrence Barone.”
Murmurs went around the table. Jaguar felt her skin grow cold. Barone. Jesus. She was in very big trouble, and so was Alex.
“Do you mind telling me what you were talking about?” Jaguar asked.
“Not at all. We were discussing his recent request to have Planetoid Three used as a base for a Lunar material processing plant, when the moratorium is lifted. I was explaining why I couldn’t support his request.”
Jaguar looked around the table and noted the reactions of the other governors. Shafritz shook his head while Malor whispered something in his ear. Jaguar heard the words, ‘talk about it later, Talek.’ Paul looked blank. Hira’s face was creased with concentration, as if she was trying to untangle a fine chain necklace and not succeeding. Miriam smiled.
Jaguar did something she’d never done before. She made empathic contact without permission, in a public setting.
She turned her sea-eyes toward the nearest governor, Shafritz, and took a look inside. Not too far. Just enough to let him know who was walking around in his head. He gasped and went blank. She moved on to Hira, who winced. She took a stab at Goodall, who shook his head. One by one, as she left them, they pressed hands to their temples, not sure what, if anything, had just happened. Then she got to Miriam, who held her gaze and returned it.
Jaguar let her thoughts enter without the courtesy she should take in these matters. The entry was so easy, she thought for a moment she’d found another empath in the room, but realized quickly she was wrong.
Miriam was no empath, but she’d been absorbing Artemis. Jaguar was now familiar with the difference in feel between the two. She didn’t stick around to explore, as the other governor’s were beginning to squirm, afraid of her, all of them, afraid of her eyes.
She stayed just long enough to say her piece.
You won’t get away with this.
And she heard Miriam’s laughter. Miriam’s response.
I already have.
Jaguar pulled away, and lifted her eyes to directly meet Paul’s. “What the hell is this?” she hissed at him.
“That’s what we’d like to know,” Shafritz declared, standing and pointing a finger at her. “You – you’re doing something and you have no right. No right at all.”
Miriam, at his left, put a hand on his arm. “Now, George. It’s all right. Sit down.”
“Do like the lady says,” Paul agreed. “We don’t need to make this into a circus.” He turned to Jaguar. “Do we?”
“I’d rather have a circus than a gangbang,” Jaguar replied.
At least she had the pleasure of watching Paul fail to rein himself in. “It’s an incident review meeting, Addams,” he snapped. “I called it to give you a chance to clear your ass and avoid suspension pending further investigation. So far, you haven’t used it very well.” He looked around at the others, and they nodded as if saying yes to a question someone had asked.
“Yeah,” Paul said to them. “That’s what I thought.” He turned to her. “Dr. Addams, you’ve got a temporary suspension of duty, while this is investigated further. If there’s no more questions, the meeting’s closed.”
Paul slapped his file folder shut. The others followed suit, and began to rise. Apparently it was all over.
“Wait a minute,” Jaguar said. “I have questions. Isn’t it protocol for me to ask my questions?”
Paul looked from Jaguar to Miriam. “Actually, it is,” he told Miriam.
She turned to Jaguar. “Don’t worry. Your pay will continue during the investigation.”
“That wasn’t my question,” she said, and turned to Paul. “What’s my Supervisor got to say about this?”
The small muscles in Paul’s jaw twitched harder. Before he could answer, Miriam intervened, saying, “Your supervisor is unavailable for comment, Dr. Addams.”
Paul jerked his face around to look at Miriam. In a barely perceptible movement, she turned her head left and right to indicate a negative. Don’t say anything, she was telling Paul.
“She’s got a right to know,” Paul said. “Besides, we can’t hide it for very long.”
“Hide what?”
Paul looked at her hard. “Alex disappeared with a prisoner. And a body’s been discovered. A woman who went off a bridge. There’s evidence he had something to do with the death.”
“But,” Jaguar protested. “That can’t be. He’s – he said -”
“He said nothing,” Paul cut in. His face looked desperate for her silence. Shut the hell up for once, he was almost screaming. And he looked scared.
“Paul, that’s ridiculous and you know it,” she said anyway.
Miriam broke in. “There’s a warrant out for his arrest on a murder charge. He’s considered armed and dangerous, and orders are to take no chances in bringing him in.”
“Alex doesn’t carry a weapon,” Jaguar said.
“With his training, his hands are considered lethal.”
Jaguar couldn’t stop herself. She smiled. “That’s not what I’d call them,” she said.
Miriam’s face tightened, and worked hard to smooth itself out. Jaguar remembered seeing her at some official Planetoid function Alex m
ade her attend. She continuously swirled herself in Alex’s direction, while he continuously turned her away like a curtain that kept blowing in his face. She’d looked daggers at Jaguar when Alex led her onto the dance floor.
She wasn’t accustomed to rejection. With her smooth social skills, her good manners and good looks, everyone liked her. Everyone except Alex.
Jaguar lifted a hand up, let it fall, nonchalant. “Really, Miriam. Just because he wouldn’t fuck you, that’s no reason to have him gunned down.”
There was bluster in the room that ended with Paul utterly relinquishing his precarious hold on formality, “For Chrissake, Addams – that’s out of line,” he shouted over the bluster. “Put a freaking lid on it, will you?”
Miriam’s voice carried the tone of a righteous martyr when she silenced him. “No, Paul. Let her talk. It’s meaningless, and as you said, she has the right.”
“Then I’ll clarify,” Jaguar said, turning her focus directly on Miriam, piercing her with all she knew.
You grew up poor, then lost what little you had during the Serials. No family, no home, no money. Now you think being rich and powerful will stop your fear. But it won’t because what you really want is to know you’re loved. And you’ll never know that from Alex, no matter what you do to him.”
Miriam’s face went white. “How dare you,” she said, speaking through clenched teeth.
Jaguar laughed, and also spoke out loud.
“I dare a lot more than you ever would, Miriam. That’s why Alex dances with me.”
“Go to hell,” Miriam snapped. “What do you know about it, with your arts and the men you kill? It’s laughable, you lecturing me about love. You’ve got it in your hands, and you throw it away.”
Miriam lingered just long enough to see the shot hit home. Then she gathered her things and left the room.
Jaguar’s jaw worked hard. This was the only charge flung at her today that she didn’t know how to answer. In every other matter she hung on to her innocence, but not in this. She leaned back and closed her eyes.
A Lunatic Fear Page 11