“Not bad.” He nodded grudgingly. “Clumsy, amateur, I’ll never be able to get near DeAth again … but not bad. Might even use you again sometime.”
I felt my face prickle, not sure if I was flattered or just pissed off. “How many others you used up, anyhow? They all still in there?”
He shook his head. “Never met anybody stupid enough to believe me before.”
“Drop dead.” I started to get up from my seat.
He caught my arm, holding on; his one good eye held my gaze like his fingers held my flesh. (Don’t listen to what I say,) his mind begged me. (My mouth’s like my eye. I let you in because you can see past that kind of shit. Work with me again. Be my partner. You saw what you could do. It’ll be easier next time. It’d be like exploring unknown worlds.… You could get rich easy—)
I shook my head, as surprised as I was uncertain, all of a sudden. (I can’t.)
(Why not?) I felt the sharp jab of his betrayal. It had cost him to make that offer. Getting rejected was more than he was ready for. I realized with a kind of shock that he actually liked me. (Goddamn it—) he thought, angry at me, more angry at himself.
(I can’t because I’m on borrowed time.) I touched the patch behind my ear. (I’m wearing drugs. I can’t use my psi without them, and I can’t use them much longer. Pretty soon I’ll be just another deadhead again.)
His good eye squinted almost shut. (I So.… They got to you after all … the deadheads. Fucked you up. Thought you were too good to believe. Should’ve known.) He moved away from me, but his touch stayed on inside my head a second longer, the way his hand had touched me, once, twice. “You got everything you need, then?” Falling back into the impersonal distance of speech, shying away from further contact. He was fucked up, I was fucked up, because of what we were, had been, would always be … and he didn’t want to feel it any more.
“Yeah, sort of.…” Remembering the surprise I’d gotten along with the data. “Got some kind of code strings—secret account numbers, I think. Don’t know whose. Now I’ve got to figure that part out.”
“Show me.”
I let him read what I’d found.
“Hell, that’s easy.” He snorted, and waved me back into the seat. “I can show it to you right now.”
“No, thanks—”
“Make one more run with me. It’ll do you good. You’ll trust yourself more … you’ll always know you can do it if you need to.” I felt his mind behind the words, pushing, pulling, pleading.
“Okay,” I said, partly because he wanted it so much, not to be alone on that journey if he didn’t have to be; not to be alone again in this room any sooner than he had to be. (Okay.) Partly because he was right, too.
I took a leak and gulped some water at his sink, and then we dropped back into inner space. It wasn’t as hard going in this time, or as far away when we got there. (Banks are stupid,) Deadeye thought, grinning, when we had our digits tracked down, tied to a filename, more datacodes, a whole shitload of credit from unlisted sources. A Family, probably. That was all we found, even in those secret depths, but it would probably be enough. I didn’t make any stupid mistakes this time, and Deadeye stayed linked to me all the way there, all the way back. It was still hard to let myself out, let my self go—but he pushed me back through the mirror into reality, or what passed for it to everybody else.
I rubbed my eyes. “How the hell did you ever find your way out of there, the first time you did it?”
He shrugged. “I just gave up. I thought I was lost forever. I let go and got ready to die.…” His bloodless face got even harder to look at as he remembered. “Thought it was just what I wanted, too, until I woke up again here.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I guess I know what you mean.” I stood up, felt his eyes follow me. “Well, I got to get going.…”
He shrugged again.
I stayed where I was, trying to think of the words that would let me go. “Thanks. For helping me out. For … trusting me. Teaching me.”
His face twisted. “You gonna make me regret it?”
I shook my head.
“Then get your ass out of here, you cripple. You wasted enough of my time.”
I grimaced. “See you around.” I started for the door.
He didn’t get up from his seat; wasn’t even looking at me when he said, “Not if I can help it.”
I looked back one last time as I reached the doorway; looked down at my sweater. (You do good work,) I thought, touching it.
(Sweater looks nice on you, kid.) He was still facing the wall.
I let myself out through the darkened warehouse, heading for the street. I was halfway down the block before I heard him say, (Wear it in good health.)
TWENTY-FIVE
WHEN I WAS safe inside the swarming, light-washed security of the Tube again, I stopped to call Mikah. I got a recording. I left him a message, and then I called Braedee. I didn’t have a call code, so I made one up, figuring he was probably monitoring every call I made anyway. “Braedee, I need to see you,” I said. “What?” a stranger’s faceless voice answered. I cut contact and got on the next transit that came.
When I got off at the transfer point there were Centauri Corpses waiting. They wondered why I wasn’t more surprised to see them … remembered what I was, and figured they knew.
I got into the mod and settled in my seat, not paying any attention to the trip as my mind went over what I’d learned, and how I was going to tell it to Braedee. When I thought I was ready to face him I looked out the window, expecting to see the Centauri Transport fields spreading out like a lava flow below me.
But the only light was the moon hanging halfway up the sky; there was almost perfect darkness down below. We’d left N’Yuk behind and we weren’t heading east. I sat up straighter. “We’re going back to the estates?” I asked.
The Corpses glanced at each other. “That’s our orders,” the bigger one said.
“Braedee’s there?” I was surprised now.
They looked at each other again. “Don’t know about that,” the big one said. “If it’s important enough, maybe he’ll be there.”
“Maybe? It’s about murder, about somebody wants to kill a taMing.…” I broke off. “Braedee didn’t send you.” Finally seeing the reason behind their confusion.
“Gentleman Charon ordered us to pick you up.” That was all they’d been told.
Braedee must have contacted him after I called. That made sense; Charon would want to hear it too. I wondered what he’d think when he heard. But that wasn’t my problem. I shrugged, and settled back in my seat again.
We landed in the floodlit courtyard of the castle that sat alone far up the taMings’ valley; the place where I’d gone to the board meeting when I’d first come here.
The Corpses led me through its museum-halls until we reached a small—if you could call anything in this mansion small—room. There was a fireplace at one end. It had been sealed up, and the room was cold. I thought of Lazuli, suddenly. But it was her husband who sat waiting for me in a red brocade-covered chair. It looked like a throne. I wondered if he played king of the galaxy in it when he was alone.
He wasn’t alone now. Braedee was there, just like I’d expected he’d be. But so was Daric.… and so was Jiro. They were all standing, waiting, looking at me … with the wrong expressions. I hesitated, confused, and one of the Corpses gave me a small shove forward: Don’t keep the king waiting. I went down the five steps from the hallway and started across the patterned marble floor toward Charon.
“That’s close enough,” Charon said, when I was still about three meters away; as if I had some disease he didn’t want to catch.
I stopped, glancing from face to face again, feeling more confused with every heartbeat. Braedee’s mind read disgust frustration (You stupid bastard) as he looked back at me. Daric’s mind was almost unreadable, like it always was, because he didn’t know whether he was glad excited amused scared shitless when he imagined what was about to happen.
Jiro wasn’t there at all, dazed with pain like someone had hit him in the stomach; but the pain was mental, not physical, and the one who’d done it to him was Charon.
I said, “I have more information about Lady Elnear. That’s why I called Braedee. Maybe we should—”
“Shut up,” Charon said. He got slowly up out of his chair, like some compulsion had hold of him, and came toward me.
And suddenly I saw Lazuli, in his mind. Oh my god. Lazuli— “Wait,” I said, lifting my hand.
He caught my hand inside his own hand—the one that wasn’t really alive. He looked down at mine, wrapped in peeling sudoskin, my trapped fingers curling up like the limbs of a fetus as his grip hurt the half-healed wound in my palm. “Yes…” he said, looking straight into my eyes, now, “you should be afraid. I know that you have been having an affair with my wife.” The pressure increased on my hand as I tried to pull it free … as he thought about me touching her body, exploring her. “I let you come into my world, I trusted you, and you used your mind to seduce her—”
I gritted my teeth. It wouldn’t do any good to make excuses, to try to explain, to deny it. His anger, his hate ran too deep. He hated psions just as much as Stryger did, but he had a reason—“I saved her life!” The pressure let up, just a little. I glanced away from him for the second it took to scan.… Braedee? He was watching us like someone studying insects, but his face was only a mask. Braedee hadn’t told Charon about us; Braedee had too much to lose. Daric? He looked like he was spitted over a slow fire—in agony, in ecstasy. But he had too much to lose, too. Jiro? He was staring at his stepfather’s hand closed over mine; not really seeing it, sick with his own fears about his mother, and himself. “Who—?” I whispered, not really meaning to.
“My wife talks in her sleep,” Charon said, the unforgiving hatred clamping down again. He’d heard her call my name. But that hadn’t been enough for him; that had only been the beginning.…
I swore under my breath, only partly from the pain. He’d used the hand that had hold of me now on Lazuli, to try to force the truth out of her, and then he’d used it on her little girl.… “Where is she? What did you—”
“I sent her back to Eldorado.” Talitha too; they were both gone. I glanced at Jiro, still here, and suddenly I understood why he looked like he did.
“You bastard,” I mumbled, blinking too much.
“Blame yourself,” he said. “The only reason I don’t have you killed is that you did your job. Braedee.” He looked away, his eyes hunting down the Security Chief who’d let this happen. “I want him out of here—out of my life, out of my network, off this planet by morning.” His look told Braedee that he wasn’t going to forget any of this soon.
Braedee nodded, stone-cold as usual, his black unblinking stare fixed on me. “Yes, sir. But I want to hear what he came to tell us, first.”
Charon’s mouth opened for a refusal. I glanced away, at Daric’s barely-controlled face, and back. “It’s about Lady Elnear—” I said, before Charon could make me stop, “and Gentleman Daric.” I had Charon’s attention now, and suddenly I couldn’t wait to tell him that hired killers wanted his son. “He’s—”
Daric’s panic and betrayal exploded in my head as he registered the words; as he thought I was about to say something else—something that would destroy his life. “Why don’t you ask Cat about Jule, father?” he blurted. “Ask him how many times he slept with your daughter, too. Ask him which one he liked better.”
My mouth fell open. Daric smiled at me with bitter triumph, as Charon looked down at my hand still trapped inside his own, seeing the image of his daughter, the image of his wife, my image trapped together inside his brain.… He closed his fist.
Right then I would have told him everything about Daric: perversions, drugs, hit men, psion—everything. But the raw cry that came out of my mouth didn’t waste its time on words.
He let go of my hand, finally. I hardly felt it as he ripped the emerald earring out of my ear. “I’ve changed my mind,” he said to Braedee. “I want you to kill him.” I looked up, feeling the words bleed on me, and stopped breathing.
Braedee didn’t answer for a long minute. Then he said, “No, sir. You don’t want me to do that.”
Charon frowned; he looked at the others watching him, me, us. “I said I want the freak killed. Take care of it now.”
“No, sir.” Braedee said again. “Let me deal with him my own way.”
“Goddamn it!” Charon shouted. “You do what I tell You!”
“Yes, sir—” Braedee started slowly across the room toward me. “But he is a fully-registered citizen. That means I can’t guarantee your family’s involvement would remain confidential.…”
Charon straightened up, his hand making a fist as the two of them locked stares. But it was Charon’s gaze that broke, finally.
Braedee finished crossing the room to collect me. As he forced me toward the door he muttered, “Don’t talk. Save it.” I didn’t have any trouble obeying.
* * *
“All right,” he said, as the mod that had brought me to the estates took us both away again. “Now talk.”
I watched the taMings’ valley fall into the darkness below me, fighting dizziness, trying to center my mind enough so that I could answer. I looked up again into Braedee’s dim, dead eyes. The two Corpses who’d brought me to the estate were sitting across from us, empty-faced. Braedee had done something that sealed us off from them; neither of them heard him speak. Finally I said, “Why didn’t you just kill me?”
He glanced away from me, out into the night. “You hadn’t given me your data.”
He was serious. I stared at him, feeling sick. “I got nothing to say to you,” I said. I cradled my hand against my stomach, feeling my skin get warm and wet as fresh blood seeped out of my palm. “Any of you.” The need to spill Daric’s secret died as I realized what would have happened if I’d told Charon the truth. Nothing anybody could have done would have gotten me out of that room alive. Maybe I should be glad he’d crushed my hand.
“You were eager enough to call me in the middle of the night,” Braedee snapped, like nothing had happened in between that might change my mind. “What about?”
“Find out for yourself. You don’t own me any more.”
“Do you feel humiliated?” he asked. Disgust made the words as heavy as lead. “Do you feel like a stupid fool? You should.”
Lazuli’s face filled my eyes again. “She’s really gone?” My throat ached.
He nodded.
“Why’s Jiro still here, then?”
“Gentleman Charon said that he wants to keep closer track of the boy, since he’s next in line for a seat on the board.”
“Jiro’s not his son.”
“That makes no difference.”
“Jiro hates him. He’s doing it to punish her—”
“That’s not my business.”
“You’re all business, aren’t you? Don’t you ever wonder what the point of it all is?”
“If you’d stuck to the business you were hired for, instead of cuckolding your employer, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.”
I glanced at him, frowning, and away again. “What do you want me to say?” My face burned.
He flicked a finger at my wound. “That you deserved that. You deserved worse.” For half a second there was something that wasn’t self-interest in the human half of his mind. He took care of these people; he didn’t like seeing them get hurt. Especially not by somebody he’d told them they could trust.
I swallowed hard. “All I want now is what Charon wants—to be out of his life. To be off this stinking planet before I have to see it in the light of day again.”
After a long moment, he said, “What about Lady Elnear? Are you going to tell me what you learned? Or are you going to let some assassin kill her, after all?”
I raised my head again slowly, not wanting to. Realizing I had to give him that much, for her sake, to feel clean. “She’s not the t
arget of the real hit, either.” I felt more than saw him stiffen; his disbelief and confusion rang through my nerve circuits. “Somebody was using the attacks on her to try to take out Daric. They didn’t know the attacks were only something you invented.”
“Daric?” he repeated. “Are you certain?”
“What do you think?” I jerked around in my seat. “You asshole. Lady Elnear’s safer than birth control. Just keep Daric away from her and you got no problem.” Thinking that this news ought to make Elnear happier than anything had in sixteen years. I was hoping it would; wishing it would.
Braedee was silent again, trying to control his own sudden anger, trying to reorder his priorities all over, one more time. “Why?” he asked finally. Maybe I was just imagining that I heard a whine in his voice. I wanted to hear him whine.
“Somebody in the Lack Market doesn’t like him. Drugs, maybe. Now you know as much as I do.”
I could feel him frowning, feel him wanting to ask me how I knew, what my sources were, what methods—? Pride wouldn’t let him … pride and knowing that even if he knew it probably wouldn’t do him any good. Because I was a psion, and he wasn’t. And because the Lack Market might as well exist in a different dimension from his own. There were gray places where they intersected—business was business, black or white—but real criminals had never been his concern. The enemy had always been his own kind. I felt him glance at me: Not his kind, either.
“You aren’t leaving yet,” he said.
I kicked the bag full of everything I owned that was lying against my foot. “You mean I have a choice?” I asked sourly.
“No,” he said. “You don’t. You still have work to do for Centauri. I want you to find out why Daric taMing is in trouble, so that I can stop it.” Even more—to tell him how to stop it. Daric was a member of the board and the Assembly … and a taMing. Switching the assassin’s sights from Elnear to Daric hadn’t made Braedee’s own life any easier, or his position any more secure.
“What about Charon?” I asked.
“He doesn’t have any choice, either.”
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