by Haber, Karen
He answered on the fourth ring.
“Kelly?”
She took a deep breath. “I need to know about Dream Haven. What it is. Where it is.”
“Why? Where did you hear about it?”
“From Michael Ryton. I mean, from his wife.”
“His wife?” Landon’s eyebrows shot upward. “I thought you wanted to avoid this Ryton.”
“That was yesterday.”
“Maybe you’d better meet me at the Officer’s Other,” Landon said.
“I don’t know …”
“Well, I do.” Landon’s golden eyes held curiosity and amusement. “I want a full report in fifteen minutes. And that, my dear Kelly, is an order.”
The front doors were locked. The side doors were locked. Every blue-green acrylic door in Emory Foundation was locked. And Melanie believed that they’d tried them all. Wearily, she sat upon a pile of orange cushions in Yosh’s studio, rubbing her feet.
“At least the screens still work,” she said. “I managed to get a message back to Cable News. Maybe I’ll keep my job.”
Yosh was noodling with a keyboard in his studio, hardly listening. He looked worried.
“Maybe you should try Tavia again.”
“I don’t think she’ll answer. And I can’t get into the wing where her private rooms are.”
“You think something’s wrong?”
Yosh ran his hand through his hair. “I don’t know. I’m trying not to get paranoid. But why isn’t maintenance working on the door hydraulics? Where is everybody? The place seems deserted. Usually it’s buzzing away. I’ll bet Ashman could answer a couple of these questions, but I sure don’t feel like talking to him about it.”
“You don’t trust him?”
“I don’t like him.”
“Neither do I.” She shivered briefly, remembering the so-called supermutant’s eerie gaze. He was a fake. He had to be.
The crystal clock atop Yosh’s roommech chimed seven times. Yosh put his keyboard down and stretched lazily.
“Are you hungry?” he asked. “I’m no sushi chef, but I can whip up a tolerable soya casserole.”
“You mean you’re willing to feed a mutant?” Melanie’s flippant tone covered her nervousness. Yosh had been shocked when Ashman unmasked her. She had to know how he felt now.
Yosh turned to face her. He was unsmiling. For a long moment he gazed into her eyes. “I’ll admit it,” he said. “I was amazed when Ashman pulled out your contact lenses. I’ve really had enough mutants to last a lifetime. Or so I thought.” He smiled. Touched her cheek briefly. “Melanie, why don’t you leave those things off? I’d rather see you as you really are.”
“Do you mean it?”
“Of course.”
Feeling shy, Melanie turned away, removed the lenses, and popped them into a lenspak in her pocket. How odd after all these years to be showing the mark of her mutancy. And to this man. At his request.
“There.” She curtsied. “Just don’t ask me to do any heavy lifting with the blink of an eye. I meant what I said about being a null.”
“I don’t require party tricks,” Yosh said. “In fact, it’s kind of a relief that you can’t do any of them. But how are you with a wine cork?” He rummaged in a cabinet for a moment, then stepped back to reveal a bottle of chardonnay. “I can never open them properly.”
“Don’t you have a mech? Give me that.” Melanie reached for the bottle and old-fashioned corkscrew. With practiced skill, she drove it into the cork, yanked the levers down, and pried the seal open. “There.”
“The glasses are in the side cabinet. Give me five minutes, and we’ll have something decent to eat.”
As she poured the foaming, yellow-green wine into the delicate glasses, Melanie wondered why she felt so comfortable with this man. She barely knew him. But somehow, it didn’t seem to matter. Well, it had been a strange day, and there was no sign of it getting any less strange now.
True to his word, Yosh whipped up a tomato and tofu loaf that had her asking for third portions. When they finished the chardonnay, he found a bottle of champagne, managed to open it himself, and filled her glass with the sparkling wine. And still holding the bottle, he leaned down and kissed her. Put the bottle down. Kissed her again.
It’s about time, she thought.
Still kissing, they sank down among the pillows, fitting together like two puzzle pieces. He pulled playfully at the neckline of her tunic, and she allowed him to loosen it so that he could move his hands underneath. A little later, they agreed that all their clothing was getting in the way and the only solution was to remove every stitch.
Gently, Yosh traced the curve of her shoulder, her breast, first with his hand, then his lips.
“Your skin is like silk,” he whispered. “So smooth. So lovely.” Slowly, his hands slid down her body, so slowly that she wanted to beg him to hurry. Clever musician fingers, stroking and probing, coaxing a theme out of her that she scarcely recognized. She hummed and moaned in ardent response to him, every nerve singing, her long-throttled emotions bursting upward, free.
He was passionate, playful, and best of all, skillful. Eagerly, she rolled around with him on the soft orange cushions, making love until she was exhausted. Finally, they sank down sweatily in a comfortable heap.
“Mmm. So nice.” She closed her eyes.
He caressed her sleepily. “Stay the night?”
Melanie chuckled. “As if I have a choice.” She snuggled sleepily in his arms and was soon drifting into dreams. She was walking across the nighttime desert. Above, the stars burned with cold, remote light. The wind sent sparkling sand in looping whorls above her head and whispered secrets in her ears as it rushed past but she couldn’t understand the words. She listened harder. The whisper became a mutter, then a scream that hurt her ears. Melanie sank down on her knees in the midst of the sudden, raging sandstorm. And across the shifting gray landscape, a green woman approached, fighting the wind and blowing sand, arms extended in supplication. Her mouth moved, but the gale tossed her words away. In frustration, the green woman grabbed Melanie and shook her.
“Stop it,” Melanie cried. “I don’t understand you.”
She came awake to find Yosh gently shaking her.
“What’s wrong?”
“Ooh.” She leaned against him, her heart pounding. “Bad dream. Too much wine.”
“Tell me.”
“Weird. A green woman. On the desert at night in the middle of a storm. Asking for my help.”
“A green woman?” Yosh’s voice sounded suddenly alert. He sat up.
“Yeah. What’s even stranger, I thought I saw her ghost. Or her sister’s ghost.”
“Ghost? When?”
“Today. Right before I met you.”
“Where?”
“One of those screen rooms.”
“Dammit. I should have known.” Suddenly Yosh was on his feet. He pulled on a pair of leggings and grabbed a coldlight stick.
“Wait. Where are you going?”
“To see Ashman. Stay here.”
“No way.” She jumped up and started dressing. “I’m not staying in this spookhouse alone, Yosh. Where you go, I go.”
“All right. But hurry.”
“What’s wrong?” she said, sealing her yellow tunic. “I didn’t think you believed in ghosts.”
“I believe in this one. Bad omen. If I’m right, a friend of mine may be in trouble.”
“A friend? Who?”
“Just a friend, all right?” He waited impatiently by the door. “Come on.”
She hurried after him into the hall. “Should we really be wandering around here in the dark? Do you think your friend is here someplace?”
“Yeah. And I’ve got an idea that Ashman will know where.”
Melanie stopped in her tracks. “Yosh, do you really think we should go ask him about this? He doesn’t seem, well, exactly stable to me. What if he gets upset? He’s so unpredictable. And powerful.”
“
That’s a good point.” He paused. “Well, there’s the empty wing. They haven’t quite finished it yet. We could look around there.”
He led her down a maze of hallways until her head was spinning. She felt as though they’d been walking for hours. Numbly she followed him along shadowy halls, lit by narrow pin spots and green sodium lamps. The building was silent, deserted. Melanie wondered where the security staff was. The place seemed as silent as Sleeping Beauty’s castle.
Around one corner, down a left-hand corridor, around another corner, and through an atrium where the moonlight filtered spookily down through green glass. Spiky shadows revealed saguaro cacti reaching arms toward the stars.
I feel like I’m walking through a dream, Melanie thought. Holding Prince Charming’s hand.
The new wing was barely finished. Blue carpeting lay piled in bolts against walls awaiting a final coating of enamel. The lighting here was raw, almost too bright after the gloom of the main building. Melanie blinked, watching dark after-shadows flare against her eyelids.
Doors all along the corridor yawned open into unfinished rooms. The night glowed softly through uncovered windows. Their steps echoed strangely along the uncarpeted hall.
“Yosh, there’s nothing here.”
“Shhh. Be patient,” he said. “I’ve got a hunch. …”
They both stopped as the lights flickered, dimmed as though in warning, then came back up. And at the far end of the corridor, a door was closed. Melanie was almost certain it was locked.
Yosh pressed the doorpad. The door stayed closed. He pulled a circular clamp out of his pocket, punched in a five-digit code, then pressed it against the lock.
“Skeleton key,” he said, grinning. “Tavia gave it to me as a joke after I accused her of living in a castle.”
With a whir, the door irised open.
The room within was shadowy and the walls were an odd blue shade that gave the space the look of an undersea world. An aquarium. A figure lay curled, catlike, upon a low bed set against the far wall. Yosh flicked on the coldlight and trained it on the room’s occupant. Slowly she sat up, rubbing her eyes. She had an angular face, golden eyes, green skin, and dark hair with a shock of white at her temple. It was the woman in Melanie’s dream.
“Yosh,” the green woman said. “Thank God.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
.
Nighttime in the desert. Cold. Stars harsh pinpricks in the black velvet sky.
Skerry ignored the chill. His cycle floated noiselessly over the silver sand. The bulk of Emory Foundation’s outer walls came into view over the nearest dune, a shimmering curve of green-black glass.
He turned off the cycle’s motor and dismounted. From the sack at his back he drew a pair of grapplers. Then he grabbed the laser pistol from its metallic holster and started toward the glass monolith.
Narlydda was somewhere inside. And supermutant or no supermutant, he would find her and bring her out, or bring the entire building down with him.
A cold gust of wind struck him in the face. He grinned at the chill.
Good cold. Helps me think. He sent a cautious mental probe out and felt it rebound back at him off the slick surface of the compound.
Just as I suspected, he thought. They’ve got some sort of elaborate esper shield. Probably state-of-the-art. Generated from inside.
He tried the main doors. They were locked. But no guard came to investigate the stranger knocking to be admitted. Strange.
Skerry walked around the compound’s perimeter until he came to the power plant. A watchman—a normal—was on duty outside.
Careless of them, he thought.
Skerry grinned and ducked out of sight. A quick probe told him that the man was mildly shielded. Now where did a normal get an esper shield? he wondered. There was something curious about the shield as well, but no time to analyze it now. He prodded the shield until he found its flaw. There was always an emotional weakness in esper shields. You just had to know where to look.
He took a deep breath and sent a directive mental thrust: I wonder what Shayla is doing. She said she was going out to the breen show with friends. She should be home by now. But what if she’s not? What if she lied? Maybe she’s out with somebody else.
He waited. The guard paced nervously. Skerry amplified the thought.
She’d better be home. Alone. The man looked to the right, then to the left. The remnants of his shield shattered, and Skerry slipped in easily to intensify his suspicions.
Maybe I should go home and see if she’s there. If she’s not alone, she’ll be sorry. Shayla, and whoever she’s with.
The guard nodded and hurried toward a dark skimmer parked at the side of the building. Skerry waved as he disappeared.
Good luck, Shayla, wherever you are, he thought.
The door to the powerhouse opened easily. Humming a tuneless song, Skerry walked inside, and locked the door behind him.
Michael stood by the bedside, helplessly studying the still, gray face behind the dials and orange monitors, trying to recognize his father under the plaskin bandages. The golden eyes were tightly shut Would they ever open again?
Despite the medical report, Michael was convinced that his father had tried to kill himself. A fall, the nurse had said. How could his father have fallen? He was watched almost every moment of the day. Medicated. Supervised. If somehow he’d managed to wrest a free moment away from his kindly captors, thrown off the drugs’ sedation, and flung himself off a sea cliff, Michael didn’t blame him. He’d probably have done the same. But how awful to have survived the attempt.
If I could help him go, I would, Michael thought.
The door opened and Sue Li walked in with Jena. The tension between the two women was obvious, and Michael wasn’t surprised. Most people found it difficult to relax in his wife’s company. Most women, anyway.
Michael kissed his mother, then turned to take his wife by the arm.
“Why are you here?” he said.
Sue Li turned to stare, her serene, controlled mask disrupted by his outburst. “She’s part of the family, Michael.” His mother’s voice held a note of warning. “She belongs here.”
To hell with tradition, Michael wanted to say. This woman has no business in this room. But there was his father’s putty-colored face. There was his grief-stricken mother, dark circles under her eyes. He took a stronger grip on his emotions, forced himself to nod. “You’re right,” he said, voice tight. “Thank you for coming, Jena.” Anything else he might have said was cut short, mercifully, by the arrival of his younger brother.
Jimmy smiled weakly and tried to straighten his jacket. He looked as though he’d been up for days.
“Mike, Jena.” He gave them a nod as he hugged Sue Li. “Mom.” Then he turned toward the bed. His face paled. “How is he?”
“Dying.” Sue Li’s voice was ragged with emotion.
Jimmy ran his hand through his hair. There was a look of helpless anguish on his face. “What happened?”
“Nobody knows,” Michael said. “They found him at the foot of the bluff.”
“How did he get there?”
“No one can answer that, either.”
They jumped as a strident three-note alarm split the air. The main monitor over James Ryton’s bed was flashing wildly back and forth across the spectrum.
“What’s happening?” Jena cried above the din. “Is he dead?”
Sue Li gave her a venomous look. “Get the doctor.”
Michael leaped for the door, but he was cut off by a mechnurse which rolled out of its wallslot, hypo poised in its foremost claw. In an instant, it brought the syringe down against James Ryton’s arm. A quick hiss, and the alarm died away as the dial above the bed returned to orange.
“He can’t last much longer,” Jimmy muttered. He sank down wearily on a wallseat near the bed. Sue Li took a seat beside him. Michael was about to suggest that he go for coffee when the door opened. Melanie?
“What are you doing here?” Je
na demanded.
Michael whirled and came face to face with Kelly McLeod. She was poised in the doorway, her cheeks pink with embarrassment.
“Michael … I’m sorry. I just had to come when I heard. Heyran Landon told me where Dream Haven was.”
“Only mutants are welcome here,” Jena said coldly. “Why don’t you leave before you make things worse.”
Kelly ignored her. Her eyes sought out Sue Li. “Mrs. Ryton … I’m sorry to interrupt you at a time like this. If there’s anything I can do …”
“You’re very kind,” Sue Li said. “But certainly you didn’t come all this way just to extend your sympathy?”
“No.” Kelly looked at Michael for a long moment, then looked away. “No. I came because there’s a warrant out for your arrest, Michael. You failed to appear before the sub-committee. You’re in contempt of Congress. You’ve got to come back.”
“A warrant?” Michael laughed harshly. “What else can they do? Throw me in jail? They’re just going to have to wait until this is over. Then they can arrest me or hang me or do whatever else they want to me.” He sat down. “Thanks for coming, Kelly. I hope this won’t put you in jeopardy.”
“I’ll be all right.” She looked around uncertainly. “I didn’t mean to intrude—”
“Please, come and sit with us,” Sue Li said. She indicated a place next to her on the wallseat. “You’ve come a long way to warn Michael. You must be tired. Rest awhile.”
Jena’s expression was explosive. She glared at Sue Li, then at Michael and Kelly.
“I’m going for coffee!” she sputtered, and slammed out of the room.
Jimmy turned to his brother. “What’s she in a bad mood about?”
“She’s very upset about your father,” Sue Li said. “Now why don’t we all just chant together for inner tranquility. It’s easy, Kelly.” She smiled. “I’ll show you how.”
* * *
Melanie watched the tall woman embrace Yosh. In the dim light, the greenish cast to her skin was barely apparent. She was an unusual mutant, but Emory Foundation was filled with mutants. Maybe there was an enchanted mutant princess behind every door.
“What are you doing here?” Yosh said.
“I never left. Ashman did something to me that put me to sleep. When I awoke, I was in this cell. And I’ve been here ever since.”