I smiled. I couldn’t help it.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said.
“No you won’t,” she said, sniffing again. “Never could listen.”
I laughed a little, shaking my head.
Vash and I waited while she locked the door to her apartments, fussing briefly over what she called the “grade-school security” built into the organic handle. Then she turned, giving me a stern look as she brushed off the front of the long, gray tunic she wore. Her hair and face looked exactly as I remembered them, with her oddly long, black hair and clear, almost colorless irises like her blood-nephew, Revik. She was an odd collection of old and young, with perfect white teeth and finely wrinkled skin on her narrow, hawk-like face.
“Not flattering,” she said in her pidgin Prexci. “You be old one day, too, Bridge...older than me on the inside now.” Muttering, she added, “...I can see it, even if no one else can.”
I laughed again. I couldn’t help it.
Before I’d thought about it much, I enveloped her in a hug.
She looked more irritated than pleased, and pushed me away from her almost at once, but I saw a small smile on her face as she disentangled my arms.
“You hurt my nephew any?” she said.
I winced.
“Yeah. That’s what I thought.” She frowned at me, hands on her hips.
I just stood there while she eyed me, and probably my light, more openly.
“You going in alone?” she said finally.
It wasn’t really a question. I saw her eyes sharpen as they met mine. Their clear irises were so much like Revik’s they still made me pause a little.
“I think I should,” I said.
That wasn’t really a question, either.
“Yes,” she said, nodding at once. “Absolutely.”
I felt my shoulders unclench. I glanced at Vash.
“You know the plan then?” I asked her.
“Yes.”
“You’re okay with it?”
She gestured sharply in assent, as if that was a given. “Not ‘okay.’ But necessary.”
“Good,” I said, relieved. “You can help me browbeat Balidor into letting me go in alone. He’s going to absolutely hate the idea...even without knowing the details.”
Vash chuckled good-naturedly at this.
The three of us didn’t talk again until we reached the security station outside of the giant green tank. I was a little surprised to see a small crowd standing there, around the low console. In it stood Jon, Dorje, Poresh, Yumi, Tenzi, Illeg, Vikram and a few others I knew from Seertown or the Adhipan. Balidor stood in front of course, over Garend, who sat at the security console.
I tried to head off Balidor when he started walking in our direction.
“...I’ll have a headset, right?” I blurted.
“Of course.”
“With control over the organics of the room?”
“Yes, yes,” Balidor said, impatient. “You can trigger the gas yourself, if need be...you can also lock down the room. If that happens, we will collect you as soon as he is out. But we have tested the chains, the collars...everything is holding. There has been some reinforcement to some of the organic shields as well...” He gave a snorting kind of laugh, one he reserved for ironies that he couldn’t quite believe.
“...Feigran gave us that advice, if you can believe it. From when he held Dehgoies in the Caucasus Mountains. He studied his light pretty extensively, from what we can gather...”
I winced a little at that memory, too.
Great. We were now taking advice from Revik’s previous torturers on how best to keep him locked up in a cage.
Balidor might have read some portion of this on me. His smile faded.
“You’re not going in alone, Allie.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said, brushing him off in the hopes my dismissal might help. “I have to go in alone, ‘Dori. It’s not up for discussion.”
“No,” he said.
Folding my arms, I turned on him, keeping my eyes steady on his. “Because you’re going to join me in there, I suppose? Because things will go just swimmingly if we gang up on him, especially given that how he sees the two of us...” I gave a kind of outraged laugh. “No, Balidor. The matter is completely settled. Vash and Tarsi agree with me...”
Swallowing a little, since Vash hadn’t exactly, verbally agreed with me, I glanced at Tarsi, who eyed Balidor with a pale eye. As she’d been the previous leader of the Adhipan before Balidor, and therefore his mentor and trainer, I figured her opinion held more weight with him than anyone’s. Still, his face remained expressionless when he turned it back to me.
“Please, Allie,” he said, quieter. “Not me. But go in there with someone. Don’t go alone.”
“What about Jon?” I said.
“Jon can’t help you!”
“Really?” I raised an eyebrow, but I felt my face flush with real anger. “Gods save me from the arrogance of seers...Jon’s probably the only one here who can help me!” At the light that came to the other seer’s eyes, I cut him off. “‘Dor, come on! He’s the only one who’s managed to get more than a handful of death threats and muttered curses out of Revik since we brought him here. He got Revik to actually talk to him. And Revik loves him. That’s worth more to me right now than a dozen of your trigger-happy infiltrators...”
“I’m talking about if you get in trouble, Allie,” Balidor said, gritting his teeth.
“I know what you’re talking about...and I’m telling you, no!”
Realizing we were both on the verge of yelling, I forced myself to take a breath, to glance around at the others to give myself a pause to chill out. Fingering the hair out of my eyes distractedly, I sighed, tugging a longer piece restlessly in my hand.
“...And anyway,” I said, my voice more subdued. “I’d still rather have Jon out here. Revik will feel ganged up on, even if it’s just me and Jon...and I don’t want him turning on Jon, too. The last thing we need is him thinking the one person he can even semi-trust is working with the enemy. He needs at least one friend here, no matter what their race...”
But Balidor’s eyes had followed the motion of my hands.
“You’re wearing your hair down,” he muttered.
“Yeah, I am...so?”
His eyes traveled from the loose but somewhat low-cut jade-colored blouse I wore, down to the darker-green harem pants that cinched both my waist and at the ankle just above my bare feet. The only jewelry I wore were teardrop earrings, also jade, and the silver chain with Revik’s mother’s ring. I also wore make up. Not a lot, but enough that Balidor seemed to notice the difference on my eyes, as well.
“Do you plan to seduce him, Allie?”
“I plan to try to get him to talk to me, ‘Dori. Every little thing helps...you know that! You’re the one who taught me that. What is it, one of the dozens of rules of infiltration: use every asset you have to disarm your target, no matter how trivial-seeming...?”
“That’s a slight abuse of those words...”
“I’m not going in there in a geisha outfit! Or a bathing suit!”
“Perhaps you should have opted for hooker wear. He seems to have a preference.”
I felt something in my breathing catch. That hit had been a little too on-the-mark to have been entirely about my clothes. My eyes narrowed to slits.
“Are you really going to get petty on me right now, ‘Dor?” I said. “Because I don’t have time for that. I really don’t. This is going to take every ounce of my concentration as it is, if we have a chance in hell of succeeding. So if you’re not on board, I need to know. I need to know now, ‘Dori...so I can get someone else to spot me on this...”
Balidor flushed a little. Enough that I knew my words hit their mark, too. Hands on his hips once more, he muttered, “It just seems like you’re taunting him, Allie.”
“Well, I’m not.”
“Confusing him, then.”
“He likes my hair down, ok
ay?” I said. “Get over it!”
In the pause after I spoke, I realized the rest of the room had fallen silent, and now stood staring at the two of us. Glancing around at the circle of faces, I felt my own warm slightly before I turned back to the Adhipan leader.
“Look,” I said, taking a breath. “I’m telling you the deployment I need. I need Jon accessible...in my headset. The rest of you can watch and put up whatever security out here that you think is necessary. But I don’t want you directly involved. I know I probably can’t get him to trust me, but the only hope I have is if he doesn’t feel played. Have whoever you want as close to the outside of the door as you think necessary, but I don’t want them coming in unless one of three things happens: I ask for them, I’m unconscious, or I’m dead.”
When Balidor started clicking at me, his anger growing more audible, I gripped his arm harder, forcing him to meet my gaze.
“Balidor! This is an order. This is a fucking order, okay? Pretend you remember what that means. And trust me on this...or if you don’t trust me, then trust Vash. And Tarsi. They’ve okay’d all of this...all right?”
Balidor looked at them, his eyes hard. “Is that true?”
Tarsi gave him a level look, making the affirmative gesture in seer sign language. Vash gestured in assent, too. When Balidor continued to stare at the two of them, as if looking for a lie in their faces, I touched his arm. He jumped a little, but when he turned, his gray eyes remained the color of steel.
“Make sure they get whatever they need,” I added, softer. “They’ll be out here, too.”
Tarsi chuckled a little. I don’t know if it was because of what I’d said or how I was talking to her favorite pupil, so I didn’t look over. I watched Balidor’s face instead.
Anger reached his eyes. He was about to open his mouth again, but I cut him off.
“‘Dori,” I warned. “Stop. We’re done here, okay? We’re done.”
Balidor looked at Tarsi again, as if for help, but she only shrugged, clicking.
“She is a bit of a nuisance, your Bridge,” she said. “But it’ll be all right I think, Adhipan Leader Balidor.”
“And she cleared this with you?”
“Yes. Her logic is sound. Moreover, it is an infiltrator’s logic.”
Holding the old seer’s eyes for a beat too long, Balidor turned to me then, and bowed, curtly.
“As you wish, Esteemed Bridge,” he murmured.
I was about to make an equally sarcastic response, but he’d already turned, walking quickly away from the three of us to join Garend at the security console.
Only after he’d moved away, did I realize my hands were shaking. Clutching them in front of me, I focused my light, counting backwards until the trembling stopped. I caught Jon staring at me then, his eyes holding encouragement that barely concealed his own thread of nerves. I forced myself to give him a reassuring smile...right before I took a deep breath and turned my head to look through the organic window.
Revik’s back rested against the furthest wall from the hatch, his chained hands in his lap. Legs sprawled in front of him, he tilted back his head, as if staring at the ceiling. In the sudden lack of talking among the seers outside the tank, the audio reached my ears, until it eclipsed all other sounds in the room.
He was singing, I realized. Softly, under his breath.
Not only that, but I’d heard the song before.
It was a seer song, but modern. Wreg played it sometimes, during sparring drills, or by the pool, where he often wanted music. As I listened to Revik though, I realized I’d never really paid attention to the words woven into the somewhat off-kilter tune.
“Never fire and back to earth...
Some days I submit, some I won’t...
They always break me, inside, out...
They kill me, smash me...
Leave me without...
Family, friends, all lovers end...
I’m broken inside, but here I am...”
The words in Prexci melded together, forming a kind of whispered prayer.
“My heart was broken long ago...
Too far back, the elders know...
The books are dust, the prophets dead...
Our time won’t come before the end...”
I felt emotion try to creep up around my light, inexplicable in its intensity, since I only understood the allusions in about half of the words.
Maybe I just remembered Wreg, and the others in his charge, who I’d led to slavery and death. Maybe I was remembering Nikka.
Taking another breath, I shook it off, forcing my eyes off his face.
“All right,” I said to Balidor, glancing at Vash. “It’s time to start.”
I DIDN’T LOOK at him when I walked in.
Keeping my expression flat, I walked directly to the raised platform that stood to my left and his right, a half-dozen yards from where he’d been chained. The platform itself rose only about five or six inches higher than the sloped floor, but Vash agreed it was likely the best place, at least until I could risk getting closer to him.
I felt his eyes on me as I walked over, watching me as I tossed down the blanket I’d brought, along with a longer cushion and one of the prayer mats the seer monks used for meditation. I felt reactions in his light when he first saw me, but he managed to mute them even with the collar.
Most of what I felt on him at first was disbelief.
I didn’t let myself think about it too much. I had my doubts I could control things with him, especially at first. I knew from Jon he’d likely pull out the stops. The only advantage I had in that first session was surprise.
Well, and the collar.
Between the two, it would probably win me minutes at most.
I knew I wouldn’t be able to beat Revik if I let him turn this into a game. I knew it even before Balidor voiced essentially the same thing, using different words. The only choice I had was to refuse to play, at least as much as possible. I had to assume Vash and Tarsi would agree.
I also hadn’t brought up the fact that I was pretty sure he was about ten times smarter than I was. If nothing else, he’d been playing these games for decades before I’d been born. He’d also been mind-fucked by people with whom I probably couldn’t even hold my own in a regular conversation.
I would never reach him that way. Never. He’d chew me up and spit me out, and I’d have to start all over, from ground zero. Which was where I was now.
Even though he was collared, I kept all of this in the back of my mind while I spread out the first thick blanket, then arranged the cushion over the middle of it.
“Planning a nap, sweetheart?” he said from the other side. “Or were you going to strip for me?”
I didn’t look up.
It occurred to me I also felt something like relief ripple through his light in those first few seconds, which I’d been looking for, as well. So I wasn’t the only one who’d been feeling the effects of our separation these past few weeks.
The room cut him off from the Barrier...completely off. That meant it cut him off from me, too. He likely hadn’t been entirely bullshitting Jon when he told him he was in pain. He would have to be, from our being apart, regardless of how he felt about me. The bond couldn’t be reasoned with. At base, no matter what our personal feelings, that separation would kill us, if we let it go on too long.
But with both of us in the green-walled tank, even with him wearing a collar, his light could connect with mine. Maybe not as much as either of our light bodies wanted it to...but enough to ease off the worst of that irrational tension.
At least the parts of that irrational tension caused by the bond.
The reality was, I would have to spend time with him in the tank no matter what approach we took with him. If we couldn’t get him to come around, I would probably have to live in here with him, at least part of the time.
That, or find some way to hold him in a less restrictive cell.
Either option made my chest hurt.
I spent another moment arranging the blankets and pads on the platform, and taking off the backpack I wore. I didn’t look at him as I gauged the distance between where he sat and where I’d positioned my makeshift bed. He felt far away to me. I knew distance didn’t have to matter in the Barrier, but it mattered from my perspective.
Hopefully it would matter less by the time this started for real.
“Is this your big plan then, sweetheart, to silence me to death?” I heard him smile. “You could have done that from the other side of the wall, lover. Or am I supposed to feel slighted, when you do it in here?”
“No,” I said, with a single shake of my head.
For a moment he just watched me. I felt him thinking, as the surprise of seeing me wore off.
“Did you bring any hiri for me, wife?” he said.
I bit my tongue a little at the way he said it, but I didn’t let it reach my expression.
“Yeah,” I said.
I fumbled into the backpack, untying the strings holding it closed at top. It contained water mostly, some food, but also a full packet of hiri and an organic lighter. Garend assured me the packet contained the best brand of hiri that seers made. Sitting down on the blanket next to it, I tugged out one of the dark sticks and put it to my lips.
“...Gods, you’re giving me a hard-on already,” he said. “I don’t suppose you could hold it in your cunt after you light it?”
I didn’t raise my eyes.
Instead I pulled the bag into my lap, digging around until I found the lighter Garend had also given me. Organic, it should only light with my hands, using my DNA. Of course, that wouldn’t help me when Revik had me in a stranglehold, forcing my hands to light the damned thing for him. The thought was fleeting, then it vanished, like smoke.
I lit the end of the hiri, and threw the lighter back in the bag.
Getting up from the narrow pallet I’d created, I walked a few steps closer and tossed the hiri to him, so that it landed not far from one of his hands.
“Thanks, love.” Winking at me, he leaned over, picking it up with his fingers.
Allie's War Season Two Page 65