Several more seconds passed in quiet.
"Outside of my own structure," he said, "in any sense that matters, you're all I have."
I nodded; another way in which we were similar.
I stood and stared at the two body bags. I probably should have felt sad at the fact that my only consistent friend and companion was a machine, but I'd spent so many years on my own and seen so many people end up just like these two that in that moment I was grateful I had a friend, any friend. I thought of Pri, and Matahi, of Maggie and other women I'd known before, and I yearned for someone to love, someone to share my life with—but it would never be safe, not for them, not for me. It might never be safe for Lobo, either, but at least he was built for such an existence. "We're a lot the same," I said. More than I could bring myself to tell even him.
"Yes," he said. "Five minutes to docking."
I closed my eyes, breathed slowly inward, and held the breath while I forced myself to focus on the problem ahead. I couldn't completely do it. The anger still held me, and it was all I could do to keep moving forward.
I opened my eyes and released the breath. I would finish this.
"Everything set?"
"Yes," he said. "Are you certain this will work?"
"No," I said. "I think it will, but Shurkan and the CC will be mighty unhappy with these corpses, so there's no way to be sure."
"You understand," Lobo said, "that if they turn the Sunset on us, I can probably hurt it, but it will utterly destroy us. We will die."
"Yes," I said, "but running away would bring us back to this same problem—or worse."
"Okay," Lobo said. "I agree. We win together, or we die together."
"Yes," I said. "Let's do it."
Chapter 62
They directed us into the same hangar as last time. Its doors closed before Lobo had touched the deck. As soon as they pressurized the area, guards moved in and ringed our location. I watched it all on displays inside Lobo and waited, as Shurkan had instructed me to do, and from time to time I glanced at the body bags at my feet. All the death so far, and he was preparing for more, always more.
He appeared less than a minute later, an armed detail right behind him. He clearly didn't want us holding onto Wei and McCombs any longer than absolutely necessary. Everything about him—his expression, his stance, even his energy level—read as eager. I bet he had a transport standing by to take the two of them to a lab in another system.
"External comm channels are open," Lobo said. "He appears to be planning to pay."
"Good," I said. I'd counted on it.
Shurkan's expression darkened at the delay.
I was way past caring.
I'd positioned the body bags right in front of where Lobo would open a hatch. "It's time," I said.
Lobo opened.
Shurkan looked up at me. "Well done, Mr. Moore." Then he noticed the bags.
Before he could speak, I put my leg on the rear bag and pushed the two of them onto the hangar deck. "Here they are," I said. "Wei and McCombs."
Shurkan stared at the bags.
The men with him stiffened as they realized their assignment had suddenly mutated and they had no clue what to do next.
When Shurkan finally looked at me again, his face was tight and his voice tighter. "Explain yourself," he said, "and do it quickly."
I stepped over the bags and walked up to him. "After several failed attempts, I finally got my hands on Wei by infiltrating Wonder Island. I had him and McCombs, but the guards shot them as we were escaping." I didn't bother trying to sell the story. I wasn't sure I wanted him to believe it. I was sticking to the script, but if he wanted to push me, fine; I'd push back.
"And his data?"
"Wei said he was downloading it, but I figured out too late that he was really erasing it. He said it would put him in a better bargaining position with you. I tried to tell him that you'd prosecute him no matter what he offered, but he didn't believe me." I shrugged. "In the end, the time he spent wiping his systems might have cost them both their lives."
Shurkan trembled with anger. "Do you understand what you've done?" he said.
I leaned closer to him. "Yes. Exactly what you hired me to do: I brought you Jorge Wei."
"If McCombs' early reports were right," Shurkan said, "Wei's research may well have been the most successful nanomachine-human fusion work ever." He shook his head. "And now it's gone."
"What does any of that matter?" I said. "You were going to stop the research and put him on trial, right? The Wonder Island guards saved you the trouble, and Wei himself made sure no one else could take advantage of his work to break the ban again."
Shurkan glared at me.
I ignored his look and continued. "As I'm sure you'll be happy to hear, I rescued seven children and gave them and a cooperative guard to Suli's people. They'll use the guard's testimony to bring down Heaven's government, and Heaven will become the CC's newest ally."
"And Ms. Suli?"
"She died," I said. "McCombs killed her."
"What?"
"McCombs implied you might let Wei continue his research. Pri charged her. They fought, and McCombs stabbed her."
Shurkan stared at me for several seconds. "How fortunate that you survived."
I shook my head but stayed silent. I did my best to ignore his implications and his complete lack of reaction to Pri's death, but I wanted to crush him, to rip off his head. I shook with the effort of controlling myself, afraid to talk, afraid of what I'd say.
Finally, he said, "You've failed us, Mr. Moore, and now I have to decide what to do with you."
"No," I said, "I did not fail. You hired me to bring you Wei and, if I could, to help your mole get out. I did both." Now that I was talking, I couldn't stop. The words kept coming, my voice growing louder and angrier. "You said the CC's goal was to put Wei on trial, stop his research, and make him pay for his crimes. You won't have the trial, but his work is over, and his penalty for his crimes was his death. As for what you're going to do with me, it's simple: You'll pay me the rest of my fee, and then you'll make sure I reach the jump gate safely and leave this system."
"Not a chance in hell," he said. "I should have one of these men shoot you where you stand."
Three of his detail trained their rifles on me.
I smiled. "Do it," I said. "Do it, and two things will happen almost instantly: My ship will shoot you before you can take a step, and it will blow so many holes in this hangar that we'll all be in the vacuum in seconds."
Shurkan opened his mouth to speak, but I plunged ahead before he could get in a word.
"Then, before the Sunset can destroy my ship, it will break its comm link with a system we left on Heaven. That system will immediately broadcast to every public data stream on the planet all the recordings I've made during this mission, from Wei's claim that all you wanted was to put him to work, to this conversation right now. The CC will lose any chance at having Heaven as an ally, you'll be dead, and you can bet your heirs won't enjoy any death benefits."
"In that scenario," Shurkan said, "you'll die as well."
"Of course," I said.
He stared into my eyes.
I didn't look away.
"I should call your bluff," he said. "You have no idea how quickly the Sunset can destroy you."
"Do it," I said. I trembled with the effort of standing still. "Do it!"
"I'm ready, Jon," Lobo said. "I'm with you."
I couldn't keep in the rage any longer. I pushed Shurkan and he stumbled backward. "Do it, you piece of crap! Do it!" I stepped after him.
He held up his hands. "The problem with hiring someone like you," he said, "is that one ends up with someone like you." He touched his cuff and said, "Pay him." To me he added, "Leave, Mr. Moore. Leave now, and go a long way away from me. We'll guarantee you safe passage to the jump gate and out of this system. I never want to see you again."
"We've won, Jon," Lobo said. "Payment received. Initiating transfer
s."
I stared at my hands. I could leave a nanocloud, destroy him, wipe out the ship, turn them all into dust.
"We've won, Jon," Lobo said again. "Let's go."
I dropped my hands.
Shurkan turned and walked out of the hanger. His detail followed.
I backed slowly into Lobo. No one made a move in my direction.
The guards surrounding us double-timed out of the huge hangar.
Lobo sealed me inside him as depressurization began.
I stood by the hatch and shook with residual anger.
As soon as the huge doors opened, we leapt into the void.
Chapter 63
Two ships ahead of us in the queue," Lobo said. "We should be jumping in less than five minutes."
"I'll be glad to be in another system," I said, calmer but still jittery. "And then happier still when we've jumped into another coalition's territory."
"Incoming comm," Lobo said. "Shurkan."
"Take it," I said. I saw no point in trying to avoid him, because if he wanted to delay us he could simply order the gate command team to stop all jumps.
A display opened, and Shurkan's face appeared in it. "What do you think you accomplished, Mr. Moore?" he said. His expression was calm, but his eyes blazed with anger.
"What you sent me to do," I said, "and I saved some innocent children."
He shook his head emphatically: No. "You got a brilliant man, an innocent woman, and a colleague of mine killed. You delayed the inevitable, but a delay was all it was. Others will pursue this line of research again. What one man can discover, another will also one day find."
I thought of all the deaths. Images of Pri flashed through my mind: Meeting her in The Take Off, eating and walking together on that beautiful first night in the old city, riding the shuttle into Wonder Island and seeing the wyvern and the other amazing creatures, talking about Joachim, arguing with Matahi, dying. Matahi. I recalled her expression as she stared at me when she realized all the damage I'd caused, all the damage she'd suffered because of me.
Whatever Shurkan saw on my face must have satisfied him, because he broke the connection without saying another word.
"Maybe," I said aloud in the empty pilot area, talking to the space where Shurkan's image had been. "Maybe, but not today. Not today." I pounded my fist into my leg, hitting myself over and over in frustration. "And if other people recreate his research and I find out about it, I'll do my best to stop them, too."
"We'll stop them," Lobo said, his voice filling the air. "The two of us, together."
The ship ahead of us jumped.
We eased closer to the aperture, the sheer empty blankness of it all that we could see.
"Yes," I said, even as I spoke not knowing if it was true, fearing it wasn't, but determined to believe it was because after all, what else did I have, did I really have, that I could count on?
I had Lobo—a machine, yes, but my friend.
I had the chance to do the best I could in each situation in which I found myself.
That was it, really, that was all.
But that was a lot.
When each of us faces the darkness that always lies ahead, do we ever have any more than that, any more than those who care about us and the opportunity, over and over and over again, moment after moment after moment, to do the best we can with whatever life throws at us? And then to do it again?
"Yes," I said once more, knowing now that it was true, that as long as Lobo and I could stand together, no matter what the cost, we would.
"Yes, we will."
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
As with my earlier novels, David Drake reviewed and offered insightful comments on both my outline and the second draft of this book. All of the problems herein are my fault, of course, but Dave again deserves credit for making the novel better than it would have been without his advice.
Toni Weisskopf, my Publisher, has my gratitude for believing in the series and helping give it what success it has enjoyed.
To everyone who purchased One Jump Ahead and Slanted Jack, my great thanks; you've made it possible for me to get paid to live and write a while longer in the universe I share with Jon and Lobo.
My business partner, Bill Catchings, has both done all he could to encourage and support my writing and also been a great colleague for over two decades.
Elizabeth Barnes fought (and continues to fight) to tame my office, an effort that helps me calm myself for the work.
As I've done in the course of my previous books, I've traveled a fair amount while working on this one, and each of the places I've visited has affected me and thus the work. I want to tip my virtual hat to the people and sites of (in rough order of my first visits there during the writing of this novel) Burlingame, California and other parts of Silicon Valley; Las Vegas, Nevada; Aspen and Denver, Colorado; Princeton, New Jersey; Portland, Oregon; Austin, Texas; Baltimore and the surrounding suburbs, Maryland; Washington, Virginia; Holden Beach, North Carolina; Washington, D.C.; Calgary, Alberta, Canada; and, of course, my home in North Carolina.
As always, I am grateful to my children, Sarah and Scott, who continue to be amazing teenagers and wonderful people despite having The Weird Dad and needing to put up with me regularly disappearing into my office for long periods of time. Thanks, kids.
Several extraordinary women—my wife, Rana Van Name; Jennie Faries; Gina Massel-Castater; and Allyn Vogel—grace my life with their intelligence and support, for which I'm incredibly grateful.
Thank you, all.
THE END
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