At last she was close enough. She leveled the disrupter in her right hand, letting all the breath out of her lungs in a long sigh as she aimed it with precise care. Even set merely on stun, the thing would make a hideous noise if the beam hit one of the gate’s bars. Whispering a silent prayer to Eos that there would be a dawn for both her and Wolf, she fired.
She heard the hiss of the man’s breath leaving in a rush, then he slumped over in the chair. Shaylah thought she’d fluffed it when he started to topple the wrong direction, but she managed to get an arm through the bars of the gate and grab the man’s sleeve before he fell out of reach. She pulled him back, balanced him in the chair, and reached for his belt, her slender fingers tugging loose the code key.
She stared at the thing, dread filling her. Eos, she should have known. The building might be old, this gate might look like it was falling off its hinges, but slaves were valuable property, and this lock was the newest and best. She could stand here all night trying to get the right combination. Except that it was no doubt wired to set off an alarm at the third false try, as most of these were.
She nearly slammed her fist against the gate in frustration. Only the probable noise stopped her; the ancient thing would rattle like thunder.
The ancient thing. Shaylah caught her breath. She backed up a step. She stared at the antique, rattletrap gate, secured incongruously with the newest of coded locks. Then she moved swiftly, sliding the pack from her back and digging inside it until she had found the long, slim tool she’d thrown in for no more concrete reason than that she’d hate herself if she hadn’t and it turned out that she needed it.
She worked quickly, as silently as possible, prying at the bolts that held the gate to its hinges. The guard wouldn’t be out forever, and precious seconds were ticking away. The protesting creak of old metal as the bolts slid free froze her for a moment, but the guard never stirred, and the silence settled in again. Jaw clenched, straining under the weight, she lifted the heavy gate free of its hinges and edged it open just far enough to slip through.
She paused long enough to pull the other item she’d taken out of the pack from behind her belt. She uncapped the small flask and sprinkled some of the potent, aromatic Carelian brandy over the unconscious guard. She tucked the flask in his limp hand, then reached back into the pack and pulled out the small cellight she’d brought.
No matter how silently she tried to walk, her steps seemed to echo hollowly in the long, dank corridor. The beam of her cellight reflected eerily off the wet walls, and she heard the occasional drip of oozing water into the pools scattered over the uneven floor.
The corridor was lined with small barred cells, grim in their unrelieved bareness except for the bleak gleam of metal shackles on the walls. She kept on, passing cell after empty cell, trying to shake off the sensation that she was hearing the pitiful cries of endless years of slaves, as if the sounds had soaked into the sodden walls.
Shaylah stood at the end of the mucky passage, staring at the last of the empty cells. She’d never felt anything like the devastation that filled her. Had they moved him? Had Wartly lied? Had he gotten suspicious after all and told someone?
She turned swiftly on her heel and started back. And stopped short as the other possibility stabbed through her. Was she too late? Had the tamers at last gone too far? Had Wolf’s indomitable spirit finally given out? Dear Eos, was he dead?
Shaylah smothered a tiny cry, her steps quickening as she raced back, double-checking each of the cells. Almost to the gate, she saw what she’d missed before, a single cell in the opposite direction, just beyond the gate, closer to the unconscious guard. She broke into a run.
Her heart plummeted as she stared into the cell, her last hope fading. Then, in the darkest, dampest corner, her tiny beam of light slid over a long shape crumpled on the floor.
It was filthy, covered with dark smears of the slime from the walls and floor, barely recognizable as a man, lying up against the wall with his back to her. But Shaylah knew that figure, knew the strong frame, despite the weight he’d lost. She knew the mane of hair, despite the fact that it looked, not golden, but a dull, dingy brown.
“Wolf,” she whispered, knowing even as she stared at his frighteningly still form that he was far beyond hearing her.
Her gaze snapped to the door of the cell. The lock was as antique as the rest of the building, a simple electronic scanner. Conscious of the time sliding away, she didn’t bother trying to think of a way to trick it, but merely set her disrupter on the lowest level and aimed it at the lock. There was a squeal as the lock’s workings were scrambled, but it was so brief she didn’t worry about it. The door swung open.
He hadn’t moved. As she moved closer, the beam of light wavering as her hand shook, she saw that he couldn’t have, he was chained so tightly and so close to the wall. But even had he been free, she doubted if he could have budged. He hadn’t just lost weight; she could count virtually every bone. And those dark smears weren’t all from the walls; bruises, dark and ugly, marred large sections of his golden skin. The dark, crusty patches that circled his wrists and ankles near the shackles made her cringe inwardly. For the first time she was grateful for the darkness.
She knelt beside him, shaking. “Wolf? Can you hear me?”
Nothing. Terrified now, she reached out to search for a pulse. She smothered a cry; he was cold, far too cold. But she found it, a faint, thready beat barely perceptible in the hollow of his throat.
Shaylah knew what she had to do, even as she knew the risk of it. But it was the only chance she had to get him out of here; no matter how much weight he’d lost, she couldn’t carry him. He had to leave under his own power, and right now that was clearly beyond him. She reached into her pack one more time and withdrew the medicator she’d brought from the sick bay of the ship. She was grateful now that she’d thought of it, but the risk made her shiver.
As weak as he was, it could kill him, she knew. The jolt of the adrenaline-based stimulant could be too much for a system so debilitated. Yet she was certain Wolf would rather die trying to escape than rot away in this place for another second. She administered the drug before she could talk herself out of it by remembering that she’d thought she had known what he would want once before, on their last night together.
She leaned over his gaunt body to aim her disrupter at the lock of the chains that bound his hands, then stopped. With the infusion of new strength he was liable to come awake fighting, and if he moved too soon he could end up in the firing line of the weapon. She made herself wait, tension winding tighter and tighter inside her as second after second ticked by.
Her breath, already forced and shallow, caught in her throat when she heard him groan. Low and harsh, and full of a pain she couldn’t begin to imagine, it dug into her like a red-hot claw.
“Wolf?” she whispered, leaning over him.
He came up off the dank floor in a rush, the medicine-induced strength allowing him to vent his fury. Shaylah gasped as his chained hands shot up to grasp her throat; she’d gotten too close. She grabbed his hands, even now aware of his raw, bleeding wrists. She heard her own choking gurgle as she tried to speak. Then all she heard was a ringing in her ears as his fingers cut off her air. Her vision began to blur, tiny flashes of light sparking in the darkness.
Then, suddenly, she could breathe again, his grip loosening, although his hands never left her throat. She gulped deeply of the damp air. She blinked once, then gulped air again until the spots of light faded away.
“Shaylah?” His voice was raspy, faint, and thick with bewilderment.
“Wolf,” she whispered, that claw gripping her turning white-hot now, searing her with a pain so great she didn’t think she could bear it. His face, that beautiful, chiseled, noble face, was swollen and battered, yet a further testament to the primitive methods the tamers had resorted to. “Oh, Wolf.”
> After a moment his hands dropped from around her neck. She wanted to touch him, to comfort him, to tell him he was safe now. She had time to do none of it, and she was by no means sure it was true anyway. With a swiftness ingrained by years of training, she steadied herself.
“Quickly,” she said in a low voice, “we haven’t much time.”
She lifted the disrupter and was startled when Wolf scrambled away. He backed up against the wall, bracing himself against it, looking at the weapon in her hand. She realized with a little shock that he expected her to use it on him.
“Wolf, no!” She bit her lip against the surge of pained emotion once more. “We’re getting out of here. Now. But you’ve got to help me.”
He stared at her. Only then did he seem to realize the oddness of her clothing. His eyes flicked to the gate and widened when he saw the slumped figure of the guard.
“He won’t be out for long,” Shaylah warned. “We have to get moving.”
He shook his head slowly, as if to clear a fog. He stared down at his chained hands, the hands that had been so close to choking the life out of her.
“I . . . I feel . . . strange.”
“I know. I gave you a stimulant.” His gaze snapped back to her face. “I had to, Wolf. I can’t get you out of here alone. We’ve got to get to my shuttle before it wears off.”
“Your . . . shuttle?”
“Wolf, please,” she urged. “I swear I’ll answer all your questions later, anything you want, but please, we have to go now!”
She reached for his hands. He stiffened, but when she carefully angled the disrupter toward the thick manacle that banded his wrist, he didn’t stop her. She couldn’t do it without hurting him a little, but he never even blinked. She supposed a small, burning twinge was nothing compared to what he’d been through here.
She made herself stop thinking about it. She had to. If she dwelt on what he’d been through, she’d be unable to function. She shifted to the other wrist, and after a moment the chains fell away.
She glanced at his face as she went to work on the shackles that fettered his ankles; realization that she meant what she’d said was beginning to dawn there. He never moved as she freed him from the last of his chains. He just stared at her with a carefully blank expression that never wavered until she gathered up the chains and stuffed them into her pack. She knew what he was thinking, that she herself intended to use them on him later, but she didn’t have time to deny it now.
“Can you get up?”
He hesitated, as if assessing the extent of his newly acquired strength, then nodded. He had to use the wall for balance and swayed slightly until he was able to steady himself, but he was up and mobile. For now, Shaylah thought. She didn’t know how long it would last, especially since she would have to push for as much speed as he could manage for them to make it before he collapsed.
She saw him turn his head as they passed the guard, saw his nostrils flare slightly as the heavy odor of brandy reached them. Shaylah started to walk past the unconscious guard toward the gate, but Wolf had stopped at a small metallic door set in the wall opposite the slumped sentry. She looked at him over her shoulder.
“Wolf,” she said, her voice sharp with tension, “we have to go, now!” He didn’t speak, just kept trying to force that door. “Wolf, listen to me. If we don’t make my timetable, we’re dead. We’ll never make it to the ship.”
“If I don’t get this open, I’m dead anyway.”
She gaped at him. “What?”
“The controller,” he said shortly, trying to force the lock.
“Damn the controller,” she snapped.
His head swiveled around, and his hollow, weary eyes met hers. “You really don’t know, do you?” he said after a moment.
“Know what?” Shaylah cried in exasperation.
“It’s been adjusted to the size of this place. If I get out of range of the transmitter, it triggers an explosion.”
“So the damn thing blows up! So what?”
His swollen mouth twisted in a grim mockery of a smile. “Not the controller. The collar. Its core is solid nitron propellant.”
Shaylah gasped. It would rip his head off. She didn’t want to believe it, but it was just the sort of thing the Coalition would do. Without another word, she turned the disrupter on the lock of the metal door, and after a high squeal, it swung open. Shaylah tried not to look at the other things in the cabinet, the evil-looking instruments whose purpose she couldn’t begin to imagine.
She saw Wolf shudder slightly as he reached past them for the controller and guessed with grim certainty that he knew exactly what those malignant tools were for.
“Hurry,” she said, holding out the pack.
He hesitated, his fingers tightening around the device that subjected him to whoever held it. “Trust me, Wolf,” she begged. “We’re running out of time.”
He looked at her for a long, silent moment, searching her face. His eyes closed briefly, and she saw him draw in a deep breath. When he opened them again, he dropped the controller into the bag.
He said nothing else. He also said nothing when she stopped to wrestle with the heavy gate, but merely helped her when he saw she was intent on putting everything back as she’d found it.
“This way,” she whispered in the darkness, gesturing toward the knoll behind the ugly, hulking building.
They went through the shadows at a trot, the fastest pace they could manage with any kind of silence. They were over the small rise and down the other side before she slowed to a walk. She flicked on the cellight and glanced at her chronometer. Then she looked at Wolf, who still hadn’t said a word.
“The shuttle’s just over the next hill. We’ll have to hurry if we’re going to make it in time.” He didn’t ask her in time for what. His silence was beginning to worry her, but she didn’t have time to push it now. “Wolf, that stuff I gave you could wear off in anywhere from fifteen minutes to an hour. We’ve got to be at the ship when it does. I can’t carry you.”
He looked at the steeper, larger rise of ground, then back at Shaylah. He closed his eyes, as if inwardly assessing his remaining energy. Then, still without a word, he started up the hill.
The shuttle looked undisturbed. It sat in a small gully between two steep hills, hidden—although it was unlikely that anyone would pass this barren spot—by a tall outcropping of rock. It was the smaller and faster of the Sunbird’s two shuttles, and Wolf had to duck to go through the hatchway.
“Sit down,” she said, unconscious of how, now that she was back in her element, it sounded like an order.
He looked at her steadily for a moment, then sat in the copilot’s seat she had gestured at. He still didn’t speak, but when she glanced at him he seemed to be holding up well enough for now.
She flipped on the shuttle’s computer quickly, knowing she had no time to waste. Not only did they have to make it in time to the coordinates she’d preprogrammed, but when the medication wore off he would crumble like a sand tower in the heavy gravity of Omega.
He watched her in silence, sitting in such rigid stillness that fear shot through her; was the stimulant wearing off even now? She hadn’t let herself face the possibility that the dosage had been wrong, too little, or worse, too much for his weakened system. The chance that in rescuing him she might just have killed him lashed at her, lacerating nerves already stretched taut.
With quick, sharp movements she began the initiation procedure. The control panel lights came on, readouts glowing softly in the darkness. She rechecked the coordinates in the navigation computer, locked them in, and set the self-pilot controls to take over the moment she flipped the switch. Then, taking a deep breath, she reached for the ignition activator.
The change in the controls was barely perceptible, but Shaylah felt it as strongly as if the ship had
leaped to life beneath her hands. Her fingers feathered over the power throttle, bringing the drive to the highest power possible while still allowing her to hold the shuttle in place. Then she glanced at the silent Wolf.
“You’d better harness up,” Shaylah said, securing her own safety restraints. “We’re going to have to take off fast. Just take the top strap—”
She broke off as he reached behind him and deftly fastened the rather tricky harness without a moment’s hesitation or fumbling. Before she could dwell on it, the maximum power indicator flashed, and she had to turn back to the con.
Shaylah tapped a few keys on the computer, then checked her chronometer reading against the results. Then she reached for the stabilizer control with one hand and the engage lever with the other. She watched the numbers on the computer screen change rapidly downward, her fingers flexing on the controls.
Zero flashed on the screen. With another brief prayer directed at the goddess of the dawn, Shaylah cut the shuttle loose. They were slammed back into the seats as the small craft leaped upward, the ion drive catapulting them free of the rocky gully.
Shaylah dragged in a forced breath, straining against the force of the rapid acceleration and takeoff. Everything depended on the hurried but painstaking set of calculations she’d made last night. If she’d been wrong, if she’d underestimated by a fraction—
She couldn’t bear to think about it. Perhaps she’d been a fool, perhaps incredibly arrogant, to risk his life along with her own, but she didn’t know what else she could have done. Fighting the pressure that forced her head back against the cushions of the command chair, she turned her head to look at him.
She wanted to tell him she’d only meant to help, that she’d had to come back for him, that she couldn’t leave him in that place and live with herself. She wanted to tell him she was sorry for not giving him a choice. That she knew she’d had no right to make this decision for both of them, just as she’d had no right to do what she’d done with their last night together. She wanted to tell him so much . . . yet when her eyes met his, she had the oddest feeling that he already knew, that he’d read in her face, in her eyes, all the things she’d wanted to say.
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