"You would do well to fear me. I'm pure. What is the best I can hope of our issue together? You're from the counties. I can thank God the plague has run its course-but you could be contaminated, still. I saw you bathing. Your perfection was apparent, but it could only be skin deep. Will you throw gills or a third eye? Not scales, I think—the desert bastards carry those genes. The Mars expedition adaptive. If I'm very lucky, perhaps the boy will simply be double-jointed." The dean laughed, a little too loudly. He put aside his imprinter box and fumbled at the laces of his jeans.
Alma got out a sound, a tiny moan. She tried to roll away, but the bower beneath her was as deep as a feather mattress and only cushioned her struggles. Pine needles worked their way through the blanket and stung her through her shirt.
The dean worked to get himself hard. He smiled down at her. "You'll be the mother of a new nation," he said. "And when we have a daughter, she will also become my wife. We'll do the best we can to bring back the pure blood. It's our duty."
He stopped stroking himself. He brought out his knife and slit her trousers away, so quickly that she could scarcely flinch. He cut her leg, a thin red line welling up. He leaned over and licked the scratch, from her calf lo her thigh.
Alma tried to buck away from him. He laughed and ripped off her undershorts. She tried to club him with her bound hands. With a movement that wrenched her shoulders, he pulled her hands up over her head and hooked the thong over a pine bough end.
"I'm pure," he said. "Someday you'll thank me for this."
Her body would not answer her outrage and anger. She could not kick and though she was nearly numb from the waist down, she felt him as he shoved his way in. He was immense. Her mouth opened in a dumb cry of pain. He rammed himself deep into her.
"I'm pure, bitch, pure, whore, pure, scum. ..."
She tried to shut her ears to the litany of filth he poured over her as he tore into her body. The pine boughs crushed beneath their weight. He shoved his hands under her buttocks to hold her closer as he hammered her flesh. She turned her face away, panting for breath, as he began to bite at her neck. With his teeth, he tore first her shirt and then her undershirt away. Alma felt the hot wetness of tears spill over her face as he savaged her nipples. "Pure . . . pure . . . pure. . . ."
Suddenly, he was spent. He fell limp atop her. She couldn't breathe. She felt his seed brimming out and over her thighs. Her flesh felt torn and ripped everywhere he'd touched her. Feeling returned in burning agony. She could move and heaved away from under him.
Her stomach revolted and she vomited all over him, spewing bitterly. He cursed and jerked aside. The movement of his heavy form jerked her hands free from where he had hooked them.
Alma lunged for the box. He grabbed for her, but the slickness of his come covered her thighs and she slid out of his grasp. The imprinter was heavy when she picked it up. High impact plastic. It was the only thing she had. She smashed it down in the dean's face as he jumped at her.
He went down with a grunt.
The sky had gone black. Firelight illuminated his crumpled form. She looked down. Blood as well as bodily fluids stained her legs. She held her violated flesh a moment and pulled her hands away, wet with blood. Her blood, then. She did not care if she had killed the man or not. She dropped the imprinter in the dirt next to him. Its case was undented. She staggered to the tethered horse and yanked the packs stacked next to its peg. She pulled on a spare set of buckskins—immense on her and she cuffed them four times over and tied a crude knot in the waistband. Her own boots lay next to the packs.
She took the horse, the packs, the water, everything. She looked at the belt of sky she could see between the treetops. Thomas had taken great pains to point the night stars out to them. She found a direction and reined the horse back toward the ruins of the College Vaults. The beast broke into a running trot, then slowed as she could not ride upright in the saddle, but hunched over the can-tie, her nose hitting the horse's neck as it bobbed up and down with its stride. The reins went slack in her hands, but the horse picked out a steadier path.
She did not know she had gotten her voice back until she heard the jagged noise of a woman in great pain crying, and realized it was herself.
Chapter 17
The dean woke in blinding pain. A kick in the shoulder, more acute than the agony of his ruined face, brought him struggling to his knees. Ketchum leaned over him and handed him a waterskin. The tracker's face was dispassionate.
The dean saw in a glance the girl and all his equipment were gone. His knee rested on the hard case of the imprinter. She'd left behind all that mattered, he thought, and took a deep swallow from the waterskin. He ripped a sleeve of his shirt off and dampened it for a compress.
One cheekbone was crushed and his nose incredibly painful to touch as he put his face to the wet cloth. Tears rushed soundlessly to his eyes.
Ketchum said, "Blade do this?"
"No," the dean answered. "One of his riders."
"I thought not. The Protector generally kills his enemies." Ketchum looked over the camp. "Do you want to go after him?''
The dean could hardly think. He wanted the girl back, but not at all costs. Not at the costs of his painstakingly built leadership. Let Ketchum think he'd been ambushed by a male rider. He'd found the girl once—he'd find her again. She was only a small portion of his ambitions. He touched his face gingerly. He looked up at the nester. "What are you doing here? I sent you back to camp."
"And so I went, Chieftain." Ketchum inclined his head respectfully, a respect which he did not otherwise radiate. "But your equipment began a new magic and so I thought to bring it to you. I consulted the Shastra and was given this vision."
"What?" The dean mopped his face carefully. The nester had not mentioned the mythic creature in months. He thought he'd beat it out of him. The fact that a nonexistent beast had probably saved him increased his melancholy. His journey was always to be one step forward and two steps backward, it seemed. He wrung the cloth out and redampened it. His nose felt the size of a melon. "What the hell are you talking about?"
The nester held out the recall beacon. It was wrapped in a reed box of the finest makings and it had rested so in the dean's tent as though at an altar. "This."
The beacon's sequencing lights had a new addition. The dean dropped his compress, forgotten, and reached for the beacon. It was tapping out a code he did not know, but the panel that now lit up sent a light through him like a searing fire.
It was an incoming code, requesting destination.
"My God," he said. His voice was low and choked in his throat. "They're coming back." His hands shook. A readout translated the code and he watched as words played across a tiny screen. They wanted verbal confirmation. He couldn't give it to them, but he could send a landing code back. They were close, only a few months, weeks away. He looked north and east. The dry lake beds at Edwards had brought in many a shuttle.
The longships were coming home.
And he would be there to meet them, with a nester nation at his back. The world would be his.
Chapter 18
Thomas emerged from the tunnel feeling as though he'd been birthed into another world. The light panels glowed an eerie red, a half-light he could see by although not well. The corridor floor was canted and halfway down to his left, he could see where the wall had collapsed upon itself completely. He moved aside so the boys could come in behind him.
He'd relented and left all but two, Ngo and a young boy they called Bugsy, to guard the shoring and the guide ropes. Those two out, plus Jenkies, Bill, and Alma left him fifteen to shepherd through the wreckage. When Drakkar emerged, it was with great caution, his crest half-aroused. He looked to Blade.
"Emergency lighting," he said.
Thomas knew only that the Mojavans had some defunct military installations in their region. He wondered what kind of salvaging Denethan had done. "What do you know about this?"
Drakkar gave him a shrewd look. "About as much as
you do," he answered shortly.
Blade turned away, thinking that the only thing more devious than a Mojavan for an ally was a Mojavan for an enemy.
Stefan said, "We should split up. I know these lower levels."
Blade didn't like the idea of splitting up. It gave him too many directions to watch at one time. But he stifled his gut reaction. Stefan had obvious talents in the Vaults the rest of them did not share. "Only if you take Drakkar with you."
The Russian-born youth's face drew taut. "Don't you trust me?"
Blade pivoted slightly, his headband light coming to rest on Drakkar's face as it followed his movement. "Yes," he answered. "It's him I don't trust."
Drakkar gave a mocking half-bow.
"It's not a matter of trust," Thomas continued. "The two of you are better skilled at keeping your party alive. That slide was rigged. There'll be more traps in here. I want no more casualties. Understood?"
Stefan and Drakkar considered one another in the twilight. "Understood," Stefan said reluctantly.
Drakkar pulled his gloves on tightly. "Naturally," he answered.
Thomas took his torch out of his head band, toggled it off, and replaced it in an inner pocket. The dean's old offices would be on this level—that's why the escape tunnel led here. He cast about in the soft lighting, unable to get his bearings. Finally, to hide his momentary confusion, he counted off the boys again, taking the larger group of the mappers.
He explained to them what to look for—trip wires, snares, mines, and whatever other traps he knew the dean had the technology at hand to set for them. But the Vaults were still alive, with their remnants of a technology he could only guess at—and if they had defenses that could still be triggered, he knew the dean would use them. Jeong sketched something quickly and handed the pad to him.
Thomas frowned at it. "What's this?"
"Beam outlets. We can't see them. I saw them used on one of the CD programs you brought back. On the program, they crisscrossed like this, forming a barrier or gate. Break this barrier and alarms go off. They project from here to here—see?'' And the boy showed him.
Thomas looked at the drawing. "All right. You can bet our traps won't set off alarms, though. Break a net of these and you're likely to be fried in your footsteps. Everybody take a good look at the sketch. Good going, Jeong."
Drakkar barely looked at the sketch. "I already know what I'm looking for," he said, in response to Thomas' questioning expression. "Jeong's right. Those things are invisible, quiet, and deadly."
The boys silently took a second look, their faces bled of previous doubt.
"All right. Find anything, give a whistle." Thomas let out a shrill, piercing whistle.
Drakkar answered with a similar one.
"What about if we're out of earshot?" In the half-light, Watty's birthmark looked as though a mortal wound had opened up on his face.
"We're not getting that far apart," Thomas told him. "We're working this side of the corridor and they'll work that side. Let's go. Remember, we've got crew on the outside and at camp waiting for us."
Thomas loved ruins. They were ingrained in him. He'd broken the rules and gone exploring as long as he could remember. He never quite lost the childish streak in him that hoped one day he'd cross a threshold and find out who he really was. He'd been in the Vaults long enough to meet several men in touch with the past, his past, and had known. He tucked his scarf in lightly about his gilled neck. They had looked at him, and known, and instead of telling him wondrous secrets about why he'd been remade the way he was, they'd tried to kill him.
They'd almost succeeded.
He paused in the corridor. Boys came to a stop behind him. Dirt and debris that brushed the flooring lightly seemed concentrated here. He knelt down and breathed lightly over the innocent looking litter. The dust skittered away and leaves stirred, to show a fine wire cutting across the passage. The wall light above shed little illumination on it.
"Watch it," Blade said. He pointed about the wire to them. They jostled his back, eager to look. "Don't
touch."
Montez pulled a leather strap out of his daypack. He handed it to Thomas. With a nod, Thomas motioned them back. He looped the strap about so that it would trigger it and leaned as far as he could.
With a jerk, he tripped the wire. There was a blinding puff of smoke and gas from the wall light. Its plasticase shattered into shards that, face-high, would have maimed someone.
"Holy God," Montez said, and crossed himself. Blade returned the leather strap to the cobbler's son before moving up the corridor.
"Thanks."
"Don't mention it." He looked down as he carefully stepped across the debris, afraid to scuffle his feet. His companions followed suit.
Thomas found a doorway. It had been cracked out of its track and stood half-open by the explosions which had destroyed most of the Vaults. He pointed at Bottom. "Get it open," he told the husky boy.
Bottom wedged his frame in the space and gave an immense heave. The door gave, cracking aside like an eggshell. The cook staggered forward a step.
Thomas said, "Freeze, Bottom. Not another step."
Even in the blood-colored light, he could see the older boy pale as he realized what Blade meant.
Thomas eased past him. The room had been a lab, rather like the medical lab he and Lady had briefly been examined in. It had been stripped of anything but cupboards and counters. He saw nothing of any importance and no traps. Jeong stood next to the sweating Bottom in the doorway.
"Can I come in, Sir Thomas?"
He nodded. The thin boy wedged himself through,-sketching as he walked.
Thomas watched him, bemused. "What is it you see that I don't?" he asked as Jeong walked by, immersed in his drawing.
Jeong looked up. "Architecture, if nothing else," he explained.
"Ah. Maximum storage in minimum space."
"Something like that." He tapped a cupboard door. "High impact plastic," he said. "Wears like iron. We can't salvage much of that now. Most of the later plastics are degradable."
Thomas hid his amusement at being lectured by the boy. "When we open this place up, we'll get the cupboards and counters out." His voice was solemn.
Jeong nodded absently. He continued walking, his ink-pen flying in his fingers. Thomas waited until he was done before escorting the boy out.
They investigated two more rooms, sterile cells without any idea of what they'd been used for or their basic function. Piles of ash littered their floors. Thomas thought privately that they might have been used for record storage, their contents triggered to self-destruct with the rest of the building. He could see no other explanation. He wondered at a code that would destroy information before sharing it with intruders. He wondered if that had been the fate of Charlie's papers, papers which held so much information about the offices of DWP. The dean's office had been a library, a museum of books and paintings and other artifacts. Had it, too, been destroyed?
Thomas threw his hand up, coming abruptly out of his thoughts. The passageway in front of them was buckled and holed from the explosion, a doorway just beyond the worst of the damaged flooring looming blackly in the light. The air smelled dead. Acoustical tiles from the ceiling littered the floor. He felt a prickle of apprehension along his gills. He scratched his upper lip thoughtfully.
He'd made Watty gather some fist-sized rocks. "Give me one of those rocks," he said now.
Watty tumbled one into his waiting hand. He sized up the floor and pitched the rock.
He hit the mine on the first try. He wasn't sure there had even been anything there until the flare and explosion rocked the corridor. Acoustical tiles rained down on them, their white dust filling the air. Watty coughed and choked until Montez beat him between the shoulder blades.
Thomas leaned against the wall. A good-sized abyss replaced buckled flooring. The dean was no longer toying with him. And that also meant that whatever that door opened into, Thomas was determined to investigate. If
the dean wanted him out, then Thomas wanted in.
But he didn't want to take the boys in with him just yet. The dean was almost certain to have left other traps in the general area.
"Listen up," Blade said, as soon as the coughing and confusion died down. "I'm going in, but I want you all to stay out here until I say to come in. Even then, don't take my word for it. Watch your step."
The boys nodded somberly. Montez's eyes were so large in his round face that Thomas thought of a barn owl. He shook the image out of his head and left them. Behind them he could hear Bottom's worried voice.
"Anybody else know how to whistle like Blade does?"
And Watty's shy voice answer, " I do."
Then silence.
Thomas examined the still smoking ruin of a floor. The mine had been highly concentrated. The hole was about three feet deep, and the edges of the flooring material were charred and incredibly smelly. The smoke that drifted up was damn near toxic. He untucked an end of his scarf and put it over his nose as he sidestepped the damage and surveyed the door. It was open, buckled out of its frame. Beyond, he could see a shadowy interior which, although wrecked, was intact.
This lab had been meant to withstand the self-destruct, he thought. So though its contents were damaged, they had not been removed or further salvaged. A huge chamber, like a gigantic egg, had cracked and he saw something slumped in its shadowy interior. All around the room, cabinets stood open . . . their insides still partially filled with supplies. He saw charts on the farther wall. Cables. Leads. Equipment.
A treasure.
What must it have cost the dean to leave bait like this open and waiting for him?
Blade began to move forward to lean inside the doorway to search for traps. Instead he froze, thinking rapidly. So far the dean had done nothing he could not do, although perhaps the dean's handiwork had been a little more spectacular. But explosives were something that Blade could reproduce and had, on many an occasion.
What he could not do would be to string a web of invisible rays across a doorway.
What if Jeong had been right and such technology existed? Drakkar hadn't doubted it for a moment.
Charles Ingrid - marked man 02 The Last Recall Page 17