"Extraordinary," she heard Kahn say. "Our Rysalian music pales in comparison."
She swiveled away from the lonely view, glancing only cursorily at a ship coming in for docking. "It's more than twenty years old."
"Music, though, is timeless," he replied and closed his eyes, waving his hand in the air as though he were conducting an invisible orchestra.
Bridget couldn't help but admire the man as he lay sprawled in his chair. He looked deviously handsome in a white Chrystallusian silk shirt that he had left unbuttoned to the waist. With his tight black leather pants and boots, the golden Chalean hoop in his left ear, all the man needed was a red scarf around his thick mop of black curls and an eye patch to make him look every inch the pirate.
"Pirate?" he questioned, opening one eye.
She blushed to the tips of her toes. Even after five months of living with the man and his uncanny psychic powers, he still unnerved her.
"I don't mean to," he saw, drawing in his long legs. "Forgive me. It's a political habit I have. My surrogate mother taught me well. She mistrusts everything and everyone."
Bridget understood. "Know your enemies?"
He grinned. "I try not to do it when I'm with you, but the truth is: your thoughts are so distinct they just come at me like laser blasts." He sat up in his chair. "Most people shield what they are thinking when they're around men like me."
"I had no trouble hiding my thoughts from Cree. Why not you?"
"I don't know," Kahn replied. "Maybe my powers are more advanced than his."
"Or you've had less tampering with your mind," she observed.
"Now that is a distinct possibility," Kahn agreed. He took a sip of his Chalean brandy, then swirled the remainder around in his glass. "You know, of course, what they did to him when he was a boy?"
"The implants?"
"Aye."
"I was told we had to be extremely careful not to dislodge one of them when he was undergoing reinforcement."
"I doubt you could have."
Bridget played with a loose thread on her skirt. "What happens to all the Reaper cadets if the Resistance wins?"
"When we win," he corrected. He shrugged. "They will be rounded up and confined until we can deal with them. The platinum implants will be deactivated since it would be dangerous to try to remove them. Their parasites will have to be terminated by whatever means the Ministry of Public Health has devised. But most important of all, their minds must be wiped clean of Empire teaching."
"Cree included?"
Kahn nodded. "In order for him and the other Reaper caste to exist in harmony with the rest of us, they have to be like the rest of us. All those merciless tendencies and brutal instincts have to be purged. If not, they will be as great a danger to us after the rebellion as they are now."
DR. HAEL Sejm straightened up from the microscan and shivered. "Ugly little thing, isn't it?"
Dr. LeJong Kym acknowledged the remark with a slight inclination of her elegant head. The Chrystallusian biochemist removed the culture from beneath the microscan and placed it carefully inside the containment field.
"Is it safe in there?" Admiral Cree asked.
Beryla Dean put a reassuring hand on her lover's shoulder. "Do you think we would take a chance of it not being?"
"Please roll up your sleeve, Admiral," Dr. Kym asked.
The vacuum needle pierced Drae's flesh and he winced as the thick liquid spread. "By the gods, that hurts!"
"But think of the benefits," Dr. Sejm suggested. "The alternative to injection has an even more painful sting, I am told."
"Precisely so," Dr. Kym agreed as she withdrew the needle.
"You should retire to your quarters and rest. The antitoxin will take full effect within the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours. In the meantime, you will no doubt experience some nausea, headache perhaps and mild fever. Nothing to worry about." She put her hands into the pockets of her lab coat and cocked her head to one side. "There might possibly be a touch of joint discomfort. Nothing that you haven't experienced before during your yearly viral inoculations." She glanced at Sejm. "Is there anything you would add?"
"Consume plenty of liquids," advised Sejm.
Drae Cree rolled down his sleeve, frowning at the continued string that had raised a good-sized lump on his upper arm. He nodded absently at Hael Sejm's suggestion. "Who is next on your list?"
"Tylan Kahn," Dr. Kym replied. "After him, the five Reapers and each of their four man crews."
"The five Reapers and their crews who just happened to dock on FSK-14 within an hour of one another." Beryla laughed.
"And who have been ordered to report for their annual antiviral injections."
"Ninety percent of station personnel are cowering in their quarters with that many Reapers on board," said Drae. "Once Kamerone and Coure arrive, there should be little or no one about to see what we're doing." He rubbed his arm and felt a wave of nausea leap up his throat.
"I think I'd better get you to bed," Beryla told him.
"Good idea," Sejm agreed. "I'll take the injection to my son. We won't need you until the Sirocco docks, Beryla."
Once Beryla and her lover left the lab, Hael Sejm went to the refrigeration unit and removed thirty-two vials of antitoxin, placing them on a tray with just that many syringes. She began loading the syringes with a dark tyrilian liquid. Dr. Kym watched her intently.
"I will take these with me," Sejm suggested. "You can do the others when they arrive, if you will."
Dr. Kym nodded, mentally calculating the amount of syringes she needed. "Kamerone Cree's crew as well as Coure's. That's ten."
"Nine," Sejm corrected.
"Nine?" Kym calculated again, then shook her head. "I make it ten, Hael."
"Kamerone Cree is to be given the same inoculation you gave his father," said Hael.
Dr. Kym froze. She lifted her head and one think black brow arched upward. "What do you mean?"
A murderous glint sparked in Hael Sejm's eyes. "Did you think I would let that monster live? I wish for the son what I have set into motion for the father!"
LeJong stared at her. "You can't kill Kamerone. We need him!"
"No, we don't," Hael snapped. "Once we start, there will be no obstacles in our path. We don't need Kamerone Cree to win this war!" She picked up her tray and left the lab.
LeJong sat down behind her desk and stared at the remaining vials of antitoxin in the refrigeration unit. Ten vials, ten lives, she mused. Not counting Kamerone Cree, only forty-one chosen men were to be left virus-free after the rebellion was over and the retrovirus had been spread through the exhaust systems of all fifteen space stations and leaked into the atmosphere over Rysalia Prime. Only forty-one men among the eight hundred and seventy-nine thousand Rysalian men and boys.
R4V7, she had named it: Revenge for the V-7.
Kym glanced up at the memorial plaque that the Daughters of the Multitude had commissioned after the Plague had destroyed the entire female population of the Rysalian Empire more than forty years ago.
"Two hundred twenty-three thousand, six hundred and fourteen," whispered Dr. LeJong Kym. Every woman from eleven worlds knew that total.
"The men of Rysalia condemned us to a lifetime of hell," Hael Sejm had once said. "They made us pay for their mistakes. Their desire to be the masters of the universe! If we, in turn, can find a way to sterilize them without them knowing it, then we can stop this insane program of warrior making! We can stop the forced abortion of innocent children! We can stop the killing of men who want to stay on Earth and live with the women they have come to love! We can stop the heartache of our Terran sisters who are brought here against their wills!"
"We can fashion a retrovirus similar to V-7, but with safer results," Dr. Dean had suggested. "Our virus will sterilize the males, not kill them as theirs did the Rysalian women. Wouldn't you call that tit for tat?"
LeJong lowered her head. Tit for tat wasn't how she would describe the retrovirus that had come out of
Dr. Sejm's lab. The virus that was about to be released on the Empire was even more destructive than V-7. It did not sterilize; it destroyed. The virus Hael Sejm had designed in her lab of horrors would kill within a matter of minutes. Men would drop like flies and neither Beryla Dean nor any of the other men and women involved in the Resistance knew that.
"I wish for the son what I have set in motion for the father!"
Dr. Kym looked down at the syringe that had shot its payload into Drae Cree's body. The liquid inside the syringe was lethal. It would take several hours to thoroughly saturate the Admiral's body but when it did, there would be no antidote for the virulent poison that had been given to him. It would appear as though there had been an intense reaction to the antitoxin; there would be no telltale signs that the man had been murdered.
"Drae Cree must not survive the Rebellion," Sejm had declared months before. "He can and will cause us great trouble if he is not put out of commission early on. We will inoculate him first and he will die in agony, Beryla at his side to keep her out of our way!"
"I wish for the son what I have set in motion for the father!"
Kamerone.
The name invoked a shiver of delight through Kym's body. For years, she had studied the Empire's Prime Reaper and lusted after his strong body and dark good looks. Once, she had even taken the place of one of his sexual surrogates just to know the feel of him inside her. The experience had been all that she had imagined it would be although he had barely glanced at her. Just having her hands on his body as briefly as she had, would sustain her for a lifetime. Her dreams were filled with fantasies of what she wished could be; she envied Bridget Dunne.
LeJong shook her head. "I will not let you harm him, Sejm. I would rather die myself than see him hurt!"
Getting up from her desk, she went to the refrigeration unit and took out a vial of the antitoxin. She loaded a syringe and placed it in her pocket before loading nine more.
Let the world disintegrate around her. Let the mighty fall and the worlds collide. If it was the last thing she ever did, she would save Kamerone Cree from the end Hael Sejm wished for him.
"MASSAGE HIS arm, Bridget," Hael instructed. "Work the liquid into his muscle."
"How sick is this going to make me, Lady?" Tylan had always feared his mother and had given her the title long ago.
"You should feel nothing at all," Hael replied. "If you do, call me immediately."
Bridget saw Kahn's head snap up sharply. She stopped rubbing his arm. "What's wrong?"
"He's back," Tylan said suddenly.
"He landed twenty minutes ago," Hael confirmed, taking pleasure in her son's psychic ability.
"Cree?" Bridget breathed.
"It's almost over," Hael said, smiling. "In a matter of hours, we will be free."
Bridget turned away from the others and went to stand in front of the port windows. She stared sightlessly out into the black void and hoped with all her heart that the only thing that would be over would be the Empire's power.
"WELCOME HOME, Lieutenant," the Vid-Com greeted him. "Did you have a pleasant trip?"
"Get purged," Cree grumbled. Why the hell hadn't Bridget been at the door to meet him? Stalking through the living area, he rapped on her door, then slapped his hand against the control panel. She wasn't in her room or his or the bathing unit. He stomped back through the food preparation center, and then went to the Vid-Com.
"Where is Bridget?"
"She's not here, Lieutenant."
"I can see that, Helen!" he snapped, irritated that he had used Bridget's name for the AIU. "Where is she?"
"With Admiral Kahn."
Stepping closer to the Vid-Com screen, he stared straight into the photophase filament. "Why is she there?"
"He outranks you and she had no choice."
A chill passed down Cree's spine. He knew beyond any doubt what had happened. He put his hands to either side of the screen and hung his head. "Why is she there?" he repeated in a soft, hurt whisper.
"The Admiral revoked your ownership of her and has sought permission— "
"Where is Konnor Rhye?"
There was a hesitation as the Vid-Com checked on the Keeper's whereabouts. "Commander Rhye is at this moment being given his yearly antiviral inoculations."
"When is Kahn planning on giving her to him?"
"He isn't, Sir."
Cree's head came up. "But you said— "
"You did not give me a chance to finish what I was saying," the Vid-Com chastened. "I was going to say that the Admiral sought permission from the Tribunal to Join with Dr. Dunne, himself. The paperwork went through this morning."
His world screeched to a halt and his knees nearly buckled from under him. He had to grab hold of the screen's edge to keep from collapsing. "When did he do this?"
"The day you left for Terra, Sir."
"Five months ago?" he whispered. His heart was beginning to shatter in his chest. "Did she go willingly?"
"She objected most strenuously to leaving these quarters, Sir, but Dr. Dean— "
Cree pounded the wall with his fist. "What about Dr. Dean?"
"The Director advised her not to cause any more trouble for you. If Dr. Dunne had refused to do as the Admiral commanded, you would have been targeted for another reinforcement. Dr. Dunne did not want that to happen, Sir."
Burning rage put a fissure straight down the middle of Cree's being and he spun around, jerked up his utility jacket and ran from the room.
The Resistance wanted him? Well, they had him! All they had to do was give him back his gods-be-damned woman and he'd tear the Empire down with his bare hands!
THE SIGHT that greeted Dr. LeJong Kym as she stepped off the private elevator onto Level Twelve where the Ranking Staff were quartered was one that would stay with her forever; it brought her up short
"Kym!" she heard Beryla Dean shout to be heard over the commotion. "Over here!"
Dr. Kym stepped over the prone body of a Keeper, flung herself back to avoid being bowled over by a stumbling Shepherd, and reached Dr. Dean's side.
"Did you bring it?" Beryla asked, holding out her hand.
LeJong nodded. "And this also." She placed two objects in Beryla's palm. "It's the antitoxin."
"Good. I had forgotten about it."
"I had not," LeJong said firmly. She pointed to the melee before her. "He is certainly unhappy."
She stared as twelve Keepers, and just as many lower-ranking Shepherds did their best to keep an enraged Kamerone Cree from making his way down the corridor to Tylan Kahn's private quarters. Three men lay on the floor with broken jaws slung to one side; two nursed broken wrists, one a twice-broken arm; and three more were bent over, retching on the floor as they gingerly cradled their private parts in trembling hands. Not one of the security enforcers had been left unscathed by the swinging feet and punishing fists of the Reaper. Blood was splattered on the walls from smashed noses and broken teeth and the floor was slick with sweat and something the chemist didn't want to name. Even as she gaped at the ruckus taking place before her, Kym saw four men attempting to bring down the enraged warrior with their energy prods.
"He is very impressive," Kym whispered.
"Yes, but I have to put a stop to this before he kills someone," the Director stressed. It was unthinkable to her that two dozen men couldn't bring down one. She uncapped the two syringes, gripped them in her fists— needles pointed toward the floor, her thumb over the two plungers. She waited until Cree had been driven to his knees from a dual jolt of two energy prods then stepped forward and drove the needles deep into the flesh between his shoulder and his neck.
Cree felt the sting, slapped a hand up to his injured neck and bellowed with rage as he twisted beneath three quick jolts of electricity going through him. He saw Dr. Dean standing over him, he saw the syringes in her hand, looked up into her eyes with surprise. He shuddered and began to go numb all over. "What did you do to me?" he asked before the lights went off and the floor dropped ou
t from under him.
Chapter 21
CREE CAME to on Dr. Dean's couch. His head was splitting and there was a sickening taste in his mouth that left him afraid to move lest he puke on the pristine white carpet at which he found himself staring. Not that he cared if he did, but he thought if he were to start heaving, he would bring up his guts.
"The symptoms will pass, Kamerone," he heard a female voice tell him. "Here, drink this."
He was unable to prevent the cool hand from lifting his head and unable to stop the too-sweet liquid from oozing into his mouth. The taste wasn't as bad as what was already lingering there, but never let it be said the brew was palatable, either. He promptly gagged on it.
"Help him to sit up before he throws up." The Director chuckled.
Rough hands dragged him up from his prone position on the couch, swung his legs down until he was slumped in the middle of the plush cushions. His head lolled along the back, then swung down to his chest, his dark curls hiding his tightly shut eyes. A grim laugh bubbled out of his dry throat as he thought about his helplessness: He felt like a bird with a broken neck.
"At least he finds his predicament humorous," said a woman with a Chrystallusian accent.
"Gods-be-damned bitches," Cree muttered, trying to lift his head and failing.
"We could strip him and mount him and he wouldn't be able to lift a finger to stop us," another said. He knew that voice! Dorrie Burkhart! "Would you, Cree?"
"Try it," Cree growled. Once more he strove to raise his head, but only managed to make the world tilt away from him again.
"Poor baby," the Director said as she lifted his head and placed it where he could see her blurred face hovering above him. "Is that better?"
"Dean— " he mumbled and was humiliated as drool dribbled unchecked from the corner of his mouth.
"Here, Beryla. Let me," the Chrystallusian woman suggested.
A wet cloth was dabbed at his chin; a cool hand smoothed the hair back from his sweaty forehead, lingered as it stroked his cheek.
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