by Jaine Fenn
She wondered how much the man actually knew. Had he even realised that the main target of the mission was as integral to the Sidhe’s plans as Marua herself? Possibly not, given his information had been instrumental to Dr Pershalek’s extraction, and he’d made no attempt to interfere once he had his Angel back.
But he knew enough to be very dangerous. Though his allegations might not be believed, the very act of publicly linking her ngai to a Sidhe conspiracy could damage her already shaky status with the other ngai, and, worse still, damn her in the eyes of the Sidhe.
She needed to deal with this last loose end, quickly and discreetly.
By the time Nual next tried to sleep, her physical condition was becoming a serious distraction. Nothing had changed in the day - or however long it was - since she had been awakened by the induced cold. She had divided her time between brooding about her situation and fantasising about the imminent arrival of something to eat and drink. Periodically she made cautious tests of her mental prison, and found it as secure as ever. She experienced a growing urge to shout out loud, demanding that her captors get on with whatever they planned to do to her . . . Unless they were just going to leave her to die.
Though the hunger was uncomfortable, it was the dehydration that would kill her. Already her head throbbed monotonously, and every breath she took was like swallowing knives. Her tongue felt like a bloated sack of sand. Though she tried to get up and move around every now and again, standing up was becoming too much effort.
She was torn between the desire to block the ever-increasing physical discomfort and the need to monitor her deterioration. Not that there was anything she could do to stop it. In the end, she did not so much drift into slumber as fall into merciful unconsciousness.
She swam back towards awareness when she reached the state of light dream-ridden sleep necessary to contact Taro. She made a vague attempt to find him, without success. She tried not to read anything into her failure. He might not be in a receptive sleep-state, and even if he was, her concentration was blown to hell. She fell back into predictably unpleasant dreams of dark despair and gnawing hunger.
When she awoke, a woman was sitting on the chair next to her bed.
The pain and exhaustion were blown away in an instant. She braced herself for the mental attack.
When nothing happened, Nual was confused: why send someone in now, when she was weak and feverish, unless she was there to spearhead a unified assault on her shields?
Then she saw what the woman had in her hand.
The water came almost to the top of the beaker. Nual couldn’t look away from it. She had to have it.
She blinked, feeling her eyelids scrape across her gritty eyes, and forced herself to look at the person holding the beaker. The woman, who was watching her with a faint smile on her face, wore practical, comfortable clothes and was somewhat older than Nual. She looked friendly, trustworthy; Nual clenched her fist, digging her nails into her palm until the skin broke, using the pain to focus. Her visitor was Sidhe, and the air of trustworthiness was just glamour. She must not let herself be taken in.
‘It’s not drugged, you know.’ The woman’s voice was loud after so long in silence. It had a mellow, almost amused, tone. ‘If we wished to drug you then gas would be a far simpler option.’
Nual said nothing.
‘You don’t want it?’ The woman moved the beaker away.
‘Didn’t . . . say . . . that.’ Nual had to force the words out round her swollen tongue.
‘Good. Well, here you are then, my dear.’
Despite herself, Nual snatched the beaker, slopping water over her shaking hands. She took a great, greedy gulp, nearly gagging when her stomach went into spasm. She stifled the reflex and continued to drink, ignoring the liquid spilling down her chin. Nausea stirred in her guts, but she didn’t care. She kept the beaker pressed to her lips even after it was empty, waiting with eyes closed for her body to adjust to the sudden arrival of the longed-for liquid.
She briefly considered trying to physically attack her visitor, before deciding that even if she were physically capable of such action it would be foolish. The cell might be fitted with protection; her unnamed visitor had already mentioned gas. And even if she did succeed, all she would do was aggravate her captors, who would probably just choose a new mouthpiece. She lowered the beaker and let the Sidhe take it from her.
‘I—’ She coughed hoarsely, then tried again. ‘I don’t suppose there’s any point in asking where I am?’
‘None whatsoever,’ said the other curtly.
‘How about why I’m here?’ She had already run through a number of scenarios, none of them pleasant.
‘Now that I can tell you. We’d like you to answer a few questions. ’
Nual decided she might as well play along for now. Though they had softened her up by deprivation, actual torture seemed unlikely; such extreme measures were more often than not counter-productive, only driving the victim deeper inside herself. And there was relatively little risk to her mental integrity while they were using speech: for all their potential for misunderstanding, spoken words provided no foothold into a shielded mind. ‘What questions would those be?’ she asked.
‘We’ll get to that in due course,’ said the other Sidhe pleasantly. ‘However, since we’re doing this the human way, why don’t we start with introductions? Your current ID claims you call yourself Ela sanMalia, but the one before that was for Lia Reen. Do you have a preference?’
Nual said nothing.
The other Sidhe sighed. ‘Fine, as you wish. I’ll use Ela. The name I use when dealing with humans is Lyrian.’
Nual decided to ask a question she hoped she already knew the answer to. ‘Are you a member of the Court?’
‘No, I’m not. If I were, I doubt we would have to resort to this slow and frankly inconvenient method of exchanging information. I am, however, the most appropriate person to speak with you.’
By which she probably meant she was the most powerful Sidhe aboard. But still not powerful enough. Stifling a smile Nual asked, ‘Because you can’t get me to co-operate any other way?’
With just a touch of exasperation in her voice Lyrian said, ‘Yes, because you are too strong for us.’ Then she added, ‘Actually, that’s not entirely true. Acting in unity, I’m sure we could breach your defences, but we are . . . wary of you. However, before you get elevated ideas of your own importance, I should say that our reasons for caution have less to do with your unusual heritage and above-average abilities than with certain events, seven years ago. Which brings me onto my first question: what happened on the mothership?’
Nual stayed silent and concentrated on keeping her shields strong and her expression neutral. But one of her fears had been confirmed. They were keeping her isolated not only to sap her will, but because they were worried she was tainted. Was she? How would she know? No, she must do as Jarek did: when she couldn’t know the answer, assume the best for the sake of her sanity.
‘I can see this might take a while,’ said Lyrian. ‘Well, we have a couple of days.’
‘Before what?’
Lyrian smiled nastily, ‘Now Ela, you can’t honesty expect me to just tell you that, can you?’
If Tawhira-ngai had done anything more than have a look round inside Taro, the ship’s med-bay couldn’t spot it. The drugs the medic had given the boy ran out while Jarek was completing the final scan, and he left Taro sleeping naturally on the med-bay couch before crawling off to his own bed for a few hours’ sleep.
Taro was still out of it when Jarek woke up. He fixed some caf, then checked out the data he’d lifted from the lab where he’d found Taro. It was password protected, so he turned the package over to the decryption suite Bez had set up while she’d been a guest on the ship. After that he spent a while checking the public com for news and traffic updates. As he’d hoped, scheduled arrivals and departures at the port were openly listed. None of the ship names meant anything to him; there were no matche
s against Bez’s list of possible Sidhe ships.
He went back down to the rec-room to find Taro sitting up on the med-bay couch, trying to work out how to get the monitors off him.
‘Here, I’ll do that,’ said Jarek, going over to him.
Taro stopped fiddling. ‘So, what’s the plan now?’
‘I’ll get us some food, then I’m going to go back into Stonetown to get your stuff; it’s at the hotel where Nual was staying. I’ll spend the rest of the evening talking to some of my spacer contacts, see what I can find out from them.’
‘Can I come?’
‘You’re in no state to go anywhere right now, not to mention being a bit conspicuous.’
‘Guess you’re right. Can we at least get the gun out of customs? ’
‘We’ll do that in the morning.’
Jarek went out, leaving Taro with a supply of unhealthy snacks and the run of the ship’s games library.
When Jarek reached the bar he was welcomed warmly. Word had got round about his generosity, and he found himself buying drinks all evening in return for very little in the way of useful information.
He did manage to confirm something he’d suspected. He bonded with one of the junior cargo handlers who’d been eyeing him up in a somewhat predatory fashion. Turned out they supported the same terceball team in the All-Worlds’ League, and though in Jarek’s case it was fairly muted support, he played it up. Lali was also an offworlder, and had a bit of a chip on her shoulder about the best jobs going to locals. After a few beers she was happy to admit that not every ship that came into Kama Nui airspace landed at the spaceport. The most powerful ngais had their own facilities: ‘One rule for most of us, one for them,’ as she put it sourly. Obviously all comings and goings were still monitored by traffic control, but she didn’t have access to their data. He let her chat him up for the rest of the evening, before making an excuse of having to work and a vague promise that he’d see her the following night. He felt a bit guilty that his personal tastes didn’t lie that way, but she was his most useful contact so far and if it helped to let her think she was in with a chance, so be it.
In some ways her information made the situation worse: the Sidhe ship might still be dirt-side, presumably at one of Ruanuku-ngai ’s landing facilities, or it could have already left. Either way, there was no way of tracing it.
Back on the ship Taro had fallen asleep on the couch, curled up in a nest of food-wrappers with the gaming headset discarded on the floor next to him. He looked peaceful enough, so Jarek let him be. He frowned when he noticed the three empty bulbs of extra-strength black beer amongst the discarded wrappings before relenting and clearing up the mess. The boy certainly had sorrows to drown.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
‘This isn’t what I was led to expect.’
Marua made herself smile. ‘Is the accommodation not suitable? We have other houses.’ Dr Pershalek was used to living in cramped underground quarters; she couldn’t imagine how having his own house in a lush caldera could be a disappointment to him.
‘No, no, this place is fine.’ The scientist waved vaguely at the wood-panelled room where the two of them sat on comfortable couches in the warm afternoon light. ‘I mean the work you’re expecting me to do. I was told that I would be given the freedom to complete my research into areas that my last employer wouldn’t allow me to pursue.’
By Olias Kahani, no doubt. From his tone, Pershalek considered Tawhira-ngai’s refusal to indulge him to be their loss. Kahani would have played on that sense of injustice. Marua decided to continue to indulge the scientist’s ego for the moment. ‘I assume you mean your theories regarding the effects of shiftspace transits on neural interface technology? Groundbreaking stuff, insofar as I can understand it.’
‘Yes, yes.’ He nodded as though his genius was a given. ‘But strictly theoretical - it’s not like they could give me access to shiftspace—’
‘But we can,’ said Marua.
He looked annoyed at being interrupted, then said dubiously, ‘So one of your people told me.’
Marua remained silent. She did not have to be his friend, she merely had to persuade him to do his job.
When he realised she was waiting for him to continue he added, ‘The fact is, I came here believing I would be continuing my own research with whatever facilities I required and a full team reporting to me.’
I’m sure you were, but that was a promise made by an inveterate liar. ‘You will be given adequate chances to pursue your work when not employed on the main project, and our facilities are the best of any ngai. However, given the sensitive nature of your work, I’m afraid we can allow you only one assistant.’ When they managed to find a replacement for Tikao.
‘If you don’t value me enough to assign me a team, then frankly I’m surprised you bothered to recruit me,’ he said, sitting back.
Marua wondered if the real problem was his discovery that his leftfield theories had already been explored and applied by someone else. ‘I’m sorry you feel that way,’ she conceded. ‘But you have to understand that the work you will be doing for us has to be carried out in the utmost secrecy. The fact that you will be working alone is a result of this constraint, and not a reflection of how important your unique skills are to us.’
‘Whilst obviously I can do the work, I must say I find what you are doing here to be . . . ethically dubious.’ He spoke the words as though trying them out. Which he probably was, if his profile was anything to go by. He obviously valued cold science over human concerns. ‘I hadn’t initially realised that the procedures you carry out use adolescent boys. Little more than children!’ The man was trying to work himself up into a state of moral indignation, but, not having well-developed morals, it was taking some effort.
‘The subjects are not exactly normal human boys: they do not perceive the world in the same way we do. However, I do understand that you might still be uncomfortable with the process.’ Actually she doubted it. Marua herself probably had more qualms, and she had long since accepted the price as worth paying. ‘But you need to understand why we are doing this. This facility is the only place transit-kernels are created. Without the work we do here, human interstellar culture is doomed.’
‘I have to say, that did surprise me when I read the briefing this morning,’ said Pershalek. ‘In fact, I find it a little hard to believe. Why here? Why only here?’
‘That is something I’ll explain later, once you’ve accepted the job.’
He seized on her refusal. ‘No, I need to know now. You can’t expect me to co-operate unless you tell me everything.’
Grigan’s Ascensionist views had provided her mother with a lever when she recruited him; Pershalek, amoral and egotistical, was turning out to be far harder work. Rather than acknowledge his defiance she said, ‘You do know that you can never leave this island.’
‘Is that a threat?’
‘No, merely a statement.’
‘Then put me on a different project. I’m sure I could be useful in other areas.’
‘I’m quite sure you could, but this is something that only you can do.’ Much as I wish otherwise. It was somewhat ironic, given the trouble she’d been to, that the suppliers still hadn’t turned up. She wondered if they had ever been this late before. As had happened when her mother dealt with them twenty-five years ago, the buyers were still lurking in-system. Presumably they intended to liaise with the suppliers before the incoming Sidhe dropped off the stasis-units containing the next batch of boys. That was what had happened last time, according to Marua’s mother. Marua would have liked to know what was going on, but Lyrian hadn’t been in contact since she’d picked up the completed transit-kernels.
‘And if I refuse, what then? Will you kill me?’ Pershalek was scared, but he knew his worth; he was testing her.
‘Absolutely not. You are too useful to us.’
‘And to kill me when I’m your guest would be tapu, wouldn’t it?’ For the first time, Pershalek smiled. He obvi
ously didn’t think highly of the world’s honour-code.
‘You’re right, it would,’ she said tightly. ‘However, depriving you of your freedom and the privileges that would otherwise be yours would not.’
‘I’m not exactly free now,’ complained Pershalek.
Marua looked round the pleasantly appointed room with its vases of flowers and colourful hangings. ‘Trust me, your situation could be a lot worse.’
He raised his chin in an almost childish gesture of defiance. ‘Then maybe we can discuss this again when and if it becomes so.’