Chapter Twenty-Five
Markus had every reason in the universe to pull the trigger. The rational portion of his brain was screaming at him to do just that, in fact. Jen might have just yanked him from the Widow’s telepathic mandibles, but it was her fault that he’d been on the Nidus in the first place…just like it was her fault that a Convectorate warship was about to reduce the people of New Keledon to subatomic particles. He’d given her dozens of chances to come around these past few weeks—far beyond anything she actually deserved—and each and every time she’d effectively spit in his face. This wasn’t a hole she could ever dig herself out of, and he’d already shown about a million times more restraint than she would have had their situations been reversed.
And yet still he hesitated. Whether that was because he was legitimately curious to hear her explanation or because he was a pathological idiot remained to be seen.
“Start talking,” he ordered.
“You want to shoot me?”
“Yes,” Markus said bluntly. “I’m not sure if it’s the fact I’m pumped full of stims or that I’m just big into symmetry, but shooting you in the back right after you dragged my ass out of the fire seems oddly appropriate right now.”
“Then maybe you should,” Jen murmured, her hands returning to the piloting controls.
“What was that, self-pity? Resignation? From the great Jenavian Vale?”
“I was wrong and I said you could gloat about it. You might as well get it out of your system.”
Markus threw his head back and laughed humorlessly. “You really think that will make up for it? You think that will just wash it all away?”
“No,” Jen said. “I don’t know what they did to you, but I’m sure it wasn’t pleasant. You have a right to be angry.”
“That’s what you think this is about?” he snapped as he glared hard at the back of her neck. “You think I’m pissed about what happened to me?”
“Aren’t you?”
“You sold out all those innocent people on New Keledon! You told the Widow exactly where to find them, knowing full well what would happen.”
“That’s why we’re going to warn them,” she said. “It will take the Drones a few days to install an astral drive on that warship. Hopefully we can evacuate everyone in time.”
“And where are they going to go then?” Markus asked. “They were hiding on an asteroid for a reason. They can’t return home, and they can’t live on a transport forever. So what the hell are they going to do?”
Her facial muscles tightened. “The Mire has bases the Convectorate hasn’t found yet. You could take them in.”
“Yes, I’m sure the first thing those aliens want is to live in a military camp full of humans. They don’t trust us, and I can hardly blame them.” He grunted. “We couldn’t possibly accommodate that many people, anyway. We don’t have the space or provisions, and there’s nothing we can do to hide Selaris and the other adepts. Sooner or later the other Spiders will find them.”
“There has to be something we can do.”
“There was, before you decided to damn them all,” Markus growled. “Now the damage is done. I hope you’re happy with yourself.”
Jen twisted her head around just enough to glare at him. “Are you mad at me or yourself for trusting me? You’re the one who had the idiotic idea to take me there in the first place. You’re the one who insisted you could change me.”
“Yes, I apologize for thinking there might have been a redeemable human being inside you somewhere,” he replied snidely. “Would you have rather I left you on the Manticore to die? I almost did, you know.”
“Obviously you should have,” she muttered. “Your little paradise would be safe, and you could go on endlessly searching the galaxy for a cure that doesn’t exist.”
He frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“The Pandrophage is a lie, Markus. The Convectorate made the whole thing up. There was no miracle delivery system, no rampant galaxy-wide infection. You were right before when you said it didn’t seem possible. It wasn’t.”
“But…”
Slowly, Jen swiveled all the way around in her chair until she was facing him. “Look, there are a lot of things you need to know, but it’s going to take a while to explain.”
“We have plenty of time. Start talking.”
“We do, but Thexyl doesn’t. I need to try and stabilize him.”
“Given how he decided to stab me in the back too, you’ll forgive me if I’m not feeling very sympathetic right now,” Markus groused.
She shook her head. “I’m the one who made the decision to come here, not him. He wanted to help you.”
“Yeah, well, for some reason that doesn’t make me feel any better.” He waved the pistol meaningfully. “Start talking.”
Sighing, Jen held out her hand. “Words will take too long.”
Markus glanced down at her offering. Psionically sharing her memories would certainly speed up the process, but of course it would also give her another opportunity to betray him. Though really, given his current condition, the weapon in his hand wasn’t much of a threat anyway. She could disable him in a heartbeat if she wanted to.
He grunted and tossed the pistol into the adjacent chair. “Fuck it, why not? Let’s do this.”
He reached out and grabbed her hand, and despite his drug-induced haze he could still feel the warm tingle of their thoughts coming together. It had been a long time since they’d linked this way, and just like an old song or forgotten smell, the sensation awakened a host of buried memories from the recesses of his mind…memories that ached every bit as much as the throbbing in his temples or the twisting in his joints. And unfortunately, this kind of pain was almost impossible to ignore.
Markus sank into his chair as Jen encouraged his body to flush the residual chemicals from his system, and after a few more seconds the fog clouding his brain finally started to clear. Once it was mostly lifted, she took a deep breath and began to share her experiences of the last few days with him. The experiences…and the harrowing revelations that came with them.
“I still haven’t worked through what it all means yet,” Jen whispered into the silence as she finally pulled away. “I’m not sure I even want to.”
Markus nodded solemnly. He’d spent the bulk of the last four years scouring through every byte of data he could find on human history, and through all his research he’d never even come close to the truth. The Sarafan were alive, and in a way they’d never relinquished power. The bulk of humanity might have been suffering on destitute colonies across the galaxy, but a privileged caste still reigned supreme.
A privileged caste that had been so terrified of losing their power that they had committed genocide against their own people.
During his years of attempted atonement, Markus had eventually come to terms with the evils he’d inflicted. He’d believed he was an agent of a ruthless, alien-led government bent on galactic domination. But somehow, knowing that one of his own people had been pulling the strings all along actually made it worse. As an operative of the Tarreen, he’d been a victim—as an operative of the Sarafan, he’d been a fellow conspirator. And that thought made him want to keel over and retch.
“I need to help Thexyl,” Jen said into the silence. “Please.”
Markus nodded, and she dashed out of her seat towards the infirmary. He was still sitting there in silence, madly trying to process the memories she’d shared with him, when she reappeared in the doorway some ten minutes later.
“Will he live?”
“I don’t know,” she replied solemnly. “He’s a Kali, so I can’t link with him to help the healing process, and I’m sure as hell not a doctor. I think he’s stable for the moment, but he’s going to need real treatment soon.”
“Varm should be able to help him. I know it’s a little ironic given that he works for the Mire, but he’s actually reasonably well-versed in xeno-medicine. And there are a few other alien phy
sicians in the city, too.”
Jen nodded and let out a deep breath. Now that his mind had mostly cleared, Markus could feel the veritable shockwaves of pain rolling off her—the pain, the guilt, the sorrow, and the rage, all bundled together into a neat little package that would have reduced any normal person into a weeping, huddled mass in the corner. But he’d known her since she was eight years old, and the capacity for tears had been largely beaten out of both of them before they’d reached adolescence. It had taken him a year of freedom to realize what he’d lost and another two just to start to recover it. With her, he wondered if it might take even longer.
“The Tarreen would go crazy if they knew the truth about what was going on,” Markus said into the silence. “They’d never stand for it.”
“If we could find someone willing to believe it,” Jen replied. “The Widow was using Minister Drathir to track down and silence anyone with the slightest suspicions about what was going on, and it sounded like she’d done the same thing with his predecessor. Who knows how long that cycle has been going on? Anyone who’s left in the Conclave would probably be almost impossible to convince, and it’s not like there’s a pile of hard evidence to throw up on the Holosphere.”
“No, but it’s a start. The only reason the Widow would go to that much trouble to keep the Tarreen in line is because she knows she can’t possibly fight them all. If we could convince the Convectorate military of what’s going on, they would turn against her in a heartbeat.”
“Probably,” she murmured, “though I’m not sure that would be an improvement. If you think the Tarreen are brutal and oppressive now, just wait until they realize they’ve been duped for a hundred years.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Markus said with a dismissive flick of his wrist. “This has to come out. Somehow, some way, the people have to know.”
Jen leaned against the wall and crossed her arms. “If they do, things might get even worse for our people, at least in the short term. It will completely validate all the rumors and legends the Tarreen have spread about the Sarafan. I imagine even the aliens in your city will want to lash out.”
He reached up and rubbed a hand through his hair. The pangs of fatigue were starting to set in as the stims wore off, and the dull throbbing in his temples had evolved into a sharp, vibrohammer-style pounding. But worse than either one of those was the fact that she was probably right. The citizens of the Convectorate had been taught to loathe and fear humans in roughly equal measure, and once they knew the truth about the Widow and the Hierarchy, even the younger generations would start to believe it. In a way, the truth might condemn any chances of a legitimate galaxy-wide rebellion more effectively than any lie.
“What I don’t understand,” he said softy, “is why the Widow would want her own people to live in such squalor. Plucking random adepts out of a desperate and impoverished population doesn’t seem like much of a way to rebuild a lost order of psychics.”
“Maybe she likes the idea of the being queen of the refuse,” Jen muttered. “Or maybe she thinks it’s the only way to get the strongest candidates. Anyone who can survive long enough to develop their powers on a shithole like Pragia must be worth something.”
“I suppose, but I feel like there has to be something else to it.”
“I’m sure she didn’t tell me everything. She could have been lying about a whole host of things for all we know.”
Markus sighed and shook the thought away. “Well, right now we should charge the astral drive. The jump itself pretty much drained it.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Jen told him, stepping over to the console. “You should go lie down in one of the bunks. Unless you still want to shoot me.”
He glanced up and studied her profile. A few weeks ago, he’d been convinced she would eventually become a staunch ally. But now, even after she’d defied the Widow and literally blasted out of the Nidus…
Now he didn’t know what to think. About her…or more importantly, about the reliability of his own judgment. That was what scared him the most.
“As far as I’m concerned, that barrel is still firmly against your neck until we evacuate the city,” Markus said. “And even if we do, I’m not flipping on the safety for a long time.”
“I don’t blame you,” Jen whispered as she messed with the interface.
He stared at her for a good thirty seconds longer before sweeping up his pistol and twirling it in his grip. The rational portion of his brain—or what pittance was left of it, anyway—still wanted him to fire. He’d gotten her explanation, after all, and at this point her corpse would probably aid his case with the Council more than the living, breathing figure of the woman they’d almost been willing to execute. But instead he slipped the weapon back into its holster and settled his internal debate once and for all. Pathological idiot was the clear winner.
Sighing to himself, Markus lumbered off to see what pain meds the infirmary kept in stock.
The Spider and the Fly Page 48