Not Oly.
Vlad felt at least a small bit of the tension in his body release. Not seeing her with them wasn’t much, but it was something.
Vlad knew he should probably be more worried about Quince, because the man was the largest man he had ever met. But something about Quince suggested that, despite his size and intimidatingly quiet nature, he was not someone they needed to worry about.
“Do you have anything you would like to tell me?” Wolf asked.
“No,” Beryl replied. “But I do have something I’m reluctantly willing to tell you because you’ve threatened us with harm if we don’t.”
Wolf smiled. “Ellis told us you were a smart ass. I’m glad to see he was right about that. With everything that has happened since we got to this planet, I was beginning to doubt his intelligence. I mean, you would think a powerful intelligence system would be able to do something as simple as find people on the planet, but apparently not.”
When neither Vlad nor Beryl replied, Wolf continued. “And what is this bit of information you are reluctant to tell me?”
Vlad answered, not wanting Beryl to have to worry about giving something away with her inability to convincingly lie. “We got split up from everyone else. That’s why they aren’t here with us now.”
“You got split up?” Wolf stood up, no longer leaning against the wall. “I could have guessed that, considering there are only two of you here. You’re going to have to give me more information than that. How did you get split up?”
“An attack by these insect-like creatures. Except, think giant insects, bigger than even him.” Vlad motioned toward Quince. “We agreed to meet back here at Whit’s compound if we got separated. We just didn’t expect to run into anyone else here.”
Vlad watched Wolf consider the answer, or maybe his response to the answer. “Are you sure that’s what happened?”
Vlad nodded.
“Let me ask you again,” Wolf said. “Are you sure that’s what happened?”
“Yes.” Vlad knew he hesitated. It was the kind of thing that would lose you a poker hand.
Or, in a situation like this, your life.
“I think you’re lying to me.” Wolf pulled something that looked like a piece of old-time electrical equipment out of the pocket of his pants. “No, let me rephrase that. I know you are lying to me.”
“What is that?” Beryl asked, looking at the small contraption in his hands.
“This? This is a recorder,” Wolf replied. “As soon as we realized we weren’t able to communicate with Ivy from here, we went back to the ship and started getting anything Ellis thought would actually work. It’s amazing how quick you can use the printers to make old-fashioned technology that doesn’t need long-range transmission capabilities.”
Vlad thought of the agricultural drones, still operating even though Whit was gone. He must have set up the system so that his own needs could be met, even if he had to implement the system. In other words, short transmissions were working, but nothing over large distances.
Now, though, it seemed the system was working against them.
“A recorder?” Beryl said, her voice cracking. Vlad knew she now realized what he already did: that the Civitians had been recording their entire conversation.
“Oh, yes, a recorder.” Wolf held the small device in the air, showing it off to the two people tied up in front of him. There was nothing impressive about it; it looked like old technology out of some movie that had been made long. “We just left it out here in the main room of this building, and it picked up all sorts of things. Drones beeping and doing drone things, some noises that sounded like they came from rodents or something in the building, and a certain conversation the two of you had about what lies you were going to tell us.”
Wolf touched something on the recorder, and it blared the words they had spoken to each other earlier.
“How much do we tell them?”
“I don’t want to tell them anything, but that Oly character is a loose cannon. I think we need to give them something.”
“I agree. Something true, but not the whole truth. Wolf is the sort of person who would see through any lie, and we both know I have no poker face. I’ll give anything less than the truth away without saying anything.”
“Even I wouldn’t want to play poker with him.”
“We could say something about needing to get away from some creatures we found in the woods. Or that we split up to come back here and get the Bird, without saying anything else about why.”
“They’ll immediately ask why if we tell them we came to get the Bird. As for the creatures, why would we have come back here and left everyone else in the woods? I could see that being somewhat plausible, but we clearly came back here not in a hurry, like we would have been had we been racing to get something and save everyone else.”
“Well, I definitely don’t want to even hint that Heming is hurt. The last thing they need to know is that we are down one more person. We’re already outnumbered.”
Wolf hit a button on the recorder and it stopped playing back their words. “It seems that, despite my attempts to give you a chance to tell the truth, you lied to me. And now you get to pay the consequences.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Wolf took the few steps required to cross the distance between where he had been standing and where Vlad and Beryl were tied up.
In a swift motion, he pulled his gun out of its holster. Before Vlad knew what Wolf was doing, he felt the cold metal slam into the side of his face.
For the shortest moment, Vlad couldn’t feel anything from the injury. The only thing he felt was relief that Wolf hadn’t just shot and killed him where he sat.
Then, his face throbbed with pain. It was worse than anything pain he had ever felt.
It was the second hit, though, that sent the pain searing through his head and to his extremities. His mouth filled with blood, and he could feel several teeth cracked off where the second blow had struck his cheek. Like something out of a movie, he spat the blood and pieces of teeth onto the ground beside him.
“Hey, watch where you’re spitting that.” Wolf jumped out of the way. “Don’t make me come over there and hit you again. I promise I won’t be as gentle the next time.”
Vlad swallowed some blood and what felt like pieces of his teeth. He didn’t think swallowing some of either thing could kill him. Not that he wanted to swallow either.
Wolf turned to Beryl.
“Pretty boy over there is an easy one to handle,” Wolf said, leaning over Beryl. “He’s vain, and vain people will give up far more than they should to keep their looks. He’ll give up more now that I’ve cracked that little smile than you would give up if I carved your pretty face into a thousand bloody lines.
“You, though, Beryl Roberts, you’re a lot harder.” Wolf touched Beryl’s chin, forcing her to look up into his eyes. “You’re the kind of person who has to be hurt where it counts. To hurt you, I have to take something from you that can’t be replaced. Something that actually matters to you.”
Wolf used the tip of his gun—the one that had just beaten Vlad’s face to a pulp and had the blood on it to prove it—and lifted the emerald off of Beryl’s chest. “I couldn’t figure out what we could take from you that would matter to you. After all, the Earth AI took your mother. And your father was exiled. You don’t have much that means anything to you. And then I saw this little bauble.”
“It doesn’t seem like much, does it?” Wolf let the light from the room’s lone bulb glint off of the green gem as he examined it. “I guess it’s from Earth, and there are those here in the colonies who would pay a lot for it because of that. But really, it has no actual value. It’s certainly not something a person like you would care about. At least, it’s not something a person like you would seem to care about. Unless, of course, there was some sort of meaning behind it.”
Vlad’s head swam a bit, like he might pass out. It must have been the blood loss, because the pistol whipping hadn
’t knocked him out on its own. Still, he focused on Beryl. Perhaps there was something he could do to help her. He had to help her. He could see where Wolf was going with his little speech, and he knew it was going to hit Beryl in one of the few places she could be hurt.
If he could stop that from happening, he would.
“And then, when we were having dinner, you told me your father gave this to you and that gave me an idea of how to get to you. Ellis went back and looked through everything he could find. Every picture, every video we have seen of you over the last few years, you have had it on. But, as Ellis discovered, it turns out you haven’t always worn the necklace. It seems you only started wearing the emerald on a very special day for you.”
Vlad watched Beryl’s cheeks flush red. If Wolf was looking to anger her, he was doing a good job. Even in the worst of their fights when they were dating, Vlad had never provoked Beryl this far. And there had been times when he had worked hard to provoke her. There were certain lines you never crossed with a person.
Wolf was perfectly happy to cross one of those lines with Beryl.
“It seems that this emerald was a gift from Daddy on the day of his exile,” Wolf said. In one swift motion, the pulled the gun and snapped the emerald and its chain off of Beryl’s neck.
Before Wolf could do anything else, Vlad watched as Beryl’s knee snapped up and slammed into his groin.
The man fell down and rolled to his side from where he had been hovering over Beryl, and Beryl jumped up to her feet. Before Wolf could do anything, Beryl kicked him in the side of his head. Camp, still unable to do anything with the muzzle covering his mouth, started growling and slightly barking, as much as the fabric around his mouth would allow him.
Beryl kicked Wolf a second time, and then something lifted her off of the ground.
It was Quince, picking Beryl up by her shirt and keeping her from inflicting any more injuries on Wolf. Beryl started trying to hit Quince, which she had to know was a losing battle. The giant man looked almost two feet taller than her and probably weighed three or four times more than she did. No matter how good of shape Beryl was in after their exercise program on Rediviva, she was never going to be stronger than this hulk of a man. For his part, Quince seemed unconcerned with the beating Beryl was trying and failing to inflict on him.
Wolf finally got up, and walked over to Beryl. He evaded her kicks, and slammed his fist into her stomach.
Beryl made a noise and slumped over.
“Drop her.” Quince obeyed Wolf, who set Beryl down on the ground at something less forceful than a drop. Beryl rolled to her side. If Wolf’s punch had knocked the wind out of her, Vlad could tell Beryl had recovered remarkably quickly.
Wolf stepped back from Beryl, and Vlad could see what he was about to do.
“No!,” Vlad said, and got to his feet. He didn’t think he could have gotten up after the beating, but his head had cleared up remarkably quickly. Even his mouth didn’t hurt, he realized. There was no longer any blood pooling in it, though he could feel that the teeth that had cracked and broken off burned with the touch of his tongue.
Before Wolf could kick Beryl, Vlad launched himself off of the ground at Wolf. Vlad hit Wolf exactly where he had hoped, and the two of them fell to the ground next to Beryl in a pile of legs and arms.
“Quince, get him off of me!” Vlad saw the large man reach down toward them. As if he was a kitten being picked up by its scruff, Quince picked Vlad up and held him in the air. Quince was so tall, Vlad’s legs dangled above the ground—and he was a tall man.
Before Wolf could tell him to, Quince picked Beryl up as well. She kicked and flailed, but she, too, was unable to make the large man do anything. Despite his muzzle, Camp had joined the fray and was attempting to bite the large man, but the fabric around his mouth and nose prevented him from being able to do so.
“Stay here,” Wolf said, as if there was any chance that either he or Beryl would be able to get away from Quince. Wolf left the room. He was only gone a few seconds before returning with a long piece of metal. It looked like a pipe or a tool of some sort.
“Maybe this will make you realize you need to tell the truth around here,” Wolf said, then wound up with the piece of metal as if it was a baseball bat, before slamming the metal into Vlad’s stomach.
Vlad felt the breath get knocked out of him.
Apparently for good measure, Wolf took a second swing at Vlad’s stomach. Vlad felt Quince’s grip release on him after the second pummeling, and he fell to the ground with a thud, unable to move.
Vlad didn’t have time or the ability to yell anything at Wolf before he did the same thing to Beryl.
Quince dropped Beryl, though it seemed more like the big man set her on the ground than dropped her, just as he had done before when he had picked her up.
“For good measure,” Wolf said, then slammed the metal into Beryl’s back, then Vlad’s. Finally satisfied with the injuries he had inflicted on them, Wolf took a step back.
“The dog.” Wolf pointed at Camp, who was desperately trying to lick Beryl’s face through the fabric of the muzzle, clearly concerned with her injuries. “Get rid of it.”
Vlad heard Beryl moan and say something that sounded like “no,” but apparently she still hadn’t gotten her breath back.
“If you aren’t going to cooperate with us, I’m going to take something from you that matters even more than your little bauble from Daddy.” Vlad watched as Wolf walked over to Beryl and swung the jewel inches from her head. With her hands bound, she couldn’t reach for it, even though she looked like she was trying, despite her injuries.
Now, Beryl did get a sound out, and it was definitely a “no.”
“Damn it, Quince, I told you to get the fucking dog,” Wolf said to the big man, who had still not moved to get Camp.
Slowly, Quince walked to the dog. He picked Camp up in a swift but gentle hug. The dog struggled against the giant man, but like Vlad and Beryl before him, the dog couldn’t do anything to counteract the man’s strength.
“Quince, how many times am I going to have to tell you. Get. Rid. Of. The. Dog,” Wolf glared at Quince, who turned and headed out the door with the animal.
Now, Beryl’s voice returned. She screamed with whatever breath she had in her lungs, and tried to rise to her feet. Swiftly, Wolf moved to her and kicked her stomach again, slamming her back into the ground.
“I told you not to lie to me. I didn’t think I had to tell you not to try to fight me.” Wolf paced the small room, as if he was asking either of them to try something else. With each step, he tapped the pipe on the ground.
“It’s a damn lucky thing for the two of you that we still need you to find the rest of them, or you would all be dead now instead of just your dog.”
From somewhere outside the building, Vlad heard the unmistakable sound of a gun firing.
Beryl cried out, and Vlad could feel the tears on his own cheeks. Wolf stopped pacing, and put his face directly in front of Beryl’s, twirling the pipe as if it was a toy instead of a deadly weapon.
“It’s too bad we had to kill the dog. He seemed like a good little pup. He probably could have helped us track your dear old dad, if it had come to that.”
Wolf then knelt down next to Beryl, speaking directly into her face, but loud enough that Vlad could hear. “When I come back tomorrow morning, I expect to hear more of the truth from you, little lady. Because next time you lie to me, the one who doesn’t make it alive is him.”
Wolf pointed the pipe at Vlad.
Vlad had no doubt the man meant every word he said.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The dog fought against the big man who was holding him tight against his chest.
The dog didn’t really dislike this big man. Although the man was large, he seemed gentle and good, which were two of the best qualities the humans with whom he lived. It was the other man who had been in the room with them that the dog disliked. The dog had disliked that man even before
he had hurt his two favorite people.
The big man carried the dog outside of the building, away from his two favorite people.
The dog did not like that.
He wanted to be with his favorite people and keep them safe. That was his job.
Outside, the big man carried the dog toward the fence. The dog stopped struggling. The big man did not seem to mean him any harm. The big man actually reminded the dog of one of his favorite people, even though that other person was much smaller. The dog didn’t think either that small person or this big person would ever hurt him, at least not on purpose.
The big man stroked the dog’s head. It felt good to the dog, but he was now getting a little worried. Why was the big man taking him toward the fence? The dog had seen some of the things that lived out there, and they were scary.
He had smelled some even scarier things out there than what he had seen.
The dog wanted to be back with his favorite people in that room, even if it meant he had to be there with the mean one.
The big man did not take long to reach the fence with his long steps. He seemed to be in a hurry, which made him move even faster.
The big man put the dog on the ground and pulled the muzzle off of his snout.
“No bite.” The man whispered. The dog knew those words. He did not want to bite this man. He would not bite this man.
The dog thought he should run back to help his favorite people, but maybe not. The big man seemed to be afraid of the mean man, and the dog thought maybe the mean man might be even meaner to his favorite people if he tried to help them.
The big man lifted the dog again. The bottom part of the fence was thick and solid, but the top of it—taller even than the big man—was horizontal wires. The big man used his big hands to pull the bottom wire up so it was big enough that the dog could squeeze through.
“Go.” The big man whispered. The dog did not know why the big man was being so quiet, but it must have had something to do with the mean man.
“Go,” the big man repeated, and pushed the dog through the fence. The dog fell to the ground on the other side, but it didn’t hurt when he fell. He stood up and looked back at the big man.
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