"Don't gas the lift! Don't gas the lift!"
The shouted commands, coming from a closed-off area
behind the fake walls, startled Nancia. She shifted views rapidly, cursing the quick and dirty remodeling job that had left large areas of her own interior cut off from her visual sensors.
Sev Bryley, white-faced, appeared from behind one of the puce-and-mauve pseudoboard walls. "I'll get him out of the loading bay," he snapped without so much as a glance towards Nancia's sensor unit. "You can keep the sleepgas confined to that area?"
"Yes, but—"
"Don't have time for a mask." Bryley was in the lift now, and Nancia could watch him on the agonizingly slow passage down to the loading dock. His chest rose and fell rapidly as he took the deep, rapid breaths of clean air that would keep him going in the loading bay.
Nancia kept the lift door on three-quarter pressure, just enough to let Bryley squeeze through the flexible opening that shut behind him. At the same time she flushed the loading bay with the ventilation system on high power, replacing as much sleepgas as she could with clean air.
Sev's back and shoulders bulged awkwardly half through the lift door. Nancia released the flexible membrane just long enough to let him drag Caleb through into the lift. She kept the ventilation system on high for the long seconds of the ride back. By the time the lift was at cabin level, she could find no measurable trace of sleepgas in the air. But Sev had inhaled enough to make him slump against the wall, too woozy to carry himself and Caleb farther.
"Antidote . . . ?"
"In the corridor," Nancia told him. "In the corridor!" She had no housekeeping servos within the lift itself. Sev had to stagger forward, out of the lift, fetching up against the freshly painted corridor wall with a thump. At least it was one of Nancia's true walls; only a few steps away from Sev was an opening from which the servos could dispense stimulants and medical aids. Sev took two gasping breaths of the clean air, reached into the shallow dish presented by the opening in the wall, grabbed a handful of ampules and crushed them under his nose.
"More," he commanded.
"You've already exceeded the recommended dosage."
"I need a clear head now," Sev growled.
Was there more blood on Caleb's uniform? Impossible to tell what he'd been hit with, or how bad the damage was. Nancia sent another set of stim ampules to the servo tray. Sev broke these more cautiously, one at a time. After the third deep breath of pungent stimulant, he dropped the rest back in the tray. "Medical supplies!"
"What?"
"I'll tell you when I know." He was on his knees, blocking Nancia's view as he peeled back the front of Caleb's spoiled uniform. "Something to stop bleeding . . . there shouldn't be so much from a needler . . . ahh. The . . ." he used a Vega slang term that was not in any of Nancia's vocabulary hedra. "She loaded it with anticoagulant. And . . . other things, I think. Analyze?" He dropped a torn and bloody strip of cloth into the servo tray. Nancia transferred it to the medical lab and replaced it with ampules of HyperClot which Sev injected directly into Caleb's veins.
"That's stopped the bleeding," he said finally, rising to his feet. "But I'm not happy about his color. Does that look like normal sleepgas pallor to you?"
"No." The one word was all Nancia could manage.
"Me neither. Can you analyze what else was in the needler?"
"No. Organics of some sort, but it's too complex for me." Concentrating on the technical problem helped to steady her voice. "I haven't the facilities here. I am contacting Murasaki Base for Net access to medtechs."
But Murasaki Base could suggest only that she transport Caleb to the nearest planet-based clinic as quickly as possible. If Fassa's needler had been loaded with Ganglicide—
"It wasn't Ganglicide," Nancia said quickly. "He'd be dead by now. Besides, no one would do such a thing."
"You might be surprised," said the infuriatingly calm managing brain of Murasaki Base. "But I agree, probably not Ganglicide. There are, however, slower-acting nerve poisons which, untreated, can be just as fatal. From what you report of his convulsive reaction, I would suggest immediate medical treatment by someone experienced with nerve poisons and their antidotes."
"Thanks very much," Nancia snapped. Sev had wrapped Caleb in all the blankets he could collect, but nothing stopped Caleb's incessant nervous shivering. And every once in a while his spine arched backward while he cried out in delirium. "We came from Razmak Base in Bellatrix subspace. You're not seriously suggesting I take a man in this condition through Singularity, are you?"
"There happens to be an excellent clinic on Bahati," the Murasaki Base brain replied. "If you were calm enough to check the Net records I'm transmitting, CN, you'd see that the assistant director there has a strong background in nerve poison research. With your permission, I will alert the Summerlands clinic to receive an emergency patient for the direct care of Dr. Alpha bint Hezra-Fong."
Time stopped. Snatches of conversation forgotten for nearly four years echoed in Nancia's memory. An expert in Ganglicide therapy right there at the Summerlands clinic . . . testing Ganglicide on unwitting subjects . . . so far gone on Blissto they didn't even know what was happening to them. . . .
She had the full conversations recorded and safely stored away. She didn't need them. Her own human memory was mercilessly replaying words she'd tried to forget.
Did she dare put Caleb in Alpha bint Hezra-Fong's hands?
Did she dare not take him to the clinic?
There was really no choice.
They were only a few minutes from Bahati, but the time seemed like hours to Nancia. She blessed the multiprocessing capability that allowed her to perform multiple tasks at once. While one bank of processors controlled the landing computations, Nancia assigned two more to maintaining the comm link with Murasaki and opening a new link with Bahati. She reached the director of Summerlands and explained her requirements while simultaneously assimilating Murasaki Base's calm instructions.
The combination of Fassa's arrest and Caleb's wounds presented a complex political problem. Nancia was almost grateful for the complications; they gave her something to think about during the endless minutes before touchdown.
Courier Service policy strictly prohibited the transport of prisoners on a brainship with no brawn. Nancia thought it was a silly policy, born of fears that were decades out of date. Earlier, less cleverly designed brainships might have been vulnerable to passenger takeover, but she was well protected against any little tricks that Fassa might come up with. The auxiliary synaptic circuits known as the Helva Modification would prevent any attempt to close off her sensory contact with her own ship-body.
All the same, Murasaki Base informed Nancia, the regulations existed for good reason and it was not up to a brainship to pick and choose which Service regs she would obey.
"All right, all right." Had Caleb twitched again? Summerlands Clinic personnel were standing by to collect him as soon as they landed. Bahati Spaceport was issuing final landing instructions. "I'll hand Fassa del Parma over to Bahati authorities."
"That you will not," the Murasaki Base brain informed her. "I've been in contact with CenDip while you were fussing over your brawn. The young lady is a political hot potato."
"A what?"
"Sorry. Old Earth slang. Never thought about the literal meaning . . . let's see, I think a potato is some kind of tuber, but why anybody would try to ignite one . . . oh, well." Murasaki Base dismissed the intriguing linguistic question for later consideration. "What it means is that nobody really wants to handle her trial. Well, you can see for yourself, can't you, Nancia? If you're going to try a High Families brat and send her to prison, you don't do it out on some nowhere world at the edge of the galaxy. You bring her back to Central and you are very, very careful that all procedures are followed. To the letter. CenDip has strict instructions that nothing is to go wrong with this case; there's a certain highly placed authority who has taken a personal interest in stopping High Families corruption."
"You can tell your highly placed authority to—" Nancia transmitted a burst of muddy tones and discordant high-pitched sounds.
"Can't," said Murasaki Base rather smugly. "Softshells can't receive that kind of input. Fortunately for them, I might add. Where did a nice brainship like you pick up that kind of language?"
Nancia landed at Bahati Spacefield as gently as a feather floating in the breeze. She opened her upper-level cabin doors and waited for the spaceport workers to bring a floatube. They'd already been informed of the reason why she didn't want to open the lower doors; the equipment should have been ready and waiting—ah! There it was now.
"Well, then, just inform your 'highly placed authority,' that a few little things have already gone wrong with this operation," Nancia told Murasaki Base. "And if I can't transport del Parma without a brawn, and I can't hand her over to Bahati, what am I supposed to do with her?"
"Wait for your new brawn, of course," Murasaki Base informed her.
"And just how long will that take?" They were loading Caleb onto a stretcher now.
"About half an hour, if he can pack as quickly as he should."
"What?"
In answer, Murasaki Base transmitted the CenDip instruction bytes directly. "Senior Central Diplomatic service person Armontillado y Medoc, Forister, currently R&R at Summerlands Clinic, previous brawn status inactivated upon joining CenDip Central Date 2732, reactivated 2754 for single duty tour returning prisoner del Parma y Polo, Fassa, to Central Worlds jurisdiction."
Before taking Caleb away, the Summerlands medtechs were running tests and dosing him with all-purpose antidotes. Alpha bint Hezra-Fong had come personally to oversee the operation. Nancia's sensors caught her dark, sharp-featured face from several angles while she leaned over Caleb. Her expression showed nothing but keen professional interest: no hint of any evil plans to use Caleb as an unwitting experimental subject.
And no compassion.
And now he was going into the floatube, beyond Nancia's sensor range . . . beyond her help. Where was Sev? Nancia scanned the sensor banks until she located him in one of the passenger cabins that had been concealed behind her fake paneling. He was guarding a groggy Fassa who had just begun to come out of the sleepgas.
"Sev, I need you to go with Caleb," Nancia announced.
"CN-935, please acknowledge receipt of formal orders," Murasaki Base input on another channel.
"Can't," Sev answered without looking round. "Have to guard the prisoner. Check regulations."
Nancia knew he was right. The same stupid CS regs that forbade her to transport Fassa without a brawn would also forbid her to take sole charge of a prisoner. "Are regulations more important than Caleb's life?"
"Nancia, he's getting the best possible medical care. What are you worried about?"
"CN-935 RESPOND!" Murasaki Base shouted.
The floatube was a speck on the horizon. They weren't stopping at the spaceport; they were taking Caleb directly to Summerlands. Where Alpha bint Hezra-Fong could do anything, anything at all, to him, and Nancia wouldn't even know until it was too late—
"Instructions received and accepted," she transmitted to Murasaki Base in one short burst. "Now GET THAT BRAWN ON BOARD!" Forister Armontillado y Medoc? Nancia remembered the short, quiet man she'd transported somewhere, years earlier, to solve some crisis. The one who'd spent all his time on board reading. No matter what his records said, he wasn't her idea of a brawn. But who cared? The sooner he was here, the sooner Sev could be released from guard duty to go watch over Caleb.
Fassa was choking on the bottom of a lake. Weeds twined around her ankles, and the clear air was impossibly far away, miles above the green water that pressed her down and pushed at her mouth and ears and nose with gentle, implacable persistence. She tried to kick free of the weeds; they clung tighter, reaching up past ankle and calf and knee with green slimy fingers that pressed close against her thighs. When she looked down, the weeds shaped themselves into pale green faces with open mouths and closed eyes. All the men who'd given her their hearts and their integrity and pieces of their souls were there on the bottom of the lake, and they wanted to keep her there with them. Her chest was bursting with the need to breathe. If she gave back their souls, would they let her go?
She tried to strip off the charm bracelet on her left wrist, but the catch was stuck; tried to break the chain, but it was too strong. Green lake water seeped into her mouth with a bitter taste, and black spots danced before her eyes. She tugged the chain over her hand, scraping a knuckle raw, and flung it at the hungry ghosts. The sparkling charms of corycium and iridium floated lazily down among the muddy weeds, and Fassa was released to rise through rings of ever-lightening water until she broke the surface and breathed in the air that hurt like fire in her lungs.
She was lying on a bunk in a spaceship cabin. Sev Bryley was seated cross-legged on the opposite bunk, watching her with unsmiling attention. And the burning in her lungs was real, as was the throbbing pain in her head; sleepgas hangover. Now she remembered: surprise and violence and a fool who'd been where he had no business, and the gas flooding the cargo bay while she tried to hold her breath.
It all added up to a failure so crushing she could not bear to think about it yet. And Sev, the man who'd never given her a piece of his soul to keep in her charm bracelet—was he the one who'd engineered this disaster?
"What are you doing here?" she croaked.
"Making sure you came out of the sleepgas without complications," Sev said. His voice sounded thin and strained, as if he were trying to reach her from a great distance. "Some people have a convulsive reaction. It looked for a while like you were going to be one of them."
And that had worried him? Perhaps he still cared for her a little, then. Perhaps her experiment of taking him aboard the Xanadu hadn't been a total failure, after all. Fassa stretched, experimentally, and saw the way his eyes followed her movements. Perhaps something could yet be salvaged from this catastrophe. After all, they were alone on the droneship . . .
"Not convulsions," she said, languorously wriggling her toes and proceeding upward, muscle by muscle, to make certain that every inch of her own amazing body was back under her command again. "Just bad dreams."
"What sort of dreams?" Sev inquired.
Fassa sat up, rather more quickly than she had intended, and fell back against the cabin wall. "The sort that make you afraid to die."
"Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all," Sev agreed with no change of tone, and Fassa felt a stab of regret. She could have liked this man who so quickly picked up on her thoughts, capping her unvoiced quotations. If only he weren't so obstinately on the wrong side! Ah, well, perhaps that could be changed. It would damn well have to be changed if she hoped to get out of this, she reminded herself.
"Speak for yourself," she told him. "My conscience isn't all that troubled; I've done nothing more than what everybody does, just trying to get ahead by my own efforts." Wrong tone, wrong tone. She didn't want to argue with Bryley; she wanted to seduce him. No. Needed to seduce him. That was all.
And she wasn't going to get anywhere in her present condition. Fassa pushed sweaty, matted dark hair away from her forehead with a genuine moan of pain. "God, I must look like hell," she said. "Would you mind very much getting out of here so I can clean up?"
"Yes," said Sev, "I would. You're not to be left unguarded until we return to Central. Orders from CenDip."
Fassa moaned again. If CenDip was interesting itself in her case, she was worse off than she'd thought. Never mind. Central was a long way off. For the present she was alone on a droneship with this gorgeous hunk, and with any luck at all she'd make him change his allegiances before the official transports arrived to carry her to trial.
After only a little pouting and posing she managed to persuade Sev that propping himself against the wall outside her cabin would be adequate to fulfill his guard duty. It was, Fassa thought with satisfaction, a beginning. Now he would feel that this cabin was her territory. When he came in again, it would be at her invitation . . . and invitations could lead to all sorts of interesting things. She washed from head to foot, kicked her stained and crumpled clothes in a corner under the bunk, splashed a little extra cool water over her face, and wrapped a sheet around herself in lieu of fresh clothes. This would be a real test of her abilities. No cosmetics, hair combed straight with no styling, a scratchy Service-issue sheet instead of a clinging gown, and this bare cabin for a romantic setting!
"Fossa baby, you're so sweet, I just can't resist you," Faul del Parma used to moan when he came into her room and buried himself in her. And she'd been an awkward, sullen little girl then, with her black hair in thin tight braids. She'd worn the ugliest, plainest clothes she could find, but that didn't put Faul off.
For the first time Fassa deliberately summoned up the memories she'd tried for so long to bury, seeking the confidence she needed to go on. She really was irresistible to men. Faul del Parma had proved that, hadn't he? Even knowing it was wrong, even knowing she hated it, he'd still refused to let her alone.
"It's everything about you, the way you walk, the way you smile up at me with those big sooty lashes half covering your eyes."
Instead of giving her confidence, the memories made Fassa feel grimy. She must have invited him, not with words, but with something about the way she walked and looked at him. Somehow she'd made Daddy want her without even knowing it. She was a bad little girl and if Mama ever found out . . .
Somewhere in the back of her mind, Mama screamed and fell endlessly through the glittering interior atrium of the hotel, tumbling in a cloud of gauzy draperies. And it was all her fault. Fassa cried out once and threw something across the cabin with all her might, and Sev Bryley burst through the unlatched door.
"What's the matter? What happened?"
His arms went around her and Fassa rested against the fresh starched fabric of his shirt, feeling the strong beat of his heart beneath her face. For some reason she was crying; she couldn't stop crying for long minutes while Sev just held her. Not easing her backwards towards the bunk, not letting his hands slide artfully downward in a disguised caress. Just holding her.
"Well," Fassa said finally, gulping down the last of her sobs, "I told you; I have bad dreams."
"You seemed wide awake when I left you."
Fassa drew a shaky deep breath. "I—I'm afraid to be alone just now," she said. It happened to be true. "Could you stay with me?"
"As it happens," Sev told her, "I was going to anyway." He released her, as if sensing that she was recovered for the moment, and moved a step backward. Fassa sighed again, with a little more forethought this time, and watched his eyes. Yes, he was aware of what those deep breaths were doing to the sliding knot that held the sheet together between her breasts, and he couldn't take his eyes off the creamy skin that contrasted with the stark white of the sheet. Good. She had a job to do, here; she had best think about that and nothing else, or she'd never win this man to her side before she was taken away for trial.
"Oh, that's right," she said, allowing a tear to creep into the corner of one eye; not difficult, in her present shaky mood. "I forgot; you're my jailer, aren't you?"
Sev looked uncomfortable at this assessment, as she'd wanted him to. "I wouldn't put it quite like that. But someone does have to stay with you until . . ."
"Until the end," Fassa finished for him. "What sort of sentences are in favor these days? Will it be hard labor, do you think?" She tossed her head and gave him her Christian-facing-the-lions look, all nobility and virgin defiance. At the same time she moved slightly so that the sheet molded over one thigh, giving him (she hoped) visions of what sort of hard labor she might be good for.
"You'll have a fair trial," Sev told her, "and a chance to speak in your own defense."
"Will I?" Fassa challenged him. "Look at me. Don't you think there'll be some old judge who'd just love to see me mindwiped? They'll be thinking what a pity it is to waste such a beautiful body, keep the body, just wipe out the personality and start over."
"Oh, I'm sure they won't do that," Sev said, but he sounded less righteously certain than he'd been a moment before. Fassa mentally applauded her own cleverness. There wasn't much point in trying to convince Sev that she was innocent of the charges against her, not when he was Central's prime witness. Much better to switch the topic to the corruption at all levels of government. Sev knew something about that. Let him stew over the assertion that she couldn't possibly get a fair trial, let him think—as he must be thinking now—about the danger that she'd end up as the mindwiped toy of some corrupt official.
"You know it happens," Fassa said in a low voice. "You know how much cheating there is in the government. Everybody wants something for himself. One of them will want me, and then—" She blew a kiss into the air with a mocking smile. "Bye-bye, Fassa del Parma!" Time to let the sheet fall to the ground, giving Sev a good look about what some dirty old man would get if he didn't get there first. She moved towards him, inch by inch, watching the color rise in his sharp features, watching the blue eyes darken with desire. "You could at least say good-bye properly, Sev, my love," she whispered.
She paused, eyes closed, awaiting the warmth of his arms about her and his mouth on hers.
"I think not," said Sev Bryley, and while Fassa's eyes flew open in shocked disbelief he took the two steps that brought him to the cabin door.
Once outside the cabin, Sev reactivated the guardlock mechanism that would prevent Fassa from leaving. He leaned against the wall and wiped his forehead with the back of one hand. It wasn't much help; he still felt as hot as if he'd just done a ten-mile run in the Capellan jungle. He needed a cold shower. And that ten-mile run might not be a bad idea, either, except he couldn't leave Nancia alone to guard Fassa.
He could get some extra help, though—and some insurance against temptation. "Nancia?" he said in a low voice, looking upward at the angle between ceiling and roof where her auditory sensors were installed. "Nancia, I think you'd better activate full sensors within Fassa's cabin. I know it's a breach of the prisoner's privacy, but this is a very dangerous woman. And, Nancia? You'd better keep the sensors on at all times. Even when I'm with Ms. del Parma."
Sev thought that over and decided he hadn't worded that last request strongly enough. "Especially when I'm with Fassa," he rephrased.
"I'd already done that, Sev," Nancia responded from the wall speaker. "Don't worry. Everything has been observed and recorded."
"Excellent," said Sev between his teeth. "I'm sure that little scene will be vastly amusing to somebody who's not troubled by hormonal urges. Now, if you don't mind, just keep watching Fassa and let me know if she tries anything. I'll be in the ship's exercise room."
"What for?"
"Taking care of my hormones," Sev said. He stamped off to improve his weight-lifting record.
"FN-935, Forister Armontillado y Medoc requests permission to come aboard."
"Permission granted."
Even to her own ears, Nancia sounded brusque. After a grudging nanosecond's thought she added formally, "Welcome aboard, Forister Armontillado y Medoc."
The short, spare man whom she'd last seen heading into the tangled planetary conflicts of the Tran Phon guerrillas on Charon dropped three heavy pieces of baggage onto the lift with a grunt of relief. I'm getting an old man who can't even carry his own luggage without getting out of breath. But as if to contradict the unspoken criticism, Forister waved the lift upwards with his luggage and took the circular stairs. Nancia watched his progress from sensor to sensor. He moved with quick, neat steps, economical of his motions. You couldn't say he was bounding up the stairs, but he did get to the top more quickly than she'd expected; and there wasn't a gray hair out of place or a drop of sweat on his forehead when he entered the central cabin.
"Greetings, Nancia," Forister said. Unlike Caleb, he looked directly at the titanium bulkhead that housed Nancia's human body and brain. His direct gaze was rather disconcerting to Nancia, who'd been used to Caleb wandering round the ship and addressing her without turning his head, counting on her efficient sensor system to pick up his words wherever he might be. She took a moment to look over this strange elderly brawn and prepare her response. Light eyes in a tanned face, with a network of crinkles around the eyes as if he were accustomed to looking deeply at whatever he saw; hints of red and ginger in the graying hair; a light, erect, relaxed stance, as if he were prepared to move in any direction at a moment's notice. He may do. But he's not Caleb!
"You seem remarkably fit for someone who's just been recuperating at Summerlands," Nancia said at last.
Forister grimaced. "Oh, I'm fit enough, if that's what's been worrying you, FN. The stay at Summerlands was not for any medical reasons."
"Then what? The orders I received said you were there for R&R."
"Um. Yes. Well, they would, wouldn't they?" Forister said, maddeningly, while Nancia wondered if the man ever gave a straight answer to anything. Maybe that was trained out of you in the diplomatic service.
At last he vouchsafed one more sentence that could be considered an explanation. "My last posting for CenDip was . . . shall we say, stressful, and things didn't work out as well as I'd hoped."
"Charon?" Nancia asked.
The brawn blinked once, surprised. "Why, no. Why—oh, I remember. I had the honor of being transported to Charon by you, didn't I? Some years ago—you were the CN-935 then, as I recall. My condolences on the loss of your partner."
"It's only temporary," Nancia said. "Which reminds me. I wouldn't wish to hurry your unpacking, but as soon as you're ready, I'd like you to take over guarding the prisoner. Sev Bryley is needed at Summerlands to look after my brawn."
"As you wish." Forister did not quite click his heels together as he executed a perfect bow in the direction of the titanium column. He wheeled, collected his bags from the open lift and marched down the hall to the brawn's cabin—Caleb's cabin—leaving Nancia with the feeling that she had been unpleasantly brusque. She opened a speaker in the cabin.
"If you don't object, we could continue our conversation while you unpack."
"No objection," said Forister. He was slightly out of breath now, after lifting the heavy bags to his bunk. What on Earth did the man travel with? A fortune in corycium bars buried beneath his underwear? The first things he drew out of the bags were commonplace enough: CenDip formal dress and spare shirts, toiletries and a handful of laser-printed datahedra.
He might not object, but he wasn't being very helpful either. Well, she hadn't been as friendly as she might; it was up to her to make the first move. "What was your last posting, then, if it wasn't Charon? And why did you pick Summerlands?"
"Summerlands has a very good reputation as a rest facility," Forister said. "I expect you're unduly worried about your former brawn; the medical staff there is top-quality."
"It's not their technical skills I'm worried about," Nancia told him. There was movement in Fassa's cabin. She had been keeping the sensors there down to monitor level; now she activated full pick-up and saw that Sev had gone in to talk to Fassa. The girl was fully dressed this time, and they were sitting on opposite bunks; she didn't think Sev would encounter any real problem. All the same, she captured their quiet conversation and listened to it with one ear while she watched Forister and wished he would hurry up with his unpacking. Now he had got to the bottom layer of the first bag, and she saw what had weighed his luggage down so: nothing but a lot of antiques. One antique book after another, kilos and kilos of them, and doubtless no more information in the lot of them than could be stored in a few facets of a datahedron! There was no accounting for tastes.
"Isn't Summerlands rather remote for a man of your importance?" Nancia probed. She knew she was being pushy, but she didn't care. If Forister was in with Alpha and her criminal friends, she didn't dare set him to guard Fassa—nor did she dare send him back to the clinic to watch over Caleb. She would have to get on the datastream to Murasaki Base at once.
"I've family in the Nyota system," Forister told her. "I was hoping to make a brief visit after I left Summerlands. And I'd a friend at the clinic."
"Alpha bint Hezra-Fong," Nancia surmised. She might as well face all the bad news at once.
"Good God, no!" Forister seemed genuinely startled. "If that's what you think of the company I keep, no wonder you've been so hostile. Somebody else entirely, I assure you."
"Who?"
"I'm not at liberty to say just now. If all goes well—" Forister broke off and rather fussily adjusted the portable folding shelf where he had stowed his books, tightening the spring-bindings that would keep them in place in case of any rapid ship's movements. "But whether it comes off or not," he said, more slowly, "I won't be here to help. And I won't have any free time afterwards to visit in this system. I'll be on my way back to Central with you, and once I land there, God knows what six urgent assignments will be waiting." He looked up, directly into Nancia's primary cabin sensor. "So you see, dear lady, this assignment is no more to my liking than it is to yours. I hope we can sink our differences for the duration—"
"Hush." The conversation in Fassa's cabin had suddenly become very interesting; Nancia didn't want to have to wait and replay it, she wanted to know what was going on right now.
It appeared that Fassa was trying to plea bargain with information on some of the other young people who'd been involved in that vicious wager. She began by hinting to Sev that she might be able to inform on a whole gang of criminals in the Nyota system if doing so would get her a reduced sentence. Sev, quite properly, told her that he wasn't authorized to make such promises.
"Oh, what the hell," Fassa said wearily at last. "If I'm going down, I won't go alone. You might as well know everything. At least then you'll see that I'm not the worst of the bunch by a long shot."
She began telling Sev all she knew about Darnell Overton-Glaxely and the ways in which he'd worked his illegal Net access, first to bring in shipping bids that were always just a shade lower than those of his competitors, then to destroy the credit and acquire the stock of any small businesses he felt like adding to his empire.
"All very interesting," Sev told her. "But if Overton-Glaxely is as clever as you say at accessing private Net datastreams, he'll have been clever enough to leave no traces of his taps."
"Oh, he's not clever at all," Fassa said. "He was taught how to tap into the datastream—"
"By?" Sev prompted gently.
Fassa shook her head. She had gone rather white about the lips. "It doesn't matter. Nobody you're likely to catch up with. Not me, if that's what you're thinking; I haven't got that kind of brains."
"I never suspected you had," Sev said, rather too solemnly. Fassa gave him a suspicious glance. His lips were twitching. She aimed a mock blow at him.
"That's right, insult my intelligence!"
Sev caught her wrist and held it for a long moment while Nancia wondered if it was time to interrupt. At last his fingers relaxed. Fassa subsided onto her bunk. There was a white ring about her wrist where Sev had held her; she rubbed it absently while she went on talking. "Never mind about the Net, then. There's other ways to prove it. One of the men Darnell ruined found out a little too much about his methods, and Darnell sent him to Summerlands."
At that point Nancia decided that Forister had better hear this too. Whatever she thought of the man as a replacement for her Caleb, he was a trusted CenDip senior civil servant. He had friends in Summerlands. And he seemed to share her opinion of Dr. bint Hezra-Fong. She piped the input from Fassa's cabin through her speakers in Forister's cabin. After a moment's stunned silence, Forister sat down amid the piles of antiques on his bunk and listened carefully.
"Darnell thought Alpha would kill the man for him. She'd had a bunch of accidents with the tests she ran on her charity patients; she was getting quite good at faking death certificates with innocent-seeming causes of death. She used to boast about it at our annual meetings. One more wouldn't have been any problem for her. But she didn't kill him. She keeps him so full of Seductron that he doesn't know who he is, and whenever she wants Darnell to do her a favor, she threatens to cut the man's Seductron dosage."
"His name?" Sev demanded.
Fassa looked down. "I'd like some assurances that you'll see my sentence reduced."
"You know I can't do that," Sev told her.
She twisted her fingers together. "You could lose the records of this last trip, though. Without your testimony and the recordings, there wouldn't be any hard evidence against me." She looked up, eyes brilliant with unshed tears. "Please, Sev? I thought you cared for me a little."
"You were wrong," said Sev in a voice as dead and even as any droneship's artificially generated speech.
"Then what do I have? Why should I give you a damned thing?" Fassa pounded on the yielding surface of the bunk in frustration. Her fists sank into the plasmaform and left momentary dents that smoothed out as soon as she lifted her hands. "Oh, all right. Go ahead and see me mindwiped, or sent to prison until I'm too old to care," she said wearily. "Why should the others get away with it when my life is ruined? The man's name is Valden Allen Hopkirk, and he used to own Hopkirk Glimware right here on Bahati. Is that enough for you, or would you like his Central Citizen Code as well?"
"Any little thing you can tell us would be much appreciated," said Sev carefully.
"Well, I don't happen to know his CCC, so you're out of luck!" Fassa snapped. "Wait—wait—there's more."
"There is?"
"Find Hopkirk, and you'll have evidence on Alpha and Darnell both," Fassa said rapidly. "But there's another one you ought to get. His name's Blaize. . . ."
In the brawn's cabin, Forister lowered his head to rest on his clenched hands. "Blaize Armontillado-Perez y Medoc," he whispered. "No. No."
I've family in the Nyota system . . . I was going to visit after I left Summerlands . . .
Nancia cut off the audio transmission to Forister's cabin and shut down her own sensors there. She listened alone while Fassa babbled out the details of Blaize's felonious career on Angalia; the diverting of PTA shipments, the slave labor and torture of the native population he was supposed to be guarding.
Some day Forister would have to know and face those details, but not yet. She would leave him alone until he requested the recordings of this conversation, and then she would let him listen in privacy.
And so Nancia was the only witness when Fassa's confessional came to an abrupt ending. After she finished the tale of Blaize's misdeeds, Sev probed her.
"I've looked up the records of that first voyage," he said, almost casually. "There were five of you in it together, weren't there? You, Dr. bint Hezra-Fong, Overton-Glaxely, Armontillado-Perez y Medoc, and one other. Polyon de Gras-Waldheim, newly commissioned from the Academy. What was his part in the wager?"
Fassa clamped her lips shut and slowly shook her head. "I can't tell you any more," she whispered. "Only—don't let them send me to Shemali. Kill me first. I know you never cared for me, but as one human being to another—kill me first. Please."
"You're wrong in thinking I never cared for you," Sev said after a long silence.
"You said so yourself."
"You asked if I liked you a little," he corrected her. "And I don't. You're vain and self-centered and you may have killed a good man and you've yet to show any interest at all in Caleb's fete. I don't much like you at all."
"Yes, I know."
"Unfortunately," he went on with no change of expression, "like it or not—and believe me, I'm not at all happy about the situation—I do seem to love you. Not," he said almost gently, "that it'll do either of us much good, under the circumstances. But I did think you ought to know."