Contact Imminent (32 page)

Except—

Micah slowed to a walk. Stood still. “Except they might blame me instead.” For letting Veles steal the wafer in the first place. For talking to Pascal. For getting caught.
Hough knows Pascal was after me—he'd spill to anyone who asked
. The connection was there, had been for months.
I didn't tell him anything!
Not willingly anyway.
I just—

“I just let myself be duped, and drugged, and stripped.” Of everything that made him a member of the Group. Of everything that made him a man.

He lowered cross-legged to the floor. Stared at the pattern in the lyno as he imagined the darkness close in around him. He started rocking at some point—didn't remember when. Rocking, as he hugged himself, and stared.
Can't tell—can't—can't—can't tell—can't—can't…

“I wonder what it will be like here tomorrow at this time.” Niall looked out the shuttle passenger port as the spacecraft banked for its final approach into O'Hare. “After the challenge.”

Jani glanced up from her
Tribune-Times
account of the upcoming “Duel of the Century” just as the city skyline filled the view, backed by cloudless blue.
Vacation's over.
It had proved pleasant, surprisingly enough. Niall's mood had lightened as the distance from Elyas grew, and he had approached Jani with an offer of a truce. By the time they reached Felix, it felt like old times—as long as they avoided any mention of current events, they could almost pretend that nothing had changed between them.

All good things must end.
“Chaos, I imagine.” She returned to her newssheet. “Bloodsport is, after all, an idomeni invention. Humanish are peace-loving and quite, quite docile.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you're sarcastic when you're sarcastic?” Niall tugged at the banded collar of his dress blue-grey tunic, then rested his head against the seatback, his profile blunted to shadow by the brightness outside. “That article you're reading must be great. I can feel the heat from the steam coming out of your ears.”

“Echevar, the
Diplomatic Beat
reporter, isn't completely without sense. He understands that it's simply a statement of feeling. No winners. No losers.” Jani rolled up the newssheet and tucked it into her duffel, which was secured in the grapple rack at her feet. “The rest make it sound as though a two-being war will be fought, winner take whatever they wish. GateWay rights. Colonial settlements.”

Niall tilted his head toward her. “I'd find your sense of outrage more believable if I didn't know for a fact that you're worried sick. On the way here you spent all the time you could in the ship's library gleaning news from every available 'sheet. As soon as we'd dock at a station, you'd disembark and hit every newsstand you could find. You did everything you could to ferret out information except message Pretty Boy himself, which I do confess I found odd. I know you distrust secure lines as much as I do, but I thought nerves would have gotten the better of you eventually.”

Jani settled back in her seat. “From what I've pieced together, Ghos is angry with humanish in general—Lucien was just a convenient target.” She braced as she felt the shuttle slow into its final descent. “Usually, idomeni anger is more personal, not outrage against an entire race focused on one individual.”

Niall pressed his thumb and forefinger to a place above the bridge of his nose, just inside his eye sockets. “Why do I think I'm about to hear something I wish you'd told me earlier.” He lowered his hand. “You think Ghos is going to try to kill him, don't you?”

Jani didn't reply, even when Niall's glare threatened to drill a hole in the side of her face. Instead she lay her head back, and counted the minutes to touchdown.

 

The noise in the Service concourse reached sport stadium proportions, despite the best efforts of the soundshielding. Younger people in civvies made up the bulk of the crowd that filled the glass and metal expanse, along with a smaller
proportion of seeming children in dark blue fatigues, duffels large enough to hold bodies slung across their backs.

“Recruits coming in,” Niall muttered as he and Jani fled for the quieter reaches of the security wing. “Freshly minted Spacers shipping out. Welcome to Anthill Central.” He keyed them through a pair of doors, the silence enveloping them as they passed into a low-ceilinged hallway.

“First and only time I flew in here, I was under arrest.” Jani spoke loud enough to draw interested looks from the brace of MPs walking in the opposite direction. “I came in at an off-time—we pretty much had the place to ourselves.”

“They try to work it that way.” Niall glanced at her over his shoulder. “You've come a long way in a year, my gel.” He turned away before Jani could answer, busying himself with the working of another set of doors. “This exit leads outside,” he said as he pressed his hand to the touchpad. “Pull should be waiting for us—I got hold of him just before we left Luna.” The doormech whined and the panel slid, revealing a short flight of metal-clad stairs that led down to sunlit tarmac.

They clattered down, then stepped out into the face of a cool breeze redolent with machine odors to find Pullman standing beside a dark blue four-door. He looked at Jani, and his somber expression lightened momentarily. “Good to see you, ma'am.”

“You, too.” Jani thought back to that night months before. Blood in the snow, and a body boosted onto a gurney. “How are you feeling?”

“Everything's been refitted.” Pullman patted the spot over his left hip. “Can't complain.” He then focused on Niall, nodding toward the silver sportster that floated nearby. “We've got company, sir.” He frowned. “Port Security's not happy, but friends in high places made calls, apparently.”

Jani set out toward the familiar vehicle just as the gullwings swept upward. Val emerged from the driver's side, natty in a pale blue daysuit. “God, you're a sight for sore
eyes, Jan!” He slammed down the door and circled around the front of the vehicle.

The passenger's side door opened more slowly, the passenger emerging with the characteristic stiffness of someone who'd pushed his body further than normal in the very recent past. Dressed in civvies, brown trousers and a long-sleeve cream shirt, Lucien walked toward her, taking care to step in front of Val at just the right time to break the other man's stride and knock him off course.

“Hello.” Jani stopped and watched Lucien's careful approach. “Dathim been pushing you, has he?”

“You could say that, yes.” He eased to a halt, gazing at her with a fixedness he normally reserved for their times alone. “You look like summer.”

Jani felt her face heat. She wore trousers and wrapshirt in pale melon, an acquisition from a Felix Station shop that she had meant to save for John until Niall's mutterings convinced her that she needed to give her coverall a rest. “Thank you.”

“Quite a trip, from what I've gathered from Val.”

“Yes. You've had quite a time here, too, I believe.”

Lucien had the sense to look uncomfortable. For a few seconds, at any rate. “We'll have to bring one another up to speed later,” he said with a faint smile.

Before Jani could respond, Val cut between them and threw his arms around her. “Don't. Ask.” He spoke in her ear as he hugged her hard enough to hurt. “I've managed to keep body and soul together, but so help me he doesn't make it easy.” He backed away, but still held her as though afraid to let go. He looked older, worn by worry that he didn't bother to hide. “You do look like summer. Like a lifeline.” He glanced at Niall. “Hello, Colonel—welcome home.”

“Parini.” Niall nodded. “I was going to take Jani back to her town house. Is there any reason for me to amend that plan?”

“No.” Val shook his head in that vague way that could
have altered to a nod at any time. “I just wanted to…prepare you.” He squeezed Jani's shoulders, then let his hands drop. “You have company.” He exhaled with a rush. “It's been a time.”

 

Late spring had worked its magic on the town house yard. Bloom-heavy shrubs in rainbow hues lined the front walkway and rear wall, while leafy trees cast shade over the drive. The rest of the street looked much the same, oases of greenery separated by stone walls and wrought metal gates.

Jani remained seated after Pullman switched the skimmer into standby, looking for some exterior hint of the trouble Val had warned her of even as she knew she wouldn't find it. After a few moments, his sportster drifted to a stop alongside—Lucien disembarked first, then walked around to Jani's side of the sedan and popped open her gullwing.

“Let's get going. Faint of heart never won the game,” he said as he held his arm out to her.

“They don't get challenged by bornsect security officers, either.” Jani shouldered her duffel and climbed out of the skimmer. She caught the discomfort on Lucien's face when she leaned on him too heavily—Dathim must have been knocking the hell out of him during their training sessions. “I've read all the 'sheets. Is what they say reliable?”

“Pretty much.” Lucien linked his arm through hers and led her toward the house. “Ghos took exception to my presence at the embassy. He thought I'd come there to spy for the Service. When I tried to explain that I wanted to find out about some hit-and-run raids that had taken place there, he refused to believe me.”

“Hit-and-run raids?” Jani tried to extract her arm from Lucien's grip, since Val eyed her strangely, and even Niall arched an eyebrow. Lucien, however, simply placed his hand over hers, encircling her wrist and holding her fast.

“A variation on the attacks that had been occurring at the enclave. Raiders punching through the defenses and leaving tokens of their esteem—food, in these cases—all over the
compound.” Lucien led Jani up the short flight of steps, then keyed them through the back door. “That's not the biggest problem they're facing, though.”

“What is the biggest problem they're facing?” Niall asked as he closed in from behind.

“Can we get inside first?” Jani let Lucien steer her into the entry, noting the care he took to position her between himself and Niall. “I'd like to see what I'm supposed to have prepared for.” Then she looked down the narrow hall that led from the back entry to the main rooms of the ground floor, saw a tall, thin form cut through the darkness toward her, and knew.

“Nìa!” Tsecha, a badly dressed vision in clay yellow and green, clapped his hands in an uneven beat. “I feared Dathim would need to return me to the enclave before I could see you!” He took her face between his hands. “See, Dathim, if I place my fingers beneath her jaw just so, she cannot talk.”

Jani shook herself loose from Lucien's hold. Then she gripped Tsecha's wrists and yanked down, breaking his hold as well. “What are you doing here?” She looked around him to Dathim. “Does Shai know he's here?”

“You do not think I can answer such, nìa? You look at Dathim to speak for me?” Tsecha sidestepped until he blocked her view of his suborn. “Shai does not know I am here.”

“She believes him at the enclave. I have double-set the security array—I must return him in two hours or all will know he has gone.” Dathim folded his arms. One sleeve slid up, allowing a view of a nasty contusion that had the long, thin look of a strike with a practice blade. “He is to stay there until the challenge tomorrow. Then he is to prepare to return to Shèrá.”

“My ass.” Jani grabbed Tsecha by the collar of his shirt and shook him. “First, I must tell you this. I understand your feelings. I comprehend how all you have learned here has affected your thought. But why are you so determined to make my life a living hell!”

Tsecha grabbed the collar of Jani's wrapshirt and shook her in return.
“Feres should have been allowed to live!”
He stopped abruptly, his auric eyes widening when he realized what he did. He released her, smoothing the folds of cloth around her neck before backing away. “They would not listen. They would not think. They are anathema.”

Jani reached out and took her old teacher's bony hand in hers. “You will not return to the worldskien. I will talk to Shai and Cao after the challenge tomorrow. After they hear what I have to say, they will allow me to take you to Elyas.” She leaned close. “You will see Thalassa, and you will marvel.”

“It is warm. So ná Feyó has always said.” Tsecha bared his teeth. “She has told me much. You negated the challenge against her, and repaired her standing among the Outer Circle Haárin.” He started down the hall, pulling Jani after him. “Tell me of Thalassa. Feyó has finally admitted to facts. Eamon DeVries's involvement—” He shot a look at Val, who flinched in alarm. “—and the life that is lived there. I confess that Feyó's reluctance to deal frankly with me disappointed. I fear she and her suborns require instruction in how to behave in manners not quite so humanish.”

“Do not be too angry.” Jani tossed her duffel to the floor inside the entry, then pulled Tsecha after her to the couch, drawing him down beside her. “You will enjoy Thalassa so. It is home. They await your arrival. You are their prophet.”

“Prophets are all well.” Dathim took a seat on Jani's other side, the ergoworks whining as they struggled to support him. “But we must first live through this challenge.” He pointed to Lucien, who had dragged a chair into the shaft of sun that streamed through the skylight. “Tell them what you have told us.”

Lucien positioned his chair in the natural spotlight, then sat and waited while Niall and Val staked out seats. “Before Jani left for Elyas, she asked me to pull whatever strings necessary to attach myself to the enclave mine investigation.” He sat straight, his back barely touching the chair. His
white-blond hair shimmered. “I did so, and as I became more involved, I grew aware of a certain lance corporal named Micah Faber, a tech in Supreme Command ComSys. He was present at the enclave the night of the explosion.”

“He was the nervy git in our bunker.” Niall nodded toward Jani as he patted his tunic above the place where he usually stashed his nicstick case, then let his hand fall with a sigh.

“Yes, sir.” Lucien looked to Jani. “Notice anything about him?”

Jani shrugged. “He didn't like me a bit.”

“No, he didn't.” Lucien paused to lick his lips. In contrast to his usual air of easy competence, he seemed agitated, off-balance. “For the past few months Micah Faber has been undergoing simulation training in some of our most advanced weapons systems, including the V-790 prototype exoskeleton. He has been taking this training in conjunction with others who share his beliefs, namely that the idomeni should be driven from all places of human habitation. They form an organization called the Group. I believe this Group's members may be found at all levels of the Service, and that Faber and his confederates receive their instructions from superiors who are privy to all inner diplomatic and security workings.” He glanced at Jani, and shifted in his seat. “I've obtained evidence that I believe shows that Faber and others intend to mount an assault against the idomeni embassy tomorrow morning, during my challenge with nìRau Ghos, in the hope that this will serve to drive the idomeni from Chicago.” He leaned forward slightly, one arm braced on his chair arm, the other resting in a not so relaxed manner on his thigh.