Dark Star (14 page)

“For goodness sake!” The glass was pulled out of his hand by Cassie before he was quite finished. She slammed it down on the bar. “You’re drinking?”

“Seemed like a good idea.”

“That makes two of us – pass me the vodka.” Essie sat on a stool and put a hand out. Grinning at Cassie, Pip passed Essie the bottle.

“Don’t look so pleased with yourself. You’re still in trouble, Pipsqueak,” Essie said.

“Thanks for the support.”

“Hey, I’m not your crutch.”

Both of them seemed to have calmed down though, so he judged it was safe to come out from around the bar. He poured another beer and sat next to them. Cassie watched, eyes narrowed.

“So what did you tell Whitely?” Pip asked Essie.

“Not a lot. It’s too risky to tell him about Sulawayo being Helios – he’d go after her straightaway. But he is willing to do anything to bring Helios down. I told him a little about Riley, and wondered about dropping a few of the Pantheon names until Dalton pulled that stunt.”

“What stunt?” Pip said.

“Didn’t you hear the latest Rogue Wave?” Essie shook her head. “Dalton, that dumb arse, outed his dad, called Jebediah one of the Pantheon and dropped his daddy’s company right in it. The Senate are scared that they’re going to have to investigate him.”

“But isn’t that a good thing?” Pip said.

“Not with Rosie still involved, no. We don’t know where Curtis senior stands in all this. If I confirm to Whitely that he’s one of the Helios top five, it could jeopardise Rosie’s life. He’s rabid about bringing everyone down. We have to take this one step at a time. Trust me. Subtlety is not Whitley’s strong suit, but I managed to convince him to keep anything he finds to himself, and to share what he finds with me. Plus, of course, he doesn’t know about you. Or your cure.”

Pip toyed with his beer. He didn’t like the idea of working with the Senate man, but they needed inside help. If Essie thought she could work with him, then maybe she could keep him in line.

“Someone should check on Dalton,” Cassie said. “He can’t have done that wave for no reason.”

“Worried about him, are you?” Pip eyed her. “Got him in your sights now?”

“He saved your life, Pip, cut him a break.”

“Yeah, and then the two of you let Rosie run off to join the funhouse of death.”

“Stop it.” Essie slammed the vodka bottle down between them. “Focus children. Dalton will have to take care of himself for the moment.”

“That’s right.” Pip tipped his glass towards Cassie. “We need to get a vehicle, some transport to get back out to the desert and find the Enclave.”

“An aerial search would be better,” Essie said. “And don’t think about going out there alone; you can’t take on an Enclave by yourself.”

“I didn’t say I was going to.”

“But you were thinking it. You know wherever she is, it will be well protected. We need to find a way in
and
out, or it will be a waste of time and if they get you–”

“I know,” he cut her off. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to let that happen. I don’t want them getting my cure any more than you do.”

Essie took a long swig of vodka straight from the bottle and grimaced, wiping her mouth. “Talking about that.” She turned to Cassie. “You want to fill him in on the other reason you came running down here?”

“You mean you didn’t miss me so bad?” Pip couldn’t help riling the girl again, but Cassie didn’t rise to the bait.

“If you’d come back like you should have, it might not have happened,” she said. “But you should know – we had a breakthrough with the vaccination.”

“Wait, what?” A leap of hope surged through him, but he didn’t see any joy in Cassie’s eyes. “Why aren’t you happy about it?”

“I was.” She pushed her hair back from her face, something she did when she was really worried. “We all were. It was … amazing. It’s not perfect. It’s a trial version, and the results haven’t come back complete. But the last volunteer is still alive after twenty-four hours when he should be dead. It might be the result we’ve been hoping for. But we barely got time to celebrate. I was furious you hadn’t come back, so I sped down here to tell you the news. But I got a call an hour ago. Thing is Pip, the trial vaccine has gone missing, and so has Raina. Both the formula notes and the sample are gone.”

Pip almost dropped his glass. “What? But how did she get past Budjardin?”

“We don’t know. We think she must have drugged him, though how she managed to get him to take it is anyone’s guess. And we can’t ask him. Inja said Budjardin has gone away and won’t tell us where. They’re dealing with it in their own way.”

Pip pushed his beer away, no longer thirsty. “Got to be Sulawayo.”

“Seems like it,” Essie said. “So even more reason to be extra cautious with her.”

Pip got up and began pacing back and forth. “We’ve got to do something. If Raina gets the stuff to her, she might think Rosie is expendable. I’m sure Sulawayo was counting on using her to lure me in. That’s how they do things, Helios; they’re tricky bastards. We have to go after her.”

“Tactics, Pip, tactics.” Essie put a hand on his arm. “If we don’t do it right, we lose Rosie for good.”

He pulled away. “Yeah, but I don’t have to be so cautious now. If they think they’ve got the cure, they won’t care about me so much, will they? I’ll be lower on their to-do list.”

“We don’t know for sure the vaccine really works yet,” Cassie said. “It might be a false positive. They’ll still need you to complete an effective vaccine – just like we do.”

“Fine. I’m willing to take the risk.” He threw up his hands. “We have to get Rosie out, you know that. I’ll give myself up if I have to, to get it done.”

“And I’m hoping it won’t come to that,” Essie said, “but if that’s our last move, I won’t stop you.”

Her sudden agreement took Pip by surprise.

“Do you mean that?” he asked.

“Yes I mean it,” she said quietly. “I would trade you for her. She’s my family, Pip. I promised her dad I’d look after her. So if you have to go, you go, but not right now, not today. We’ve still got options.”

Pip sat down again. “All right, good then,” he said, but he knew his voice was uneven. Going back to Helios for him meant a slow but certain death, Essie knew that. Once they had the MalX cure out of him, he would be too dangerous to leave alive. “So what now?”

“I’ll see if Whitely can do me an aerial nav search of the area off the byway, see if I can pick something up. You and Cassie find somewhere to hole up and I’ll contact you to meet back here if I find anything.”

“So we just sit?” Pip said.

“For the moment, yes.” Essie looked at him sideways. “But I’ll give you the com Rosie contacted me on, so if she calls again you might be able to hit her back. You got enough credit?”

“I’ve got money,” Cassie said.

Essie got up. “I’ll see you soon then. Stay out of trouble.”

Dalton drove his family car to the Academy on Monday morning, but then sat in the air conditioning staring out through the tinted window at the gates. He’d hardly been there the last few weeks and didn’t want to go back in. He missed Rosie. More than he should, more than Pip wanted him to. He knew he was getting far behind in his course work, but was finding it hard to care. Since discovering that note from his dad to Sulawayo, and those odd plans on the com, he could think about little else than how she was, what she was doing. And he was confused about exactly how his dad was involved. He’d put the chit back in the office, but it played on his mind all the time. The code had been so easy to break. Nothing added up. He should never have let Rosie go like that.

He bit his lip, watching the students who had started to filter in through the gates. He couldn’t remember ever having felt so goddamn powerless. Was this how Chris felt against his dad? Was this how his mum felt all the time?

Dalton left the Academy and spent the day driving aimlessly around the city and sitting in Central’s many cafes until the sun began to set, then went back to the apartment. He kept thinking about the plans he’d seen on the com. Satellites over the Earth. It meant something. And he kept thinking about his mother. She seemed frightened of his father. Every time he was home she hid herself away. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen them together. Did she know his secrets? Was there another reason she buried her mind with drugs?

He stepped out of the lift and Pilar greeted him as he entered the great room. His father wasn’t home. Pilar had made no mention of seeing him come from his father’s office that night, but sometimes he caught her looking at him with sadness, like she was worried about him. It made him feel he owed her an explanation, though she never asked and he knew she never would. She’d always kept his family’s secrets, even those they kept from each other. “Is Mum in her room?” Dalton asked.

“Yes.” Pilar seemed concerned. “Are you all right, Dalton?”

“Sure, never better.” He took the stairs two at a time, knocked once, then opened the door.

His mother was sitting on one of her squashy low lounges watching digi-tel with the sound down. Her hair wasn’t brushed and her face was bare of cosmetic decoration, making her pale. For the first time in a long while she almost looked her age.

Dalton crossed the soft carpet and kneeled down in front of her. “Mum?”

Her eyes were open but her gaze was fixed and she didn’t respond.

“Mum?” She flinched and focused on him.

“Dalton?” She wasn’t quite with it; he could see the effects of drugs widening her pupils. Good, it would be easier for her this way.

He settled onto the floor, worry and a surge of long- forgotten affection surfacing briefly. “I need to talk to you, okay?”

She smiled at him. “Do you need money, son? I have some–”

“No, it’s not that. It’s about Dad and what he does. You know what I mean, don’t you?”

Her smiled faded. “He runs our business,” she said softly, but there was hesitation there.

“Not just the business.” Dalton lowered his voice, “I mean Helios, Mum. I know about it, about his involvement. You do as well, don’t you?”

Fear came into her face and she shook her head. “I don’t know that word; that’s not a real word.”

“Yes, it’s real.” Dalton leaned closer. “You know it; Chris knew it too, didn’t he?”

“No,” she whispered.

“I’m sorry, Mum,” Dalton said, “but–”

“No!” Her voice rose. “You can’t speak of it. Don’t say it. He’ll hear you! You mustn’t! It’s not real, none of it. None, none.”

Dalton faltered. Maybe he shouldn’t have done this. “Mum, listen.” He tried to get through to her over her ramblings, but she suddenly lunged and grabbed his arms.

“It’s not safe! You have to get away. You can’t stop it! He’ll make it happen. Chris tried, but he couldn’t. The plan, it’s not right, but it might save us. So maybe it is, maybe it is. Do you think it is?”

“What plan?”

“The plan. Stop it all, control us, the people, the planets, the worlds. Maybe it’s good. Do you think it’s good, is it?”

Desperation and fear shone in her eyes. He felt terrible in the face of her distress.

“I’m sorry, Mum. Yes, yes, it might be good,” he said in soothing tones. “It’s okay. You don’t need to worry.” It seemed to help, the terror began to fade from her eyes.

“Get some rest.” Dalton eased her back into the cushions. “It will all be okay.”

“No.” She pushed her face into the cushions. “Nothing will be okay again. Nothing.”

Dalton left, closing the door quietly. He was filled by a terrible hollowness and pity for his mother. He didn’t know what to do, or what she’d been saying. What plan? Had she overheard something his dad had said?

He sat in the great room with the lights off watching the sky fall to darkness outside and the city lights brighten, creating haloes in the pollution.

Eventually, his father did come in. He switched on the lights then halted in surprise seeing Dalton on the couch.

“What are you doing in here, in the dark?” He switched on more lights, brightening the room.

“What no fatherly greeting?” Dalton said.

Jebediah paused. “I don’t expect that sort of comment from you, son.”

“Glad to disappoint you,” Dalton said. “Did you have a good day? Changed the world for the better yet?”

His father took off his jacket and laid it over the arm of the sofa opposite. His expression became circumspect. He sat down, leaning back and crossing one leg over the other, resting a hand on his bent knee. “If you have something to say, Dalton, you should say it.”

All the questions, the fears, the worries that plagued him built up in Dalton’s chest until he could barely breathe. Something to say? He had too much to say, too much to ask and it wasn’t just about the things he had found out recently. It was years of wondering, years of suppressed anger. But still it was hard to start, to ask. His voice was strained as he spoke. “What are the plans on your com for? I saw them, those satellite systems, that space station. What’s it all for?”

His father appeared unsurprised. “You got into my personal com? I thought you had.” He dismissed it with a wave of his hand. “They are nothing, part of the Curtis and Co water project, that’s all, nothing for you to be concerned about – since you have no real interest in our company.”

“If you say so.” Silence fell between them. Dalton felt his father watching him, weighing his words.

“Spit it out, Dad.” He put a bitter emphasis on the word. “Pretend I’m one of your minions.”

His father exhaled. “Don’t be sullen; it’s not the Curtis way.”

“So I’ve discovered.”

Jebediah shifted in his seat. “Son, I’ve been aware of your investigations into me for a while, and I’m disappointed. So very disappointed you felt you had to do that behind my back.”

“Maybe I’m more your son than you thought.” Dalton was oddly relieved about being caught out.

“I found your gear, your hidden alcove in your room.”

Dalton’s chest contracted in shock and he glared at his father. “You searched my room?”

“I hardly think that’s the problem here, do you? I know you’ve been making those Rogue Waves. You’re the one who shouted to the world that I am part of Helios, that Curtis and Co is corrupt.” His dad’s expression was calm, but regretful.