Gates of Hell (13 page)

Hugging him wouldn’t do any good, so she said, “Sure, I’ll give it a shot.” She looked at Alice. “Can I have my treat now?”

Alice Phere replied with a weak smile. “Let’s go get you some real meat. I’m buying.”

“Shut up, Kith,” Pilsane said automatically as he passed the table where the off-duty crew gathered, grumbling over the lack of prey. Pyr watched as the navigator turned briefly back to the seated crew before joining him and Linch at the gaming table. Kith didn’t look up, but the others gave him their attention; some respectfully, some grudgingly, none happily. Pyr judged their reactions carefully as Pilsane said, “How many of you want to be locked in the chattel hold?” No answers. One by one their gazes dropped. “Thought so.” Pilsane pivoted and continued on his way. He settled down next to Linch and said quietly, “We better find something for them soon.” He didn’t complain about letting Denvry’s ship go. He was very understanding when it came to diplomacy, most of the time.

No other vessel had been detected in the over twenty hours since sending Hanni over to her brother’s ship. Everybody was impatient for many reasons: they were a long way from their own territory, they worried about running out of Rust, and there was the usual greed, of course. Most important for Pyr and his officers, they now had the knowledge they’d been hunting down for weeks. They needed to get on with the job of wiping out the man who was a danger to them. Pyr wanted Axylel back alive, if possible.

The
Raptor
was set on a course deeper still into the Bucon Empire, deeper into trouble. All shields were up, all sensors hunting, with Mik taking the watch while everyone else slept or waited restlessly in the common.

Pyr drummed the fingers of his right hand on the tabletop, ignoring the vidgame projected between himself and Linch. He also ignored Linch’s taking advantage of his distraction to make a second move. Pyr knew he’d win the game anyway.

“I begin to want this raid more than you do,” he told Pilsane. His left hand and arm kept going from numb to excruciatingly painful. Either way, they had become almost useless. He tried to keep still and hoped no one noticed. He also knew he couldn’t disguise anything much longer. He could hear the strain to keep the pain out of his voice. And Kristi had just gone away after telling him even Rust junkies needed to eat sometime. Even stubborn, red-headed slobs like him. He had ignored her, but Linch looked concerned despite his mocking smile.

“You’ve been quiet lately, Captain,” he observed while Pilsane leaned forward to study the game lights.

Pyr ignored Linch’s meaning. Telepathy was too disorienting. “Can’t be heard over your racket,” he complained. “And I’m thinking.”

“Can’t talk with your head full?”

“Something like that.” Pyr firmly kept his shields up against Linch’s questioning probe, even though it took an effort. “I’m tired,” he admitted. And cursed silently as something inside his mind ripped and exploded outward—

… a pair of neutronium towers looming up before him blinking curious inner eyes… flowing around them beyond them spilling into… a freezing cavern paranoia and contempt churning thoughts into a whirlpool… alien cowards kill them before they kill me think I can be replaced playing their pretending games ignoring bargains hate them slit the red one’s throat and drink his blood…crashing down caught by a net of numbers danced with design schematics…flamed with grief… damned plague damned Rust damn everything she was all I cared about stayed because she liked it here trapped with the hunters and the Rust… running from the loss
—
damn wizard! Get out of my head!… hunger and longing and disappointment chased themselves round and round never looks at me loves music and screws the Orlinian fortune teller saw them together kill the bitch then he’ll… rocking like in a cradle gentle place haven’t made Pilsie makabread for a while what is wrong with that man hasn’t changed clothes in two days either Rust or the Ax getting to him poor lamb
—

“Pilsie?”

“What?”

The deep rush of color to Pilsane’s face fascinated Pyr. He watched in awe as the man’s fair skin darkened, then paled again, in subtle gradations. He wondered how long the reaction took.

“Captain?”

He heard the voice. A spoken word. No emotion or thought intruded with the word. Pyr sighed deeply and blinked. He forced his gaze away from Pilsane’s face and looked toward the table across the common room. He recognized faces, automatically matching people to their thoughts; Kith hating, Taylre thinking in engineer, Sumer missing the wife taken by the plague, Rhod reacting with instinctive shielding, Cope still wanting Linch after one night two years before. And he’d fallen into the affectionate mind of Kristi in her nearby galley as well.

That he was able to identify the thoughts as separate from his own was comfort and help. He sat back in his chair and closed his eyes. He could still feel all but Kith, whose artificial shield was back in place. He knew they were watching, aware something had happened, though none had any memory of his awareness tumbling helplessly through them. If he had the energy, he knew he could reach out to everyone on board, and who knew how far beyond that? He didn’t. Never tested the limits. The only thing he couldn’t do was find the Ax. Pyr knew Axylel lived, would answer if his thoughts touched him, but Axylel’s mind remained hidden.

Get it under control, he ordered himself, or give up the game right now. There is a trio of strong, curious telepaths you trained yourself nibbling away at what little shields you’ve got. Keep them out. Use every trick you didn’t teach them and keep your mind to yourself. He would be glad when this was over. Would he?

No.

Pyr concentrated, using all the strength he could muster to force discipline into the effort to keep his thoughts in and everyone else’s out. Subjectively, it seemed to take years, but he knew it was only a few seconds before he opened his eyes on the curious Linch and Pilsane. He might have shouted at them to leave him be if they’d been alone. Not being alone he said, “I’m going to my quarters.”

Not being alone, neither of them challenged his leaving.

“Dear Eamon,

“I have to get some sleep, but I can’t right now.” Roxy paced back and forth like a caged creature in the pale-lavender bedroom as she recorded the message. It was dark outside the window, and dark inside her soul. Dark but for the deep fury and fiery killing urge she kept so tightly under control. “I miss you, and hell—feel so awful. Not for me. Well, yes, but that’s part of the job. I need to talk about this, tell someone. Don’t know where Dee is. Maybe in the research lab. Out in the city, probably, and that’s terrifying, too.”

She didn’t want to tell her husband that she didn’t know when she’d last seen Dee Nikophoris, because that would lead her to explaining how she was becoming less and less lucid with each healing session. She thought she was coherent now because of the adrenaline rush of fury that had fueled her since she’d been told the latest unpleasant news an hour ago. She’d returned to her quarters to get herself under control as much as to get the rest she’d been ordered to take.

“What happened? Alice—you remember Alice Phere? Alice and Dr. Jeraldo and her husband—they’re dead. Not just them, but a group of medtechs as well. Not from the plague. Yes, from the plague; a side effect, I guess. We’ve seen things like this during the war, I shouldn’t be so surprised. But I thought civilization had returned to the Systems when we beat back the Trins. Am I a stupid idealist, or what? I can see you frowning at this message and thinking, ‘Get on with your report, Physician’.

“What happened was that the hospital sent volunteer teams out into the city to find sick children. They were all wearing environmental belts, of course. They certainly had no reason to be armed—civilians! A crowd—no, a mob—surrounded them. They were attacked and killed for those environmental belts. They died trying to help. Such good people.”

The door opened and Roxy turned to face Dee Nikophoris, the recording forgotten. “What are you smiling at?” she snarled at Dee, furious from worry and grief, and wanting to throw her arms around her friend in relief at the same time. She settled for sitting down on her bed as the grinning Dee strutted into the room.

“Come along, Physician.” Dee motioned for her to get up. “We can’t stay here.”

“We can’t?” Roxy rose to her feet to tower above the smaller woman.

“You look like hell, Merkrates,” Dee observed.

“And you look too damn good.”

Dee laughed. She wore a black and silver jumpsuit, and her normally tightly coiled dark hair framed her face and shoulders like a black veil. Her ebullience grated against Roxy’s weakened shields. She tapped Roxy on the shoulder as they faced each other. “Now, tell me why I’m feeling so good, Physician mine.”

Roxy finally understood. “You found the dealer. Stev Persey?”

“He found me,” Dee replied, her smile widening. “The only way possible.”

They looked at each other for a while. Gradually, Roxy felt through Dee’s surface emotions and realized there was nothing natural about the other woman’s joyous mood. There was a certain fuzzy brain-buzz about the woman that was familiar, if not quite recognizable. She could take a good guess at what it was, though. “Dee Nikophoris,” she breathed, wide-eyed with horror. “What have you done?”

“I got the drug. Already dropped a sample off at the lab. Now.” She jerked a thumb toward the door. “Let’s go. Put on some shoes first, Merkrates. There’s debris in the streets. There’s been rioting, you know.”

“Of course I know about the rioting! Alice—Wait a minute. Go where?”

“There’s a man who wants to see you.”

“I’m sure there is.” She put her hands on Dee’s shoulders, and didn’t like the feel at all. “Let’s talk about the Bucon’s antidote.”

“Glover,” was all Dee said in answer.

It was all she needed to say. Roxy dropped her hands, and looked around automatically, though they were alone. “
The
Glover?”

Dee nodded. With all the secret knowledge of their misspent youths between them, Dee didn’t need to say anymore. Roxy slipped on a pair of shoes.

“Let’s go, Sting,” Dee said, urging her toward the door. “We have an appointment.”

———

“This ought to be it—if Persey’s little friend gave me the right directions.” The aircar floated a moment longer before settling onto its pads. Roxy felt the gentle bump and opened her eyes. She estimated it had been a short nap, though she thought she’d slept on her feet through Dee’s dragging her out of the hospital. She had only the faintest memory of being stuffed into the aircar and nothing else until now. She yawned and rubbed her eyes, then looked around as Dee lifted the gull-wing doors. They were in a narrow, deserted street. On either side of the street were five- and six-story concrete-block buildings. There were streetlights on the corners, but it didn’t look as if their glow was going to be replacing the fading twilight. Either the power was out or the buildings were completely deserted. Maybe both. The windows facing the street were just dark holes in the pale surface of the walls.

“Where are we?” It wasn’t a wealthy neighborhood, but it certainly wasn’t a slum, either.

“Res Area Five, if that means anything to you.” Roxy shook her head. “It’s not important.” Dee scrubbed at her eyes with the back of her hands, staining them with rubbed-off makeup. “Bright out here. Let’s get inside.”

It was bright to Roxy; her pupils didn’t adjust properly anymore as an after-affect of the healings. But Dee was all Terran… Wouldn’t a Terran see this twilight as a dim ending to a dull-pewter day? “Got a headache?” Roxy asked her friend.

The look she received was full of bitterness. “Yeah. Are you coming?”

Roxy let it go and heaved herself out of the car. She didn’t really wake up until her thin sandals encountered the cold, rough concrete of the street. She shivered as she slogged after Dee, who was . already at the top of the steps. “Natural environments are so unpredictable,” she added as she came up behind Dee. “Where are we going, anyway?”

Dee threw an impatient look over her shoulder. “Inside.” She forcefully pushed the door open, letting it bang against the inner wall for added emphasis. “Come along.”

Roxy followed Dee into the darkness. The interior dimness was restful on her strained eyes, but the silence of the interior of the building was even more eerie than the open emptiness of the street. The place
felt
deserted, as empty of residual emotions as it was of people. The residents had been gone long enough for the basic things that lingered and made up the aura of a place to also have packed up and gone. “How long have we been on this planet, anyway?”

Dee didn’t answer her question. Roxy followed the silver-garbed figure ahead of her and recalled all the riots and looting she’d heard about. There was no evidence of intruders in this long, dark hallway. The doors they passed were evenly spaced, made of some dark-stained local wood. All were decorously closed, the nameplates covering the locking mechanisms neatly in place. The place was safe enough, she concluded. It just wasn’t anyone’s home anymore.

They soon found out the elevators weren’t working any better than the lights. Dee swore inventively and led Roxy to a staircase. They were three flights up before Roxy began to feel the presence of Sag Fever. No, she told herself firmly as they approached one specific door and the awareness itched stronger into her senses. It was a person with the disease, not the Sag virus itself that she was feeling. What the hell was the matter with her?
You are trying to hide the fact that there are sentients suffering from yourself
, she concluded.
Well, stop it. All right, all right. But distancing myself is so much easier
, she pouted. Unfortunately, that wasn’t how koltiri healing worked.

Dee halted at a door, so Roxy stopped behind her and waited while Dee bent to peer at the nameplate. The etched markings were hard for even Roxy to make out in the shadowy hallway. Dee continued to squint at the plate for so long that Roxy eventually told her, “It says number 508.”