Pawn’s Gambit (32 page)

Assuming, of course, the Stryders didn't come for her before then.

But if they did, there was still nothing she could do tonight. And at the moment she was too drained of emotion to even worry about it. Stretching out on the bench, pillowing her head on the folded jacket, she drifted off to sleep.

“Mrs. Shondar? Aimee?”

She woke with a start, muscles jerking with sudden terror. But it wasn't one of the Stryders who had haunted her dreams crouching over her, just Patrolman Clay. In the pink predawn light she could see the lines of tension were back in his face. “Yes, I'm awake,” she said, her mouth feeling dry. “What is it?”

“Come on,” he said, taking her hand and urging her upward. “You need to see this.”

Abruptly, the memories of the night flooded back. “I can't,” she protested, even as she swung her legs over the side of the bench. “He took my plate.”

“Who, Sergeant Royce?” Clay asked, frowning.

Aimee shook her head. “One of the Stryders.”

Clay's eyes widened. “One of the
Stryders?
But …”

He inhaled sharply, his face abruptly changing. “Oh, my God,” he said softly. “So
that's
it. Come on, you
definitely
need to see this.”

There was something in his voice that stifled all further protest. Standing up, she let him lead her across the Sanctuary circle.

There, lying on his back in the square a few meters outside the hedge, was a Stryder.

Dead.

Aimee caught her breath. “What—”

“He was there when I got back a few minutes ago,” Clay told her. “We can check your husband's plate record, but I'm betting he's the one who killed him.”

He gestured toward the Stryder. “Which must be why the other Stryder took your plate. So he could figure out who he was, too.”

“I don't understand,” Aimee said, unable to take her eyes off the body. She was so accustomed to thinking of the Stryders as messengers of death that it was a shock to see one lying there dead himself. “What's he doing here?”

“Don't you see?” Clay said quietly. “He killed your husband. Only he shouldn't have, because your husband hadn't done anything wrong.”

Aimee turned to him, sudden understanding twisting through her heart. “Are you saying … ?”

“Your husband didn't break protocol, Aimee,” Clay said. “Neither did you. It was the
Stryder
who broke it.”

His lips compressed briefly. “And even for Stryders, I guess, the penalty for breaking protocol is death.”

Aimee looked out at the body again, a dark and depressing confusion tugging at her emotions. “They're trapped by it too,” she said quietly. “For all their cold-blooded killing, they're as trapped by the protocol as we are.”

“So it seems,” Clay agreed. “Well. Come on, let's get you a new plate, and I'll escort you home.”

“It's not that easy,” Aimee said, looking at him again. “What about him?”

Clay frowned. “What do you mean? What about him?”

“What do we do with the body?” Aimee asked. “Do we leave it there for the Stryders to collect? Or do we bury it, or build a funeral pyre, or walk in a circle around it with our heads bowed, or what? What's the protocol for this?”

The tension lines were back in Clay's face. “Oh, my God,” he breathed. “We'd better get someone out to the Pyramid. And fast.”

Old-Boy Network

The sunlight was glowing softly through Rey's eyelids when he woke up that last morning. For a few minutes he just lay there, luxuriating under the warm weight of the blankets and comforter, happy to be alive.

She had smiled at him again.

He smiled himself at the thought. The left side of his mouth didn't join in the smile, of course, but for once he almost didn't even care. At first the half-paralyzed face had bothered him terribly, even more than having been made a cripple. But today, none of it seemed to matter.

Because it hadn't seemed to matter to her. And if it didn't matter to her, it certainly shouldn't matter to him.

She had smiled at him. For the fifth time in the past four weeks—he'd been keeping count—she had smiled at him.

He yawned deeply. “Curtains: open,” he called.

From across the room came a soft hum as the filmy curtains were pulled aside. He pried open his eyelids—rather literally in the case of his left eyelid, which had a tendency to glue itself shut overnight—and looked outside.

The sun was high up over the stark Martian landscape. He'd slept in unusually late this morning.

But that was all right. Unless and until Mr. Quillan called for him, his time was his own.

And if that call held off, and if he was lucky, he might see
her
again.

His chair was waiting beside his bed where he'd left it. Throwing back the blankets, he maneuvered himself to the edge of the bed and got himself into it. “Chair: bathroom,” he ordered.

Obediently, the chair rolled across the room and through the wide door of his bathroom. He took care of the usual morning business; and then it was time for a quick shower. The breakfast he'd ordered last night should be waiting by the time he was done.

Idly, he wondered what the meal would consist of. Mr. Quillan had been talking with the other men and women on the Network quite a lot lately, and that much TabRasa sometimes played funny games with his memory in general. Still, surprises could be pleasant, too.

By the time Rey was dressed and back in his chair the tantalizing aroma of Belgian waffles was wafting through the bathroom door. He rather hoped he'd asked for bacon with it, but it turned out he'd ordered a side of sausage instead.

No problem. He liked sausage too. He would just order bacon tomorrow.

Maneuvering his chair up to the table, wondering what
she
liked for breakfast, he began to eat.

“So this is Mars,” Hendrik Thorwald commented, gently swirling his coffee cup as he gazed out the floor-to-ceiling windows at the landscape and the cluster of domes that made up Makaris City. “Not nearly as claustrophobic as the Ganymede Domes.”

“That's because here you can at least walk around outside without a full vacuum suit,” Archer Quillan pointed out, sipping at his own spiced coffee as he watched the circling motion of the other's cup. It was almost as if Thorwald thought he was holding a brandy snifter.

A simple nervous habit? Or did it imply that the man drank too much?

Neither added up to much of a recommendation, in Quillan's book. But in this case, Quillan's book didn't matter. Thorwald's net worth had reached the magic trillion-dollar mark, and McCade wanted him in, and that was that. His wealth had made him an Old Boy, as McCade sardonically called them, and he would be offered a spot in the Old-Boy Network.

“Of course, you need an air supply and parka,” Thorwald said. “Still, it's not as cold as the travel books make it sound.”

“Hardly worse than a typical Swedish winter, I imagine,” Quillan said politely.

“Hardly at all.” Turning away from the window, Thorwald resettled himself in his chair to face Quillan again. “But you didn't ask me all the way to Mars to compare weather. We've had our breakfast; we've had our coffee. Let's talk business.”

“Indeed,” Quillan agreed. Straight and direct, with neither belligerence nor apology. Much better. “Actually, it's not so much business as it is an invitation. You've reached the magic trillion-dollar mark, and the thirty or so of us already in that rather exclusive club would like to congratulate you on your achievement.”

Thorwald inclined his head slightly. “Thank you.”

“But as you'll soon realize, if you haven't already, making a trillion dollars is only the first step,” Quillan continued. “The challenge now is to hold onto it. Currently, you're Target Number One for every con man, minor competitor, and ambitious young Turk in Northern Europe, all of whom hope to pry some of that money away from you.”

“Joined by every governmental taxing agency from Earth to the Jovian Moons and back again,” Thorwald added sourly.

“Absolutely,” Quillan said. “And with all of them nipping at your heels, I would venture to guess that your biggest headache these days is that of secure communications.”

“Hardly an insightful guess,” Thorwald pointed out. “That's
everyone's
biggest headache. Even the best encryption methods I can get my hands on can't keep up with the government snoops and industrial spies.”

“Indeed,” Quillan said. “And of course, there's also that awkward time-lag whenever you're transmitting across the Solar System. It would be nice to eliminate that, wouldn't it?”

The gentle swirling of the coffee cup came to a halt. “I seem to remember from school that that's a basic limitation of the universe,” he said, his eyes searching Quillan's face.

“That's what they taught in my school, too,” Quillan said. “Tell me, Hendrik: what would you give to have an absolutely secure information and transmission channel? I mean
absolutely
secure?”

Thorwald snorted gently. “Half my fortune. Cash.”

Quillan smiled. “Then you're looking at a real bargain,” he said. “All it will cost you is a mere eight hundred million dollars. Paid to the right people, of course.”

Carefully, Thorwald set his cup on the polished crystal coffee table. “Tell me more.”

“I'll do better,” Quillan said, getting to his feet. “I'll show you.”

“Downstairs?” the broad-shouldered man repeated, his thick forehead wrinkling. “You were just downstairs yesterday.”

“Because downstairs is where the piano is,” Rey said, the frozen left half of his mouth slurring the words slightly. Grond was one of Rey's caretakers, which meant he was on call whenever Rey needed something his chair or automated suite couldn't handle.

He was also, Rey had long ago decided, something of a private watchdog.

“Yeah, but so what?” Grond grunted. “You've got a perfectly good keyboard in your room.”

“That's a keyboard,” Rey explained patiently. “The piano downstairs is a baby grand. There's a big difference in how it sounds.”

The wrinkles deepened. Obviously, that was something Grond had never noticed. Possibly music itself was something Grond had never noticed. “Mr. Quillan isn't going to like you going downstairs all the time.”

“He's never said I couldn't,” Rey countered. “Just that he didn't want me talking to anyone.”

“Yeah, but every
day
?” Grond objected. “You're up and down those stairs like a yo-yo.”

“Would you rather get a couple of guys and move the piano upstairs?” Rey suggested helpfully.

Grond exhaled disgustedly. “Fine. Whatever you want.”

“Thank you,” Rey said. “Chair: library.”

He felt his heart starting to pound as the chair passed the second floor landing and began climbing down the wide staircase. Down here, on the mansion's first floor, was where
she
worked.
Let her be working in the library today
, he pleaded silently with the universe.
Please. Let her be in the library.

There were three women in traditional black-and-white maid's outfits working on the brass and wrought iron when Rey reached the bottom of the stairs. None of them was her.

As usual, none of the maids even looked up as the chair rolled along the hallway toward the library. It was as if Rey didn't even exist. Maybe they all had orders to treat him that way.

Or maybe they just didn't like him. No one here really liked him.

Except.

There were two other maids dusting the old-style books lining the shelves as he rolled through the library door. Again,
she
wasn't among them.

Rey's heartbeat slowed back to a quiet ache as he made his way across to the baby grand piano, trying hard not to let the disappointment drag him down. All right, so two days in a row had been too much to expect. He would see her again. Maybe tomorrow.

“You got half an hour,” Grond warned, crossing the room ahead of him and moving the piano bench out of the way. “Then it's back upstairs.”

Rey nodded, not trusting himself to speak. He settled his chair in place in front of the keyboard and punched in Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata on the music desk. Tentatively, he began to play.

He wasn't very good at it. In fact, he rather hated playing the baby grand. There was no way to play it quietly, and every mistake and hesitation seemed to echo accusingly back across the room at him. Grond's glowering presence a few steps away didn't help, either.

But he had to pretend he was enjoying himself. This piano was his best excuse for coming downstairs, and he didn't dare let Grond know the truth.

He had finished playing what he could of the Beethoven and had shifted to some easier Stephen Foster when a movement across the room caught the corner of his eye. He turned his head to look—

And felt his heart leap like an excited child.

It was
her
.

His breath felt suddenly on fire in his chest as he watched her walk alongside the shelves, a brass-polishing kit in her hand. So far she hadn't looked his direction; but her path was bringing her ever closer to the piano. Eventually, he knew, she would have to notice him.

And when that happened, would she smile again?

He kept playing, his suddenly stiff fingers feeling as wooden as xylophone keys. She was coming closer, and closer …

And then, just before it seemed impossible that she could avoid seeing him, she looked over at the piano. Her large brown eyes met his—

And she smiled.

It was like the first drink of water splashing down a throat of a weary desert traveler. This was no ordinary smile, not just the kind a proper servant would politely offer one of the master's other employees. This was a real, genuine smile. The kind of smile a person saved for a good friend.

He had no illusions as to what she could see in him, not in this wheelchair and all. But between Mr. Quillan, the unsmiling caretakers, and the rest of the oblivious household staff, he longed for someone who he could just talk to. Someone who could care for him solely for who he was. Someone who could be his friend.

Maybe, just maybe, she could be that friend.

“Susan?” someone called from the doorway.

Her eyes and smile lingered on Rey's face for another second, lighting his heart and soul. Then, almost reluctantly, he thought, she turned back toward the door. “Yes?” she called.

Susan
. So now he had a name to go with the face and the smile.
Susan
.

“You haven't finished out here yet,” a woman's voice said, an undertone of disapproval to it. “Come do this first.”

“Yes, ma'am,” Susan said. “I'm coming.”

Her eyes flicked back to Rey, and she smiled again. Not the same wide smile as the first, but a smaller, private one. The kind of smile shared by friends who are both in on the same private secret.

The kind of smile that promised she would be back later.

She turned and walked across the room. Rey watched her go, the image of that smile dancing in front of his eyes.

He was sure of it now. She would be his friend.

There was a heavy tap on Rey's shoulder. “You going to play, or what?” Grond rumbled.

With a mild surprise, Rey realized his fingers had come to a halt. “Of course I'm going to play,” he said, shifting back to the Beethoven with new vigor. Susan would be back, just as soon as she'd finished out there. She would be back, and she would smile at him again. Beneath his fingers the piano was singing now—

And then, from his chair, came a soft trilling sound.

He could have cried.
No
, he begged the universe.
No. Not now. Not when she'll be coming back any minute.

But the universe didn't care. With a tired sigh, he let his fingers come to a halt again on the keys. “Chair: Mr. Quillan's office,” he ordered sadly.

The master had called, and it was time to go to work.

“The basic neurological theories are obscure, but there for the taking,” Quillan said as he gestured Thorwald to a chair in his private, ultra-secure third-floor office. “The genius of our associate in Ghana was in pulling it all together. And, of course, having the will to act on it.”

“Telepathy.” Thorwald shook his head, as if not sure he approved of the word. “Frankly, I wouldn't have believed it.”

Quillan smiled. “Frankly, you still don't,” he said. “That's why you're here. McCade thought you'd find the demonstration more effective if you were a few million kilometers away from him at the time.”

Across the room, the door chimed. Quillan keyed the remote, and the panel slid open to reveal Rey in his chair. “Come in, Rey,” he invited. “Hendrik, this is Rey, my personal terminal of the Old-Boy Network. Seventeen years old, in case you're wondering. The younger they are when we get them, the better they react to the procedure.”

“A cripple?” Thorwald said, frowning.

“An unavoidable side effect of the process,” Quillan explained as Rey rolled into the room, the door sealing shut behind him. “It turns out the human brain hasn't got enough spare neurological capacity to handle telepathy. Some creative clearing and retasking is needed.”