Treasure of Light (The Light Trilogy) (19 page)

She frowned, thoughts drifting from her father to the young man with black curly hair and back again.

CHAPTER 13

Cole Tahn weakly pushed the gray blanket off his chest and rolled onto his side, blinking at the hazy ceiling. His flesh burned hot with fever. Thirst plagued him. Dim green light from his com terminal lit the overhead panels so that they looked like fuzzy patches of grass. His thoughts drifted to Old Earth, the grass around the Cathedral of Notre Dame. Bodies piled ten feet high around the magnificent structure, blood spattering the ancient stones …

“Stop,”
he commanded himself with as much strength as he could muster. With effort, the wrenching vision dissolved.

He heaved a small sigh of relief. How long had he been out, he wondered? Hours? Days? He recalled a series of vivid hallucinations, dreams which threw him back to the hellholes of Paris, Orillas VII, and Kayan. He took a deep breath and the room swirled around him. He braced a hand against his bedside desk to still it.

“What a … headache.”

His skull throbbed agonizingly, as if his brain might burst through the sutures at any moment. Gently, he tried to push up on one elbow to reach for his blurry water glass, but the effort sent his mind tumbling, thought after thought, memory after memory. From the corner of his eye, he saw his door slip open. A long rectangle of bright light slid into the room. He blinked and fell back to his sweat-soaked sheets. Closing his eyes, he struggled to control the cascading images.

“Are you finally awake?” Halloway called irreverently.

“You don’t… sound happy about it.”

He pried an eye open; even that hurt hellaciously. A nebulous purple splotch wavered near his door.

“Oh, but I am. Now I can stop wasting energy cursing you.”

“Glad to … to finally be of some use. How long … how long has it been?”

“Since the takeover? Forty hours and twenty-two minutes.”

Carey methodically went around the room, dragging a chair with her, checking every monitor, undoubtedly disconnecting each. He closed his eyes and listened to her quiet movements.

“Don’t you think … Baruch … will catch on?”

“Certainly. But for now we’re safe.” She moved closer, the purple splotch hovering over his bed. He squinted and thought he could make out the shape of her face. Her eyes looked more red than green.

“You look like hell,” he commented conversationally.

“Probably because I’ve been slaving to kill a dozen spies and their cohorts, keep a hysterical crew under control, maneuver around a herd of insane Gamants, and deal with the worry I’ve harbored about you.”

He smiled. “Hand me my water glass?”

She sat on the edge of his bed, sliding an arm beneath his shoulders to gently lift him. Then he felt the glass touch his lips and he drank greedily. Liquid spilled from the corners of his mouth to run coolly over his bare chest. He finished it and let his head fall back against her arm.

“Better?”

He nodded, but as she pulled her arm from beneath his shoulders, his mind tumbled again. Confused memories telescoping, coming close and fading away. Where was he? Suddenly, he couldn’t remember. He shook his head, struggling to recall. In the background he heard the shrill whine-of cannon fire.

“Cole, are you all right?”

“Daryl?”
Paris. 5407. Daryl Williston, his voice had sounded a little like that before a cobalt mortar landed on top of him.

“No, Captain. It’s Carey.”

Images of yellow skies filled with airborne dust pulsed behind his closed eyes. He could smell the vile metallic odors of ionized air and blood. Williston gave him a look of utter terror. “Daryl, get the
hell
out of here! I gave you a direct order. What do you—”

Explosion. Dirt cascading. Someone screaming …

“Captain.
Do you remember that Jeremiel Baruch captured the
Hoyer?”

“Baruch?” His mind struggled to sort images of war in the Akiba system from those on Old Earth. “He … he what?”

“He took our ship.”

Not Daryl. A female voice, it rang with such foreboding, it brought him back. He shuddered, twining fingers in his damp blanket. The landing bay … Baruch smashing him again and again with his pistol… trap,
ambush
… first alert sirens ringing … Carey’s hard voice demanding, “Cole?
Cole!
We’ve got to get out of here!”

“I remember—Carey.”

“Good. Lie still. We’ve got a doctor coming in about ten minutes to take a look at you.”

“Doctor? But I thought … When Baruch decompressed—”

“Yes, they’re all dead,” she said matter-of-factly. “He’s sending us a doctor from his own staff. Somebody named Severns.”

He threw her a cockeyed look. “Search him … before he touches me, all right?”

“Don’t worry, Cole. Baruch assured me he wanted to kill you himself.”

Bizarrely, he felt like laughing. But he figured it would kill him, so he didn’t. “How’s the crew?”

She shrugged, puffing a taut breath. “Not well. I had to order the screens on the bridge turned off. Every time we cross the path of the decompression, Hera keeps searching the bodies outside for Kevin.”

Hera’s husband had worked in Security on level eighteen, surrounded by a dozen major hatches. He’d almost certainly been sucked out.

“Carey? What’s the crew … thinking about me?” Even in his haze and pain, he’d been worried to death about that. Surely the ones who’d lost family would be blaming him, praying he’d die. When he was able to take control again, would they obey his commands?

“They’re worried, Cole. Some of them aren’t sure they can trust your judgment. But most of them are with you.
I’m with you.
You know that.”

“I … I know that.”

With hushed violence Carey demanded, “Goddamn it, Cole, what are we going to do? To kill the Clandestine moles I made a deal with Baruch that our people would willingly comply with his orders. Our—”

“Good. You … should have.”

“But it scares me to death. Our techno-science division is training his people. He’s got two thousand civilians crawling all over our ship and he’s bringing up more.
What are our options?”

Pain ran rampant through his mind, images of flashing rifles and dying crew bursting wide. He sucked in a deep breath. “What actions … have you …”

She stood up and started pacing. “I sabotaged the long-range com link, but I suspect he’ll find the problem soon.”

“Maybe not. If somebody … trans and can’t—”

“I’m praying that happens. But we can’t count on the cavalry coming over the hill.”

“Can you get… to level seven?”

“He’s forbidden it so far.”

“What about Dannon? Did he … did he survive?”

She stopped pacing to stare down at him. “Did you want him to?”

“Not really. I just… thought he might come in handy.” Everybody on board despised Neil Dannon, but Tahn had special reasons for hating his guts.

Carey started to laugh, a strange, near desperate sound. Since he felt the same way, he chuckled with her—and instantly regretted it. His head felt as though it would shatter like a glass vase dropped from a five-story building. “Carey … when possible … get to seven … to Millhyser. Get… get organized.”

“I will. We’ve already arranged a roundabout course of message delivering. I’ll have Macey slip data through to Phil Cohen or someone.”

“Good.”

He thought he saw Carey run a hand through her hair, but it was a splotch on splotch movement so he couldn’t be sure. Her voice came out soft, strained. “I’ve missed you, Cole.”

He smiled warmly. “Glad to be back.” He tried to reach up and pour himself another glass of water, but his hand shook too badly.

“Let me do that for you.” She walked over and he heard the splash of water. Gently, she lifted his head again, tipping the glass to his lips. He drank and drank until he emptied it.

“I should probably let you get back to sleep.” She eased his head back against his pillow and stood. “I’ll go to the bridge. The doctor will be here any minute.”

“Carey? You … scared?”

“Terrified.”

“Don’t be. Baruch … may have taken …
Hoyer,
but he can’t… can’t hold her.”

“I think you’re right. If he keeps bringing up more Gamants, it won’t be long until he overloads the
Hoyer’s
systems. When his people are going hungry and can’t get enough water, tensions will rise. He’ll have his hands full just managing his own refugees’ quarrels. And it won’t be long until Palaia realizes we haven’t called in to report the completion of our Horeb assignment. We might be dead before they get here, but—”

“No … we won’t.”

She took a deep breath and spread her feet, looking like she’d just braced herself for hand-to-hand combat. “You have more faith in the Magistrates than I do.”

A treasonous tone flamed in her voice. Damn, why did she do that to him so often lately? It set him on edge and she knew it, ringing like an ominous warning bell inside him. He lay still, thinking, until he felt the silence so desperately, he knew he had to get up, to get the crew organized himself. He pushed up on his elbows and a sharp pain nearly fragmented his skull. He fell back weakly, thoughts rolling, jumbling, pieces of images swirling, slips of different voices shouting. …

Carey watched him writhing and her heart pounded. She shouldn’t have come. But she’d needed to talk to him, to bolster her own flagging spirits.

“Maggie?” Tahn called frantically. “Don’t… don’t leave me.” He feebly lifted a hand, reaching out.

Carey felt like she intruded on some private memory. But she couldn’t force herself to leave him in this condition. She’d wait with him until the doctor came. Resolutely, she walked to his liquor cabinet. Removing a bottle of scotch and a glass, she poured herself a stiff drink and looked down at him. His pale face contorted against the pain. “This is a hell of a mess we’re in, Cole.”

She paced anxiously, distracting herself by wondering who Maggie was? Some lost lover? She knew Tahn’s open personnel record nearly as well as her own, but they didn’t put things like that in open files. Thank God. If they did, somebody might know about the corporal who’d dumped her in Academy and how she’d damn near fallen to pieces over it. Curious, she thought sarcastically, that Tahn’s memories would trigger her own of Buchard Mead. Bucky. Sonofabitch.

She took a strong belt of scotch. It burned a pathway down her throat, warming her mangled stomach. From the hallway, a loud thud rang. She whirled, heart in her throat. Probably cleanup crews washing the corridor, but in Tahn’s mind they came from some distant memory.

“No!” he screamed. “No! Don’t!
Oh, God,
Annum.
Not… our fault! Com malfunction. We… Let me … let me talk to Slothen himself, damn it!”
He raised his hands to his head, squeezing hard as he tossed from side to side.

“Cole! Stop it! You’re on the
Hoyer.
You’re safe!” What a lie that was.

“Hoyer?”

“Yes, your ship. We’re still circling the godforsaken planet of Horeb.”

He shook his head, as though clearing the feverish mental fog. “No. No…. Oh, God. Even if we … Pegasus …”

He turned toward her and the soft pained look in his usually hard eyes made her feel like he’d ripped her guts out. Vague memories of the name,
Annum,
tried to stir, but she couldn’t place it. However, she knew quite well what he meant by the Pegasus Invasion. He’d spent six months in a rehab center after he’d crawled out of his torture cage, unable to sleep a full night without waking screaming. The Magistrates had given him a commendation letter accompanying his promotion to captain: “For uncommon courage and indomitable will,” it had said. She’d often wondered specifically what had happened to him, but the psych files had been closed by Slothen’s personal order. Had this concussion tapped into those forbidden neural pathways? It might be dangerous for all of them if it had.

“Cole,” she assured him, “you’re not on Earth. The year is 5414. Calm down.”

“No, I … I’m so frightened, Maggie. Glatzer has filed charges. I—I don’t….
Hold me?”

He weakly lifted his arms out to her. She put her glass down and sat on his bedside again, hugging his shoulders. “You’re safe, Cole. Get some sleep.”

He tightened his arms around her back and feebly pulled her against his bare chest, tenderly rubbing his chin in her hair. “Never safe … no … never.
Annum … Annum.”

Drained from his outburst, he blinked wearily, drifting off. His arms slowly slid back to his sides. Carey got up and reached fox her scotch, downing the entire glassful. Then she poured herself another and resumed her pacing. What the hell was the
Annum?
And why did it disturb him so? Would he be stable enough to command after the doctor treated him? How would he perform under pressure?

Halloway shook her head. After several minutes and another healthy belt of scotch, the com rang. She strode to answer it and grimaced when the door snicked back.