Voice of the Whirlwind (35 page)

Steward saw now that she was wearing a tailored blue jacket with an ID holobadge clipped to the collar. secdiv, it said.

“You work for Curzon,” he said thickly.

Her look was matter-of-fact. “Have all along,” she said. “I’m plant security now.”

Steward tried to grin but a pulse of pain ran up his side and he gasped instead. There was a flash of concern in Wandis’s eyes. “Debriefing,” he said. “Isn’t ‘interrogation’ the word you’re looking for?”

“Whatever you like,” she said. Wandis stood up, and behind her, a battery of floodlights turned on. She dissolved to a fractured silhouette. Pain stabbed Steward’s eyes and he turned his head away. He heard footsteps, then another voice.

“Steward.” The voice was mild, unconcerned. The English was lightly accented, and Steward assumed it belonged to Curzon. “We’re here to learn the truth.”

“Écrasez l’infâme,” Steward said. “Will that do?”

A pause. “We’re going to find the truth, Steward. We have drugs, we have power over you. Most of all, we have time.
All the time necessary to find out what we need to know.” He cleared his throat, a cold sound. “You’ve already been condemned, you know. Three of the people in this room are empowered to constitute an emergency security tribunal. We’ve passed sentence on you. All that remains to be done is fill in the forms.” Another throat clearing, even colder. “A great many forms, unfortunately. Irregular procedures, however legal, must always be justified by an expansion of the bureaucracy.”

“You have my sympathy,” Steward said. Things were still crawling over his skin.

“The sentence was death.”

Steward turned to him and gave him a grin. “Is that supposed to terrify me?” Through slitted eyes he saw that the voice was Curzon’s. He was standing nearer, under the lights, while the others were behind him, seated at a desk. Probably watching the monitors that were supposed to monitor Steward’s state of mind.

Curzon’s arm was wrapped in bandages and hanging in a sling. That last wild shot into the bar had actually hit him. Steward squinted at him, saw his paleness, the little hint of pain in his eyes. He’d probably had a broken arm and lost a certain amount of blood.

“The law requires I tell you the sentence,” Curzon was saying. “Now it’s on the record of the proceedings. I don’t care whether you’re terrified or not. You’ve ceased to become a problem other than a bureaucratic one.” Pause. “I suppose I should also tell you that we can rescind the sentence, provided you cooperate with us, et cetera. Understand, Mr. Steward?”

“A ray of hope. How nice.”

The bright lights were making Steward’s eyes water. He looked away. Insect legs dug into his skin. He tried to shift his position, failed.

“Are you uncomfortable, Mr. Steward?” Another voice. Steward squinted at it, found it belonged to the man in the white coat.

“Yes,” Steward said.

“The drug we used to bring you to consciousness may cause some discomfort. It will be momentary.”

“Thanks.”

“We haven’t given you any painkillers. They would make you drowsy. So there may be pain as well.”

“I’ll be on the alert for it. Thanks again.” He closed his eyes.

Curzon’s voice came back. “Shall we begin, then?”

Steward didn’t answer. He wished the sheet he was wrapped in would permit him to shrug.

“Who are your contacts on Ricot?”

A smile, the sort made when you know the truth won’t be believed. “I don’t have any.”

“Who are you working for?”

“Myself.”

“Does that mean you are a mercenary?”

“That means I am working on my own behalf.”

“No one hired you to kill St. Cyr.”

“No one.”

There was a pause. “These are the answers we expected, Mr. Steward.”

Steward grimaced through a spasm of pain. “Then you are not disappointed,” he said.

“They are the answers any agent would give—that he acted alone, under no one’s instructions.”

Steward again suppressed his urge to shrug.

“Untrue answers will drag out these proceedings,” Curzon said. “We will find out the truth regardless. You can only delay matters.”

Steward looked at him. “Take all the time you need. I’ve got nothing else planned for today.” Pain throbbed in his forehead at the intensity of the light.

“Why did you kill St. Cyr?” The question came quickly, a riposte.

Steward closed his eyes against the floods. There was a bright yellow glow on the backs of his lids. His skin crawled and he tried to ignore it. “Because St. Cyr tried to kill me. Back when his name was de Prey. He sold out my unit, and a lot of friends died.”

“Icehawks.”

“That’s right, buck.”

“Why did you try to kill me?”

Steward looked into the lights. “Because you killed me, Curzon. Brought me out of Vesta just to put an ice jacket on me.”

There was an intake of breath from somewhere behind the lights. Steward tried to find Wandis behind the floods. “Is that a surprise, Wandis? You didn’t know Curzon had your husband killed?”

“That,” said Curzon, “is untrue.”

Steward laughed. The drug and pain put a nasty edge to the laugh. “Now who’s not telling the truth?”

Curzon’s voice was calm. “Steward died on Vesta. The extraction went wrong. We only got the body back.”

“Rien n’est beau que le vrai,” Steward said, a proverb. For Wandis’s benefit he repeated in English. “Nothing is beautiful but the truth. Your lies reek, Curzon.”

“I want to find out about this.” A flat declarative from Wandis.

“Someone’s programmed him,” Curzon said. His voice showed no excitement, nothing that proclaimed Steward’s allegation was worth his consideration. “Someone who wanted me to die.” He cleared his throat. “Wandis, I’ll show you the reports. You can talk to the pilot if you like.”

“I’d like that.”

“Wandis,” Steward said. “Pilots lie. Reports lie.”

Curzon cleared his throat again. Steward wondered if he had a head cold. “Our information shows you were implanted with memories fifteen years out of date. You can’t have experienced anything since before the war. Is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“So where did you get your information, Mr. Steward?”

Steward laughed. “From me. My former personality. He sent me a message, saying you were going to kill him.”

“You believed him.”

“Wandis.” Steward peered urgently into the darkness behind the lights. “He sent the message after he got out of Vesta.” A lie, but Steward reckoned that even if their monitors showed the lie for what it was, it wouldn’t matter much—it wouldn’t put him in a worse position.

“The point is, they wanted de Prey,” Steward said. “I killed him on Vesta, and then Consolidated stole his clone and memory threads when they took over LifeLight Insurance. He was more valuable to Consolidated than I was, and if I returned from Vesta to find de Prey here, that might make me…I don’t know. Rebellious…difficult. So Curzon had me killed. The reward for doing a good job for him.”

Wandis didn’t answer. Instead the next voice was Curzon’s. “You received a communication from your—former personality…”

“My Alpha.”

“From your Alpha. Informing you that de Prey had betrayed him and that I had killed him. And that’s the sole reason you have for trying to assassinate us?”

“I suppose I could have sought a murder indictment in Flagstaff. But I don’t think that would have done much good.”

Steward had the impression the people behind the desk were consulting. Running the conversation back through their monitors, trying to certify the truth of Steward’s statements.

He smelled tobacco. Someone in the room was smoking. The scent made Steward’s mouth water. He was grateful for the returning moisture.

Curzon cleared his throat. “I think,” he said, “that Wandis and Dr. Nubar can leave. Mr. Steward and I are about to begin discussion of things for which they do not possess the proper clearance.”

Steward laughed. “Right. Grownup talk now. The boys and girls may leave.”

Curzon continued unruffled. “Thank you both. Wandis, I think you can go home. Dr. Nubar, I’d like you to wait at your station in case I need you.”

There were the sounds of feet, a door opening, more feet, a door closing. Pain filled Steward’s eyes, his brain. He wondered if he’d just wrecked Wandis’s career. If Curzon thought she believed him, it was possible she’d be under suspicion in case she tried to avenge the Alpha, or spread a scandal about his death.

That was stupid of him, if that was what he’d just done. He was going to have to attempt better control. With the pain and the lights and the speed they’d just shot into him, control was going to be difficult to achieve. He began breathing, trying
to use his training, establish control of himself.

I have no tactics
, he thought
. I make existence and the void my tactics
.

The floodlights died, and Steward breathed his relief. Their brightness still burned behind his lids. The pain in his head receded slightly. He heard Curzon moving, sitting in the chair Wandis had used, clearing his throat again.

I have no talent. I make a quick mind my talent
.

The blaze slowly faded from Steward’s vision. He opened his eyes, saw Curzon frowning down at him. There was a plastic headset on his balding skull, electrodes pressed against the skin, allowing him, Steward assumed, to monitor the readouts connected to Steward’s body and brain.

I have no castle. The immutable spirit is my castle
.

“You are correct in one thing,” Curzon said. “I had your Alpha killed.”

Steward’s mind flooded with surprise, followed instantly by suspicion. If Curzon was this open, there was a reason.

“I hope it didn’t cost you too much paperwork,” Steward said.

“There were overriding reasons,” Curzon said, “which you cannot appreciate.”

I have no sword
, Steward thought, and the thought was triumphant.
From the state which is above and beyond, from thought I make my sword.

Steward barked a laugh. “I can appreciate bacteriological attacks on an alien race. I can appreciate a Brigadier-Director having a colleague assassinated after successfully completing a dangerous mission. I can appreciate the value of a man as cynical and evil as de Prey.” He glared at Curzon. “I am not lacking appreciation for the details of your business. So tell me your reasons. Maybe I can appreciate them, too.”

Curzon reached with his good hand into his pocket for a tissue and blew his nose, then leaned back in his chair and looked at Steward. He still wore a fairly abstracted frown, looking like a middle-aged exec working at a difficult acrostic, a purely intellectual problem.

“Your Alpha,” Curzon said, “went to his death with a certain grace. Death was what he wanted, Steward—he never convinced himself he should have survived Sheol. But he wanted an honorable death, and he wanted to accomplish certain tasks beforehand. The de Prey mission, mainly. I think he was happy when he died.”

“Nice of you to help him along. When you kill me, I suppose you’ll be doing me a favor as well.”

“Perhaps I will not kill you. Perhaps not.” Spoken as if the possibility was somehow intriguing. Salesman genes, Steward thought. Lies built right into the DNA.

“If I cooperate,” he said.

Curzon shrugged. “Your cooperation is irrelevant. We have our methods, we have all the time we need. The answers we want are assured one way or the other. No”—a brisk shake of the head—“I think I may recruit you instead.”

Steward laughed. A spear of pain entered his side and he gasped for air.

Curzon showed no surprise at the laughter, no resentment. His voice continued in the same quiet fashion. Steward began breathing again, striving for control. Speed ran down his flesh like nails on a slate.

“I think your Alpha wanted to give himself to our purpose, but he was too scarred by his personal trauma to appreciate what we were trying to build here. He affected cynical, mercenary attitudes for which I have little patience or respect—people whose loyalty can be bought have never impressed me. De Prey, for example. He would work for me, for Vesta, for the Powers if they gave him what he wanted. He was of limited value—we could not trust him. He could indoctrinate ideals into others but he had none himself.” His voice turned meditative. “I wonder if your Alpha realized how much his attitudes made him like the man he wanted to kill.”

Steward shook his head. “You’re a gem, Carlos Dancer Curzon. A real original.”

Curzon looked at him. “No. Not at all. I am simply a man superbly adapted for his work. As are you.” He looked at the woman in uniform. “As is Colonel Godunov, sitting behind her desk.” His eyes turned to Steward. “As is our Prime, Mr. Steward. The undisputed king of his people.”

Steward said nothing. Curzon tilted his head to one side, looking at his problem from another angle. The gesture was spoiled when he went into a brief spasm of coughing. He cleared his throat and dabbed his tissue to his lips. “Bronchitis,” he said. “Just getting over it.” He stuffed the tissue into his breast pocket, then frowned down at Steward once again. There was something merry in his eyes. Like Father Christmas.

“What do you know, Mr. Steward, about the Powers?”

“They’re hierarchical. Alien. Complicated. Not like us. I know you sent my Alpha to kill Vesta’s Prime and a lot of his people, but Prime-of-the-Right escaped. I know that Powers are addictive to people with the vee tag, that their aerosol hormones make the addicts think the Powers are God.”

Curzon stiffened in surprise, and shot a quick glance at Godunov. Steward rejoiced at getting a reaction out of the man at last.

When Curzon spoke, his voice was meditative. “It is going to be more difficult to keep you alive than I expected, Mr. Steward. Most people who find these things out simply disappear.”

“Can you loosen this sheet around my shoulders? I’d like to be able to shrug.” Steward bit back on his words. The speed was making him talkative, and every word he spoke was monitored, compared against every other word, forming a pool of data against which to test his future reactions. He had always been told that during interrogation he should keep his answers short and simple, and never elaborate or launch into long-winded explanations. Interrogators wanted their prisoners to get boastful and talkative—it gave them so much more rope with which to lasso their victims. Steward started his regular breathing again, tried to concentrate on something else. Constellations, as he had on Vesta. Make the universe in his skull.
M44
, he thought. Where the hell was it?