Between Darkness and Light (85 page)

“I'll take that as a yes for the meal,” said M'kou as they left.

 

His sleep was unsettled, full of disturbing images of home and those he'd loved. The sound of Shaidan's whimpering finally awakened him. Still groggy with sleep, he reached out for the light, switching it on at the dim setting, then held his son's trembling body closer to his own.

“What is it, korrai?” he mumbled as the cub wound his hands in the longer pelt on his chest. “What's wrong? There's nothing to be afraid of, we're safe here.”

“You were upset,” Shaidan said, nuzzling his face up under his chin. “I felt them, the pale female and another, talking about you.”

He froze, all traces of sleep gone from his mind. “What did you say?”

“I sensed them from you, the ones I think I remember.”

“You can't have,” he said automatically.

“I did. You could feel them, far away, and it upset you,” insisted Shaidan. “Who are they? Are they coming here?”

“No, they won't come here,” he said through numbed lips, retreating slowly behind shields that even his son couldn't penetrate as he thought of the message he'd left for them. “They don't know where we are.”

They couldn't come to Kij'ik, why would they? There was nothing he'd said on the crystal to make them come, he'd made sure of that. All he'd done was give them clues as to the cubs' true heritage, and try to reassure them he'd been on a mission and not guilty of the crimes he knew would be laid against him.

“Who are they? Why could you sense them?” Shaidan yawned.

What should he tell him? What
could
he say? “She's a Human, my life-mate, and she was mind-linked to me,” he said slowly, his arms tightening slightly round his son, the words hurting even as he spoke them. “He's my sword-brother. I had to leave them behind when I came here.”

“Will I meet them one day?”

His son's voice was fading as he slipped slowly back to sleep.

“Perhaps,” he whispered as their faces refused to be banished from his mind's eye. Had he somehow been aware of them while he'd slept, and if so, how could Shaidan possibly have sensed them from his thoughts? Why now, of all times? Were they contemplating trying to find him? These questions and more made sleep almost impossible for several hours. Banner's fears might not be so far off the mark after all. He had to ensure that if Carrie and Kaid did turn up, the weapons that would protect Kij'ik couldn't be turned against them.

“Your helmet cam's down, Dzaou,” said Banner, looking at the display terminals. “Power it off and on again.”

“Copy,” said Dzaou, his voice sounding distant.

“Problems?” asked M'zynal.

Banner shook his head as the static on Dzaou's screen went blank. “Probably just a loose connection.”

“You should have vision now,” said Dzaou over the comm system.

“Negative,” he said, glancing at the large wall display they now had to see the telltale tracer that marked Dzaou's position on the deck plans also blink out. “Your tracer's out now. You could have power problems in your suit. Head back to HQ immediately and get maintenance to check it out.”

“Copy that.”

Reaching out, Banner toggled on the ancillary tracer he'd hidden in the older male's suit. For a few minutes he sat watching as the red light began moving in the general direction of their HQ.

“Want me to send out a rescue team to him?” asked M'zynal, glancing over from his own screens.

“No, he's not too far from here,” said Banner, suddenly aware that he'd been tapping his claw tips on the desktop. “I have a backup tracer in his suit.” He lifted his hand, reaching out for the water pack at his side. “He'll be fine.”

For the last few days, Dzaou had been keeping an unusually low profile. He'd been expecting him to do something, which was why he'd planted the extra tracer in his space suit. Automatically, he replied to calls from Khadui and Jayza while watching as Dzaou turned off the main route back to maintenance and headed down a side corridor that would take him close to an area that was marked out as possibly holding an armory.

Leaning forward, he scanned the names on the monitors, matching them with their nearness to Dzaou. The older Sholan may have cut his camera and the tracer, but his comm system was still functioning.

“Maintenance bay crew, be advised we have a possible malfunction on your power routing,” he said. “I'm sending a team to investigate. Zhalmo, take a left and head for the terminal in corridor 3. I'm getting slight fluctuations in the power readings from there. I don't want it cutting out on the team in the maintenance bay.”

“Copy that, Lieutenant,” she said. “On our way.”

Satisfied, he sat back, watching as Zhalmo's group began heading in Dzaou's direction. M'zynal swung round in his chair to glance at him, before returning to study the wall display. Dzaou had now reached the prohibited area and had stopped there. Moments later, he turned sharply and after a brief hesitation beside an intersection, began heading directly to maintenance. Banner made a mental note of the location. Second meal break was coming up in half an hour. He'd have a word with Khadui and get him to check out the intersection when they returned to work.

 

It was a couple of hours into the afternoon shift before Dzaou was able to return to the small pile of tangled wreckage under which he'd stashed the two energy cells. Carefully he moved aside the small pieces of twisted metal and torn carpeting. In the center was a piece of paper. Swearing softly to himself, he picked it up and read it.

“Didn't catch that last remark, Dzaou,” said Banner's voice inside his helmet. “Please repeat it.”

With a low growl, he screwed the paper up and tossed it aside, aiming a vicious kick at the rubbish.

“I said, repeat your last message, Dzaou.”

“Nothing, Lieutenant,” he said, trying to keep his snarl of anger out of his voice. “I tripped over a pile of wreckage, that's all.”

“Copy that. Report to your next location. Zhalmo's team is waiting for you.”

Kusac came round slowly. Despite his muzzy and sore head, he knew something was wrong. Remaining still, he checked that his mental shields were still intact. Finding they were, and none of his alarms were going off, meant he wasn't actually in danger.

The sound of someone's quiet breathing, and a scent—Banner's—told him he wasn't alone. Letting himself come to full wakefulness and extending his senses brought the final pieces of information. He'd been drugged, by Banner, probably with half the normal dose from a trank capsule, and he was lying on an unfamiliar bed with his wrists bound—lightly—to the bed frame. He could almost feel his body working hard to process and purge the drug, but not fast enough for him. Even as he thought it, he felt the process start to speed up, triggering his adrenaline levels among other things. With a detached curiosity, he realized he'd only been out cold for fifteen minutes, half the time expected for a dose that size.

Even as he cursed himself for getting caught like this, he was reaching out mentally to read Banner's surface thoughts. He felt his heart rate and breathing begin to increase and his head began to clear. Time to admit to being awake, before his Second noticed it for himself.

By now he'd recognized where he was—the bedroom of the suite attached to their temple. Originally it had been provided as living quarters for the four Valtegan priests serving the temple, but although the rooms had been opened up and fitted out, they were unused.

Banner was sitting on the chair beside the bed opposite reading something on his comp pad.

“Is this your idea of a joke, Banner?” he asked quietly, resisting the temptation to test the strength of the knots on the bonds.

Banner looked up, his surprise hidden by the time their eyes met. “It's no joke, Kusac,” he said quietly, putting his comp pad away. “Believe me, it's no joke. I've done this to draw your attention to how far you've let yourself slip since we got here.”

His Second got up, and lifting the chair, brought it over to sit closer to him.

Kusac measured the distance between them.

Banner smiled gently and shook his head. “You can't reach me with your feet. I'll let you go as soon as you've heard me out, don't worry. This isn't some kind of takeover of your authority, I'm doing it as a friend.”

That explained why he'd used a trank—it was known to make the recipient amenable. He didn't feel like being that cooperative, especially when he'd been hijacked like this, but he'd better try to play out the part he'd been given.

“I'm listening,” he said, moving his wrists as if to ease them. No give there, and the rope was the fine, silken Brotherhood one, nearly impossible to break.

The muzziness had gone completely now, but he was still left with the feeling of being distanced from everything and everyone but the Doctor that built up in him in the days between his encounters with Zayshul.

“As I said, you've let yourself slip, Kusac. I couldn't have managed to drug you like this when we first arrived here. If I can do it, anyone can.”

He was about to ask how he'd accomplished it when the knowledge came to him—a poison ring with a small extending needle as the delivery system. The Brotherhood manufactured and carried a few of them for its agents, but it wasn't regular issue. It must have been something Banner had brought along himself. Slowly he moved the wrist farthest from Banner, making the bonds taut, then began to rub them slowly up and down the edge of the frame.

“You're my Second in Command, I shouldn't need to keep watching you over my shoulder. I should be able to trust you,” he said.

“That's my point,” said Banner, leaning forward slightly. “Maybe now you feel a little of what I've felt over the last three months. Three out of every five days it's as if you are off on another world. Everyone's noticed it, not just me. They look to me for an explanation and I've none to give them. Khadui suggested it was almost as if you were drugged. I put his mind at rest, but I took the liberty of taking a blood sample from you in case you are being drugged and know nothing about it.” He hesitated. “I take it you haven't a dependence on any medication you've used here?”

Every five days! That was the same pattern as a Leska Link dependency! He felt himself about to break out in a cold sweat until he remembered that they had set this time limit themselves to lessen the risk of being caught.

“I'm not taking any meds right now. Put the sample in the med kit analyzer, did you? You'll be unable to make sense of it,” he said confidently. “Neither you nor it knows what you're looking at in gene-altered blood, never mind finding something foreign.”

“We'll see. I'm a good enough empath to know that there's a lot going on that you're keeping to yourself. I'm worried about you, Kusac, worried about the amount of stress you're under. You're piling up extra grief for yourself when we get home the way you're so possessive about Shaidan.”

“I've brought Shaidan to eat with us for the last few days, Banner, and taken him to the gym afterward to play or train with all of us. I can't do any more. Remember it's Kezule who makes the decisions about the cub, not me.” He tried not to let his anger at that show in his voice. “Try asking him, you'll see that he'll only allow Shaidan to be alone with me.”

Banner sighed, and he could feel that his Second was aware of this, but hoped that Kusac hadn't been.

“It comes down to trust, Kusac. You expect me to trust you, but you refuse to give me the same level of trust. You're letting yourself and the Brotherhood down, as well as insulting me by your attitude. I have no idea what your real agenda here is because you tell me what you think I want to hear, then do your own thing. You know very well that only the rawest of recruits believe they can handle everything themselves. For Vartra's sake, show me some trust and let me help you in whatever you're trying to do!”