Deathstalker Rebellion (22 page)

“You have a visitor, Julian. I’ve adjusted the spinal block so you can talk freely. Make the most of your time together. When you’ve finished, it’ll be my turn to talk to you.”

The interrogator left, while Julian tried to get his thoughts in order. Who the hell could it be, that the mind techs would allow the visit to a man they were in the middle of softening up? Some other poor bastard from his team, perhaps. Someone else they’d caught, that they thought he cared about. Someone they could hurt or kill in front of him. He moved his head slowly back and forth, partly in denial, partly just to feel it move after being still for so long. He licked his lips and tasted dried blood and salt from his tears. He heard footsteps approaching and braced himself as best he could.

And then BB Chojiro stepped through the door and into the cell, and Julian thought his heart would stop. She looked beautiful, as always, a petite little doll of a woman, with long dark hair and sharp Oriental features. She wore a bright scarlet kimono, to match her lips, and looked at him steadily with dark lustrous eyes. She stopped before him, and the door swung shut behind her. Julian looked at her and felt the horror rise in him again. They knew about BB. If they hurt her … he thought he’d go out of his mind, just at the thought. She stepped forward, moving even here with the perfect grace of all her Clan, and produced a small metal box from inside her sleeve. She pressed the single stud on the top, and the spinal block released the rest of its hold on him. He slumped forward, held up only by the restraining straps. His fingers spasmed helplessly. BB Chojiro knelt before him, so she could look right into his face. Julian tried to smile for her, but it felt more like a grimace. She put away the metal box and produced a silk handkerchief to wipe some of the blood and tears from his face. Her touch was very gentle.

“My poor Julian, what have they done to you? You used to be so strong, so sure. Now they’ve broken your wings, and you’ll never fly again.”

“BB,” he said hoarsely, forcing his mouth to obey him. “Have they hurt you? What …”

“Don’t try to speak. Just listen. I can’t stay long. I want you to tell them everything, Julian. I want you to tell them everything you know. It’s for the best, really. You know
they’ll get it out of you anyway. They always do. Only what will be left of you then won’t even know who I am. If you cooperate, they’ll let you go eventually, and then we can be together again, just like we were before. You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Julian?”

He looked at her and didn’t say a word. He’d known her less than a year. She’d been his younger brother’s lover originally. Auric Skye had tried to get a position in Clan Chojiro, so that he could be with her. To impress the Clan, he fought the Masked Gladiator in the Arena. The Gladiator killed him. Auric never stood a chance against that legendary butcher of men. Julian had told him that, but Auric wouldn’t listen, and Julian had watched in silence as they dragged his brother’s body away across the bloody sands. Julian would have avenged Auric if he could, but he at least had the sense to know he couldn’t beat the Masked Gladiator in a fair or unfair fight.

So he put it behind him, as just another evil episode in an evil Empire, and went to see BB Chojiro, to comfort and console her over Auric’s death. They talked about Auric all through the evening and on into the night, and at the end she cried in his arms. They met again, and again, and fell in love. Julian felt guilty about that for a while, but BB talked him out of it. She made him see that Auric would have been glad for both of them. He cried in her arms then, Finally saying good-bye to his brother. After that, Julian and BB were together as often as they could be. It wasn’t very often. It was vital that the Clan Chojiro didn’t find out. They were very strict and wouldn’t have approved at all. And Julian had his obligations to the underground. It was a long time before he told her about that. She was surprised at first, but then she hugged him and kissed him and told him he’d done the right thing in telling her. It wasn’t long after that they came for him. Not long at all.

Julian Skye looked at his love, kneeling before him, and knew for the first time who it was who had betrayed him.

“I thought you loved me,” he said finally. “How could you do it?”

“It wasn’t difficult, darling. My duty has always been to my Clan, first and foremost. Auric knew that. That’s why he died trying to be a part of Clan Chojiro. You never did ask me what my real name is. What the BB stands for.”

“You told me not to.”

“Yes. And you always did what you were told. But the fact that I kept something as basic as that from you should have told you something. BB isn’t my name, darling. It’s my designation. I’m from Blue Block.”

The words hit Julian like blows. He’d heard of Blue Block, but only in whispers. Blue Block was the Company of Lords’ deepest secret: a hidden private army of lesser cousins, to be the Families’ final defense against the Empress and her people. Every Family provided a number of candidates, willing or unwilling, and sent them to Blue Block, where they were trained and conditioned to be totally loyal to their Clans. Even to the death. They were everywhere, unknown and unsuspected, programmed to get as close as possible to people who mattered. In the last resort, they would be the Lords’ last poisoned weapon to throw at Lionstone, or anyone else who tried to take away their power and position. Or so it was said. Blue Block was only a whisper, less than a rumor. Lionstone didn’t take it seriously. If she had, she wouldn’t have rested until every graduate of Blue Block had been tracked down and executed. She would never have allowed such a threat to her power to exist.

BB Chojiro. Blue Block. Bound to her Clan beyond hope or honor, life or death.

“Our love meant nothing to you, did it?” he said finally.

“There’s no room in my life for what you think of as love. I was very fond of you. I still am. That’s why I want you to tell the interrogators what they want to know, and get it over with. The interrogator’s one of us. He’s Blue Block, too. Once he’s got everything out of you, he’ll put you back together, as much as he can, and you can come back to me. You can be part of Clan Chojiro, just like your brother wanted. You’ll have to go through Blue Block, of course, but it’s really not so bad. And then you won’t care anything about who you used to be or what you used to be.”

“If I talk,” Julian said hoarsely, “hundreds will die. Thousands will be endangered. The underground would have to scatter again. It might never recover. I can’t do that. I won’t.”

“You will. You know you will. Talk to the interrogator, darling. Do it for me.”

“Do it for you?” Julian would have laughed, but his throat was too dry. “Who are you? I don’t know your real name. I
don’t know the real you. I loved you, you bitch. I would have done anything for you, even die for you. Now just looking at you makes me feel sick.”

“Don’t be like that, Julian; we had some good times together, just the two of us. Remember flying out over the Ravenscar mountains, and chasing each other on gravity sleds in and out of the great waterfalls as they came thundering down? Remember watching the double stars burning brightly over the Tannhouser Gate? Remember us dancing around a fire on the Dust Plains of Memory, dancing and singing as though the night would never end? Those were real times, Julian. Times we shared. We could share them again. We could still have a life together. It’s up to you. You’ll forget all about the underground, with me.”

“BB. Will you do something for me?”

“Of course, darling. Would you like some water?”

“No. Just lean closer”

BB Chojiro smiled and brought her face in close to his. He could smell her familiar perfume. She pursed her mouth for a kiss. And Julian called up all the strength he had left and head-butted her in the face. He couldn’t get much force behind it, but the impact was enough to knock her right back on her ass. Shock and surprise filled her face, and then pain as she brought her hands up to her nose. Blood streamed from her nostrils. Julian chuckled harshly, even though it hurt his throat. BB blinked at him uncertainly over her hands, and then rose jerkily to her feet. She wiped at her nose with a silken scarlet arm, but just succeeded in smearing more blood across her face. She gave up on it and drew herself up, perfectly composed, ignoring the blood. She smiled at him in a brittle, satisfied way.

“Thank you, Julian. I was beginning to feel a little sorry for you. For what you’re about to undergo. You’ve helped remind me why I turned you in. You’re scum, the lowest of the low, so far beneath the Families we can’t even see you from where we are. And to think I nearly made you one of us. Talk about the Blue Block all you like. Only the interrogator will hear you, and he will see it doesn’t go any further, even if he has to edit the security tapes. Think of me while he’s working on you. I’ll be thinking of you.”

She rapped imperiously on the door, and it swung open. BB Chojiro blew Julian a kiss and strode out of the cell, every inch the perfect little aristocrat. Julian seethed inwardly
against the restraining straps, but they held him securely. Still, she’d made a mistake in not reactivating the spinal block. He could find some way to kill himself now and escape his interrogators. But he was too angry to think about that. He had to live now, so he could escape and kill BB Chojiro. He would survive everything they could throw at him, waiting for the slightest slip, the smallest mistake that would let him break free. And then he’d kill the interrogators and anyone else who got between him and BB Chojiro. He’d loved her so much, but all he could think of now was his hands around her perfect throat, her mocking smile replaced by a scream of terror. He laughed suddenly, a harsh brutal sound of the darkest humor, and the interrogator paused in the doorway of the cell, as though suddenly aware he was about to enter a small enclosed space with a dangerous animal. But the moment passed, and the interrogator strode in, smiling avuncularly at his prospective victim. He shut the door firmly behind him, so that Julian’s screams wouldn’t bother anyone walking down the corridor outside.

Finlay Campbell returned from his mission on a limping flyer, bloody and battered and just a little out of breath. The flyers dogging his trail had proved determined, if not particularly skillful, and it had taken every trick he knew to shake them off. He landed the flyer with a defiant thud, and slumped over the controls a moment. Members of the underground came running up to drag the flyer out of sight before it could be spotted, and Finlay straightened up with a jerk. It wouldn’t do for word to get around that he was getting soft. He stepped down from the flyer, enjoying the expressions on their faces as they saw what he’d left in the flyer for them. He’d brought St. John’s body with him, partly as proof that he’d done his job, partly to upset the Lords over the missing body, and partly as a trophy. He’d had a vague idea about having St. John stuffed and mounted, and stood somewhere prominent so that everyone could enjoy it. But for the moment he couldn’t be bothered.

He left the body in the stolen flyer for someone else to take care of, and trudged unwillingly toward the waiting elevators. Blood squelched noisily in one of his boots, from a wound he’d taken in his leg. He’d taken hurts in other places, too, but he kept his back straight. He had a reputation to maintain. He waited impatiently in front of the eleva
tor doors, his hand on the pommel of his sword, drawing strength from it. The doors finally opened, and he strode in. They closed behind him, and he immediately slumped in a corner, held up only by the steel wall. He’d felt better. Getting old, and past it. Be playing checkers next. All he really wanted right now was a bed and several days’ uninterrupted sleep, but the underground leaders were waiting for him to make his report. He couldn’t make it in writing, of course; that would be far too easy. No, he had to stand there before them and tell them every detail, like a schoolboy in a classroom. He thought fondly of his quarters and a large glass of the good brandy. During the last stages of his trip back, it had only been thoughts of the brandy that had kept him going. That, and memories of Evangeline. She was never that far from his thoughts, whatever he was doing.

He straightened up slowly, pushing himself away from the supporting wall, and sniffed disparagingly at the various aches and pains that bothered him. He didn’t really know why he was bothering with this report. All the esper leaders had to do was go take a look at the body in his flyer to know his mission had been a success. But they’d want details. They always did. It gave them the illusion that they were in charge. And since he was dependent on the underground for his few remaining comforts, not to mention further missions, he played along. Grudgingly.

The elevator doors finally opened on a floor that didn’t exist on any official plans, and Finlay lurched out into the gloomy corridor. There never seemed to be enough lights in the underground. They probably did it deliberately, just to make the place look mysterious. Either that, or they were saving energy again. Finlay realized his thoughts were drifting again, and made himself concentrate on where he was going. Down here in the subsystems, far below the surface of Golgotha, one abandoned steel corridor looked much like any other. There were a few people about, and he found the energy to grunt a greeting to them as they passed. They all nodded politely to him, and quite right, too. He was Finlay Campbell, damn it.

He finally stomped into the main meeting area, an abandoned workstation that the cyberats had wiped from official memory. It was a large open space bounded with sharp-edged steel plates, and cables dangled everywhere, giving the place an unfinished, transient look. Quite suitably, really,
for an underground that might have to pick up its belongings and run at any moment. After the debacle of the attempted storming of Silo Nine and the purges that followed, what remained of the underground lived from moment to moment, and tended to be even more paranoid than it used to. Finlay strode up to the esper leaders waiting for him in the center of the open space, and nodded to them briskly. There were three of them today, powerful espers hidden behind telepathically projected images to protect their identities. At least that was their story. Finlay liked to think they did it to hide really bad skin conditions or unsuccessful hair transplants. Finlay Campbell didn’t believe in being in awe of anyone.