Firechild (39 page)

He glanced to see her sad little shrug.

“I never had to care. Not till a silent upset in the Kremlin tossed my father’s friend out of favor. Nothing very drastic happened to him. Party members take care of each other. But the people around him—we took the heat. My father died in prison. We lost our apartment and the dacha and the car. My mother killed herself. And I—”

Dismally, she shook her head.

“I don’t suppose you can imagine what all that did to me. My stage debut was just about to happen. I’d made exciting friends. Important men were courting me. The whole world looked wonderful, a dream come true.”

She paused again, staring away into the dance of heat on the far brown horizon, and he almost pitied her.

“Overnight it all winked out, like Cinderella’s coach in your fairy story. No money. No job. No way to live. Nowhere even to sleep. My friends—I’d thought they were friends—were afraid to speak to me. All except two or three
seksoty.
Secret agents of the KGB, assigned to check the reliability of people who might go abroad.

“One of them took me in. A loud, pushy little guy, who scribbled unproduced plays and catty criticism to cover what he was. I’d never really liked him, not till then. But he was better than any alternative. Not bad in bed.”

Glancing back at her, he caught the odd little quirk of her lips.

“He kept me as his mistress till his wife found out. By then I knew what he was. He introduced me to the trade and gave me my first assignments.”

She stopped to look at him, her green eyes piercing.

“You think I’m wicked. Maybe I am. But I’m a survivor. Glad I didn’t follow my mother into the Moskva.” The recollection shadowed her face. “It was spring. The ice just breaking. The river still caked with it. A cold way to die.”

Her sunburnt shoulders straightened.

“I guess you won’t forgive what I am, but I’m not sorry. I’ve stayed-alive. I’ve learned. I’m good at what I do, and I enjoy success. There have been good times. The best with old Jules Roman—at least till I met you—”

Her mouth quirked again.

“You’ve probably heard of Roman. An American industrialist who spent most of his life working for peaceful trade with Russia. Going senile when we met, yet still admirable for what he had been. Devoted to me. I got fond of him.

“His murder hurt—”

She must have seen him start.

“He was killed in Moscow.” Her voice had turned husky. “By his own doctor, on secret orders from the KGB. I’d set up the Russian trip to let me deliver an early report from our agents at EnGene. Something in it alarmed the Kremlin. I was ordered to rush back and get more of the story. Jules was too sick to travel. The Center arranged for me to bring his ashes.”

He turned from the wheel to stare. “You killed your lover?”

“Nichevo.”
Her shoulders lifted. “He was dying, anyhow—and never much of a lover. I used to pity him when he wanted to try. But please don’t think I liked the way he was killed. I couldn’t have stopped it.”

Silent while they rocked across another new gulley, she met his eyes when he glanced at her again.

“You’re appalled at what I have to do. As I used to be. But I’m a Russian. I love my country. If you know our history, it has always been full of cruelty and death. That’s still true. We have nearly always been at war. We are now, with your USA. In the KGB, I’m a soldier in that war. When orders are given, we don’t ask if they are ethical. We obey.”

He heard her draw a long, uneven breath.

“You may hate me, Sax. I’ve done hard things, but most of them were things that had to be done. I felt sorry for my father, but I’m afraid he asked for what he got. I’ve had bad times, but they have made me stronger than I ever hoped to be.

“There’s very little I regret. Not even the death of your dear Alphamega—assuming Mickey Harris is able to kill her. Perhaps she’s as harmless as you think. Perhaps she isn’t. Nobody knows the nature or the limits of her powers. She may carry whatever hit Enfield. She may not. The risk is simply too frightening to tolerate.”

With that she fell silent. They were climbing a difficult slope that took all his skill. She was staring straight ahead when he could look at her again, fine hands folded on her sun-colored thighs, looking too young and too lovely for what she had said.

“You’re hard to hate,” he muttered. “But killing Meg is something I can’t forgive.”

“Nichevo.”
Her shrug explained the word. “I had to tell you who I am.”

From the crest of the hill, he saw a plume of flame-yellow dust climbing from the flat gray mesa they had left far below.

“Somebody behind us. I wonder who?”

“The field support people, I’d imagine. Men from your military intelligence, here with permission from the Mexicans. They’d been picking up my signals and getting orders to Harris.”

Noon came. She found the water jug and gave him a newspaper-wrapped taco they had brought from the motel. Accepting it from her as if they had still been good companions, he felt a wry amazement at himself.

The road narrowed, bulldozed out of hazardous slopes. Anya pointed, and he found a white fan of shattered rock poured down the mountainside ahead, the tunnel-mouth a dark dot above it. They crept around a jutting point and he heard Anya catch her breath.

“Mickey! Already back!”

The black van lurched into view, recklessly skidding down the road from toward the tunnel.

“Which means—” He stared accusingly at Anya. “You’ve murdered Meg!”

If she answered, he didn’t hear. For Meg was dead. Dead, dead, dead. He swayed giddily, the word drumming in his mind. He tried to stop that hard word, pounding like his heart, but he couldn’t shut it out.

“I couldn’t help hoping,” he whispered. “Hoping—”

The whisper died. He saw no hope.

Meg had seemed eternal. She had survived shocks that surely would have killed any merely human being. The burning of the lab. The Enfield plague. The fall into the well. Torture in the interrogation cell. Yet a merciless certainty seized and dazed him now, a cold conviction that she was gone forever.

He had loved her more than Midge, more than Anya, more than anything. Never knowing why, he had hardly even wondered. Meg had mattered more than anything. He had done his best to help her.

He had failed. The sun was suddenly too cruel, the air too hot to breathe. The waves of heat all around the brown horizon came rolling closer, dissolving everything into a strangely blazing blackness. He felt the car jolting off the road, but he didn’t care.

Meg was dead.

“Adiós, Señor
Sax!” Her voice came out of that pounding blackness, but still he knew that she was dead.
“Soy triste—Soy triste—”

Her voice was thin and small, as if from somewhere far off in the blinding dark. She felt sad to see him so unhappy. His own life had lost its meaning now that she was dead.

“Animate!”
Bravely, she tried to cheer him up. “I must go away forever, because my body is hurt too much to let it live again. We must say good-bye forever, because I’ll be too far to reach you. But you must cheer yourself.
Animate, querido
Sax! You have been my dearest friends, you and Panchito. I love you both, and I beg you to be glad for me.”

He tried to whisper, “If you are dead—”

“No,
Sax!
Es de nada!”
Her far-off voice seemed quick and bright. “I can’t come back to my poor body, because its little life has ended. But I have received a better kind of life from my new friends. They are the people of fire, who live in a world without land, near a strange black star that swallows suns. I am very sad to leave you, but they are my own people now. I must go where they take me.

“Be happy for me, Sax! I have left the broken body that tore me with pain. My new people love me, and they will let me share the life that comes to them forever in the black light of their black star. They will teach me what I am, and help me become whatever I’m to be, and make me happier than I have ever been.
Por favor,
promise to forget your sadness, so that I need not grieve for you.”

He tried to promise, but his throat hurt and he had no voice for her to hear.

“Adiós, querido
Sax!” Her small voice was fading.
“Adiós—”

45

“Cold as

Stone!”

“W
ake up!”

Anya’s hands were on the wheel. The car had veered off the road toward the brink of a deep arroyo. He braked it to a pitching stop. The black van was still a quarter-mile ahead, coming fast to meet them.

“Sax?” She caught her breath, staring at him. “Are you trying to kill us?”

“Something hit me—” He felt giddy. “I don’t know what. A dream—a vision of Meg. She somehow spoke to me. The first time ever when I hadn’t been asleep. She’s dead—her body is. But she—her spirit, her soul, whatever she is—came to say good-bye.”

He saw the look in her eyes.

“Call me crazy if you want, but I know we’ll find her dead. Murdered by your gunman!”

If she replied, he didn’t hear. Still sunk deep in the sadness she had brought, he sat blankly staring at the killer’s van. His brain felt dazed. Meg’s parting words seemed stranger than any dream, because they reflected nothing he’d ever known. People of fire, living in a world without land around a black star that swallowed suns …

He shook his head, blinking at the skidding van.

“This heat?” Anya looked hard at him. “Too much for you?”

“I—I’ll be all right. “But Meg—”

The van was lurching to a stop just ahead. Mickey Harris got out and stalked on toward them. A dark stocky man with grease-slick hair.

“Careful, Sax!” Anya dropped her voice. “He’s deadly.”

He sat staring. The flat Indian face and the black mirror sunglasses brought back a sudden drug-dimmed memory of the interrogation cell back at Enfield and Harris mauling him until Kalenka interfered.

“We’re okay, babe!” Grinning at Anya, Harris raised two fingers in the victory sign. “Clegg’s millions, safe in the bank! I pumped the little bitch full of lead. Her pet spic too. We got it made.”

The mirrors flashed at Belcraft. The grin fading, the thick voice faltered into silence.

“Well done!” Anya returned the victory sign. “I’ll inform the general. Where are you headed now?”

“I—I dunno.” Harris hesitated, shivering. “Something—back there in the dark. I dunno—” He glanced uneasily behind him. “I was taking her head. A trophy for the general. But I got the shakes. Dropped my knife and ran. I dunno why—”

He stumbled to the car and gripped the rim of the window as if for support.

“Mickey?” Anya slid out of the car and came around to him. “Mickey, are you sick?”

“Dunno— Dunno—” He stood there a moment, unsteady fingers combing at the slick black hair. “I’ve had my share of fresh young meat, and nothin’ never bothered me. Even had my hands on the little bitch back at Enfield, and nothin’ hit me then. I dunno—”

“If she’s really dead—”

“Cold as stone!” He shuddered again, blinking woodenly at Anya. “Funny thing. Chilled me just to touch her. I had a grip on that yellow hair and her head half off—and not a drop of blood. There shoulda been blood.” He licked his lips. “I always gotta kick outa the blood.”

“Better get along,” she told him. “Let the support people know where you’ll be, so the general can set up your payoff. We’ll drive on up and take photos for verification—”

He stood silent for a time, thick lips working, black mirrors staring.

“Watch out, babe—” His voice had slowed to a rusty creak. “Go in there and you’ll be sorry.” He swung to shake his head at the far tunnel-mouth. Better stay away. Something I can’t shake off.” He came back toward Anya, heavy hands trembling. “I need a shot. You got a bottle?”

“No.” She shrank away. “We don’t have a bottle.”

“Something better!” His flat nostrils flared, his broad face twitching into a sudden, ugly grin. “Dunno how she hit me, but you’ll do, babe!” The black mirrors clung, and his voice sank to a breathless rasp. “You got the juicy meat I really need to warm that chill.”

“Why, Mickey!” Her cool voice reproved him. “You wouldn’t hurt
me.
You couldn’t. You haven’t even got a knife. Not if you left it—”

“Silly bitch! I’ll take care of the knife.”

“Mickey, are you crazy?”

“Dunno—” Again he peered back toward the tunnel. “But I gotta forget. That’s when I always wanted fresh red meat. When things got to eating on—”

Belcraft tumbled out of the car, gripping a tire iron.

“Drop that, bud.” Harris backed away, a big revolver drawn. “I’ll drill you here and now.”

“Better drop it, Sax.” Anya’s steady voice seemed far away. “You wouldn’t have a chance.”

The muzzle of the gun looked large and black and very steady. He let the tire iron fall.

“Good girl, babe!” The mirrors flashed at her. “You’re the cure for what I’ve got. And your heroic pal ain’t gonna stop me.” The idiot grin spread wider. “One thing he can do, if I save him for later. I’ll fix the bodies to look like it was him sliced the meat—”

“Wait a minute, Mickey!” She stepped quickly toward him, empty hands spread as if to plead. “Before you get rash, better look behind you!”

“Now, now, babe! I ain’t that dumb.”

“Listen, Mickey!”

“Hah! You can’t fool—”

He heard the whine of gears and backed away to glance toward the sound.

“Hey, you bitch—”

Bare hands reaching, Anya darted at him. He swung the gun to meet her. She dived under its crash, and Belcraft heard it clatter on the rocks near his feet. Lunging to meet her, Harris went over her bent shoulder and came down hard. The mirrors clinked and shattered. Back on her feet in an instant, she recovered the gun and fired two expert shots into his head.

Ears ringing, Belcraft peered at her groggily. He felt humiliated, but also vastly relieved.

“So what, Sax?” Almost smiling, she blew smoke from the muzzle of the gun. “You’re a physician. I’ve trained for the other side of the coin.” With a grimace of disgust, she stepped away from the man on the gravel. “If killing had ever been a pleasure, this might be the moment.”