Ghost Spin (61 page)

“I know.”

She looked up at him, shocked.

“I mean, he knew.”

“Jesus God Almighty!”

“He wasn’t really good for you,” Llewellyn said with a wondering inward-looking expression. “And he knew it. He felt awful about it. But he loved you too much to let you go.”

“And I couldn’t leave, either.”

“Because you loved him.”

“Yes. No.” She made a frustrated gesture. “I don’t even know what to call it. It was like a plant turning toward the sun. I couldn’t help myself.”

Llewellyn laughed a low, bitter laugh. “You think you have to explain it to me?”

“Not in any way that doesn’t make him sound like some kind of vampire.”

“Which he sort of is. Albeit in a mostly nice way.”

“I don’t know if I can go for nice. Let’s say … well-intentioned.”

“Mostly.”

They grinned at each other: comrades in arms, commiserating.

“Oh come on, he’s not that bad.”

“Isn’t he? I’m standing here wanting to screw you so badly that I think I’m going to have a stroke if you make me leave, and I don’t even know if it’s me or him that wants you. And I don’t care. He’s eating me up like a worm in an apple, and I can’t even bring myself to give a shit.”

“So he’s not so dead after all.”

“He is, believe me. Whatever comes back, it’s not going to be him.”

Something must have shown in her face—and whatever it was Llewellyn didn’t like it.

“He’s had four hundred years! Isn’t that enough for anyone? And what about me? Don’t I have a right to
have
a life before he takes it over?”

“You could always download him into the Datatrap.”

His eyes flickered away from hers, as if he were thinking about something he wasn’t sure he wanted to share with her.

“What?”

“Ike doesn’t think that option’s on the table anymore.”

Li drew back to stare at him. “Really?”

The look on Llewellyn’s face made her feel sick at heart.

“I could learn to live with him, too, you know. It’s just this minor problem of his eating me alive.”

“Cohen wouldn’t do that.”

“He’s done it before.”

“When?”

“Whenever he needed to. He didn’t talk business much with you,
did he? He didn’t like to tell you things that he knew you wouldn’t understand. Like what happens between AIs when association agreements go really sour.”

“He wouldn’t do that to you. He’d think it was wrong.”

“He might. But he might still do it … if it was the only way to get you back.”

Li’s stomach turned over. “No,” she whispered. “You can’t think I’d go along with that.”

“But you’d have him back.”

“Not that way,” she protested. “That would be too horrible.”

They stared at each other for a moment, unasked questions hanging in the air between them.

“If that’s what you think he is—if that’s what you think I am—then why are we even here right now? You should have killed me the minute you first saw me.”

“I did think about it,” he admitted. “But then I thought about something else. I thought that maybe Cohen’s the only person in the galaxy smart enough to figure out how to keep me off the gallows.”

She caught her breath at the audacity of the idea. “You’re looking for a pardon?”

“It could happen.” His voice dropped to a near whisper. “Look at Avery.”

“Avery turned you in! That’s how she got her pardon! Who are
you
going to turn in?”

“No one! You know me better than that! But Cohen says it can be done. And I believe him. Or maybe I just want to believe him. All blustering aside, Li, I really don’t want to die.”

She dropped her head into her hands and pressed her knuckles into eyes that were suddenly burning with exhaustion. “God Almighty. If Cohen ever gets out of this alive I’m going to kill him.”

“It’s not like he planned it this way.”

“Are
you
apologizing for him now?”

“Well … sort of. I mean, he couldn’t very well have planned on this. He knew there’d be a yard sale, and he figured all his frags would be bought by other AIs. He’s loaded for bear and ready to grapple on to
some massive Emergent. Someone his own size. Or bigger. And then to wash up here? In my head, in our ratty little NavComp? It’s like going rabbit hunting with a cannon. You keep asking me how he feels. You want the honest answer? Pissed off, confused, and claustrophobic. And I can’t very well blame him. Neither of us got what we bargained for, and he’s got to be at least as unhappy as I am about it.”

“I don’t know. I’m not sure it’s that simple. This—what’s happening with you and him—isn’t the way ghosts are supposed to work. Do you get any sense at all of what he had planned? No matter how vague? Anything?”

“No. And I don’t know who killed him, either. I was telling the truth about that. Everything cuts off when he jumps into New Allegheny.”

“Of course it does,” she said dejectedly. “If none of the frags know what they’re doing, none of them can give the game away. That’s my job. Round up all the pieces, put the puzzle together, and make everything go bang.”

“Well then that’s one thing we’ve got going for us,” Llewellyn pointed out. “You’re good at making things go bang.”

She looked up into a smile that was somehow sweet and affectionate and ironic all at the same time. It was Llewellyn’s smile. But it was also Cohen’s. And for the first time, she thought that was a combination she might be able to live with.

“I just wish he’d given me a little more to work with,” she said, starting to chew over the problem again. “I’ve got an itchy feeling that someone’s lit a fuse somewhere and things are going to go bang sooner than we think.”

“But not tonight,” he said very softly.

He put his hand on hers. She looked at it for a moment and then picked it up, feeling the strong, fine bones sliding under the skin. He took her other hand and twined his fingers through hers.

“I thought you said you were going to regret this in the morning.”

“But not tonight.”

Li woke up first. She watched Llewellyn sleep for a while. She wondered what he’d been like as a boy. She wondered who he’d been before Avery.
And who he’d been before Cohen. She wondered how much of that man was even left.

Llewellyn’s eyes opened. But they were unfogged by sleep, and she suspected he’d been awake at least as long as she had.

“Regrets?” she asked.

“No,”
he whispered.

“Want to have another go?”

“Yes.”

This time was different. This time he was awake, and dead sober, and thinking about what he was doing. Maybe thinking too much, because afterward he lay watching her with that still-waters-run-deep look. It meant something to him. But she’d never find out what—because he wasn’t going to talk about it.

And that was just fine with her. Better not to think about it. Things were strange enough already. Obviously this was going to be one of those periods in her life—in all three of their lives—where you just kept your head down, did what you had to, and tried not to look into the mirror in the morning.

“You’re still drunk,” she told him.

“Not drunk enough.” He started teasing her. Kissing, nibbling, caressing. “Tell me you want me.”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

“Say it.”

“All right! I want you.”

But that only earned her his guarded, sidelong look.

“Me? Or him?”

She stared openmouthed, fighting the sudden urge to pull the sheets up over her chest.

“It’s not a trick question,” he said tiredly, turning away and beginning to pull his clothes back on. “Get some sleep, okay? We’ve got a lot to do tomorrow.”

“Don’t leave.”

He sighed and pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. “Then tell me what I’m doing here.”

But she couldn’t.

He heaved a shuddering sigh and turned into her arms, ducking his head to her chest. And then he began making love to her, with his eyes shut tight and an intense look of concentration on his face. This had nothing to do with what had come before, she realized. Something had snapped inside the man. For the first time she was seeing all of him, all the intensity, none of the ever-present ironic reserve.

“I’ve been so alone for so long,” he breathed into her hair. “I feel like I’m going to die of it.”

She thrust him away, trembling, almost physically ill with the shock of hearing Cohen’s long-ago words come out of Llewellyn’s mouth at that moment of all moments.

Llewellyn looked as if she’d kicked him in the stomach. He recovered fast, though. A moment later he was up and pulling his clothes on.

“It’s not you,” she told him. “It’s me.”

“Actually,” he said, thumbing the door panel, “I think we both know who it is.”

He probably hadn’t walked out a door that carelessly in decades. Half dressed. Unarmed. Coming out of a dark room with the light in his eyes.

“I’m so sorry,” she told him.

He broke stride, glancing back at her.

That half second’s hesitation probably saved his life.

THE
ADA

At least the ghost that showed up today was willing to call her Caitlyn. That was a sign—at least so far as Li could trust any sign—that he wasn’t either in denial or trying to manipulate her.

“Don’t you feel sorry for Llewellyn sometimes?” the ghost asked her.

“Because he’s a killer?”

“You’re one to talk. And besides, that’s not what I heard on New Allegheny. The rumors there are considerably more complicated.”

“I heard them, too. But I wrote it off as the usual local-hero stuff.”

“Would you still write it off if you knew he was working a covert job for Helen Nguyen when he got into all that trouble?”

Li stared. “Was he?”

“All I have are rumors. Like you say, local-hero stuff. But seriously, why
are
we helping Avery persecute the poor slob?”

“Because he has a stable fragment. And we need it. Why are we even talking about this?”

“Because, Caitlyn, you’ve never asked the obvious question. How does Avery
know
that the frag on Llewellyn’s ship is even sentient, let alone stable? In fact, how does she know anything at all about what goes on aboard Llewellyn’s ship?”

“She has a spy. Is that what you’re saying?”

“No, it’s only half of what I’m saying. The other half is … who do you think that spy is?”

Li paled as the full implication of his words hit her. “I wouldn’t do that, Cohen.”

He just smiled his Cheshire Cat smile at her. “And what do you think you’re doing here, my dear?”

“That’s not fair!”

“Isn’t it? Then you tell me who we’re working for.”

“You mean other than Avery?”

“Avery’s working for someone. Someone who was watching when she talked to you. You know I’m right. She couldn’t pass wind without looking to them for permission.”

“Could it be ALEF?”

“I suppose so. Not that that tells us much. Lord knows what they’ve been up to since they talked to you in Freetown.”

A deeply worrisome thought flitted across Li’s mind. “Could it be
you
?”

“You mean another ghost? Maybe. But I doubt it. If she already had a stable fragment wouldn’t she just have platformed me on it instead of making us go through with this rigmarole?”

Li hesitated, not sure how much she wanted to reveal to the ghost. Did she dare tell him about Korchow’s death? Or about who she suspected might be behind it?

“Could it be Nguyen?” she asked finally.

The ghost shivered, and when he looked up at her his eyes were as bleak and ancient as Cohen’s had ever been. “You’d better hope not.”

Abruptly, the ghost morphed into the Hyacinthe interface and walked around the table to her.

The book materialized in Li’s hands.

“I have a new favorite part,” the ghost said. “Do you want to read it?”

“This?” she asked incredulously when she saw the page the book had opened to. “She’s not even in Wonderland yet.”

“I know. But read it.”

“I don’t like this part,” Li said. “Let’s read another part.”

But Hyacinthe only shook his head. He wouldn’t even speak to her.

She read on, as Alice drank the drink and ate the cake. She didn’t want to read it. And she wanted even less to think about it. But it was as if something pushed her forward toward the inevitable conclusion.