Keystones: Tau Prime (18 page)

Like his face the Uplink was covered in dried blood that flaked off. Underneath he could see that its touchscreen was still functional. He wasn’t about to leave the Uplink behind. It might prove useful, and he was going to need every advantage that he could find. Having secured the device, Deklan closed the drawer, leaving the old man there along with his former arm.

It was his first chance to survey the morgue itself. The red motif that seemed omnipresent on Tau Prime was absent, the room being a study in white and silver. It looked spotlessly clean and new, unlike most of the other places he’d seen on the habitat. Dozens of drawers lined the walls. Deklan then noticed that he was still covered in gore from when he’d been shot.

His stained and shredded clothes, decided Deklan, would have to go. With a feeling of spiders creeping over him, he pulled open a drawer at random. Inside was a dressed body, but the person was shorter than he was. His skin crawled at the idea of peeling off clothing from the dead and then wearing it, but he didn’t have a better option. He opened drawer after drawer, searching for someone about the right size.

He met with success in the seventh drawer. There Deklan found a man in red with blue-tinged flesh who looked as though he might be the right size. Deklan took a deep breath and proceeded to appropriate the corpse’s clothes. The moment he was done Deklan slid the drawer shut and ran over to a sink on the far side of the room to scrub his hands furiously. The intensity of his ablutions lessened when he moved on to his face, hair, and torso.

Putting the grisly deed behind him, Deklan pulled on the deceased man’s clothes. Coarse cloth scratched his skin as he slid it over his face and arms. The head wrappings proved problematical. He spent several minutes adjusting them before they sat on him with anything like a comfortable fit, and even then they pinched in the neck. He tried to ignore the ghoulish feeling of wearing a dead man’s clothes. His flowing pants and boots slipped on with ease, however, and Deklan almost felt as though he could pass for a native of Tau Prime.

His own blood-stained clothes he shoved into an empty cadaver drawer. Knowing that an alarm would soon sound, Deklan realized that he had to find Jamie, Jonny, and Calm immediately if they were to find a way off Tau Prime and get back to the Terra Rings with a warning.

The daunting task ahead gave Deklan pause at the door. His hand was on the handle, but he didn’t know where to go or what to do. He slowly turned the door’s handle. The exterior hallway mirrored the morgue in being immaculately white and antiseptically clean. There was also an absence of clues as to whether Deklan should turn to his left or right. With no other inspiration he walked toward the elevator.

Its doors opened without a sound. The elevator could have accommodated at least five people with a mortician’s trolley. Its red and black colors made Deklan feel less comfortable and somehow watched. The control panel’s buttons inside indicated that he was on L3, a subbasement of some kind. That seemed standard: people always wanted a barrier between the living and the dead.

“Feeling a little lost?” said a melodic British voice.

Deklan jumped and hit the wall.

“And jumpy, I see.” Cheshire pressed the button for the ground floor before folding his arms and leaning against the far wall. His black outfit that included combat boots, an amply pocketed vest, and webbed belt looked tailored for warfare. The only thing he didn’t carry was a weapon. “There,” purred Cheshire. “Does the space between us make you feel safer?”

“How did you get here?” asked Deklan in wonderment.

“And how are you still walking around after dying repeatedly?” retorted Cheshire. “We’re Keystones, remember? Normal rules don’t apply to us.”

“What are you doing here?”

Cheshire tapped at the pockets on his vest. “Taking an interest in you, Deklan.”

Deklan didn’t like the sound of that at all. “Why me?”

Cheshire somehow looked comfortable leaning against the metal wall of the moving elevator. “I want you to survive,” he replied nonchalantly.

“Any hints on that front?”

“Yes, I suppose so.” Cheshire reached into a pocket and extracted a small black sphere. “This is a gift. Use it when you’re trapped.” He tossed the device to Deklan.

It was smaller than a ping-pong ball and featureless. “How do I use this?” asked a skeptical Deklan.

“Just throw it.” Cheshire made a whipping motion. “It’ll go off on its own after it’s been armed.”

Deklan looked at the sphere. “How do I arm it?”

“You don’t, but I do. It will flash red when the time is right.”

“Why should I trust you?” said Deklan. “Why shouldn’t I just throw this gadget away now?”

Cheshire grinned an infuriating grin that made Deklan want to punch him. “Do what you like,” he answered, “but you strike me as a man who needs every advantage that he can lay his hands on.”

“You haven’t answered any of my questions.”

“Sorry, but we’re out of time. Another matter demands my attention. Good luck, Deklan.” Cheshire winked and vanished.

As the elevator doors slid open on the ground floor, Deklan expected a cathedral-like space with high ceilings and gothic touches of the color red. Instead there was a preponderance of green. Here were activity and life. Ranks of people walked through a busy open area. For a second he was reminded of Manhattan. It had that same sense of busy purpose.

Deklan transferred the black sphere from his hand to his pocket next to his Uplink. Then he rushed out into the mass of people. He didn’t know where he was going, but a moving body among so many had to be less noticeable than someone standing with his mouth hanging open in an elevator.

He felt that at any moment he was going to be identified as an impostor. It took all of his will to put one foot ahead of the other and move forward. The atmosphere in the room was even grimmer than he’d come to expect after his brief exposure to Tau Priman culture. Everyone he saw seemed to have a storm cloud above his or her head. The flow of people carried him outside to the street, where he followed the largest mass of people ahead of him.

Deklan still felt nervous but was less certain that he was going to get caught. He needed to find some out-of-the-way place, but that was easier said than done. He didn’t dare talk to anyone because his accent would give him away, and he didn’t know what part of the city he was in. Meanwhile he was doing his best to ignore the unpleasant feeling he got from the curvature of the ground. It was impossible to detect in his immediate surroundings, but it made all of the distant buildings seem that much taller, and of course there was no edge to the skyline, which just continued upwards indefinitely. He couldn’t look at it, feeling that he’d fall off the ground if he did.

The more Deklan walked, the warier he grew. His initial relief at escaping the morgue was overshadowed by the city’s oppressive atmosphere. The streets were too quiet. There was the noise of feet hitting the pavement, flitters dashing to and fro in the air, urban transportation chiming at the different stops. These were civic noises, normal sounds heard in any city, but it was the absences that grated on his nerves. There was no laughter, no conversation. There were no mentally unhinged people proclaiming that “The end is near.” There were no food vendors hawking their wares.

Instead people marched to their destinations like silent clones, each in his or her own bubble that no one else entered. Their strides showed that no one out only for a walk, and again Deklan felt his tension mount. One of these people had only to read his body language to know that he was out of place. He concentrated on not looking around so much as to avoid arousing suspicion.

Suddenly a gong sounded. One long and drawn-out hum of vibrating metal, it came from far behind him. Everyone froze.

Deklan froze a second after the people around him, but no one seemed to notice. He didn’t dare look around for fear that his reaction would be out of the ordinary.

Heads all turned in the same direction, and then the marching began. Boots hit the ground in lockstep. Deklan did his best to imitate the group and followed. He had no idea of where people were going or what the gong signified, but there was a new feeling to the crowd, a hungry eagerness. They were like a mob that had found a target to lynch.

People poured out from side streets and buildings, filling the sidewalks. Any thoughts Deklan had of ducking away and hiding were quashed. There was nowhere to go. Not a single person left the flow as Deklan was jostled in the shoulder-to-shoulder foot traffic.

Two more gongs rang out. They came from the same direction as before, and the crowd surged forward, increasing the pace of its march. Deklan was carried with the horde, a silent and confused hostage.

His head whirled with possibilities. It possibly could be some sort of religious observance, but that didn’t seem right because this summons seemed unplanned and unexpected. The occasion felt more like sport but with darker undertones.

Deklan marched with the ever-growing stream of people for half an hour. Like birds migrating, flitters flew by in only one direction. All the traffic arrived finally at an open square filled with an undulating sea of red-swathed humans. All that Deklan could see were bobbing heads and a raised stage in the distance. Hundreds of thousands of people were staring in the same direction at the stage, which was constructed of a rich and dark wood, the first such material that Deklan had seen on the habitat.

A gigantic overhead screen showed an enlarged view of the stage. On it Deklan could see AnnaLea, the First, and the men who had stood by her in the council chamber. AnnaLea’s face was grim, and her expression was mirrored on the faces of those around her.

A grouping like this on Earth would have had music or some other form of entertainment for those waiting until the speakers began. Here, however, the audience were silent and expectant, like springs waiting to be released. Minutes of silence dragged on with every second a thundering eternity in Deklan’s brain. At last AnnaLea spoke.

“My fellow Tau Primans,” she began, her voice amplified and coming from everywhere. “I have sobering news to bring you today. We have made contact with men and women of the Terra Rings for the first time in just short of a century.” A collective gasp came from the audience. AnnaLea nodded and said, “It’s true. For eighty-two years we have shielded ourselves from their unwholesome ways, yet when we found men and women stranded in space we offered help. They repaid us through the murder of one of our own. Eric Starlmen has been killed.” The crowd gasped again, this time with an undercurrent of outrage. “They brought us tales and lies. They claimed that back on Earth there occurred a disfiguring called The Sweep. They claimed that those shown to have inner darkness were not punished but given help. They claimed that we are all in grave danger from a new and alien threat. They came to us with malicious intent.”

A roar shook the crowd. It was loud enough to hurt Deklan’s ears.

AnnaLea waited for it to subside before she continued. “One of their number lost his life while taking Eric’s.” Another roar burst from the throats of those surrounding Deklan. “His companions, these serpents of lies, have been captured and are ready for execution.” AnnaLea’s mouth curled into a cruel smile.

A cold lump formed in Deklan’s gut. Jamie and the others were going to die, and he was going to be alone on Tau Prime.

On the stage AnnaLea lifted her hands, and around Deklan people threw their fists into the air in silent approval. “Bring out the prisoners,” ordered AnnaLea.

Jonny, Jamie, and Calm were marched onto the stage. Crude and heavy manacles bound their wrists, a medieval form of restraint. All of them, even Calm, bore bruises on their faces. They were flanked by guards holding long and thin steel rods. Deklan’s heart sank. Someone like Mutuari must have stripped them of their Keystone abilities.

“What defense do you have for your crimes?” AnnaLea asked in the voice of a judge who has already passed a verdict.

Calm spoke in a voice thick from a beating and swollen lip. “Mr. Tobin, if you’re here, I’m giving you one minute to reach us. We’ll never find you after that.”

A spark of hope ignited in Deklan’s chest, and he yelled “Here!” at the top of his lungs.

Heads in the crowd and on the stage whipped around in his direction. The hands of those nearby reached for him, their fingers closing on him with painful grips. Just then Jamie vanished, leaving her manacles behind, and teleported over the crowd, coming ever closer.

Deklan kept yelling to make sure that Jamie wouldn’t lose sight of him. His throat was hoarse from the effort, and he lost sight of her as people surrounded him and pushed him down. The weight lessened, and he could hear crunching noises and people screaming. Then a hand closed around his ankle like a vice and hoisted him into the air. “Jamie, stop!” he yelled, knowing that she didn’t recognize him in the writhing mound of people.

A familiar lurch hit Deklan’s stomach as they teleported back to the stage. Jamie dragged him by his foot, never giving him a chance to regain an upright stance. He collapsed onto the stage where Calm and Jonny were fighting the guards.

The guards had given up swinging their rods and were using weapons that looked similar to what had put Deklan in the morgue. Bullet clusters hit the periphery of Calm’s invisible bubble and dropped to the ground.

Deklan found his feet again and brushed himself off. “Please tell me,” he said, “that you have more of a plan than to fight everyone here.”

Calm looked over his shoulder. “Not really. It was hard enough letting them beat us.” He pointed at his face. “Do you know how long it’s been since I was injured?”

Jonny interrupted before Deklan could frame a response. “We need a flitter,” he urged. His hands were up in an attack position. His fingers waved like anemones, and he looked ready to spray liquid. His stance might have looked more threatening if anyone other than Deklan, Calm, and Jamie had known what he was capable of.

The crowd surged at the stage, like waves crashing forward, but stopped at the edge of Calm’s bubble, unable to advance further.