Maeve (11 page)

The sudden, sharp demand jerked the doughy body away from the wall and brought the doctor shambling into the center of the room, a nervous tic distorting the shape of his mouth. “Illustrious?” he muttered.

“Bring the technician and the probe.”

The doctor stood without moving, eyes fixed on the Director's face as the smile gradually soured. Then he stumbled with stiff reluctance from the room.

Aleytys closed her eyes. “Harskari?”

There was a faint amber glow and a feeling of effort, of thrusting struggle. A feeling of wait, wait, wait … sighing, she opened her eyes. “What do you want?”

“As soon as that dolt of a doctor returns, we psychprobe you to find out who and what you are.”

Aleytys swallowed, fear bitter in her throat. She sucked in a deep breath and tried to calm herself. “The doctor said a psychprobe destroys the mind.”

“A sad loss.” His eyes ran over her body and rested on her hair. “Han had some interesting speculations about you.”

“I heard. Stupidity. McNeis? Scota Company? I've never run across either.”

“You want to tell me who you are?”

“No. It's none of your business.” She closed her eyes, turned her head away. “Harskari,” she whispered. “Hurry. Please. All of you. Please.” The tangleweb held her body passive or she would have been thrashing about, dropping into a total panic. As it was, she wanted the reassurance of the mother figure Harskari, like a child terrified by a nightmare made real.

A faint yellow glow and a feeling of struggle. A tinge of purple, outlined in black. They were fighting …

The director leaned back watching her tense her muscles against the restraint of the web, a slight smile of enjoyment on his face.

Gwynnor tugged at his hands, hot anger alternating with the chill of despair. He had grown accustomed to seeing Aleytys dealing calmly with all sorts of problems. The peithwyr and the machine, even his own hurt and anger. There was an assurance about her that had annoyed and comforted him. Now … now he watched her whisper and moan. He felt ashamed for her.

A low rumble drew his eyes to the door. A silent, composed man in the green tunic of a technician pushed a humming machine in on a small dolly. At a gesture from the Director, he wheeled the machine to Aleytys and knelt beside her. Ignoring her struggles, she clipped electrodes onto her head and neck, then slipped a helmet down and snapped restraining straps in place. Then he stood again and moved behind the machine, looking down on its reading face. Gwynnor shivered, sensing a heavy danger. He hadn't understood anything that had passed between Aleytys and the Director, but he knew Aleytys was terrified and the Director was evil.

Fury beat hotter in him. Hatred for the starman who had stolen her dignity. Without thought for his own danger he called out sharply, “Aleytys!”

She responded instantly, eyes snapping open, head jerking up. He saw intelligence return to her face. After a brief smile, she turned away, closing her eyes again, her face ugly under the tight pull of her intense concentration. He didn't know what she was trying but watched expectantly, ignoring the lazy triumph on the face of Manhanu.

A light chime sounded through the thick silence. For an instant she thought it was the diadem and began to relax.

The technician spoke. “The probe's ready, Illustrious.”

Aleytys felt a sick helplessness. Her mind worked stiffly without its usual gathering of haloed concepts, kept rigidly to one line of thinking by the straitjacket of the machine humming above her. “Harskari,” she shrieked, not caring this time who heard her. “Shadith! Swardheld! Help me …”

Ignoring the noise the Director said, “Ask her who she is.”

The words punched into her brain and her mind went totally rigid. Pain … oh god … pain … “Aleytys!” she screamed. “My name is Aleytys.”

“More.”

“Raqsidani…… of.… of.… Jaydugar.…”

“That's no use. What is her ancestry? Her father? Her mother? Is she related to the McNeis?”

“No … oh … oh … oh … Mardha … Raqsidani … Azdar, father … Madar … mother … mother … no … mother … Vryhh …”

“What!” Dimly through the searing, burning pain she saw him leaning forward, eyes glittering. “Mother!”

“Sh … shareem … a … a Tennathan … of Vrithian … Shareem … Shareem … Shar …”

“Enough. Where is Vrithian?”

“No … no … I … I … don't … know … I don't know …”

He turned to the technician. “More force.”

The technician protested. “I don't advise it, Illustrious.”

“Nonsense! That bitch can take it. Do what I tell you.”

Shrugging, he twisted the rheostat, sending an additional surge of power through the electrodes.

A light chime sounded through the humming of the machine. On Aleytys' head threads of light nickered in and out of visibility, then partially solidified into a circlet of delicate blossoms curving around the dull metal of the helmet.

The diadem chimed again, the sounds matching the on-off flickering of the jeweled centers belonging to the thread flowers.

Aleytys felt/heard a roaring in her ears. Though she found it hard to think, she gathered her anger and threw it into the fight, feeling a building pressure of rage looking for an outlet.

Things like slimy translucent worms wound in multiple turns around her arms and legs. The rage in her came out in bloody flames that licked along her flesh and seared the worms into black dust. She moved her legs and felt a little better. Shaking her body to throw off the dust she stood up and glared at the staring Director. Behind her, the straining probe made small crackling noises and stopped its machine hum. Small threads of blue stinking smoke began creeping out of the polished carapace.

The diadem chimed again and everything froze. But memory came flooding back to Aleytys. The killing rage flowed away as the realization of her escape filtered through the noise and pain in her head. She jerked off the helmet and electrodes and threw them at the floor. The diadem settled into the red gold strands of her hair, having passed like a ghost crown through the metal and wiring of the helmet.

She felt her three friends driving with her own will to fight the influence of the inhibitor, and with that feeling, a warning that she'd better hurry, a warning rendered doubly urgent by the shaking in her knees.

Wading with difficulty against the gelatinous thickness of the air, she swam toward the Director, watching his eyes open open open open until whiteness ringed the staring black pupils and dark-brown iris. Watching his mouth open open open in a soundless cry. Watching his hands slowly slowly rise helplessly, rise futilely rise to fend her off. She forced her hand into his sleeve.

The fabric was stiff, resisting the probing of her fingers. She was getting dangerously weak. Ignoring the increasing pressure of Manhanu's clinging hand, she forced her fingers into the sleeve pocket and closed them around the hexagonal rod.

It felt impossibly massive. Sweat trickled down her straining face as she brought her other hand into the sleeve, caught the rod between her palms and tore it free. She pushed herself back from the Director, stumbling haphazardly, recklessly backward until she crashed into the wall.

She brought her hands up slowly, fighting the massive inertia of the metal rod.

The diadem chimed, the sound breaking uncertainly then rippling through the five separate notes of the heart stones. As the stiffness melted from the air, Aleytys' breathing grew shallow while her heart boomed in her chest and the blood roared in her ears. With a last tremendous effort, she touched the white end of the rod to the disk on the collar.

She crashed to her knees, her hands flying outward as the immediate pressure inside her head exploded in a great expanding roar.

Gwynnor goggled open-mouthed, then slumped to the floor, his eyes glazed over.

Tipylexne and Ghastay twisted briefly on the floor then lay still.

The Director opened his mouth wide in a silent scream, then fell, boneless as a rag doll, back against the console, eyes like prunes staring blankly at the far corner of the room.

A guard form slumped across the open doorway.

Aleytys rubbed her hand across her eyes, trying to gather her whirling thoughts.

“Aleytys.” Harskari's contralto voice was more shaken than Aleytys had ever heard it.

Flattening her back against the wall, Aleytys let her legs fold slowly, sliding to the floor with a solid sound. “What?”

“Replenish your energy. Quickly.” Harskari didn't bother to add that the engineer could not be away much longer, or that at any moment Aleytys' precarious control of the situation could slip.

“In a minute.” She looked around searching for the rod that had flown from her hand.

“Aleytys!”

“All right. All right.” The black water was life pouring into empty veins. She was a flaccid old wineskin and the new black wine filled her taut. She brushed the hair from her face and snatched up the rod. When the collar was off her neck, she stared at it, fury rising in her again at the abrupt return to slavery. She closed her hand over the collar and turned angrily to the Director, who was shakily fumbling at his face.

“Aleytys.” Harskari's face formed, stern and reproachful. “Leave him alone. What's done is done. You have responsibilities. Gwynnor. The cludair.”

“The cludair,” Aleytys said thoughtfully, then she grinned. “Swardheld, friend, we've got ourselves a hostage.”

The black eyes opened and he grinned back at her.

Chapter XIV

“Come in. Carefully. And alone.”

The engineer ran cool eyes over her. She sat, legs crossed, leaning back in the swivel chair, her hands resting lightly in her lap. He watched her, his mouth twitching, the corners of the thin lips tucking in and down. Then he stepped through the doorway and stood relaxed but alert, facing her. “You turned them loose.”

“Do I need to answer that?” She sniffed. Looking past him at the shadowed form of his companion, she said brusquely, “Send your friend for the doctor. He's locked away in the dormitory.” A quick lift and fall of her hand. “He can tell you things you need to know.”

The engineer looked back over his shoulder. “You heard?” The dark figure moved slightly. “Good. Bring him.” As the heavy form stalked off, he turned back slowly, his black eyes boring into hers. “Why are you still here?”

“You had a visitor.”

His eyes narrowed briefly before he could stop the reaction. “The technician with the probe?”

“He came. Someone else, also.”

His narrow black brows pressed down while he thought. “The Director?”

“Very quick.” She tapped the fingers of one hand on the back of the other. “The cludair now have an illustrious guest.”

His thin nostrils pinched together, then flared wide, and his long thin mouth curled up in a mocking grimace that didn't quite qualify as a smile. “That won't get you anywhere.”

She chuckled, the sound pure amusement in the cold metallic chamber. His eyes narrowed again. “The cludair had a long chat with a pair of guards you sent into the forest awhile back.” She rubbed her thumb beside her nose. “A son of Chu drags a bit more weight than most. The guards had quite a bit to say about the strength of family ties.”

The smile oh the engineer's face crawled farther up his cheeks. “Hostage?”

“Oh, never. Guest with full honors.” Once again she chuckled. “No suicide, Company men. Being warned, the cludair will prevent that.” She spread out her hands in a wide gesture. “Why should an honored guest be so unmannerly?”

His mouth straightened. “The guards. What guards?”

“The cludair brought them back here. Not the first pair. The second.”

“Ah. Those.” He dropped his eyes to his hands, straightening the fingers and bending his flexible thumbs back and forth. “There were no marks on them.”

“The cludair have a very effective green magic.”

“Magic? Pah!”

“Don't deny what you can't understand. Green magic it is, coupled with a comprehensive knowledge of the effects of local herbs.”

Behind the blankness in his expressive face, Aleytys sensed the busy working of his subtle mind. “Herbs. Maranhedd?”

“No.”

“Still …” A sly flicker of the almond-shaped black eyes underlined the sudden flare of greed that brought amusement fluttering through Aleytys' diaphragm. “Drugs that can break conditioning … would they trade?”

“Good.” She grinned at him. “You give us another bargaining chip.”

“So?”

“Do you really want to stay in this perambulating bug?”

He didn't answer but she caught his sudden flare of interest.

The doctor shambled into the room. He looked a mess, hair lank and greasy, the straggling ends poking out around a soiled face with olive shadows staining his temples, painting his quivering jowls and discoloring the sagging purses under his eyes. Those eyes slid uneasily, turning, turning, refusing to look at the others.

“Doctor!” The word brought the fragment of a man cringing around to face the engineer's slim arrogant figure. He straightened his back slowly, his swimming eyes fixed on Han's collar latching. “What happened here?” Han said sharply. The contempt in his master's voice passed unheeded over the doctor's numbed brain.

Fumbling in his sleeve, the doctor said slowly, “The Director came. He wanted you. I told him where you were. He ordered the cast broken off the woman. He brought the technician in and told him to link her to the probe. He questioned her about who she was. He got excited about something … I forget what. He ordered the technician to increase power. She did something …” The dragging voice slowed further until it degenerated into an uncouth mumbling. Eyes glazed and unseeing, he fumbled in the sleeve again and finally drew forth a sweat-stained paper, folded and sealed. He held it out.