Tanderon (41 page)

“They didn’t even look at me,” I lied with a smile after forcing the lump out of my throat. “Are you sure you’ve never done this kind of work before?”

The ghost of a smile crossed her face. “I guess I’m learning,” she whispered – then twisted to the side to throw up. The spasms racked her, forcing her to press her arm to her side where she had the broken rib. When she’d finally emptied herself I helped her to lie down again, then I checked out the room.

There was a big can of very warm water over near the door in a corner, so I used it to clean Teddy up all over, then cleaned the floor. By the time I’d finished Teddy was sleeping, and I found a torn blanket to cover her with. After that I sat down on the floor and leaned against a wall, drawing a picture in my mind of where we were.

The building that had become our new home wasn’t far from the center of town, and I should be able to cover all of Flowerville in only a few days. The only problem was, I couldn’t afford to start until I had some idea of the schedule this club building was run on. If someone came into the room while I was out they might not even notice I was gone, but they’d certainly noticed that Teddy was still here. If she had to go through anymore there would be nothing left to come back for, and that I refused to let happen. Taking once last glance at her, I leaned my head back and closed my eyes.

I woke immediately when, hours later, someone came to the door, but stayed where I was. The door opened, and a man I recognized from the party came in. He carried two bowls of something and he put them on the floor, then he reached back out to the hall for two tall glasses. He put the glasses down near the bowls, then closed the door and started toward Teddy. I waited until I felt sure what his purpose was, then struggled to my feet and hurried to cut him off by throwing myself down to shield Teddy with my body.

“Leave her alone – please!” I begged, having no trouble making the words come out ragged. “She’s so hurt … you can’t do anything else to her!”

“She’s a new member, an’ new members gotta do what old members want,” the man responded with a shrug, then he showed a grin. “But yer a new member too, ain’tcha? C’mere, pretty, I’ll take you.”

I’d been trying to lure the man away from Teddy, but when he reached for me I didn’t feel the satisfaction I should have. I got to my feet and backed away from the mattress as I shook my head, feeling my eyes widen as he came after me. He laughed a dirty laugh as he cornered me against the wall and then his hands were touching me, his face bending toward mine. I gagged on the smell coming from the ragged suit he wore, and tried to cringe away from the feel of the crusted material against my body. But cringing away didn’t work, and his mouth gave me his foul breath as his dirty hands squeezed my flesh, and there was no getting out of what he wanted.

He lowered me to the floor and tore his clothes open, then forced his way into my body. He held to my hair and one breast as he jerked his hips harder and harder, knowing he was hurting me and that I was trying to keep from screaming out loud.

His fingers closed tight on my breast and his hand in my hair jerked my head so far back that I thought my neck would snap. I gurgled and began to choke, now trying to give him the scream he so obviously needed, and when I finally got it out his release was immediate and violent.

He kept me like that for a while, trying to rekindle his interest, but finally he gave it up in disgust. He got to his feet to fix his clothes, then he sauntered out of the room. I lay where I was for longer than I should have, but when I was finally able to force myself to my feet I went immediately to see what he’d brought. It was some rancid-looking meat soup and thin beer, but I picked up a bowl and glass anyway and brought them over to the mattress.

“Teddy,” I said, shaking her shoulder gently. “You’re missing some of the best food ever cooked. Come on, I’ll help you.”

She opened her eyes and tried to sit up, but she was in too much pain to do it. I held her head up and fed her the soup, then gave her some of the beer to drink. When she lay back down, she looked at me and tried to smile.

“I’ll bet you’re sorry you took me now,” she whispered. “If you’d taken Nalvidi instead you wouldn’t have worried about feeding him.”

“You’re right,” I agreed, making myself return her smile. “If I had Nalvidi here all I’d have to do would be to water him occasionally. Are you feeling any stronger?”

“A little,” she responded with a nod. “When do we go looking for the vial?”

“I go looking for the vial,” I corrected before she decided it was her duty to get up.

“And I’ll be going later. I’ll have to pick up some clothes first, and then I’ll strut around like a club member. It’ll be a cinch.”

“Do you know who he reminds me of?” she asked as though we’d been discussing the subject for an hour.

“Who?” I asked, controlling the urge to frown.

“Wiger,” she returned, staring straight ahead. “He reminds me of my father, and that’s why I tried to leave. My father did the same thing to me once. I’m going to kill Wiger before we leave. Can I kill him before we leave?”

“He’s all yours,” I promised the urgent pleading in her eyes. “But you’d better get some sleep now. I’ll wake you if I need you.”

She smiled and closed her eyes, and in a moment was fast asleep. I went to the door and got my own meal and ate it, but only took small sips of the beer. When I finished I located a dirty window behind the cloth hangings and took a look outside.

It was almost dark, so the club members ought to be leaving soon.

It would have helped having the window on the ground floor if it hadn’t been sealed somehow, but I’d have to go into the rest of the building to find club member-type clothing anyway. Going out after dark would make things harder, but it would still have to be done. The sooner we got out of there and back to Blue Skies the better, most especially since Teddy couldn’t afford to wait very long. I lowered myself to the floor and wrapped my arms around my middle, using the waiting time to force all thoughts of pain from my mind.

I stood in the shadows of an alleyway, watching the goings-on around me. I’d had very little trouble locating a cache of clothing in Wiger’s club house, and now was wearing pants, shirt, and jacket like any other club member – plus a cap to cover and hide my hair. I was only about three blocks from my point of departure, but I’d been able to cover half a dozen different clubhouses in that section. The vial hadn’t been in any of them, and I was anxious to get on to the rest of the town. I wanted out of that place, but I couldn’t leave without the vial.

Right now I was being delayed by needing to skulk in the alleyway. I’d almost walked into the middle of some town action, and had pulled back into the alleyway just in time. One of the clubs had been waiting in ambush for another, and the first group had caught the second group good.

A dozen or more bodies littered the ground, and the survivors were swinging wildly at each other with heavy chains, pieces of pipe, lengths of wood, or knives. Stunners and disruptors weren’t used in town, not when they needed to be saved for use on the people at 2. Dark pools clumped in the dirt near some of the bodies, and if it had been light the pools would have shown themselves to be red.

Suddenly there was the sound of sirens in the distance, and the two warring groups hesitated then reluctantly separated. Some few of them stumbled away to the safety of the surrounding buildings, but the larger group searched the ground around the bodies quickly, salvaging what it could of dropped weapons before running off in different directions. Seconds later ground cars with squealing tires and flashing lights careened onto the scene, separating and taking off after the fleeing figures. The noise of the fight and the chase hung in the air for a few moments even after everyone was gone, and I still didn’t move from the alleyway.

The police in Flowerville wanted to run the town themselves and tried to offer protection to as many of the clubs as would go along with them. But the rest of the clubs didn’t like the idea and tended to concentrate their nightly attacks on the clubs that had allied themselves with the police. The club that had been ambushed had probably been one of the police allies, and if any members of the other club were caught they’d never live to see the light of the next day. But that wasn’t enough to keep the clubs from doing as they pleased, not by a longshot. Life was cheap in Flowerville, and they’d been killing each other long before they began to try the same thing with the agent trainees at 2.

I was just about ready to step out of the alleyway when I heard some sounds coming from the street to the left. Moving carefully to the end of the buildings I looked out, and the streetlights showed me a group of about a dozen men who laughed as they walked and pushed along with them two other men and a woman. The woman was crying as she was hauled along by the hair, and the two men, hands bound behind them, were stumbling and breathing hard. They also occasionally cried out when a pipe or piece of wood was shoved hard into their backs to keep them moving.

I faded back into the alleyway until they had passed, then moved up again to watch them disappear into the darkness. Three of the frightened, harried non-club members had made the mistake of allowing themselves to be caught by club members on the hunt, and they would pay hard for the mistake.

The woman would be used without thought of saving her for another day, and the men would find out just how much pain it was possible for them to feel before they died. They would have been relatively safe during the daylight hours, but at night they hadn’t had a chance. I looked around carefully to make sure the streets were deserted again, then moved on to the next clubhouse on my list.

I came back early on the sixth night, and Teddy looked up when I opened the door.

She didn’t say anything, but when I shook my head to her unasked question, she sagged back on the mattress. I’d gone over every club building in town and then had rechecked them, but there wasn’t a single sign of the vial. The bracelet I’d managed to keep still glowed very faintly in the dark, but it hadn’t vibrated even once during any of my trips.

“Where can it be?” Teddy asked desperately as I approached. “How long is it going to take to find it?”

“I don’t know,” I said with a grunt as I collapsed onto the mattress next to her. “No matter how they try to shield it I’ll know when I get near it, but we’re running out of time. The longer it takes, the greater the chance of someone trying to use it.”

“I almost wish they would,” she said in a choked voice, and I covered my eyes with my arm. I’d been able to divert attention from her most of the time, but the last couple of days they’d brought our meals in pairs and there had been no way to get one of them to wait or double up. Teddy threw up every time she tried to eat, and was getting thinner and paler by the hour. She wouldn’t talk about her rib, but she didn’t move around much.

“Let’s try to get some sleep,” I suggested instead of commenting about what she’d said. “Tomorrow we’ll have to think about this.”

We both lay still in the dim lightbulb glow, but all I could think about was the most important fact of our new life. We had one or two more days at most before Wiger decided that Teddy was healthy enough for us to be put in with the rest of the women members. When that happened the visits would no longer be limited to mealtimes, and there would be more than one apiece for us. I hadn’t told Teddy about it because I didn’t think she could face the prospect, but I wasn’t too sure how well I would face it. The job I had to do kept most of my attention away from everything else, but if I became convinced there was no job…

I tried to blank my mind, but I was too tired to keep my thoughts from going back to the question of where the damned vial might be. Ringer had said they were moving it around, but I hadn’t been searching randomly. The pattern I’d used was designed to make sure that even if they moved it every day I would have crossed its path at least twice if not more.

I was being forced to believe that the vial wasn’t in Flowerville, but it had to be here.

If anything special had been started with it, the word would have been all over. I’d spent a lot of time listening carefully, but no one had even mentioned it. It wasn’t here, but it was. No one had it, but it was being moved around. No one knew about it, but the information had been bought. I felt as if I were searching for an invisible man in a place where no one believed in invisibility.

My thoughts went around and around and I finally fell asleep, but only to dream. I found myself back in the classroom at 2, but I was the trainee and Nalvidi was teaching the course. He stood ten feet tall and held a knife that was bigger and sharper than any knife ever made, and he began to wave it around.

“Flexibility is the key!” he roared at me, coming closer and closer with the knife.

“Don’t ever fall so in love with any weapon or plan that you stick to it no matter what new information you come across! You’re stupid, and you’ve earned a cheap funeral!”

He stabbed down at me with the knife and I yelled and woke up on my feet with my wrists up and crossed, ready to block and break his arm. I was covered in sweat and shaking visibly, and Teddy stared up at me with fear on her face.

“Things were getting too dull around here,” I told her as I sank back down onto the mattress and wiped some of the sweat away. “I thought we could use a little diversion.”

“Don’t let it get to you too, Diana!” she begged, pulling the torn blanket closer to her. “I don’t think I can get out of here with no one to help me.”

“Sure you can,” I answered in distraction, running both hands through my tangled hair. “No one’s been doing so much around here that helping you ought to be a breeze.”

“Come on, Diana, things have to be done by someone,” she said unsteadily, back to staring at me. “They can’t be done by no one, so please try to get some rest and tomorrow we’ll think about it.”

She put her hand on my shoulder and gently tried to pull me down, but I was suddenly sitting stiff and straight and my mind was finally working.