The D’neeran Factor (126 page)

B had seen his eyes move, and looked at him narrowly. Michael thought carefully and deliberately, in words so clear Hanna, if she were with him, could not mistake them:
Get out of my head. The others need you.
He said aloud, “Now, Shen!”

B was not a fool. He guessed. He did not turn to look at the monitor; he moved away from it instead, waving Michael toward it, so he could see monitor and man at the same time. Michael walked in front of it, blocking B's line of sight, counting seconds. He turned his back on the screen and said casually, “What kind of truce would you have in mind?”

B knew what it was about now. He lifted the pistol. There would be no more talk; his eyes were empty as they had always been. Killing was not a pleasure, it was only a task, a permanent, efficient means to an end.

Seconds:
Michael charged head down. The last step was a leap. A tremendous shock hit him, a planet fell on him oceans and all; half-conscious, he didn't know where he had been hit till pain started in his shoulder and arm, tentatively at first. It was going to get big and not give him much time. He had bowled B over and the pistol had spun away somewhere and he would never get to it; he tried to use his weight to hold B down and was flung away, strength gone, vision blurring. B yelled for Wales and the smell of burned flesh filled the room. B scrambled for the pistol.
Seconds, more seconds!
B had the pistol and turned, and Michael tried to move his head to look at the monitor but could not do it; the full weight of the pain came down, there wasn't room for anything else, and he blacked out not expecting to wake up again.

*   *   *

Just before
GeeGee
came, Hanna fainted. She had gone suddenly shaky and vague, and Theo, when he saw it, questioned her sharply. “Broke trance too fast,” she had said, and then, while Theo watched for the
Golden Girl,
collapsed.

Shen set
GeeGee
down too hard, thinking of nothing but speed. A hatch yawned open on the side and Theo and Lise between them dragged Hanna through it. “We're in!” Theo yelled at an intercom and
GeeGee
lifted. A buzzer went off at the open hatch and Theo could not hear anything else till Shen triggered the closure from Control. The cover lifted into place and sealed itself, and there was quiet again.

Hanna sat up and shook off Theo's hands. Her face was bloodless and her eyes looked bruised. “Oh, God, he's hurt,” she said.

“Who? Mike?”

“Yes.” She ran trembling hands over her hair. She looked as if she might cry. “How are we ever going to get him out?” she said.

“What did he do?”

“Kept them busy,” she said, remembering the weapon in B's hand, and buried her face in her hands.

“Kept them
busy?
” Theo said incredulously.

She did not answer. She got up holding on to Theo, still shaky, but she got steadier on the way to Control. They were skimming over mountains, down low, to Theo's surprise; he had expected Shen to take them into space, dodging the
Avalon.
But there was nothing after them.

“He wanted to keep their attention off the monitor,” Hanna said, and repeated, “How do we get him out?”

Theo said, “Look, you're not going to like this. But he must have meant to look after himself. I think he wants us to go.”

She was furious—but cut it off; that was more than fear talking. Whatever Michael wanted was what Theo wanted, and he was thinking of Lise.
Get out,
Michael had told her, and she had obeyed blindly; she could not be angry at Theo for doing the same thing.

Theo said persistently, “If he can get off the ship, he'll be all right. He knows the language, the territory—there's Carmina. Maybe he means to go to ground till the Polity comes.”

“But he's
hurt.
” She realized then that she did not know how badly. She had broken the thin trance-link before it happened, had been pulling herself together from that, and whatever had happened to Michael had come up behind her and knocked her out. She thought for an instant,
Oh God is he dead?
and Lise saw her face and went white.

But if he were dead, she would know it beyond doubt. The best part of her would be dead, too.

Lise said in a trembling voice, “Couldn't you make him stop?”

“I didn't know what was going to happen. It was like he, he knew just what he was doing— Oh,” she said in anguish, “God damn him for not being afraid!”

Shen had not said anything. Hanna leaned against the back of Shen's seat. Theo was trying to comfort Lise and
GeeGee
's normal sounds went on steadily, but there was a great silence, an absent voice. Hanna was weak and could not think.

Shen said, “Theo, you think you could get
GeeGee
home?”

He looked around, his arm around Lise. He was silent for a minute, working it out. “Sure,” he said.

“Post.” She was talking to Hanna now. “You and me, we steal a truck, see what they've got for guns. Get back there and come in behind, on foot. All right?”

“Wait a minute.” Hanna's head started to work again. “They were only at Croft because we were. They'll go back to the Post.”

“Yeah. We go, too, then. Get off
GeeGee
farther away. Send Theo back to Theta. Walk in like before, us two. They think nobody's left here, think we went with Theo.”

“But if they think that—” There were flaws everywhere Hanna looked. If the
Golden Girl
escaped, B would give up on Gadrah; he would have to make a desperate flight to human space, try to disappear there; nothing else would be left.

Shen said practically, “Find out what he's thinking.”

“What? Who?”

“B,” Shen said, making a curse of it.

“Oh, but—” She wanted to say she couldn't. Every time she had touched B's thoughts it had been like a breath of the cold of deep space. And she knew, thinking of doing it
now, that she was not as competent as she had been before. Because something had happened to Michael, and it was as if it had happened to Hanna herself. Hanna had been wounded, too. Nothing like this had happened to her before; she did not know whether she was diminished or augmented by Michael, but there was no separating one from the other, and the shock of knowing it made her tremble.

Shen looked at her with slanting eyes. “Communicator?” she said, distracting Hanna; what had happened to the communicator Michael carried? It had been broadcasting right up to the end. Shen on
GeeGee,
and the others on the ground, had heard every word of the last dialogue. If it had been destroyed— She turned suddenly so no one could see her face. She had a clear memory of Michael being searched, hoping they would leave the communicator
over his heart—

If he were dead, she would know it. She clung to the thought.

As if it had been waiting for her to think about it, the communicator she had taken from Lise began to speak.

“Who's in charge?” said the voice like a snake, like a slug; a spider would talk that way. Hanna had the thing in her pocket; she pulled it out as if it were hot. “Where's the D'neeran?” B said.

She kept the shaking out of her voice. “What do you want?” she said without illusions, remembering the
Far-Flying Bird
more clearly than she had in months.

“Want him back?” said the voice.

“I want him back.”

“Give me your ship,” B said. “Fair trade.”

She looked around at the tense faces. But Theo only looked at Lise.

“We have to think about it,” she said, the hardest thing she had ever said, and shut off the transmission before B could speak again. Had he been listening to what was said on the
Golden Girl?
No, there had been no sound at all from the other end; the instrument must be shut off.

GeeGee
slowed and hovered over forest. Shen said, eyes gleaming, “If we could get back there fast enough Surprise 'em.”

“
GeeGee
's the fastest thing on the planet,” Hanna said. “If we take her back, we give her up or get shot down. Or just get shot down. What's he need
GeeGee
for?”

Shen shook her head. “Nothing. Trick,” she said.

Not even Michael would recommend this risk, because it was a certainty, not a risk. B would use Michael to entice them to return, and kill them at once; then he would kill Michael, too. And
GeeGee
would never carry news to the Polity, and nothing would change on Gadrah, ever.

It all pointed to one end, the logical thing. If Michael could talk to them now, he would make it clear what he wanted them to do.

But Hanna said, “I can't leave him. Whatever the rest of you do, I can't.”

Shen said patiently, “Told you. Find out what they think.”

Hanna said without hope, “I'll try.”

*   *   *

It took a long time. She retreated to Michael's room, and when she lay down on the bed and tried to clear her mind she was so tired and afraid she did not think she could get up again. She had not known that fear like this would be worse than fearing her own death. Her hand crept out to the empty space at her side, as if she could bring Michael back to it with her yearning. She did not want to touch B's mind. She had touched it before she knew who he was, when he had called the
Far-Flying Bird.
Then she had not even been revolted; her senses had cried
Caution!
but given no more specific warning; there had been no rage or hatred or even madness to trigger recognition.
Evil is cold,
she thought, fumbling. And she thought of what the creature had done, feeling nothing, on Gadrah—bringing death and bringing it finally to his allies, too, indifferent—and of the boy locked in B's quarters, uncomprehending, no mercy given to his sweetness.
He liked, liked ruining things, I think
—

She forgot what she was supposed to do and searched for Michael. She found him, and horror nearly drove her from the dream she had fallen into. He was in shock and in great pain. Nothing had been done for him. The burning light that had made his wound had cauterized it, and there was little bleeding, but every movement started agony up again. He breathed so shallowly that he hardly breathed at all. But then he would have to take a deep breath, and when he did, sometimes it came back out as a cry.

He did not know Hanna was with him. He thought he
had made her up, along with her grief. It did not seem to Hanna that anything could drive her from his side. But the traces of Shen in Michael's thought, Shen's purposefulness, did it.

I will come back,
Hanna said. He thought he made that up, too. Pain took his attention again; he did not notice when she left him.

Too weary for discipline, made small by grief, she wandered. It was only luck that took her to B. Like Michael, he did not know she was there, only thought he was thinking about her. He might not like D'neerans (she thought later), but he disliked them without knowing much about what they could do.

Something was missing from his mind; it lacked a part. She wrenched herself away and thought:
He is not a human being.

Yet by all criteria, he was. He was certainly not an alien, he was not even the Master of Chaos, he was master of nothing.

She opened her eyes and looked at the worked bronze Michael had set overhead. It looked back with the warmth of his eyes. She was so tired that exhaustion itself had shielded her from B, as if, without it, she might have been spattered with filth. She thought back reluctantly. She had learned something, she realized; she had no hope, but she could not say she had come to the end. Not yet.

She got up and went wearily back to Control.
GeeGee
was over ocean now, moving steadily but not fast, just to keep moving. The other three watched the ocean, where reflections of the Ring made a glittering path.

Hanna said without preamble, “He doesn't know we came without telling anybody.”

Shen made an impatient movement; Hanna was talking gibberish.

“He's not sure nobody else knows how to get here,” Hanna said.

Shen said comprehensively, “Henrik.”

“He didn't think about Henrik, maybe he hasn't seen him, maybe Henrik didn't tell him, I don't know. Henrik's dead,” she added, sure now. In all the exploration she had done since the morning, there had been no trace of him. Theo started to say something, but Hanna went on talking.
“That means he won't kill us right away. Look, there's more of them and they're armed. I don't know what we can do.”

“Find out,” Shen said, very pleased.

“Theo?”

“If we put Lise down somewhere safe first.”

“No!” Lise said, full of indignation, and Shen said, “Nowhere safe.”

After a minute Theo nodded. Hanna said, “Then we all go back.”

*   *   *

Michael was left where he had fallen, out of the way and harmless. The chamber was a blur. There were meaningless sounds and he could not move, did not want to. After a long time of pain he could think again. The pain had not gone away, but he was not stupefied any more. But his thoughts followed random paths, and he had no direction to give them. He had not thought of this eventuality, of injury, immobility, captivity. He had expected swift death or a chance to escape, and had gotten neither.

He thought that since he was still alive, he must try to stay that way.

He thought that there were five men in front of him now, all armed; that only if he kept very still was the pain even tolerable; that he could not move without groaning, try to stand without falling, walk without staggering.

There was not much hope of escape. He gave up thinking about it.

Sounds began to fall into words. The blurred edges of the flight deck came into focus. The men stood between Michael and the consoles that housed the controls. Their backs were toward him, but from time to time one or another looked around. To the left was an open locker. He could see some kind of weapon in it; there might be others.