The D’neeran Factor (82 page)

He held a reader that showed the first page of a stores inventory. He held it for some time without scrolling onward. Lise perched on the edge of a chair nearby, as if she had drawn an invisible line between
too close I'll annoy him
and
too far he's too far away.
Presently Theo came in, looking about casually but not at Michael or Lise, as if they were not really there, as if no subtle pull had called him there where Michael was. A little while later Shen, abandoning Control, came in, too; she glared at Michael
(What are you doing here?)
and sat down.

They turned to Michael in silence and made a circle, shutting out everything else with their backs.

GeeGee
sang with great unhappiness:

“
GeeGee,
shut up,” Michael said.

He looked at the others one by one. “There's one thing left,” he said. “We've got a hostage; we'll use her. I don't expect it to work. If it doesn't, it's not the end. Remember that, all of you. I want you to remember it. If we have to, we'll head for D'neera. They've no great love for the Polity there and they'll settle for getting Hanna back. I'll get rid of her and leave the rest of you there. No—” The movement caught his eye. “Don't say it, Theo. I'm not taking flak from any of you. That's the way I want it. You can do more for me that way. When you get off D'neera they'll probe you, but they'll let you go. Theo's clear with Co-op. They won't send Shen back to Nestor, they never make anybody go back there, and it won't matter what happened on Carrollis. The less attention Carrollis gets from I&S the better they like it. When you get to Valentine, you can start helping me. Work with Kareem. He'll know what to do.”

He heard himself with satisfaction; his voice had less expression than
GeeGee
's. They looked at him warily. Theo said, “What do you do in the meantime?”

“I go back to space and wait.
GeeGee
's powered and provisioned for years.”

“Years!” Shen repeated, incredulous.

“If necessary.”

Lise's face crumpled, but Theo and Shen looked at each other with grudging accord.

It was working. What he said made a kind of sense. They saw the picture he wanted them to see:
GeeGee
glittering here and there in human space, disappearing and reappearing, outwaiting I&S.

But it was not a real hope. No one ever outwaited I&S. Instead he would take
GeeGee
out, out, on a hopeless quest that would end only with the end of his life, or of his sanity. But he would not take anyone with him.

He left them to look at the illusion with hope, and went to call I&S again—without Hanna, this time.

Figueiredo's voice said: “We have contact. Make it quick.”

“Make him wait,” said the expert's smile.

“Is Hanna with him?”

“I think not.”

“Dead perhaps?”

“I think not.”

“Why did she…?” The violin.

A sigh. “A warning of some kind.”

“Suicidal,” Denkovitz growled.

“An old pattern.” The deep bass, rarely heard.

“Not quite,” said the expert, light and sweet. “That is, yes and no.”

The voices hushed to respectful silence. The expert went on.

“She was shattered once. I think not whole since. There are ways to give warning. Ways and ways. This might have been one. So public? So direct? Inviting attack? Consider what happened. Besides the deaths. The trauma. Her instinct is: become rigid. Cling to what's known. Those near breaking make shows of strength. She is not well. Perhaps not quite sane.”

“No good, then.” Disapproving. Vickery's voice.

“Those who do what she does must somehow be split,” said the bass.

“This is different,” said the smile. “There's nothing solid, she stands on air and swings at nothing; it's been long since there were foundations, else she would not have risked what she risked. It may mean her time with us is past.”

After a long silence the bass said, “And next?”

“I do not know,” the expert said.

“How do we find out?”

“Watch,” she said.

Hanna was dozing when Michael came to her again. She had not been able to turn off the light because
GeeGee
would not answer or obey her, and it was a vicious glare even to his eyes. He noticed the cold for the first time also, and spoke to his ship. The light dimmed and a current of warm air brushed his face. Hanna did not stir. He sat at her feet, which were bare; he took them in his hands to warm them and she came awake all of a sudden, kicking at him by reflex, savagely.

“Sorry. Sorry!”

She had been on her stomach. Now she was upright. She put a hand to her chest, where her heart pounded too hard.
Michael raised both hands in the ancient peacemaking gesture.

She waited to see what he wanted.

“Don't kick,” he said cautiously. He touched her feet again and she jerked and said, “What are you doing?”

“I didn't mean to freeze you to death.”

His hands fell easily into a pattern of massage. He knew what he was doing and the blood moved into her icy toes. He talked quietly, eyes on his task.

“We've Jumped. Several times, in fact. I'm talking to someone on Earth. Not the man you had before. They say there might be a compromise, but they want to see you first. So they'll know you're all right. You'll have to come up. I hope you'll keep your mouth shut. If you don't, there's not much I can do about it. But if you think about it, you'll see that the sooner we get it over with, the sooner you can leave…”

He went on talking, but Hanna ceased to listen. Something was happening in the soles of her feet. The warmth went straight up her legs and into her belly like current carried on a pair of wires.

She thought:
This man was a Registered Friend. He has forgotten nothing.
She had entirely forgotten it, however. Until now. He did not look up. If he met her eyes while his hands were busy in this way, it would be a challenge. Somewhere in the training (and how was he trained? What else had he learned?), he had been taught when to challenge and when to submit, or appear to submit.

She drew her knees up suddenly, pulling her feet away from him. He looked up. His eyes were innocent; he had only wanted her to be warm. But something else came into them now.

He said, “Just once I'd like to meet a woman who didn't know. I might as well have stayed in the trade.”

“It must be a great burden for you,” Hanna said politely. “The curiosity. The expectations. You must have to say no all the time. What a pity.”

The corners of his mouth twitched. She was right, and he nearly laughed. He stopped it, but his eyes danced; somewhere there was a well of merriment hard to suppress.

“Come talk to I&S,” he said.

The spiral stair was not long, but Hanna's knees felt the
climb halfway up. In Control she sank into a seat with relief. In front of her she saw, first, a chronometer engaged in some kind of count. It was counting up. Then she saw the face of the I&S negotiator, the dark brown face of a woman with a mild, almost sweet expression. The brown eyes were lustrous and made her look very young. Her hair was styled in yielding curves and there was a frill of lace at her throat.

Michael said, “Hanna, this is Colonel Stiva Waller. As you can see, Colonel, Hanna is alive and well. Shall we get on with it?”

“And how are you being treated?” Waller said, ignoring Michael.

“All right,” Hanna answered uncertainly, and looked at the gentle face with wonder; then she understood. How like I&S; how like the Polity! This would not be a straightforward negotiation if they could help it. They would tip the balance in any way they could, they would use a pretty woman whose smile and soft voice might disarm Michael and confuse him; might, even, suggest this affair was a peccadillo that did not threaten him and need not be taken too seriously. Did they hope he would flirt with her? Or be distracted by a subliminal mother-image?

“Would you like to tell me what you've been doing?” Stiva Waller asked sweetly.

“Doing…?”

“Are you well? How have you been treated since we saw you last? Some hours ago?”

“I've been sleeping—” Hanna's voice wavered. She pulled her scattered thoughts together and said, “I was very sick, you know. I've been cared for well.”

“It must be nice to know you're in good hands,” Stiva Waller said.

Hanna did not say anything. She felt Michael behind her, unmoving. Waller said, “And have Shen Lo-Yang and Theodore Jadinow helped in your care?”

Hanna did not understand the reason for the question. She said, “Theo saved my life.”

Michael put his hands on Hanna's shoulders and said, “All right. Tell her, Waller. You're dying to.”

Hanna screwed her head around to look up at Michael. He watched Waller's face and for once she could not read his expression. Disgust? Contempt? His fingers moved a
little. It felt like a caress, and she was still; but the invisible watchers on Waller's side would see those graceful hands near her throat.

“Shen Lo-Yang,” Waller said, “was an executioner in the service of General Greenway on Nestor for many years. She loved her work. So much that when she fell from favor—the punishment, I believe, was mutilation—she turned to robbery with murder to support herself. Theo Jadinow enjoyed a lucrative and illegal medical practice—gypsy practices, they're called—on Co-op's frontiers. He was motivated by the need to procure large sums to pay for his use of—well, of nearly any drug you care to name. He does not seem to have killed anyone, at least not personally, and he was not remanded for Adjustment. His medical training beforehand was minimal. Yet you feel safe?”

“Quite,” Hanna said.

“I see. That being the case, Mr. Kristofik, we can talk about terms.”

“Mine are easy,” Michael said.

“Let's hear them.”

“Safe passage to Valentine. A personal guarantee from Ecomanager Mejian that when I go back there I won't be handed over to I&S. Restoration of my property. I want you to quit harassing my friends and I want you to let go anybody you've got in custody because of me. In exchange I'll give you Hanna—and everything I've collected on the man she told you about. The places he's been and the names he's used and his contacts for the last two years.”

“That will do for a start,” Waller said.

“It'll do for a finish, too.”

He did not say anything else. The tips of his fingers shifted and rested softly on either side of Hanna's jaw, on the pulsepoints under her ears. It was a blatant bluff and she was astonished—first, that he thought he could make anyone believe he would harm her, with that transparent face; and secondly, that she had not denounced the fraud at once.

Before she could make up her mind to do it Waller said, “We'll discuss it. I'll contact you later.”

“No.” He glanced at the chronometer. The call to Earth had given away
GeeGee
's position, and he would not linger. “We're moving on. I'll contact you.”

That was the end. As Waller's image disappeared, Hanna turned and saw Michael's face as she had not seen it before: stone. Perhaps they would believe him after all.

He changed; he looked only tired. He dropped into a seat beside Hanna, forgetting for a moment that she was there. She put out her hand and touched him of her own accord for the first time. The golden eyes turned to her face and she saw that this desperate bargain was not what he wanted to do; he was not doing anything he wanted to do. She took her hand away, surprised at what she had done.

“I have to lock you up again,” he said.

“All right, if that's what you want. But—” She hesitated. “It's hard for me to believe all the things I heard about you.”