The Mutant Prime (29 page)

Without another thought, he took Kelly’s hand. She looked at him with surprise. Then she smiled.

“I assume you’ve been instructed to banish me?” she said.

“Of course. Do you want to go?”

She reached over to gently straighten his tie and her hand lingered on his shirtfront. “Only if I can’t help you further.”

“Don’t you have to be back at Armstrong?”

“Not for another seventy-two hours.” She met his gaze, held it.

“Then I’d like you to attend my father’s funeral.” He fought the temptation to pull her closer. To kiss her, there, in the hallway of Dream Haven. “It would mean a lot to me.”

Kelly’s eyebrows disappeared into her bangs. “Won’t your clan be shocked? Sounds like you’re asking for trouble.”

“Who cares? I don’t have to worry about offending my father anymore. And you know how my mother feels.”

“Well, I’d like to show respect,” she said. “But I don’t want to make trouble. I know how hard this is for your mother. For you and Jimmy.”

“Less painful because you’re here,” he said, and gave her hand a squeeze.

“What about your wife?”

Michael shrugged. “She’s furious that you’re here, of course.”

“I don’t really blame her,” Kelly said. “Especially after our hissing match in the commissary. I almost left then. But your mother stopped me.”

“Mom did? Good. I knew she liked you.”

Kelly smiled gently. The late afternoon sun slanted in through the clerestory windows, haloing her dark hair. “Michael, I think the best thing I can do is stay out of the way until the funeral. There’s an inn in Mendocino I know, and I’m sure …”

She broke off, distracted by something behind him.

Michael looked over his shoulder. Two men, nonmutants, wearing identical dark gray suits, approached him.

“Excuse me, Mr. Ryton?” the shorter one said. He had a resonant tenor voice.

“Yes?”

He smiled and held out a holo card which read
EDWARD GREEN, FEDERAL MARSHAL
in bronzed three-dimensional letters.

“You are in contempt of Congress,” Edward Green said in the same pleasant tone. “Please come with us.”

The factory was silent, all activity stilled. The sound of Melanie’s footsteps on the metal catwalk echoed loudly and set her nerves jumping.

Ashman is waiting for us in there, she thought. He’s like a spider anticipating the tug on his web. One little tweak and he’ll come scuttling …

Hey, ease up on the melodrama, will you?

Skerry’s mindspeech crackled with tension.

Melanie nodded. For the tenth time, she felt the laser pistol in her pocket. Flanked by her tall cousin on one side and Yosh on the other, she walked toward the main domerooms. Was Narlydda in there? Was she all right? Could Skerry tell?

Melanie, please, chant or something. At such close range, you’re driving me crazy. And yes, I know. You’re sorry
.

Yosh glanced at them as though he was aware of some hidden communication taking place. But he glanced away again at the sudden sound of humming. With an eerie screech of metal, the factory had jolted back to life.

They walked past mechs churning and distilling the liquid ceramic. The creamy mixture glittered in its extrusion tubes as the light caught trace elements of mica and selenium. It was almost pretty, Melanie thought.

At the entrance to the domerooms, Skerry paused and looked around cautiously.

He must be casting an esper probe, Melanie thought. She watched as her cousin listened carefully then shook his head. No luck. She didn’t know whether that meant Ashman was blocking him, or that there was nobody alive beyond those gray metal doors.

Ready, folks?

They exchanged glances. Melanie and Yosh both pulled their laser guns out. Slowly, they nodded. Skerry pushed the doors open.

The domeroom was half-lit by pink spotlights. The cold white stars twinkled beyond the safety of the transparent dome walls. Even in the dim light, Melanie could see that the room was a mess. A major struggle had taken place here. Between whom?

Skerry drew his breath in sharply. Melanie followed his glance and saw a figure sitting propped up against a mech storage unit. Narlydda! Was she hurt?

As they approached her, Narlydda lifted her head, jerkily, as though it were being pulled by strings. Her eyes remained closed.

“I’m sorry,” she said tonelessly, mouth working hard to form each word. “It’s a trap. You should have gone home.”

“Lydda!” Skerry reached for her.

A crackle of mental energy and a flash of blue light sent him flying through the air and into the far wall. Skerry sat where he’d fallen for a moment, heavily stunned. Then, shaking his head as though to clear it, he got to his feet.

“Ashman? I know you’re here. You’ll have to do better than that. Esper bolts are child’s play.”

For answer, a second bolt of mental lightning sizzled through the air, knocking him to his knees. He stayed there, tottering.

Melanie swung her head from left to right: she could only see the four of them. She scanned the room again. The supermutant was nowhere to be seen.

Why did you come back? I let you go. Why make me kill you?

Ashman’s mindspeech was loud, with strange echoes that distorted it from tenor to soprano and back again.

“You don’t really want to kill us, do you?” Melanie said gently. “In fact, you’d rather be friends, wouldn’t you?”

Don’t be ridiculous. I’d just rather not have to make the effort it takes to dispense with you.

Come on, Skerry, she thought. Get up!

But her cousin was still on his knees, groaning. Got to stall, she thought. She looked at Yosh in desperation.

“Uh, Ashman, you know I’ve always liked you,” Yosh said. “Why don’t you show yourself? I’d like to talk to you about some ideas I have for the Moonstation statue—”

Stop improvising, musician. We were never friends. And now you’re beginning to annoy me. Since you won’t go back I must make you go away. The telepath, first.

Skerry began choking as though the air was being pulled from his lungs. He collapsed onto his back, his hands clawing at his windpipe.

“Stop it! Ashman, don’t kill him!” Melanie cried. A telekinetic wind came out of nowhere, the exhalation of some strange beast, and blew her head over heels across the room. The stars careened crazily before her eyes. She lost her grip on the laser pistol, and it went clattering across the floor.

“Melanie!”

Yosh moved toward her, but he too was suddenly forced sharply back against the wall, blown by an unseen hurricane. He hit hard, slid down to a sitting position, and stayed there, eyes closed, stunned.

“Victor, please,” Narlydda said in the same flat tone as before.

Skerry struggled harder for breath. His face was bright red and veins bulged at his temples.

No, Melanie thought. No. No. No. She clambered toward the laser pistol. Behind her, there was a strange clicking sound. She whirled.

Ashman was slowly materializing in a cloud of silver smoke. He looked astonished, as though the effect were not of his choosing.

The radio in the wallscreen crackled to life.

“Emory Fac-2, this is shuttle
Anorik
. Repeat, shuttle
Anorik
responding to distress call from private shuttle. Please respond if you are able.”

With a cry of anger, Ashman blasted the wallscreen to silence. Beyond the dome wall a government minishuttle could be seen orbiting the factory.

Distress call? Narlydda, did you do this?

She nodded, and her eyes opened, although they seemed focused on places far distant.

Now I’ve got to get rid of them, too.

“No!” Melanie said. “Ashman, please—”

He stared intently out the dome wall. Melanie could see the port engine of the minishuttle begin to glow bright red. Another moment and it would explode.

“Ashman, wait.”

Something in her voice made him turn to look at her.

His eyes were peculiar. What was it? Their silvery glow seemed tarnished. Fading. In its place, the familiar golden glow of mutancy sparkled with new-minted glitter.

“Your eyes,” Melanie gasped.

Ashman covered his face and turned away.

Skerry stopped choking and sat up. Without a moment’s hesitation he sent a huge bolt of shimmering mental energy whistling toward the supermutant.

Ashman deflected it.

Skerry threw another.

Ashman caught it and bounced it back at him. It enveloped Skerry in a sparkling feedback field, draining his psychic strength. He gasped, twitching helplessly, caught in his own esper net.

Melanie watched in horror. Even with his strength reduced, Ashman was more than a match for them. He would kill her and Yosh. Skerry and Narlydda and the shuttle crew. And then what would he do to everybody else? Her family? Her friends? The only things in this world that she had ever really cared about? No. No.

Hands trembling, she raised the laser pistol. Ashman saw her and smiled derisively.

Do you really think that little toy can hurt me?

“No,” Melanie said. “Not really.” She aimed. “Goodbye.”

Fired.

The laser shattered the dome wall just behind Ashman.

No!

His mindspeech was a scream of terror.

The cold vacuum of space reached in through the jagged hole and seized the supermutant. He struggled desperately, clinging to the walls with such telekinetic fervor that the room began to deform. But the struggle was not one of equals. Space was stronger.

Spread-eagled, Ashman gripped the edges of the dome wall, oblivious to the blood trickling down his arms from wounds inflicted as he grasped at the jagged shards of acrylic. The cuffs of his blue flight suit turned purple, then crimson. He looked back over his shoulder, away from the void, toward Narlydda.

Help me!

Eyes tightly shut, the green woman shook her head.

And with a sigh, he was gone, sucked out of the dome into the cold lonely starlight. In a moment, his body had spun out of sight, beyond the factory’s orbit.

In his wake, the room’s atmosphere whistled past toward the freedom of space. Melanie felt herself floating upward and around toward the hole in the dome where the stars awaited her.

I’m dying, she thought. But at least I’ve taken Ashman along with me.

It felt easier and softer than she’d expected. Like falling into a snowbank. It was cool, not freezing. And somehow, she could still breathe.

Is this what death is like?

I hope not.

The mindspeech had a gentle, unfamiliar ring to it. It didn’t sound like Skerry.

No, Melanie. It’s Narlydda. Don’t move. I can’t maintain this stasis field with atmosphere if you move around.

Melanie floated a moment more, then settled to the floor. But what about Yosh? And Skerry? Where were they? Why can’t I see anything but this pale blue cloud? Melanie felt blind and wildly frustrated by her own lack of telepathic skill.

Don’t worry. I can hear you. But calm down, please. You’re pulling a lot of energy from me. I think Yosh is all right. I don’t know if you saved Skerry. I can’t hear him. I should be able to, but I can’t.

Melanie could feel the grief in her words. Skerry, dead? No. She couldn’t believe that her renegade cousin had been killed, even by someone as powerful as Ashman.

Well, I’m glad somebody has faith in me.

Skerry!

Nice going, Lydda. I didn’t figure you for such feats of telekinetic strength. And since when could you mindspeak?

I—I don’t know. Maybe that potion Ashman gave me. I can’t understand why he didn’t save himself.

Too startled, probably. Nice shooting, Mel. Yosh is definitely impressed. And as soon as we get out of here, he’ll tell you all about that—and other things—himself.

Yosh. Good. Melanie leaned back, relieved. If Yosh was all right, that was all that mattered. But now what should they do?

I hear the
Anorik
docking. Must have seen the explosion. They should be able to get us into pressure suits and back on our own shuttle. Lydda, can you hold this field for another fifteen minutes?

I don’t know, Skerry. I’ll try.

Give it your best shot, babe. I’m looking forward to holding hands again.

Me too, Skerry. Me too.

CHAPTER
TWENTY
ONE

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