"Oh, I know that woman"s face! I should have realized. Not that it would have done any good. She never does what I tell her to! Why"s this taking so long!"

"Calm down. The tonic has speeded up your synapses. We"ve only been speaking for a few minutes."

Checking the time, he saw it was so. The gym records came onscreen, showing Inea and Mirelle had been in the centrifuge, but had quit early. Mirelle had been in bad shape. He hit EXIT. "She was in Mirelle"s room when Abbot arrived. She"d given Mirelle the booster. Abbot would have been livid at her transgressing his Mark." He turned haunted eyes on his luren son. "H"lim, would he have killed her, too?"

H"lim"s lips compressed. "t.i.tus, maybe Abbot didn"t kill Mirelle. Maybe Inea did."

With numb fingers, t.i.tus keyed for Mirelle"s room, trying to recall how Abbot"s override worked. If he could get a picturea" suddenly, the vidcom lit up with an incoming call. t.i.tus. .h.i.t ACCEPT, and the screen cleared to show Inea leaning into the pickup, a gag across her mouth, her hands bound behind her. She was seated, and from the way she was trying to poke at the keys with her nose, t.i.tus thought she must be bound to the chair. The color scheme behind her indicated it was Mirelle"s room.

Her eyes rose to the screen as t.i.tus made inarticulate sounds. H"lim bent over his shoulder. "Abbot did this?"

Vocalizing strenuously, she nodded. t.i.tus felt H"lim"s bony fingers dig into his shoulder and knew what the decision had to be. "Close down," he ordered her, "and get out of range of the pickup. We"ll be there soon."

At her relieved nod, he cut off. "Is there an enzyme that will eat bone? And not ruin the water recycling plant?"

H"lim thought a moment, then he, too, fixed on the bathroom door. "Yes," he choked, "and Abbot knew about it."

"Where is it?"

"A storage room Andre and I both use, near our labs. Yesterday, there was enough to decompose her body."

"That is where the other b.o.o.by trap set for you would be. Mirelle"s room-or maybe Inea herself-will be trapped for me. I"m going to need your help."

H"lim paused, looking at the bathroom door. "It would be convenient if the body just disappeared without a trace."

"That is the way Abbot expects you to react, and that"s the last worry we can afford to have. Let the W.S. lose the war and the secessionists execute all of us, but that message must not go out."

Momentarily, H"lim a.s.sumed a preternatural stillness, then replied, "Yes. You"re right, of course." When he moved again it was with all the bustle of an animated human.

It was the work of a moment for H"lim to cast his Influence around the guards. t.i.tus marveled at the powerful but subtle touch the luren now used to mask their pa.s.sing from all human eyes, but when he commented, H"lim said, "I can"t keep this up too long. Earth humans are just too sensitive. But of course, now I understand why that is."

t.i.tus didn"t have a chance to inquire. Mirelle"s door was before them. He and H"lim both went over it, looking for Abbot"s traps. Mirelle had given them the threshold before, so when H"lim picked the lock they had no trouble slipping inside. Inea, still bound to the chair, hopped it across the room, calling mutedly through the strip of sheet gagging her.

The chair itself trailed a twist of sheet that had tethered it to the kitchen sink fixture. Another piece of sheet lay across the sink, frayed end draped nearly to the floor. t.i.tus inserted his fingers and tore the gag across, then pried the wrist and leg bonds away.

Instead of the torrent of grat.i.tude and narrative t.i.tus expected, Inea grew very still as she gazed up at H"lim. As t.i.tus knelt, rubbing circulation back into her feet, Inea said, in a voice and cadence eerily like Abbot"s, "I submit, Senior, that t.i.tus Shiddehara has violated law and custom in permitting me to act uncontrolled and thus to endanger all his kind on Earth."

t.i.tus hurled the bonds down , "That"s his trap! He"s Influenced her! Lord knows what else she"ll say and to whom!

There was a gla.s.sy, unfocused look in her eyes as H"lim knelt to examine her. "That may be all he left for us."

"Not if I know Abbot. He no longer expects you to enforce the letter of our laws."

"Doesn"t his using Influence over your Mark const.i.tute a capital offense as well?"

"No. He"s my father, and he"s only scripted her to expose me-probably to any other luren as well as to Colby, though what she"d tell Colby I don"t know."

H"lim cradled Inea"s jaw in his hands and inspected her eyes. "I can counter it. It"s very superficial."

t.i.tus reached forth with his own senses to confirm that, swallowing against the ache in his gut. "Yes. Abbot"s always scrupulously legal." He removed H"lim"s fingers. t.i.tus could see that ferreting out all the triggers Abbot had left would be a delicate job if he wanted to have all of Inea there when he finished. "Stand clear."

When H"lim had moved back, t.i.tus administered the Influential equivalent of a sobering slap, and Inea blinked hard, twice, shook her head, and gazed at t.i.tus as if he had no right to appear out of thin air. Quickly, he explained what Abbot had done to her. "I can undo it when you"re ready to let me, or H"lim can, but it will take hours. Inea, we don"t have hours-"

She suddenly turned white, rose, and lurched to the bathroom where she shut herself in. The sound of water running almost covered the sound of retching. t.i.tus picked up the bonds and shoved the chair out of the middle of the floor, starting after her. "Did I hurt her bringing her out of it so fast?"

"No," said H"lim, restraining him and examining the room. "It was Abbot who hurt her. Give her a minute."

The bed was tumbled, the mattress half off its foundation. A blood kit lay on the floor, parts scattered. He pushed the mattress back in place and found Mirelle"s customized calculator had been shoved between mattress and foundation. Odd. He turned it over. It was activated, showing the Rosetta stone. His hands shook. It"s a message. She left me a message.

He wondered obliquely how she could have done it under Abbot"s Influence, but then remembered Biomed"s anti-hypnotic conditioning and wondered if the humans had wrought better than they knew. He sat down on the bed, and H"lim knelt beside him to see the tiny screen. "What is that?"

"Archeological treasure. It"s too complicated to explain." He suddenly recalled an utterly cryptic list he"d found in one of Abbot"s station files that he had penetrated. Of their own accord his fingers moved over the keys, trying the few codes he had labored over so long he"d memorized them.

The screen danced, flickered, then settled in to display luren script. H"lim exclaimed, "I wrote that!"

Twisting his head to look at the pale, goggled face, t.i.tus said, "That"s why I"ve never been able to get anything useful out of Abbot"s files! He"s been using Mirelle"s calculator to dump data!" He shook the thing. "If I only knew how to make it scroll."

H"lim reached a slender finger over t.i.tus"s shoulder and poked a key. The image shifted to the next line of text, and the next. "She showed me, once. t.i.tus, this is only the message I wrote for him. We can"t stay here and-"

"No, wait." t.i.tus used one of the other commands on the list, found some machine code, then tried another and yet another. He was coming to the end of what he remembered when they hit on a second file of luren script. "And this," said t.i.tus, laboring over the foreign language, "has to be the message he"s sending now!"

It was built out of the components of H"lim"s message, but omitted all mention of the luren stock breeding company and of the luren home world. Instead it invited responsible governments to bid for the services of those galactic citizens who now controlled Earth. Or who will control Earth by the time they get here if the secessionists win and the Tourists use the inevitable chaos to take over.

t.i.tus looked up when H"lim moved back. Inea was standing braced in the bathroom door, her hair slicked back, a little color around her lips now. But her face was chiseled from stone, and her eyes sparked. When she spoke, it was not in metaphor. "I"m going to kill him."

t.i.tus rushed across the room to gather her up. "No!"

"He"s gone crazy. He"ll kill us all if we don"t get him first. And after what he did to me in the restaurant-and now-it would be worth my life to take him down with me. You can"t, and H"lim shouldn"t because we don"t want an interstellar incident. Which leaves me. I"ve got to do it."

"He"s not crazy, and he"s not out to kill anyone else."

"t.i.tus, you don"t know what he did to Mirelle. He made me watch. He made me watch him drink until she convulsed and died and he told me that"s what you"d do to me for what I"d done to Mirelle. But I didn"t do anything to Mirelle, nothing wrong. I only gave her a shot of the booster."

Convulsed?! t.i.tus couldn"t bring himself to probe for details. H"lim asked, "You gave Mirelle the amounts I"d told you? But you used the batch I showed you this morning?"

"Yes."

"What happened after that?"

"Mirelle fell asleep, just as you said she would."

"How much later did Abbot arrive?"

"Oh, maybe an hour. He couldn"t rouse her and I told him I"d given her the booster. He threw things around and raged at me. I couldn"t understand what he said, but he wouldn"t let me out the door. Every time I went for it-" She buried her face in her hands. "Snakes and scorpions. It was awful. He"s mad, totally mad."

t.i.tus didn"t need any more words for what she"d endured to come vividly alive for him. I"d have broken!

H"lim, however, seemed unmoved. "What happened when Abbot went to take her blood?"

"She bled-too easily, he said. It tasted peculiar. He raged about that, not always in English. But then he said he had no choice, and he-he-he drank until she died."

In the luren language, H"lim said, "She"d have died anyway. Inea gave her twenty-two times the dose she should have used, a hundred times what I"d have started with in Mirelle"s weakened condition. Don"t tell her now."

t.i.tus turned to H"lim and Inea asked, "What"d he say?"

"Will Abbot get sick from the booster?" asked t.i.tus.

"Probably not. In fact, it could act to increase his own renewing ability, to give him endurance he hadn"t expected t.i.tus, he just might make it, even under the sun."

"Inea, will you go with us? Outside? To stop Abbot from using the Eighth to call in the galaxy."

"Shouldn"t someone stay to cover for you?"

"It"s too late for that. Besides, no matter your intentions, you"ll do whatever Abbot commanded because we don"t have time to untangle the mess he made of your mind."

"Then I"m going." She headed for the door.

"Wait!" said H"lim cutting her off. While he extended Influence beyond the panel to mask their escape, he asked, "t.i.tus, do you realize what this means?"

"That Abbot has several hours head start on us, and we"ll be pursued, too?"

"No. That Abbot didn"t plan everything he did."

Inea"s eyes went to the tousled bed. As he opened the door and gestured them out, H"lim told her, "He cut her body into six pieces and smeared her blood around my bathroom."

The words were out before t.i.tus could stop him. Inea choked and almost gagged. t.i.tus gathered her tight against him, guiding her steps as her eyes closed. "She was dead before that."

"This is important," H"lim said. "t.i.tus, he"s not a demon with G.o.dlike powers. He"s a fallible mortal, and thanks to you, nothing"s gone right for him in months. Inea has ruined his last, desperate plan. He surely didn"t intend to kill Mirelle."

"He did. Tourists kill stringers." Inea shuddered under his arm. He imagined Abbot had explained how he"d taught his son to do it thusly, so she"d never willingly touch t.i.tus again. "Abbot enjoys killing humans."

"Hacking them apart? Framing blood relatives for it?"

It didn"t sound like a typical Nandoha scheme.

"You"ve got the upper hand," insisted H"lim. "Not only can you win, but he knows it, and when he learns I"ve joined you at last, he"ll be twice as deadly."

"You trying to scare me off?" asked Inea.

"No, Dr. Cellura. This isn"t a hopeless, suicidal mission.

We can stop Abbot, possibly without killing him. I don"t kill those of my blood."

They suited up in the deserted locker room, guarded by H"lim"s powers. t.i.tus, who had labored his way, heart in mouth, through the station before the ban on Influence, marveled at how easily the luren moved through the multiple layers of the surveillance net. "I"ve had a while to study it. Besides, it"s not hard. The instruments are very noisy and their operators are always easy to spot."

"Their operators?" squeaked Inea.

"H"lim, the control center is across the station!"

The luren looked at them both blankly, holding his vacuum suit"s helmet above his head. "It"s not very far."

"My G.o.d," whispered Inea, sealing her own helmet.

As he led them to the dock where long-range, enclosed Toyotas were stored, t.i.tus grinned. "Colby would crumble! She"s so sure you can reach only a room or two."

In the earphones, H"lim sounded uncertain. "Should I have told her?"

"No," answered Inea gravely. "But if they find out now, you"ll be considered to have kept it a secret, and that will be seen as a threat."

"I sometimes think I understand Earth"s humans."

They had no trouble commandeering a well-fueled vehicle. Since the quarantine, none were used beyond the station perimeter, and Colby, true to her absolute security on the operation, had not yet sent crews to stand by to collect the "tainers cargo. The vehicles, however, had been serviced and were ready to roll. The Brink"s guards, having nothing to do, were playing a modified version of Thizan on a crude board.

The three of them simply walked past the guards, cycled themselves through the lock, picked out a pressurized Toyota with a silver streak and a half-finished rendering of Disney"s Roadrunner hand painted on the side, climbed in, and drove off, just as easily as Abbot had.

t.i.tus guided the windowless bus across station territory at a tentative creep, bemused by the idea of a Roadrunner as mascot of something that lumbered like a juggernaut over broken country, its tracks making its own road. H"lim Influenced those on duty at the scanners to "accidentally" turn the recorders off and to ignore the moving blip on their screens. "They"ll never notice," he told t.i.tus. "I"ve introduced a number of spurious failures into their efforts so that, should I need to move about another little problem wouldn"t stand out."

"And you called us devious!" said t.i.tus, jouncing over a boulder. His steering needed improvement.

"It"s a good thing you know how to drive these things," gasped Inea, grabbing her helmet before it rolled away.

"I don"t. yet," answered t.i.tus. "I"ll get the hang of it in a bit. See if you can find a map stowed somewhere."

"You mean," she howled, "you don"t know where we"re going?"

He answered with a straight face. "I just don"t want to go the wrong way on a one-way street. Could cause gridlock."

She sputtered. H"lim, barricading himself into an equipment locker he"d emptied, paused. He was the only one who hadn"t removed his helmet because the radiation level was already too painful. Noticing his agitation, Inea laughed so hard she doubled over. "t.i.tus, he thinks you"re serious!"

Over his shoulder, t.i.tus said, "H"lim, I know it"s that way." He pointed then singled out the stellar markers. In the process, he began to realize the time. "How much of a head start do you think he has on us?"

"Maybe three hours, could be four," said Inea, "depending on how long he spent. in H"lim"s room."

"I"d guess it would take him at least a couple of hours to rig that transmitter," said t.i.tus. "He"ll have modified it into a mismatched nightmare. If just one fitting is the wrong size, we may get to him before he"s ready to send. But that"s the least of our problem." t.i.tus had studied the strategic maps carefully. "Blockaders will be crossing between us and the Erghfh right about the time we get there, unless I"ve misread the stars and the clock."

Inea drew back warily. "How do you know?"

Promise or no promise, he had to tell them about the "tainers and the decoy loaded with explosive-and the blood Connie was sending him amidst the explosives she hadn"t known about. "I don"t think Abbot knows, unless the Tourists among the blockaders found out the supply caravan from Luna Station"s a decoy and the real supplies are coming direct from Earth"s surface to our backyard. And somehow, I doubt Colby"s security has been broken this time."

Chapter twenty-three.