“Shut up!” Angus grated at Nick and Milos. “Both of you. We haven’t got much time. If we give the Bill a chance to send more wires in here, we may never get to talk again.
“We have two problems. We don’t know where the kid is. And the Bill is going to raise total hell when he finds out what we’re doing. We need to make decisions fast. Then we need to do it.”
Nick stopped laughing as if he’d thumbed a toggle inside himself. “Captain Thermo-pile, you amaze me,” he drawled in a tone of casual danger. “I thought I was going to surprise you, but you don’t sound surprised. You sound like you already have the whole thing figured out.”
A biting retort came to Angus’ lips: his datacore quashed it. Instead he said, “The way to handle the Bill is, force him to suspect the wrong person. That’s you, Succorso.” His programming gripped him so tightly now that he couldn’t insult Nick. “First you’re going to get us the information we need. You’ll do it in a way he can’t help noticing. Then we’ll arrange an alibi for you.” Angus grinned like a grimace. “Hell, we’ll use the Bill himself for an alibi.”
Nick started to ask a question, but Milos pushed himself forward. His face was a knot of fear and fury; sweat made the splotches on his scalp gleam like the marks of a disease. “Angus,” he hissed, “this is wrong. I thought you understood. It isn’t why we’re here. I don’t care what he says. It isn’t why we’re here. I don’t want this kind of trouble.
“I’m warning you, Angus. Don’t force my hand.”
His threat was as plain as a Jerico priority command. Stop this, or I’ll override your programming. I’ll show everybody here which one of us holds the real power.
Just for an instant Angus faltered. Dread crawled through his belly. Milos could stop him; could doom Morn. Dios would be helpless to save her if Milos said the right words—
But then Nick would hear them. He would see their effect: he would guess what they meant.
And then nothing Milos said or did or wanted could prevent Nick from simply killing him and taking control of Angus for himself. Even if Milos ordered Angus to defend him, Nick would probably succeed: the restrictions which protected UMCP personnel from Angus probably applied to Nick as much as to Milos. And Milos on his own was no physical match for Nick Succorso.
Angus saw all this in the furtive, involuntary glance Milos flicked at Nick. So quickly that his datacore had no time to compel him, he decided to call Milos’ bluff.
“I told you to shut up,” he returned. “You’re my second—you take my orders. As far as I’m concerned, you’ve already done the only thing I needed you for. If you don’t like the job, I can replace you without leaving the bar.”
Milos opened his mouth; a rush of blood darkened his face as his anger gained the upper hand. But a second or two later he dropped his gaze, and his passion drained away.
“You’re going to regret this,” he muttered. “I swear to God you’ll regret it.”
Nevertheless he lacked the courage to carry out his threat in front of Nick.
“You two spaceshits ought to go on the stage,” Nick sneered. “You’re at least as much fun as the rest of the ‘entertainment’ here.”
Angus’ attention snapped back to Succorso. “You’ll have more fun in a minute,” he growled sourly. “That woman’s still here.” He nodded toward the table where the Bill’s wire sat. “She looks like your kind of meat.”
Softly, distinctly, he outlined what he wanted Nick to do.
While Angus spoke Milos’ expression changed from defeat to disgust, and then to a look of settled nausea. He’d been pushed too far: he was beginning to reach decisions. Angus saw that look and knew what it meant. The next time Milos made a threat, he wouldn’t back down.
The knowledge gave Angus a nausea of his own, which his zone implants concealed for him.
Before Angus finished, Nick objected, “This is some deal. I can see why everybody likes to work with you so much. Why should I trust you? What’re you going to do while I take all the risks? So far you haven’t given me any reason to think you won’t just go back to your ship and laugh your fucking head off.”
“You should trust me,” Angus returned, “because you haven’t got anything to lose.” His tone was cold and bitter. “You’re already in as much trouble as there is. It can’t get any worse.” Then he lowered his voice. “Besides, you’re covered. You’ll have an alibi—one of the best.”
He consulted his chronometer, named a time. “That’s about three hours from now. You’ll go see the Bill, tell him you want to talk to him. Don’t be late—you won’t have much of a window. Tell him you’re ready to buy back the kid. All you have to do is agree on the price.
“Every log and bugeye he’s got will tell him you were with him when Davies disappeared. If that doesn’t cover you, nothing will. And Milos and I’ll be in the clear. That’s important to you. If the Bill knows we snatched the kid, he’ll storm our ship and grab him back. The whole thing’ll be wasted. But even if we can’t pull it off, you’re covered.”
Quietly Angus repeated, “You really haven’t got anything to lose.”
Nick consulted his hands as if he wondered how much strength—or sanity—they still held. In a voice full of mixed intentions, he asked, “Why are we in a hurry? Why does the timing have to be so tight?”
“Because,” Angus answered heavily, “if we don’t catch the Bill off guard, we won’t catch him at all. It won’t do any good to just break Davies out. We have to take him someplace the Bill won’t look for him.”
Milos puffed smoke at the ceiling as if he fed on nic.
Nick let out a fragmentary laugh like a croak. “Then of course you’ll have him. What the fuck makes me think you’ll hand him over when I need him? Never mind—it doesn’t matter. If I’m crazy, so are you. I’ve got my own insurance.” Complex purposes seemed to pull his scars tight against the bones of his skull. “I can always tell the Bill where he is.”
Abruptly he got to his feet. “I’ll do it.”
Angus nodded. Instead of sneering, Sucker! he said, “Four twelve. We’ll be waiting.”
Succorso ignored him. Facing Milos, Nick asked, “Aren’t you going to reassure me before I go? We’ve worked together for years. You should at least promise you’ll back me up, even if you don’t mean it. Send me off to my execution with a good taste in my mouth.”
Milos didn’t glance at Nick. His eyes were focused on the smoke streaming from his mouth. Quietly he said, “I would tell you to go to hell, but you’re already there. We all are. You two are supposed to be desperate illegals, full of hate and cunning—and too smart to be caught. But I think neither one of you has the vaguest idea what’s going on here.”
“Maybe not,” Nick snorted. “But you don’t either. That I guarantee.”
Snarling at Angus and Milos, he moved away between the tables.
Here it comes, Angus warned himself. The new hardness gathering beneath Milos’ pudgy features conveyed a guarantee of its own. The decisions he’d made were going to be expensive.
“Tell me something, Angus,” he murmured past his nic. “How do you know the Bill isn’t already studying a copy of this conversation?”
Angus would have kept his mouth shut; but his datacore saw no reason to avoid this question. “That woman is the only wire in this end of the bar,” he replied. “She’s out of range now. And I cut the power to the bugeyes. The Bill has a blind spot right where we’re sitting.”
At once Milos shifted his weight forward. Dull heat sprang to fire in his eyes. “In that case, Joshua,” he said without shifting his nic, “I have instructions for you. Jerico priority. Forget all this. Forget Nick—forget Morn Hyland. They aren’t why we’re here. You’re pushing me into a corner for nothing.”
When Milos said the word “Joshua,” buried commandments took hold of Angus. He sat still, unwillingly passive, while the link in his head prepared itself to receive and enforce Milos’ orders. As Milos invoked Jerico priority, Ang
us’ brain seemed to shut down: zone implants and programming controlled every neural flicker and muscular contraction while his datacore registered Milos’ orders and compared them with its prewritten exigencies. His heart beat once or twice, and his lungs drew a shallow breath, but he remained blank and helpless, like a computer with no operating system. During that brief interval, Milos could have killed him, if Milos had known what was happening inside him—if Milos had wanted him dead.
At the table occupied by the wire and her companions, Nick had taken a position which kept her back turned to Angus and Milos. His eyes shone at her; a smile like a barracuda’s bared his teeth. As he talked he leaned slowly closer and closer to her, covering her with his sexual magnetism.
But Milos missed his opportunity. The moment passed; without warning Angus began to talk.
“Message for Milos Taverner from Warden Dios.” The words seemed to reach his mouth directly from his datacore. “‘Milos, this was recorded before you left UMCPHQ. You’ve just been given a rather nasty shock. I regret that, but it was necessary. On this one subject, you were misled. Everything else you were told concerning Joshua, your mission, and yourself remains true. Joshua has not diverged from his programming. Your command codes still function. You have not been betrayed.
“‘When you return to UMCPHQ, I will personally explain why it was necessary to mislead you.’
“Message ends.”
At the same instant Angus’ mind came back on-line.
Grinning with relief, he jeered, “Too bad. Better luck next time. I guess it just doesn’t pay to trust those bastards.” As if nothing unexpected had happened, he twitched one hand in Nick’s direction. “He won’t take long. She hasn’t got a prayer against a seductive fucker like him. You’d better be ready to move in a couple of minutes.”
He was thinking, Clever, Dios. Nice ploy. Too bad it won’t work. You’re too late—you’ve already lost him.
What kind of game are you playing?
The whole point of admitting a lie—the only reason Dios could have for admitting that he’d lied—was to conceal other, more crucial falsehoods.
“Oh, shit,” Milos breathed as if he were in shock. “Oh, shit. He set me up.”
Confident and mocking, Nick looked at one of the woman’s companions and said something which made the man go pale. Uncertain of his balance, the machinist or tool handler stumbled out of his chair and retreated from the table.
Her other companion appeared to ask her for support. She ignored him, however: her attention was fixed hungrily on Nick. As he seated himself beside her and reached with the back of one hand to stroke her cheek, her remaining escort stood up so awkwardly that he knocked over his chair. Swearing with empty resentment, he also retreated.
Angus knew how the woman felt. Like her, he was nothing more than a tool, a means to an end. Nobody could betray him: he could only be lied to or abused.
But Milos, on the other hand—
Milos was just beginning to grasp how profoundly he’d been betrayed.
A shudder like a convulsion ran through him. As if he were choking, he gasped out, “Open your mouth.”
Angus had no defense against that order. His datacore didn’t protect him: it enforced Milos’ authority. Sick with recognition and helplessness, he obeyed.
Deliberately Milos took his nic and stubbed it out on Angus’ tongue.
In his mind Angus let out a roar. Heaved up the table, used it to knock Milos backward; then pitched it out of his way and jumped at his tormentor. He had the strength of a great ape, he could beat anybody. With a series of kicks, he snapped Milos’ sternum, shattered his ribs, crushed his larynx; with his hands, he gouged out Milos’ eyes. He didn’t stop until there was nothing left except a bloody pulp—
But only in his mind.
In reality he closed his mouth on a flame of pain and a sick taste of ash. While his tongue burned and blistered, he chewed the nic until he could swallow it.
His stomach would have puked its contents onto the tabletop if his zone implants had allowed that.
“That doesn’t make sense,” Milos whispered. “The codes still work—I can still control you. But they lied about why we’re here.” He fought to contain his fear. “Why let me control you—why pretend I can control you—if I don’t know what you’ve been programmed to do?”
“I can think of a reason,” Angus croaked past his pain.
“So can I,” Milos countered. “This whole thing is aimed at me. I swear to God!” he raged without raising his voice, “they are going to regret treating me like this.”
By now Nick was so close to the woman that she practically sat in his lap. One of his hands had moved from her cheek downward to stroke her neck, her shoulder, the exposed curve of her breast. The other was buried in her hair at the back of her head. Exactly as instructed.
“It’s time,” Angus announced. His tongue and stomach felt like he’d just eaten quicklime; but his programming ignored those discomforts—and Milos’ anger. He pushed himself to his feet.
Glaring bitterly around him, Milos delayed long enough to light another nic. Then he stood up and followed Angus toward Nick and the woman.
Angus chose an approach that kept him behind the woman, out of her sight. He understood her equipment as clearly as if he’d designed it himself. Her eyes and ears were wired: she was like a video camera with an audio pickup. In consequence she only transmitted what she herself saw and heard.
The noises of the bar covered him as he moved toward her.
Leads from her receptors to her powerpack ran down her neck just beneath her skin. Nick’s hand on the back of her head served two purposes: it distracted her sense of touch; and it would demonstrate his innocence. Angus flicked a glance at him to confirm that he was ready; but he was too practiced at seduction to look away from his victim. As Angus neared her, Nick lowered his head to lick a kiss into the hollow of her throat.
Scarcely touching the base of her neck with his knuckles, Angus pricked her with a tiny burst of laser fire which went only millimeters deep; so shallow and keen that she might not feel it; just deep enough to cut the leads to her wire. Then he moved on toward the door, leaving behind only a small red droplet of blood to mark the harm he’d done her.
He felt her stiffen as he passed; heard her say, “Ow,” in a tone of fuddled protest. But he didn’t look back to see whether she turned her head in his direction. That was Nick’s problem: it was his responsibility to make sure she didn’t know—therefore couldn’t tell the Bill—who might have hurt her.
With Milos trailing after him, Angus took the lift back up to his room.
When the woman’s wire stopped transmitting, the Bill would assume at first that she’d cut him off intentionally so that she could have a little more privacy with Nick. And he wouldn’t take that kindly. However, one look at her neck and the leads would convince him she hadn’t done the damage herself. If she couldn’t report that Angus or Milos had been anywhere near her, he would believe Nick was to blame.
That was the real point of the gambit. As a secondary consideration, it might give Nick a lever to use on the woman. If he needed one; if his famous virility and charm weren’t enough. Nevertheless the primary purpose was to focus the Bill’s distrust away from Angus and Milos.
Which was fine, as far as it went. Unfortunately it did nothing to solve Angus’ more immediate problems.
Caustics filled his mouth, and his stomach kept trying unsuccessfully to make him vomit. His head was a wilder-land, as bleak and fatal as the gap. Milos had come to the end of his sufferance: Angus’ sufferings had just begun.
Dios had said, It’s got to stop. Whatever that meant, it obviously didn’t refer to Angus’ distress. The UMCP director had no intention of easing Angus’ helplessness, letting him out of the crib—
He was a coward: he knew what was about to happen to him.
Grimly he said his name to the intercom outside his door. When the door slid aside, he entered the
room as if he expected to be executed.
Milos joined him before the door closed. For a moment the two men stood watching each other like mortal enemies. Then, simply because he didn’t want to look as scared as he felt, Angus sat in one of the chairs and tilted it back until it was propped against the wall.
“Make yourself comfortable,” he mumbled past his sore tongue. “We haven’t got all night, but you can probably count on at least an hour.” Nick would take at least an hour, if for no other reason than to demonstrate his virility.
“You’ve got that long.”
Milos dropped his eyes as if he were ashamed—or as if he had something to hide. Poking another nic into his mouth, he wandered over to the data terminal and tapped a few keys, apparently just to be sure the thing worked. After that he took the other chair, set it beside Angus’, and lowered himself into it.
“You know something about this, Angus. Something you haven’t told me. Maybe something you heard from Dios.”
If he was worried about the bugeye, he didn’t show it. On the other hand, he made no effort to invoke Angus’ command codes.
“I know a lot of things I haven’t told you,” you cheap, deranged piece of shit, Angus replied with as much sarcasm as he could muster. “I know a lot of things I haven’t told myself. I wouldn’t share them with you if I could.”
“Well, let me guess,” Milos murmured as if he were deaf to Angus’ tone. “Saying we’re here to destroy the Bill is just a trick. The real reason is because of me. And Morn Hyland. That doesn’t sound very plausible—until you think about what she and I have in common.
“She’s been to Enablement. To the Amnion.”
Prompted by visceral caution, Angus returned thickly, “Don’t guess. It just shows you don’t know what you’re doing.”
“Oh, I know what I’m doing, all right,” Milos promised. “Open your mouth.”
Although his nic was only half-finished, he dropped it on Angus’ tongue. While Angus chewed and swallowed miserably, Milos lit a fresh smoke.
“It’s my neck in the noose, and I’m not going to let you or anybody else hang me.