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mouth on the spur of the moment.
Why had it taken me so long to figure out what Maya's letter meant? The story
I told the dipshits had completely nailed the explanation; she wanted to
investigate a bunker that was so public she knew she'd need a permit. The only
possible site was the mine where we'd buried the Ooloms during the epidemic.
I'd gone down that mine dozens of times playing little-girl Explorer, and had
never found bugger-all. But that was before we'd filled the tunnel with
corpses, and some drunk touched off a gas explosion. What did the kaboom open
up? What had the Dignity Memorial androids seen the day they carried out the
dead?
Iranu senior must have suspected they'd find something; that's why the Iranu
group sent the androids in the first place. But our local authorities had
closed up the shaft as soon as the bodies were removed, to make sure no more
little-girl Explorers risked their lives down there. After that, no
archaeologist, Maya or the Iranus, could do much around the place without
attracting attention. Maybe a few forays in the middle of the night, but even
that was risky in a town full of miners, people working odd shifts might well
go for a stroll at four in the morning.
Which is why Maya needed a permit. I should have figured that out long ago.
As for what I said about the Peacock that he'd made weapons, that he didn't
dare leave Demoth, that my noble protector was as much a murderer as Xé...
I thought of that moment beside Lake Vascho, snow falling thick, when the
Peacock appeared gloomy as a ghost above the water.
"What are you?" I asked.
Botjolo.
Cursed.
Damned.
The Mouth and the Muscle came back into the room. They looked as iron-jawed
serious as ever, but now it seemed put on as if they were gleeful little boys
pretending to be rough-tough customers. The dipshits were all bubbles, now
that they saw a chance to get out of the Admiralty's bad books: open the
Peacock's bunker, find tech that would dazzle the High Council. For all
Mouth's talk about Festina planting disinformation in my brain, neither of
these pissheads believed their own conspiracy theories; they'd just been
grasping at straws till I offered them something better a whole bale of hay.
"We'll go to this bunker," the Mouth said. "Tonight, after dark. And you'd
better not be lying."
"I'm not," I replied. "Can you handle a Class 2 security lock? The Mines
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Commission bolted a steel cap-shack over the entrance to the bunker... like a
hut sitting plunk on the tunnel mouth, and you have to open the door before
you can head down. Of course," I added, "if you can't open the lock, I can do
it myself with one call to the world-soul. Any door the government locks, the
Vigil can unlock."
"That won't be necessary," the Muscle said, giving me a "How stupid do you
think we are?" look. "We can open any lock up to a Class 5."
"In our sleep," the Mouth added, never one for a simple statement when he
could twist it into a brag. "And speaking of sleep..." He drew a stun-pistol
and aimed it at me. "Nighty-night."
In the last second, I pictured my fist connecting with his face. Maybe the
image would give me sweet dreams.
Clawing myself awake was harder the second time like a trick I'd forgotten
how to do. I kept fumbling to get it right, then flopping back into blackness.
When I finally managed to grapple up to consciousness, I fiercely regretted
it. It's flat-out amazing how many ways you can feel god-awful at the same
time the hammer-thud headache, the rock-in-your-gut nausea, the scritchy-knife
stab in your bladder. Festina had told me the average stun-blast put you out
for six hours... which meant I'd gone twelve hours with no water, no bathroom
break, and damned if I could remember the last time I'd eaten. Not that I
wanted to eat; the thought of food brought me close to the heaves. But my body
was running toward empty on blood sugar, and I felt like a mashed dog turd.
"Guys!" I shouted. At least it rasped like a shout in my croaking throat, and
sounded loud to my headachy ears. I rolled onto my back and tried again.
"Guys! Come on!"
Seconds crept by. As I lay staring at the ceiling, I could see the room was
dark again. Night. Festina lay beside me, still breathing but now with a
sandpaper edge when she inhaled. I wondered how often you could have a
stunnerfrazzle your neural connections before you developed permanent nerve
damage.
"Peacock?" I whispered. Silence.
Then Mouth and Muscle came through the door, and I tried not to sound whiny
as I demanded a trip to the toilet.
We'll skip past the hot-cheek/hard-face indignity of pouring pee while two
men watch and you're bound hand and foot... except to say I was glad the
Muscle was there. He kept the whole operation businesslike; unlike Mouth, who
was precious near licking his lips with the urge to play lord-and-master games
while I was manacled. Sick-minded toad. If I got a chance to break his other
knee...
Cherish that thought.
After my one-woman show on the John, the dipshits gave me water and some
protein jelly... all my stomach was likely to hold down. They were dash-ahead
eager now to make for the bunker as soon as possible, but Festina was still
out cold put down hard by two heavy stun-blasts, and a willowy little thing
compared to yours truly. Gymnasium-tough, but not hardened by boozing,
brawling, boozing, brawling. The Muscle wouldn't leave her behind unguarded
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and the Mouth refused to lug her unconscious body around the countryside. They
began to whisper together in the far corner of the room; and with a cold jolt
of dread, I knew they were debating whether to kill her.
"Don't be witless!" I snapped. "If you cork her in cold blood if you even
consider it seriously the League will never let you off Demoth. Which means a
heap of trouble, not just with the police; there's a plague coming, and it's
going to be a vicious old bugger. You don't want to be trapped and go
Pteromic, just because you didn't wait for someone to wake up."
"Admiral Ramos is already infected," Mouth said. "Isn't that right? So
putting her down painlessly now is just a mercy killing."
"Odds are that you're infected too, you crazy buggers. You've been breathing
our air, haven't you? If you're hot for a mercy killing, start with
yourselves."
Mouth turned away from me and whispered something to Muscle. Despite input
from our esteemed Proctor Smallwood, the proposed homicide was still on the
table, being discussed in committee.
"Come on, Festina-girl," I said. After my trip to the bathroom I was sitting
on the edge of the bed, Festina splayed out beside me. I twisted till I could
touch her with my tied-up hands. Grabbed her knee and shook it. "Come on, wake [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]