Purity (Pure and Tainted) (34 page)

Chapter Twenty-six

When K woke up she saw a familiar pair of black-on-black eyes
staring into her own.
Black with not even the thinnest sliver
of white around their outer margins.

“High Sentinel!”
She sat up on the thin metal cot with
a gasp.

“Good evening, K. I understand you’ve been using my name in vain.”
He raised one thin eyebrow at her and scooted the plain metal chair he was
sitting on closer to her cot. They were the only two pieces of furniture in the
small, bare, windowless room. Was she in a cell? Was she a prisoner?

“I—”

“Telling the guard you were moving a prisoner under my orders and
then setting her free instead? That’s treason, K. High treason. Not to mention
a total divergence from Purity.”

“I’m aware of that.” K lifted her chin, meeting that
black-on-black gaze and trying not to show fear. “What’s more, I’ve been
contaminated.
Contaminated beyond reprieve.”

“Decided to try a bit of sexual
reproduction,
did you?” he asked blandly.

K’s cheeks got hot but she refused to drop her eyes. “Yes,” she
said shortly.

To her surprise, the High Sentinel only sighed.

“I surmised as much,” he said calmly. “I can tell by the color of
your eyes that your original biology must have reasserted itself. The Erian
sexual cycle is…distressingly strong.”

K couldn’t hide her surprise. “But if you guessed I was
contaminated, why didn’t you purge me?”

“Oh, you’re far too valuable to purge, K. I have plans for you—I
always have, ever since I plucked you from your sleeping platform at the tender
age of five cycles and stole you away from that filthy,
Impure
planet.”

K felt an icy shiver run down her spine.

“It was you? You
personally
kidnapped
me?”

He nodded. “I did. For you are the key, K.
The key
to a bloodless and immediate takeover of all of Eros.”

She shook her head. “I know about my lineage but that’s not true.
I’m an outsider there now.
An enemy.
Do you really
think they’d all just lay down their arms and allow you to take over just
because I said so?”

“That’s exactly what they’re going to do.” One corner of his
thin-lipped mouth twitched upwards. If he had been anyone else—someone with
emotions—K might almost have thought he was filled with unholy glee.

“But—”

“You see,” the High Sentinel continued. “The Empress of Eros has a
connection to her people—
all
of her
people—through her blood. By virtue of her lineage and a psy blood-bond, she is
able to control them completely. So much so that if she tells them to lay down
their arms and surrender to the conquering overlords who have come to claim
their planet, they must and will obey.”

K’s mouth was suddenly bone dry. She remembered all the different
references she’d heard to blood while she was on Eros. The exulted blood, the
ruling blood—she’d heard those phrases several times but had never really
understood what they meant. No wonder the Empress had been so pleased to have
her back in the fold…no wonder the High Sentinel had kidnapped her in the first
place.

A new thought occurred to her.

“But I’m not the Empress at all. My mother…” The word stuck in her
throat—the Empress was still strange to her, almost as strange as the concept
of having a mother in the first place. Still, K forced herself to go on.
“My mother…she still lives.”

“That will be the first thing we take care of,” the High Sentinel
assured her with chilling calm. “The moment we gain orbit around Eros, we will
have the current Empress purged. I already have people in place around her—the
assassination should be exceedingly simple. Then, with the entire planet in
chaos, we can swoop in with you in the lead. You will order the inhabitants to
lay down their arms and surrender to our regime.
A perfect,
bloodless coup.”
This time K was certain she saw the corner of his mouth
curl upward. “And then, after we have the resources of Eros at our disposal,
Colossus will be next.”

“No!” K said at once, the words jumping out of her mouth before
she even had time to think about them. “No, I won’t help you do that. Won’t
help you overrun any other worlds.”

The High Sentinel’s black-on-black eyes narrowed. “I see. Now that
you have experienced the emotions of the Impure, you feel an affinity for your
home planet. You recoil in horror at the assassination of your ‘mother.’ Is
that it?”

“No,” K said, trying to keep her voice calm and steady. “I visited
Eros—did you know that?”

“Indeed,” he said calmly. “We ran some memory scans on you while
you were unconscious. They were most…illuminating.” His lip curled upward—a
look that would have been disgust if anyone else had made it.

K felt cold. They’d been scanning her while she was out? How much
had they seen? Did they know about Boone? She struggled to keep her voice calm
and her face impassive.

“If you scanned my memories, you know the Erians tried to take me prisoner.
The Empress thought she could take over my life and use me as a pawn—just as
you are proposing to do.”

A slight frown creased his face. “If your stay there was so
unpleasant, why are you refusing to help in their subjugation and purification?”

“I learned while I was gone,” K said.
“Learned
that there are different ways of life than ours.
Different
but no less valid or precious to the people who live them.”

“Those ‘other people’ must be brought to Purity,” the High
Sentinel said sternly. “Brought to Purity and purged of their filthy,
Impure
sexual and emotional practices. They—”

“I don’t believe you really care about the way they reproduce or
that they dare to touch and…and love each other at all,” K interrupted him. “Or
not nearly as much as you’d have everyone think. You want to take over Eros for
its resources—both natural and genetic. You need new material for cloning and
you’ve turned your home planet into an industrial wasteland. Now you want to do
the same to every other planet in the solar system. Well, I won’t help you do
it.” She lifted her chin. “You can purge me if you want to—I refuse.”

“I told you, we won’t be purging you, K. Although we
will
be purging that giant who captured
you and filled your mind with
Impure
thoughts in the
first place.” The High Sentinel arched an eyebrow at her. “Boone? Wasn’t that
his name?”

K’s heart started pounding and she forgot her promise to herself
to remain impassive.

“Not Boone. You leave him alone!”

“Oh,
I
won’t hurt him.”
The corner of the High Sentinel’s mouth twitched again. “It’s
you
who will purge him, my dear K.
You who will pull the trigger when the time comes.”

“I’ll never—”

“Oh, yes you will.” The High Sentinel leaned forward, staring at
her. “As soon as your new skinsuit has purged you of the
Impure
emotions you so unfortunately acquired on your brief sojourn abroad, you will
once again see things my way.
Through the clear, calm gaze of
reason and Purity.”

“New skinsuit?”
K looked down at herself in shock.
For the first time it occurred to her that she wasn’t in horrible pain anymore.
Could the new mat-black suit covering her body from head to toe have something
to do with that?

“Normally a Paladin has only one suit from birth until death,” the
High Sentinel said. “In your case, however, the suit you had was too wounded to
contain and control your surging hormones. This new suit will be able to do
that and more. It will take some time to completely acclimate to your body but
once it does, your eyes will once again become the black of Purity and all
these distasteful ‘emotions’ you’ve been experiencing will be purged.”

K felt sick. How many times in her stay with Boone had she wished
to have her suit back? How often had she cursed the uncomfortable and
irritating emotions she was forced to endure without it? And yet now…she
couldn’t imagine going back to her cold, robotic self. Couldn’t imagine never
feeling again—especially when she thought of Boone.

“What if I don’t…don’t want to stop feeling?” she whispered,
barely able to get the words out.

The High Sentinel shook his head. “You speak as if you had a
choice in the matter, K. You don’t. I’ll come see you in a couple of days when
the suit has had time to work on you. I’m sure you’ll be more amenable to my
plans then.”

“Never.”
K rose on trembling legs and
looked down at him. “I don’t care what you do to me. I’ll never hurt Boone.”

The High Sentinel stared at her coldly.

“You will, K. When the time comes you will remember who you really
are—an agent of Purity.
A Paladin who fears nothing and feels
nothing.
And then you will act.”

With that he stood and went to the blank metal door at the far wall
of the small room. He rapped twice and the door opened, allowing him to leave. K
opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. She had nothing more to say.

The High Sentinel didn’t even look back as he walked out, leaving
K to her fate.

Chapter Twenty-seven

The suit began to work on her—though perhaps not as quickly as the
High Sentinel had believed it would. It controlled her hormone surges and kept the
horrible, stabbing pain at bay, for which K was grateful.

But it took away more than her pain.

Slowly, her eyes turned black again and with each stab of the
suit’s needles digging into her forearms, a little more of her emotion was
leached away. A week after waking up with the new skinsuit on, the feelings
she’d had were barely more than ghosts.

Unquiet
ghosts.

At night, when the suit gave her depressants to make her sleep,
she had dreams of Boone. Hazy, indistinct visions filled with all the lost
feelings the suit had driven away.
Little moments of their
life together playing over and over, memories she hadn’t even realized she’d
been gathering.

As she slept, K remembered the way he’d held her after her first
shower, the way he’d kissed away her tears and comforted her. She also
remembered the way he’d helped her quell the heat rising within her when her
cycle first started. The taste of his lips…the feel of his big hands all over
her body…they way he’d licked and tasted her until she lost control… All these scenes
played through her mind as she lay on the bare metal cot, asleep but still missing
him.

The dreams were bitter-sweet. Often she woke up with her cheeks
wet and flushed and a tight feeling in her chest that even the skinsuit couldn’t
dispel. She tried to push the strange feelings away—they hurt and there was no
point in suffering such pain. Boone was gone and even if he wasn’t, there was
no way they could be together.

I’d only hurt him—kill him the
minute I dared to take off the suit,
she reminded herself sternly. And even though she felt less and
less for the man who had taught her to feel in the first place, she still
didn’t want that.
Didn’t want to harm him.

You will, K. When the time comes
you will remember who you really are—an agent of Purity.
A Paladin
who fears nothing and feels nothing.
And then you will act.

The High Sentinel’s words echoed in her head and K wasn’t so sure
anymore. Who knew what she might do when the suit finished leaching away all
her emotions? When it had sucked them out of her like the vampiric parasite
Boone had always claimed it was. Who knew what would happen if she ever
encountered him again?

Please…don’t let it happen. Don’t
let me see him ever again.
The tiny prayer hurt, even with the suit dragging at her—it
pierced her heart and left a dull pain just behind her breast bone. K tried to
ignore it. What else could she do?

She soon lost track of the days. Pacing back and forth in the tiny
cell allotted to her, she tried to clear her mind, to blank out anything but
the pure hum of nothingness that surrounded and invaded her. It was easier that
way—less painful. And while she tried to forget, the suit did its work. Slowly
but surely, the thoughts and dreams of Boone finally began to fade.

At last, more than a week after he had first appeared, the High
Sentinel came back.

“Well, K?” he said, stepping into her room, the black cloak his
office demanded swirling around his tall, lean frame and boney shoulders. “What
is it to be?”

“Sir!”
K stood at attention.

The High Sentinel looked at her closely. “Who are you, K?”

“I am a Paladin, Sir,” she rapped back, chin up, shoulders back.
“Paladin fourth class.”

“Is that right? Let me see your eyes.”

K opened her eyes wide and stared straight ahead, knowing what he
would find when he looked. The dull silver walls of her prison cell were
reflective enough to show that her eyes were almost completely back to normal.
Only the thinnest sliver of white remained around their outside edges.

“I see the new skinsuit has done its job well,” the High Sentinel
said approvingly. “Tell me, Paladin, what do you feel?”

K gave the correct response without hesitation. “Sir, I am a
Paladin. I fear nothing, I feel nothing.”

“Very good.”
He nodded. “And what is your
mission?”

“To spread the light of Purity to
all corners of the universe and beyond, Sir.”

“And those who are Impure?
The inhabitants of
Eros?”

“They must be purged, Sir.”

He raised an eyebrow at her.
“All
of them?”

“Sir, all of them, Sir.”
K still stared straight ahead.

“Even the giant? This
Boone
you
cared so deeply for?” he demanded.

K gave him a cold look.
“Especially
him, Sir.”

“Very good!
Very good,
indeed.”
The High Sentinel reached behind his back and pulled something
long and black from beneath his cloak. He handed it to K.

“It’s only a blaster,” he said as she took it without comment,
checked the charge and load, and then holstered it on her hip where her
skinsuit automatically made a place for it. “You’ll get your gauntlets back—or
rather, a new pair—in good time.”

“That time can’t come soon enough for me, Sir,” K said coolly.

“I concur, Commander K.” The High Sentinel rubbed his long, thin
hands together, producing a dry, sandpapery sound. “Well, then, I think we are
ready to proceed. We will board my personal gunship and set a course for Eros.”

“At once, Sir.”
K fell into step beside him as the
door slid open, letting them out into a long, narrow metal hallway. At last she
was leaving her prison. Maybe she could leave the thoughts and dreams and
memories behind her. Maybe she could finally forget…

“Halt! Stop right there.”

The deep, commanding voice came from the hallway to her left. K
jerked her head in that direction and saw that a squad of Paladins was jogging
along the corridor on an intercept route with herself and the High Sentinel.

Or no…not Paladins.
At least, not like any she had
ever seen. For while they all wore the black skinsuit, these soldiers moved
with a free and easy grace that bespoke individual control that was foreign to
a true Paladin’s nature. Also, they didn’t run in formation and their movements
weren’t exactly identical. Clearly there was something not quite right about
them.

As they came closer, K saw that their suits were marked. There was
a red handprint over the left breast of each black suit—it stood out like
freshly spilled blood. No Paladin would voluntarily deface their skinsuit. Who
were these people?

The leader of the squad came to a halt before them, blocking the
way forward.

“What do you want, Paladin? And what have you done to your suit?”
The High Sentinel’s mouth twitched down in the faintest of frowns. Clearly he
sensed something wrong about these soldiers as well.

“We want the girl—Commander K.” Suddenly a blaster appeared in the
leader’s hand. “Hand her over and maybe I won’t blow a hole through that shriveled
black husk you call a heart, High Sentinel.”

The High Sentinel’s eyes widened. “Who are you?”

“Someone you tried to have purged.” The leader opened his cowl,
revealing steel gray eyes and a frowning mouth.

“Hesler.”
The High Sentinel’s eyes narrowed.
“What are you doing here? How dare you bring your squad of Tainted among those
who are still pure?”

A hint of a smile played around the leader’s thin-lipped mouth. “I
owed a favor to a friend. And I liked the idea of ghosting your boney ass. Now
will you hand her over or do I shoot?”

“I—” But K never got to hear what the High Sentinel would have
said. From the back of the squad, a very large figure was pushing his way
forward. He wore a skinsuit like the rest but there was something familiar in
the way he moved. When he got to the front of the squad, he pressed the tab at
the side of his ear and the cowl of the suit slid up revealing light-on-white
eyes the color of the ocean.

“Boone?” K
asked,
her throat suddenly
tight despite her suit. Then the needles bit into her forearms and she felt a
cool rush of nothingness wash over her. “What are you doing here?” she
asked,
her voice cold.

“I came for you, darlin’.” Boone reached for her. “I’m here to
take you home.”