Gates of Hell (17 page)

“A one-eyed man tried to kill me,” she said, her voice as thin as the rest of her. “I remember one brown eye and a big knife. Some other people had bats. Does Bonadem have a baseball team?”

She was just as loopy as when Dee’d taken her back here a few hours ago. “Where is Dee?” he asked, slowly and patiently. “In the chem labs upstairs?”

She blinked owlishly at him. There was no expression in her eyes. “I think so.”

He heard people clattering up the stairs and looked around quickly. This place was not safe, not even for a koltiri. A few more stabs in the heart or any other serious injury and Roxy would probably die from exhaustion. But he didn’t want to take her with them up to the twentieth floor, either. It sure as hell wasn’t safe to leave her in the hallway, abandoned for now or not.

“Roxanne, is there somewhere safe nearby where you can hide?”

She plucked at the damp sleeve of his jacket. “Go get Dee,” she said insistently. “She’s with Callen and Rutherford. Get them, too. Rutherford has nice eyes, even if he doesn’t like me.”

He stroked her cheek. “You first, darlin’. Where can I stash you?”

She blinked a few more times, then told him, “There’s an isolation ward on this floor. Safest place on the planet. Got its own power source and everything.”

“Good.”

The stairwell door opened and Glover shot down three intruders. The door closed. Martin had the feeling the Bucon’s weapon was not set on stun.

Roxy ignored the bodies piled in front of the door and looked out the window. “Viper, I think it’s stopped raining.”

Martin didn’t let himself be exasperated. “That’s nice,” he said gently. He took her arm and asked, “Which way to this isolation ward?” She pointed.

Glover protected their backs as they hurried along. Glover’s vigilance made Martin glad to be needed.

The faint blue glow across the doorway at the end of the corridor showed Martin that there was still a small amount of power protecting some people from the plague and violence. Anxious faces peered out of a half dozen beds in the ward beyond the force field when they reached it. Meddroids moved from one diagnostic station to next, the only care left for the seriously ill people in the shielded ward. Martin glanced at the control panel set in the wall by the entrance. Every other sterile field in the hospital was down. He thought about the Hippocratic Oath. He thought about the Bucon Empire.

“More coming this way,” Glover spoke behind him.

“I hear them.” He had no trouble remembering the codes used in every hospital in the United Systems for this kind of force field. He punched the code sequence as Glover swept his weapon across another group of intruders. They fell in a tangled heap across the corridor. The glow faded. Martin pushed Roxy through and Martin brought up the field again. “Let’s go,” he said to the watchful Glover.

They found another stairway around the next bend in the corridor. They saw no one else on this dark staircase as they hurried up the ten flights to the labs. Martin wasn’t prepared for the bright sunlight from the hall windows as he came panting through the doorway on the research level. There were plenty of people in this part of the building. A whole riot’s worth. Noisy, angry, frightened, dying people.

Martin took a step forward and pressed quickly back against a wall when a man aimed a cudgel at his head. His weapon took the man out, then he swept it in an arc, stunning at least a dozen of the rioters. “That was a baseball bat,” he muttered as he stepped over the bodies.

He looked over his shoulder to check that Glover was still with him, just in time to see the Bucon’s cool expression change to snarling anger. “Persey!” Glover changed his aim slightly and fired, flinging a red bolt of energy past Martin’s shoulder.

Martin ducked and whirled in time to see a long-haired man dodge the weapon’s ray, pushing a shrieking woman into the deadly light as he fled through a stairway door. Glover would have gone after Persey, but Martin pulled the Bucon forward as the woman’s death-scream rang in his ears. They stayed close to the wall and moved cautiously toward the labs. Martin searched the crowd but didn’t see any living members of the hospital staff, nor was there a single glow of an environmental belt. He cursed silently at this new way of dying from the plague as he and Glover went from one wrecked laboratory to the next, until they found what they were looking for.

There were three bodies left scattered carelessly amid overturned equipment and tables. Any evidence of research was destroyed or taken. The two men had been clubbed to death, researchers destroyed along with the evidence of Rust’s existence. One of the men had nice eyes that opened on nothing; the other had been small and pudgy. Martin made only a cursory inspection to make sure the men were really dead. It was the woman he knelt beside and took in his arms. There was a thin strand of wire wrapped tightly around her neck, a few drops of blood on her pale skin. Her sapphire-blue eyes were empty, the habitual mock-cynicism wiped from her face, replaced by a grimace of pain.

“Oh, Dee.”

Not an easy death. Somebody had wanted to hurt her. Somebody was a vengeful bastard.

Martin’s fingers plucked at the wire, carefully unwinding it to reveal the deep cut that circled Dee’s throat like a necklace. He swallowed hard, brushing his hand across her cheek.

Glover touched his shoulder. “Looks like Persey got what he wanted here.”

“Yeah.” Martin stood. “We’ll have a hell of a party, Groupie,” he promised her solemnly. “Let’s go get Roxy.”

He took a moment to change his weapon’s setting to something stronger than stun.

“He looked at me. What was I supposed to do?”

“Damn it, girl, this is no time to be committing miracles.” Martin took Roxy by the shoulders and turned her away from the ward bed, and the healthy occupant that was looking up at her worshipfully. “Save your strength. We have got to get out of here.”

“They do have baseball on Bonadem,” she told him, smiling happily and pushing blood-crusted hair out of her face. She jerked a thumb at the bed. “He wants me to teach him basketball, though. There’s a ball in my room. I have to go get it now.”

Martin tightened his grip on her thin arm when she tried to go to the door. “We need to get off the planet, Roxy. We slipped past the blockade in an oversized darter. There is no way three people can make it out in a darter. Are you following this, sweetheart?” Roxy was watching his lips with intense concentration as he spoke. She raised her gaze to meet his eyes and smiled. He couldn’t tell if it was a smile of understanding, but he went on. “You came from the
Tigris
in a long-distance cutter, right? Please tell me you have a cutter at the port.”

She seemed to absorb his words by osmosis, then parroted them back to him. “You have a cutter at the port.”

“No. But do you?”

“Me?” She pointed at herself.

“Yes. You and—” He bit off the name, not wanting to distract Roxy by introducing the subject of Dee.

“Can we hurry this up?” Glover prodded. “Persey just might have mentioned us to people armed with more than clubs.”

Martin shot him an annoyed glance. “We’ll worry about that in a moment. Let’s find out if we can get off this planet first. Roxy?”

She rubbed her forehead and took a deep breath. “Yes. There is a cutter at the port.”

“Let’s
go
,” Glover insisted, gesturing toward the ward entrance with his weapon.

“Are we going home now?”

Martin took Roxy’s hand. He could feel the fragility of the bones beneath the skin. Worse, he’d lived with a telempath long enough to recognize how delicate the koltiri’s hold on reality was after far too much strain on her mental shielding. “Home soon,” he promised. “Off planet first.”

“Well, of course we have to get off the planet before we can go home. Where’s Dee?”

Damn. “She’ll meet us at the port.”

“Oh. I better get the ball. I borrowed it from CeCe. He’ll want it back.”

Martin led Roxy through the door, keeping his attention on the hallway before them. Glover followed closely, guarding their rear again. The hall was empty. Martin listened carefully, heard nothing but the low murmur of questions from the ward patients. He didn’t take the time to raise the door shield behind them. Better to leave the people in there a way out—so they could die of the plague like everyone else?

“Fuck it.” He began to pull Roxy down the hall.

She balked, digging her bare heels into the carpet. “We have to get the ball.”

“No,” Glover said, pushing her from behind.

She threw the Bucon a dirty look, but didn’t budge. “Viper?”

“No,” Martin agreed with Glover. “We haven’t time.” Maybe he would have to knock her out and carry her, if she’d stay out.

“I have to. And Dee—” She looked around anxiously. “I can’t feel her loving me.” Her stubbornness began to dissolve into pained confusion.

Glover spoke up with sudden cheerfulness. “Dee will bring your basketball.”

He was good enough to easily lie to a koltiri. Roxy’s troubled expression cleared. “That’s all right, then. Let’s go.”

Martin gave Glover a furious look, not sure why it was all right for him to lie to Roxy, but not anybody else. Roxy was already moving toward the stairs. He and Glover had to hurry to keep pace with her.

———

“I’m sick of living like a thief.” Pyr heard what he’d just said and amended, “As a thief.”

He was talking to himself. Bad habit, that. But sometimes, when he was alone in his room, he forgot no one was there. At least, that was the excuse he used. He spoke while staring at the ceiling. It was lost in shadow not too far overhead, and not particularly interesting even when the cabin’s lights were on, but since his body didn’t care for sleep, he was passing the rest cycle staring. And thinking. And rambling on to himself about all the problems he didn’t really have to worry about anymore. Letting go wasn’t easy. Letting go wasn’t even possible. Pyr knew that if he let go, stopped caring, permanent darkness would come crashing down on him even sooner. And he’d been rambling out loud because he had a fever. The ceiling, and possibly one of Pilsane’s aural sensors, had been getting quite an earful. Pyr could only assume that Pilsie was taking lots of notes.

He chuckled, and was resentful because the mirth hurt his chest. He nursed the resentment and punished his body by forcing it to sit up. It took some time before the combination of nausea and dizziness cleared enough to allow him to swing his legs heavily over the side of the bunk. This was really getting to be ridiculous.

He went back to thinking about his complaints while he tried to focus on where exactly his feet were in relation to the deck.
We have nothing
, Pyr complained, on the off chance some ancestral god might be listening.
Nothing but what we’ve stolen or borrowed. Nothing to call our own but a code of behavior that makes no sense to me. Never made any sense for me and mine. Done nothing but keep us isolated
—
weak and frightened children. Not to mention feared and suspected by all those silent races we hold in contempt
.

He slid forward cautiously, the fingers of his good hand clutching the side of the bed for support. “When was the last time I took off my boots?” Pyr hauled himself upright. He could see now, but the pain proved harder to get under control than usual. Usual? What was usual for a condition compounded of poison on top of Rust on top of plague? What standard did he judge “usual” by?

“Stop complaining.” Dead men had no business complaining. “What am I doing out of bed, anyway?” Change of watch, he reminded himself.
You’re supposed to be on the bridge, Captain
. “Rather be changing my socks,” he muttered. It was easier to go sit on the bridge, though. He needed to update the log, to make some notes for Linch.
Might as well get glared at by the crew while I’m doing it
.

———

“Get out of my chair, Kith.”

The League rep sneered meaningfully, and didn’t immediately jump to attention. He didn’t even bother to stand.
And here I gave him a direct order
, Pyr thought, almost too weary to feel annoyed.

The sudden silence on the bridge grew thick with expectation as Pyr approached Kith. He felt their gazes on him from the few manned stations, and disliked the attention. He hadn’t killed anyone for insubordination for quite a while; they assumed he was going to now. But everyone knew Kith couldn’t be killed. Pyr absorbed their eagerness for a fight. The emotion directed toward the center of the bridge was fueled half by hatred of Kith and half by boredom. Pilsane was right about these people needing an outlet. And Kith was far too sure of his immunity.

Pyr had no objection to disposing of the League rep, but the Pirate League would. It was an agreement with the League that gave him the means to protect the border. It was the League who insisted they have someone on board to look out for their interests. Pyr needed the League’s cooperation while he quietly developed other resources. Kith didn’t always understand that Pyr’s people were allies rather than just another client race of the oldest crime syndicate in the galaxy. Pyr was well aware that there were plenty among the crew still locked in the hold that would follow Kith rather than Linch if Pyr were out of the picture.
When
, he reminded himself. Through the growing discomfort and desperation, he’d almost forgotten his decision to somehow kill the Leaguer.

Later, Pyr decided now. He’d kill Kith later. It would be messy and hard and probably kill them both as well. If Kith’s death was going to be his last act, he didn’t want it to be public. He hated the idea of making one last sacrifice for the cause, but supposed it was inevitable, if he could only remember to put it on his agenda for the next twenty-four hours or so. If he had even that much time.

Right now he still had one good hand. He used it to grab Kith by the back of his collar and haul him out of the chair. He held him aloft for a moment as a reminder that he wasn’t just another Bucon. “Rust is making you deaf and paralyzed,” he observed as he tossed Kith away. “And forgetful,” he added mildly as the Leaguer came up hard against the view screen a dozen feet away.