In Enemy Hands (6 page)

Still, as bad as that problem was, it was nothing compared to what they had subjected Srin Flerovs to for almost two decades. Moon didn’t know that much about the specific properties of benzodiazepine, but she was broadly familiar with the class of antidepressant drugs. Her mother had taken some briefly after the sudden death of her father, and she had spoken with the medical doctor about them. While the details of all their side-effects eluded her, she knew that they were highly addictive even when taken for only short periods of time. If a dependence on them could be established after usage of only a few weeks, what happened to a human subjected to such a regime for
years?

Beyond the clinical issues were the consequences for Srin himself. It was highly immoral to subject a person to such a life. It left his younger memories intact—that much was certain from the anecdotes he’d related the night before. But he was forced to relive two days of a subsequent, truncated life over and over again. Moon was surprised he appeared as lucid as he did.

She thought back on Savic’s last words, and a few things clicked in her brain. His comment about her “womanly sensibilities” implied that there were others without such “sensibilities.” Perhaps other scientists who had been loaned Srin for their own research? Moon wondered now whether some of the sudden breakthroughs she had read about in journals over the past fifteen years were due, not to inspiration, but to Srin’s abilities to out-compute any machine that existed in Republic space. She found it hard to believe that fellow scientists, her peers, had made themselves so blind to the torture of one man that they were willing to give up their ethics in return for greater funding and recognition. Was any advance in science worth this price?

But, then again, wasn’t that what she herself was doing? Even without Srin’s presence, wasn’t she using her research, feverishly spending every waking moment poring over esoteric equations, in order to vindicate herself? To prove she was worthy of living in the Republic? When viewed objectively, was there really any difference between the scientists who had used Srin without a word of protest, and herself?

Moon stared blindly at the velvet blackness outside.

What should she do now? An idealist would immediately stop research and refuse to participate in the exploitation of another being, but Moon knew she was not that strong a person. The past three years had been difficult enough. But she had not suffered greatly, compared to some. If she protested now, refused to do further work on her research, the Republic would throw her into detention and discard the key with a careless flick. She knew she would end up in a tighter security prison, maybe even on the notorious prison planet of Bliss itself. All her work, all her lofty goals of bringing dead stars back to life, would be wasted. And the potential for providing new, sun-kissed planets to millions of people would be destroyed.

“This is not my fight,” she murmured to herself, resting her forehead against the cold transparent pane.

She had already suffered once for something that was not of her making and had tasted the muted wrath of the Republic. She wouldn’t—she couldn’t—put herself in that situation again. Even if that meant abandoning a man who didn’t have any power left to defend himself.

Her soul would pay for this. Moon knew that. But at least her body and her reputation wouldn’t.

How his head hurt. There didn’t seem to be a time when it didn’t. The dull throbbing was an intrinsic part of his existence and usually he was able to ignore it, to function with its uncomfortable rhythm pounding in the background, but this morning it seemed worse than usual.

Srin opened his eyes and flicked a gaze at the chrono on the opposite wall of his cabin. Ten minutes past three in the morning, ship time.

Hen told him yesterday that they were aboard a Republic ship called the
Differential
. He hadn’t heard of the ship before, but something nagged at the back of his head, telling him he should have. With a groan, he sat up, knowing it was useless trying to get to sleep when errant thoughts prodded him.

Should.

Should know.

He shook his head slowly. Trying to capture memories was like reaching into a thick fog, the white mist hiding recollection besides delivering hidden pinpricks of agony whenever he tried to grope towards anything meaningful. Exercising his mind in intellectual questions was much more relaxing. In comparison to his groping for memory, the thinking required was clean and soothing. But he felt like such a coward, preferring the cool satisfaction of a brain puzzle to the suffocating weight and pain of his memories.

Rising to his feet, he walked to the small bathroom and splashed water on his face. The recessed lighting slowly brightened to a comfortable level for his eyes as it registered his form. He stood motionless, hands clenched against the basin’s smooth curve, staring down at the drops that fell into the sink, watching them as they streaked down the steel, ran silently to ‘the plughole and disappeared into blackness.

He hated what he somehow knew came next. Nine times out of ten, he was able to avoid it, adroitly moving from the sink to towel without a betraying glance. But this morning was not going to be one of those times.

With agony spearing behind his eyes, Srin lifted his head and stared at the reflection in the mirror, crushed anew by what he saw.

What had happened to him?

The face that looked back at him was surreal, a distortion of his reality. Where had those lines, those wrinkles, come from? He relaxed one set of clenched fingers, lifting them and running them across his cheek, feeling the difference in texture, the decrease in youthful elasticity, as he rubbed against his skin, creasing it. His fingertips moved upwards, tracing the lines that feathered from his eyes, skimming his wiry eyebrows and following the creases in his forehead.

This was not the face he remembered from only three days ago. That face was unlined, supple, energetic. That face was bright and hopeful.

This face—

This face was beaten down, twisted by hurt, the eyes wary and guarded. He knew he should ask Hen about it, about what happened to him, but something stopped him. And he got the feeling that something always stopped him. There was unease when he thought of his therapist friend, as if, like him, Hen Savic was hiding something deep and terrible.

Srin frowned. He automatically reached for a towel and dried his face and hands.

He looked older, so much older. Maybe even fifteen years past his last remembrance. Was that assumption true or false? He threw the towel back onto the countertop.

Let’s say it’s true.

He walked back to the bedroom and sat on the edge of the mattress and the cabin plunged into darkness again. What could have happened in fifteen years? Did he marry Yalona, as they planned? Did they have children? What had happened to his proposal to the Republic Science Directorate? Did they give him the extra funding required? Why was he on this ship?

It was only the last question he could answer easily. Hen told him he was helping with an experiment in stellar-forming. But, was he really on a ship? Srin stilled his breathing. The ever-present hum of running machinery, the slight vibration beneath his bare feet, the configuration of his cabin with its curved section of hull wall, seemed to indicate that this was correct. There was nothing to be gained by lying to him about that. But he got the distinct feeling he was being lied to about
something
.

That thought was as comfortable as an old glove. He knew that Hen and the people who surrounded him were lying. He had
always
known they were lying.

“How?” he whispered harshly. How could he know he was constantly being lied to when he didn’t even know what happened to the woman who was to be his wife? He knew Hen would give him an answer if he asked. But would the answer be correct?

Srin almost doubled over, resting his head against two clenched fists, squeezing his eyes shut until he saw flashes of red light bursting in his mind, his hands pushing against the hard bone of his forehead.

This was so familiar. He knew he had been here before. Maybe not on the
Differential
, but certainly in this same pose, thinking the same thoughts. If so, there must have been something he had done about it, some way to reassure himself that he wasn’t losing his mind. Had that thought occurred to him before as well?

With a renewed sense of purpose, Srin got to his feet and started silently searching his room. His computer was functional, but useless, containing only basic information on the
Differential
. Being read-only, there was no way he was able to modify its information. There were no pads or notebooks, not even an errant cushion that could be stained in a particular way. Srin knew Hen was somehow responsible for this and grimaced. No, he must have thought of a way around this, around the scrutiny of his handler. He wasn’t an idiot! He requested some lighting and sighted down the shelves in his quarters, but saw no revealing variations in furniture texture. Maybe that was too obvious. He turned his attention to the wall panelling.

The only memories that were crystal clear to him were ones from almost two decades ago. And yesterday. Why? Trying to capture intervening images and emotions made the throbbing in his head worse, but Srin gritted his teeth and tried, even as his fingers explored every rare nook and cranny of his smooth-walled cell. There were ghostly images of other people, a slowly ageing Hen Savic and the insides of more laboratories than Srin thought he could ever have seen in his life. And then, nothing. Nothing more. Just tantalising glimpses showing him that there had been events, actions in past years, just none that he could clearly recall.

What was going on? What had they done to him?

His fingers trembled. Was this uncomfortable realisation that he was alone, in a conspiracy he couldn’t even begin to fathom, the first time he had such a thought? Or the six hundredth? There were so many images of different places—indistinct, fading to transparency the moment he tried to capture one—that at least he knew he was moved around a lot. They didn’t want him making friends, forming attachments, except to people like Hen. Why? If he couldn’t remember more than a handful of recent days at a time, why would they worry about friendships?

Why couldn’t he remember?

Driven to desperation, Srin crawled back to the bathroom. Turning his head away to heighten his sense of touch, he ran his fingers up and down each visible panel, using the sensitive tips to find any unevenness, any clue that he had been through this cycle of thought and action before.

He was working his way towards the far wall when he finally found it. His hand stilled for a moment then, in a rush, he was diving under the basin, peering up at the small section of underpanel that had something scratched on it. But—dammit to hell!—he couldn’t see anything. The overhead illumination, housed well above head height, couldn’t brighten the area near the floor and a nervous search of his cabin confirmed that there were no portable sources of light.

He stalked back to the bathroom and lay on the floor. If he had scratched that message, he must have known it was a place that would remain in mysterious darkness. So, assuming it was him who had made those scratches, it would be coded against unfriendly discovery, yet in a way that was easy to decipher or, better yet, appear innocent. Slowly, with his eyes closed again, Srin let the tip of his index finger trace the angular scratches. It was text. He mouthed out the letters as he completed each one.

R-E-V-A-I-I.

That was all. Just six letters. Srin traced the letters again, then skimmed the rest of the panel. There was nothing else.

With a groan, he got to his feet. Surely it hadn’t been that difficult before to get up? He walked back to his bed, stretching his back as he did so.

Revaii.

A name? A place? And was it standard
Ingel
or some other language?

“Revaii.” He said it out loud, hoping the sound of it in his ears would spark inspiration. “
Re
vaii. Re
vaii
. Rev…Re…Rrr… Shit!” His expletive was soft but heartfelt. “Reva….”

He stopped and his head jerked up. “Reva. Reva II.”

Reva II.

That was one name he knew. It was where he had been planning to take Yalona for a holiday. He remembered a funding proposal he had before the Science Directorate. Last month. Or fifteen years ago. He was so confident of the outcome and was determined to take Yalona away on a much-deserved holiday once it had been approved. To Reva II.

It wasn’t the flashiest of tourist destinations but, then, neither was it the most expensive. But with its lesser crowds, beautiful weather and greater affordability, it was the perfect choice for a young researcher on the up-and-up and his beautiful soon-to-be-bonded partner.

But why would he have scratched a holiday destination into the panel under the bathroom sink? Was that where Yalona was? Without any other concrete evidence, Srin couldn’t accept that as fact. If he knew Yalona was there, he would have added some other identifying information. Even a scribbled “Y” would have been enough. But there was nothing. No, “Reva II” must mean something else.

He thought about the attractions of the planet. There were mountains to hike up and slide down, beaches to walk and dive from. And fantastic surfing waves formed by the influence of Reva’s other claim to fame, its terraformed moon. It was the only such satellite in Republic space.

Terraformed moon. Moon.

Dr. Moon Thadin.

His eyes narrowed.

He hadn’t thought about the good doctor for the past hour, but that was more through accident than design. She was one of the few people he could picture clearly in his mind’s eye. They were almost of the same height, which he liked. Her features exuded warmth. Her skin was soft and soothing, her eyes dark and embracing, and her hair—scraped back in the no-nonsense bun she seemed to like—was night-black and shiny. It was only the expression on her face that chilled, turning generous lips into a censorious line, and the chocolate-brown of her eyes into hard stone.

Yet, he could see that there was something bubbling under that cold surface, something in Dr. Thadin that made her worth remembering, worth pursuing. He tried putting his physical awareness of her to one side, but it was difficult. Her figure was broader-hipped than Yalona’s, but the unconscious sway of her body as she walked beckoned to him. He hadn’t felt like this since—since Yalona. And felt a pang of betrayal even as he recollected the stellar physicist’s sultry features. Using his rising guilt as a lever, he steered his mind to more rational avenues.

Rather than concentrating on her physical attributes, or the hint of fire hidden in her eyes, Srin tried to analyse the physicist in a more dispassionate fashion. Finally, he nodded. Yes, he could see why he might identify Moon Thadin as the weak link. No matter how she tried to hide it, he knew there was vulnerability behind the otherwise impervious slate of her gaze. And he wasn’t so blind that he hadn’t noticed the guarded fear on her face whenever she looked at Hen Savic. She kept the expression well camouflaged when talking with his therapist/minder, but couldn’t suppress her distaste when his back was turned. Interestingly enough, her look at Hen was invariably followed by a quick furtive dart over to him, wherever he happened to be in the lab.

Yes, Dr. Thadin definitely knew more than mere stellar-forming. She knew something about him that even he didn’t know about himself. Just that one thought was enough to make Srin angry, feeding the violation he felt at being the ignorant pawn in a game he couldn’t begin to comprehend.

But Moon Thadin comprehended it. And he was determined to get an answer to the puzzle of his life. If only he could remember how to do it.

“How’s the research going?”

Moon smiled and sipped at her drink. Since her altercation with Savic, her dinners with the captain of the
Differential
had become a semi-regular event. She knew it was a way of running from a problem, but she couldn’t help herself. Drue’s conversation didn’t send her thoughts into tumult the way Savic’s barbed comments did. And unlike the grey depths of Srin’s intense gaze, the captain’s looks were appreciative. But Moon thought they appeared that way because he thought that was how he was meant to behave, rather than because there was any depth of feeling behind them. In a way, the time she spent with Drue was a lot like the time she spent with Kad. Both were attractive men, but there were other things on their mind than her. For Kad, it was research. For Drue, it was her experiment. She was almost at the periphery of their focus, and happy to remain so.

“Things seem to be going well,” she said, after a breath.

The remains of their meal was scattered on the table before them. They often used the snatches of silence while eating to briefly catch up on news. Moon was too busy in her lab to link in with the normal nets, and her dinner partner seemed to enjoy relating the latest items to her, and adding his comments. He was, she found out, a perceptive observer of life in the Republic.

His eyebrows rose. “Just, ‘well?’”

She grinned at his deadpan comment. “What do you want me to say, Drue?” They had moved from “Doctor” and “Captain” to “Moon” and “Drue” two dinners ago. The old Moon may have clung to her reserve and still kept the relationship formal, despite Drue’s invitation to use his given name. But the new Moon was a woman who realised that her studied ignorance of the people who surrounded her had indirectly led to three years of incarceration. She was determined not to be so aloof. Getting to know people better, to accept them at a more intimate level, was the first step towards this, although she wondered if she would ever take the second and actually start trusting again.