Moonsteed (12 page)

She stared at herself until the throbbing in her legs and groin intensified, then lay back and shut her eyes to focus on the sensation. She pressed on in rhythm with the pulse and felt the climax rising and spreading through her until it brimmed over in a seizing of muscles and cramping exhalation.

Verity slowly uncurled from the fetal position she’d finished in, feeling the mad lust melt away and the world return to order. It took her a second to notice there was something else in her head apart from a sense of relief and an imagining of what Lloyd Farron’s face looked like when he orgasmed. It said, “
Ugh, don’t be so
vile.”

Verity rolled over on the bed and landed on her feet on the floor. The computer with Anthony Cornelian’s ghost in it stood on the table there. “You pervert! And I can’t imagine you never did it! At least not when you were alive, anyway.” Verity caught sight of herself in all her glory in the mirror, and quickly stepped out of its range.

“
It’s not the activity I disapprove of. Hey, you’re rather cute too. Do it again, just think about something else other than that disgusting inquisitor
!
”

“
No.
” Verity hopped back in front of the mirror. She looked herself up and down imperiously, giving Anthony Cornelian a full eyeful of what he was missing. Turning slightly sideways, she ran her palms sensuously up her toned abdomen on either side of her navel, over her breasts, then down again, sliding her left hand into her crotch. She raised her right hand in a v-sign at her reflection, blowing a raspberry and posturing her loins forward, spreading her labia in a vulgar display. “
You don’t get to have orgasms
and
enjoy sex and naked people, because you’re dead
.”

Anthony transmitted a disgusted thought-noise to her. “
You’d make a fine porn star. Oh, wait, porn stars have tits and don’t look like boys
.”

“
Shut up
,” Verity thought, going to the bathroom. “
What do you care if I look like a boy. You’re bisexual, aren’t you?
”

Anthony’s tone of thought felt condescending. “
I like
people,
not labels.
”

“
There you go, then
.”

“
What are you going to do in there?
” His voice sounded as though he anticipated his money’s worth.

“
I’m going to wash my hands. I suppose you must never have bothered with such things, and gone about shaking hands with Spokesmen and all sorts with your own mess dried all over them?
”

When she’d finished, she lay on the bed with her feet toward the mirror and her legs apart. “
Oh, go on, let me look if you’re going to do that
,” Anthony goaded. “
I could make you come again, if I still had hands
.”

“
No
,” Verity teased him, stretching her arms behind her head and looking at the ceiling. She reached over and picked up the printout of the file fragments from yesterday. If John Aaron had written it and he was now dead and no one had noticed, who could there have been that he’d sent it to? She gazed at the partial signature on the bottom. Not the Commodore, who was still disappeared, because his name was mentioned on the list of people along with Vladimir’s and her own--unless that was a deliberate decoy.

Her fingers tightened on the paper. Unless it wasn’t Aaron’s name... Anthony’s disgust at her fantasy suddenly resurfaced in her mind. It wasn’t
Pte Aaron
, it was
Ir
Farron
. Inquisitor Lloyd Farron.

Verity quickly got to her feet, facing the computer.

“
Do something hot and slutty
,” Anthony requested.

“
What do you know about Farron? It’s him you were sent here to spy on, isn’t it?
”

“
Ah, so you do have some skills of deduction
.
You’re not just a clitoris and a cute face
.”

Verity felt a sudden annoyance. “
You are dead because of something to do with this. The Magnolia Order is involved, and I’m trying to help you and all you do is treat me like I’m a lap dancer
!
”

“
Verity, Farron is dangerous. You need to keep out of this
.”

“
Look, the Magnolia Order sent you here, didn’t they? I’m with the Magnolia Order. Doesn’t that mean we’re on the same side and we’ve to help each other?
”

“
I know you’re with the Magnolia Order. They warned me about you
.”

“
What? Stop pissing about, this is serious. Vladimir’s missing and so’s the Commodore
.”

“
Vladimir? The cute young chap with the Russian accent? The one writing the thesis?
” There came a pause in Anthony’s transmission, and the voice in Verity’s head carried worry and caution when it continued. “
What’s his thesis in? Please don’t tell me he was a genetic engineer
.”

“
Now just hold on. What do you think you’re doing
?”

Verity finished snapping the buckles on her armor, tightened her katana belt and shoved the computer with Anthony’s ghost on it into the bag with the other things.

“
I’m going to break into Farron’s lab and find out what the hell’s going on. There must be some clues in there
.”

“
When I said the Magnolia Order warned me about you, I meant they warned me not to get you involved. They considered cutting you in and asking you to act as an inside agent, but they decided you were too young and didn’t have enough experience, and ultimately the risk to you would be too high. They also warned me that you were likely to be the biggest danger to the mission aside from Farron himself. I wasn’t given orders for this contingency. Let’s stop and discuss this
.”

Verity put her hand on the hilt of her katana as she walked toward the horse block. “
Well, that’s just tough, because I am involved now, and I’m going to get to the bottom of this. I’m going to tell the Magnolia Order what I think of them for calling me
young
and
inexperienced
!
If you’ve got something to tell me, you can tell it to me now
!
”

“
Look, I’ll try to tell you what I know, but it’s not a lot. Farron is up to something. He’s abusing his inquisitors’ privileges and he’s planning something out here. Finding out what it was he
was plotting
evidently got me killed. If you go barging into Farron’s lab, you’re going to end up with an arrest warrant on yourself, and then where will that get us?
”

“
You think I haven’t thought of that?
” Verity irrupted into the stables. Horses snorted and stamped in response to the anger she broadcasted. She checked every box to be sure no one hid in them before syncing herself to one of the horses and tacking it up. Verity grabbed a bore kit from the store cupboard, bundled it into the bag on the horse and fitted a long-range transmitter to the horse’s head armor over its implant. Leading the horse out into the courtyard, she gave the signal to it to run to a landmark fifteen miles away before returning to the ANT’s beacon. The horse raced away through the main gates and into the glare of the sun. Verity watched its dark shape dwindling on the immense black plain. “
There. Now everyone thinks I’m outside doing boring samples
.” She dropped the bag from her shoulders and pulled out a roll of gaffer tape and a piece of metal foil.

“
You know, maybe the Magnolia Order underestimated you
,” Anthony thought. “
But then again, I’ve never known the Magnolia Order to be wrong before, so you’re bound to do something stupid that’ll vindicate them in a moment
.”

“
Oh ha-ha very funny
,” Verity returned. “
Let’s go and burgle Farron’s lab before that horse comes back
.”

“
If you really are hell-bent on going through with this, it might make your life significantly easier if you have an electronic skeleton key. I had one on my person. No idea if you found it
.”

Verity pulled out the plastic thing she’d found in Anthony’s bag and stared at it for a moment.

“
That’s the one
.”

She folded the foil into a piece a few inches square, and taped it to her forehead over her implant, hiding her signal from the ANT, and also from Anthony Cornelian’s ghost.

Mounted on the door outside Farron’s lab was a security lock with a steady red light on it. He alone would know the thought-prompt to open it.

She stuck the electronic skeleton key in the security lock and turned it. The door slid back into its wall recess.

Verity stepped inside. She scanned the lab with her back to the wall. With her implant covered, she was blind to the signals of the ANT, and she couldn’t hear Anthony from inside the bag.

She pulled open a drawer. Electronics things: wires and stuff that were meant to be connected to people’s interfaces to put currents through their brains and short-circuit their mental wiring. Verity shoved the drawer closed again. Without even thinking about it, she found her gaze drawn to the chair--similar to the type in dental surgeries, but with a harness like in the seat of a fighter jet, and thick straps where the wrists and ankles would go.

She pulled open another drawer. Syringes and needles lay neatly lined up and wrapped in sterile plastic, on the table, a few slates and bits of computer equipment. Lab coats hung on a peg. At the back of the room, on the wall perpendicular to the broad windows occupying the far wall, was a closed door. What lay behind that? Probably just a store room and a fridge for keeping drugs. Verity found herself drawn to stare at it and, although she sensed no signals, an odd feeling began to creep over her.

Verity shook her head. This was irrational. It must just be an effect of being deprived of signals, like little kids were frightened of the dark because they couldn’t see what it hid. Yet still she feared opening that door. As she edged closer, her hand fell upon the doorknob. It turned smoothly when she tried it. The catch clicked and the door swung back.

The smell and hum of a machine hit her first before she saw the wires snaking all over the table, the machine under the bench and the plastic tubes bringing dark fluid to and fro through two ports in the front of it. The head hadn’t been disposed of as Farron had asserted. It was still on the table, connected to the machinery, although the skin had started to turn gray, and the wound in the neck had begun to fester without a proper immune system to stave off infection. As she stared at it, the eye that was still functional opened, its pupil swiveling toward her. The head beheld her, its expression dour and immobile.

Nausea welled up and Verity’s mouth filled with saliva. She swallowed, trying to force it down, stopping herself from vomiting. He’d been in this not-quite dead state since she’d brought the head back. Why had Farron done this? This didn’t match up with the man she knew.

Yet this version of Anthony Cornelian, or what was left of him, must know what was going on. She needed that information. After a moment, she slid the bag off her shoulders and opened it.

“You’re Anthony Cornelian,” she addressed the head. “I’m Zeta Verity. I killed you... I was following orders. I didn’t realize who you were and what was going on. I can’t change that back, but I’m going to try to put it right. The only thing I can give you now is mercy. I’m going to make Farron pay for what he’s done.”

Verity paused, but the expression on the face did not change. She continued. “You can’t talk, ’cause you’ve got no lungs, and I can’t get the information from your mind because I’m not an inquisitor.” Verity reached into the bag and brought out the computer. “But you can transfer the data to your computer, and I swear to you this will end now, and that I’ll give everything I’ve got in me to make sure it reaches the Magnolia Order and Lloyd Farron is stopped.”

Verity held out the computer. The head remained staring at her, then it blinked, and the processing light on the slate started to flash. After the flickering had stopped, the head closed its eye.

Verity put the slate back in the bag. She didn’t know if the data had been transferred successfully. She couldn’t interface with the computer without exposing her location to the ANT, but she had made an oath, and she would show the living death of Anthony Cornelian that there were people left in the Solar system capable of honor.

Her hand landed on the hilt of her katana. Her feet found their position and the steel rushed from the sheath into a sweeping strike with the full force of her body behind it. The head on the table exploded, hurling reanimation fluid and pieces of brain and skull up the wall. The readouts on the monitors went haywire.

Verity hefted the bag back onto her shoulders as she retreated outside, wiping her katana savagely on Lloyd Farron’s lab coat before re-sheathing it.

A loud wailing noise made her start--the emergency alarm. Verity ran out of the lab and hid in a side corridor, flattening herself behind a first aid cupboard. Boots rang on the floor, and voices were heard, then people were in the lab. “It’s Sergeant Verity.” That was Sergeant Black’s voice. “The ANT says she’s out with one of the horses. Quickly, let’s get after her.” Footsteps again, this time retreating to the stables. She stayed put, trying to keep her breathing steady until she was sure they’d gone.

She crept down the corridor in the other direction, keeping her shoulder close to the wall and her hand on her katana. As she passed the habitation block, she chanced a look into the corridor leading to her billet. The door had already been forced open, and sounds of a search emanated from within. She had to stay away from the stables long enough for Sergeant Black to get away, but not so long that Sergeant Black caught up with the decoy horse and saw the trick and returned. Verity had no idea how long that would be.

She went back to the stables the long way around. Listening carefully outside, she heard nothing from within, apart from a horse crunching its feed. She slipped through the door and hid behind an open stall door, before peering over it and checking. All clear. All the horses were gone. Everyone who could ride must be out hunting her. Just the stallion, whom she’d heard eating from outside, remained.