Only Superhuman (33 page)

“He’s a strong-willed man, sure, and an ambitious one. But he’s a
good
man. Do you really think I could love him otherwise?”

Zephyr didn’t reply for a moment. “Even good men bear close watching when they have great power.”

Emry sighed. He just wasn’t letting this go! “And he
knows
that, damn it! That’s the whole
point
of going after—” She broke off. “Just let me out.”

“I’m sorry I upset you.”

“Yeah, me too. Right now I gotta go.”

The outer doors opened onto the access tunnel. Emry shot through them without another word.
He’ll see,
she thought.
Soon we’ll have Sensei on our side and this whole thing will be straightened out, just like Eliot planned.
Villareal’s silence on this affair remained odd, but Emry was confident it would change soon.
If anyone can get through to him, Psyche can.

Private shuttle HV763M
Keeping station near Phobos

Yukio Villareal pulled Psyche’s nude body against his and clutched her tightly. Her hair flowed forward in the microgravity, writhing around their torsos like a living thing, its spun-gold strands stroking and tickling his skin. He’d never felt hair so soft, so silky. It was one of the many things he loved about Psyche.

The thought came with a twinge of guilt that Yukio tried to shake off. There was no reason for it, he told himself. His wife accepted that he was simply one of those men for whom monogamy was not an option, and that the very things that drew her to him would inevitably draw others. He’d never made a secret of that with any woman, although his first wife had not proved as able to live with it as she’d imagined. But Helena had always tolerated it, even indulged in a few dalliances herself. She believed, as he did, that the only real infidelity was deception.

And that was the problem. Yukio had always striven to be scrupulously honest about his affairs. As an active Troubleshooter, he had never risked compromising his judgment by sleeping with a woman he was charged with protecting—not until afterwards, anyway. As an administrator, he had never slept with a Troubleshooter, trainee or Corps employee (which took some willpower when their ranks included the likes of Lydia Muchangi or Emerald Blair). And he had never, ever kept an affair secret from his wife. Until this one.

As always, he reminded himself that there were very good reasons for it. Psyche had insisted, months ago when their affair had begun, that no one could know. Her father was overprotective, and despite his long isolation from Strider society, had an extensive intelligence network keeping him informed. Indeed, it was a covert fact-finding mission that had brought Psyche to Demetria to begin with. Eliot Thorne was slow to trust, and if he ever discovered that his own daughter had fallen in love with an older man who just happened to be the founder of the Troubleshooter Corps and one of the subjects of her investigations, his fury would jeopardize any hope of rapprochement between Vanguard and the Corps. So it was imperative, Psyche had stressed with tears in those quicksilver eyes, that no one—absolutely no one—could ever know of their love affair. That was why Yukio had needed to lie to his wife and fabricate a business trip to Phobos when Psyche had summoned him for a rendezvous there. Yukio hated keeping a secret from Helena, but Psyche was absolutely convinced it was necessary. And he trusted Psyche. He respected her judgment. He would rather die than see her unhappy.

That was the other reason for his guilt. Through all his past affairs, one thing had remained constant: though every one of his partners had his affection and respect, Helena remained his soul mate, the love of his life. He still loved her just as much … but he was beginning to realize he loved Psyche more. He’d known of her engineered allure, her pheromones, but he was too old and experienced to feel it so deeply based on that alone. This was the real thing, deep and complex and overpowering. Even after two months apart, Psyche had filled his thoughts, commanded his dreams. She’d monopolized his fantasies, even when he was making love to his wife.

But how can I break it off?
he asked himself as Psyche’s long brown legs wrapped around his hips and pulled him into her. The dear girl loved him desperately, enough to risk everything for him, and he simply couldn’t dishonor that. It would be ungrateful, selfish, unfair.

Rationalizations aside, he simply loved her, loved
this,
too much. He’d never known such ecstasy, such contentment and warmth. Her passion was transcendent—not to mention her skill. With Psyche, there was no need for handholds, restraints, or bouncing off the walls (although she definitely enjoyed restraints). Her technique was so perfect, her reflexes so precise, that she could keep the two of them suspended in midair for hours, needing at most the tiniest tap of a finger or toe against a wall to cancel their drift toward it. It took care and attention on both their parts to achieve it, but that care attuned them deeply to their own and each other’s bodies, and the required communication brought them closer, made their lovemaking as much a meeting of minds as of flesh. Every move one of them made had to be done in full awareness of its effect upon the other, of how their fates were inextricably intertwined. Few experiences brought such intimacy. As they floated in space, touching only each other, they formed an isolated system, a two-body problem of erotic physics. When he closed his eyes, Psyche defined his universe.

All too soon the sex was over, but the lovers clung to each other and tumbled lazily together in the center of the chamber. Soon, though, he heard her sniffling. He pulled back to meet her glistening eyes. “What’s wrong, my love?”

“Ohh, Yukio. I can’t stand that all we can have are these brief encounters. I’ll have to leave soon—Daddy is expecting me. And I have no idea when I’ll be able to see you again.”

The realization that they might be parted indefinitely hit him hard. “There must be a way, love. Defy your father, come clean with him. Let’s be together openly.”

“You know I can’t, my darling. There’s too much at stake.”

“We can change that. Let me come to Vanguard, endorse your alliance, denounce Tai openly.”

“No! Darling, we’ve talked about this before. It’s just too dangerous for you. Tai needs your aegis to give him legitimacy. If he knew you’d turned on him … ohh, I don’t want to think about it!”

He grimaced. “We have to,
cara
. In a way, it’s because of us he’s gotten this far at all. Because I was a romantic fool who wanted to spend more time with my wife and my mistress and trusted Tai to take care of my Troubleshooters for me. And now, staying silent is making it worse. It seems as though I’m endorsing the things he’s doing.”

“But it’s safer for you.”

He chuckled, stroking her head. “I can take care of myself, dear
mariposa
. Especially if I have the Vanguard at my side.”

She averted her gaze. “Father would never accept you. We … if you were there, we couldn’t be together at all, and I couldn’t stand being so close and not…” She broke off. “There’s no way I could hide my feelings from him. It would ruin everything.”

“But if we explained how much we love each other—”

“He’s a cynical man, Yukio. To see his only daughter with a celebrated rake like you … he’d be convinced you’d taken advantage of me, and nothing you said could change that.”

He could hardly bear to press on, but there was no choice. “He’s also a pragmatic man, dearest. He might not like me much, but he’d cooperate with me if it served his interests.”

“But he’d never let us—”

“I know.” The words were glass tearing from his throat. “But for the sake of others, we have no choice. We can’t place our selfish wants above the good of Solsys. The problems of two people don’t amount to a hill of beans.…” He couldn’t muster the will to finish the allusion. “Psyche, it has to be done. I can’t stay silent any longer. About any of it.”

She took his head in her hands and studied him for a long moment, her eyes boring deep into his. “Your mind really is made up,” she said at length. Regret showed in her eyes, but it was more subdued, even detached, than he would have expected. The brave girl was managing it far better than he was, that was for sure. “I’m sorry, Yukio. It really was great fun while it lasted.”

He frowned. “What are you saying?”

Still clutching his head, she gave him one more long, deep kiss that belied the lack of passion in her words. “I’m saying that you’ve been a very entertaining plaything, but you’ve outlived your usefulness.” She pushed him away, hard. She caught herself smoothly on a handhold, but in his shock he did nothing to arrest his impact with the bulkhead. It was far less jarring than her words, her actions.

“No. No, Psyche, you said you loved me!”

“You? Don’t be ridiculous, old man!” She laughed, though it sounded a bit forced. He hoped it was forced. But how could she say such things to him if she truly felt as he’d believed? “And put some clothes on, you skinny old dog.” She tossed his clothes at him and began donning her own.

He began dressing automatically, barely even noticing, as he tried to process what was happening here. “How can you say this? Psyche, the things I’ve done for you! Quit my job, betrayed my wife.”

Her laughter intensified, her wide, toothy grin becoming feral. “Ohh, yes, how priceless! I had you eating out of my hand.”

“That’s all this was to you? A game?”

She drifted over, patted him on the head, and helped him finish dressing. “Of course! You don’t seriously think a young, gorgeous creature like me would fall for a withered old has-been like you, do you? You with your preening arrogance, thinking you’re God’s gift to women. Women only fuck you because they’re drawn to power. But you gave up that power, Archie-boy,” she went on, tweaking his chin with her finger. “So you lost your sex appeal. And while you were at it, by the way, you sold out your precious Troubleshooters and let them become Tai’s puppets. So you’ve got nothing left. Oh, except a happy, trusting marriage—oh, wait, you vacked that too, didn’t you?” She giggled with sadistic glee.

Tears burned Yukio’s eyes, clinging in the microgravity, and he shook his head to clear them away. Dizziness overtook him, but it was not from the free fall. It was his world that was falling, collapsing around him as he floated in place. How could he have been so stupid? Psyche was right—he was a worthless old idiot who’d ruined everything for himself, for the Corps, for the Belt, all because he couldn’t control his hormones. And he’d done it all for nothing, for a lie. “How could I have let this happen?”

“I think we’ve established that, sweetie. The real question is…” She paused, cleared her throat. Her hand faltered in its idle stroking of his hair. Then she went on, her voice harder than before. “The question is, how can you live with yourself now?”

He couldn’t find an answer to her question. He had failed everyone. He had ruined everything. It would be better for everyone if he just stepped into the airlock and …

No!
Something inside him rebelled.
This doesn’t make sense.
Psyche’s words, her actions, they didn’t add up. And something was wrong with him too. This wasn’t like him! He was Shashu, he was Sensei! He never backed down from a challenge, never stood by when someone needed help. He had failed before, screwed up before, but he had carried on and done whatever it took to make amends.

And he had battled depression before. When his brother had died in the war, when the Belt Alliance had fragmented afterward, when his first wife had left him. The doctors had diagnosed his tendency toward clinical depression, had given him the medicines and the insights he needed to conquer it. And even before then, even in his darkest moments, he had never contemplated suicide for more than the most fleeting of instants. It just wasn’t in him to give up.

“Something … you’re doing something to me,” he realized. “Making me … feel this way. Psychoactive…” Pheromones were one thing, but she’d done more, drugged him somehow. He had to fight it! He pushed her away. They flew apart to opposite bulkheads, and he caught himself. “Get out. Get away!”

Instead, she kicked back over toward him. Setting chivalry aside, he tried striking at her with the full force of his bionic limbs, knowing this was a fight for his life. But his control over those limbs was sluggish; whatever she’d done had weakened him, and she parried his blow effortlessly despite lacking the leverage he had. She forced his arms down to his sides, wrapping her legs around him to pin them there with her powerful thighs. Again her hands encased his head, despite his efforts to wrench free of them. Butterfly wings fluttered against his temples. “I’m sorry I said those mean things, Yukio,” she said. “I wanted there to be no doubt it was suicide. But maybe it’s better this way. At least you won’t suffer as much.”

Again her lips met his, her tongue forcing its way between them. He tried to keep his mouth closed, but even now his body responded reflexively to her seduction. Her saliva mixed with his, and in moments he felt his consciousness fading.

The sound of alarms from the cockpit briefly halted his decline into oblivion. Psyche had done something to set them off … now he distantly registered that she was in a space suit, heading for the airlock. Was she abandoning ship? Would she be able to get back to Phobos safely? The last thing he ever felt was the hope that she could. Because despite everything, he still loved her more than life itself.

16

Whose Side Are You On?

Vanguard

It took a long time for Emry to stop crying after she heard the news. How could this have happened? Despite the threat to the TSC and the charges against her, she’d been happier than she’d ever been, confident that Eliot and Psyche would soon win Sensei’s support and that together they would expose this whole mess. She’d
known
that things were going to be all right. This just wasn’t supposed to happen!

When Psyche returned a week later and told her version firsthand, Emry cried just as hard as before. “It doesn’t make any sense,” she said at length, rising from the couch where she had been cocooned between the Thornes’ comforting embraces. “There’s no way he’d aim himself at Phobos on plasma drive! He’d never endanger so many lives!”