Plague of Memory (36 page)

PLAGUE OF MEMORY
347

team will go down through the air conduit. Send a probe first to ensure there are no traps waiting for you."

"Salo, drop us there," Reever said, pointing to a ledge just above the air conduits. "We will wait until we hear the first charge go off below, and then we will move in." To the Adan, he said, "Maintain contact beacons so that we know where you are."

The launch made a wide sweep around the mountain before coming up from behind the stronghold. Salo hovered above the wide ledge only long enough for us to jump down to it before taking off. Hawk also disembarked, but he did not stay on the ground. His task was to observe from above and report to Salo what progress we made.

The outside air was so cold that it hurt to breathe. I covered my face with my thermal mask and followed Reever to the edge to look below. The air conduits were only two feet down, close enough to lean over and touch.

"Launch the probe," Reever told Qonja, who switched on the small surveillance unit and dropped it over the side. It transmitted an image signal as it descended, showing the conduit open and clear of devices. Nothing emerged to prevent or impede its progress.

"It should not be so simple," I murmured to Qonja and my husband as we watched the drone travel the length of the passage. "Why would he go to so much trouble to conceal the stronghold and yet leave this access unguarded? It is as if he wishes us to use these conduits."

"I
agree. It is probably a trap," Reever said as soon as the drone emerged. "We are taking the

water conduit."

"How do you know this?" Qonja asked.

"I know the Hsktskt. No centuron would swim through water when he could climb through an air duct, and SrrokVar knows this as well. As Jam said, he is not expecting humanoids." He took breathers out of a supply pack and handed them to us. "Be prepared, for the water will likely be cold."

Even with the breathers and our heavy garments, the plunge into the frigid water conduit took my breath away. Reever went first, with Qonja and me following. Tethers attached to our belts kept us from being separated once inside.

The conduit and gravity made our swim a rapid one, and once we were down into the structure the conduit separated into three horizontal supply pipes. Reever took the smallest one, which led out to spill into a wide, deep collection unit. Reever dove down into it, and then sWam to the side and gestured for us to do the same. We were all soaked and shivering as we climbed out of the reservoir and stood in what appeared to be a central equipment room.

Reever took off his breather and pointed to a secured door. "That one," he told Qonja, who set a small decoder unit on the locking mechanism and released the door. My husband drew his blade and pistol as he looked around the comer before moving through.

Qonja offered me a pistol, but I showed him my Iisleg blades. "I did not think you would bring them," he said to me as we followed Reever into a dark corridor.

"I hope I do not have to use them," I said, wincing as I heard a muffled but massive explosion detonate somewhere outside. "I think the Adan have found SrrokVar's primary fortifications."

"You are in error," someone said. Out of the shadows emerged a pleasant-looking service drone armed with two rifles and a transmitter. "SrrokVar, I have encountered three intruders in the service quadrant. Two Terrans and a Jorenian."

Reever shot the drone's control case, which caused it to explode. I covered my face with my arms to protect it from the sparks and shrapnel, so I did not see from where the other drones that surrounded us came.

"Too many," Qonja said as Reever dodged out of sight and one of the drones sped after him.

"You will lower your weapons," another drone said. When Qonja and I did so, it turned and indicated a hall to the left. "This way."

Our dripping garments left a wide, wet trail behind us, one I hoped would not dry before Reever found it. Qonja and I were led into SrrokVar's lab from a back access panel, and for a moment the brightness of the lights blinded us.

My eyes adjusted, and I saw ChoVa, bound to a punishment post, her bare back scored with several lash marks. She sagged, apparently unconscious, from the manacles around her wrists. Beside her stood PyrsVar, in chains that had been passed through a wide alloy ring bolted to the floor.

350 S. L. Viehl

SrrokVar had placed him close enough to watch ChoVa being whipped, but not to stop it.

"Turn up the emitters," SrrokVar said as he walked toward us. "Some of our guests have arrived."

TWENTY-ONE

"There will do," SrrokVar told the drone.

I had been dragged over to the punishment post, stripped of my coat and tunic, and hung by my wrists next to ChoVa. Qonja had resisted briefly, and had been knocked unconscious by a bioelectric charge emitted by one of the service drones. He had been placed on a table by a rack of surgical instruments and strapped down.

Another explosion from outside the stronghold distracted SrrokVar. "Excuse me. I believe I must start executing the other half of your pathetic attack team." He wandered off with two drones trailing after him.

I turned my head to see PyrsVar staring with undisguised hatred at SrrokVar's back. "Did ChoVa give you the countermeasure?" I asked him. I had to know if he was sane enough to help us.

"She did." He looked at her, and then me. "As soon as I came to my senses, I knocked her out and took her from the ship."

I tested the fit of the manacles, which were strong and uncomfortably tight. "Why?" "I needed her help to stop my sire, and she would

not have agreed to come with me on her own." He nodded toward Qonja. "Why do they come here?"

"To rescue you, and save the people." The unnatural position of my arms made them ache, and shifting my weight only created more strain on my joints. "PyrsVar, if you had asked, we would have helped you. Next time, don't assume we wouldn't."

He nodded. "Can you help me now?"

"Now he asks." I sighed. "The Adan will be here soon, as will Reever. We only have to be patient and try to keep your sire from killing us before they breach the stronghold." More explosions rocked the

* structure, and I heard the ominous sound of stone cracking and rumbling. "Or send it tumbling down the side of the mountain."

The sound of our voices made ChoVa stir, and her eyelids lifted to reveal bloodshot eyes. "Jam." She groaned before she straightened, supporting her weight with her feet. "Someone was beating me."

"It is my fault," PyrsVar said to her. "I should not have brought you back to Vtaga. I should have left you in safety with the warm-bloods."

The hissing sound that escaped her sounded more exasperated than angry. "You are warmblooded too, outlaw. And, I think, just as impulsive as they." She tested the chains binding her to the post. "This is not favorable." She saw Qonja on the exam table. "Did anyone escape the guard drones?"

I nodded. "My husband. He will be here soon."

SrrokVar returned carrying a number of cases and equipment, which he placed on the floor in front of us. "I think I shall record this punishment
for posterity. It may be the only time in history that a humanoid and a Hsktskt are beaten to death simultaneously." He removed a large, ugly-looking blade with a serrated edge. "I wonder how long you both would live without your limbs attached."

"Let them go, sire," PyrsVar said in a surprisingly meek voice. "I am the one who has betrayed you to your enemies, not them. It is I who deserve your punishment."

"You see what happens when my kind spends too much time around the warm-blooded? They develop a conscience. No, the blade will not do." SrrokVar shook his head and extracted a familiar-looking device from one of the cases and held it out for me to see. "Do you remember your fondness for being burned, Dr. Grey Veil?"

"I do," I said, feeling my skin crawl as a memory of Catopsa returned to me. "It almost drove me out of my mind."

"Yes, well, that is rather the point of my not killing you." His artificial mouth turned down at the corners. "So sad, really. I am as I am, and the rest of my people are well on their way to losing their minds. Why should you be spared your fair share of the horror?"

"I did nothing to deserve it."

"Neither did I, my dear. I was only doing my work when you inflicted this misery upon me." He came close to me. "Despite the delights of your enhanced cerebral capabilities, I never regarded your mind as particularly special, you know. You are quite pedestrian in your patterns of emotion over logic, but it does make you much more amusing to
torture." He switched on the instrument, the branding plates of which began to turn dark red, and then orange as they heated.

"If you touch her with that, Doctor," I heard my husband say from somewhere above us, "I will fire at your head."

"You do that, Terran." SrrokVar tested the surface of the branding instrument. "My cranial case is specially reinforced to protect my brain. You'd need a small bomb to sever my spinal cord—it has also been reinforced and shielded—and to separate the head unit from the rest of me."

Reever took careful aim. "Your cardiac organ is not shielded. Assuming you have one."

"That is where you are wrong, HalaVar. While I was repairing the wreck your wife made of my head, I also had my torso and most of my organs replaced. There was some immediacy involved, as well. Cryostasis, you see, does such terrible damage to the Hsktskt physiology."

"No Hsktskt would lower himself to become a reconstruct," ChoVa said. "Except you."

"That is where you are correct, Doctor. A reconstruct is a drone with the brain of a living thing— completely unacceptable for my purposes. The body I took is all natural flesh." He dropped his cloak to display a powerful physique. "Perhaps you recognize the scale pattern, PyrsVar." He pulled open the tunic he wore to bare his chest. "He was your biological parent before I had him killed and his head removed."

PyrsVar screamed his rage, his Jorenian claws fully extended as he fought the chains.

PIAGUE OF MEMORY 355

"Move away from the women," Reever called, "or I will shoot you until you fall."

"Lights." The lab was plunged into darkness, with only a glow of orange-white coming from the glowing brand plate SrrokVar held. "There, now if you shoot you'll only hit one of the women." SrrokVar peered down at me. "Where shall I start, Doctor? Where did that sadistic guard on Catopsa repeatedly burn an identification brand on you? Down the length of the forearm, wasn't it?"

Something flew into the lab—Hawk, I realized a moment later—and between me and SrrokVar. The madman staggered back as the winged Terran fired at his face. Through the darkness I saw Reever run over to a control panel and begin opening the access doors.

"Kill the Terran," SrrokVar shouted.

SrrokVar's drones tried to shoot Hawk, but the winged Terran flew out through one of the doors as quickly as he had entered the lab. The lights began to come back on one by one.

"I don't need emitters," SrrokVar said as he lumbered toward me and ChoVa. Hawk's face shot had struck the madman's artificial features, which were melting and sliding away from his braincase. "I can burn her without seeing her."

Reever reached me before the madman did, and tried to release the manacles holding me and ChoVa to the post.

"Behind you," ChoVa said.

I saw SrrokVar looming behind my husband even as the Adan and PyrsVar's outlaws poured into the lab through the doors he had opened. "Duncan."

356 S. L. Viehl

"I love you." He turned and lunged at SrrokVar, knocking him over.

The two rolled across the floor of the lab as they wrestled with the branding instrument between them. SrrokVar was almost successful in driving it into Reever's face, but then my husband flipped to one side and drove his daggers into the Hsktskt's chest.

I heard chains snap, and PyrsVar rushed over to drag SrrokVar off Reever. What my husband had started he finished with his claws, eviscerating the madman.

Reever struggled to his feet and turned to look at me. "PyrsVar, help me free the women and then—" He stopped, and a strange look passed over his face before he dropped to his knees. Blood blossomed on the front of his tunic. Behind him stood one of SrrokVar's service drones. In his back was SrrokVar's serrated sword.

"Kill the Terran," the drone repeated SrrokVar's command as it backed away. "Kill the Terran."

One of the Adan shot it, and someone released me from the chains. I rushed over to my husband, who remained upright despite the sword that had been driven through his body.

"Duncan." I saw the position of the blade. "Hawk, Qonja, help us." I lowered my voice.
"I
can operate," I assured him. "SrrokVar has everything I need here. I will repair the damage and you will be fine."

"Not this time, Wife." He touched my face with a bloodied hand. "You saved me when I needed to be saved. Remember that, beloved."

PIAGUE OF MEMORY 357

"No." I felt the life spilling from him. "I need you to live. I need you with me. Duncan."

"I will always be with you," he promised, and then he rested against me, his cheek on my shoulder.
Here is all that I am, Jarn. All that I was, and all that I know. Remember me until we are together again.

His memories poured into me.

As Hawk and the others helped me carry him to a table, the link wavered and dwindled. I did not bother to strip out of my garments as I seized a laboratory shroud large enough for six of me and draped myself as best I could.

"Qonja, ChoVa, assist me," I said as I quickly checked the surgical instruments SrrokVar had prepared. They could repair as much damage as they could inflict. He also had equipment designed to keep badly wounded beings alive for as long as possible. "See if there is something I can use to establish a sterile field. ClanLeader Adan, signal the Torin and tell them to send Squilyp down here. I will need him to bring everything necessary for a Terran in critical care post-op. Do it now."