Serpent's Gift (47 page)

She made herself keep her head up, her chin stuck out, and refused to cringe. She was a person of honor, her uncle Khuharkk' had told her so.

Heather thought of the Simiu, out in space even now on that tiny scooter, flying to save her, Rob, Serge, all of them. She had to be brave, too. If Khuharkk' could do it, so could she.

She drew herself up, staring at Lynch calmly, pretending that Doctor Blanket was in her mind, even though seloz was still on the space station, and couldn't "hear" her anymore. Seloz was in her heart. That would have to be enough.

"Who the hell are you?" Lynch demanded angrily. "And what are you
doing
here?"

Heather swallowed, not wanting her voice to quaver. "I'm Heather Farley. I'm from StarBridge Academy, ma'am."
Name, rank, and serial number. That's
all you're getting from me!

"You?"
the dark woman sneered. "You're a damned
baby.
You're too young for StarBridge."

Now the girl felt her face flush angrily, but that was fine. Being mad didn't leave her time to be scared. "I'm an advanced student," she replied haughtily. "Special.
Gifted."
She said it in a tone that said
not ordinary, like
you!

Lynch grimaced and yanked a gun from an outside pocket Heather hadn't even noticed. The youngster felt her knees weaken. "Yeah, well, for a
gifted
child, you sure did one hell of a stupid thing coming here."

Not as stupid as what you've done, you crook!
Heather thought, but for once she managed to keep her mouth from living a life of its own.

Lynch strode over to the computer as Heather backed up, unable to look away from the woman's gun. The adult tapped something into the computer, then touched a button on the console. A mechanical voice rang out:

"Sixteen minutes two seconds. Sixteen minutes, one second. Sixteen minutes remaining in countdown sequence. Fifteen minutes fifty-nine seconds .. ."

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"Ever hear a countdown before,
gifted
child?" Lynch snarled. "If not, you're hearing one now. There's a charge tied into the biggest radonium vein, and I can't do a damned thing about it. In fifteen minutes this whole rock's going to be
vaporized.
Understand me? Or am I being too simple?"

Heather's voice caught in her throat. She tried again, and it emerged in a squeak. Lynch was lying, wasn't she? Just trying to scare her? Wasn't she?

But there-was only truth in those cold black eyes. "You mean . . . like boom?"

she whispered.

"Big
boom," Lynch confirmed. "Major. Large. Ultimate BOOM. Got it, brat?"

She latched on to Heather's arm, her grip like iron, hurting her, even through the spacesuit.

"What are you going to do to me?" the child asked, hating the tremor in her voice. She was really scared now, shaking. She knew Lynch was going to shoot her, leave her here, to be totally incinerated.
Remember your honor!
a voice inside her ordered. She took a deep breath and faced Lynch calmly.

"What are you going to do?"

"What am I going to do?" Lynch repeated, obviously on the verge of losing it entirely. "What am I going to do?" Panting, she tried to catch her breath, the pulse in her neck jumping. "I... uh .. ." she hesitated, startling Heather more than anything she'd done so far. "I'll
tell
you what I'm going to do. I'm gonna stuff you in the cargo hold of our shuttle. You're going to get in there and
be
quiet,
you understand me?" She gave Heather a vicious shake, and the girl nodded rapidly in compliance.

"Yeah, that's it." Lynch was thinking hard. "You stay hidden, and after we're safe, I'll sneak you some food. When we're far enough away, at some port, I'll sneak you back out again, give you enough money to contact your people after we're gone. He'll never know. Yeah. That'll work. You got that?"

Heather blinked. She had no idea what the woman was talking about.

"Who's
he?
You're not going to kill me? Leave me here?" She looked over at the console, at the voice intoning, "Fifteen minutes three seconds. Fifteen minutes two seconds."

"Kill
you?" Lynch spat in complete amazement. "What the hell do you think I
am?"

The girl collected herself, looked right into Andrea Lynch's eyes, and touched her mind for the briefest second. She was assailed with quick flashes of Lynch bartering for stuff... no, not just
stuff. ..
Heather remembered Serge's description of the artifacts they'd found here. Lynch had bought those things on the black market and planted them here. She glimpsed the memory of Lynch buying and installing the star-shrine. Oh, this would just 279

kill
Serge! She saw snippets of other memories, too, in the brief touch. Lynch loading radonium onto a ship.

"You used to be an archaeologist," Heather whispered, terrified, but unable to say anything else. "But now you're a thief... and a liar."

The woman flinched, then grabbed her ear as if searching for something.

Her teledistort,
Heather realized.
It must've gotten yanked off when she
pulled her helmet off so quick.

Lynch barked an ugly laugh. "All that and more, kid. But I'm no killer. I've never killed anybody, and I'm not starting with a kid, even a mind-reading snotty little brat like you."

"But it was you, wasn't it, that tampered with the guidance beam?" Heather blurted. "Lots of people died because of that. .."

"No!"
Lynch shouted, her voice cracking. A muscle in her cheek jumped.

"That wasn't me. Not me." She shook her head, the grip on Heather's arm easing up, becoming almost a caress. "I didn't do that, didn't know he was going to do it, either. Not till after it was done. All those people, dead ... he's gone too far ..." She almost whispered the last, her face drawn into a terrible mask of grief, anger, and desperation.

"Who?" Heather asked softly, making her voice as childlike as she could.

"Jeff," Lynch murmured morosely. "He's gone too far, he's losing it... he's over the edge. If he finds you, he'll
kill
you!" This last was a fierce whisper and she shook Heather again, her resolve crystallizing. "I can't let him do that. I have to keep him safe, protect him, or he'll get caught. So you do exactly like I say. Into the cargo hold. C'mon, there's not much time."

Heather grabbed her helmet, her mind racing, the countdown voice

distracting her. "But.. . we just can't
leave,"
she said plaintively. She had no choice, she'd have to trust this woman. "We can't leave Rob and Serge here to die!"

Lynch's eyes widened. "You mean you're not alone? Those jerks brought you with them?"

The child shook her head. "They don't know I'm here. But they're talking to Mr. Morrow right now, in Cavern One."

"Oh,
shit!"
Lynch groaned and glanced at the console, listening to the countdown. "I'll never make it! If I take you to the ship, then go back for them ... I'll need time to convince Jeff..."

"You can't leave them,
please!"
Heather babbled, panic- stricken. "Don't leave them to die! I can get myself to the

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shuttle. Just tell me the access codes for the airlock, I'll let myself in! I'll find the cargo hold and go hide. But
please
don't let anything happen to Rob and Serge!"

Lynch hesitated for just a second. "Okay," she said finally in a defeated voice. She looked ashen, gray, suddenly old. Heather knew all her hopes, her plans, were crumbling around her, that she was desperate to find a way to make everything work out. "Maybe I can convince Jeff to take them as hostages ..." She reached over for an H.U. computerpen and manipulated the controls, then handed it to Heather. "This'll get you into the airlock. Since you're
gifted,
I'm sure you won't have any trouble figuring it out. Now, get your helmet on and GET GOING! I MEAN it!"

Heather nodded her head so hard she nearly gave herself a headache, reaching for her helmet as Lynch barreled into the airlock. With one part of her mind she heard it cycle, but most of her attention was arrested by the countdown.

"Fourteen minutes remaining in countdown sequence. Thirteen minutes fifty-nine seconds . .."

Heather walked over to the console, stared at it.
You can stop it,
an inner voice assured her smugly. The child nodded, and stared at her own computerpen, then at the one Lynch had just given her.

Not
that
way, her survivor-self sneered.
That's the
hard
way. You know what I'm talking about.

Heather shook her head. No. She was not doing that. Not now. Not EVER.

We're talking big boom here, kiddo,
the voice whispered.
Bye-bye Academy
at StarBridge. Janet Rodriguez and a whole crew are still working there.

They'll die. And what happens to you when there's no more StarBridge?

Guess it's back to foster homes, huh? Normal school. Full of
normal
people, who just
love
having telepaths around them? That's okay. You can handle it.

You've done it before. It'll only be
ten more years
until you're a legal adult. . .

Dr. Blanket!
Heather called desperately in her mind. There was no answer.

DR. BLANKET!

This is hell, kiddo. No guardian angels here. Just you. Serge. Rob. And the
bad guys. You going to let them do this to Rob--
destroy his school? After
what he did to save you?

She stared at the console, shaking. "No," she said aloud, in a firm voice. "I'm not going back in. Not EVER. I can't. I'll find another way."

Grimly, she grabbed the computerpens and started working out

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codes that might break through Morrow's programming, and
all
the while the countdown rang hollowly in her ears ...

Only when he was staring in horrified fascination at the gun Jeffrey Morrow was pointing at his face did Serge begin to realize how very much he still wanted to live.

Ever since he'd awakened today, to find that the woman he loved more than anything in the world was dead, Serge had been playing in the back of his mind with the comforting thought that when he had fulfilled his obligations to Rob and Professor Greyshine, if he truly found that he could not go on without Hing, he could arrange to die.

After all, it was easy, out here in space. The environment would be happy to kill you, and often did, whether you wanted it to or not. Just step into an airlock and "forget" to seal your helmet or your gloves properly. Or hop aboard one of the scooters and aim it at a cliff, or at one of the deep holes that pockmarked the ground. Millions of ways.

But now, he realized, he didn't want to do any of those things, and it looked as though he was going to die anyway. Life was certainly odd, wasn't it?

"Jeff," Rob was saying, "what the hell do you think you're doing? Whatever Lynch did, it isn't worth something like this. We can--"

"Rob," Serge said quietly, "look at him. Lynch didn't do it. He did. Didn't you, Jeff?"

Morrow nodded. His eyes in the glare of the overhead spotlights were a washed-out gray, and his face was greasy with sweat. "Finally figured it all out, didn't you, Serge?" He smiled with seemingly genuine regret. "I'm sorry about this, you know. I really liked you. But I'm afraid you'll have to stay here.

I'm taking Rob with me, of course, but I can't watch two of you at one time, not effectively. And you're a pretty husky young man, not like old shorty over there." He gave the psychologist an affectionate glance.

"Jeff." Rob's voice was calm now. Therapist mode, Serge realized. "Let's talk about this. You must put the gun down. You musn't do this, it would be very destructive. It's not too late
to
undo things, fix everything. The radonium can be recovered,
the
radonium-2 can still be stop--"

Morrow smiled tolerantly, and gestured with the gun. "Rob-- Rob, you're being rather obtuse. Tell him, Serge."

"There is no radonium-2, Rob," Serge said flatly, feeling as though he were a computer with a human voice, obeying a

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programming command. "There never was. The radonium-2 crisis was as false as the idea that the Mizari Lost Colony came here. They needed to keep us away from the site, while they took the radonium, so what better way than to declare it off-limits, because it was contaminated? They planned this months ago, Rob."

Glancing over at the psychologist out of the corner of his eye, he saw Gable nearly stagger as the truth sank in. How would it feel, Serge wondered, to have one of your best friends betray you so ruthlessly?

"Jeff," Rob whispered,
"why?
You have more money than anyone can reasonably hope to spend in a lifetime, you told me so.
Why?"

"You can never have too much money, Rob," the engineer said, his eyes gleaming fanatically. "You'll find that out, when we take in all the worlds in first-class style. You won't have to worry about this place anymore. It was sucking you dry, draining you like a damn space vampire, but I've fixed
that,
too."

Moving lightly, quickly, the gun still pointed directly at Serge, Morrow backed over to the terminal, then hit a button. The computer began to speak:

"Sixteen minutes remaining in countdown sequence. Fifteen minutes fifty-nine seconds, fifteen minutes fifty- eight seconds ..."

The engineer smiled proudly. "See? It's all taken care of. No more StarBridge to slowly kill my best buddy, Rob. I did it for you."

Mon Dieu,
Serge thought, feeling so sick that for a moment he was afraid he might faint,
we are dealing with a madman. Jeff is crazy, completely crazy!

"Jeff," Rob said soothingly, "this is not productive. Put down the gun, and we'll discuss this. If you want, we could go somewhere together, sure. But there's no need for you to do this .. . blowing up the school will just make you feel terrible, later, don't you think?"

Give it up, Rob,
Serge thought, seeing Morrow's sweaty face and glittering eyes.
You cannot reach him.. .