Shadow of the Swan (Book Two of the Phoenix Legacy) (46 page)

They had calculated that it would take five minutes to make their way from Paten’s office to the DC; five minutes in which Paten or Torenz might have second thoughts, and a call to SSB Central Control in Concordia would suffice to unmask the “inspectors.” But Torenz was a captain; he’d think twice before questioning a major. So would Paten. At least, an SSB major.

They paused to show their cards to the guard at the lift that took them to Level 1. Alex’s eyes were constantly moving behind his face-screen, assessing every detail, searching for discrepancies in expected procedure, while he mentally reexamined the plan, calculating time intervals, extrapolating potential alternatives.

It would be over within minutes. The two guards at the monitoring stations in the DC would be vital, if unwitting, accomplices to Andreas’s escape. Both men had had leaves in the last two weeks, both had spent them in Helen, and both had spent part of their leaves in the COS HQ with Erica Radek. Neither would believe that if he were told, but at the right cues, they would respond with carefully programmed responses. They would open the doors for Andreas.

Sargent John Macintire, on the corridor station, was conditioned to go through the usual pass procedures, allowing them to enter the DC, then after activating the hall shock screen, he would fall immediately into a nonreactive trance state.

Sargent Jeremy Ross, on the monitoring station inside the DC, would react similarly. Once Alex and Ben identified themselves, he would turn off all the monitors and all the cell shock screens, then go into a trance state.

The most vital part of Ross’s role was switching off the cell shock screens. The hall screen was distant enough to cause no interference in MT transmission, but the cell screens would surround them in an electrical field that would make the MT virtually impotent.

Once the cell screens were off, they would have less than a minute to complete transing; Paten and Torenz would sound the alarms as soon as the monitors went off. But it would be time enough. The MT at the COS HQ was already homed in on the fixes in their boots. The trans would be instantaneous once the order was given.

The corridor monitoring station was only a few meters ahead, looming closer with the long strides that set Alex’s cloak whipping around his legs. He didn’t so much as glance at Ben, but he trusted his reactions, trusted the almost telepathic rapport existing between them.

Sargent Macintire was at his post.

Alex had the ident card in his hand; he flashed it briefly as Macintire came to his feet and saluted.

“Major Ransom, SSB,” Alex said tersely. “This is my aide, Leftant Bently.”

“Sargent Macintire, sir. I’ve been exp——” He stopped, flushing with embarrassment. “I . . . uh, well, I mean—”

“I know exactly what you mean, Sargent. Military grapevines are the fastest form of communication known. I suppose Sargent Ross has also been alerted to our arrival?”

Macintire glanced down the hallway into the DC. “Well, Sargent Ross isn’t on duty today, sir. He’s in the infirmary on sick call.”

Alex was too stunned to respond, and he was grateful for the face-screen. He could feel the blood draining from his face and knew he was beyond controlling his features.

That meant someone else was on the DC station; someone who wasn’t conditioned.

His hesitation was brief; the subcrisis mental set still functioned. He felt Ben’s accedence to necessity.

“A postleave ailment, no doubt,” Alex commented acerbically as he leaned closer to study the monitoring console. At least Macintire was here; his reactions could be depended upon.

There was a vidicom screen for each of the twenty cells, but only five were occupied; the prisoners all seemed to be supine in various stages of stupor, recovery, or boredom. His gaze moved to cell number eleven, but he let it rest there—and on the figure huddled on the bed-ledge, apparently asleep—only momentarily. He felt the acceleration of his pulse, but his tone was cool, almost indifferent.

“I see you have backup controls on the cell shock screens, Sargent.”

“Yes, sir. This console is an exact duplicate of the one inside the DC. I can take over any of the DC stations’s functions. The cell screens are controlled individually—” He pointed to a row of switches, then at a larger one at the end of the row. “—or this switch turns all of them on or off at once.”

Alex took careful note of the position of the latter control. “And the hall screen?”

“Again, either station can control it. We take the precaution of verbal notification by intercom when either of us changes the status on any of the screens.”

“Who has access to the DC?”

“No one who can’t show me—and the DC guard—a clearance card from Commander Paten, sir.”

Alex turned and looked down the hall into the DC. The monitoring station and the guard were clearly visible, but he was looking past it to the open doorway of cell eleven.

“Very good, Sargent. You may clear us for entry into the DC.”

“Yes, sir.” Macintire sat down and activated the intercom, and at his next words, the man at the DC station turned to look down the hall. “Sargent Kile, I’m passing Major Ransom and Leftant Bently, SSB CC. Hall screen going off.”

The voice came through the speakers, curiously remote. “Very well, Sargent.”

Alex turned and started down the hall with Ben falling into step beside him. The click of the hall screen reactivating after they passed was the only sound except for the echoing beat of their footfalls. Inside the DC, Alex felt a fleeting chill. White. The walls, the floor, the low ceiling, all white. The distance between the monitoring station and cell eleven was five meters. It seemed a long span.

As they approached, Sargent Kile rose and saluted. A young man, not long out of Confleet training school, Alex judged. The worst possible substitute for Ross. He might still be fired with the zeal of conscientious ambition.

“May I see your clearance card, Major?”

Alex sighed; a zealous youth. But his voice had a cool snap as he presented his card.

“Yes, of course. Leftant Bently, your card. At least we have one man on duty who sticks to security procedures. Sargent Kile, is it?”

He returned the cards and nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“Sargent Macintire was explaining your monitoring system. Perhaps you could enlighten me further.” Alex leaned over the low railing, locating the shock screen controls, then added, as if it were an afterthought, “Oh—Bently, you may as well look in on the prisoner. Sargent, will you open the cell shock screen, please?”

“Of course, sir.” Alert, efficient, nothing slow or sloppy as he seated himself at the console and touched the switch marked eleven. Impressive, Alex thought bitterly.

Ben was on his way to the cell, moving at an unhurried pace. Alex stayed on the side of the station closest to the DC entrance to draw Kile’s attention away from him.

“I understand all signals are relayed from this station to the sec-comcenter upstairs, Sargent. Does that include pickup from individual cell monitors?”

Kile glanced up, his hand poised on the intercom switch. Duty urged him to notify Macintire of a change in the shock screen status, but an acute awareness of military etiquette and Alex’s supposed rank distracted him.

“Uh . . . yes, sir. It includes both audio and visual on every cell.”

Ben was inside the cell; he’d be ready for trans within seconds. Alex wasn’t concerned with the monitors now. The shock screens—he had to reach the main control switch.

“Does the sec-comcenter monitor the cells all the time or on a random basis?”

“On a random basis, sir, but with the two stations here on full-time monitoring, there’s no risk of anyone getting past us.” He looked toward the corridor station uneasily. “Excuse me, sir, but I’ll have to notify Sargent Macintire about the cell screen.”

“Yes, of course. Go ahead.”

Alex swallowed at the dryness of his throat and moved a few steps around the railing, careful to keep his posture relaxed. The shock screen switch was close, and there was little time left, but if he could reach that switch without alerting Kile, it would mean a few extra seconds of reaction time, a few extra seconds for the trans to be made before the alarms sounded.

“Sargent Macintire,” Kile said crisply into the intercom mike, “cell eleven shock screen off for inspection by Leftant Bently, SSB CC.”

Alex rested his elbows on the railing, his right hand only half a meter from that vital switch.

There was no response from Macintire, who sat in blank-eyed oblivion.

Kile frowned irritably. “Sargent Macintire, do you hear me?”

Inside the cell, Ben had Andreas, listless and unresisting, on his feet, supporting him with both arms in a close embrace that would bring him into the MT transmission field. Time was running out; someone in the sec-comcenter or Paten and Torenz would realize something was wrong, that one of the “inspectors” was behaving in a highly unusual manner.

“Sargent Macintire!” Kile’s voice had a tight edge, but his attention was still focused on the corridor station.

Alex’s hand moved; a casual movement, neither too fast nor too slow, that didn’t attract Kile’s eye. He reached the switch.

He looked away from Kile only long enough to nod to Ben.

“Mac! For the God’s sake, what’s wrong?”

Ben’s hand was near his face, the brief order spoken too quietly for Alex to hear. Even the rush of air into the vacuum of their disappearance was barely audible.

But Kile was suddenly on his feet. “Hey! What the hell—”

Kile’s left hand shot out to the console, and with the shattering scream of alarms, he launched himself across the railing.

Alex tried to sidestep, but Kile was on top of him, bearing him down to a jarring collision with the floor. The alarms drowned out the sounds of the brief struggle, drowned out every conscious awareness except that of passing seconds, and finally Alex rolled free. Under the shriek of alarms he heard the pounding of footsteps from the hall. He stumbled to his feet, lost his balance and fell to his knees. Kile, still on the floor, had his gun out of its holster.

Alex reached for his own gun—at his left side.

And it wasn’t there.

The mental adjustment took only a fraction of a second; he aimed for Kile’s gun, his arm extended in a tense line. A fraction of a second too late.

The gun was hurled from his hand, the beam seared through flesh and muscle from his knuckles to his shoulder. He staggered blindly to his feet, the floor lurching under him.

“Trans . . .” His voice seemed only a hoarse whisper. Guards were pouring into the DC. He had to stay on his feet, had to—

“
Trans—NOW
!”

The scream of alarms ceased abruptly; he crumpled against a solid wall.

“Commander! Are you—oh, Holy God. . . .”

The Cave of Springs.

He was slipping into darkness, rocked by pulsing waves of pain. His eyes went out of focus when he looked down at his right arm; his stomach cramped with nausea.

The sleeve hung torn and ragged, cut away by the beam that coursed up his arm. And that arm seemed a piece of horror that was foreign to him; an appendage that might be worn as a macabre, obscene joke. Flesh laid open, seared black, flecked with meaty read, and, at his wrist, the charred bones exposed under the burned tendons.

“Commander, let me help you!”

Dr. Lind. Other faces floated in a gray haze behind him.

“
No
.”

Alex pulled his cloak around him, hiding the arm, that piece of his body that didn’t belong to him any more.

But the pain was all his.

He moved haltingly out of the MT chamber into the comcenter. He had an illusion of moving under the sea, pushing against the resistance of the water, every sound garbled, every image wavering and pale. And the pain moved with the currents, coming in long waves.

Andreas. He would not surrender until he saw Andreas. Until he was sure. Eight months; he must be sure. . . .

“Brother, hold on to me.”

Alex heard the voice and turned to his left, trying to bring his eyes into focus. Jael, asking no questions, slipping his arm around his body, taking his weight, and letting Alex draw strength from him. The waves of pain ebbed enough for him to make sense of what was happening around him.

A homecoming. All the exiles were gathered, laughing, talking, shouting, even weeping, and Andreas Riis was at the heart of it, taking each hand in turn, laughing with them. Erica was at his side, vainly trying to contain the overwhelming press of enthusiasm, caught up in it herself, her cheeks streaked with tears. Ben was in it, too, but his eyes were moving, reflecting only a little of their joy. He shouted to someone, but the words were lost in the jubilation.

Alex knew Ben was looking for him, but he didn’t have the strength to call to him. All his remaining energies were concentrated on Andreas, on his facial expressions, on the fragments of his words.

“. . . Dr. Lyden! Did you work out the error on the alpha sequence?”

Lyden’s answer was lost. Alex strained for Andreas’s voice.

“. . . always had faith, Erica, even if I couldn’t remember what I was having faith in. Ben! So it was you. How long has it been . . . ?”

Jael’s voice was close to Alex’s ear, yet the words seemed infinitely distant.

“Brother, you pulled the gim, close and clean. Rest easy now.”

“No, not . . . yet. Andreas. . . . I must . . . talk to him.”

A fear was growing within him; fear for that wound; fear that it might be mortal. Somewhere in the subaqueous world outside himself, there was a cessation in the hectic voices and movements, and Andreas was looming toward him through the milling school of faces.

“Alex, there you are. I wondered . . .”

Jael’s hand went out, intercepting Andreas before he could embrace Alex. But Alex saw nothing except Andreas’s face, searching every line of it, searching his eyes for the light that had always been hidden in their depths, finding it still there.

“Alex?” His smile faded into anxious query. “Alex, you’ve been hurt.”

“Yes. Andreas, are you . . . are you all right?”