The Dark Imbalance (22 page)

“We’ll deal with that when the time comes,” he said. But the uncertainty in his tone did not inspire confidence.

* * *

It wasn’t difficult to find the other four, but it was time-consuming. By the time Roche had helped the reave pinpoint the location of each of the five clone warriors on the
Phlegethon,
she felt weary right down to her bones. Her brain ached in ways she had never imagined before. When she was released from n-space for the final time, she sagged back into her chair with a groan, and only Haid’s hands under her armpits stopped her from slipping to the floor.

With a whine of servo-assisted joints, he helped her upright.

“Morgan, this is crazy.”

“No, it’s done now.” She turned to Nemeth for confirmation.

He nodded. “We have the identity of the fifth. He’s a fusion technician, of all things.”

“In a prime location to sabotage the power core,” said Murnane. “Roche, if you’re right about these people, you have undoubtedly saved the lives of everyone on this ship.”

“They’re not safe yet,” said Roche.

“Quite,” said Nemeth. “I suggest we move on all five simultaneously—send multiple containment teams to pin them down; then, if they resist—or if there’s even the slightest chance they’ll get away—neutralize them permanently.”

Murnane nodded slowly. “That at least gives them a chance to prove their innocence,” he said. “A blood test would be enough to reveal the truth.”

“They’ve obviously managed to avoid blood tests before now,” objected Nemeth.

“And if they do come quietly and are guilty?” Roche asked. “What then?”

Nemeth glanced at Murnane. “Execution.”

“No,” said the older man. “We’re not barbarians.”

“They would kill
us
out of hand!”

“But we are not like them, Nemeth,” said Murnane severely.

“And I have no desire to become like them, either. There
must
be some way to subdue them.”

Roche described the crystalline cocoon Linegar Rufo had used to neutralize Adoni Cane. “He was in a coma,” she said. “There was no way he could escape.”

“We could easily implement something like that,” said Murnane thoughtfully. “Later, higher authorities could decide what to do with them.”

Nemeth still didn’t look happy, but dropped the argument. “What happens after this?” he said. “Can we replicate these results? Can we use this process to keep the
Phlegethon
clean?”

He was addressing the white-robed reave, whose posture stiffened as she replied.

“And to find them,” interrupted Nemeth, “we need to know
how
she is doing it in the first place. We’re back where we started.”

“Not quite,” said Murnane. “We have a test. Bring in those five, or attempt to. Once we have ascertained whether or not we’re on the right track,
then
we can work out what to do next.” He turned to the other members at the meeting. “I want those containment teams in place in half an hour. Prepare for any contingency, no matter how unlikely. Advise the Heresiarch by epsense that an exercise is about to take place, but that he is under no circumstances to alert the crew. Everything proceeds as usual until the operation commences. No one leaves here until it is concluded. Is that understood?”

There was a chorus of assent. Nemeth offered his last of all, still clearly displeased at the way Murnane had taken over his operation.

“Can I talk to my crew?” Roche asked.

“A brief message relayed via epsense only,” Murnane conceded. “When everything is concluded here, you may converse freely.”

Roche and the reave put together a short message for Maii explaining that they would continue to be incommunicado for an hour or so. After that, they would know if it was safe to bring Maii aboard the
Phlegethon,
as Vri insisted they do. Should they receive any unusual communications from the
Phlegethon
at all, Kajic was to move to a safe distance and wait for news.

The reave sent the message and, a moment later, confirmed that it had been received.

As they waited, the mood around the conference table became increasingly restless. How arrangements were being made, Roche couldn’t tell exactly, but she noted the far-off expressions of those using implants. She worried that word might somehow get to the clone warriors, warning them of what was to happen, but as she could see no way to organize things without taking that risk, she said nothing.

Haid tapped her on the shoulder and indicated for her to close her faceplate. Roche nodded, and instructed her suit to seal. The people around the table looked up as her visor and Haid’s hissed shut, but when she and Haid made no other move they returned to their work.

“What do you think?” asked Haid over the private link between their suits. “Is this actually going to work?”

“It had better,” she replied. “Because if it doesn’t, we’re really in trouble. If we can’t fight them individually, even when we know who they are, then there’s no point even trying. We either give up, or we advocate extreme solutions like completely destroying habitats and stations that we know have been infiltrated. And even then, we could never be certain that we’ve wiped out the last of them. There could always be one capsule left in deep space, or one survivor hiding out in the Far Reaches. And where there’s one...”

Haid grunted. “No one’s mentioned the alternative to killing them.”

“Which is?”

“Conversion.”

“Like Cane?”

“Maybe.”

She frowned. “It would be hard to trust them after what they’ve done—or what their kind has done.”

“I know. But not impossible, surely?”

She shrugged the suit’s heavy shoulders, thinking of Cane and her own uncertainty. “Only time will tell, I guess.”

“Speaking of trust,” Haid went on: “Why’s Murnane being so chummy all of a sudden? You were definitely persona non grata last time you two met.”

“I don’t know. Maybe something’s happened to change his mind. I’m sure he doesn’t trust me too far. At the most, I’d say he’s decided I’m useful.”

Roche examined the councilor while she talked. His face seemed more deeply lined than ever, and the faint wisp of hair at the back of his skull had faded almost to invisibility. He looked older, more tired, and less inclined than ever to tolerate fools.

“How desperate do you think he is?” Haid asked.

Very,
she thought, but said nothing. After a moment, she unsealed her suit and leaned back into her chair with her eyes shut, thinking.

They waited another twenty-five minutes. Then, finally, everything was ready. Security in the conference room was eased slightly to allow data to flow in and out as the five containment teams moved into position. The teams, consisting of fifteen security officers each, had strict instructions to use lethal force at the slightest sign of resistance. Protecting the lives of bystanders was considered a lesser priority than ensuring the death or capture of the targets.

Roche watched via her implants as the containment teams closed around the areas where the clone warriors were situated. It was a complicated display, showing all five teams simultaneously. There was no way she could follow all of them at once, so she focused on the team advancing on Coriett.

The woman was in one of the uppermost levels of the giant ship, sitting in a room with four other people. To all appearances she seemed an ordinary Pristine dressed in a plain shipsuit, discussing the day’s activities with colleagues. They chatted amiably, laughing now and then, and sipping occasionally from their mugs. It all seemed so innocuous to Roche, which paradoxically lent the scene a sinister air—because she
knew
what this woman was truly capable of.

“Pull out two of those people,” she heard Murnane say.

“Why not pull them all out?” said Nemeth. “It would make it easier to deal with her.”

“Because we risk arousing her suspicions,” said Murnane.

Through her implants as well as the ship’s internal intercom system, Roche heard the names of two of the people being summoned. They exited the room a minute or so later with smiles and polite bows of the head, leaving just Coriett and the two others behind.

A joke was made by one of the remaining colleagues; Coriett smiled politely and sipped from her cup. As she did so, she glanced up at the room’s monitor.

Roche went cold: for the second it lasted it seemed as though the clone warrior was looking directly at her.

“She suspects something,” she said. “I’m sure of it.”

“What?” It was Nemeth. “That’s impossible...”

“Move your team in now,” insisted Roche.

The security guards entered the room just as Coriett made to stand. All three guards took position around the woman, leveling their weapons carefully at her. The two other people present in the room leapt up from their seats in alarm, spilling their drinks.

“Advocate Janil Coriett,” said one of the guards loudly, firmly, “by order of the Interim Emergency Pristine Council, I am placing you under arrest. Please put your hands together behind your head and step away from the desk.”

“What is the meaning of this?” said one of the other women angrily. “This is an outrage!”

Instead of answering, one of the guards indicated that she should step away from Coriett, out of the line of fire. With a weapon leveled directly at her, the woman’s indignant protest became alarm.

Coriett, meanwhile, had responded to the orders, but not before coolly appraising the three guards.

“Don’t I at least deserve some sort of explanation?” she asked.

The guard didn’t respond, and her two companions were ushered from the room by one of the other guards. When the room was cleared, another guard produced a set of handcuffs and approached the clone warrior.

“Surely I have rights?” she said, holding her hands to be cuffed. But it wasn’t to the guards she was speaking. She was looking again at the monitor. Even from this safe distance, Roche couldn’t help but feel unnerved by the woman’s unflinching confidence.

At the same moment, the sound of secondhand gunfire came from inside Haid’s helmet. Clearly, one of the other missions wasn’t going as well as this one. Roche was about to switch viewpoints when a subtle change in Coriett’s expression caught her eye. It was as though she too had somehow heard the gunfire, and knew what it meant: that one of her siblings was in danger—and that this was therefore much more than an administrative error or a mere suspicion she could talk her way out of.

Coriett pulled back from the cuffs and elbowed the guard in the face. As he went down, she grabbed him by one arm and swung him in front of her. The two other guards in the room contemplated shooting through him to get to her, but in the second they hesitated, the warrior had found the stock of the rifle and brought the weapon up firing.

The rifle was set on rapid repeat; all she had to do was swing the barrel to cut down the guards and the two other people in the room. One of them was half out the door when the shots took him in the back, throwing him forward into the hall with enough force to disrupt the formation of guards waiting there. Coriett followed a second later, capitalizing on the surprise. Roche watched with mounting alarm as the guards recoiled in confusion, only a few of them managing to get off even a single shot before Coriett targeted them herself.

Her shots never missed.

But killing the guards wasn’t her main priority. Escape was more important, and there would always be more guards if she stayed in one spot too long. Roche could only watch anxiously as the warrior paused to evaluate her position: she was in the middle of a long corridor with an open elevator at one end and a junction at the other. If she could reach the elevator, she could go anywhere on the ship. Security would be hard pressed to catch her. And once she had slipped through the net, she would have the entire ship to hide in.

Roche wanted to cry a warning to the remaining guards as Coriett strafed them with one wild wave of her gun, then sprinted for the elevator. Behind her, amid the tangle of wounded and dead, only one guard had the forethought to guess what she was doing. He pushed a limp body aside, raised his rifle, and fired.

At first, Roche thought the woman wasn’t going to stop. Round after round struck her in the back, propelling her onward through a mist of blood. She was still running even when she hit the back wall of the elevator cab, her speed unchecked. With a sound like the crack of bone, she rebounded and fell to the ground.

As she fell, her hand struck the access panel on the inside of the cab, and the doors slid shut.

Roche quickly changed her view to the inside of the cab. Surely there was no way Coriett could have survived so many shots at such close range. Hitting the switch
must
have been an accident.

The cab slid silently away from the carnage, taking the immobile and bloody body of Coriett with it. The gun was on the floor where she had dropped it, a crimson puddle quickly pooling around the barrel.

A map in the side of the channel tracked the cab as it traveled out toward the hull of the ship and down to the docks. Another team was being sent to meet the cab at its destination.

Roche watched. Coriett didn’t move.

Satisfied that the clone warrior wasn’t going anywhere, Roche skipped to the other channels. Only one was still active. Another clone warrior—a male with close-cropped red hair, the fusion technician—had managed to get his hands on a weapon and taken a hostage to use as a shield. His containment team had hesitated long enough to allow the clone warrior to regain the initiative. He shot five, and the hostage, while they were making up their minds, then slipped away before they could regroup.

The point of view of the channel followed him easily, however—jumping crazily from camera to camera as he ran headlong through what looked like a cargo section of the ship. Guards converged on the area from all directions; blast doors slammed shut in his path. But he seemed to know what he was doing. The area was riddled with access ways and maintenance shafts. Where he couldn’t run, he crawled; where he couldn’t climb, he jumped. Roche didn’t know the big ship well enough to guess where he was headed, but she didn’t doubt he had
somewhere
in mind.