The Last Aerie (34 page)

Nathan held back, trembling, cold sweat marbling his brow. His eyes were rapt on the Russian’s ugly blued-steel pistol, which held him at bay. But if Tzonov had been unarmed …

Just this minute risen from sleep and still confused, for the first time Nathan’s mind was unguarded, wide open to Turkur Tzonov. Eye-to-eye contact: the Russian read Nathan’s angry thoughts and glanced down at the gun in his hand.

“What, this?” In control again, but barely, he knew how close he had come to using it. “Is this what’s stopping you? This and my threat? Oh no, my young friend; I want you alive and kicking! For now, anyway…”

Their contact worked in two directions. Once more Nathan saw a monstrous machine in Tzonov’s mind—a mechanical vampire, feeding, with himself as its victim! The thing ate his brain with electrical fire, and left his skull an empty shell. But Nathan wasn’t alone, for this time Siggi saw it too. Then Tzonov blinked and the picture was gone, and his mind seemed sheathed in ice.

He applied the safety-catch on his gun, flipped back the left-hand drape of his jacket and drove the weapon home in its underarm holster. “Very well,” he said, “let’s see what you’ve got if we dispense with —”

But Nathan was already moving—and Siggi was shouting at him, “Nathan,
don’t!”
Too late.

As Nathan came flying from the bed, Tzonov seemed to back off a pace. But coldly efficient, even robotic in the precision of his movements, at the last moment the Russian stepped to the right, grasped Nathan’s left wrist, twisted and leaned back. In mid-flight but descending, Nathan found himself flipped forward in an uncontrolled somersault. And before releasing him, Tzonov used his own body as a pivot and center of gravity, to add his weight to his victim’s impetus.

Nathan hit the vinyl-tiled floor, bounced, rolled, and slammed full-length into the metal wall—and lay still. The “fight” was over. Tzonov crossed to him, went to one knee and checked his pulse. Then he grunted and looked at Siggi where she was silently cursing and pulling the last of her clothes on. Glaring back at him, she said: “Well, and have you killed him?”

He shook his bullet head. “No. I
will
kill him, eventually! But for now he’s just winded, dizzy, feeling sick …”

“You’re the sick one!” She headed for the open door. But Tzonov was there first, thrusting her out into the corridor so hard that she collided with the opposite wall. Then, while she clung there, he took out a duplicate key and secured the door. Siggi saw the key in his hand and clamped her mind tight shut, obscuring its thoughts behind her uniquely misty screen.

Fuck you!
she thought again.

She hadn’t planned it this way (had she?), but Tzonov had forced the issue. And what he intended doing to Nathan … well, it just couldn’t be allowed. Siggi told herself that
that
was the real reason why, while Tzonov had been dealing with Nathan and she’d been so hurriedly, breathlessly dressing, she’d left her key on the rim of Nathan’s washbasin. It wasn’t just the worm turning, the need to take revenge on this grotesque egomaniac bastard and all his cruelties. No, it was a human act, of a kind Turkur Tzonov would never understand.

For she knew now that it wasn’t Nathan who was the enemy, the alien here. Not by any means…

Something a little more than two and a half hours later, Siggi was in her bed. Her exhaustion was mostly feigned, but not her trembling as she lay there wondering how Tzonov would react to his prisoner’s escape. It was unavoidable, something which was bound to erupt at any moment now; in fact she was surprised it was taking so long, unless—

Was it possible that Nathan had been in such a bad way that he’d just stayed there unconscious on the floor? Perhaps he’d staggered to his bed and collapsed there, and so failed to find the key where she’d left it.

But even as that thought occurred:

Hurried footsteps in the corridor, a muted curse, and a moment later a fist hammering on the door. Then Tzonov’s voice demanding that she wake up. Siggi took her time, made sure she looked dishevelled, hoped that her make-up had given her black eye a little extra shine, and that the smoked glasses she wore didn’t hide its bruised lower orbit. And belting her dressing-gown, finally she opened the door.

Tzonov was alone. At least that was a mercy. She wasn’t about to be arrested. No, that was a stupid thought: how could she have feared that he would dare to charge her with anything? She knew too much about him, and anyway the era of dawn arrests and summary executions was over … in the rest of the world at least. But this was Perchorsk, and Tzonov had the power here.

“Siggi.” His voice was harsh, rasping. “He’s escaped!”

“What?” She turned her face away, as if hiding her eye. In fact she was hiding both of them, making sure that Tzonov couldn’t see past the double barrier of dark lenses and mind-smog. “Who has …
escaped
, did you say? Nathan!”

“Of course, Nathan! Who else?” He caught her shoulders, forced her to face him—and saw the dark blue bruise under the gold rim of her glasses. His expression changed at once. “What? Glasses? Something wrong with … your eyes?”

“No, with my
eye!
” Siggi hissed. “My left eye, where you struck me! Is your memory so short, then?” She snatched away the glasses—but only for a moment.

“Ah!” He looked staggered. “But I didn’t mean to … I mean … did I strike you so hard?”

She covered her eyes, conjured even deeper banks of fog. “It doesn’t matter, not any more. And it isn’t important. But Nathan, escaped? How?”

Then … she let her jaw fall, caused her hand to fly to her mouth. “The key!” (In time of need, Siggi could be a very good actress.)

“Key?” Tzonov tightened his grip on her shoulders and frowned. “No, the door was locked. And I had returned my key to the key cabinet. Do you mean the duplicate? But I’d given that to your guard, with orders that…”

She tore herself loose, ran to where her clothes of the previous night were hanging, frantically searched the jacket pockets. “I dressed so hurriedly,” she gasped as he followed after her and stood waiting close by, with his fists clenched and the skin over his jaw tight as a drumhead. “If you hadn’t acted like a jealous, egotistical fool…!”

“You had the key?” Tzonov couldn’t believe it, and a moment later neither could she—
as he laughed and slapped his thigh!
“But I thought … I thought …!” Amazingly, his expression was one of relief, and suddenly Siggi knew exactly what he’d thought: that Nathan had his father’s powers. That he’d teleported out of his locked room!

“Why are you laughing?” She continued to act it out. “At me? Of course I had the key. How else was I to let myself out of his cell? But while you were busy …
throwing
your weight around …” She hurled her jacket to the floor, stamped on it and burst into tears. False tears, but enough to fool Tzonov. She was only a weak woman, after all. His ego was quite safe. And for the same reason she knew now that he never would have believed that she could
give
the key to Nathan. But now that she was on fairly safe ground again:

“Since then … why, I’ve been in such a state that … that I haven’t even
thought
about that bloody key!”

Now Tzonov had someone to blame, chastise, and again his hands tightened on her shoulders. “Siggi, you’re a sick little idiot. You sought to seduce him, yet even now you’re not sure that he didn’t seduce you. You’re assuming you lost the key—but he could well have taken it from you! I should have known better than to let you be alone with him.”

Again she stamped her foot, tore herself free and turned her face away. “No, I’m not sick! Whatever I did was for you, us, our country. You wanted information, and I got it. Everything I could, anyway. And whatever it took.”

“Ah?” She had Tzonov’s attention, if only for the moment. “He told you things? A lot? Good! But … why didn’t you tell me this before?”

“What?” She glared at him. “And did you give me even half a chance?”

Tzonov knew that he hadn’t. “Perhaps not. But in any case it will have to keep.” He was fully in control again.

“On the other hand, his escape can’t keep. Well, let’s see: he’s been loose for some two and a half hours, presumably. But a cell is one thing and the complex is another entirely. There’s always a guard on the outer doors. And no way out except through those doors. So there’s every chance he’s still in the place.”

“Where would he go?” She was off the hook and could afford to relax a little. “He has no friends here.”

Tzonov looked at her sharply. “The British?”

She acted up to it. “Yes! He could speak to them.”

“Huh!” Tzonov snorted. “Well, he could in a fashion, yes.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “Better than that. He’s a telepath!” She would have had to tell him eventually, before he found out for himself. So why not now?

“What?”

“It’s true. He spoke to me that way, and he’s good at it. I would have told you before, if you’d let me before throwing me in here! It’s why—it’s how—I knew he wanted me.” And before Tzonov could fly into another rage she continued, “Why, Nathan even told me about what he saw in
your
mind, Turkur: a machine, and how you planned to use it on him—which is something you never told me …” With her last few words, Siggi had even dared to let a disapproving tone creep into her voice.

He avoided her glance. “I would use it, as a last resort, yes.”

“And leave him brain dead? A vegetable?”

“And leave
us
with his knowledge, everything!”

“
Only
as a last resort? You did say that you’d kill him.”

Tzonov was tired of this. “Get dressed, and quickly. Meet me in the control room.”

“Where are you going?” She followed him to the door.

“To check the security of this damned place. Then to talk to Trask, see if he knows anything about all of this—and how much. If it’s nothing, all well and good. And after that, we’ll just have to make sure that those two are the very
last
to know anything! Now get dressed. I fancy we’re going to be busy …”

Tzonov was right: from then on he, at least, was busy.

While Siggi dressed, he organized search parties to work their way through the various levels of the complex; each room and laboratory, every nook and cranny, from the Gate itself to the reception area. Then, as the search commenced, he spoke to and commended the efforts of the prowler-guard who had checked Nathan’s cell and found something suspicious in the way he lay there so motionless in his bed. Fetching the key from the control room, the guard had found Nathan’s pillows tucked under the blanket in a manner to resemble the human figure. But the door had been locked, so last night’s guard must still be in possession of the duplicate key. Without checking that last detail, the prowler-guard had then reported the mystery to Tzonov, but with some small trepidation. There could be a simple explanation, after all. What if the prisoner had been moved?

Tzonov’s admiration was boundless. But then—

He sent for Siggi’s guard from the previous night, and threatened and dressed the man down almost to the point of nervous collapse. Following which, when he’d cooled down a little, he had dispatched a man to check on Trask and Goodly: were they up and about yet? What was their itinerary for the day, etcetera—his way of finding out their physical and mental condition and perhaps discovering if they knew anything, and how much they knew. (But never a mention from his messenger to them with regard to the alien escapee.) And finally he had spoken to the two-man security guard at the main entrance, one at his post inside the massive doors, the other outside. Their reports corresponded precisely: between midnight and 7:00
A.M.
no one had either departed from or entered into the complex … at least, no unauthorized persons had done so.

But three supply vehicles had gone out about an hour ago: two heading east for the mainly derelict barracks and military airport at Beresovo, and the third to meet a train at Ukhta in the west…

When Siggi met Tzonov in the control room, he was looking sour. Tossing her a parka, he told her: “Put it on. The weather isn’t too good, and we’re going out.”

“Where to?” She pulled on the parka and took snow goggles from one of its pockets to replace her tinted glasses.

“I was hoping you could tell me,” Tzonov growled, leading the way from the control room to the entrance bay. “Let’s face it, you were with him long enough! Don’t you have any clues? Any idea at all where he might be heading?” Outside the open doors, a driver was ticking over the engine of his half-track vehicle, turning the grey morning atmosphere blue with shimmering diesel fumes. It was starting to snow.

She shook her head. “Are you sure he’s gone out? In this weather, and so far north? Even a trapper or one of the local lumberjacks would find it hard going on foot.”

“I’ve got teams of men searching every level, the entire complex,” Tzonov answered. “The first reports are already in. Not a trace of him, and I don’t think there’s going to be one. No, he has to be out here. I think he stowed away on a supply truck.”

Siggi’s throat was dry; her heart was hammering and she must control it, also her breathing. But was it really true? Was Nathan off and running? She hoped so; but
if
so, she had been the instrument of his release! Turkur must be right: she was a madwoman! God, but she must watch her thoughts and actions carefully now! A supply truck? Surely the guards would have searched it?

Tzonov snorted, his breath pluming where he climbed up beside the driver and helped Siggi up alongside. “There were three trucks,” he answered. Two for Beresovo, one for Ukhta. They left before the escape was discovered. As for a search: What? And security around here as slack as hell? Even our own people have been bored to tears—but no more! Siggi, if we don’t find this alien, we’re in real trouble.”

“But why? And why do you continue to refer to him as an alien? Nathan’s as human as you or I, a human mind in a human … body. He’s no plague-bearer. And anyway, we will find him. Of course we will. To him,
this
is the alien world, and we’re the aliens. Where can he go? Who will give him shelter?” Even saying these things, asking these questions, she prayed that she was wrong. For her own sake as much as Nathan’s.