Worlds in Chaos (93 page)

“No. That’s not true.”

“Isn’t it?” the interrogator at the desk echoed. The drill started probing again.

“
It’s not true, I told you!
” The drill stopped. Cade gasped for breath. “You’ve had your spy there for a year. What did she see?”

“Why did you go to Chattanooga?” the interrogator asked.

“You just told me a few minutes ago. I didn’t intend going to Chattanooga. Only Atlanta.”

“That was the story,” the colonel said. “We want the real reason.”

“That’s all there is.”

“Wasn’t it to rendezvous with Kestrel, your former wife, whom you’d been in communication with all the time?”

“No. I didn’t even know she was there.”

“You expect us to believe that?” the interrogator asked.

“Probably not, if you’ve already made your minds up. . . . But it’s true.”

The interrogator glanced at the colonel, apparently deciding not to pursue the point for the time being. He jotted something on the papers in front of him and looked back up. “Where were you in the three days after Chattanooga—before you showed up in St. Louis?”

“I don’t know.” Cade felt a tingle building up. He gulped. “It was dark. We followed a car somewhere.”

“So you were still in the general area,” the colonel said.

There couldn’t be any denying it. “Yes.”

“How many hours did you drive from Chattanooga? Which direction?”

“One, maybe two. North . . . I think.”

The interrogator made more notes, then consulted something on the laptop. “Vagueness won’t get you anywhere in the long run,” he murmured, still looking at the screen.

The colonel moved across the room to stand looking down at Cade, giving him no respite. “Where did Vrel go?” he demanded.

“When?”

“Quit stalling, Cade. Vrel wasn’t at Corto Tevlak’s house. Where is he?”

“He went to check up on some things.”

“Back to Uyali?”

“He didn’t say exactly where, and I’ve already been mixed up in this long enough not to ask.” Cade looked up. The colonel was watching him distastefully. “Look, whatever you think, I haven’t been working with CounterAction. I just make trading deals and mind my own business. If Julia’s been any good to you, you know that.”

“Who was the other Hyadean who disappeared with him?”

“I’d never met him before.”

“I didn’t ask that. What was his name?”

Cade couldn’t bring himself to answer. He gripped the edges of the chair and stared at the front of the metal desk, feeling himself perspiring in rivers. “It doesn’t matter for now,” the interrogator’s voice said tiredly from above. Cade raised his eyes, half expecting a trick. “We don’t want any undue unpleasantness here. This is only a transit facility, you understand. Shortly, you’ll be taken to a more permanent location, where they have experts who are more skilled at this kind of thing than I. I’m sure you’ll be more cooperative by the time we next meet.” He eyed Cade dourly for a moment. “Even if you do discover a reserve of unsuspected heroics, there are usually other avenues of weakness that can be explored. The other person that we’re holding, for example, seems to be becoming an object of restored affections, even assuming that your alleged estrangement was genuine. I trust you take the point?”

“
Bastards!
” Cade started to rise and was checked by a jarring sensation in his neck. A hand from behind seized him by the hair, yanking his head back, forced him back down, while another cuffed the side of his face painfully. He glowered across the desk, panting shakily.

The interrogator studied Cade’s face pensively. It must have registered abhorrence that a Terran could be capable of selling out his own kind to such a degree. His expression changed to one of amused contempt. “Don’t tell me you’ve fallen for some campus ideology. Our files describe you as a realist. There’s only one kind of realism in the universe, and its proponents all understand each other. There aren’t any rules to the game. Its sole object is to take care of oneself. You make trading deals, you said? Very well. We can make you an offer to come over to the winning side in return for being sensible. Isn’t that what any realist wants?”

Cade didn’t hold much stock in any offers. Whichever way things went, he had the distinct feeling that knowing what they knew now, the chances of he and Marie ever getting back to the States were pretty slim. Losing them somewhere would hardly present a problem. After all, they had never officially left.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

The Hyadean transport hummed through the air. Cade had no idea in what direction. The view panels were set to opaque, leaving just the stark, metal-ribbed interior and its austere fittings. Marie was next to him, with two Peruvian guards in the row in front, three behind, and their Hyadean officer facing from a bulkhead seat in front. The captives had been issued with baggy gray prison garb, and each wore one of the diabolical Hyadean collars. They had both spent a second uncomfortable night. But at least they were together again—for the time being. Perhaps a chance to renew concern between them was part of the intention—to make things that much tougher later. There had been little opportunity to discuss their experiences. Cade didn’t know if she had been exposed to threat along the lines the interrogator had implied. He wouldn’t have mentioned it in any case.

“Look. . . .” He kept his voice low, glancing sideways to be sure she was listening. “It’s been a long time. A lot’s happened. In case we don’t get out of this, I just want you to know that a lot of things that seemed smart once don’t seem so smart anymore. What I mean is . . . Hell, you know what I’m trying to say.”

“Roland groping for words?” she murmured. “I don’t believe it.”

“Asshole, then. How’s that for a choice of word? I was an asshole.”

“No talking between the prisoners,” the Hyadean officer said.

Cade sensed Marie smiling. Her hand found its way around the metal tubing holding the armrest, to where his was resting. Their little fingers touched and entwined surreptitiously. If only just a little, he felt more at peace.

About fifteen minutes later, the transport dipped suddenly without warning and went into a steep descent. The officer grabbed a handrail on the wall to steady himself and asked something in Spanish to the guard who seemed to be second in command. The second answered negatively. The officer called out in Hyadean to the vessel’s control system. There was no response. He called something else, then broke out a manual control panel that hinged down from the bulkhead. The guards began jabbering in alarm as they clung for balance. “¡Silencio!” the officer shouted, tapping frantically at the panel. “¡Espera para órdenes!”

Cade and Marie exchanged ominous looks. “You might just have made that last-words speech in time,” Marie whispered. They clutched hands tensely.

The transport leveled out suddenly, causing more disorder; then there was a bump and a swish that sounded as if they had brushed a treetop, followed by sudden deceleration, throwing everyone forward onto the floor and flattening the officer against the forward wall. Cade was pitched fully between the two seats in front and went down in a heap with the guards. Before anyone could begin untangling themselves, there was the
bang
of a hole being blown in the side of the cabin, and then something exploded in a blaze of light that left Cade blinded and helpless except for a bizarre reverse-colored image etched into his retina. He was vaguely aware of shouts, scrambling noises, bodies colliding around him. Fragments of vision began coming together again to reveal the door partly burned away and hanging open, two large, helmeted figures silhouetted against the daylight, coming through, and then others, smaller. A guard tried to rise and was clubbed down. Two of the assailants seized Marie. One threw something like a blanket over her head and held her, while one of the larger figures leveled a device at her throat. “
No!
” Cade screamed. He tried to hurl himself at them, but strong arms gripped him from behind. Then a metallic mesh came down over him, and he felt his head being pushed back.

“Don’t resist!” a Hyadean voice shouted near his ear. “It scrambles signals to the collar! They can still blow your head off!” Cade forced himself to relax and felt some kind of shield being forced up between his neck and the band of metal. Moments later there was a
clunk
, and the collar came free. The mesh was removed. He looked over, his eyes still dim with aftershock from the light, and saw that Marie was rid of hers too. He turned back to the Hyadean, who was regarding him in what looked like a jaunty stance, hands on hips, while armed Terrans shepherded the dazed guards and their officer out through the ruin of the door. The details cleared slowly to show him in Hyadean combat garb, belt and shoulder harness loaded with pouches and accoutrements, grinning and waiting while Cade’s vision cleared sufficiently to recognize him.

It was Hudro.

“You were going the wrong way,” Hudro said. “We figured you needed help.” There had to be a response that would go down in history. Cade couldn’t think what it was.

Meanwhile, the second Hyadean, who was female, had been locating and smashing key parts of the transport’s communications equipment. “That’s it,” she announced. “Let’s go.”

“We need to move fast,” Hudro told Cade. “The traffic-control system will be flashing alarms already.”

The vessel was tilted among a tangle of vines and trees. They climbed out carefully and crossed an open area, where Terrans in forage caps and jungle gear had the officer and two of the five guards sitting on the ground, disarmed, hands on heads, while two others assisted one who seemed to have hurt a leg. There didn’t seem to be any more Hyadeans. The female who was with Hudro frisked the captives for personal communicators and took those too.

In a clearing a short distance away was an olive-painted military helicopter, rotor running. The two Hyadeans guided Cade and Marie over to it, where a Terran waiting in the doorway helped them aboard. He shouted to the others, who began backing away from the guards, keeping their weapons trained on them. The guards were looking scared. For a sickening moment Cade thought they were about to be gunned down in cold blood. But the rescuers turned to run the last few yards to the waiting helicopter and threw themselves aboard. Hudro shouted something to the pilot, and it began rising. A couple of weapons were thrown back to the guards as the helicopter cleared the treetops. Minutes later, it was skimming over a green ocean of forest.

“I said that one day I save people,” Hudro shouted above the engine noise. “Is good feeling.”

“I’m glad you don’t waste time once you make your mind up,” Cade yelled back.

Hudro gestured to introduce the other Hyadean, crouching next to him on the floor, gripping the side netting—the helicopter’s cramped side seats didn’t admit to Hyadean proportions. She had taken off her helmet to reveal orange-yellow hair and smooth features for a Hyadean. Cade had the feeling that by their standards she would be young and pretty. “This is Yassem. A long time we know each other. It is she who shows me the Terran God. We decide that Hyadeans who bomb Terrans from homes here are criminals. Terran powers that they act with are criminals. We want no more part.” He hesitated, then said something to Yassem in Hyadean. She laughed, which Cade remembered meant embarrassment. “I guess is okay to tell you now,” Hudro said to Cade. He gripped Yassem’s hand. “Until yesterday, Yassem works with Hyadean intelligence service. Communications technical specialist. Is how we meet. We fall over love. Go away, live together as Terrans now. Who knows where? Away. Maybe Asia someplace.”

Marie laid a hand on Yassem’s shoulder and smiled. “Good luck,” she said.

“Thank you.”

The rest of the company in the helicopter comprised a mix of tough-looking characters in parkas, sweaters, flak jackets, combat smocks, decked with equipment belts and bandoliers, nursing an assortment of weapons. One who appeared to be the leader—with a black beret worn forward, sunglasses, and a black mustache—was eyeing Cade and Marie curiously from a jump seat on Hudro’s other side.

“Here is Rocco,” Hudro supplied, following Cade’s gaze. “I know too for long time now. My work with Hyadeans makes me live close with MOPAN bandits, try to spy. But it works backward. I get to know them. Yassem tells me about God, and I learn bandit peoples know God too. So I am on wrong side. Maybe live with bandits for time before go to Asia. Teach defense to Hyadean devil weapons. Many tricks. Makes me the big prize, eh?”