Crossways (52 page)

She idly flicked through the entertainment channels on the screen, but her mind wasn't really on them. She had a dilemma. Alphacorp would love to get their hands on Ben and Cara. Kitty only had to send in a report and there would be a black ops team here to take them out within the hour. Did she want that?

Did it matter what she wanted? Akiko Yamada still had her mother secreted away at some resort, mounting up bills that she'd never be able to pay off. Unless Kitty continued to do as she was told her mother would be declared insolvent and shipped off to a labor compound for the rest of her days.

But Akiko Yamada had been Ari van Blaiden's lover. She had a share in all the nastiness he'd been involved in. A sleeping partner in all senses. Kitty shuddered. Had Yamada been involved in the disappearance of thirty thousand innocent settlers, too?

Remus was probably here on Earth. She was close enough to contact him herself rather than waiting for him to contact her. She'd managed to shut him out the last time he barged in on her thoughts, but he'd call again. If Kitty reported Cara and Ben to Alphacorp not only would it be the end for them, but it would end all hope of the missing settlers being found.

Whose side was she on?

Weighed against her mother's future were thirty thousand settlers. If there was even a chance of finding them she had to play her part and give Ben and Cara time. After that—well—she'd see.

First things first, contact van Blaiden's secretary.

She'd tried mind-to-mind and, as before, there was not a
glimmer of a reply, but Barb Rehling usually wore a damper, so that was no surprise.

Van Blaiden's office would no doubt be in upheaval. Maybe Barb was trying to hold everything together. Kitty attached a disruptor to the public comm link and deactivated the video so that no one could put a trace on the call or see her. Getting through to a secretary on a local line was usually pretty easy, but she hadn't figured in whatever internal chaos was going on.

“Mr. van Blaiden's office is closed,” the receptionist at the other end informed her.

“Closed? What about Mr. van Blaiden's secretary?”

“Mr. van Blaiden's secretary passed away very recently after a short illness. I can put you through to the Internal Affairs team. Who's that calling, please?”

“It doesn't matter. Thanks for your time.” Kitty cut off communications. Internal Affairs and Barb Rehling dead wasn't a good combination. The woman had looked well enough the last time Kitty had seen her. She wondered if the short illness was an allergy to a blade between the ribs.

What had happened to Ari's previous secretary? Etta Langham surely hadn't contracted the same short illness. Kitty needed to access Alphacorp's central files. She had clearance, but she couldn't do it without leaving an imprint. Would Ms. Yamada find out?

Oh, hell! Do it anyway.

The lobby of the Royal York was dim enough for privacy, with chairs arranged, four at a time, around low tables on which rested reprints of newspapers from the nineteen hundreds to approximately 2030, when the last paper copies were printed.

Cara picked up one at random. It was from 1979, detailing the remains of a tenth-century Viking settlement discovered while digging the foundations for a shopping center. Tenth century, and still preserved fifteen hundred years later.

“Fascinating,” she muttered to herself.

“What is?” Ben asked from behind his own newspaper.

“The layers of history preserved in this city. If I hadn't tested positive for psi I would have liked to study
archaeology. Did you know there are rock groupings on Aqua Neriffe that might indicate pre-colonial remains. Intelligent aliens.”

“Might.”

She sighed. “Well, we have to start somewhere. Surely humans aren't the only species in the galaxy.”

“Ah, that's the big question, but it's not only if, it's when. Maybe other species have already evolved to intelligence and destroyed themselves again. We damn near did it with catastrophic climate change in the twenty-first century and the great meteor almost wiped us out a couple of hundred years ago, at least on Earth. Who knows how many civilizations have risen and died. Maybe the next intelligent species is at this very moment dragging itself out of some primeval methane swamp halfway across the galaxy and by the time it's asking, ‘Are we alone?' we'll be long gone.”

“Maybe. Ah, here's Kitty.”

Though there were only a few residents in the lobby and no one seemed to be taking any interest in them, they immediately switched to silent communication.

*Any luck?*
Ben asked.

Cara could see from Kitty's expression that the answer was no.

*There's already an investigation underway into Ari,*
Kitty said.
*Barb Rehling is dead.*

Cara was getting an odd feeling from Kitty. She glanced up.
*There's more.*

Kitty nodded and licked her lips.
*I still have access to records. I checked on Etta Langham.*

*And?*

*She's been transferred to Sentier-4.*

*As an inmate or staff?*
Ben asked.

*That's the big question, isn't it?*
Kitty kept her eyes averted from Cara's gaze.
*What do you think?*

A cold chill ran down Cara's back. The name Sentier-4 invoked dread. The neural readjustment facility was the place of last resort for any errant Alphacorp psi-tech. Until lately Donida McLellan had ruled supreme there. Cara had escaped, thinking herself lucky to get out with her mind intact, only to have the memories of what McLellan had done to her surface later.

She pushed away the memory of McLellan's eyes, mad eyes, boring into her brain.

*Breathe.*
Ben was holding her hand.

She breathed.
*Sorry, was I that obvious?*

*Only to me. You don't have to come.*

*You're actually going to Sentier-4?*
Cara asked.

*Is there a choice?*

She shook her head.
*No, but . . . you'll never get in . . . unless.*
Oh, shit! Part of her brain put together a plan while the other part was screaming.

*We've got McLellan,*
she forced herself to say.

*We have indeed,*
Ben said.
*But you don't have to be involved in this.*

*Yes, I do.*

Cara's guts lurched every time she thought about Sentier-4, but Etta Langham was there and she was the last potential link they had to the missing settlers.

Such a tenuous link, she told herself.
But the only one we've got,
the logical part of her mind answered.

“I need to talk to Jussaro,” Cara said as they grabbed their bags and headed for the checkout desk. “He has a lot more experience than I do. He'll know what's possible, and he's been imprisoned in Sentier-4 himself.”

“Can we trust Jussaro?” Ben asked.

“Now that he's free of Crowder, I think we can trust him implicitly. Ronan agrees.”

“I'll take your word on it.”

Cara waited until they'd cleared the city and the three of them were seated in the pod on the way back to the transport hub at Hunslet before she reached for Jussaro, mind-to-mind.

*Sentier-4! You think you can do it?*
Jussaro's interest was plain. Not only interest, but excitement.
*I'm coming with you.*

*What? No, that's not why I called you.*

*Don't deny me this, Carlinni. That place is a resource beyond imagination.*

*It's dangerous,*
she said.
*Possibly the most dangerous place in the universe for people like me and you. McLellan's
out of action, but we don't know who else they've got in there. Maybe someone as bad as McLellan. Maybe someone worse.*

*And what about the prisoners?*

*We're only concerned with Etta Langham right now. We don't have the resources . . . *

*We'll make the resources. If there are broken psi-techs in there we need to get them out. Mend them.*

Cara glanced at Ben, who shook his head.
*It's going to be dangerous enough, Jussaro,*
she said.
*There's no way we can guarantee getting anyone else out.*
She could taste his disappointment.
*All I need to know from you is whether it's possible to get inside McLellan's head. Make her appear to be her old self, if only for long enough to get us into the place and give us access to Etta.*

*You want to take over what's left of her mind? Animate her?*

*Is it possible?*

*It's not impossible. I could do it—I think.*

*But could I do it?*
Cara asked.

*You've got too much history with McLellan.
* He didn't say: you might kill her, but he meant it.

“I don't like it,” Ben said when he realized what Cara's idea entailed.

“Me neither, but can you think of a better way?”

“Not without Tengue's mercs mounting a full-scale raid.”

“Well then . . .” Cara tried to ignore her belly doing backflips and schooled her face into a semblance of calm. “I'll contact Ronan, shall I?”

Ben scowled, but he didn't say no. She was surprised, however, when Ronan was dead set against it.

*You can't,*
Ronan said when Cara contacted him.

*Can't?*
Cara asked. She could sense that she'd caught him at the wrong time and off guard.
*Sorry, Ronan. Is there a better time to contact you? We need to discuss this rationally.*

*It doesn't matter how rational you want me to be, there's a line I can't cross. Donida McLellan is technically my patient. Whatever she's done in the past, she's currently completely helpless and harmless. You want to get inside her head, wear her like a skin, use her as a meat puppet. How would you like it if she'd done that to you when you were helpless?*

*She might have, for all I know.*

*That's beside the point.*

*Ronan, you know what she did to me.*

*I do, and that's precisely why you shouldn't try this with her. It's not only McLellan, Cara. You're my patient, too. Neither of you is going to come out of this well.*

“Let me speak to him,” Ben said.

Cara backed out of the conversation and left Ben and Ronan to it.

*What if it wasn't Cara?*
Ben asked.
*Jussaro could do it.*

*My initial objection still stands. The ethics are—*

*Gray at best. I understand, but Sentier-4 is like a fortress and there's an innocent woman in there. Etta Langham was van Blaiden's secretary. She's not in Sentier-4 for the good of her health, probably just the opposite. And we have thirty thousand settlers to find.*

*So the end justifies the means?*

*I understand your concerns, but in this case I think it does.*

Cara knew that the settlers had clinched it.