Crossways (54 page)

“All right for now.” Cara answered through McLellan's mouth. “Not sure how long I can keep it up. Let's get in and out as quickly as we can.”

“I'm not intending to hang about.” Ben pulled on his helmet and snapped on the heads-up display. “Ready?”

“Ready.” Ronan followed suit.

“Wait a min—oh, got it,” Max said. “Whoa, this is neat.”

Ben tapped the back of Max's helmet sharply. “Don't step out of line. Gen will roast me if anything happens to you.”

“As if—”

Ben tapped again.

“Yes, Boss.”

“Good man.”

Breath puffing out in clouds from below the unsealed helms, they exited the
Solar Wind
and crossed a few hundred meters of ice to a lonely entrance built of gray block and sprinkled with diamond-bright crystals, the closest this planet got to precipitation.

McLellan, dressed in the buddysuit she'd been wearing on the day Cara had downed her on Olyanda, walked smartly, hands gripping the handles of the float chair, cheeks glowing pink with the unaccustomed cold.

“Mrs. McLellan, it's really you!” A man waited for them in the shelter of the entrance. Ben wasn't sure whether he was happy to see her or not.

“Of course it's me.” Cara/McLellan pushed the chair
past him. “Get out of the way, man. It's cold enough to freeze the balls off a baboon.”

“Yes, ma'am.” He saluted smartly and stepped sideways.

The float chair, and McLellan's feet, coped with the stairs and Cara/McLellan didn't turn around until they were all on level ground again in a gray-walled access tunnel where a car and driver waited with a trailer attached behind.

“I'll take the prisoner, ma'am, if you want to sit up front with Cameron.” The man reached for the float chair handles, but Cara/McLellan snatched the chair back, causing it to wobble alarmingly.

“I'll decide where I sit. Ms. Carlinni is my special guest and I will see to her personally. You sit up front. I'm sure Cameron won't mind, will you, Cameron?”

“Uh, no, ma'am.”

Ben and Ronan maneuvered the float chair and McLellan into the trailer, while Max slid into the car. The tunnel lights flashed past overhead as they rolled steadily forward. Ben had already estimated the distance at about two klicks, but at their steady speed the journey took a little over six minutes. They could almost run it as fast if they had to make a hasty retreat—though maybe not with a float chair, McLellan, and a secretary who may well be doped up to the eyeballs. And not in this thin atmosphere, though those of them in buddysuits had five minutes of emergency oxygen.

The car slowed down and Ben noticed the telltales of the security system: camera eyes, gas grids, panels behind which would be ordnance. He'd installed similar in the barbican entrance of Blue Seven. The tunnel was a killing ground.

The entrance to the facility was through an air lock, and they all took grateful breaths of recycled air as the inner door opened. There was a welcoming committee, though they didn't look so welcoming.

“Mrs. McLellan, good of you to join us.” The man in the middle spoke up. “I'm Robinson Gorse, your replacement.”

Cara was almost at the end of her strength. Holding on to what was left of Donida McLellan's brain was like trying to steer a very large codfish by its tail, not that she'd ever tried that. She was dimly aware of her own body shivering in the
cold, gasping in the thin atmosphere, trundling along on the trailer. Then she gagged on the sudden rush of warmth and air as her float chair was propelled into the reception hall.

She held Mrs. McLellan's body stiffly upright and even made her nose curl into a sneer at her replacement. Was she supposed to know Robinson Gorse? Hide behind formality. Hope for the best.

She'd been nervous of being face-to-face with McLellan again, now she was looking out from that face, wearing it like a glove—a meat puppet—that's what Ronan had said. So strange.

Even while she was trying to work out what to say next she remembered being dragged along a corridor very like this one on her way to an isolation cell. She felt a surge of satisfaction from McLellan. No, it wasn't real, it was just a shadow of her personality hanging around in Cara's own head.

“Gorse, this is nonsense. I have work to do.” Cara tried to get McLellan to push the float chair past Gorse, completely ignoring the six people flanking him with weapons. They weren't going anywhere. “I see we need to talk.”

“We certainly do. You were reported missing, presumed killed in action, along with Ari van Blaiden.”

“A slight exaggeration—about me, anyway. Mr. van Blaiden, sadly, is no more, and neither is Mr. Craike, though I suspect few will weep for him. In the meantime I've been undercover.”

“Undercover?” Gorse sounded skeptical.

“You are aware, of course, that the Trust has . . . issues . . . with some of its former employees and”—she slapped the chair handle—“this one of ours.”

“I'd heard.”

“I was sent to bring them into the Alphacorp fold under an amnesty. They have valuable information about the Trust's activities on Olyanda.”

“That's been all over the S-LOGs,” he said.

“Not all of it. Nowhere near all of it. Let me introduce you to Commander Reska Benjamin.”

Cara managed to turn McLellan's body to wave flamboyantly. Ben removed his helm. She sensed his surprise, but blessedly he wasn't actively trying to kill her for her
betrayal. She caught his glance and then turned and tried to hold Ronan's gaze through the helm. She didn't know how sharp Gorse's guards were. They could all be Psi-1 Telepaths. She tried to put her feelings up front. Ronan was an Empath. Come on, man, get it.

Exhausted. Not going to last much longer.

“And who are the other two?” Gorse asked.

“Ah, if I told you that I'd have to shoot you, or they would,” Cara/McLellan said. “Need-to-know only. I hope you understand.”

Ronan saluted by tapping one finger on his helm. Max just stood there but thankfully said nothing. In that outfit even Max looked intimidating, so his stillness worked for him, not against him. Outwardly his posture said: I don't need to acknowledge you. Inwardly he was probably shaking like a jelly.

“Sorry to take you by surprise, gentlemen,” Ben cut in smoothly. “Mrs. McLellan is a very persuasive advocate for Alphacorp's hospitality. I'm here under an offer of a truce, and with information as to the whereabouts of a large haul of platinum. I need to speak with Etta Langham, van Blaiden's former secretary.”

McLellan's right knee buckled suddenly and Cara had her grab the float chair to steady herself. Ronan stepped in to stabilize it and put his hand on her shoulder. She felt a surge of energy, which she drew on gratefully.

There wasn't time to say anything else. Gorse was leading off down the corridor and everyone had fallen into step. What had Ben been saying? Something about information from Ari's former secretary. Yes, get Etta Langham into an interview room and her job was over. Ben, Ronan, and Max could take it from there.

She manipulated McLellan's body into a shambling walk, but McLellan tripped over her own feet.

Ronan grabbed McLellan by the elbow. “Are you all right, Mrs. McLellan?” he asked, then turned to Gorse. “She's done everything Alphacorp has asked, but she's not been well, Mr. Gorse. If there's an interview room on hand where we could ask Miss Langham a few questions, that would be a big help.”

“This is all very irregular.”

“But necessary,” Cara said out of McLellan's mouth. “Platinum makes allies where it must.”

Gorse nodded and snapped out a few orders, dispatching two of the guards. They followed him to a gray door in a gray corridor, which he unlocked with his palm print. The four remaining guards split up, two stayed outside the door and two followed them in. Inside there was a table and a row of chairs along the wall. Cara lowered McLellan's body into the nearest one, trying to keep her posture upright. Once McLellan was sitting, the talking was easier.

So far, so good.

*Do you really think you can get away with this?*
McLellan said straight into Cara's mind.
*You've brought me back home. Now suffer the consequences.*

Cara gasped and opened her eyes. She was back in her own body and strapped into the float chair.
*Ben!*

She saw Ben's expression change as he realized that McLellan was in her own body.

That was the point at which it might all have fallen apart, but Cara surged back into McLellan's mind, finding her very much at home. Had she been there all along, waiting her chance, or was it reconnecting with Cara that had brought about such a rapid return?

*Stay down!*
Cara brought pressure to bear, trying not to overdo it. She wanted McLellan's compliance, she didn't want her to drop down dead, at least not before Gorse had produced Etta Langham.

She felt McLellan's surprise as she retreated before Cara's onslaught. Her body shuddered all over and drew the attention of both guards.

She held out a hand, palm outward. “No need for concern.”

Cara concentrated on keeping McLellan still and trying to look as though she was completely in charge of the situation. It took longer than expected to retrieve Etta Langham from her cell, though, and Cara felt every second of it as she squashed McLellan's personality down.

The two who delivered Etta were orderlies, not guards, both female, physically strong, one tall and black, the other
rounder, shorter, and brown. Tough, the pair of them, but not armed, at least not with conventional weapons, though they probably both had anesthetic blast packs on hand.

Cara suspected they'd tried to clean Etta up, but they hadn't done a very good job. Her gray hair was matted into clumps and there was a trace of something on her chin, food or vomit. She was wearing the kind of trilene prison one-piece that Cara remembered so well. It still had creases where it had been folded in the packet, so they'd probably just put it on her.

She didn't look capable of putting it on herself.

Cara felt a thump of disappointment in her belly. Had they come all this way and taken all these risks for nothing? Was this another dead end? Etta had been such a cheerful, lively woman with a ready smile. She'd been motherly and round, but the weight had dropped off her and the flesh around her jowls had loosened and sagged.

Cara glanced at Ben and could see he was thinking the same thing. Etta's thousand-meter stare wasn't a good sign. The smaller orderly pulled a chair from the row and sat Etta next to the table. Etta stared at her hands resting limply on her knees. The back of Cara's neck crawled. Is this what she'd been like when she was in here?

“What have you done to her?” Cara asked through McLellan's mouth.

“What have we done?” Gorse asked and looked to the orderlies.

“She's just as you left her, Mrs. McLellan,” the taller one said. “We continued the medication as ordered. Mr. Gorse—”

“There hasn't been time for a full review, yet. I've only been here four days,” Gorse said, walking over to a screen on the wall and pulling up a file. “Ah, I see. One of your little projects, Mrs. McLellan. There have been a few irregularities.”

“No irregularities, only necessities.” Cara tried to snap out the words, but she felt McLellan resisting her and she hesitated.

Cara's body, in the float chair, was breathing heavily. She was going to crash any minute. Cara perched McLellan on a chair and thrust herself deeper into the woman's mind.

Did things look different? Same gray-walled room, same
chairs. Gorse, two guards, two orderlies, Max and Ronan anonymously helmeted. Ben standing close enough to Gorse to take him out if necessary.

She even recognized one of the orderlies—no, wait a minute, she, Cara, didn't.

But Mrs. McLellan did.

Oh, fuck!

*D
ID YOU THINK YOU COULD GET RID OF ME
so easily?*

Cara separated her consciousness from her former tormentor and sat bolt upright in her float chair.

Donida McLellan stood under her own steam and turned to Cara.
*It's way past time for you and I to have a little conversation, head-to-head.*

Had they played right into McLellan's hands after all?

Cara's heart tried to pound its way out of her chest and her mind spun. All the abuse that she thought she'd begun to leave behind flooded back, spiky as an ice pick to the brain.

This place.

This woman.

She'd never be able to leave it all behind.

“Cara!” Ben's voice snapped like a gunshot. It jerked her to her senses.

Then several things happened at once.

Cara slapped the fast-release and dived sideways out of the float chair, drawing the attention of the two guards.

Etta Langham shot forward, grabbed a sidearm from the nearest guard's holster while his back was turned, leveled it at McLellan and screamed, “You bitch!”

There was a loud crack. Blood sprayed. McLellan flew backward into the wall, sending her chair flying. She collapsed in an undignified heap, headshot.

Etta tried to turn the gun on herself, but Max flung his arms around her and barreled her to the floor.

Ben smacked his elbow into Gorse's temple, putting him out with one blow, then he swung toward the nearest guard who was only just releasing his sidearm from his holster and tackled him to the ground.

Ronan ran to McLellan at the same time as the taller of the two orderlies.

Max, slow off the mark, got with the program. Without releasing Etta he swung his foot into the remaining guard, knocking him off balance. Max grabbed the gun Etta had used, but wisely did nothing with it except snap on the safety. In such a confined space he'd be more likely to hit someone on his own side if he tried to use it.

Without even stopping to consider, Cara grabbed the consciousness of the guard Max had tripped and squeezed, trying oh-so-carefully not to apply too much pressure.

The smaller orderly reached for Etta with a blastpack in her hand and smacked it onto the side of her neck.

Cara moved then and grabbed the orderly by one hand, twisting it behind her back. She reached into the woman's pocket, found another blast pack and knocked her out, letting her down gently as her knees buckled.

Ronan and the tall orderly worked on McLellan, oblivious to all the mayhem happening around them. By the time they sat back on their heels everything was over.

“She's dead,” Ronan said. There was anger bubbling under the tone of his voice.

“It was her,” Cara said, voice shaking. “Really her. At the end. She was still in there, biding her time. Waiting for a chance.”

Ben cursed. “Are you all right?” He didn't take his eyes off Gorse and the guard who was still conscious, but he had them both on the wrong end of a gun.

“Yes.” Cara was surprised to find that she was. McLellan had been the monster in her closet for so long and now it was finished.

Max rolled over, stood up, and dusted off his pants. “Now what?” he asked.

The tall orderly shuffled back from McLellan's corpse, both hands in the air. “I'll just stay over here, out of the way, shall I?”

“Now we go,” Ben said. “But not the way we got in.”
*Gen, are you ready? Punch us a new door.*

*Sure, Boss. Where are you?*

*Below ground level.*

*Stand by.*

“What's above the main entrance on the ground level?” Ben asked.

“Canteen,” the orderly said.

*Knock first, Gen,*
Ben said.

*I will.*

There was a whoomp as something punched against the exterior wall somewhere above their heads.

“Blast packs.” Ronan held his hand out and the orderly put three packs into it from her own pocket. “Sorry about this. Thanks for your help.”

He slapped a pack to the side of her neck and she went limp and flopped over. Then one for the conscious guard and one for Gorse, who was moaning and shaking his head. Everyone who needed to be was out cold.

“Can you walk?” Ben asked Cara.

“Do I have a choice?”

Together they lifted the unconscious Etta into the float chair and strapped her in.

Another whoomp from upstairs. Yelling, screaming, and the clatter of running feet announced their new doorway. It would be leaking good air into the thin atmosphere, which would give them an edge. Ben pulled up his breathing tube and pointedly slapped Max's arm.

“Breather.”

“Oh, right.” Max engaged the breathing tube on his own suit.

Cara wrenched the one from McLellan's suit, but it was smashed and bloody. She hurled it away in disgust. Etta didn't have one either. Never mind, the atmosphere wouldn't kill them, not between here and
Solar Wind
.

Ben opened the door cautiously. Dust and debris showed him the direction of the stairs. They ran for it, pushing the float chair along into the chaos of people running for safety. They pushed against the tide. Nobody even questioned
them as they clambered across rubble into the canteen where steam from dinner formed a fog as two air fronts met in a mini weather system. Hot and steamy. Icy and dry.

Solar Wind
, her atmosphere wings extended to full, rolled closer on her antigravs, ramp lowering as they scrambled through the breach in the wall and ran across the ice. Within six strides Cara was gasping for air.

Someone in the building woke up and a hail of hard-case bullets followed them.

Solar Wind
fired a warning shot from her pulse-cannon and crumbled a crater out of the upper wall without actually punching through. The gunfire stopped. Ronan and Max each grabbed one of Cara's arms and practically lifted her flailing feet off the floor. Ben shoved the float chair and ran, half-turning to cover their getaway with pistol fire barely aimed.

*Go!*
Ben snapped as the ramp rose under their feet. Cara staggered and grabbed onto a handhold as
Solar Wind
levitated and shot forward.

She coughed. “Does that count as a win?”

“Maybe.” Ben headed for the flight deck. “Unless your name is McLellan. Let's not celebrate too soon until we see what Ronan can do with Etta Langham.”

Ronan refused point-blank to let them see Etta.

“She's traumatized,” he said on the second day, having installed her in the newly furnished medical center deep in the heart of Blue Seven. “Both by what happened to her and by what she did. On top of that she's suffering the aftereffects of a particularly nasty cocktail of psychotropic drugs designed to destabilize her memory. She doesn't know what's real and what's not. She can barely remember who she is.”

Ben was grateful Ronan hadn't said I-told-you-so about McLellan. No one could have predicted Etta's reaction, but even so, they had taken a vulnerable woman into a dangerous situation. That they had rescued Etta, whose trauma was all from McLellan in the first place, was just another twist in the ethics of the situation, as was the fact that McLellan had not been as damaged as they had all believed.

He wasn't sorry that McLellan was dead.

He didn't think Cara was sorry either, though she hadn't said anything beyond, “I'm all right, now,” since they'd arrived back from Sentier-4.

“Etta's memory,” Ben asked. “Will it return?”

Ronan shook his head.

“Is that a no?”

“I don't know.”

“Are you sure she is what she appears to be?” Cara asked. “I mean, after McLellan . . . Etta's been in Sentier-4 long enough for . . .” She waved expressively. “Changes to be made.”

“I'm as sure as I can be that Etta's no ticking time bomb,” Ronan said. “I can't blame you for asking, but Ari sent her there to make sure she wasn't going to pass on any of his information.”

“I'm surprised they didn't just have her killed,” Ben said. “Though sooner or later someone would notice the high mortality rate among Ari's secretaries.”

Ronan nodded. “Better to have her harmlessly released back into the world with a pension. If McLellan hadn't been caught up in Ari's demise, they might have finished the job before we found her. She'd be a little old lady in a fluffy jumper with a neat little apartment, a couple of cats, and only a very vague memory of her former boss.”

Ben had to be satisfied with that. He left Etta entirely to Ronan's care, tending instead to the everyday demands of running the Free Company, sharing Nan's daily reports with Mother Ramona and Garrick, and keeping count of the number of incidents reported involving unrest between the megacorps and their colonies.

Dissatisfaction was contagious. Cotille had been the first, but in the last week alone fifteen colonies had declared independence. Three of them had sent delegations to Crossways and a further six had formed an alliance of their own. It didn't take much to drive a wedge between those exploited and those exploiting.

On the morning of the eighth day after leaving Sentier-4, Ronan announced,
*You can see Etta now, but don't expect miracles.*

*Just me?*
Ben asked.

*And Cara. Etta might remember her.*

Etta was fully dressed in a violet shirt that brought out the paleness of her blue eyes. Her dove-gray hair had been trimmed and washed and her cheeks had begun to fill out, though her expression still looked haunted. She sat in an armchair between her rumpled bed and a screen showing a landscape of rippling barley framed by trees rustling in a light breeze.

She looked up as they came in and smiled at Ronan.

“Here are the visitors I promised you, Etta. Remember, we talked about it.”

“I know you.” Etta looked up.

“I'm Cara.”

“Not you. You.” She looked at Ben. “I've seen you before.”

“Have you?”

“He said you cost him.”

“Cost who?”

“You brought them home.”

“Is it Hera-3 she's talking about?” Ben asked Ronan.

“Could be, couldn't it?”

“I don't think she was Ari's secretary at the time of Hera-3,” Cara said. “That was Pete Gaffney.”

“Gaffney,” Etta said. “What happened to him? I should have known better. Secretaries. Such a fast turnover. I know you, too.” She looked at Cara. “He's bad for you. Don't get involved. It won't end well. Pretty things. They come and go.”

“He's dead.” Cara reached forward and held Etta's hand. “Ari's dead. He can't hurt me any more. He can't hurt you any more.”

“He was so sweet. He brought me flowers. It always starts with flowers. He sent you flowers. I made sure they got there on time. Always use the best florist. Did you give her flowers?” She looked at Ben.

“No, he's never given me flowers.” Cara dropped her voice and leaned in conspiratorially. “I don't think he knows about flowers.”

Etta giggled.

Ben opened his eyes wide. “Should I have given her flowers?”

“It's traditional,” Etta said.

“I'll remember that for future reference.”

“You see that you do, young man.”

“Etta, do you remember when you were working for Ari, for Mr. van Blaiden?” Cara asked.

“I should have known, shouldn't I?”

“He wasn't a very nice man.”

“He bought me flowers.”

“Did he take calls from Gabrius Crowder? Do you remember the name? Crowder.”

“The elephant man. I remember the elephant man. Very sad story. Very old book. True, though. People didn't understand.”

“What?” Ben asked.

“A man called Joseph Merrick, back in the 1900s,” Ronan said. “He had a deformity that resulted in elephantine growths all over his body.”

“No, she's talking about Crowder,” Cara said. “When I first saw him he reminded me of an elephant: the size of him and his ill-fitting skin with a grayish cast to it. He looked like a pachyderm.”

“You saw it, too,” Etta said. She leaned over and patted Cara's hand. “He wasn't a very nice man either.”

“Did Mr. Crowder ask Mr. van Blaiden to find a home for some settlers?”

Etta's eyes clouded over. “I used to live in a very nice apartment. There was a park opposite. It had a statue of the Black Prince. From before. Very old.”

“Settlers, Etta,” Ben said. “Do you remember the settlers? Where did they go to? What did Mr. van Blaiden do with them?”

Etta just shook her head, wrapped her arms around herself and began to rock back and forth.

“I think that's enough for today,” Ronan said. “You can come again tomorrow, but I don't know how much good it will do. Half the things she says appear to be nonsense, but they mean something to her.”

As they turned to go, Etta stopped rocking. “An ark ship shouldn't be piloted by a freelancer, not alone. He told me not to worry. He was sending someone to get Jake Lowenbrun, the best in the business. Best at what, that's what I want to know.”