Pruit was beginning to see the Mechanic in the proper light. He had been a quiet, unassuming member of the crew, but he was an individual who festered on the inside and waited for a chance at revenge. He was someone who had no consideration or even thought for other people.
She saw her path to the upper hand with this young black man, and if it worked, she would be able to surprise the Mechanic when he arrived. “I can free you,” she said.
“Only he can do that,” he replied without emotion. The thought existed like a mantra in his head. Only he can do that… “He has it with him always, and only he can mix it.”
“Do you know who he is? What he is?” she asked.
“I am beginning to know.”
“I have come from the same place he has,” she said, “but my medical knowledge is better. I can free you.”
Warily, he allowed a small spark of hope to flare up in his mind. “Why should I believe you?”
“Where is the risk in believing me? If I can’t do what I say, you are no worse off. Let me free you. You have no loyalty to him, that much is easy to see.”
“You know nothing of me.”
She could see that he was almost beyond hope. He had nearly given up the idea that he would ever again have control of himself. “Untie my hands and I will show you,” she said softly.
He laughed derisively.
“You have disarmed me,” she pointed out. “Your master is coming soon. You can take my offer or not.”
Jean-Claude paced. The leg cramps were starting. Soon he would not be able to walk. What if she was tricking him? Did it matter? Surely he could defend himself. As long as she was still here when the Mechanic arrived, he would be safe. He rubbed his face with his hands, then made up his mind.
He moved to a wall cabinet and pulled out a slender silver thread with small handles on each end. Both prisoners recognized it. It was a garrote. Jean-Claude carefully wrapped it around the girl’s neck, then gripped it tightly in his left hand. He put a foot in the center of her back, pressing her down into the floor. With his right hand, he carefully untied her hands, leaving the ropes on her feet intact.
Adaiz continued to move toward the weapons. In all, he had moved no more than a foot or so, but this put him in close range of his knife and gun. He could feel the ropes on his hands beginning to fray.
As Pruit pulled her hands free, the black man tightened his hold on the garrote. His grip was unsteady. He was losing motor control. The razor wire pulled at Pruit’s skin. Any more pressure and it would cut her. Slowly, she pulled herself to a sitting position, feeling pins and needles in her hands as blood rushed back into them.
Pruit looked at him and spoke very gently. “What’s your name?”
“Jean-Claude.”
“Jean-Claude, I will have to touch my arm and then touch you.” Jean-Claude managed a nod.
She activated her skinsuit control panel, and it grew into view on the underside of her forearm. Jean-Claude seemed to relax at the sight of this alien technology. It gave her credibility.
For several minutes, Pruit manipulated the panel, preparing it for the examination she wanted it to make. This would be somewhat beyond the usual functions of the suit, but within its potential capabilities.
“I have to touch you now. Your ankle would be a good place.”
“Do it,” he said.
Gently, Pruit laid her hand on his dark ankle, with her fingers touching the large artery there. Her skinsuit kicked into action. Its cells congregated around her hand, growing out of her skin into a whitish layer that became thicker and thicker until it spread to Jean-Claude’s skin as well. He stared at her hand on his ankle and gasped slightly at the sensation of the suit penetrating his skin. It was more electric than painful as the cells of her skinsuit grew into his artery.
Pruit watched the readout as the tiny suit cells made a tour of Jean-Claude’s body to determine what ailed him. Several minutes passed, and then she had her answer. The suit had found what he was addicted to and, by analyzing the addictive need, could now reverse it.
Pruit smiled at Jean-Claude. “He has taken away your body’s ability to assimilate certain essential vitamins,” she explained. “The withdrawal must be very painful. But I can fix it.”
She manipulated the control panel, and the suit began to work on a cure for Jean-Claude. The layer around her left hand and his ankle grew thicker. Pruit began to feel a draining sensation. The suit was drawing heavily on the resources of her own body to perform this task. She felt herself becoming thirsty and then dizzy.
Jean-Claude’s muscles began to relax, and his hands steadied. Then his eyes became heavy, and he experienced nausea and a strange aching in his teeth. It felt to him as though a cure were coming too fast and changing his body at an overwhelming rate. It was still good, still right, but it was overtaking him, and he could not keep his eyes open.
Across the room, Adaiz scrubbed the rope harder on the clip, his motions no longer small and secret, for the other two were completely occupied.
Pruit felt the dizziness increase and fought to stay conscious. At last, the suit receded from his ankle and began to fade back into her hand. Its work was done.
“It’s finished,” she said.
Jean-Claude released the garrote, and it fell down along Pruit’s chest. She quickly unwound it and dropped it to the floor. Jean-Claude clutched his stomach as nausea overtook him; then he vomited. He rolled over on his side, and his eyes closed.
At last, Adaiz felt the final binding fiber give. The rope released, and he slipped his hands free. He saw Pruit turning toward him, her own hands loose, her face looking tired and pale. She was free also. She knew him and knew his mission, and she would now do whatever possible to stop him. She was his enemy.
Just as Pruit focused her eyes on him, Adaiz rolled quickly to the pile of weapons. He grabbed the closest one—one of Pruit’s knives—and cut the ropes on his feet.
Pruit lunged toward him, forgetting that her own feet were still tied. She landed on her knees. Without hesitating, Adaiz threw the knife by its blade. Pruit’s reaction was too slow. Before she could drop to the floor and roll aside, the knife arced through the air and embedded itself in the flesh of her left shoulder.
Her body hit the floor, and Pruit felt the agony of the knife wound. Despite this, there was a good sensation, the sensation of her body moving into action. She could feel the heightened awareness as adrenaline entered her bloodstream and exhilaration swept over her.
Adaiz reached for Pruit’s other knife and lifted it to throw. Pruit saw the motion and acted. With her right hand, she gripped the knife in her shoulder and pulled it out, then rolled, cutting through the ropes on her feet as she did so. The second knife arced through the air and landed in the rug, inches from her. Pruit jumped to her feet, grabbing the second knife with her left arm. Quickly, she checked function of the limb. It was minimal. The arm responded, but with almost no strength. The skinsuit was tending to the wound, working to seal the severed muscles and arteries. But it could not move fast enough to prevent her from bleeding. There was blood running down her undershirt.
She faced Adaiz. He had recovered his own knife and was now reaching for his gun. Pruit was unfamiliar with its type, but it did not appear to be a projectile weapon. Laser, then. That would make sense for a Lucien weapon. Projectile weapons would be taboo in a society that had grown up in enclosed asteroid colonies. If he managed to aim it at her, the fight would be over.
On the floor behind her, Jean-Claude was softly moaning and had begun to move.
Pruit leapt at Adaiz before he could secure the gun in his hand. Her body hit his and sent him sprawling backward, into a long shelf up against the wall. They hit this together, then fell to the floor, Adaiz on top of her, his gun fallen. He drove a fist down into her wounded shoulder, and Pruit screamed.
She twisted and unbalanced him, then made a slash along his ribs, a shallow penetration that began to bleed profusely. Adaiz reached for
his guns, but she kicked them under the shelf and out of reach.
As Adaiz got to his feet, he felt the pain of the cut in his side and the surprise at her strength and training. She now faced him with a knife in each hand and a wash of blood down her chest. Her breath was coming hard, but her clarity and energy could not be mistaken. She was wearing only her underclothes, and Adaiz found himself distracted by the lean lines of her body. He tried to clear his mind, tried to gain the clarity of the egani-tah. He must encompass himself and her. He must see her actions before she preformed them, make her part of himself. He regulated his breathing.
I do not want to kill her. I must kill her. I have no love for her. I am human in name only. I am Lucien. I am one of the People. I am enlightened. I have known the stars and the universe. They have passed through me, and I have remained…
Adaiz tried to shut off these chattering thoughts, but they would not leave him. He tried to mentally touch her, but a wave of disgust washed over him, and he was pulled back into himself. She hated him, and he could feel it. Pruit was laughing, and though he was not very familiar with laughter, it was clear she was deriding him.
“You are surprised that I can fight you,” she said. “You don’t know your own race. You’ve been told we are weak.”
She was studying his motions. He was lean and fit, but the balance of his muscles was odd. His calves and legs were over-built when compared with the rest of his body. His stance and balance were good but not perfect. They spoke of a man who had been trained by a teacher who did not know human physiology. She would need this advantage, for she had only one arm working properly.
In a surprise move, she struck out and cut into his upper arm. Blood welled up, and Adaiz stumbled back. She pushed him to the floor and lifted her right arm for the final blow.
But Adaiz was enraged now. The pain of this new injury achieved what he could not achieve with mental control alone—it had pushed everything else aside. He rolled back and kicked out. Both legs connected with Pruit’s stomach, and she flew away from him.
Pruit landed hard on her back, and Adaiz was on top of her. His knife came down at her heart. She blocked his knife arm, and he screamed and rained down blows on her face and neck.
He lifted the knife again. Behind Adaiz, she saw Jean-Claude, now on his feet and finally aware of the fight. Adaiz struck down at her, and at the same moment, Jean-Claude pushed him, sending him off of Pruit. She lunged up to standing. Jean-Claude made a move for Adaiz, but he slashed out, cutting Jean-Claude’s forearm.
Adaiz came at Pruit with full fury now. His mind had taken up its idiotic narrative again: She is you, and you are she, and I must kill her, and I am not a traitor. I am not a traitor. I am an adopted brother and have never been given anything but love!
He pounded blows at her. Pruit fought him back, but she could feel her body losing strength. The shock of the shoulder wound was upon her. She was getting cold. Her head was pounding, from Jean-Claude’s original blow and from the beating Adaiz had given her. He was backing her toward a wall. He was cornering her. Jean-Claude, not a trained fighter, was gripping his wrist where blood was freely flowing out and onto the floor.
Adaiz had only one knife, but he was wielding it like a madman. It was all she could do to block the blows. She felt something hard and cool against her back. The window. She was cornered.
No! she yelled in her mind. You will not win!
She drew on her last remaining strength, blocked him weakly with her left arm, and struck forward with her right. She felt the knife go in. She could see a bloom of red on his side, just below his ribs. Adaiz cried out and fell back a step. Pruit lifted her arm for another strike.
Before she could bring her knife down, Adaiz felt his mind fill with the knowledge of his leg and foot and her body beyond them. He saw his muscles. There was pain, but it did not matter. He saw the path to follow. He would kill her. He would kill her now and worry about the technology later. He lifted his leg and felt the energy running through it. He kicked out with the foot. It connected with Pruit’s chest.
Pruit felt the impact, and then there was another impact of her body with glass. She was falling. The evening air was cool, and the dark shapes of buildings were moving past her. He had kicked her out the widow. She would die. There was a shock-wave of pain as she landed.
Up in the room, Adaiz fell back. It felt, for a moment, as though he were the one outside, falling through the air. He reached out a hand to steady himself, but there was nothing to grab. He felt his body hit the floor. He was losing blood. He was losing consciousness. He grabbed the rug with his hand, and then he passed out.
Jean-Claude saw Pruit fly out the window, then Adaiz hit the floor unconscious. Jean-Claude had finally managed to stop his own bleeding just as the fight ended. She had saved him. She had freed him. And he had only sat there, huddled over his own wound, as the other prisoner killed her.
For a few moments, he watched a pool of blood forming under Adaiz; then he stood, scrambled for the guns and other weapons that he saw beneath the shelf, and tucked them into a small bag. He ran from the room and down the stairs. He took a dim, squalid hallway to the back of the tenement and found his way out into the narrow alley behind.
There were no lights here, but there was a bright moon above thin clouds and much reflected light from the city. A cool breeze managed to penetrate the space between the buildings, bringing some slight relief from the smell of urine and decay.
He saw her. She lay sprawled half on top of refuse, half on the dirt of the alley itself. Her eyes were closed. Jean-Claude looked up the building to the second-story window of his rooms. Her fall had been broken by the garbage. It was possible she was still alive.
He moved over to her and felt at her neck. He thought he could feel a faint pulse.
“I am so sorry,” he mumbled to her in French. “I am so sorry.”
Her knives were still in her hands, and he put them into the bag with the guns. Carefully then, he picked her up and slung her body over one shoulder. She made no voluntary motions, but hung from him like a deadweight.
Jean-Claude whisked her from the alley. He could not take a taxi. He was a foreigner with a knife wound carrying a badly injured young woman. The police would become involved. He did not want police. He wanted time to think, time to find out who he was again.
Instead, he made his way through alleys for two miles, carrying her through the dark corners he had haunted for three years, past the brothels and the heroine and hashish dealers who infested the back streets of Cairo.
It was midnight when he reached the Sisters of Jude charity hospital. Pruit was moaning now, starting to wake. Carefully, he set her down, propping her body against a wall outside the emergency admittance room, among dozens of other people huddled together, waiting for assistance. In the light coming through the hospital doors, he could see that she was looking at him.
Jean-Claude knelt down to eye level. He could not tell how lucid she was. “He will soon strike a deal,” he told her.
Pruit’s head fell to one side, and Jean-Claude put his hand under her chin and gently turned her face toward him. Her eyes were still open.
“He will soon make his deal,” he repeated. “I believe he keeps only one copy of what you seek, and only he knows its location. When he makes his deal, he will give that copy in person.” Could she hear him? It was difficult to tell.
After several moments, Pruit managed a slight nod. “Understand…” she whispered.
Jean-Claude released her chin, and her head fell back against the wall.
“Thank you for my life,” he said. “I am sorry I did not deserve it more.” He put the bag of weapons in her hands, then left her, slipping back into the shadows.
CHAPTER 38
There were glaring lights and the smell of rubbing alcohol. There were sounds of pain and motion and feet and machines, and the feel of many bodies in close spaces.
Several men and women were gathered around her, and t
here were bright lights shining in her eyes. Two of the people wore white cotton hats and small masks over their faces.
Pruit had just returned to consciousness and a world of pain. Her shoulder was aching and burning and throbbing, and her head pounded with slow violence. She was conscious of intense thirst. These people were trying to hold her down, and she found herself struggling. They were trying to inject her; they were trying to hook her up to an IV.
“Hold still!” someone shouted. “Hold her still!”
“No!” she said, trying to push them away. “No…” It was terribly important that she stop them. Why? She could not at first remember. Then it came to her—her skinsuit, they would not understand her skinsuit. They would discover it, and they would know that she did not belong.
“No!” she pushed their hands away.
“Hold still!” a doctor yelled.
She had been yelling in Soulene, and they were speaking Arabic. “No!” she yelled, remembering Arabic and using it. “I don’t need your help!”
“Yes, you do, I’m afraid,” said the young Egyptian doctor with strained patience. They were pinning down her arms. She felt the IV going into the vein in her hand.
“Doctor, there’s something wrong here,” one of the nurses said.
It was her skinsuit, Pruit knew. It would be isolating the IV tube in a layer of cells.
“Inject her now! She is hysterical!”
She felt a needle at her inner elbow and then the painful tingling of a syringe being emptied into her artery. It was a painkiller, and she was thankful for it immediately. Her shoulder calmed. She knew she must get up off the table, but her eyes were closing.
“What is it?” the doctor asked, examining the tube.