"I want you to come talk to this crazy girl. You can convince her if anyone can."
"Things are—not quite under control down here."
Thorne rolled its eyes. The captured boy was drumming his bare heels against the Dendarii trooper's shins. Thorne set its stunner to the lightest setting and touched it to the back of the squirming boy's neck. He convulsed and hung more limply. Still conscious, eyes blearing and wild, the boy began to cry.
In a burst of cowardice he said to Throne, "Get them rounded up. Any way you can. I'm going to help Sergeant Taura."
"You do that," growled Thorne in a distinctly insubordinate tone. It wheeled, gathering its men. "You and you, take that side—you, take the other. Get those doors down—"
He retreated ignominiously to the sound of shattering plastic.
Upstairs, things were quieter. There were fewer girls than boys altogether, a disproportion that had also prevailed in his time. He'd often wondered why. He stepped over the stunned body of a heavy-set female security guard and followed his vid map, projected by his helmet, to Sergeant Taura.
A dozen or so girls were seated cross-legged on the floor, their hands clasped behind their necks, under the waving threat of one Dendarii's stunner. Their sleep-tunics and shorts were pink silk, otherwise identical to the boys'. They looked frightened, but at least they sat silent. He stepped into a side room to find Taura and the other trooper confronting a tall Eurasian girl-woman, who sat at a comconsole with her arms aggressively crossed. Where the vid plate should have been was a smoking hole, hot and recent, from plasma fire.
The Eurasian girl's head turned, her long black hair swinging, from Taura to himself and back. "My lady, what a circus!" Her voice was a whip of contempt.
"She refuses to budge," said Taura. Her tone was strangely worried.
"Girl," he nodded curtly. "You are dead meat if you stay here. You are a clone. Your body is destined to be stolen by your progenitor. Your brain will be removed and destroyed. Perhaps very soon."
"I know that," she said scornfully, as if he were a babbling idiot.
"What?" His jaw dropped.
"I know it. I am perfectly aligned with my destiny. My lady required it to be so. I serve my lady perfectly." Her chin rose, and her eyes rested in a moment of dreamy, distant worship, of what he could not guess.
"She got a call out to House Security," reported Taura tightly, with a nod at the smoking holovid. "Described us, our gear—even reported an estimate of our numbers."
"You will not keep me from my lady," the girl affirmed with a short, cool nod. "The guards will get you, and save me. I'm very important."
What the hell had the Bharaputrans done to turn this girl's head inside out? And could he undo it in thirty seconds or less? He didn't think so. "Sergeant," he took a deep breath, and said in a high, light voice on the outgoing sigh, "Stun her."
The Eurasian girl started to duck, but the sergeant's reflexes worked at lightning speed. The stunner beam took her precisely between the eyes as she leapt. Taura vaulted the comconsole and caught the girl's head before it could strike the floor.
"Do we have them all?" he asked.
"At least two went down the back stairs before we blocked them," Taura reported with a frown.
"They'll be stunned if they try to escape the building," he reassured her.
"But what if they hide, downstairs? It'll take time to find 'em." Her tawny eyes flicked sideways to take in some chrono display from her helmet. "We should all be on our way back to the shuttle by now."
"Just a second." Laboriously, he keyed through his channels till he found Thorne again. Off in the distance, carried thinly by the audio, someone was yelling, " 'n-of-a-bitch! You little—"
"What?" Thorne snapped in a harried voice. "You got those girls rounded up yet?"
"Had to stun one. Taura can carry her. Look, did you get that head-count yet?"
"Yes, took it off a comconsole in a keeper's room—thirty-eight boys and sixteen girls. We're missing four boys who apparently went over the balcony. Trooper Philippi accounted for three of them but says she didn't spot a fourth. How about you?"
"Sergeant Taura says two girls went down the back stairs. Watch for them." He glanced up, peering out of his vid display, which was swirling like an aurora. "Captain Thorne says there should be sixteen bodies here."
Taura stuck her head out into the corridor, lips moving, then returned and eyed the stunned Eurasian girl. "We're still short one. Kesterton, make a pass around this floor, check cupboards and under the beds."
"Right, Sergeant." The Dendarii trooper ran to obey.
He followed her, Thorne's voice urging in his ears, "Move it up there! This is a smash-and-grab, remember? We don't have time to round up strays!"
"Wait, dammit."
In the third room the trooper checked, she bent to look under a bed and said, "Ha! Got her, Sergeant!" She swooped, grabbed a couple of kicking ankles, and yanked. Her prize slid into the light, a short girl-woman in the pink crossover tunic and shorts. She emitted little helpless muted noises, distress with no hope of her cries bringing help. She had a cascade of platinum curls, but her most notable feature was a stunning bustline, huge fat globes that the strained pink silk of her tunic failed to contain. She rolled to her knees, buttocks on heels, her upraised hands vaguely pushing and cradling the heavy flesh as if still shocked and unaccustomed to finding it there.
Ten years old. Shit. She looked twenty. And such monstrous hypertrophy couldn't be natural. The progenitor-customer must have ordered body-sculpture, prior to taking possession. That made sense, let the clone do the surgical and metabolic suffering. Tiny waist, flare of hip . . . from her exaggerated, physically mature femininity, he wondered if she might be one of the change-of-sex transfers. Almost certainly. She must have been slated for surgery very soon.
"No, go away," she was whimpering. "Go away, leave me alone . . . my mother is coming for me. My mother is coming for me tomorrow. Go away, leave me alone, I'm going to meet my mother. . . ."
Her cries, and her heaving . . . chest, would shortly make him crazy, he thought. "Stun that one too," he croaked. They'd have to carry her, but at least they wouldn't have to listen to her.
The trooper's face was flushed, as transfixed and embarrassed as he by the girl's grotesque build. "Poor doll," she whispered, and put her out of her misery with a light touch of stunner to her neck. She slumped forward, splayed on the floor.
His helmet was calling him, he wasn't sure which trooper's voice. "Sir, we just drove back a crew of House Bharaputra fire-fighters with our stunners. They didn't have anti-stun suits. But the security people who are coming on now do. They're sending new teams, carrying heavier weapons. The stunner-tag game is about over."
He keyed through helmet displays, trying to place the trooper on the map-grid. Before he could, the air-guard's breathless voice cut in. "A Bharaputran heavy-weapons team is circling around your building to the south, sir. You've got to get the hell out of there. It's about to turn real nasty out here."
He waved the Dendarii trooper and her doll-woman burden out of the bedroom ahead of him. "Sergeant Taura," he called. "Did you pick up those outside reports?"
"Yes, sir. Let's move it."
Sergeant Taura slung the Eurasian girl over one broad shoulder and the blonde over the other, apparently without noticing their weight, and they herded the mob of frightened girls down the end stairs. Taura made them walk two-by-two, holding hands, keeping them rather better organized than he would have expected. The girls' hushed voices burbled in shock when they were directed into the boys' dormitory section. "We're not allowed down here," one tried to protest, in tears. "We'll get in trouble."
Thorne had six stunned boys laid out face-up on the corridor floor, and another twenty-odd lined up leaning against the wall, legs spread, arms extended, prisoner-control posture, with a couple of nervous troopers yelling at them and keeping them in their places. Some clones looked angry, some were crying, and all
looked scared to death.
He looked with dismay at the pile of stunner victims. "How are we going to carry them all?"
"Have some carry the rest," Taura said. "It leaves your hands free and ties up theirs." She gently laid down her own burdens at the end of the row.
"Good," said Thorne, jerking its gaze, with difficulty, from fascinated fixation on the doll-woman. "Worley, Kesterton, let's—" its voice stopped, as the same static-laden emergency message over-rode channels in both their command helmets.
It was the bike-trooper, screaming, "Sonofabitch, the shuttle—watch out guys, on your left—" a hot wash of static, and "—oh holy fuckin' shit—" Then a silence, filled only with the hum of an empty channel.
He keyed frantically for a readout, any readout at all, from her helmet. The locator still functioned, plotting her on the ground between two buildings in back of the play-court where the shuttle was parked. Her medical readouts were flatline blanks. Dead? Surely not, there should at least still be blood chemistry . . . the static, empty view being transmitted, upward at an angle into the night fog, at last cued him. Phillipi had lost her helmet. What else she'd lost, he could not tell.
Thorne called the shuttle pilot, over and over, alternated with the rear-guards; no replies. It swore. "You try."
He found empty channels too. The other two perimeter Dendarii were tied up in an exchange of fire with the Bharaputran heavy-weapons squad to the south that the bike-trooper had reported earlier.
"We gotta reconnoiter," snarled Thorne under its breath. "Sergeant Taura, take over here, get these kids ready to march. You—" This was to his address, apparently; why did Thorne no longer call him Admiral, or Miles? "Come with me. Trooper Sumner, cover us."
Thorne departed at a flat-out run; he cursed his short legs as he fell steadily farther behind. Down the lift-tube, out the still-hot front doors, around one dark building, between two others. He caught up with the hermaphrodite, who was flattened against a corner of the building at the edge of the playing-court.
The shuttle was still there, apparently undamaged—surely no hand-weapon could penetrate its combat-hardened shell. The ramp was drawn up, the door closed. A dark shape—downed Dendarii, or enemy?—slumped in the shadow beneath its wing-flanges. Thorne, whispering curses, jabbed codes into a computer control plate bound to its left forearm. The hatch slid aside, and the ramp tongued outward with a whine of servos. Still no human response.
"I'm going in," said Thorne.
"Captain, standard procedure says that's my job," said the trooper Thorne had detailed to cover them, from his vantage behind a large concrete tree-tub.
"Not this time," said Thorne grimly. Not continuing the argument, it dashed forward in a zigzag, then straight up the ramp, hurtling inside, plasma arc drawn. After a moment its voice came over the comm. "Now, Sumner."
Uninvited, he followed Trooper Sumner. The shuttle's interior was pitch-dark. They all turned on their helmet lights, white fingers darting and touching. Nothing inside appeared disturbed, but the door to the pilot's compartment was sealed.
Silently, Thorne motioned the trooper to take up a firing stance opposite him, bracketing the door in the bulkhead between fuselage and flight deck. He stood behind Thorne. Thorne punched another code into its arm control-pad. The door slid open with a tortured groan, then shuddered and jammed.
A wave of heat boiled out like the breath of a blast furnace. A soft orange explosion followed, as enough oxygen rushed into the searing compartment to re-ignite any flammables that were left. The trooper fastened his emergency oxygen mask, grabbed a chemical fire-extinguisher from a clamp on the wall, and aimed it into the flight deck. After a moment they followed in his wake.
Everything was slagged and burned. The controls were melted, communications equipment charred. The compartment stank, chokingly, of toxic oxidation products from all the synthetic materials. And one organic odor. Carbonized meat. What was left of the pilot—he turned his head, and swallowed. "Bharaputra doesn't have—isn't supposed to have heavy weapons on-site!"
Thorne hissed, beyond swearing. It pointed. "They threw a couple of our own thermal mines in here, closed the door, and ran. Pilot had to have been stunned first. One smart goddamn Bharaputran son-of-a-bitch . . . didn't have heavy weapons, so they just used ours. Drew off or ganged up on my guards, got in, and grounded us. Didn't even stick around to ambush us . . . they can do that at their leisure, now. This beast won't fly again." Thorne's face looked like a chiseled skull-mask in the white light from their helmets.
Panic clogged his throat. "What do we do now, Bel?"
"Fall back to the building. Set a perimeter. Use our hostages to negotiate some kind of surrender."
"No!"
"You got a better idea—Miles?" Thorne's teeth gritted. "I thought not."
The shocked trooper stared at Thorne. "Captain—" he glanced back and forth between them, "the Admiral will pull us through. We've been in tighter spots than this."
"Not this time." Thorne straightened, voice drawn with agony. "My fault—take full responsibility. . . . That's not the Admiral. That's his clone-brother, Mark. He set us up, but I've known for days. Tumbled to him before we dropped, before we ever made Jacksonian local space. I thought I could bring this off, and not get caught."
"Eh?" The trooper's brows wavered, disbelieving. A clone, going under anesthetic, might have that same stunned look on his face.
"We can't—we can't betray those children back into Bharaputra's hands," Mark grated. Begged.
Thorne dug its bare hand into the carbonized blob glued to what used to be the pilot's station chair. "Who is betrayed?" It lifted its hand, rubbed a black crumbling smear across his face from cheek to chin. "Who is betrayed?" Thorne whispered. "Do you have. A better. Idea."
He was shaking, his mind a white-out blank. The hot carbon on his face felt like a scar.
"Fall back to the building," said Thorne. "On my command."
CHAPTER SIX
"No subordinates," said Miles firmly. "I want to talk to the head man, once and done. And then get out of here."
"I'll keep trying," said Quinn. She turned back to her comconsole in the Peregrine's tac room, which was presently transmitting the image of a high-ranking Bharaputran security officer, and began the argument again.
Miles sat back in his station chair, his boots flat to the deck, his hands held deliberately still along the control-studded armrests. Calm and control. That was the strategy. That was, at this point, the only strategy left to him. If only he'd been nine hours sooner . . . he'd methodically cursed every delay of the past five days, in four languages, till he'd run out of invective. They'd wasted fuel, profligately, pushing the Peregrine at max accelerations, and had nearly made up the Ariel's lead. Nearly. The delays had given Mark just enough time to take a bad idea, and turn it into a disaster. But not Mark alone. Miles was no longer a proponent of the hero-theory of disaster. A mess this complete required the full cooperation of a cast of dozens. He very much wanted to talk privately with Bel Thorne, and very, very soon. He had not counted on Bel proving as much of a loose cannon as Mark himself.
He glanced around the tac room, taking in the latest information from the vid displays. The Ariel was out of it, fled under fire to dock at Fell Station under Thorne's second-in-command, Lieutenant Hart. They were now blockaded by half a dozen Bharaputran security vessels, lurking outside Fell's zone. Two more Bharaputran ships presently escorted the Peregrine in orbit. A token force, so far; the Peregrine outgunned them. That balance of power would shift when all their Bharaputran brethren arrived topside. Unless he could convince Baron Bharaputra it wasn't necessary.
He called up a view of the downside situation on his vid display, insofar as it was presently understood by the Peregrine's battle computers. The exterior layout of the Bharaputran medical complex was plain even from orbit, but he lacked the details of the interiors he'd have liked if he were planning a clever attack. No clever attack. Negotiation, and bribery . .
. he winced in anticipation of the upcoming costs. Bel Thorne, Mark, Green Squad, and fifty or so Bharaputran hostages were presently pinned down in a single building, separated from their damaged shuttle, and had been for the last eight hours. The shuttle pilot dead, three troopers injured. That would cost Bel its command, Miles swore to himself.
It would be dawn down there soon. The Bharaputrans had evacuated all the civilians from the rest of the complex, thank God, but had also brought in heavy security forces and equipment. Only the threat of harm to their valuable clones held back an overwhelming Bharaputran onslaught. He would not be negotiating from a position of strength, alas. Cool.
Quinn, without turning around, raised her hand and flashed him a high sign, Get ready. He glanced down, checking his own appearance. His officer's undress grays were borrowed from the next smallest person aboard the Peregrine, a five-foot-tall female from Engineering, and fit him sloppily. He only had half his proper insignia. Aggressively messy was a possible command style, but he really needed more props to bring it off. Adrenaline and suppressed rage would have to power his appearance. If not for the biochip on his vagus nerve, his old ulcers would be perforating his stomach about now. He opened his comconsole to Quinn's communications shunt, and waited.
With a sparkle, the image of a frowning man appeared over the vid plate. His dark hair was drawn back in a tight knot held by a gold ring, emphasizing the strong bones of his face. He wore a bronze-brown silk tunic, and no other jewelry. Olive-brown skin; he looked a healthy forty or so. Appearances were deceiving. It took more than one lifetime to scheme and fight one's way to the undisputed leadership of a Jacksonian House. Vasa Luigi, Baron Bharaputra, had been wearing the body of a clone for at least twenty years. He certainly took good care of it. The vulnerable period of another brain transplant would be doubly dangerous for a man whose power so many ruthless subordinates coveted. This man is not for playing games with, Miles decided.
"Bharaputra here," the man in brown stated, and waited. Indeed, the man and the House were one, for practical purposes.