Part 17 (1/2)

She clutched her pillow. ”t.i.tus, don't kid me.”

”I'm not. I promised not to keep anything back.”

”I just slept with an alien from outer s.p.a.ce? That's-that'sa” t.i.tus!”

”I was born on Earth,” he protested. ”Look, when Abbot dug me out of that grave, and explained why I-behaved the way I did-I felt about like you do now. Then he pointed out I'd always been. nonhuman, and knowing it didn't make me a different person.” She hugged herself, rocking. Her lips were still too white. ”Well,” he added, ”it didn't help me much either, at first.”

He got off the bed and in a slow agony of apprehension, he dressed, noting his bruises had healed, so he'd have to keep the areas covered. Humans didn't heal that fast. When he glanced at Inea, she was still rocking back and forth, her eyes screwed shut. Finally, he knelt beside her and pried one of her fingers loose to kiss it. ”I'm sorry I laid that on you like that. I'd never have done it if you hadn't insisted on the-we call it being silenced under Influence. You took all that about Abbot so well, I hoped-well, I did promise to tell you everything. Inea, I'm sorry.”

She pulled her finger back and hunched away from him.

I should ask if she wants me to remove the gag. But demanding such a decision right now would be cruel. ”I'll remove the silencing anytime you ask.” She didn't respond. ”You need some time to get over this one. I'll leave now. I don't want to but.”

She didn't move. She was barely breathing.

”But I guess I ought to.” Slowly, he rose and went to the door. Turning for one last look, hoping desperately, he wanted to curl up around the searing grief in his own body. Something finally became clear to him. She'd been doing to him exactly what she'd accused him of doing to her. Every time he let his guard down, feeling accepted, she cut him off. He hadn't known he was doing it to her, and he was sure she didn't know what she was doing to him. How human!

He put his hand on the door, and spoke to it. ”From now on, Inea, I'll try for all I'm worth to stop hurting you.”

The airtight seal popped softly as the door opened, but he paused, praying she'd reach out and stop him. ”Inea, just remember, the only important thing I've told you is about Abbot. He's the danger. Don't let him suspect we care about each other. Earth is my home, and I'm going to stop him from sending his message.”

When she didn't reply, he had to step out and close the door. There were still two things she didn't know: what it would mean if he Marked her as his stringer-that under luren law his Mark would protect her somewhat from Abbot but make her his property-and that Kylyd had a survivor whom Abbot intended to revive.

He stood with his back to her door, noticing the subtly different air of the corridor and trying to think. He had about twelve hours until the scheduled demonstration to the reporters. They were, no doubt, here already, and Carol Colby was busy with them. He couldn't help with that. He'd been given his a.s.signment-stay out of the a.s.sa.s.sin's way.

With a mighty effort, he ripped himself away from Inea's door, forcing down all fear that she'd never touch him again. There were three things he had to accomplish before the demonstration. He had to check the sleeper's new chamber for Abbot's transmitter before Abbot discovered what Sisi had divulged; he had to reconstruct Abbot's moves while t.i.tus had been with Inea; and he needed to know who the ninja was.

As he wandered by a refectory, he remembered he had to ”eat” and used his reprogrammed meal card, Influencing the crowd automatically. Gradually, he steadied down, concentration returning, and he thought to scan the crowds for traces of Abbot's work. He was astonished when his mechanical effort brought him to staring at a short Oriental woman with a cap of straight black hair.

She was bussing her tray at the conveyer belt. Her face showed her to be in her forties, with strong character lines and a purposeful expression. She wore the Project uniform pants and jacket with a crisp perfection. But she also wore, no doubt without her knowledge, sign of Abbot's tampering.

He had not, however, Marked her.

When she reached the door, t.i.tus decided to follow her. Out in the corridor, he crowded into the same lift she took, and lost her as she switched to another. But he knew where she was going. All those she had greeted were from Biomed.

t.i.tus joined the stream of workers reporting for their s.h.i.+ft, and cloaked himself in a blur of familiarity. He pa.s.sed through the security checkpoint as a ghost of one of the legitimate workers-a burst of random static on the instruments. Nothing worthy of the guards' attention.

He followed the Oriental woman to the Cognitive Sciences section, and toward the Artificial Intelligence division. Moving through as if on an errand, a blur at the edges of vision, he overheard her called Dr. Kuo.

With just a cursory glimpse of the section's work, he hardly had to look her up. She had to be involved in tapping Kylyd's computers, no doubt providing the clues Abbot had needed to take data from Kylyd's systems.

But t.i.tus couldn't dawdle about without making people nervous. He'd have to delve into Dr. Kuo's work later. He faded back into the corridor, coming out near the sleeper's new chamber. There were three men and a woman stationed at the end of the short hall that led to the locked door.

One of the men was seated at a desk, apparently unarmed. Before him was a handprint verifier, and a monitor to check current status of clearances. The four guards had surely memorized the few faces cleared to pa.s.s that point.

At the end of the approach hall, the door was festooned with security instruments.

t.i.tus ducked into a nearby men's room and holed up in one of the stalls. Until he shut himself in, he hadn't realized how frightened he'd been. He had promised Abbot he wouldn't trigger alarms the next time he visited their relative in there. But did he have the nerve?

Of course, he had studied the alarms, and he had his pocket calculator with him. He opened the back and plucked out the nearly invisible adhesive dot that would bypa.s.s the palmreader. Placing it into its slot, he programmed it to tell the reader he was Nandoha, then palmed it.

It took him fifteen minutes to talk himself into it, and even when he stepped back out into the corridor, projecting the semblance of Abbot Nandoha about him, all he could think was, What if Abbot pa.s.ses by while I'm in there?

But that probability was small enough. Even Abbot had to sleep sometime, and it was a big station. t.i.tus had not come here to live his life without risks. He marched himself up to the check station, being Abbot right down to the slight swagger and benign smile. Palm on the plate, he flashed his own I.D. under the other guard's nose. ”Nandoha.”

”Good morning, Doctor,” replied the guard cordially.

t.i.tus nodded and was pa.s.sed through. He had to go through a sterilizing shower that tortured his skin, then dress in a disposable suit, but then he was inside the chamber. It was a very large bare room-originally built as a chemistry lab. It had dully gleaming pale gray walls, while the lights made him wish for his sungla.s.ses.

Beyond the transparent shrouds of the double-walled bio-isolation airlock surrounding the opaque showering chambera” the whole installation set across the entry-it was also cold. The air inside the room was dry, preventing condensation on the cryogenic chamber itself. And that was the same as it had been. The sleeper's chest was just as torn, the whole body unmoveda” dead looking.

But that wasn't what he'd come to see. t.i.tus searched storage bins and working counters littered with instruments. There were half a dozen computer taps, and one stand-alone with a tremendous memory. Obviously, there were a number of ”ivestigations in the first stages of being set up. Labels on some unopened crates told the story.

Heaped on one side, t.i.tus found almost everything needed to set up a cloning lab, complete with a s.h.i.+ps-Freuden artificial womb-one that could have its every parameter adjusted by microscopic increments. A powerful research tool, and just what would be ordered to clone an alien.

He wondered if the ultra-pure B&J chemicals that had come to him ”accidentally” had actually been for this lab.

He searched every nook and cranny that could be a hiding place, touching nothing with his bare hands, fanatically careful not to disturb anything. But either Abbot had already removed his property, or it had never been here.

As he was about to exit through the shower, he turned back to survey the place, and realized it was packed with electronic equipment. Abbot could have hidden anything inside anything. And since he was now the recognized expert in fabricating components, n.o.body would question him.

Could that be why he helped rebuild the computer? Could he have destroyed it just to get this credential? But t.i.tus couldn't attribute such infallible foresight to Abbot. His father had erred, and was trying to make the best of it. No doubt he'd had a lot of practice at that in his long life.

t.i.tus left with all the care he'd entered with. Back in the area where he was authorized to be, t.i.tus acknowledged that it was unlikely Abbot had hidden the transmitter or its components too carefully. After all, that would imply that Abbot considered his half-trained son a viable threat.

Possibly, Abbot had planted that false information in Sisi for t.i.tus to find. The computer record of a visit to the sleeper that Abbot had not made would tip him off that t.i.tus had debriefed Sisi as expected. And Abbot would have the last laugh.

Maybe. t.i.tus set off to the gym to try to pick up the trail of the ninja. Then he'd check out Dr. Kuo. If Abbot were planting false trails, it implied there was a true one to be found.

His efforts for the remainder of the time all proved just as fruitless as his visit to the sleeper. The area of the gym housing the centrifuges had been walled off for repairs. But he discovered from one of the dance instructors that parts of the ninja costume had been identified in the waste from the locker rooms.

He spotted Abner Gold and the ebony statue of a weight-lifting instructor, cozily head to head over drinks at one of the bars near the swimming pool. Then he had to dodge a gaggle of reporters on the grand tour. He had no luck discovering what Abbot had been up to while he dallied with Inea and, checking with his own lab, he was told he was not needed. Inea did not answer at her apartment-or his. She's at work. She wouldn't let the project down.

Inexorably, his feet carried him to his lab. He had to admit, as he straight-armed the door, that he needed to see her, needed to know she wasn't still sitting on her bed, white-faced and nearly catatonic.

”What are you doing here?” called s.h.i.+mon across the lab.

A dozen or so faces turned up to t.i.tus.

He descended among the rows of machines. They'd made enormous progress. The floors were clear of litter, and most of the work stations were b.u.t.toned up. ”Coat of paint and this place would look almost like new,” t.i.tus commented with his best smile. ”You're all to be congratulated.”

”It works like new,” offered s.h.i.+mon. ”Want to see?”

”I saw some of the reporters over in the gym. They'll be here soon. You go on with what you're doing.” But he found no sign of Inea-not even in the observatory. As casually as he could, he asked, ”Anyone see Inea?”

s.h.i.+mon wiped his hands on a towel. ”She finished her work, and left with Abbot. He said he'd buy her lunch to celebrate-what's the matter?”