Part 18 (1/2)
”Oh, t.i.tus-I-” She fell silent, mouth working as if she wanted to proclaim her love. At last, she put her hand on the table barely touching his. ”Give me time. Please.”
”I don't have it to give. Abbot is running this game. Let me Mark you as my own. I'll take it away, if you tell me to. But in the meantime, you'll be safe from him.”
”You said the Mark itself won't stop him.”
”No. It's just a law. But he'd die rather than violate our laws.” He had to be brutally honest though. ”But as my father, he could force me to remove my Mark, then take you. He wouldn't, ugh, unless I push him too far. I've misjudged him a couple of times, but I'm really very positive about how he regards the Mark. He taught me himself. It would take a threat to The Blood to make him violate a Mark, and he'd expect to be executed for it. Before he'd force me to remove my Mark, he'd have to be willing to kill me. He's not. He didn't find out how long you ran around unsilenced. Forgive me, but I checked before I brought you out of it.”
She doodled on the tablecloth. ”Think. He'll be at the demonstration. If I walk in there Marked, he'll know he's forced you to a move you didn't want to make.”
He shook his head. ”I don't care what he thinks-” Neither does she. She doesn't want to wear a brand.
She balled up her fist and hit the table. ”No! You have to care what he thinks! You said you were here to win for all of Earth. If those are the stakes, then I am as expendable as any soldier. For once, you listen to me. We're going to walk in there pretending nothing at all has happened. From now on, we're going to seize the initiative, we're going to force him into a corner, and then we're going to whip him good. Have you got that, Dr. s.h.i.+ddehara?”
A slow warmth thawed the icy lump in his belly. An ally. Not a Marked stringer. An ally. ”Got it.”
He moved to take her hand, but she froze again. Her voice trembled as she whispered, ”I'll fight him with you. But that's all I can do now.”
I win her back. I will.
t.i.tus walked back to the lab beside Inea, restlessly scanning the crowds for Abbot's spies. It was close to the end of the day s.h.i.+ft. Gossip raged around them, people talking about the reporters, the a.s.sa.s.sin, and the threat to close the Project down, sabotage.
The tension in the humans made t.i.tus edgy. Abbot was certainly not about to leap out of some potted shrubbery and devour Inea. He would be in the lab. Colby had arranged for him to take his bows in front of his handiwork.
At the lift, Inea stepped close and asked, ”Tell me. Why fight Abbot while working so hard for the Project? If the Probe doesn't go-”
”The majority of Earth's people want the probe to go, and they have the right to decide how to run their world.”
The lift they squeezed into was full, so she couldn't answer until they reached the corridor on the lab's level. ”Don't the Tourists have an equal right to go home?”
”Certainly. But not at such a price.” He repeated his argument that, with time, humans would be able to defend themselves. ”And the Residents will help.” If we still exist. ”This is our world. Home. Does that make sense?”
”Yes. But I'm sure not all Residents are like you.”
”True. No two alike. Just like humans.” He wanted to wrap her in his arms and kiss her forever. But he kept his hands to himself. They rounded the last corner, and found a squad of Brink's security guards outside the lab doors. Their dress uniform trim gleamed, and they stood to attention at full military brace. Pretending to be an honor guard?
It took the guards five minutes to validate their ident.i.ties and pa.s.s them through. Inside, his entire crew was lined up, wearing fresh lab coats and solemn expressions. Among them, t.i.tus counted ten new faces-the plainclothes guards.
W.S. emblems had been stenciled on the consoles. Colby was giving an interview in front of his office, between a W.S. flag and a Project Hail banner that hadn't been there before.
A young man with a clipboard rushed up to them. ”You'd be Dr. s.h.i.+ddehara-and you are?”
”Inea Cellura, staff astronomer.”
”Fine. Then would you please just step over there with the staff?” He checked off something on his board. ”Dr. s.h.i.+ddehara, would you come with me, please?”
He wanted to pull Inea over with him, but she rolled her eyes, then meekly joined s.h.i.+mon and the others.
”We'll want a shot of you at the observatory console that controls the Eighth Antenna Array-that is the one nearest this station?” At t.i.tus's nod, the young man continued, ”A shot of you aiming the Eighth at Taurus sending a signal to Wild Goose will be splendid.” He ignored t.i.tus's protest that the Eighth couldn't see Taurus today, and that Wild Goose wasn't anywhere near Taurus. ”Have you seen Dr. Nandoha?”
”No. I haven't seen him.”
”t.i.tus!” exclaimed Colby. ”Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like you to meet the man responsible, Dr. t.i.tus s.h.i.+ddehara.”
People tucked notepads under their elbows to patter their hands in polite applause. t.i.tus nodded graciously, and let himself be posed for pictures and rapid-fire interviews. Although every reporter represented more than one publication, the crowd still overtaxed the lab's air system.
When, inevitably, the topic turned to the recent attack on t.i.tus's life, Colby reached behind her to bring an older woman to the fore. She was nearly t.i.tus's own height, and had the splendid black skin of deepest Africa and a Haitian accent.
”This is Rebecca Whithers, the lawyer representing the Project in this matter,” said Colby, listing her t.i.tles.
t.i.tus couldn't take his eyes off Whithers. The Project uniform clung to her revealing not a ”well-presewed” figure, but contours that bespoke vast strength. Like ”Ebony!”
a.s.sociations clicked into a pattern. He had seen Ebony outside the centrifuge as he went in. She was the right size to wear the ninja costume, and certainly had the strength. She'd be unlikely to have real computer wizardry. Caught in the act, she'd have forgotten any precise instructions on how to gimmick the controls.
Meanwhile, the lawyer eloquently fielded questions fired at her in three languages. Then someone s.h.i.+fted back to the technical, and she laughed. ”Dr. s.h.i.+ddehara will have to answer that!”
t.i.tus launched into his explanation of how the orbital and extra-solar observatories and probes had tracked the stranger craft into the solar system, how one key probe, Wild Goose, had gone dark-but might yet return, giving vital data on the trajectory.
Then he explained how the craft's approach line wasn't sufficient data. Biomed and Engineering would soon provide spectral data. He went on to introduce their demonstrations.
”With all this data, we can choose a logical target for our probe's message. As you've probably heard, we already have a broad region of s.p.a.ce identified, the Taurus region.”
Everyone laughed. Speculation had been running wild about every known star in that area ever since Kylyd had been spotted approaching.
t.i.tus cited probabilities to show it was unlikely any visible star was the aliens' home. Modern instruments-great-grandchildren of the first orbital telescope used in the ninetiesa” had revealed a few possibilities, but all the data wasn't in yet.
A man t.i.tus thought he recognized stepped forward. ”If I might interrupt for a moment, I have something I believe it would be appropriate to present now.”
As he approached t.i.tus, the ten guards in the lab tensed. t.i.tus could feel the atmosphere crackle as the man proffered a small black case. ”Here, Dr. s.h.i.+ddehara, is a copy of your famous private star catalogue.”
”What!” exclaimed Colby.
”Don't touch that!” yelled a Brink's guard.
t.i.tus's hand froze. The guard who'd yelled ran up and whipped the black box from the reporters' hands, apologizing to the man by name. t.i.tus realized this reporter was famous for the integrity of his investigative reporting.
t.i.tus caught his eye and shrugged ruefully. ”Security. After that attack on me-you understand.”
”I see. Well, it is your own catalogue, a gift from sources I can't name, made before the Project's official copy-the one taken from your own home-was tampered with.”
”Tampered. !” Colby choked, then whirled and shot to the back of the room issuing rapid-fire orders to a Brink's guard. He left, and Colby returned, all cameras on her.
”May I ask that you hold off reporting this until we have verified it. We have, at this time, no reason to believe the Project's copy which arrived on your shuttle has been altered in any way. Most likely, this pirated copy is the one at fault, and I believe only Dr. s.h.i.+ddehara will be able to discern the truth of the matter.”
One man objected. ”The press always tries to cooperate, Dr. Colby, but in this case it might be unwise to-”
She interrupted. ”By morning we'll have an official statement for you. Arrangements will be made for those of you who wish to file copy tomorrow at noon. In the meantime, we do have a most interesting demonstration here. Doctor?”
t.i.tus introduced Inea and she ran the demonstration.
Still Abbot had not showed up. As the reporters peered into the chemists' tank, Colby fretted, ”What could have happened to Abbot? Should I start a search?”