Part 40 (1/2)
Abbot followed t.i.tus's gaze. ”The fool! Doesn't he know he can go to a final death in that solar flux?”
”H'lim's more of a tourist here than you, and he doesn't want to see war roll over Earth and leave it a cinder.”
”What does that stock breeder, who has never been honest with us, and has often been wrong, and whose knowledge is way out of date, know of current galactic politics? Or of the desperate situation we face on Earth?”
t.i.tus asked, ”We? And what of Earth's humans? What will happen to them if we summon the galaxy's-”
”You believe that dreaming c.r.a.p?” Abbot interrupted. ”This isn't that planet, if it exists at all.”
You didn't see Kylyd's astrogation room! thought t.i.tus. A technology that uses imagination to steer a stars.h.i.+p could easily send information via dreams and telepathy, or concoct a law for the conservation of volition. ”Listen, Abbot, it doesn't matter whether this is the only planet where people dream. My mission is to prevent you from violating a World Sovereignties decision to prevent the galaxy from discovering Earth's position. So I took the transmitter from the probe, and the other from the observatory.
”I never thought you'd find it before transmitting the ballistics data. If I had, I'd never have involved you in the scheme.” There was genuine admiration in Abbot's voice.
”Involved me?” t.i.tus pushed forward. The screen showed the four blockaders approaching the hut, deployed for a fight. H'lim got away! From a distance, the luren's Influence flickered around the men and one fell, the others stopping to help him up. Weakened now, H'lim couldn't hold them, and when they arrived, Abbot wouldn't be able to control everyone and still finish his work. Gotta delay.
Abbot ignited the laser. ”When I decided to use the Array, I needed a legitimate signal to cover mine, and I chose your scheme of bringing up cargotainers. It wasn't hard. We have most of the key decision makers controlled. It won't be much more difficult to take over after World Sovereignties is overthrown.”
t.i.tus's will flagged. It had all been Abbot's doing! Abbot's grip on him tightened, triumph blossoming.
Off to the side, Inea popped up and hurled something small, bright, and glinting, at t.i.tus. ”Catch!”
Abbot swiveled to face her, the glowing laser still pointed at t.i.tus but his Influence freezing her into a statue that tumbled over grotesquely.
Reflexively, t.i.tus's gloved hand intercepted the object. A great, sweet light burst through his nerves. Inaudible sound penetrated his spirit. The silver glint of the crucifix reflected all the colored displays, sparking and whirling deep into t.i.tus's being. It was weaker than before and had a different texture, but there was a sublime energy, collimated and coherent enough to break him free of Abbot's grip.
Inea gasped, ”I don't believe it. You can't make me see t.i.tus as a monster! You can't!”
Abbot staggered back from t.i.tus. Never before had he been effectively defied by a human. t.i.tus wanted to grapple for the laser cutter, to jump in and save Inea. Instead, he lunged for the transmitter. His right hand closed on it as Abbot whirled and brandished the cutter at Inea's throat. Influence pounded into her. He spat, ”Don't!”
t.i.tus froze, gripping the casing. ”Abbot! She's mine!”
”Touch that rig, and you forfeit life and stringer.”
It was legal, from Abbot's point of view. He had doc.u.mented proof that t.i.tus might be feral. Only a feral would turn against the Blood and rip out the transmitter.
Inea struggled, exerting an amazing force against Abbot's will, and he had to grab her physically to control her. ”What have you taught this one?”
H'lim was right! She can defend herself!
”Inea, remember when I was mad at H'lim for what he told you to do to me, and he told us what you could do because of it?” If only Abbot doesn't catch on!
”Yeah,” she gasped, against Abbot's control.
”Now!” shouted t.i.tus. Simultaneously, he yanked the transmitter away from the connections and threw all his might into raising Influence. Then he hurled the transmitter directly at Abbot.
Deep within himself, a blast furnace of power reopened. But this time, it was white hot and focused to a narrow pencil of intent. He used what Abbot had taught him when they had to Influence each other against Biomed's hypnosis check, and cut through Abbot's defenses, inducing Abbot's reflex move to bring the weapon around to ward off the flying object. Now!
The laser came up and flared. Two pieces of transmitter flew onwards, struck Abbot, and bounced to the floor.
With an inarticulate howl he discarded the laser, not caring that its activated tip ate a hole in the stone floor. He sank to his knees over the twin pieces of his last hope.
Inea, released from thrall, picked up the laser, moving at Abbot's exposed back with deadly intent. t.i.tus flung himself across the s.p.a.ce and pinned her arm up. ”No!” he said aloud, with no Influence behind it. ”He's neutralized. Kill him in cold blood, and you're no better than he is.”
He couldn't see her face, but he felt the muscles in her arm tremble with the smoldering need to slice into Abbot. Urgently, t.i.tus demanded, ”Would the priest who charged the crucifix approve of killing for revenge?”
She made a sound that was part sob, part laugh, and part s.h.i.+ver of terror. ”I charged the crucifix, praying while he had you.” She let him pluck the cutter out of her grip.
Awe struck, he flung it haphazardly aside, not noting where it landed. It had been different. Very different. ”Come on, we have to help H'lim. He can't handle those four without Influence, and he's going to-”
Deep inside him there was a tearing, rending pain as if someone had ripped his heart out by the roots. H'lim!
The ground danced.
t.i.tus staggered, hanging onto Inea, who didn't have the ma.s.s to hold him upright. They parted. Abbot struggled to his feet. Then a fluid wave of loose rock pushed into the hut, shoving everything before it. The roof majestically folded downwards. The floor jerked sideways.
One of the screens, detached and seemingly floating on nothing, showed the two crawlers sliding down toward the shed amidst a rock avalanche. Then it went dark.
Everything went dark.
The bright tip and the short cutting rod of the laser was clear even through t.i.tus's suitvisor, and so was the dim form of Inea staggering off balance right across its beam.
t.i.tus grabbed her arm, dancing onto the leading edge of flowing rock, and yanked her out of danger. But that sent him stumbling forward, pivoting in freefall. Suddenly, he realized that Newton's laws, the coldest of equations, had now condemned him to death. The laser, its b.u.t.t caught in the moving rocks, would pierce his left eye.
A large, heavy vacuum suit slammed into him. Abbot. Spinning sideways, he landed on his back and bounced. In mid-flight, pain such as he'd never imagined could be endured lanced through him. Paralyzed, he couldn't even scream when a light that had been inside him, disregarded since he'd first crawled from his grave, winked out.
He rolled and turned to find Abbot sprawled, half buried in debris, the back of his helmet severed from the back of his suit, leaking infrared colors like drops of blood. Two polished ends of vertebrae were exposed, the froth of boiling blood hardly obscuring the fact that Abbot had gone to his final death, a fact that lived in ashen darkness within t.i.tus where no other could see. Mixed with that gasping agony was the throb of another mortal wound. And H'lim, too.
Movement of the rocks had almost stopped.
Inea pulled herself out from under a ceiling panel, and shoved aside a piece of the roof camera turret. Bits of shattered sunlight pierced the rents in the rubble over them, though without atmospheric scattering, they didn't illuminate much. One of them outlined Abbot's hand, clutching half a transmitter. Inea waded over to Abbot, knelt, and eased his body into her lap. Short little coughs that might have been astonished sobs came over the suitphones to t.i.tus as he got his knees under him and began to crawl toward them.
”Ti-t.i.tus, did you hear what he said? Did you hear?”
”No.” He pulled up and examined the wound. The spinal cord was severed. Fatally.
”He said-he said, ”You're still of my blood.” I was wrong. He loved you. He was crazy, warped, horrible, but he had enough good in him to love you. I'm glad you didn't let me kill him.” And then she cried.
”You can't cry in a s.p.a.cesuit. It's too hard to wipe your nose.”
”t.i.tus! How-”
”When we have time, we'll both cry. But for the moment, we've got to-”
”H'lim! My G.o.d! We've got to go get him-” She tried to struggle free of the corpse.
”Inea.”