Part 29 (1/2)
He stepped closer, and she could see the pulse beat in his throat. ”The skimmer crash-how did you fix
it?”
”Mixed signals from the node, plus a small projector that overwhelmed the links of the nav sensors and power couplings. I'd set up the node webs months ago for a crash sequence, but I couldn't install the overload projector until we landed on the platform-projector power supplies only last a few hours.”
”And the deke in Wren's medkit-you put it in his pack when you were checking the gear on the platform.”
He smiled. A wash of rain swept past. He edged closer.
Tsia felt his focus grow. ”The fall on the bridge-you could have died yourself. Why did you risk it?”
”You think you're the only one with antigrav on your harness?”
Her lips tightened. ”And Wren's pack-the loss of his antigrav?”
”A remote trigger. Installed at the marine station while you were playing hero to that Landing Pact cub.”
”Why?” she almost snarled. ”Ayara's Eyes, Kurvan, why bother with accidents at all? Why didn't you wait and kill us here at the stake as you planned to do with those of us who are left?”
”Because brute force always attracts more attention. My job was just to slow down the team. Eliminate as many of you as possible. Get the shooters away with Jandon so we had a better chance of taking over here.”
”Jandon could have come back. We could have called him to help us.”
”His s.h.i.+p would have fried its own controls the first time he tried to land.” He s.h.i.+fted closer again. ”You
just don't get it, do you? We've had our people in place for months, working as grunts in the tubes, hiding gear in rock pockets where the freepicks would never look. For the last two weeks, our buyer has been sitting up at the hammers, waiting for a signal that we had the chips and were ready to move out of this system.”
”The Ixia...”
He nodded.
”But if you were only to slow us down... Daya,” she breathed. ”You didn't know about the chips at all, did you? You couldn't have-not if you still went after Doetzier.”
He glanced behind her, but Ruka did not growl, and she could not tear her eyes from Kurvan's face. ”We knew about the dummy chips. We knew the s.h.i.+elds were setting up a sting.” He shrugged at her expression. ”We've got credit and other... incentives to encourage people to help us. But we didn't know about the real chips till dawn.”
”Dawn...”
He watched her closely as he said, ”I received a coded message from Decker on the beacon this morning -you didn't even notice. He'd heard from our mother s.h.i.+p. One of our contacts had finally traced a set of webs he'd been working on for weeks. And what he found was a programmer with a high tech rating, a.s.signed to the same team that I was supposed to slow down.”
”Bowdie...”
”His contract with you was only a ghost. He was to stay only a day-not six weeks-till the chips were set with their codes. The chips were here-with him the whole time. Under my nose like my chin.” He shrugged. ”I wouldn't have bothered trying to kill anyone had I known that someone was already carrying the real chips. I would have waited, as you say, till we reached the stake and I had backup to take you out. As it was, my job was to thin down the team so we could replace some of you with more of us. Make the job go smoother when the real chips came in.”
”And Tucker?”
Kurvan's hand moved casually to the b.u.t.t of his laze. ”He was careless. I locked the lift and let the wind and the bloom do my work for me. If he was the s.h.i.+eld, better for me to have him out of the way. If he was one of you, he was just one less mere to work on.”
The pulse pounded in her bruised throat. ”I should have known right from the start that it was you.”
He smiled again, slowly. ”How so?”
”You said, on the platform, that I'd be better at the canyon scans than you. You wanted me off this team. And then you said that you weren't half as good at trees and other biologicals as I. I'm a guide, Kurvan, but you've been working biological traces for over twenty years-twice as long as I. It was a stupid thing to say.”
”And now your knowledge is too late to make any difference.”
Slowly, as if he were an animal and she was trying not to provoke him, she backed away and unhooked the straps of her flexor. The blackjack noted the brown and green handle and smiled a slow expression. ”That's no good,” he said softly. ”It's broken. Its biochips are fried.”
She tightened her grip on its hilt. ”How do you know?”
He followed like a snake. ”Because I'm the one who broke it. When I fell on Doetzier. Remember? I
broke it like I snapped his arm. And do you know? I'm going to enjoy crus.h.i.+ng you the same way I broke your sister.”
Her jaw tightened. ”I'm stronger than she was.”
”I don't doubt it. She was easy. Soft. Like b.u.t.ter in a frying pan.”
”She was a person,” she snapped.
”She was a victim, not a human being. She had no self-worth at all.”
He was pus.h.i.+ng her deliberately, but her anger iced her heartbeat as if her blood had not the energy to compare to what she felt. ”Self-worth can be built or destroyed-”
”You think / am her destroyer? She put herself in my power.” He stepped forward again, and Tsia could feel the confidence in his field. ”Oh, I made a few suggestions,” he said. 'Took an interest in her career, told her how smart she was. Showered her for a year with what she thought of as love. But in the end, I merely took her for what she had to give.”
”Daya,” she breathed. ”And you admit it.”
”Why not?”
She stared at him.
He nodded as if surprised at her reaction. ”I am conscious of what I do, Feather-guide. Your sister- she's useful to me, so I use her.”
”But you're destroying her. If you loved her-”
”Love?” Kurvan snorted. ”Love is a set of actions that gives one power over another. Just because I bind her or crush her the same time as I use her-that does not negate her skills. A blackjack like me can work for a decade just to get a single hook into a customs inspector. Here, I have a dozen hooks in her mind. I've strung her up like a puppet, and she can do nothing but obey.”
”And when you've torn all the value out of her?”
He shrugged. ”Then I get another victim to replace her pathetic life. There's always been more power in destruction than creation. It's fast. It's profitable. And it's far more exciting than living within some pathetic set of morals. It's power, Tsia-guide. It's control. And it's mine.”