Part 12 (1/2)

A thunderous boom sounded.

Alisa heard it over the comm unit and from the other side of the temple. A mushroom cloud of smoke billowed up from a tower across the courtyard from their patio.

”Tell me that wasn't Leonidas,” Alisa said.

”You shouldn't have told him to blow up a tower for you.”

”d.a.m.n it, Doctor,” she said, turning toward the door, hardly caring if the guard tried to stop her. ”What's going on? Are you still in the library?”

”I have-” Alejandro broke off with a startled gasp.

”Doctor?” Alisa demanded. ”Doctor, are you there?”

The comm line sounded like it was still open, with angry shouts sounding in the distance, but n.o.body responded.

Alisa implored Young-hee to take her to the library-she would have tried to break free of the guard and find the place on her own if the girl hadn't agreed. To her surprise, she did, though they had to leave Yumi and the other women behind, since none of them seemed to grasp the need for urgency. From the way Yumi was being as silly as the others, Alisa suspected she had been tasting the spotted fish.

Trusting she would be fine there with her mother, Alisa strode after Young-hee. She wanted to run, but her guide did not feel her sense of urgency, either. Alisa clenched her fist and might have tried pus.h.i.+ng her along, but her guard was also following along, watching suspiciously.

”Brenner?” a voice said over his comm. ”Report to the library. We have an incident and need backup.”

The guard pa.s.sed Young-hee and took off at a run. Alisa sprinted after him, not caring if Young-hee kept up or not. An incident? That could only be Leonidas. How in all three h.e.l.ls had he ended up accused of murder? Had someone else tried a mental attack on him, causing him to defend himself with force? Enough force to kill?

The guard charged up a wide set of stairs with ice pillars on either side, animals and mythological creatures carved into them. Another time, Alisa would have admired the artwork. Now, she was too busy chasing after the big man. They burst through the double doors at the top together.

At first, she did not see the trouble. A cavernous, carpeted room spread out before her, more carved pillars reaching to a high ceiling and rows and rows of bookcases stretching toward a distant, window-filled wall. But shouts came from the side, from a round room that looked to be the base of one of the ubiquitous towers. Someone roared in pain, and hair rose on the back of Alisa's neck. She had never heard such an anguished cry come from Leonidas's throat, but that sounded like him.

She sprinted toward the tower, running so fast that she pa.s.sed the guard. Her Etcher found its way into her hand, even though the logical part of her brain informed her that it would be idiotic to shoot anyone here. She ran through the door and turned toward the noise, almost cras.h.i.+ng into someone's back. Several robed figures were lined up, and one of the robes was gray instead of black.

”Doctor,” Alisa blurted as the guard caught up with her, gripping her arm from behind.

Barely noticing, she was about to demand an explanation from Alejandro, but saw that two men were gripping his arms too. These were the young Sta.r.s.eer warriors, some of whom she had seen waiting outside of the Nomad. Alejandro was not wearing his satchel. Had they taken the artifact from him?

Two of the Sta.r.s.eers turned to look back at her, opening up the view of the room in front of them. Leonidas was on his hands and knees on the floor, his helmet off and blood dripping from his nostrils and ears. The entire wall behind him had been blown away, and an alarmingly huge puddle of blood saturated the rubble-littered carpet in front of him. Wounded men groaned from the floor off to the side, one rolling and gasping, grabbing his ribs through his robe.

”Leonidas,” Alisa blurted, trying to pull away from the guard so she could go to him.

The Sta.r.s.eer did not let go of her arm, and her Etcher was clenched in that hand so she couldn't bring it to bear. Instead, she whirled and slammed her boot into his kneecap. He clearly hadn't expected her to attack, and the blow made him gasp, releasing her. She pushed between the two men who had turned to look back, thinking she might squeeze past them and throwing a few elbows to put them off guard, but they recovered and caught her.

Then some unfamiliar force restrained her further, a pressure on the inside of her skull that took control of her body away from her. She couldn't continue forward. Her limbs simply would not work. She couldn't even feel them. It was as if they had been frozen in ice.

Still on his hands and knees, Leonidas lifted his head. He met her eyes briefly, his own eyes squinting with pain, but he turned his head slightly and focused on an older man a few feet from Alisa. The gray-haired, pale-skinned Sta.r.s.eer's hand was out, fingers splayed as he pointed his palm at Leonidas. Utter concentration was stamped on his face as he looked from Leonidas to the hole in the wall, to the drop beyond it, a hundred feet to the sea of ice below.

Alisa was no mind reader, but she knew without a doubt what he was thinking. To use his mind to shove Leonidas out, to cause him to fall to his death. She doubted that even Leonidas could survive a drop that far.

She tried to cry for him to stop, to distract him somehow, but her voice box would not work. The pressure in her skull seemed to build, causing pain, making her want to crumple into a ball and wrap her arms around her head instead of fighting further. Yet she struggled, trying to find a way to move, to break the hold on her.

”Stop it,” Alejandro said. ”He's done nothing.”

”He killed Abelardus and wounded three of my warriors,” the old man snarled, not taking his gaze from Leonidas as he spoke.

Abelardus? The one who knew Durant? Her only lead?

As soon as she had the thought, Alisa felt despicably selfish. Leonidas was writhing on the floor, maybe being killed before her eyes, and she was worried about her own problems?

”No,” she rasped, barely able to get the syllable out. She wanted to say that Leonidas wouldn't have done that, that he wouldn't have killed any of the men here, but an invisible hand tightened around her throat, and she could not utter the words.

Her eyes, the only things she could move, darted from side to side in her head as she tried to identify the person who was using this power on her. She did not know what she could do to stop it, but she wanted to know who was tormenting her so.

”If you can see his thoughts, then you know that's not true,” Alejandro said. ”He's an honorable man. He wouldn't have thrown someone out the window to his death.”

”What window?” the old man asked. ”He blew up the window and the wall.”

”To try to disrupt the concentration of the people attacking him!”

”Of course we're attacking him. He'll kill us if he gets the chance, just like he did Abelardus.” The old man's fingers twitched, and some force shoved Leonidas, heavy armor and all, toward the gaping hole in the wall.

Other men in the line smiled, though their faces were full of concentration too. They were all ganging up on Leonidas, bullying him.

Leonidas glared at them through the pain contorting his face, but he could not resist the invisible force pus.h.i.+ng him toward the hole.

”If he'd wanted to kill you, he would have aimed the grenade at you,” Alejandro said, arguing more forcefully than Alisa would have expected from him. Despite his impa.s.sioned words, the Sta.r.s.eers were not listening. The old man continued to push Leonidas across the carpet, inch by inch. Wind swept through the hole in the wall and plucked at Leonidas's sweat-drenched hair.

Realizing that physically fighting whatever held her was not working, Alisa tried going limp, slumping against the Sta.r.s.eer closest to her. He seemed startled, and for a second, the force around her throat disappeared as he caught her with his arms, keeping her from hitting the ground. Before she could move, the force around her body rea.s.serted itself.

She hissed in frustration. The toe of Leonidas's boot slipped over the edge of the hole. A piece of rubble from the wall was pushed through and tumbled free, falling too far for her to hear it land.

”That's my security officer,” she blurted, startling herself because she hadn't realized she would be able to speak. She immediately wished she had come up with some more useful argument. How was that going to sway them to let him go? Several faces turned toward her, and she felt foolish, but she pressed on. ”I need him to fly my s.h.i.+p, to protect us from pirates. He's... he's integral, d.a.m.n it. You have no right to-”

The force reapplied itself to her throat, cutting off her ability to speak and half of her air as well.

”No,” the old man said, lowering his hand. Leonidas still looked to be flattened to the floor, but he wasn't being pushed farther toward the hole. ”Let her speak.” His cold, soulless eyes locked onto hers. ”Are you saying that the cyborg works for you, Captain?”

She recognized the trap as soon as he asked the question and realized her mistake in making the claim. She'd been looking for an argument that might sway them to leave him alone, but this could get her into as much trouble as he was in.

Leonidas managed to lift his head up. His eyes were wide, full of concern. Not for himself but for her. He looked like he wanted to shake his head wildly, but all he could get out was a slight gesture of the negative. ”Don't,” he mouthed, blood spilling down his chin when he moved his lips.

Seeing him in such pain, seeing him being bullied, made Alisa want to cry. And to rage. She struggled again against the invisible bonds that held her, longing to lash out, to shoot these cruel idiots.

”Because if that's the case, Captain,” the old man said, ”you're responsible for his actions and just as much to blame for this murder as he is.”

Alisa looked toward the huge bloodstain. She did not see a body anywhere in the room. Had someone gone out the hole in the wall? She didn't understand fully what had happened or how Leonidas had ended up in a brawl with someone here. His grenade launcher and blazer pistols were on the floor near the stain, too far away for him to reach now, but n.o.body else's weapons were there, no sign of torn robes or coins that might have fallen out in a scuffle. There was just the blood.

”It's not a military s.h.i.+p, Osmond,” someone said dryly. ”She can't be held responsible for a civilian employee going crazy.”