Part 55 (1/2)

Graeme had refused to give him a weapon; he was a spectator at the feast this day, not a celebrant. He crossed an intersection. ”Five minutes,” said the voice at his ear. He breathed easily, feeling the film of sweat casing his body like a caressing hand. Another intersection. ”Three minutes.” He wondered if the people in the houses had noticed the strangers hurrying through their streets and speculated on what was going on. A muscle cramped in his left thigh and he snarled, unable to halt and flex it. He kept moving and after a while the knot went away. The houses here were small, set close together on crooked streets.

”One minute,” said the voice at his ear.

He crossed the last intersection and turned right toward the corner of Cooley and Thaine. Malachi beckoned him. Zed went to him and dropped to his knees beside the brawny, dark cop. He was holding a communicator in one hand.

There was a water gauge on a pole beside him; Zed pretended to examine it. ”Now what?” he said.

”We go in,” said Malachi. ”You stay here. Move when you're told to.”

Zed nodded. He had hoped that Graeme would let him join the first attack team but it had been an unlikely hope. He did not want to get in anyone's way.

”They're still inside?” he said.

”As far as I know.” A tone sounded in Zed's ear. ”That's it. See you later.” Rising, Malachi sauntered away from the pole. A second tone sounded in Zed's ear. Sweat curled his hair and plastered his s.h.i.+rt to his body. Malachi was running now toward the corner house. It had white walls, a slanted roof with solar panels turned toward the sun, a gravel path.... He watched running figures converge in all directions. The side windows of the house fell inward. The sound of shattering gla.s.s brought saliva to his mouth; he swallowed. Human shadows flowed through the windows. Smoke puffed from one window and dissipated on a warm slow breeze.

”All units move in,” said Cat Graeme's voice in the remote. Zed stood.

The muscle in his thigh cramped again. He loped toward the house. The front door eased slowly open. Cat Graeme stood framed in the doorway. She was holding a stun gun.

”You mount an impressive operation, Captain,” Zed said. She grinned. ”Thanks.”

”Have you got them all?”

”Every one.”

The blood roared in Zed's ears like the sea. He walked into the house, noting a huge, motley pile of things against a wall, tools, clothes, electronic components, stun charge casings, rope, blankets.... He almost stumbled over the first body: a woman, holding a stunner in one hand. He glanced at the charge; it was set at lethal, but the casing gauge showed it to be empty. She was breathing stertorously. He moved on. A second room held two three-tiered bunks like the bunks on a stars.h.i.+p. A second man lay slumped on one of the bunks, his head and upper torso on the bunk, his hips, legs, and feet trailing on the floor. He, too, was snoring. A fourth man lay on the hall floor with a laser bur through his shoulder. He was moaning. Zed closed his nostrils against the smell of burned flesh and walked to the rear of the house. He heard voices and angled toward them. ”Can you cut that -- yeah, right, now get him on his feet. Did they even feed him, I wonder?”

”Took you long enough,” said Dana Ikoro.

He was standing, one hand on the wall to steady himself. As Zed entered the little room, he wavered, and one of the members of the attack team caught him and eased him to the cot. The room stank of feces and urine. Dana's mouth was bruised. But his voice was steady as he swore -- in Pellish -- and tried to lift himself again. Zed walked to him and levered him away from the soiled bunk.

”Need a hand, Starcaptain?”

”Thanks,” Dana said, and then all his muscles went rigid. ”Zed?”

”Can you walk?” Zed said.

”My legs shake,” Dana said.

”Then hold still,” Zed said. Wrapping an arm around Dana's waist, he picked the slighter man off the floor. It was only a few meters down the hall to the kitchen. Dana put both hands out rather blindly, and Zed set him down beside a wall. ”Here's a chair.” He guided Dana to it and lowered him to the seat before he fell. Dana steadied himself.

”Thank you,” he said. He breathed arrhythmically, and Zed guessed that his ribs were bruised and maybe broken. His clothing was filthy, and there was a blotch of what looked like dried blood in his unkempt hair.

”Bad?” Zed said.

Dana looked up. His mouth quivered. But he straightened in the chair.

”Not too bad,” he said. ”It was mostly the big man, Elon. A-Rae -- ” he paused - - ”he left me alone after the first two days. It frightened him too much to watch.” He rubbed his face with one hand. His cheeks were stubbled with beard.

”May -- may I have some water?”

Zed walked to the cooler and brought him water in a plastic cup. Dana took the cup. He had it halfway to his mouth before his hand began to shake. Zed steadied it for him and helped him drink. Dana put the cup on the table and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ”I kept telling myself it could never be as bad as the Net,” he said. ”I even told Elon. He didn't like that.”

”Was it?” Zed said.

Dana tried to smile. ”No. Oh, no.”

”_Did_ they feed you?”

”Off and on. No baths, though. I must stink.”

”You do,” Zed said. The darkness was seeping into him, but he held it back. ”Think you can remember an address?”

Dana nodded.

”Forty-seven Cabell Street. Rhani's there. She has something important to tell you. I suspect she'd even let you take a bath.”

”Cabell Street, forty-seven,” Dana repeated. ”Got it.” ”Good,” said Zed. Then, before the dark rage moved to snare him, and Dana with him, in its embrace, he walked from the kitchen and began, with methodical diligence, to check the faces of the fallen.

He found the ex-chief of the drug detail in the smallest room in the house, really a closet. Someone had bound his hands behind his back. An attack team member in a tattered s.h.i.+rt and pants said, ”Hey, maybe you -- ” but Zed was already past him. The windowless concrete room reminded him of a Net cell. A-Rae lay on his side. Stunned, his face was slack with sleep; he seemed harmless, and very young.

Zed wound one hand in the dark hair and lifted the slumping head. His other hand reached to stroke A-Rae's cheek. The claws extended. With tremendous effort, Zed checked the motion. He rose. ”Don't move him,” he said to the man standing guard at the door. ”Has this place got a medikit?”

The man shrugged. ”We brought one with us.” Zed went back down the hallway. He found Cat Graeme in the cottage's front room, talking into a communicator. Shards of gla.s.s littered the floor.

He waited for her to notice him. ”What is it?” she said finally, letting the communicator crackle into silence.

”You brought a medikit with you.”

”That way.” She pointed. ”The kitchen.” Zed went to the kitchen. Dana had vanished. The man with the laser burn was sitting groggily on the floor, being treated by a puzzled young medic. Zed rummaged through the open medikit beside her, picked out a stimulant ampule, and returned to the closet where Michel A- Rae lay asleep. Kneeling, he pulled up A-Rae's collar and laid the ampule against the carotid artery.

The guard said, ”What are you doing?”

Zed said, ”Bringing him out of stun.” He watched A-Rae's eyelids flutter.

”I'm a senior medic attached to the Abanat Clinic. Would you close that door, please? You can leave it ajar if you like. This won't take long.”

”Well -- don't take those cords off,” the guard warned. He shut the door.

The latch clicked. As the room blackened, Zed palmed the light switch. He did not need or desire light but he wanted Michel A-Rae to be able to see. The darkness, freed of the constraints he had bound it with, devoured him, creeping through bloodstream and nervous system and into his hands. He extended the claws, and waited.

In about twenty seconds, Michel A-Rae blinked. He squirmed weakly. ”Where -- ” His dark eyes focused on Zed's face. He worked his lips, tried to swallow, couldn't.

Zed smiled lovingly at him. ”You know who I am,” he said, in a conversational tone.

A-Rae's shoulders spasmed as he struggled against the cords. Zed caught his head by the hair. He held it still, and let A-Rae see the claws.

”You can't -- ”

”I can,” Zed said. ”Anything. I. Want to do. I can.” Lightly he drew the claws of the right hand from the corner of A-Rae's left eye to the lower line of his jaw, stopping short of the artery. ”Greetings from Darien,” he said, and lifted the hand to let A-Rae see the talons touched with blood.