Part 35 (1/2)
”You just were.”
Glandis reddened. ”And what purpose will a dozen disgraced ex-members of RIP Force serve?”
Now, thought Trelayne. The door to the bridge slid open. Mojo and four other ex-Rippers burst in, Tanzer rifles charged and pointed at Glandis and the bridge crew. Glandis turned to Trelayne with mouth open, then froze.
Trelayne had his own weapon leveled at Glandis. ”Their purpose, I'm afraid, is to replace the crew of this s.h.i.+p.”
And so the fallen rose again, to scale a precipice from which there was no retreat, and each new height we gained only made the final fall that much farther...
After leaving the Bird Queen, Feran ran past the closed tubes of the barkers, the games of chance, and the sleep pods of the performers. The kit moved easily among the ropes, refuse, and equipment, his path clear to him even in the dim light of sputtering torches and an occasional hovering glow-globe.
The show used fewer glow-globes than when Feran had first arrived. The Captain said the globes cost too much now. Feran didn't mind. He needed little light to see, and liked the smell of the torches and the crackle they made.
Turning a corner, Feran froze. Weasel Man stood outside the Captain's pod. The Captain had said that the man's name was Weitz, but he reminded Feran of the animals the kit hunted in the woods outside the circus. The door opened. Weasel Man stepped inside.
Feran crept to the open window at the pod's side. He could hear voices. His nose twitched. His ears snapped up and opened wide, adjusting until the sound was the sharpest.
Trelayne lay on his sleep pod bunk, shaking from withdrawal. Feran was late bringing his nightly hit. Weitz lounged in a chair, staring at him. It had been five days since their meeting in the jail. ”Where've you been, Weitz?” Trelayne wheezed.
”Had some arrangements to make. Need a hit, don't you?”
”It's coming,” Trelayne mumbled. ”What do you want?”
Weitz shrugged. ”I told you. The Angels.”
”But not to hand them back to the Ent.i.ty, or you'd have done it by now,” Trelayne said. But if Weitz wanted the Angels, why didn't he just take them? He had his own men and a s.h.i.+p.
Weitz smiled. ”Do you know there are rebels on Fandor IV?”
”Rebels? What are you talking about?” Where was Feran?
”Ex-RIP rebels like you, or rather, like you once were.”
”Like me? G.o.d, then I pity the rebels on Fandor IV.”
Weitz leaned forward in his chair. ”I'm one of them.”
Trelayne laughed. ”You're RIP SS.”
”I a.s.sist from the inside. I supply them with Scream.”
Trelayne stared at Weitz. This man was far more dangerous than he had first appeared. ”You've managed to surprise me, Major. Why would you risk your life for a bunch of rebels?”
Weitz shrugged. ”I said you were my hero. The man who defied an empire. I want to do my part, too.”
Trelayne snorted. ”Out of the goodness of your heart.”
Weitz reddened. ”I cover my costs. No more.”
I'll bet, Trelayne thought. ”Where do you get Scream?”
”I... acquired a store doing an SS audit of a RiP warehouse.”
”You stole it. A store? Since when can you store Scream?”
Weitz smiled. ”A result of intense research prompted by your escape with the Angels. You made the Ent.i.ty realize the risk of transporting breeding pairs. Angels are now kept in secure facilities on Lania and two other worlds, producing Scream that's s.h.i.+pped to project worlds with RIP forces. Angels live and die without ever leaving the facility they were born into.”
Trelayne shuddered. Because of him. But the Scream in him ran too low to find any joy in this new horror.
They fell silent. Finally Weitz spoke. ”So what happened, Trelayne? To the Great Rebel Leader? To the one man who stood up to the Ent.i.ty? How'd it all go to h.e.l.l?”
”Screamers are in h.e.l.l already. We were trying to get out.”
”You got out, in a stolen Ent.i.ty cruiser. Then what?”
s.h.i.+vering, Trelayne struggled to sit up. Where was Feran? ”We jumped to a system the Ent.i.ty had already rejected. Only one habitable planet. No resources worth the extraction cost.”
”And set up a base for a guerilla war on the Ent.i.ty.”
”No. A colony. A home for the dispossessed races.”
”You attacked Ent.i.ty project worlds,” Weitz said.
”We sent messages. There was never any physical a.s.sault.”
”Your data bombs flooded Comm systems for entire planets.”
”We tried to make people aware of what the Ent.i.ty was doing. Almost worked.” Trelayne fought withdrawal, trying to focus on Weitz. The man was afraid of something. But what?
”I'll say. You cost them trillions hus.h.i.+ng it up, flus.h.i.+ng systems. But then what? The reports just end.”
”The Ent.i.ty still has a file on us?” That pleased Trelayne.
”On you,” Weitz corrected. ”You've got your own entire file sequence. Special clearance needed to get at them. Well?”
Trelayne fell silent, remembering the day, remembering his guilt. ”I got careless. They tracked us through a jump somehow, found the colony, T-beamed it from orbit.”
”An entire planet? My G.o.d!” Weitz whispered.
”A few of us escaped.” But not Phi's children, her first brood, he thought. More guilt, though she had never blamed him. ”In a heavily armed cruiser with a crew of ex-Rippers.”
He looked at Weitz. That was it. Even through the haze of withdrawal, he knew he had his answer: Weitz thought Trelayne still had a band of ex-Rippers at hand, battle-proven trained killers with super-human reflexes and their own Scream supply. Something like hope tried to fight through the black despair of his withdrawal. Weitz would try to deal first.