Eternity's End (40 page)

// Likelihood: he will be freed when he is freed. Likelihood: whatever intelnet agent detected and trapped him will release him again when it chooses. There is probably nothing you can do.//

Legroeder circled around, studying Deutsch from various angles.
(Freem'n, if you can hear me—if I knew how to free you, I would. If you can speak, now is the time.)

Deutsch, unblinking, appeared to drool.

Legroeder made his decision grimly.
(I have to go ahead with the job, then—as we'd planned, in case of problems.)
He hesitated, afraid to say too much. He started to turn, then swung back.
(I'm sorry I doubted you for a moment back there, Freem'n. If I can find a way to help you—inside the intelnet or out—)
He ran out of words. What more could he say?

With a final wave, he rose on the clouds of steam and looked for a place to hide himself while he sorted out what to do next.

The plan, at this point, was of necessity vague. But he could feel, welling up through the augments, a series of datapacks intended to help him.

// We have prepared all the elements of a working ID for you. Are you ready to assume your new identity?//

(As ready as I'll ever be. Do you think it will work?)

// We analyzed the situation while you were exploring. Recommended action: create the impression that
you
set off the alarm against the Narseil. We can plant tracking indicators in the intelnet to convey this. Shall we do so now?//

He swallowed hard. It was one of the options in the plan—but it was difficult.
(All right.)

// Please stand by. We will attempt to establish your ID in the system.//

Legroeder held his breath, as a flower of light blossomed out from where he stood and rose into the upper layers of the intelnet interface. Its shoot vanished into the mists like a beanstalk.

A moment passed. There were flickerings of light at the top of his vision—the implants at work in his skull, doing whatever the hell they were doing. He felt a sudden blip between his eyes, and the space around him seemed to brighten suddenly, as though a dimmer switch had been nudged up.

// ID established.//

// Attempting to place tracking records. One moment... //

He waited anxiously, as a pattern of streaks shot up and out, twinkling as it spun a spiderweb path through the surrounding matrix. An instant later, it all came back, like a holo in reverse.

// Done.//

He felt a chill up his spine.
(What now?)

// For your own protection, you may wish to inspect your physical surroundings.//

Physical surroundings. Christ. Legroeder started to back out of the intelnet, then realized he could check from here. A series of windows opened around him like shutters: monitors showing the room he was sitting in and the surrounding corridors.

Full of raider commandos.

Full of Narseil with their hands clasped awkwardly behind their heads. Their face masks had been removed.

And seated at the console, two motionless figures. He recognized Deutsch first, then himself. He had nearly forgotten what he looked like, with his flaring, umbrella-cut grey hair.

Surrounded by the enemy.

// Reminder: you have an ID now. You are a member of this society. //

There was a brief flash of images. When it was over, he knew that according to his ID, he was a raider being transferred to this outpost, by way of having served as a spy on the Narseil ship. It should not be surprising if he had trouble finding his way around the station.

He drew a breath and pulled out of the intelnet. He found four cyborg commandos aiming laser weapons at him. Several others were flashing bright handlight beams around; all but the emergency illumination had been cut off. Beside him, Deutsch sat motionless as a statue, still plugged in. A raider gestured sharply. Legroeder raised his hands and lifted the com-helmet from his head. He glanced around, moving only his eyes. Fre'geel and several other Narseil were being held on the other side of the room. They were watching him closely.

An amplified baritone voice said, "Did you sound the alarm?"

It took him a moment, squinting through the shifting beams of light, to find the raider who had spoken—to make sure he was the one being addressed. He started to answer, then simply nodded, swallowing his words. His gaze drifted back to the Narseil. Some of them knew the role he was to play, but not all of them. Would they believe he'd betrayed them? It was necessary, to be convincing. His face burned as he forced himself to speak. "Yes. I set off the alarm. Along with him." He nudged Deutsch.

"You'll come with us, then," said the raider. "What's wrong with him?" He pointed his weapon at Deutsch.

"He—" Legroeder's voice caught as he tried to formulate an answer "—he got caught in a system loop, trying to help me get the alarm out. He... needs to be released. I don't know how." Legroeder hesitated, looking away from his crewmates as he uttered the words of betrayal. "I... was planted with the Narseil. Undercover. I'm from another outpost."

"Is that so?" The Kyber made a squawking sound and stepped up to slap his palm to a connector on the console. A second later, Deutsch slumped forward. A pair of guards lifted him effortlessly and carried him from the room. "We'll see to him," said the lead Kyber to Legroeder. "You come with me." He turned and made a sound like a grate opening. The other guards barked commands and raised their weapons—and for a terrible moment, Legroeder thought they were going to kill his friends on the spot. To his relief, they began herding the Narseil from the room.

Legroeder was escorted separately. Out in the corridor, he was pushed to the right, away from the Narseil. He felt a lump in his throat as he turned his back on his shipmates.

// It is part of the plan,//
said a voice in his head.

(Yeah,)
he muttered, and after that, the implants were silent.

The raider soldiers marched him through a maze of corridors and finally into a transport capsule set in a large vertical tube. He glanced at the stoic faces of the soldiers and wondered if, with experience, he could learn to read the expressions on those cyborg faces. He suddenly thought once more about what he was doing. It had taken him seven years to escape from a raider stronghold. Now he was walking into another.

The transport doors irised closed, and with an upward surge, they were moving.

Chapter 21

The Kyber Law

Legroeder felt a steady vibration through his hands, pressed to the back railing of the transport capsule. He couldn't tell where he was going—there were no windows in the capsule—but he could feel it streaking in a great long arc, and he imagined that they must be shooting away from the docking station toward some other part of the Kyber outpost. He glanced around, trying to gain some clue from his three escorts.

There was little expression on any of their faces, nor had anyone spoken to him since they'd left the control room. But the leader was busy talking to someone; his lips were moving silently but continuously, his gaze shifting back and forth between Legroeder and a small control panel near the door. Finally he nodded and touched a control, then settled into an alert stance with his eyes on Legroeder.

After several long minutes, the movement of the transport slackened. Legroeder gripped the rail as deceleration kicked in. No one stirred until the transport came to a stop.

The door irised open. The soldiers nudged him out into a concourse, brightly lit and full of people. Legroeder was amazed to see people walking around as though conducting normal, everyday business; he felt as if he had just crossed into another universe. This place looked nothing like the raider outpost at DeNoble, where he had been imprisoned; it was more like a spartan version of a space station in the Centrist Worlds.

The soldiers led him through a maze of corridors away from the concourse. They finally stopped at an arched doorway shrouded by a glimmering, translucent privacy-screen. Through the screen, Legroeder could make out the shape of a person sitting at a desk. The leader seemed nervous. "Time to speak to the law," he said.

The law? Legroeder wondered. At DeNoble, the law meant the autocratic rule of pirate bosses, with fear as the strongest motivator, and favoritism the next strongest. Would this be any different?

He followed the guard through the screen and found himself in a small anteroom facing—what? A receptionist? It was a woman—apparently—whose face was a chrome mask grafted onto a natural head, with tightly curled red hair. She had seemingly normal human limbs, but a torso of articulated metal. She sat on a swiveling stool, surrounded by suspended holograms of faces and incomprehensible designs. Most of the holos appeared to be rotating, or changing too quickly for Legroeder's eye to follow. The woman was turning back and forth, touching one holo after another. Each twinkled as she touched it, and she seemed to be subvocalizing at a tremendous rate of speed. What was she doing? Legroeder wondered.

The guard made a soft, guttural sound. For a moment, there was no response, as the woman continued with her silent conversations. Then the holos winked out, and she suddenly focused her attention on the people before her. "The new arrival?" she asked, her voice metallic and high pitched.

"Yes, Ma'am," the soldier said, and stepped back.

The woman looked at Legroeder. "State your name."

Legroeder froze, thoughts racing. What the hell name had he been ID'd under?

// Is there a problem? //

"Legroeder," said the woman. "Is that your name?"

(Did you ID me as Legroeder, for chrissake?)

There was a momentary hesitation in the system; he imagined the implants blinking at each other disconcertedly.
//We presented the options. You didn't specify another name.//

Legroeder tried to recall the moment, but everything had been chaos.
(You didn't include a picture with that ID, did you?)

// That is the normal procedure.//
And then, with what might have been a hint of contrition,
//Should we not have?//

(What picture did you use?)

// We took it from your memories.//

His heart sank as he saw his own mental image of himself. It was, of course, Legroeder as he had seen himself most of his life—as he had appeared before Com'peer and the Narseil med techs had remade his features. As he had appeared at DeNoble.

"What's the matter?" said the half-metal woman. "Your ID says Renwald Legroeder."

"Um—yes."

"And you have just arrived from a mission with one of the affiliates?"

"Yes, that's right." His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. "Kyber affiliates."

The woman's two eyes pulsed in alternating waves of intensity. Her gaze flicked for a moment to a new holo, another point of attention; it flicked back. "I didn't think you meant Narseil affiliates. You just turned in a shipful of Narseil infiltrators. Is that correct?"

Not trusting himself to speak, Legroeder nodded.

"Good. Then you will be seen for debriefing." Her glance shifted to the lead guard. "Take him in."

The guard gestured to Legroeder to circle around the receptionist, leaving the other two guards to wait. A whole new set of holos sprang up around the woman, who appeared to have already forgotten Legroeder.

A glowing doorway appeared behind the receptionist, and they passed through it into a darkened space. It was a room lit only by the glow of consoles—a great many consoles, lining the circumference of the room, and the ceiling, as well. Some displayed data, others holo-images. In the center of the room was a high-backed swivel chair, turned partly away from the door. Legroeder could just make out a woman in the chair, scanning a bank of consoles. A faint spatter of light seemed to flicker in the air in front of her.

The guard hesitated—and finally Legroeder himself cleared his throat. Before he could speak, a voice broke the silence.
"You may leave him with me and return to your post."
It was a female voice, but electronically distorted. He thought it was the voice of the woman in the chair, but it came through speakers around the room.

The guard nodded, turned, and left the room hurriedly.

"Step forward."

Legroeder circled around to approach her from the front.

The woman in the chair was more human looking than the receptionist, but also more startling. She seemed to have all the normal human body parts—but her face was alight, sparkling with fire. At first he thought it was all reflections from the consoles; then he realized it was coming from her face—rather like a dance-floor laser, spinning out dazzling rays faster than the eye could follow. At first he could not see her actual eyes; then she turned her head and he saw a pair of smoldering embers. He shivered, before realizing that she was wearing some kind of clear mask on her face, and
that
was the source of the dazzling light and glowing eyes.

Legroeder started to speak, but the woman raised a hand, pressing it against thin air. Her other hand was busy manipulating something on the left arm of her chair. "You are Renwald Legroeder?" she said after a moment.

"Yes."

"I'm Tracy-Ace/Alfa. I've been expecting you."

Expecting me?

She leaned forward, staring at him. "Correct me if I am wrong. It is my understanding that you have come to us, indirectly, from an affiliate Kyber settlement. And that you were—what was the word?—a 'plant' aboard the Narseil ship that encountered
Flechette
. Are those facts correct?"

// That is how you were ID'd,//
his implants informed him.

"Yes," Legroeder answered.

"You look different from your ID photo." Half question, half accusation.

He stiffened. "Yes, I—" He hesitated, then decided that the truth might be as good a cover as a lie. "The Narseil made some changes to my appearance, to conceal my previous identity in case of capture. I'd... persuaded them that I'd joined their cause."