Glory Main (26 page)

Mortas sat down heavily, the strain of the ordeal starting to slip away. His stomach growled in anticipation, but he fought the urge to ask about food. He crossed one leg over the other and began unfastening his boots, marveling at how scuffed up and filthy they were. He turned the first boot over once it was off and shook his head when he looked at the wear on the sole. They'd been almost brand new when he'd awakened in his transit tube, believing that he was about to be assigned to his first platoon. That idea reminded him of something he'd said an age ago, when they'd met the crazy major who'd tried to kill him.

This is my platoon.

He looked over at Trent, who was pulling off a bloody sock while keeping a fearful eye on the decontamination cylinders.

My platoon's dead. Only brought one of them out.

He pulled off the other boot absently, not noticing the stains on his socks.

What did Cranther call me, the first time we met?
Lieutenant Death
.

His torn tunic came off next, still stiff from all the blood, both Sim and human. He poked a finger through one of many circular holes in the back, only now recognizing them as burn holes from the explosion and the fire back at the drome. Dry mud flaked off of his trousers as he slid them down, wincing at his shoulder injury when he reached for the field dressing on his wounded leg.

Seeing his own injury, he looked over at Trent in time to see her slide out of the worn flight suit. If she'd been wearing a bra at the beginning of their experience she'd lost it along the way, and he tried not to stare. Her white skin was streaked with dirt, and just below her left breast there was a long, red scrape that ran around her ribs. A miracle that the spear-­shaped shrapnel hadn't impaled her.

“Hey.”

She turned unfocused eyes toward him, and he gave her a reassuring grin before reaching out and running a thumb along the scratch on her side. “Thanks for not dying on me.”

Trent offered him a weak smile before standing and shucking down her underwear. Though filthy and slightly emaciated, her body was toned and shapely and even in his debilitated state he found it desirable. She pulled off Cranther's skull cap and he was surprised to see how much hair spilled out from underneath it. Stripping off the last of his own clothes, Mortas wondered if they'd be separated after decontamination or if they'd at least be allowed to eat together. He opened his mouth to put the thought into a question just as the tubes, silent and immobile until then, gave off a loud rush of escaping air and began to rise toward the high ceiling. Each one left behind a circular raised pad with a shiny grate made up of small, finger-­sized openings presumably designed to let the liquid decontamination spray drain out.

Mortas winced with his first barefoot step, and looked down to see a pair of feet he hardly recognized. Covered in grime, they still showed the pale yellow flaps of healing blisters and the roughened ridges of cellulitis. Both his big toes bore purple welts that suggested he'd bled under the cuticles, and the nail on his left little toe was actually missing. He felt something brush his palm, and then realized that Trent was taking his hand as they walked. The hand shook until it gripped his, hard.

“It's all right. They're just gonna wash us off, and then we'll get nice clean clothes and some hot food, and then they'll have the docs check us out.” She didn't respond, and began to slow down as they got closer to the pads.

“Listen.” He leaned in, for the first time becoming aware of how foul they both smelled. “You just look at me while this is going on. All right? Look right in my eyes, until they hit us with the suds of course, but you just look right at me and everything will be fine. Heck, we got this far, what's a little shower?”

That seemed to reach her, and Trent gave him an embarrassed smile. “Thank you, Jan. Get me through this, okay?”

“I promise.” A quick hand squeeze, and he stepped up onto the pad. “See? Nothing to it.”

The cylinder slid down, locking him in, and he watched as Trent's did the same. He reached out and plunked the transparent wall with his middle finger to see how thick it was, and the stab of pain told him he wouldn't be beating his way out anytime soon. A fan-­like orifice opened far over his head, and he watched as a heavy mist descended. It was laden with some kind of liquid, and he shivered just a bit as it washed over his naked body. Unseen particles began chewing deep into his pores, and he passed Trent a thumbs-­up that she didn't return.

Motion outside the tube caught his eye, and he turned to see two forms in bulky chemical suits entering the room. They carried large white bags, and quickly collected everything that he and Trent had brought or worn. He beat a flat hand against the side of the tube, trying to get their attention, but they were already leaving. The Banshee followed them out, and the door shut behind the trio without a sign from any of them.

Confused, he found Trent's worried eyes on him and tried calling out her name. She raised a hand to an ear and shook her head to indicate she couldn't hear him, and he gave her a helpless shrug. Mortas looked up, hoping to see the decontamination chemicals on the way, but was surprised to observe an orange circle of light forming around the top of the tube. A similar pattern had appeared far over Trent's head, and it now began moving slowly downward, flickering with an inner energy.

“It's just a scan.” He mouthed the words elaborately, hoping Trent would understand. The orange band crept closer, inexorable, sliding, and for no reason at all he was reminded of the fiendish serpents that had lain in wait beneath the water on the planet that had almost killed them.

His eyes then filled with an orange light, and he felt a heat penetrating his skull as the band slid downward. A cavity in one of his teeth jumped in pain as the scan progressed, but then it was warming his throat and he flexed his injured shoulder, hopeful it would relieve the soreness.

Might as well get
something
out of this.

The thought of heat on the injured joint got him longing for the warmth of the shower that he imagined they'd be taking next, and he shut his eyes in anticipation as the scan went on. A long, hot shower, lots of soap, scrubbing off the dirt and the blood and the sweat, sending it all down the drain . . . and then a big meal. Two big meals, both with rich desserts. And coffee and maybe even some alcohol. His system was so completely beaten down that he imagined a good stiff drink would render him insensate, but perhaps a small glass of wine or beer . . .

The alarm startled him, and his eyes snapped open at the noise. It was loud, frightening, a series of grinding woops that came right through the cylinder's walls even as the room's lights dimmed and a revolving red light activated in the ceiling. A mechanical voice began bleating, but at first he couldn't hear it over the horn. His hands reached out for the security of the glass, and he locked eyes with Trent in the other tube.

That is, he locked eyes with whatever Trent actually was.

A heavier mist was cascading down on her, but she wasn't fighting it. Her arms were hanging at her side, and her forehead was pressed against the tube with the blue eyes fastened on his. They drilled into him across the short distance, intense, hate-­filled, accompanied by a sneer of such consuming malice that he screamed out loud.

Now he remembered it, the face he'd first seen looking at him in his transit tube, the one that had made him shriek in surprise. This was the face he'd seen then, not the kind, caring Trent but whatever this was. It seemed to read his mind, and the dark sneer changed into a smile of recognition even as the mechanical voice finally reached him.

“Alien presence detected. Alien presence detected. Maximum security protocol in effect. Secure all hatches. All personnel are to remain in place and prepare to defend the station. Alien life form is unidentified—­”

The robot's words cut out with no warning, as did the blasting alarm. It was as if Mortas had been suddenly struck deaf. The red light kept turning, throwing insane shadows across the darkened room, but it was the new words, the new thoughts, the new images that now consumed him. Taking over, boring into his mind.

What had Major Shalley said? Just before Cranther killed him? That Trent's words had bored into him. Guess he wasn't so crazy after—­

The thought was torn from his brain and blown away like a feather in a tornado, but the spinning winds carried new things. Memories Mortas didn't recognize, images he couldn't have possibly seen, and a voice that wasn't his.

It wasn't Trent's either.

“Trent lied to us.”

His head exploded with a series of pictures, a movie made from the chopped-­up pieces of someone else's experiences. Amelia Trent—­the real Amelia Trent—­pinned to a surgical table wearing a torn, soiled uniform, writhing while electricity coursed through her. Screaming, convulsing, tugging at the restraints. Face constricted in true terror, even when the current was turned off. A voice in her head. Pulling, twisting, tearing. Searching.

The same voice that was now in his.

“Trent kept the blisters from me. She was a long-­distance runner. She knew about them, but she managed to hide it. You almost caught me with that one.”

Mortas felt himself holding a dry, unmarked foot just days earlier. Hers. Its. The feet that hadn't blistered, hadn't sweated, didn't even smell. Then a rush of other feet, covered with ugly bubbles of white and red. He recognized these images. They were his, and Gorman's, and then Trent's because this thing had copied them, transformed itself in imitation. Just as it had transformed itself to become Amelia Trent.

“Took forever to break her, and even then she took a few secrets with her. She was much stronger than we thought, but you wouldn't have expected that any more than we did, would you? That's why we chose her—­a psychoanalyst was perfect cover. No skills your group would need, and you had no understanding of her job. You expected nothing from me, believed whatever I said about her time in ser­vice.”

More familiar memories. Cranther belittling her and Gorman. His own misguided disappointment at being saddled with the two presumably useless bodies from the rear echelon. His anger when they'd found the decapitated soldier in the debris field and he'd believed Trent was studying his reaction. And now knowing she—­whatever this
thing
was—­had been doing just that.

“Chose you all that way. The perfect team.”

Mortas flinched with the new rush of sensory input, his brain vibrating like a motor. His hands slid off the glass, but he didn't see them fall. Instead, a flood of images told him the story of how they'd been selected from all the Forcemembers the Sims had captured asleep in their transit tubes.

Gorman for his navigational skills and knowledge of the stars. Cranther because a Spartacan would be required to head for the closest major headquarters. Mortas to lead them, but so new that he could be manipulated. All lean, all young, all strong.

“That's right. You were all prisoners. Your transports were captured while you slept in your transit tubes.”

Trent had been taken much earlier, so that the thing could learn her. Gorman had been captured on a different transport, just a few days before they'd gained the incredible prize of the Spartacan Scout. Mortas now saw teams of Sim technicians circulating among the transit tubes, chattering, examining, making notations in handheld devices while something else, a presence, floated above it all. Slowly descending, circling, approaching the window of one tube, looking in at the sleeping face.

His face.

Mortas sat down hard, still blind, still deaf. Seeing only what the thing wanted him to see, hearing only what it wanted him to hear.

“The attack threw off the whole plan.”

An empty Insert, slung under giant flying machines, cut loose so that it fell straight down, cracking open, then dragged forward until it was wedged between two ridges on an orange-­colored planet. Sinister movers rolling forward to transfer the transit tubes containing the living prisoners . . . and the dead ones.

“Didn't consider the possibility there'd be an attack. Left the Insert there for three days to let the power run down so you'd wake up naturally. I babysat all of you for three days . . . and somewhere in the middle of that, the humans made a full-­on assault on the colony.”

A mixed memory now, part his, part hers, part its. Trent's confusion and near-­hysteria at not seeing any animal life, any birds. Hiding her true concern, the alarm at not seeing Sim aircraft overhead that would guide them to the colony. The colony that wasn't supposed to be there. The colony that a good Spartacan would have to report to the highest-­level headquarters he could reach, if he could steal the ship that had been prepped and set aside for them. The ship that had been wrecked along with all of the others when the humans attacked.

“That ruined the entire plan. But you got me here anyway, the three of you. Gorman figured out where we were. Cranther and you killed for us. And then, when you completely folded up on me, I got you the rest of the way out of there. I was always ready to do that.”

Explosions. He was her now, could feel Gorman's arm over his shoulder, stumbling along toward the Wren, and then both of them thrown across the tarmac, slammed down in a crunching, crushing heap, multiple broken bones, rolling, searing fire in his side and he looked down and there was this spear sticking all the way through him. Pulling it out, marveling at all that pain, already sealing off the wound and mending the bones as a man ran up crying—­it was him but how could it be him when he was her, the Mortas figure saying he was sorry, certain that Gorman was dead and that he as she was going to die shortly too.

It ended with a jolt as if he'd been slapped. Mortas's eyes popped open and he was sitting there, emptied, staring at the thing in the tube across from him. The room swam in the red light, but he'd only been given his sight back. The thing pushed off from the glass, coming to Amelia Trent's full height. The malicious glare disappeared, and for just a moment the thing regarded him with compassion.