In Enemy Hands (5 page)

Srin’s fingers were skimming her back, dipping down the curve of her back to cup her buttocks, sending dozens of tiny shivers through her body. Her nipples were already hard from his touch.

Moon wanted his deceptive assertiveness, wanted to explore the hardness of a body that she could feel through her own, and surrender to whatever he wanted to do to her. She was sick of thinking. All she had done for the past three years was think. She held intellectual achievement up as the only goal left in her now solitary life. The trembling touch of Srin reminded her that she had needs beyond the merely cognitive, if only she could bear to be reminded of them.

Eventually, he tore himself away, his breathing ragged and uneven. The intensity in his pale eyes not only warmed her but set her on fire.

“I’ve always thought life is too short,” he said in a half whisper. “You’ve got to grab happiness whenever you can.”

“Is that what you’re doing?”

He stepped away, slow and reluctant. “It’s what I’d
like
to do.”

“With me?”

“With you.”

She hesitated, on the brink of making a choice regarding a question she had never even considered before. The specifics of the equipment surrounding them faded into the background, only their blinking lights visible. Moon imagined herself away from the ship, just the two of them on a planet somewhere, civilised life—for the moment—far behind them. But, was that image alone enough?

“It doesn’t have to be now,” he said into the faltering silence, kissing her forehead. “How long do you think your experiments will take?”

The heat from his breath against her skin made it hard for Moon to concentrate. She closed her eyes to block out the sight of his face, so close to hers, but the scent from his body still teased her senses. “Well, we need to get to the Suzuki Mass. That will probably take six or eight weeks.” She opened her eyes. “Then several weeks for experiments. And then we have to get back.”

“So you’re saying perhaps six months.”

Yes, that sounded about right. Moon nodded.

“A lifetime,” he murmured.

Moon smiled and dropped her head on his chest.

Yes. They had plenty of time. There was no need to rush.

The wonder of it was, she didn’t feel the slightest bit guilty.

Moon tripped around the space of her quarters, humming under her breath. After she and Srin parted the previous night, she sat at her private console, reviewing her working equations. Despite the small intimacies she had shared with him—or perhaps because of them?—the numbers and symbols on the screen seemed sharper than normal, her own thinking more acute. It took an effort to lie in bed and close her eyes. She felt as though she had been jolted by electricity, her body alert and humming.

And the sensation didn’t diminish when she woke up the next morning, her vestige of anxiety dissolved on the slumberous night air. What was there to feel guilty about? She was a civilian and so was Srin. And they were both consenting adults. It made her lips quirk to think that there wasn’t a thing anybody could do about the situation. She could, for once, thumb her nose at the all-powerful Republic, knowing both she and Srin were too valuable to remove from the project. Remove? Without them, there
was
no project!

Of course she wasn’t about to create romantic fantasies out of nothing. Moon always considered herself a practical person. But she was free to explore her dormant sexuality with someone she found attractive. Someone who appealed to both her mind and body. When was the last time she had felt like that?

Washing and dressing quickly, she decided to skip breakfast and opt for an early start on the day. With any luck, Srin would be feeling the same way. Perhaps, between them, they could iron out some small discrepancies in her formulae, then break for an early lunch.

The lab looked the same as it did the previous day. It was only Moon’s imagination that made it seem different. She was much happier about the empty space that should have been occupied by a high-powered computer. Who would have thought the substitute would have been so much more interesting than the original?

Not willing to appear overeager, Moon finally unpacked her data files, transferring her private research logs to the library unit and setting up the daemon to link her findings to the general knowledge base. That process would take at least an hour, she knew. Her notes were extensive.

She set up her major equations on the giant clearboard in the middle of the room and was eyeing each mathematical phrase pensively when she heard a movement behind her. Turning, she saw Srin and Hen Savic enter. She couldn’t stop the wide smile that stretched her lips.

“Srin,” she said, laughter in her tone. “You’re just in time. I want to run some basic computations past you.” She knew she was rushing him, speaking in an enthused staccato, but couldn’t help herself. She was full of energy, and didn’t care if the universe knew it. “I have the feeling I need to modify LeCoeur’s Constant regarding the behaviour of gravity waves in compressed environments. Those are compressed stellar-based fusion environments, of course. We have to start formulating the influence of electromagnetism, radiation and temperature, so we have a lot of work to start today.”

She was looking at him, searching his face for every nuance of expression, trying to send him her own message.

Yes, I’m ready. Yes, let’s explore what we have. Yes.

So she was a little surprised, but not unduly so, by the flicker of incomprehension that flitted across his face.

He might not know about LeCoeur’s Constant, she told herself. Not that it was such an issue. It was easy enough to remedy, especially with someone of his obvious intelligence.

But the puzzlement continued, deepened. She began to feel the first stirrings of unease. It blossomed into full-scale panic at his next words.

“I’m sorry,” he said, in that preternaturally calm voice, “and please excuse my rudeness, but…do I know you?”

“Do you…?”

There was a pounding in Moon’s head as she gazed in disbelief at Srin, standing there with the same nonchalant attitude she’d seen the previous day. Before their dinner. Before their kiss. Could he really have forgotten what happened? Forgotten
her?
She felt the blood drain from her face.

What was going on?

Savic walked forward briskly and stood in front of her, blocking her view with his bulk.

“Perhaps I can discuss something with you, Dr. Thadin.” His voice was measured but there was a steely insistence underlying his characteristic rumble.

Moon frowned. “I don’t—”

“I really think it’s necessary,” he cut in.

She looked up and saw the determination on his face. Part of her wanted to stand her ground and bully her way through the confusion she felt. But another part wanted a quick answer as to what was going on. Judging by the fierce and intense expression on his face, Savic was going to be the best way to get it.

But, she told him with her own gaze, she was not going to put up with any prevarication. After the previous evening, both her intellect and her ego deserved better. She nodded—a quick curt movement of her head—and his shoulders relaxed. He turned to Srin, still blocking Moon from view.

“Srin, perhaps you could look over a brief I’ve prepared on the equipment in this lab.” Moon had to admit he hit just the right note in his tone of voice. Friendliness, combined with brisk professionalism.

“What about…?” She could only guess from Srin’s words that he made some kind of movement towards her. Once again, she was being shielded from what was going on. Was it because she was a woman? The thought set her temper simmering.

“I’ll talk to Dr. Thadin now and get everything sorted out. The brief is in the library meta-unit.”

There was a charged silence before Srin conceded. “All right.” His face bore an unusually grim expression. Moon knew from his tone that he would be taking the matter up with his “handler” at some point in the future.

At that point Savic put a hand around her upper arm and whisked her out of the lab.

Savic released her just as they cleared the doorway, but said nothing as he strode down the
Differential
’s corridors. Moon was almost gasping for breath, half running to keep up with his long legged stride, by the time they reached an anonymous door that opened into a small briefing room. Despite taking a gulp to steady her breathing, she didn’t wait for a comment or remark to open the discussion, but launched into it herself.

“What the hell’s going on?” she demanded, as the door shut behind them.

“I apologise, Dr. Thadin. I meant to explain the situation to you over breakfast this morning, but you didn’t appear in any of the canteens, and Srin was eager to begin work himself.”

She narrowed her eyes. “There’s something wrong with him, isn’t there?” Her heart dropped at the words, but she forced herself to say them calmly and dispassionately.

“Only if you describe genius as wrong.” He took a seat and gestured to another low chair on the opposite side of the table. “Please, sit down.”

“I’ll stand, if you don’t mind.” But she did place a hand on the back of the chair in front of her, unsure of whether she was using it as a shield or support.

“Very well.” He looked at the wall, but his gaze was focused far beyond that. Moon was used to that look, an indication that someone was putting his or her thoughts into order. She was content to wait, deliberately clearing her own mind so she wouldn’t jump to any erroneous conclusions.

After a heavy silence, Savic pulled a deep breath into his lungs and let it out on a long exhale.

“Srin is unique,” he said. “The Republic has come across brilliant people before, but none who have been so easy to work with, especially considering their intellectual gifts. We discovered his talent almost twenty years ago and he’s been working for us ever since.”

“His mathematical talent, you mean.”

“Mathematical talent, processing power, perfect photographic memory, combined with unprecedented social skills, empathy. Srin’s got it all.”

Each word stung Moon as if it were physical, the barbs digging into her skin.

“If he has a perfect photographic memory,” she asked quietly, “why can’t he remember me?”

Savic changed position and pursed his lips. “Srin’s home world is Tonia III. He was a scientist himself, and did great work for the Republic while he was there. The Science Directorate, however, decided that he would be more productive if he moved closer to the centres of research within the Republic. When we first relocated Srin to the Science Hub at Tor Prime, he was very cooperative. At that time, we were only up to the Mark Two Quantaflex and, in comparison, his speed at calculating was?” Savic shook his head. “It was phenomenal, unbelievable. However, as we neared the end of the third year, he started getting dissatisfied with the work and the environment in general.”

“You knew him back then?”

“I was a researcher in xeno-neurobiology at the time. I was one of the very first scientists assigned to work with him.” There was a touch of pride in Savic’s voice.

Moon frowned. “So what happened? Did he get bored with what you were trying to do? Did he want to go back to his home-planet of Tonia III?”

“He didn’t understand the enormity of what we were doing.” Savic emphasised each word with a stress of his voice, looking annoyed. “We had projects lined up for years. Research he could have fast-tracked by years, decades, with only the slightest of efforts. We thought we were giving him everything he wanted, including the kind of challenges he would never have encountered in the backwaters of Tonia. But he still wasn’t satisfied. We wanted him to stay, but he wanted to leave. It didn’t matter what I tried,” Savic said, as an aside, “nothing seemed to change his mind. But the Science Directorate made their decision. Considering his importance and abilities, we needed—had to have—him cooperative and loyal to the Republic.”

Moon wondered whether the dawning horror in her mind was mirrored by the expression on her face. The lack of memory, his sense of calm, his unflappability—all of it could be explained by major surgical intervention. She could imagine it only too easily in her imagination, Srin’s muscular body laid out on an operating table, his head clamped, while surgeons manipulated his neurology with laser-scalpels and clamps within a glowing sterile field. Which neural links had they cut to create a compliant Srin? Did they even know what they were doing?

“You operated on him.” Her voice was hoarse with dread.

Savic laughed, a short humourless bark. “How uncouth do you think we are, Doctor? Surgery? Physically invasive techniques? We’re not barbarians.”

Not surgery? She blinked. “I don’t understand.”

“Have you heard of benzodiazepine?”

Moon repeated the word slowly. “Benzodiazepine.” She shook her head. It sounded only vaguely familiar, reminiscent of some of her undergraduate courses in biochemistry.

Pharmaceutical solutions.

Her grip on the chair back tightened.

“It’s a class of very useful drugs. They’re used as—” he waved his right hand in the air, “—tranquilisers, sedatives and muscle relaxants. A variant I was researching also had specific effects in terms of short-term memory loss, while maintaining basic cognitive functions.”

“So he’s on a drug you developed,” she said after a short pause. “A drug that keeps his mind clear while wiping his short-term memory.” She repressed a shiver, only the pale knuckles of her hand against the night dark upholstery of the chair betraying her distaste for what she was hearing and saying.

He nodded, a small congratulatory smile on his face. “Very good, Dr. Thadin. Yes, you’re correct. In fact, Srin even helped me in the final stages of the drug’s development. The memory effects were erratic at first but, through extensive experimentation over the years, I’ve managed to calibrate the dosage so it has an approximate two-day cycle. We’ve found that that’s the most optimum for the kind of work he’s doing. In fact, I was even able to add a cognitive enhancer to the mix, to maximise his abilities during that slice of time. Srin can retain information for two days, operating at peak efficiency for almost the entirety of that period, then almost all of it’s wiped and he begins life anew, as it were. In this way, we can test and double-test hypotheses in a very short amount of time, effectively trying out new scenarios every other day. The researchers who’ve used Srin’s talents have found the arrangement very useful.”

“And how long has he been living this two-day life?” Moon was compelled to ask.

“Eighteen years.”

Eighteen years. She almost buckled at the thought and it was only her death-grip on the chair that kept her upright.

Thousands of days with no memory beyond fleeting forty-eight hour snatches. Moon could barely comprehend what it meant to live such a life. There was no ability to establish long-term relationships, not friendships and certainly not romantic entanglements. There was no sense of one’s progress through life.

Eighteen years. Did he never look in a mirror and wonder why a young man should look the way he did? Srin’s face so obviously belonged to someone older, more mature, past the bravado of youth and more into the calmness of maturity.

She eased her grip, shoving the chair aside and leant forward, resting both hands, fingers outstretched, on the smooth table surface.

“How can he not know something’s wrong?” she asked, her voice vibrating with anger yet quiet, like a leashed jungle cat. “Hasn’t he noticed how he’s aged? How
you’ve
aged in the past two decades? If he lives the same two days over and over again, how can he not notice the difference between today and eighteen years ago?”

Savic sobered. He looked away, but there were no distractions beyond the bland furniture around them and the featureless panelled wall. When he met her gaze again, Moon could see the reluctant honesty in his eyes.

“I’ve told him that he suffers from a rare, mutated form of progeria—premature ageing. That’s why he looks older than he remembers. As for how
I
look…I don’t know. He’s never asked.”

“You don’t know,” she repeated, letting contempt creep into her voice. “You’ve been drugging a rational being for almost two decades, using an experimental drug that you developed, and you don’t know why he hasn’t figured out something’s wrong?”

Savic cleared his throat. “There may be some other side-effects I’m unaware of,” he rasped. “An interference with perception of another’s image perhaps. Or a previously unknown disconnect with long-term memories associated with facial recognition.”

She said nothing, letting her gaze burn into his.

“He’s been the only subject under such a drug regime for such an extended period of time,” he finished defensively. “I have no one to compare against.”

Moon was so livid she could hardly talk for a moment. When she did, her voice was icy and shaking with repressed emotion.

“You dare call yourself a scientist. A medical doctor. It’s supposed to be your duty to preserve life, not bend it according to some distorted vision of your own. It disgusts me that you think it’s ethical to treat another human being like this.”

The jibe made him straighten in the chair. With Moon leaning over the table, they were almost face to face.

“I’m also a member of the Republic, Dr. Thadin,” he responded coldly. “I know where my duty lies. And, despite what you may think of me, at least my own loyalty has never been questioned.”

Moon reared back as if she’d been slapped. With one sentence, Savic had turned the tables on her, and he’d done so very effectively. Once more, she was thrown back to the days just after Kad escaped the Phyllis Science Centre—back to the endless sessions of brutal questioning and the ruthless exposure of every facet of her life. Looking into his eyes, Moon knew Savic was privy to every detail of that period in her life.

“We’re both after the same thing, Doctor,” he said, after a pause. His voice was conciliatory, soothing. Moon hated it. “I can understand your womanly sensibilities may reach out and feel compassion for someone like Srin but, in the end, even you have to understand that he is just a tool.”

“One you’ve been assigned to fine tune,” Moon ground out through bloodless lips.

“One I
continue
to fine tune,” he corrected, but his voice was still kind, injected with a thread of superiority. “Whether you want to believe it or not, we both think alike, doing what’s necessary in order to carve out comfortable lives for ourselves. For me, that means making sure that Srin always performs to the maximum of his abilities. And, for you, that means detonating a successful stellar missile within the next four months. We need each other for both our goals to succeed.”

He gestured to her. “You need Srin. I need success. I am willing to overlook this outburst of emotionalism. After all, I realise you’ve been through a lot in the past few years, but—” he paused, “—I would hate to include any further outbursts of your temper in my regular reports to the Science Directorate.”

He smiled at her as if to a mischievous but repentant child. Moon curled her fingers into two tight fists.

“In that case,” she ground out through gritted teeth, “I thank you for your understanding, Dr. Savic. It won’t happen again.”

Moon walked stiffly out of the room. Initially she headed in the direction of her lab, then she changed her mind and wandered through the ship. Despite the number of people on board, she found the lack of surrounding conversation strange and unsettling. She was relieved when she found a small, enclosed observation deck. Thankfully, it was empty.

She padded silently to the viewport and gazed out into the all-encompassing blackness, letting out a pent-up breath in one huge rush.

So much for her naivety in thinking all was forgiven. She recognised Savic’s words for the veiled threat they were. As much as he was observing and reporting on Srin, it was now obvious that he was directed to do exactly the same thing to her. She wondered if she would ever be free of the crushing and mistrustful scrutiny of the Republic.