Shades of Gray (59 page)

 

Angrily, Kusac slammed the cell door behind him, leaving Banner to get the information their prisoner was spilling and see he got attention from the medic afterward. These long drawn-out questioning sessions were getting him down. Normally, he felt detached from his victim and remembered little or nothing about the sessions save for what he read later in the transcripts. He wasn’t the one causing the pain; it was the other’s lack of cooperation that was to blame. That had all changed a few minutes ago, when suddenly, like a sleeper pulled from the depths of a hellish nightmare, he woke to find it was only too real.

This was the last M’zullian to break, and it had taken a lot to break this officer. Even now, his prisoner sat, face bruised and bleeding, cradling the broken fingers on his right hand, telling Banner all they wanted to know about the Palace guards and security installations. How had he become that which he hated so much? How had it happened? What dark mood had possessed him so that he forgot who and what he really was in this cold determination to break another sentient’s will?

But you needed to be this hard to force them to speak
, said a little voice deep inside.
No one else would do what you had to, except Kezule, and he’d have killed them too soon. And time is running out.

“Dammit,” he snarled, pounding his fist into the ancient stone wall, then wincing when it hurt. Distracted, he flexed his knuckles, seeing the blood welling up on the grazes as they began to swell. It hurt like hell, but it did still that hideous inner voice that egged him on to further callousness, the voice he was sure was the same as the one that had tried to stop him healing Zsurtul.

He wished he could go to Kaid, tell him everything, ask for his help—lay his head in Carrie’s lap and . . . He could do none of it if he was to protect them from this insidious presence that seemed able to control him without him even realizing it. How could it follow him around like this? Had the TeLaxaudin Kzizysus planted some control device in his brain when he was on the Cabbaran shuttle? They’d promised no implants, but had he honored that promise? Tirak had been there. Perhaps he knew something, but would he tell him the truth, or was he part of some conspiracy to use him? To what ends, though? None of it made any sense right now, and it wouldn’t until he knew the right questions to ask himself and others.

He began walking, heading aimlessly back to the surface, making his mind as blank as possible. There was no running away from this; he knew that. The only escape was to discover what was causing it. A chill breeze fanned against his face, bringing with it the aromas of food and hot herbal drinks. Blinking, he realized that he stood at the edge of the Great Courtyard and that night had fallen. The bright lights of the cafes, tables set in the courtyard itself now the rubble was gone, beckoned with promises of food, drink, including alcohol, and companionship. From where he stood, he could see several tables occupied by Sholans. A flash of a golden pelt drew his eyes, and he identified his sister with her mate, Dzaka.

His stomach growled, informing him he was hungry. Right now, though, family was not what he needed. Turning his back on the courtyard, he headed into the main Palace, deciding he’d call the kitchens and get something sent to his room. On the third floor, as he was heading down the corridor to the elevator, he saw Naacha approaching him. Memories stirred: there was something he’d wanted to ask the Cabbaran, but he was damned, now the opportunity presented itself, if he could remember what it was.

He veered to one side to avoid him as he trotted down the center of the corridor. However, just before they drew level, Naacha stopped and, rearing up onto his haunches, spoke to him.

“Wait, Hunter.”

Baffled, he stopped beside the alien. “Hunter?” he asked, letting the other make eye contact with him.

Look away!
Something inside yammered at him.
Don’t look at the tattoos!
Of course, he did . . .

 

It took only a moment for Naacha to take control of Kusac’s mind, but it took a lot more effort to keep it, he discovered, as, without words, he led the way to the growth labs and the TeLaxaudin quarters. At the security post guarding the way into the labs, the guards merely nodded at them and stepped aside.

Naacha stopped at Giyarishis’ office, empty right now he knew, and urged Kusac inside. Now that they were no longer moving and there was no danger of being disturbed, he was able to strengthen his hold on the other’s mind. Mentally ordering him to sit on the sofa and relax, Naacha reached into one of his belt pouches to draw out the small portable sleep tape unit, which, with the aid of its adhesive backing, he managed to fix to Kusac’s forehead.

The process of planting the information on where to find the other half of the matter transformer and how to ensure it produced the nanites they wanted and then destroyed itself would take only half an hour. Meanwhile, with the Hunter’s mind occupied with the learning tape, he could easily look for the information that Shvosi had asked for.

Dragging one of Giyarishis’ cushions nearer the sofa, he sat down to begin searching through the slowly moving electrical signals that formed the Hunter’s thoughts. He had just finished and was waiting for the tape to end when Giyarishis arrived.

Folding himself down beside the Cabbaran, Giyarishis showed the other a small ampoule filled with a clear liquid.

“Kouansishus finished carriers for us,” he said. “When we use?”

“Timing critical,” said Naacha. “Too late, and no chance to insert. No schedule given?”

“None.”

Naacha sniffed his annoyance. “Give,” he said, holding out his hand.

When Giyarishis had given it to him, he closed his spatulate hoof-tipped fingers around it and began to feel his way into the electronic commands of the tiny self-replicating nanites suspended in the saline solution. Already tired from the work he’d done, this would drain him, he knew. At least with the nanites, there was no need to be subtle. He checked their programming, adding a few more commands to the string, then handed the vial back to the TeLaxaudin.

“Give now. Under the skin they will lodge till needed, then will be released.”

Giyarishis got up and went to fetch a hypo spray. “Worried I am,” he said, coming back over as the Cabbaran removed the sleep tape unit from Kusac’s forehead. “Kuvaa tell me this will of her party, not Camarilla. We must ignore their orders and do what she commands.”

“So?” asked Naacha, putting the device away.

“Conflicting commands already I had from Kuvaa. She push for Link between Sand-dweller and Hunter, then next message she say not do when I ask. Several times this happen.”

Naacha shifted on the cushions. “Ask her then.”

“She get angry,” said Giyarishis, lenses whirling in distress as he pressed the hypo to Kusac’s right wrist. “Not sure . . . not sure I talk to Kuvaa sometimes, she so different.”

The mystic looked down his long snout at the slender TeLaxaudin. “Hunter behaving in way that angers those around. You controlled him.”

“Kuvaa order it. Even last night she said do.”

Naacha sucked in a breath, his whiskers bristling as he did. “No,” was all he said.

“Looked like Kuvaa,” said Giyarishis, putting the hypo on his desk. “If not, who?”

“Had she new tattoos?”

“No.”

“I tell Annuur. Tell him any new orders first. Something very wrong here. Kuvaa got Camarilla tattoos two nights ago.”

A movement from the sofa drew his attention as Kusac began to stir.

“Leave,” said Naacha, reaching out mentally to keep him unconscious a little longer. “He wakes, you must not be seen.”

 

He felt a light icy pressure against his lips, followed by a gut-wrenching sensation of falling that made him stagger and reach out hastily to steady himself against the wall. The hazy shape of a white-pelted Sholan stood in front of him, her hand moving back as if she’d just touched him.
Remember
. Smiling, she turned and walked away, leaving him shaking with the cold.

He blinked, and the vision was gone, only Naacha and the corridor remained. Unconsciously he rubbed an itchy spot on the inside of his wrist and looked at the Cabbaran. With a grunt that could mean anything, Naacha trotted past him, leaving him standing there bewildered and alone.

 

Kaid’s investigation into the assassin had turned up nothing concrete. The Sholan was ex-Forces, discharged dishonorably after serving a prison term for drug-related crimes. His last known residence had been in the Accommodation Guild-house in Shanagi, the Sholan capital. This information L’Seuli had gotten for them. Somehow, someone had managed to secure a position for him on the
Khalossa
. They were still trying to find out who.

Kusac put the report aside on his desk and sighed. The only person who could pull off a stunt like that was Raiban, but it was too transparent for her, in one way. As a covert attempt on his life, it had been done far too publicly, and the dead Sholan had traces of illegal drugs in his system. Raiban, head of Military Intelligence and the titular head of the Sholan Security Council, wouldn’t be so stupid as to employ a real drug addict. More questions and no answers.

He ran his free hand across his face then let it drop to the desktop. He was tired; he hadn’t slept well again the last couple of nights because of formless, confused dreams about the assassination attempt, Vartra, and Kuushoi. He knew what had triggered them—his hallucination of the other night—but knowing why didn’t help. On top of that, it was Carrie’s Link day with Kaid, and no matter what he did, he couldn’t shut out the echoes of their state.

A sudden burst of heat from his hand drew a yowl of pain from him as he dropped what he’d been holding back onto the desk. Like a child’s lump of clay, the chunk of bronze-colored metal that had once, on the Orbital, been an ornament of a norrta, was now formed into a perfect imprint of his curled fingers.

“What the hell . . .” He poked it tentatively, but it was now cool to the touch. Picking it up, he saw that the desk hadn’t been burned, only his hand. When he looked at it, he saw angry red welts on his palm and fingers.

He stared at them for a long moment before his common sense cut in and told him to go stick his hand under cold running water. It helped, but not much. Patting it dry on a small towel, he returned to the lounge. Torn between the need to go to the hospital across the hallway and the need to understand what he’d done, he tentatively picked up the lump again. This time, he didn’t look at it but rather tried to see past the outer shape, as he’d done with Zsurtul. He nearly dropped it again as suddenly he
saw
the crystalline structure of the metal, where the weak points and fault lines were.

Mentally he reassured himself that there was nothing strange in this, it was merely a skill the First Telepaths had possessed, like Jaisa from their trip to the past. In its present shape, it was a dead giveaway to the fact he’d been able to do something no one in their time could do.

Warmth filled his palm again as the outlines of the metal began to blur. He almost dropped it then and there, but he held on and tried to force the heat to radiate upward, away from his flesh. It was like watching something alive, one of the shapeless blobby creatures that lived in the holy tanks dotted all over the Palace. The metal seemed to become plastic, flowing downward to form a flatter, squatter shape. Gradually features emerged, ones that matched his memory of not the ornamental norrta, but the real one.

The enormity of what he was doing suddenly hit him. Cursing, he flung the metal away and sprang back, overturning his chair and almost tangling it around his legs. He stood in a defensive crouch for a full minute, breathing rapidly, feeling his palms go slick with the cold sweat of fear as he tried to make sense of what he’d done. Gradually, the tension left his body, and he straightened up, his still healing thigh muscles complaining bitterly at the unaccustomed stress on them. Picking the chair up and putting it back in its place, he went over to the low table by the sofa where a bowl of flowers, kept filled with fresh ones from the Palace gardens, lay. Taking one at random, a pink daisy-shaped one, he looked at it the same way, again suddenly seeing in his mind’s eye its cell structure. A touch
here,
and
there,
and the pink faded, changing to a sickly yellow.

Shaken, he put it back in the bowl. His burned hand reminded him it needed treatment. A moment’s thought in that direction and the pain faded. When he looked at it, only a slight reddening of the skin marked where the burns had been.

For the next half an hour, he went through his belongings feverishly, taking any likely item and looking at it, seeing how it was constructed and whether he was able to affect its structure. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to succeed or fail, but the need to know drove him on till, exhausted and ravenously hungry, he collapsed on the sofa.