Shadow Over Avalon (41 page)

Eyes still slitted, he scanned quickly without further movement of any sort. The room looked little more than a cube with no windows or doors. One possible access point seemed to be a square panel in the ceiling, and this explained light sources clamped to the walls. Feigning sleep, he rolled as if dreaming, for a view to the open side of his prison. His bed against a wall mirrored another across from him, which also held an occupant. The man’s stocky back faced him. A shock of close-cropped auburn hair streaked with gray looked familiar. The clothing wasn’t, being a black leather bodysuit and close-fitting Brethren-style boots of the same color. From his posture, the man seemed to hold something close to his face.

Above the other bed, two shelves held an assortment of books. Arthur took a good look, amazed. He recognized them from records as being sources of written learning, or entertainment, now obsolete since console teaching. A fiber-screen pulled back against a far wall showed a personal needs station of the most rudimentary construction.

Arthur didn’t feel sick anymore, nor did he have stomach cramps, but a faint trace of some soporific tasted sweet in his mouth. Without strength, he couldn’t focus will. So . . . they wanted him alive and helpless? Someone had guessed he surpassed his training schedule with the seers, that he could levitate, so they made certain his concentration failed through drugs. He expected his captors to secure him when someone spotted him awake through an inevitable com-eye.

Having prisoners paired up was a favorite seer tactic when interrogating the young. Fellow sufferers tended to share secrets. They hadn’t missed a trick. One option remained open to him: he possessed the ability to shut down life functions. He wasn’t going to end up as a mindless donor for their eugenics program.

Apparently moving in sleep again, he snagged his single covering with his free hand, so it fell over the bandages. Under that screen, he began to pick at the knot. Once his system cleared of drugs . . .

“Arthur, you’ve been awake for a good five minutes. I heard your breathing pattern change twice.” The man on the other bed rolled over to face him, shutting the book he was reading – Ambrose.

Arthur struggled up, looking around for a console. This room hadn’t one. The effort of rising sent his head spinning. He fell back against his pillow, cursing silently at his weakness.

“Easy, lad. This is a Brethren place. You’re safe here.”

Exactly what Ambrose would say to allay his suspicions. Clever, very clever. The covering still concealed his bandaged hand. He continued to worry at the knot.

“Don’t. It’s there to re-hydrate you.” Ambrose started to reach out, but held back when Arthur left off his picking. “The plan is to ship you out to Haven tomorrow, so don’t spoil it by downgrading your strength. There might not be another chance.”

Again it fitted the pattern. Give your victim the illusion of escape to gain his confidence. Arthur ran his eyes over Ambrose for any betrayal of body language.

“By the deeps, I’m not here by choice either,” Ambrose said, his voice low with anger. “Will you stop treating me like an enemy? I had an idea where you might go when you missed your duty roster. When I found the mess you left, I decided to check out my guess. I wasn’t prepared to deal with the snarling up of someone else’s plans you caused when you blundered into the Brethren. I found them helping you and that meant they needed me silenced, too. I don’t appreciate being forcibly restrained, although I’m relieved you will escape. I’m not sure now how much longer I could have protected you.”

“Protect? From what?” Arthur quizzed. He’d play the innocent for all it was worth.

“Don’t trust anybody? That’s good. I owe you an apology, lad. When you came to me, I should have listened to your problems. I should have cut you off from the Archive. Do you want to tell me what happened?”

“I snuck out of barracks to try some off-station food with my credits. Something didn’t agree with me.” Arthur looked at Ambrose with what he hoped was an innocent expression.

“Don’t play games with me. You nearly died.” Ambrose swung around to face Arthur, his anger apparent in the tension of his shoulders and neck. “As I recall, since I can’t get to a console to check my facts, violent nausea is a side effect of sudden termination from direct sensory playback. There have been similar incidents in the past, all resulting in fatalities. Ector told me you might try something risky. So, it turned sour on you, but at least you had the sense not to get help from medi-techs. You weren’t supposed to survive the experience by the look of things. What did you learn that made your existence a threat?”

“I think I have a problem digesting fungi,” Arthur suggested. He hoped whoever listened bit their nails down to the bone. “What are you reading?”

“You have depths, boy. I shall be sorry to lose you, assuming I survive this experience.” Ambrose passed over the book, opening it to a marked place. “Vaslov, a poem of his dealing with the darker side of human nature. It’s called ‘Shadow Walker’. You might find it contains a certain relevance to yourself. I suggest you read it while we wait for our captors. You may find certain truths to sustain you from the shock you will receive.”

Arthur didn’t rise to the obvious bait. He accepted the book with a smile, pretending to read while Ambrose selected another volume. When the man became engrossed, he turned his attention to the book.

Ambrose was right. He didn’t like the work, yet he could identify with it. Did destiny intend him to walk alone? He studied the verses again. Always, one stood apart from the rest in any society. That one might be the strongest, the wisest, or any other criterion relevant; the same theme always motivated the individual, a need to place the wellbeing of others first, accepting the mantle of loneliness as a leader. Shadow walker, a dark traveler . . . yes, Arthur identified with such a one.

Ambrose knew nothing of the cave-sitter. No one did. Arthur reviewed the lessons that strange being had imparted to an already condemned student; pertinent nonetheless. Why did the cave-sitter seek his death, and what did the being gain from Arthur’s nonexistence? In what way did his continued existence pose a threat, unless . . . ? What if two were one? There lay an unpleasant conclusion, fitting together too well – far too well. The dark traveler in Arthur set a new course. He prepared to wait out the final play, sure that his enemy would try again.

Awaking from a doze, disturbed by thoughts of reviewing Shadow, Arthur returned to his problem with the cave-sitter. Why had the being not let him remain in endless playback? The results would have been identical. Neutralized, he would be available to any seer need. Why bring him back in a way designed to cause death? That path made no sense, since it represented no obvious gain to the cave-sitter . . . or did it?

Finally, Arthur gave up trying to sleep. Bored as Ambrose, who paced back and forth, he considered the performance a very good act or . . . or maybe, he had misjudged the man.

Careful now, as any seer scheme always contained wheels within wheels. He could sense genuine regret from Ambrose; perhaps the man had no knowledge of the complete plot. One other factor inclined him to this notion: the effects of the soporifics were wearing off. His throat wasn’t so dry, and he wanted to urinate. Now he had the problems of being wired up to an apparatus. He tried sitting up. Weakness, yes, but no whirling sensations. He swung his legs to the floor with exaggerated caution.

“You’re supposed to be resting.” Ambrose halted his endless pacing.

“I need to piss, and the bucket isn’t going to grow legs to walk over here.”

“Wait a moment. I have instructions to free you when this need came.” Ambrose approached to unwrap the bandages.

A fine metal rod lay at the end of flexible tubing and stuck into the top of Arthur’s hand.

“This will hurt. Hold still.”

Ambrose pulled, causing a dull pain.

A bruised area colored Arthur’s hand. He flexed it, feeling soreness. “Thank you.”

“No problem. Do you need help walking?”

“I’d like to try by myself first.” Arthur started up with legs like wet seaweed, yet he could walk. Once he reached his bed again, he tackled another urgent problem.

“When do we get fed?”

“Right now.” Ambrose hooked a box from under his bed to pass Arthur high-energy field rations. He selected standard fare for himself.

“Ambrose, I’m seer-trained. Once I have my strength back, I going to try to escape. Why give me the means?”

“I haven’t.” Ambrose frowned. “There’s a high-pitched sonic device directed into this room to prevent concentration of will. I know. I’ve tried levitation. I thought I’d get out easily, since none knew I have this ability, until now. I couldn’t raise myself a fraction. Try, by all means.” He looked at Arthur. “Maybe you have enough will to overcome it.”

Energy intake revitalized him. Arthur settled into a meditation posture to focus his will. Remembering the difficulties of his first experience in levitation, he disciplined his mind to exactitude. He began to rise.

Pain. Red, blinding pain exploded in his head. He became aware of the floor when he hit it. The agony stopped at that instant. Arthur nursed his bruises for a few moments then resumed his original posture.

“Ambrose, if I got to that panel before the counterstrike, I could get it open, at least. The next attempt might see me through. A sonic emitter of such strength must be close to us for maximum effect. I could disable it once I’m free. Together we have a chance of winning clear.”

“Yes, your plan could work if we linked, and then what? Where will you go? Even if you escape to the surface, you haven’t the experience to survive alone.”

Arthur lay down, staring with sightless intensity at the ceiling. He wondered why Ambrose didn’t want to escape with him, though the man admitted trying while Arthur was unconscious. His supreme commander seemed to agree with his confinement.

Closing his eyes, Arthur attempted to recall his last conscious memory before waking up in this prison. The images did not make sense, as he’d seen both Shadow and Copper. More than this, Shadow looked vibrant with life, in contradiction to the last image of her on Sanctuary personnel files. There her face was devoid of expression, with blank eyes staring through what could have been a wall. That five-year-old picture continued to haunt him.

The last answer he’d given to the cave-sitter fell short of the truth. Immersion in Shadow’s life gave him an escape from his own grim existence. He was caught up in her struggle to get her life back and find justice. Each time she seemed to make progress, fate dealt her another blow and that offended his sense of fairness. Leaving his review of her at the time she surrendered to her feelings for Copper had made him forget what had happened ten years afterward; Copper’s sudden death was the reason for the lifeless image of her.

Given hindsight, Arthur accepted that she had lived ten happy years, but this didn’t seem enough to him, not with her life before this time. Her face in the picture told him that she lived as an original Outcast, with no values or emotions, other than the hunt. She no longer cared whether she lived, and hadn’t since Copper’s death. Her occasional visits to Avalon since that time were a furtive slinking to get the technology she needed for continued function.

His last recollection had to be a hallucination, or was it? The Archive told him that Shadow and her son returned to Avalon. What if his pain and exhaustion played tricks with his eyes? What if he had seen her and superimposed his last image of her and her companion?

A slight tingling sensation warned him. He tensed his mental barriers in a reflex action against a probe. Arthur opened his eyes to look at Ambrose, letting amusement show in the upward tilt of his lips.

“Sorry, boy.” Ambrose shrugged as he withdrew his mental touch. “I am supposed to make certain you don’t make any desperate choices. They want you alive.”

“Who is ‘they’?” Arthur kept his smile fixed as if he did not understand the implications of Ambrose’s admission. Whoever held him knew he could shut down his life. That meant they needed to have a quorum of gifted seers on hand to override him if he started this action. A cold, hard lump developed in his chest as his worst nightmares returned to mock him. What if seers intend to force breeding viability by keeping him prisoner until he surrendered? Arthur’s smile died while he fought to keep his breathing normal. Whatever ‘they’ planned, he did not intend to let them see his fear.

“They will make themselves known to you when they are ready.”

“You’re afraid of them?” Arthur found it hard to believe anything could frighten a man he’d witnessed standing up to Evegena, yet Ambrose had a tightening of skin around his eyes.

“I’m here against my will, aren’t I? I’m rated as psi ten, not easy to control, yet I’m a prisoner. I have strict instructions regarding you. They need you safe to protect Morgan while she matures, and that’s probably saying too much. It’ll be Haven or another Brethren place.”

“Ector’s Morgan?” Arthur used a casual tone as if he didn’t really care. Every sense came to full alert.

“Why didn’t you come to me when you needed help?” Ambrose countered.

Arthur smiled as he savored the point he had just scored. His commander confirmed the needed answer by body language. So, Ambrose believed Morgan to be central to whatever plots the man thought he’d interrupted. Why Morgan? Barracks rumored that the child resulted from a liaison between Ector and one of the Brethren women. The child had actually scored zero on a psi rating, as well as having a much finer skin than normal for a Submariner child, substantiating hearsay. But Ambrose held personal friendship with Ector. Making Ambrose think Morgan taken by Brethren could be enough to guarantee his good behavior. Why target Ector, though? Why would Brethren need a lever against him?