Song of Scarabaeus (13 page)

She approached the rad, hands up in what she hoped was a nonaggressive gesture.

“You don't have to kill me,” she said. “I don't work for the Crib anymore. I just want to help people—like those two women and the child.”

“You're a murderer!” the rad yelled, still struggling with the spur. It must have some sort of lock to the guard's arm. “I hear their souls screaming. Trillions of souls screaming each time you rape another planet. Murderer!”

The rad lifted the guard's forearm, pointing it toward Edie, and wrapped his hand around the guard's fingers, trying to locate the trigger.

The elevator doors opened. Edie whirled around and stared in disbelief at a familiar face.

Zeke.

Despite having spent the last hour determined to escape the rovers, Edie felt nothing but relief at seeing the op-teck.

Haller stepped out behind him. So, their escape had been discovered and they'd come to find her. And found her fighting for her life. From the determined looks on their faces, it must have been clear to the rad that Haller and Zeke were here for her.

The rad's arm jerked and the bulkhead behind Edie sizzled. He'd got the spur to fire, missing her by centimeters.

Zeke and Haller ran toward him, and the rad swung around, taking aim at them instead. A plate of decking exploded near Haller's feet.

The rad didn't get a third shot.

Ping
.
Ping
.
Ping
.

The rad flinched. Three shots, and then two more. His body was peppered with darts. For endless moments he hovered on the edge of balance. Then he collapsed, releasing the spur.

Zeke and Haller stared at the body, then turned in unison to find the source of the shots. Finn had managed to retrieve the dart gun from the other side of the deck, and used it to shoot the rad. Now Finn sagged to the floor again, oblivious to everything around him.

Edie rushed to his side as he clung with one hand to a railing on the bulkhead, trying to stop himself sliding all the way to the deck. Sweat dripped from his face. Still trembling from the ebbing adrenaline in her veins, Edie clutched Finn's arm, willing him to remain conscious.

He needed medical help, and fast.

Haller stormed toward her, red-faced, ready to explode into anger. Thankfully he was sensible enough to realize this wasn't the time.

“Stay away from us. Stay back!” she yelled, her arm going
protectively around Finn's shoulders. They had no weapons. They couldn't make her go with them.

Haller pulled up in surprise, but hesitated only a moment. He put up his hands in an unconvincing gesture of appeasement. “Get up. We're leaving.”

Edie's mind flashed back to another dying man in her arms, years ago. Lukas, choking in his own blood while Bethany lay dead nearby. Lukas had lived. She would make sure Finn lived, too.

“They poisoned him,” she said as Haller advanced again. “He needs help!”

“We'll help him. On the
Hoi
.”

She didn't believe that. Haller wanted Finn dead, had planned to abandon him to die. They couldn't go back with the rovers now. On Neuchasley, Finn would get medical help. Even if the authorities discovered who they really were, at least Finn had a chance. Assuming they weren't separated.

Beyond Haller, Zeke glanced nervously around. Like her, he must expect Security to appear at any moment. Edie twisted her hands into the fabric of Finn's jacket, anchoring herself to him. Let Haller try and drag her away.

“
Come on
, Edie.” Haller's voice grated with urgency. He was right behind her, leaning over her. He extended one hand and closed it around her fist, but she clung tighter to Finn.

Suddenly Haller's free arm swept around her neck, catching her throat in the bend of his elbow. He squeezed his arm, compressing her carotids, and pulled her back to arch her spine. Instinctively she grabbed his arm, but he was too strong. Stars danced in her vision and she went limp, catching Haller by surprise. She drew together all the energy she could muster and bucked forward, yanking his arm straighter, easing the pressure off her arteries.

“If you leave him…I won't cooperate. If he dies…”

Her voice was little more than a choking gasp. Haller pressed his knee solidly into the small of her back and she was pulled backward again. The pressure tightened and she could neither speak nor think. Within seconds the strength
drained from her body. Her head felt light and her vision narrowed.

Blackness rolled over her.

 

She was in a tiny dark place, and she sensed bodies huddled around her. A voice barked orders. Haller. What was he talking about? They were on some sort of shuttle or taxi, preparing to rendezvous with the
Hoi Polloi
.

They were leaving the station. Leaving Finn.

She tried to say something, but was hit with a wave of nausea that culminated in blackness again, and silence.

Edie turned her head and looked at Finn, lying unconscious on a gurney beside her. His bare chest rose and fell—unevenly, and too slowly.

She waited for her head to clear, for her thoughts to fall back into order. Then she remembered that she hadn't expected to see Finn here at all. They'd left him on the station, hadn't they? Left him to die.

“Enjoy your adventure, teckie?” Zeke's voice drifted across the room.

Her head turned slowly toward the op-teck. Every muscle in her body felt leaden. Her lungs ached to drag in air that was too warm and humid. They must have given her a mild tranq. Her eyes took in the familiar equipment and bulkheads of the infirmary on the
Hoi
.

Zeke came over and helped her sit up.

“Finn's here,” she said, because she still couldn't believe it. Her throat burned. “Is he okay?”

“Uh, not really. I mean, he will be, if—”

Edie pushed away Zeke's supporting arm and slid off the bunk. Her knees buckled and she grabbed the edge for sup
port. Looking around the room, all she saw was a blur of lights glinting off plazalloy surfaces.

“Did you identify the poison?”

“Hey, you need to rest up. I've done all I can.” His dismissive tone made her realize he didn't consider this his responsibility. “He's strong. Either he pulls through or—”

“Get out.” She turned on Zeke with a glare. “You don't care if he lives or dies, so just go away.”

She went to the nearest bench and rummaged around for anything she recognized. She wasn't a medic, but she knew biology, biochemistry, physiology. With a sequencer she could identify the poison, find out how it was affecting Finn's system, and reverse it. If it wasn't already too late.

“Dammit, you drag him all the way back here and then do nothing for him?” Furious, she blinked away tears, keeping her eyes averted so Zeke wouldn't see. “Why even bother? Doesn't anyone have med training? Why did no one help him? How long has it been?”

“Only about twenty minutes, I guess.” Zeke sounded wounded by her verbal attack but did not leave. “We did what we could. Stimulant for his heart. And a blood thinner, I think. Haller did it.”

Edie went to Finn's side. They'd removed his jacket and tee, and his chest bore angry red marks where the darts had struck. Someone had messily smeared medigel on his other wounds, the cuts caused by the broken plaz window. The underlying bruises from Haller's attack earlier in the day made the fresh wounds look worse than they probably were. Still, despite the hard lines of his obviously powerful body, Finn looked as helpless as a child.

The med tom displayed the brutal facts on a holoviz. Finn's heart rate and breathing were below normal, his body temperature was dropping, and his kidneys and liver threatened to shut down.

“I need a sequencer. Treating the symptoms isn't enough. He's dying.”

Zeke pulled open a locker and found the device. She drew a blood sample from Finn's arm, flinching at the feel of his clammy skin, and ran it through the sequencer.

She jacked in to watch it work while Zeke hovered in the background, staying out of her way. From the sequencer's readouts, Edie saw that the poison was altering one key metabolic pathway to cause a buildup of toxins, but fortunately not affecting the nervous system. That would have shut down Finn's lungs altogether. While the sequencer couldn't identify the chemical, the med tom suggested an antidote and Edie set about programming it to synthesize one.

She didn't understand why they'd rescued Finn, and it didn't matter. He had to live. The idea of being stuck on the
Hoi
without him was unbearable. If he died, she'd refuse to cooperate. That much she'd already decided. They'd taken away Lukas from her, but this time she'd fight harder.

“I think this will work.” She took a seat near the sequencer to wait for the antidote, clenching her sweaty palms into fists. “Why is it so hot in here?”

“Enviros are screwed up. Got the kid crawling around in the air ducts tracking down the problem. We've had a few systems twitching, toms misbehaving. Strange.” He shrugged. No doubt he'd remain unconcerned as long as his rigs weren't affected. He pointed to a pile of toms lying haphazardly in the corner, some of them belly-up, others oozing waste. “Haller wants you to take a look at the cleaner toms before the captain notices. Not that Rackham notices much these days. You may as well get started, while you wait.”

Grateful for a distraction, she selected a tom from the top of the pile and set it on the bench next to Zeke. He handed her a driver from his tool belt. As she flipped open the tom's port to release a steady dribble of greasy muck, she tried to make small talk.

“We're back under way?”

“Yup. Left port in a hurry, for obvious reasons. Haller had a taxi waiting and with luck the authorities at Neuchasley can't tie it to the
Hoi
.”

“When did you find out we were missing?”

“Haller broke into your quarters when he couldn't raise you on the comm.” He grinned, showing a mouthful of white teeth. “Your plan was kinda slapdash.”

“We had to improvise. We had no choice, Zeke. Haller threatened to kill him.”

“He's safe enough now. If he pulls through. Hell, he fought off three rads. We need him around.”

“Five rads.”

“Five!” Zeke's brow went up. “Well. I'll vouch for him. As long as you make him behave himself.”

She looked up sharply. “Don't talk about him like that.” Much as she wanted to remain on good terms with Zeke, she couldn't stand the way he wore his serf-handler hat.

Zeke threw up his hands with an exasperated grunt and hopped down from the bench. Asking him to treat a serf as a human being was just too much for him.

“I'm gonna head back to my rigs. You need anything, let me know.”

“I might need a hand with these toms. It looks like they haven't reported to a maintenance booth for twenty-four hours. They're all clogged up.”

“I know that. That's why Haller wants
you
to fix them.”

She didn't miss the word he emphasized. “So, scooping out gunk is my punishment?”

“Believe me, it could've been worse.” Zeke stepped out of the infirmary without elaborating, snapping the hatch behind him.

As Edie pushed her finger against the tom's jack point to check its internals, she shuddered to think what “worse” might mean. Her memory of Haller grabbing her was fuzzy but terrifying—the calm, calculating way he'd clenched her neck until she passed out. So unlike the brutal violence of the serf Ademo, and yet they'd both had no compunction about forcing their will on her. Ademo had been desperate for freedom, and Haller had been desperate for—what? Was it only greed that prompted him to use her, or was he
truly devoted to helping the Fringers? He'd claimed as much during their first meeting, but it was hard to believe.

She glanced over her shoulder at Finn, stretched out on the gurney, his features relaxed and vulnerable. Her chest constricted with fear for his life. He had been her source of strength for the past two days, her only true ally on the ship for the simple reason they were both here against their will.

The sequencer beeped. Edie washed the oily filth off her hands. Fingers shaking with fatigue, she extracted a vial from the machine and slotted it into a spike. When she pressed the needle against Finn's neck, he stirred but did not wake.

There was nothing more she could do for now. With a med tom keeping watch, she'd be alerted to any change in his condition. What she really wanted to do was sleep. Her muscles were sore, her body exhausted from the fight and the adrenaline rush. Fixing the cleaner toms seemed an irrelevant chore in comparison to her body's immediate needs.

She slipped into the small shower off the infirmary and stripped off. A shower and a long, restful sleep would take priority over doing penance for Haller's amusement.

 

A hand clamped down on her naked shoulder and Edie spun around, clasping her towel to her. Haller had snuck up behind her as she emerged from the shower. She had the distinct impression that he'd been lying in wait.

Without a word he slammed her against the wet wall. The effort to keep her balance on the slippery floor while keeping the towel around her naked body meant she couldn't use her hands as a buffer, and her head rebounded off the bulkhead.

Haller had worked himself up into a state of fury, and she was terrified of what he might do to Finn in a moment of irrationality. She couldn't see beyond the doorway into the infirmary. She could only hope Finn was all right.

“Don't you dare hurt him,” she spluttered.

Haller backhanded her across the face. As Edie's hands went up instinctively in protection, the towel fell away. Her
knees buckled and she slid down to the floor, cradling her burning cheek. She had expected sarcastic reproach from Haller, not violence.

As she fumbled for the towel, Haller's boot stomped on it, just missing her fingers, and he wouldn't let her tug it free. She curled up her legs and wrapped her arms around them, covering herself as best as she could.

“Who the hell do you think he is?” His rage was barely contained. “What gave you the idea he has any importance at all to this mission? He's a dispensable lag. I've got six more just like him in the cellblock, and you nearly got us all arrested because of some idiotic idea that he's worth saving.”

“Then why did you save him?” Edie's throat ached from the effort to not cry. She would not break down in front of Haller.

“Because I understand now, teckie.” He leaned against the bulkhead, blocking the light as he looked down on her. “I understand he means something to you. As long as I have him, I have a hold on you.”

That was certainly true, and it might be the only thing that would save Finn's life. She was a fool for expecting Haller to appreciate that Finn had proven his worth as her bodyguard against the eco-rads—the very danger this crew most feared. No, Haller didn't care about that. He only cared that she play her role in the mission.

“Get up.”

When she failed to obey, he dragged her up by the arm and she forgot about covering herself. Now she was frightened of what he might do to her. In the taut lines of his face, his outrage simmered just below the surface.

“This could have been so much easier for you. So much nicer for both of us.” He pressed his forearm across her breast to pin her against the wall, the heel of his hand digging painfully into her sternum. “We made you disappear from the Crib—a new ident, a job, a future. Don't ever underestimate what we did for you. No more chances, teckie.
If you act up again, things are going to get very unpleasant around here.”

Over the hammering of her heart, she somehow managed to speak. “I won't cooperate if you kill him.”

Haller gave a harsh laugh. “
Kill
him? Will you cooperate if I flog him? Starve him? There are so many ways I can guarantee your cooperation, now that I know you've developed this little attachment.” He sneered as he took a lingering look at her body. His free hand hovered near her exposed breast, and he clenched his fist as if to stop himself touching her. “You have no idea who he is, you stupid girl. Why do you think he was a lifer on a labor gang? You don't get life for stealing candy or starting fistfights.” As he made each point he jabbed his arm against Edie's chest, pushing the air out of her lungs. “The only reason he's on your side is because he has to be. Don't think for one moment he can be tamed.”

He shoved away from her suddenly, tossing her aside. Hastily she grabbed the towel and covered herself.

“Did you fix those cleaner toms? There's a bunch of them crowding the garbage chute belowdeck, just sitting there like dumb fucks. Get them cleaned out and fixed.”

“I can't find anything wrong with them.” Edie backed toward the door, toward the infirmary and Finn and safety. “It's the system, something in the system stopped sending them instructions.”

“So this is what I get for a legendary Crib cypherteck,” Haller sneered. “Can't even fix a tom.”

“I told you, it's something—”

“I don't want excuses. If you can't fix the toms you can do their work instead. Get a mop and start cleaning.”

“What?”

“There's a maintenance cubby aft, deck three. Start there and work your way up.”

“You…you want me to scrub the decks?” She couldn't believe her ears.

“That's what I said.” He smirked at her expression. “Think
you're too good to do the dirty work around here? Think again. And get him”—he jabbed his finger toward the infirmary—“out of there and back on his feet by tomorrow.”

He stormed off.

“He saved your life, you shit.” Edie wanted to scream the words, but they came out as a whisper, unheard.

She dried off mechanically, her legs still trembling. A beep from the med tom drew her back into the infirmary. Finn still slept, oblivious to her little drama with the XO. She checked the readout, which showed his vitals were improving. The knot of worry in her stomach eased, but her blood still hummed with adrenaline.

She traced her fingers along the shiny streaks of medigel on Finn's chest. Once they healed and the bruises faded and the poison broke down, he'd be good as new. Except for the older scars on his skin. She'd never asked him about those.

“What happened?” Finn's voice was a labored rasp.

She pulled her fingers away and met his eyes, which were bright and focused.

“We're back on the
Hoi
. Haller—” Her throat closed up over the name. She dared not tell Finn that Haller had manhandled her after she refused to leave the station, let alone assaulted her in the shower room. If Finn retaliated out of some kind of chivalry, things would only get worse. Somehow she had to keep the peace between the two men, for Finn's safety.