The Administration Series (198 page)

"Shh. There's nothing to apologise for — go if the idea makes you uncomfortable, of course, but not on my account. And I don't imagine Toreth will mind."

Before she could reply, a voice from behind her said, "Uh?"

"Nothing," Warrick said. "We have a visitor, that's all. Go back to sleep."

"Huh?" Toreth reached out and found her, his hand sliding over her, breasts down to waist, before she could react.

"Who the fuck . . . Sara?"

"Yes," she said.

Other people — normal people — would have wanted an explanation at this point. Toreth, falling outside that category, simply pulled her closer, and said, "Always wanted to fuck you. You and Warrick. Together. Do you think?"

Then, while she was still trying to come up with a reply, he apparently fell asleep.

Warrick laughed again. "What an educational night."

"I don't think he meant it," she said.

"Don't you? I find that if you catch him partly unconscious, he can be startlingly honest. However, I
am
sure that he won't remember saying it in the morning."

Which would be good enough. "I wouldn't do it, you know," she said.

"Certainly not without my cooperation."

The wry tone made her laugh. "No! I mean, I wouldn't screw him, on my own, with you, or with anyone else. I don't screw friends' boyfriends. Ever."

A pause, then he said, "And I'm honoured to be considered as such. Now, Sara . . . "

"Yes?"

"Goodnight."

Giving up on the last shreds of reluctance, she snuggled back against Toreth, who tightened his arm around her and muttered something thankfully incomprehensible. After a minute or so, she felt Warrick moving across to reoccupy the vacant space. With the last worry removed — that he might fall out of bed at some point due to over-consideration — she finally fell asleep.

Voices woke her in the morning — voices talking about her. She drifted slowly up to consciousness from a deep and dreamless sleep, listening to the warm, male voices, matching the physical warmth surrounding her.

Toreth had his arms around her, holding her tight against the hard, reassuring strength of his body. She also couldn't help noticing his equally hard erection trapped between them, twitching against her from time to time. However, that was nothing more than bodies in contact, and the morning — it felt friendly, rather than anything else.

In front of her was the warmth of Warrick's body, still at a distance but closer than he'd been last night.

"If you move, she'll wake up."

That was Warrick, sounding concerned and slightly amused.

"I have to get to work." The low voice ran right through her from Toreth's chest. "And so does she."

"I don't think she ought to go." Amusement gone.

"Well, good luck talking her out of it."

"
You
ought to tell her not to. She'll make herself ill if she keeps forcing herself back to that place. She
has
made herself ill. You didn't see her last night. She was nearly in tears."

"I need her." Toreth's 'end of argument' voice.

"And getting your filing done is worth Sara's health?"

"It's not —" He lowered his voice. "It's not fucking filing, and you know it. I can't do my job without her. She runs the bloody place — all I do is go around kicking Service arse to get things moving."

"I'm sure that isn't true."

"Yeah, well, maybe not quite. But I don't have time to break in a new admin
and
work a sixteen-hour day. Which would be a twenty-six-hour day without Sara."

She ought to move, or to say something, and let them know she was awake. But Toreth didn't often bother to say things like that to her face, unless he was deliberately flattering her to get something. The rest of the time it wouldn't occur to him — it was simply taken as given. He needed her, and they both knew it.

Still, it was nice to lie here and hear it. For one thing, it made the idea of I&I a little more bearable.

"You can't even do without her for a couple of days?" Warrick asked.

"I can't do without her for a morning. A morning I'm going to be late for already."

"Just for —"

"No. Just nothing. She's coming in to work, full stop." There was a pause before he added, in a softer voice, "Not that I'd mind staying in bed with her. And you."

After a moment, Warrick said. "I don't think Sara would concur."

"Oh, I don't know. If you don't ask, you don't get. And it was you she woke up last night, wasn't it?"

"Under the misapprehension I was you."

"So
you
say."

"So Sara said."

"And I bet you offered to go sleep in the spare room, didn't you?" A silence, and she could imagine Toreth's smile. "Talk about looking a gift fuck in the —"

"Toreth!" Outraged whisper. "Be quiet! What if she wakes up?"

"I'm only saying it because she
is
awake." He tapped her nose with his finger. "Aren't you?"

Flushing, she opened her eyes to find Warrick looking between her and Toreth behind her. He didn't seem to know whether to be relieved or shocked.

Toreth released her and sat up, pulling the sheets back as he did so. She grabbed at her dressing gown, which had slipped in the night, and managed to wrench the front together before she had further cause for embarrassment.

"Bastard!" she snapped.

He laughed, naked from mid-thighs up, still erect and completely unconcerned. "Yeah, yeah, so I've been told. Now clear off and let me put your contribution to the morning to better use, since Warrick's going to be boring about it if you stay."

She scrambled out of the bed, not fast enough to avoid a slap on the behind as she passed him, and fled for the door before he could say anything worse.

Toreth whistled for most of the journey in to work and all the way up to his office, ignoring the pained looks from both Sara and the guards they passed. In his book, waking up to a bedful of Warrick and Sara was as near as damn it a perfect way to start the day. Even better, he had a plan with regards to Carnac. The atmosphere in the building seemed brighter than it had done since he returned.

However, when Toreth reached his office, he found Bell waiting for him, which took some of the shine off the morning. Worse still, she looked pleased to see him.

"I'm sorry to disturb you, Para-investigator, but I wondered if you had time to answer a few questions I have about the restoration of interrogation services."

His instinctive reaction was to give nothing away at all. "You've seen the state of the place, you've got Service people everywhere. Why are you asking me?"

"Because you are in charge." A pause while they both acknowledged the unspoken 'at the moment'. "And progress seems to be slow. I'm doing my best to reassure my superiors, but questions are being asked."

"Everything's on schedule," he told her, trying not to sound too irritated.

"Unfortunately, the schedule's unclear. Do you have an estimate for when services will be restored?"

"No." Then, seeing the beginnings of a smile on her face, he added, "Soon, for a basic service." Time to shift the responsibility as far away as he could. "But that's only if the other Departments can cooperate — we aren't the only place in chaos. You'd better go and talk it over with Justice and come back when they're saying something intelligible. If you can find anyone to talk to at all, that is — they're making the most of the damage they took."

"I'll talk to whoever's necessary."

"Good." As she left he called after her, "Let me know if you get anywhere."

He doubted she would, but with any luck it would keep her from reporting his supposed incompetence to her bosses. Wrestling with Justice was something he wouldn't usually wish on anyone, but for Bell he'd make an exception. With her out of the way, and hopefully harmlessly occupied, he set about the real business of the morning.

One advantage of Toreth's temporary promotion was that he had access to the security systems. A glance showed at once that Daedra was in residence at the pharmacy — no one else there wore their hair in hundreds of long, thin, bleached-blonde plaits. Better still, she was alone. Unfortunately, the check also demonstrated that the sound feed was working. He debated switching it off, but that left too obvious a trail when you were talking about Carnac. He'd have to work round it, and Bell had unintentionally provided him with an excuse.

Once he was sure Bell had gone for good, Toreth slipped past Sara without her asking where he was going.

Down in the pharmacy, Daedra didn't look deliriously happy to see him, but by now he was used to that.

"Toreth? I heard you're doing very nicely out of all this."

"Great to see you too."

At least she seemed to have come through the revolt unscathed — she looked unhealthily pale and thin, but then she always had. The only obvious change was that one of her plaits, hanging down by the left-hand side of her face, was now dyed jet black.

She must have caught his gaze, because she reached up and ran the plait through her long, bony fingers. "It's for Digger — Devon Eldridge. Did you know him?"

Toreth shook his head.

"Grade three interrogator. Worked for Mike Belkin. I'd been seeing him for a few months."

"Ah." Belkin he knew well, but not all of his high-turnover team. "I'm sorry."

She shrugged, fingering the plait again. "It was this or get a tattoo, and we weren't that serious. What can I do for you?"

"How's the shop?"

She wrinkled her nose in disgust. "Looted to heck. I'm surprised the resisters running all over the place could even see straight, never mind kill anyone. If you've come to pester me about the medical supplies, we're still doing our best and we can't do any more. As far as I can tell, we're bottom of the list for deliveries in the whole of New London."

"No, I appreciate the problems — and I appreciate what you're doing to work round them. I came down to get some professional advice."

He took the paper out and handed it over. It held the outline of Carnac's medical records and a list of drugs beside it. He'd tried to provide as many alternatives as he could, but as he hadn't dared run it through the analysis system, he needed an expert human opinion.

"I'm trying to get a shell of an interrogation service running again," he said as she scanned the list. "I need to know if it'll be possible to do that with what you've got."

"Don't worry — I can see what you're trying to do." She hunted under the counter and found a pencil. Tucking a handful of plaits behind her ear, she started running down the list, moving between the drug names and the medical details.

After a while she said, "Nope, I can't fill this, I'm afraid."

In the margin she wrote, 'U'll kill him!!!' and underlined it a couple of times.

Good job he'd checked. "Are you sure?"

"Positive."

"Well, that's what I'm here for. Tell me what you've got and what we can use."

"Hmm . . . Oral dosing?"

"Yes. Ethanol compatible."

She tapped the bottom of the list. "Is that a requirement?"

"No point at all without it."

"Okay. Let me think." She started going down the list again, slowly, crossing out names and making substitutions. He waited, hoping that no one would turn up and interrupt.

Eventually, she handed the paper back. "This should provide approximately the same basic service. I've made a few notes; let me know if there's a problem."

He read the list. Bless her, she'd even written in the doses, which was good because a couple of the things on this list he'd never heard of. At the bottom of the page she'd written, '5-10% poss. bad react ?50/50 fatal. Can't do better."

A five percent chance of killing Carnac was practically a bonus. More worryingly, the last drug on the list was marked as injectable only, dosing four hours apart. That would drag things out. However, he didn't bother arguing — if Daedra said that was the best she had, he was willing to believe her.

"Thanks. That looks great."

"While you're here, do you want me to work up a sample kit? For a try-out?"

"That'd be great." He'd been wondering how best to phrase it. "You're a sweetheart."

She grinned. "It's good to see you again. How's Sara?"

"Fine." The sudden friendliness threw him slightly, but Daedra had never been one to hold a grudge, and she always enjoyed a professional challenge. "I'll tell her you were asking after her."

"And tell her we'll go out, when they get this flipping curfew sorted out." She disappeared into the stores, her voice fading. "I'll be glad when everything gets back to normal."

Toreth had expected to find it difficult to find a suitable opening with Carnac to implement his plan. However, the very next day presented a perfect opportunity. It came about, ironically, as the indirect result of a blazing row.

When he arrived on Wednesday morning, he found Adams already waiting for him. Early morning visitors had begun to induce a sinking feeling; they never had good news.

"Can I have a word, Para?"