The Dark Imbalance (28 page)

“What can we do about that block?”

The reave was weary but still compliant.

“How difficult is the latter?”

“Give me an example.”

“What about?”

“Then where is it?” De Bruyn said, then added: “Or where does she
think
it is?”

was
destroyed in Palasian System.>

“What has the Box been doing since?”

“Does anyone else know about it?”

“Really? How is he involved?”

De Bruyn felt her frustration growing. This was worse than getting nothing at all. However, she was beginning to see how it worked. Direct questions would get her nowhere; she had to go around the issue and tackle it from behind. “Can you tell me why the Box is important?”

“Is it connected to the Crescend somehow?”

“How?”

part of.
Her understanding of the situation here is particularly vague. It has troubled her—hence the leakage around the block.>

De Bruyn pondered this with interest. The Box and the Crescend
were
connected, it seemed—perhaps more intimately than anyone could have guessed. “Where is the Crescend?”

“What is he doing?”

“Is she working for him?”

“Has she at least spoken to him?”

“Why is he so important?”

“Why is
she
so important?” Frustration gave De Bruyn’s voice a bitter edge, one she instantly regretted. Even though Lemmas couldn’t actually hear it, he would certainly read the emotion behind it.

The reave stiffened slightly, but didn’t reply. “What? Have you found something?”

broke in the pilot.

Apostle.
It has assumed an approach vector and will be in position in ten minutes.>

She closed her eyes, annoyed. The timing couldn’t have been worse.

That was a polite way of saying that nothing would stop him from obeying that order to dock—not even De Bruyn.

She killed the line.

“We’re done here for now,” she told Lemmas. “Maybe it’s not a bad thing. She’ll have a chance to heal.” She glanced down at Roche’s broken and bloodied body on the table and nodded to herself. “We’ll resume later.”

* * *

Wamel was at Deck 4 ahead of her, straightening his robes. They watched together through the command network as a singleship detached from the many-spined
Apostle.
Again, their environment was dark, so the images were either gloomily portentous or painted in surreal colors. De Bruyn remembered the first time she had encountered the cruiser, and felt a similar dread.

The singleship approached with bright flares from its thrusters, moving confidently across the gap between the two ships. Its approach took barely two minutes, during which time De Bruyn did her best to maintain her composure. She didn’t have any doubt who would be in the singleship.

It docked with a bump heard clearly through the rigid bulkheads of
God’s Monkey.
Via the command network she saw it anchor firmly in place not far from her own fighter,
Kindling.
There was silence for a moment, then came the sound of the outer door of the airlock opening. There was another pause, followed by a hiss as the door shut again. Then the inner door was open and Cane’s twin walked through.

Wamel bowed at the sight of the black-robed figure.

The clone warrior didn’t acknowledge him. His face was exposed, and his eyes sought De Bruyn. “You have her?”

“Yes.” As uneasy as he made her feel, she refused to defer to him the way the Disciples did. “How goes the campaign against the
Phlegethon
?”

He smiled. “The arrangement has been profitable for both of us.”

She thought of Trezise for a moment, and wondered if her old colleague had any idea what had happened—if he even suspected just how thoroughly she had betrayed him.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“I want to see her. Is she still alive?”

“Of course.”

“Good,” said the clone warrior.

De Bruyn frowned. “Why? What does it mean to you?”

“We are curious.”

“About what?”

“That is not your concern.”

“I disagree,” said De Bruyn. “Everything to do with her is my concern.”

“I think the truth would appall you.”

“But
the truth
is exactly what I’m looking for.”

“Very well,” he said. His smile widened. “Morgan Roche may yet be the key to our defeat. In her lies the potential for our destruction. She alone could be the undoing of all we have worked for.”

De Bruyn paused to digest this. “Do you expect me to believe that?”

“I expect nothing of you.”

“Could you explain—”

“No. I will not,” he said. “We appreciate your efforts in neutralizing this threat to us. With Roche out of the way, our work can continue unchecked.”

De Bruyn felt suddenly cold. Whether he was merely posturing or not, the thought was sobering. “And what
is
your work, exactly?”

“What do you see?”

Her laugh was humorless. “I see nothing but destruction.”

“What you fail to see is
justice
.” There was no mistaking the passion and anger in his voice. “There is no higher aspiration, De Bruyn. You should know that.”

His smile was gone. And something in his expression warned her not to push any further.

“Take me to her,” he said. “I want to see her with my own eyes.”

She turned and led the way to where Roche was being held. Cane’s twin followed her silently, with Wamel bringing up the rear. Along the way, De Bruyn turned over in her mind everything the clone warrior had said. What if he was telling the truth? What if she had somehow ruined any hope at all of defeating the enemy?

The autosurgeon had tended to Roche’s minor injuries by the time they reached her. Her skin was a patchwork of healing strips and salves, and the pack was back on her shoulder wound. Her readings had stabilized slightly, although they still seemed odd to De Bruyn.

The clone warrior stepped up to the table and looked down upon the patient. “What have you learned so far?” he said, his dark eyes studying Roche’s embattled body with dispassionate interest.

“Very little,” De Bruyn confessed. “Perhaps if we knew what to look for—”

“You still wouldn’t find it.” Cane’s twin faced her. “Because you’re looking in the wrong place.”

“But...
you
said she was the key.”

“
May yet
be the key, is what I said. Even if she is, the key itself holds nothing. What the key is
for
is the important thing, and to know that you must have everything else: the lock, the door, the room beyond...” He seemed to be enjoying her discomfort.

“You’re talking about Sol System, aren’t you?” she asked, riding a hunch. “That’s where I should be looking?”

“Yes.”

“And that’s why you’ve come here: you’re looking for something too.”

“In a sense,” he said. “If Roche
is
the key, and Sol System is the lock, then the room beyond contains the justice we seek.”

Remembering his metaphor, she asked: “And what is the door?”

His smile returned. “That is the one remaining issue we must deal with,” he said. “Then our business in the galaxy can truly begin.”

His expression was relaxed enough, but De Bruyn sensed a terrible energy radiating from him. She felt like a moth flying into a furnace, only slowly realizing just how dangerous her environment was becoming.

If the enemy’s work in the galaxy hadn’t even begun, where would it stop? When every Pristine Human was dead? Every mundane, including the Exotics? When all that remained was High and Low Humans?

It was all very well to think in abstract terms about the enemy and their apparent desire to destroy Humanity, but De Bruyn found it disturbing to be confronted with the possibility that it might actually come true.

Or was he just bluffing? She clutched at this thought. Maybe he was trying to put her off balance. And if that were so, then she would have to find some way to regain control of the situation

“We did find something unexpected,” she said.

His stare was cold and penetrating, his silence demanding she continue.

“The Box,” she said. “It still exists. Roche was lying when she said it had been destroyed.”

His eyes narrowed. “How do you know this?”

“It interfered with our escape from the
Phlegethon
,” she said. “It infiltrated the ship’s systems and tried to take us over. We very nearly didn’t get away. If I hadn’t guessed what was happening and shut everything down in time, we wouldn’t have made it a thousand kilometers.”

“Are you sure you’re not mistaken?” said the clone warrior, suddenly alert and interested.

She bristled at the question. “Of course I’m sure,” she said. “I’ve seen it in action before.”

His gaze drifted back to Roche. “But it’s not possible,” he mused aloud. “It couldn’t be...”

He stepped back to the table, leaning slightly over Roche’s helpless form. In a loud and clear voice, he said: “
Silence between thoughts
.”

The readings on the autosurgeon instantly changed, going haywire for a moment, then settling down into a new pattern. Roche shuddered; her mouth opened, gasping for air; her one good hand clutched at nothing

Then she relaxed. The readings changed again, returning to how they had been previously, as though nothing at all had happened.

De Bruyn watched in amazement, her jaw hanging.

“It’s inside her!” The clone warrior’s hands gripped the edge of the operating table, knuckles slowly whitening. “There’s no other way to explain it! The Box’s shutdown code affected her physically, and that could only happen if it was interfering with her in some way. And given there are no signals passing between her and any part of this ship—”

“That’s why she didn’t die,” De Bruyn muttered incredulously. “It’s been keeping her alive!”

“Perhaps. But did you note how her readings returned to normal so quickly? Something or someone must have countered the shutdown code, and the only person that could have done that is Roche herself. She must be aware, on some level at least, of what is happening around her.” His gaze was fixed on Roche’s face, as though daring her to wake and contradict him.

“But...” De Bruyn shook her head. Another realization had come to her while he talked.
How could he have known about the shutdown code?

She broadcast her mental summons as loudly as she dared.

The reave answered her from the far side of the ship.

Apostle
since it arrived?>

Cane’s twin had glanced up, and was looking at her closely. “Something is troubling you?” he asked.

“Nothing.” She shook her head.

she urged the reave.

She didn’t have time to answer. The clone warrior had returned his attention to Roche and the autosurgeon.

“I will be returning to my ship immediately,” he said. “I will, of course, be taking Roche with me.”

“No, wait—you can’t!”

“Do not defy us, De Bruyn,” he said, gesturing for Wamel to disconnect Roche from the autosurgeon. The pilot moved obediently forward to help his master.

De Bruyn backed away a step. She had to decide, and fast. Roche had theorized about some sort of connection between the clone warriors; that would have explained how Jelena Heidik had known when she was arriving in the system. Perhaps it explained now how this clone warrior had known about the shutdown code for the Box—codes known only by a handful in the COE, but which Cane had heard used before the Box had taken over Intelligence HQ. Maybe she was overreacting.

Or maybe there was some deeper treachery at work

The clone warrior watched as Wamel disconnected Roche from the autosurgeon. As the last of the contacts fell away, he indicated that the pilot should swing her around so the two of them could lift her. They seemed to have forgotten all about De Bruyn, or perhaps their ignorance was deliberate. She had played her role. She was no longer important. She had become irrelevant.

She sent a command to
Kindling,
instructing it to prepare for launch, and drew a pistol from her suit’s thigh compartment.

“Put her down,” she said, aiming the pistol at the clone warrior.

Wamel stopped, looking to his master for guidance. Cane’s twin simply stared at De Bruyn, totally expressionless.