The Darwin Elevator (50 page)

“Tania!”

She felt an enormous relief to see Natalie, and ran to her. They embraced.

“No kissing now,” Russell Blackfield said. “This is a family-friendly environment.”

The sound of his voice made Tania’s heart sink. “I was so worried,” Tania whispered, holding her assistant as tightly as she could. “Why did you offer to—”

“Later,” Natalie whispered.

“Enough,” Russell said. “You’ll make me all weepy.”

“Did he hurt you?” Tania asked.

Russell threw his arms up. “I’m standing right here, dammit. Hello?”

Tania released her friend, and realized she was crying. They both were. She wiped the years away on her sleeve and turned to Russell. “If you’ve hurt her …”

“She’s fine. You’re fine. Right?”

Natalie had kept hold of Tania’s hand, and squeezed it. She nodded.

“There, see? Everyone’s fine.”

Tania stood her ground. “What do you want?”

“A thank-you would be nice.”

“Thank
you
?”

He gestured toward Natalie. “Not me, her. Your lover here has earned your freedom. Strings attached, of course.”

Tania glanced briefly at Natalie, who wore a sad smile and kept her eyes aimed at the table.
Lover? She must have concocted a story in a hurry
. She fixed her gaze on Russell again. “What strings?”

“I thought that would be obvious,” he replied. “Your research. I want it finished, now, and I want the
results
.”

Before Tania could craft a response, Russell pulled a sinister-looking pistol from a holster inside his jacket.

The room went deathly quiet as he pointed the business end at Natalie.

“You two lovebirds have twenty-four hours,” he said, “to tell me where the Builder ship is going to park.”

Tania’s eyes grew wide at the revelation.
She really told him
. At least she had not divulged the crucial piece of information. If she’d told him that, everything would be over.

“Yes, that’s right. Your girl here sang like a bird, when her mouth wasn’t otherwise occupied. What a tireless little champ! Very convincing.”

“You said you wouldn’t tell her, you son of a bitch,” Natalie said, her words startlingly loud in the closed room.

Russell kept his attention on Tania. “No more delays, no more excuses. In twenty-four hours I want the location where
my
new Builder ship has arrived, or your friend here dies.”

Tania swallowed, and deep down cursed herself for doing so. “Kill me instead.”

“No such luck, I’m afraid. No, if you don’t give me what I want, you will spend the rest of your life servicing my soldiers. And that will only be the beginning of your misery,” Russell said.

“And if we cooperate?”

He smiled. “Then you can continue here, doing whatever the hell it is you do. There’s no reason that has to change in the new world order. Stay here, work, and enjoy the pleasure of each other’s company.”

His constant allusions to their supposed romance had a twinge of sarcasm. Tania wondered if he really believed it, or if he just found it humorous. She looked at Natalie. Their eyes met and held for a long, tense moment. Her friend then nodded to her, a nearly imperceptible motion that Tania returned.

“Fine,” she said to Russell Blackfield. “Just, please, leave the rest of the crew alone.”

“Agreed, for twenty-four hours. Starting now.”

They walked in silence, under escort, to the computer laboratory on Green Level.

In the front room of the lab, with the guards keeping close by, Tania removed a number of bound folders from a shelf before continuing to the back room.

Two of the guards stayed with them, taking seats on each side of the door.

“It’s really not necessary,” Tania said. “There’s nowhere to go.”

“Orders,” came the snapped response.

She shrugged and took a seat at the console, activating the three large monitors that spanned the back wall. A number of smaller monitors on the desk also flickered to life.

Tania turned to Natalie before she could sit. “Would you dim the lights, please?”

“I got it,” the guard said. He was seated next to the switch, and ratcheted it down to quarter strength.

Natalie took the seat next to Tania, spreading out the folders Tania gave her. “Where’d you leave off?” she asked. The first words she’d spoken since they’d left Russell’s presence. A genuine apology came through in the tone, unspoken but nonetheless welcome.

Tania’s fingers danced across the keyboard, filling the screens with a myriad of images and data structures. She flipped the pages in one of the folders until it was open to the middle. “Here’s the latest. Last week I thought it might glance off the atmosphere, aerobraking, and perhaps settle into position on its next pass, in a year or so. But look here …”

A quick glance at the guards proved they were not paying close attention. She picked up a pencil and circled a section of the report, and wrote next to it:

Did you tell him?

“It’s braking at an incredible rate,” she continued. “I didn’t think it would be possible.”

Natalie was nodding, slowly, and took the pencil. “I see what you mean.” She added below Tania’s words:

We saw the image, he knows it’s a new elevator. I could convince him it’s months away.

As she wrote, she said, “Have you calculated the arrival time?”

Her voice sounded false to Tania, like an amateur actress in a bad play. Tania took the pencil back and erased the words they’d written, then flipped to another page.

“Take a look at these numbers,” she said, pointing out a random bit of useless info.

She wrote:

Can’t let the station suffer that long. Have a plan. We need to talk alone.

She underlined the last word and said, “The deceleration rate negated all our predictions.”

Natalie picked up the pencil and added:

I have an idea.

She erased the writing and turned to a random page in the folder. “How long will it take to recalculate?”

Tania had no idea what Natalie was thinking, but caught her wink and went along with it. “Eight hours, roughly.”

“Let’s get started, then.”

Four hours later Tania paced her room, waiting anxiously for Natalie to arrive.

They had pretended to work at the data analysis for thirty minutes, to give an appearance of effort, before telling the guards that they needed to give the computer time to run simulations. The guards were willing to wait it out, but Natalie said she’d rather be returned to her quarters to rest.

When the guards pushed Tania into her own room and locked the door, she expected to hear them continue down the hall with Natalie to do the same. Instead they had gone in the other direction.

Her imagination ran wild. Had Natalie been taken to be interrogated? Could she handle something like that? Tania knew the answer was no. Natalie probably knew her limits, too, which explained why she’d decided to play the willing informant.

Her mind returned to the instructions Neil Platz had left in the envelope. A chill ran down her spine. An astonishing plan, far bolder than she could ever concoct on her own.

Footsteps outside the door. Heavy.

They were early.

Tania realized she was still fully dressed, and as the door was unlocked she abruptly flipped her light off and sat on the edge of her bed, running her hands through her hair to appear as if she’d been napping.

The door opened to the silhouette of a soldier.

“It hasn’t been eight hours, has it?” Tania asked, forcing her voice to sound groggy.

“Blackfield said you can use the showers if you want,” he said. Then he sniffed the stale air of the room. “’Bout damn time, too.”

“Remind you of Darwin?”

The guard actually smiled, if only for a second, and moved aside to allow her to exit the room.

She pulled a towel from her closet and stepped into the hall. The showers on this level were connected to the restrooms, and the guard followed her in.

Tania whirled on him. “You’ll wait outside, or take me back to—”

“Relax,” he said, walking past her, down the aisle of lockers to the large open shower. The tiled space was square in shape, with six showerheads poking out of three walls. “Just doing my job,” he said, checking two corners that were hidden from view of the door.

Satisfied, he came back to the door and pushed it open. “You’ve got twenty minutes,” he said, grinning slightly.

Something in that grin worried her. For a moment she stood in place, unsure what to do.

Before she could decide, the door opened again, and Natalie entered, carrying a towel of her own.

Tania whispered, “What’s going on?”

Natalie stepped in close and gave her a quick embrace. “When the water’s on,” she said, so quietly that Tania barely caught it.

With that Natalie set her towel on the metal bench in front of the lockers and began to undress. Tania stood in place.

“Come on, hon,” Natalie said. She smiled in an odd way as she padded down to the shower and turned on a faucet.

When the water’s on
. Tania kept her head still and looked about the shower room. They were listening. Or worse, watching.

Natalie drenched herself under a fountain of steaming water, running her hands through her hair as if nothing was wrong.

Stomach aching from nervous dread, Tania shrugged off her jumpsuit. She stood naked with her arms tight across her chest, and took a quick glance back at the door. It remained closed. Finally she walked to the shower.

Steam from the hot water already obscured Natalie’s body.

Tania turned on the showerhead next to Natalie’s and set it as hot as she thought she could take it. Her friend reached a hand out to her. Tania took it, expecting a friendly squeeze, but Natalie pulled her until their bodies were touching, warm water spilling over both their shoulders. Natalie’s arm slipped around her waist, pressing them together.

“What are you—” Tania started to ask, before their lips met. Natalie kissed her urgently, with passion, not like a friend. Nothing like a friend.

Tania could do nothing but stand there, frozen in place, lips closed tight.

“Relax,” Natalie whispered. “Russell is only allowing this because he’s hoping for a good show. The mist should leave most of it to their imagination.”

Tania understood, then. Natalie had been playing to Russell’s perversion the moment he’d found them in the computer lab.

Her night spent in the bowels of Nightcliff filled her mind. She’d somehow convinced herself that the wall-sized mirror was just that, and that no one sat on the other side of it. A lie she had needed to make it through that night, and the weeks since. But in her heart she knew Russell had been watching.

Tania squeezed her eyes closed and forced the memory away, for Natalie’s sake. To expose her ruse now would have terrible consequences for both of them.

She became aware that her arms were held out as if a Jacobite preacher groped her. Shaking with stage fright, she returned Natalie’s embrace as best she could. Under the torrent of scalding hot water, she managed to relax her shoulders a bit.

Natalie pulled Tania’s head to her shoulder with one hand while caressing the length of her back with the other. Then she whispered in her ear, “Russell is recording this, so speak quietly.”

With nervous uncertainty Tania tried to find a place for her hands on Natalie’s back. Somewhere that implied familiar affection, she hoped. “He trusts you enough to let us alone? Natalie, my God, how did you convince him? What did you have to do?”

“Shhh,” Natalie whispered. She held on even tighter than before, as if Tania might slip and fall. “It’s not what you think. He’s just saying things to rile you.”

“If they’ve hurt you … abused you—”

Natalie gripped the back of her head. “He just wants you to think that. No easy way around this, so here it is. I’ve been working for Alex Warthen for almost six months now.”

Tania tried to pull away, to fight, at the confession. But Natalie held her too tightly.

“Please listen. Alex blackmailed me. He wanted to know about the research going on here, and in exchange lifted me out of a terrible life in Darwin. It seemed harmless enough, until I mentioned that Neil met with you in private, and he wanted me to find out why. I refused, and his offer of help turned to threats. Please believe me.”

For a long time Tania stood in shocked disbelief. A well of conflicting emotions churned in her mind, but the longer she stood there under the warm water, in Natalie’s arms, the further they receded, until one was left.

“I forgive you,” Tania said. “I forgive you …”

Natalie broke into racking sobs, going to her weakened knees, pulling Tania down with her in the process. It was Tania’s turn to lead the embrace. She eased her friend to the floor, sat facing her, and offered a shoulder.

Natalie buried her head there, sobbing.

Tania let her cry, and shed a few tears of her own. Neil dead or captured, and now her closest friend had admitted betrayal. Her home for so many years had become a prison, run by the man she hated most in the world. A man who, if he had his way, would soon control the new ship sent by the Builders.

Sitting there on the wet floor, wrapped tightly in her best friend’s embrace, Tania had never felt more alone. She felt as if the station around them had disappeared, revealing the cold emptiness of space.

Tania had to finish Neil’s plan. And, no matter what, she knew she could no longer trust Natalie. It drove a knife in her gut to admit that to herself.

Resolve building, she put her lips against Natalie’s ear and whispered. “What now? Are you going to tell Russell—”

“Of course not,” Natalie said. “He’s a monster. I told him you were keeping me in the dark, but perhaps if I could sleep with you … again …”

“I’d give up the secret in the heat of passion?”

Natalie began to shake. “He’s promised me to his guards, if I don’t tell him.”

Tania tensed, overwhelmed by rage. She began to stand.