Echo

FORTY-TWO

Alex shut off the link, gave it back to me, and fumbled for his crutches. “Chase, it’s imperative you stay off it until I get back. If there’s a call, don’t answer.”

“Alex, what—?”

“Do what I say. Please. I’ll be back as quickly as I can.”

He hobbled off. I ran over to the window and looked out. Nobody seemed to be coming from that direction. And there was no one in the corridor except Alex. So I sat down, put the bracelet on the table beside me, and watched it. As if it were a spider.

My heart was pounding. The Mortician had neutralized Belle. Must have done it when she was out of range and couldn’t warn us. Minutes ticked by. Then, finally, I heard approaching voices.

Alex came back in with Turam, Barnas, and five or six others. Three had rifles. The others had pistols. “Everybody ready?” he asked.

They checked to make sure the weapons were loaded.

“Okay. Chase, here’s what we need you to do—”

The people who’d arrived with Alex began screaming. I turned on the link. “Belle, answer up, please!” Turam pounded on the door. Outside, I could see a couple of older people herding the kids away. One of the others threw a chair through the window. “We’ve got an emergency, Belle,” I said, trying to sound desperate. I don’t think I had to try hard. “Please respond.”

Alex jumped in: “Quick, Chase. Out the back! Get out while you can!”

Barnas broke in: “Too late, bitch,” he said, “you’re dead.”

Two of the guys stuck their rifles out the window and blasted away at the sky. I screamed, “Alex!”

More shooting.

“You’ve killed him,” I shrieked. “You bastard.” I tried to burst into tears.

Turam said, “Sorry, baby. Good-bye.”

I screamed for him not to shoot. Then Turam fired his weapon at the sky again. I cried out. Alex signaled for me not to overdo it, and I went silent.

Alex and I stayed quiet, while Turam and his people laughed and said how they’d take the bodies outside and burn them.

“Praise to the All-Father,” said one of them.

Alex pointed at the door. Everybody out. We left my bracelet on the side table but didn’t turn it off. Outside, in the hallway, a crowd was gathering. They looked a little scared. We shushed everybody and got clear of the area.

In one of the side rooms, Alex thanked everybody for helping. Every now and then, someone went back to our apartment and screamed something unintelligible that sounded bloodthirsty. Then, finally, we stopped.

Barnas and the others congratulated one another and took turns assuring us that if anybody showed up who wanted to give us trouble, they’d deal with him properly.

“What do you think?” said Turam. “Did it work?”

“You did a good job,” Alex said.

“Now,” Turam continued, “what happened to the rescuers? Who is this who’s coming to get you?”

“Yeah,” Barnas said. “How about enlightening us?”

Alex sat down. “Belle’s not responding. That tells me that whoever’s up there with her isn’t StarCorps. And I can only think of one other likelihood.”

“The Mortician,” I said.

“Yes—if I’m wrong, I’ll apologize later.”

“It won’t work, Alex.”

“Why not?”

“The Mortician doesn’t speak the local language.”

“She’s probably been doing the same thing we have: letting her AI listen in and act as an interpreter. Even if not, it doesn’t matter. She couldn’t possibly have misunderstood the point of all the shots and screams.” He stopped. Touched the silver chain. “We’ve got an incoming call.”

“It’s probably Belle.” That was my optimism working overtime.

“Text message.” Alex looked at it. Showed it to me.

Benedict:

You can’t seriously expect that ploy to work again? Talk to me. Or I’ll take out your little social center down there.

“It might be a bluff,” I said. “She has no way to be certain we’re not dead.”

Alex shook his head. “No, but she has nothing to lose by destroying the compound.”

“Sure she does. She wouldn’t be able to tell whether she’d gotten us.”

“You willing to bet that’ll stop her?”

“I guess we’d better call.”

We were speaking in Standard, and Turam had figured out that wasn’t a good sign. “It’s not over,” he said. “Is it?”

Alex delivered a casual nod intended to suggest everything was under control. But he didn’t want to mislead anyone. “Probably not, Turam,” he said. He activated his link. “This is Benedict. What do you want?”

“Mr. Benedict.” The female voice in the link was not Belle’s happy-go-lucky tone, but was rather a combination of amusement and mockery. The room fell silent, and I saw the surprise on faces that had grown accustomed to talking jewelry but expected it to use a familiar language. “I wasn’t sure we’d ever get a chance to discuss matters.”

“What happened to Belle?”

“I shut her down.”

“Why?”

“I’m sure you can guess why. Let’s not waste time on details.”

“Who are you working for?”

“I’m not at liberty to reveal that.”

“So what do you want?”

“Unfortunately, we can’t have you spreading what you know back home. I will be at your facility in precisely three hours. You and Ms. Kolpath will present yourselves outside the front door. Then we’ll try to work out an agreement. If we’re successful, I’ll return control of your AI to you, and you can await the arrival of StarCorps. That should be about two days, is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“Three hours, Benedict. I’ll see you then.”

“Just a minute: What happens if we can’t reach an agreement?”

“I don’t think there should be any difficulty on that score. I’m prepared to buy your silence, and to be very generous about it. Let’s let it go at that. Oh, and one more detail: I know you might be tempted to leave the facility, to hide in the forest. If you do that, you can almost certainly stay out of sight until the authorities come, and there would be little I can do to find you. However, if you choose that course, be advised I will have no choice but to destroy your new friends. All of them. Do you understand?”

“Yes. We’ll be here when you arrive.”

“Good. I’m sure we can reach an amicable agreement. Oh, by the way, please be sure you bring your links with you.”

“Why’s that matter?”

“I don’t want any formal record of this transaction to show up later.” She disconnected.

“Alex,” I said, “there’s no way she’s going to make a deal.”

“I know.”

“If she can get us into the open, we’re dead. She’ll have something mounted on the lander. Probably a blaster or a proton gun. And she’ll just take us out from the air.”

“She can’t. At least, she can’t if she’s serious about silencing us.”

“Why not?”

“It’s why she wants the links. If she just blows us up, she has no way of knowing that we haven’t handed them off to someone here. And that we haven’t recorded everything. StarCorps comes, the information gets passed over, and her client is compromised.”

“We don’t even know who he is.”

“I think we do. In any case, we know enough. She has to make sure the links get destroyed, too. Or maybe she doesn’t. But it’s all we have.”

We’d lapsed back into Standard, and everyone in the room was staring at us. Turam took a deep breath. “What was all that about?”

“I think we have a problem,” said Alex. “Chase, we need a weapon. Something with a little more kick than the scrambler.”

“The blaster. The one we took from, what was his name, Alex Somebody.”

“My thought exactly. It was stowed in the equipment locker. Those are pretty solid. You think it might have survived the crash?”

“It might.”

“I hate to drop this on you. But I just don’t get around very easily, and time—”

“It’s okay.”

“One other thing—”

“Yes?”

“Don’t count on three hours. She could show up at any time.”

“All right. What are you going to be doing?”

“I think we need to warn Viscenda an unwelcome visitor is on the way.”

I drafted one of Turam’s gun-toters to give me a hand. The weather had turned cranky. The sky was a dismal gray, and rain was threatening.

We hustled down to the pier, climbed into a canoe, and hurried across the river. The water was rough, stirred up by the wind. We didn’t talk much. Mostly it was me explaining that the individual who was coming couldn’t be trusted, and him saying I shouldn’t worry.

The lander was little more than a blackened hull with parts scattered around the field. But the ladder was intact, and the hatches were open.

I climbed inside. The seats had been blown apart, the viewports were gone, and everything was scorched. The deck crunched underfoot as I pushed my way to the rear of the cabin and opened the storage bin. The blaster was there. Apparently intact.

I took it outside, aimed it at a pile of rocks about fifteen meters away, and pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened.

I’d expected they’d be evacuating, but when I got back to the compound, everything was relatively quiet. Alex was in Viscenda’s office. Turam was also present.

“Now let me get this straight,” Viscenda was saying when I was ushered in, “you say this woman, this Petra Salyeva, is paid to kill people?”

“That’s correct,” said Alex. He looked my way, hoping I’d produce the blaster. I shook my head, but he gave no reaction.

Viscenda made a clicking sound with her tongue. “I’m beginning to wonder what kind of society you two come from, where people hire killers the way you would hire somebody to spread fertilizer. I mean, we have our lunatics, but I’ve never heard—” She waved it away. “Well, it’s of no moment now. And she intends to kill you? Both of you?”

“Yes,” said Alex. “I don’t think there’s any doubt about it.”

She shook her head. Will wonders never cease? “I’ve already asked why this woman wants you dead, and I haven’t gotten much of an answer, other than that she’s a homicidal bounty hunter. So let me try it another way: The person who’s paying her, why does he want you killed? Does he think you’re criminals?”

“It’s complicated, Viscenda.”

“Then simplify it so I can understand it.”

“We know something that he would like kept quiet.”

“What? What do you know?”

“That you’re here.”

“Please explain.”

“I don’t know the entire story yet, but somehow”—he struggled, trying to find the right words—“we may be connected with the event that brought on the Dark Times.”

Turam glanced skeptically in my direction. Viscenda’s eyes narrowed. “You’re not serious?”

“I am.”

“Tell me how that could be possible.”

“I hate to cut this short, but this character could arrive at any minute. We just don’t have time for this—”

“All right. We’ll talk about it later.”

Alex took a deep breath. “I think you need to get everyone out of here.”

“Tell me again: Why is the compound at risk?”

“Because this woman is unpredictable. She may have decided it’s safest for her to eliminate everybody. I don’t know that to be true. I doubt that it is true. But in the interests of safety—”

“Right. We evacuate, then stand by while you two are killed. Is that the plan?”

“No. We aren’t without resources.”

“What resources?”

“Do you think you could loan us a rifle?”

“I think we can do better than that. Listen, Alex, we are not going to be driven from our homes by this lunatic. It wouldn’t help us if we did clear out. If she destroys the compound, we’re dead in the long run anyhow. Let’s concentrate on finding a way to bring her down.”

“All right.”

“Good. Finally, we agree. I wonder if you can predict what she’s likely to do when she gets here?”

Alex explained: She would expect that we might hide snipers in the woods. “So she’ll take Chase and me across the river.”

“Then what?”

“She’ll demand to see our links. They’re important to her. She’ll take those, then I expect she’ll pull the trigger on us.”

“Then we need to put a few rifles across the river.”

“Downstream a bit. Around the curve. I’d expect her to want to stay as clear of the compound as she can.”

“It’s a wide river,” said Turam.

“It would be safer around the curve.”

“Okay,” said Viscenda, “Turam, you’ll take care of it. Meanwhile, I have an errand to perform. We’ll meet back here in fifteen minutes.”

Viscenda returned with an attractive young woman. She had black hair and dark eyes, but she looked a bit nervous. “Rikki,” said the director, “you know Chase and Alex.” She sat down behind her desk. “Rikki Brant helps prepare our food.” Her methodical, unrushed manner suggested she was simply arranging for a set of repairs on the roof.

I guess I was staring, wondering what Rikki was doing there. She returned a smile.

“There’s something else, Alex,” Viscenda said. “We are—the community is—assuming a risk no matter how we try to handle this. Salyeva knows what you look like?”

“Yes.”

“Both of you?”

“That is correct.”

“There’s a reality to our situation that we can’t avoid. You’re already aware that we’re hanging on here by a thread. Your appearance last week, the two of you, was a godsend. You are our hope for the future. Whether we survive, whether our children survive, depends on our ability to protect you. Without you—” She held up her hands. “Well, you see why we cannot take a chance on losing you. Either of you. But especially we cannot afford to lose both.” She smiled uncomfortably. “We wouldn’t survive that. Who, then, would bring the assistance you’ve promised? Your rescue vessel would arrive, look around, fail to locate you, and eventually go home. Have you notified them that we are here?”

“Friends of ours know.”

“Do the authorities know?”

“They do not.”

“Do your friends know where we are?”

“No.”

“All right. I assume you can’t communicate any longer with the authorities, or with anyone other than this Salyeva.”

“That’s correct.”

“That means we must ensure that at least one of you stays alive. In case things don’t go well.” For whatever reason, we all looked at Rikki.

“How are you going to do that?” Alex asked.

“By keeping one of you out of harm’s way. No one would mistake Rikki for you, Chase. At least not up close. But at a distance, and in a pressure situation, we should be able to get away with it. Alex, when you go out there this afternoon, Chase will stay with us. Rikki has volunteered to accompany you.”

I got to my feet. “Now wait a minute—”

“You’ve no say in the matter, Chase. Please sit down.”

All right. Now, I’ll confess I would have been glad to be in a safe place when the shooting started. But I couldn’t sit there and allow it to happen. “No,” I said. I was still out of my chair. “Absolutely not.”

Viscenda cranked up that laser stare. “If I must, Chase, I’ll have you restrained. Now please sit and be quiet. We haven’t time for theatrics. Rikki understands what is at stake, and she’s under no pressure to do this.”

How could she not be? But Rikki looked at me and nodded. It was okay. Don’t worry about me. “I won’t allow it,” I said.

“Chase,” said Alex. “She’s right.”

I wasn’t going to accept it. “Let them put somebody in for you, Alex.”

“We don’t have anyone who will pass for him as easily as Rikki will for you.”

We did a stare-down. Rikki said, “Please, Chase.” And I sat.

“All right.” Alex went over to the window and looked at the sky. “We’ve got one break, anyhow.”

I knew what that was. But Viscenda asked.

“We have some clouds. It’ll be difficult for her to see what we’re doing until she actually gets close enough where we can see her.”

“Good. I’m glad for any favorable news.”

“Viscenda, if you’re going to get into this, you might as well go all the way.”

“What do you recommend?”

“Put Chase in the woods with the rifle team. And I know what you’re thinking, but she’s the only one here who’s familiar with the lander. If we have to try to shoot the lander down, you’ll want her there to tell them where to point the guns.”

Viscenda frowned. “I don’t want to send Chase out there.”

“I know that. But if we don’t succeed, there may not be anything left here to rescue. Your alternative is to give Salyeva what she wants.”

“I do not like it.”

“Put all your chips on the table or fold your cards.”

“Whatever that means,” she said. She took a deep breath. “All right.”

Alex pressed an index finger against his lips. “And, Turam—?”

“Yes, Alex.”

“Is your rifle squad ready to go?”