"Caine." The perfect nodded gravely. His eyes swept the group, found Lathe; but it was another man who brushed by him and faced the comsquare.
"Comsquare Lathe, I'm General Quinn," the other said in a grimly satisfied voice. "You're hereby informed that the agreement between General Lepkowski and the Ryqril is no longer in force, at least insofar as you and your men here are concerned. You are in open rebellion against the Ryqril Empire and its authorized government, and are therefore subject to imprisonment and appropriate punishment for your actions—"
"Spare us the official speech, General," Lathe cut him off. His voice was calm enough, but Caine sensed a hint of steel beneath it.
Apparently the general did, too, and for a moment his triumphant expression slipped a bit. But he recovered quickly. "I see that bravado remains part of a blackcollar's arsenal." He sneered. "I suggest you don't bother frying to impress me with your stoicism. From now on, I'm the one who decides your fate, and I've always found a particular satisfaction in breaking people who pretend they can't be broken."
"No," Mordecai said quietly. "You're wrong."
All eyes turned to the small blackcollar. "Wrong about what?" Quinn demanded.
"That you decide our fate," Mordecai told him calmly... but there was something about his face that sent a shiver down Caine's back. "You have only the power we grant you. I choose not to give you any at all."
Quinn inhaled sharply, perhaps suddenly understanding what was coming. "Guards!" he snapped.
But too late. Mordecai's right hand was a blur as it swung upward at his face beneath the goggles.
Caine caught a faint flicker of light on metal... and even as the Security men belatedly surged forward Mordecai collapsed in a heap on the ground.
"Medic team!" Quinn shouted back toward the barricades. "The rest of you—get those shackles on them. This might be a trick."
Caine tensed, watching Lathe out of the corner of his eye for the signal that would mean taking action. But no signal had come by the time the massive shackles had been fastened around his forearms. Lathe, in fact, seemed almost in shock by what Mordecai had done... and slowly Caine came to the dark realization that this wasn't a ruse after all.
"Well?" Quinn snorted impatiently as the medic crouched by Mordecai's still form, instruments humming softly.
"Paralyte shock," the other said, drawing out a hypo and tugging at the mag-lock shackles enclosing Mordecai's arms. "Get these off him, someone—I have to give him a shot."
"No chance he's faking?" Galway put in as one of the Security men moved to obey.
"None at all. Yes, all the way off. Thanks." Pulling off the blackcollar's right glove, the medic jabbed his wrist with the hypo. "We've got to get him to the hospital immediately, General—I've got him stabilized, but that won't last long. He's taken an overdose of a paralyte drug, like getting shot repeatedly by a paral-dart pistol."
"So counteract it," Quinn growled. "We've got antidote—"
"But there's no way to tell out here which specific drug he's taken," the medic interrupted him. "All the antidotes are poison unless the corresponding paralyte is already in the system. Injecting the wrong antidote would kill him almost instantly."
Quinn grimaced, but nodded curtly. "All right, get the ambulance here, then. I'm damned if I'm going to let him get away from me." He turned to the others. "The rest of you move over toward that barrier while we wait for the transport."
"Just a minute," Pittman said hesitantly, stepping over toward the group around Mordecai. The Security men let him pass—
And it was only then that Caine realized with a shock that the other's arms hadn't been shackled.
"Pittman?" he asked. "What—?"
"I'm sorry, Caine," Pittman said, his voice low, his eyes avoiding contact. "Galway, Mordecai's carrying a cassette you'll want to have."
"Pittman!" Colvin gasped. "You lousy, stinking traitor. Why in the name of hell—?"
"Because I had no choice!" Pittman snapped tautly over his shoulder as he knelt down beside Mordecai's still form. "None at all. If you damn me, damn the Ryqril, too—they're the ones who did this to me." His hand reached under the civilian shirt hiding Mordecai's flexarmor, emerged with a small cassette.
"Yeah, I'll damn the Ryqril, all right," Colvin snarled, taking a step forward before the Security men at his side stopped him. "But whatever money they offered you that you couldn't resist—"
"Shut up!" Pittman yelled, jumping to his feet and spinning around. The hand gripping the cassette arched over his shoulder to throw—
Galway stepped in front of him, deftly plucking the cassette away. "Settle down, Pittman," he said, and even through his own haze of agonized disbelief Caine could hear something like regret in the prefect's voice. "It's over now. It's all over."
"Only for now," Lathe said softly. His voice was almost calm... but there was death in his eyes.
"Only for now. But there'll be another reckoning, Pittman. I swear it."
Overhead, a shadow caught Caine's eye: the flying ambulance had arrived. It settled to the pavement next to Mordecai as the paramed inside flung open the rear doors and rolled a stretcher out to the waiting Security men. "You three—get in there with him," Quinn instructed a knot of guards as Mordecai was lifted inside.
"But then there won't be room for me," the medic protested.
"You've already said there's nothing you can do for him out here, haven't you?" the general retorted.
"So ride in front. You'll be there in five minutes anyway."
The medic grimaced, but apparently knew better than to argue. He got in beside the pilot as the Security men and paramed squeezed in with Mordecai and closed the rear doors. The ambulance lifted into the night sky, and Quinn turned his attention back to the rest of them. "I trust none of you will be foolish enough to try anything so unnecessarily melodramatic," he said, almost conversationally.
"Don't worry," Lathe told him, still in that same soft voice. "None of us is going to die until we've taken care of you."
"I'm sure," Quinn said. "Lieutenant, call in the transports. And instruct the interrogation department to prepare for fresh subjects."
Numbly, Caine let himself be led over to the barricade. Pittman a traitor, Mordecai near death... and Lathe captured. What would come next he didn't know, but it almost didn't even matter.
For Caine, the universe had already been shattered beyond repair.
Chapter 25
It was a curious sensation, Mordecai thought, to be helpless.
Curious, and thoroughly unpleasant. Every small motion of the ambulance made him feel in danger of sliding off the stretcher, even though he knew they'd strapped him securely in place. Overhead, the dome light had been dimmed, for which he was thankfuclass="underline" with his eyes paralyzed open the glare could have quickly become painful. It would have been nice to be able to see the city below, but his head was pointed straight up and all his peripheral vision could pick up was reflections of the ambulance's own interior from the side windows.
About all he could do was listen. And he did.
"Easy as breezy, wasn't it?" one of the Security guards remarked from beside him. "I guess blackcollars aren't so tough to handle when you know they're coming."
"All guerrilla forces are like that," another responded. "They're long on nerve and short on numbers, and once you get them pinned down they fold."
"Yeah, well, I wouldn't get too confident if I was you," the paramed put in. "I helped treat some of the guys that came in after the Rialto Street fiasco—"