MENTOR
Nolan pushed back from the mahogany tabletop, started rummaging around in the lower drawers of the small credenza behind him.
Downing cleared his throat. “If Riordan is to be a long-term asset, he will need long-term security. And not an entourage: it has to be a single person, one who isn’t associated with the Institute. Tricky.”
Nolan lifted a decanter and two glasses out of the credenza, poured a finger of Delamain into one of the snifters. “Actually, I think I’ve found an excellent guardian angel for our Odysseus.”
“I wasn’t aware you had started reviewing dossiers.”
“Only did it yesterday. It was a pretty short list.”
Downing let the first sip of the long-legged cognac burn away the sting of being left out of the process: after twenty-three years, there were still times when he absolutely hated this business.
Like right now.
ODYSSEUS
Caine leaned away from the glowing computer screen: if, fourteen years ago, he had entertained secret hopes of leaving a discernible, enduring mark on the legacy of humankind, he was now fully disabused of them. After his disappearance at Perry City, there was no further mention of Caine Riordan. And certainly nothing that helped detail the events of the lost one hundred hours that preceded his first, fateful cryosuspension.
But that didn’t mean that Caine had to sit on his hands. He knew there would have been at least two independent attempts to reconstruct his time and activities on the Moon. Firstly, Caine’s father would have continued to search for him long after he was declared missing, and those inquiries would necessarily have focused on retroactively establishing Caine’s movements while at Perry City. Also, once they hit a dead end, IINN would have made inquiries of its own, and would probably have run an article that was half-obituary, half expose. Logically, those two leads formed the nexus from which Caine could expand his own investigation.
Caine entered the necessary search parameters-
— And the touchscreen went dark, followed by a shrill klaxon-two strident hootings-which stopped abruptly. Just as all the lights went out.
Shit: did I cause that? Caine dismissed the thought as quickly as it came. That klaxon wasn’t in his room; it was down the hall. And it wasn’t just the lights that had gone off: he could hear the data-access heads spinning down, heard the hum of the refrigerator fading. It was a power outage-but in a secure intelligence facility? Then the two wall lights came back on, but were dim red: emergency lights.
Not good. A government facility wouldn’t usually be part of the local power grid, and if it was, it would certainly have its own generator, running low as a constant ready backup. Which meant-
The reflexes he had learned from his hypervigilant months aboard hab module DPV-6 came back along with the cool spine-and-outward rush of an adrenal surge. Time seemed to move more slowly as he snatched the biggest knife in the kitchen. Then he grabbed a towel and ran it under the tap for a second, in the event he’d have to move through smoke or gas. Next, he’d want-
Quick steps, just outside the door. Not the drumlike pounding of charging rescue personneclass="underline" a fast, gliding patter. He looked around: no time to find anything better than the knife. He flipped it over on the move, flapped the towel out like a flag to cover one of the wall lights. He brought the flat of the knife handle down firmly against the towel; the light within made a sound like a Christmas ornament dropped on a flagstone floor: a thin tinkling. The footsteps had stopped by the time he eliminated the second light. Without stopping, Caine swung around into the kitchenette, his back flat against the cabinets. Knife hand back, he crouched down, and heard the door’s lock snap over: opened.
Chapter Twelve
MENTOR
Downing feigned intense interest in the cognac. “I’m sure you had a host of suitable volunteers already standing in line to become Riordan’s full-time guardian angel.”
“Well, strictly speaking, we do have one ‘volunteer’-but not standing in line. In fact, standing is something our volunteer hasn’t done for a very long time.”
Downing frowned. “I’m sure that’s quite witty, but I have no idea what you mean.”
Half of Nolan’s face was hidden behind his raised glass: “Our ‘volunteer’ is another long-duration sleeper.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Think about it, Richard. Another sleeper will be in the same boat as Riordan. If we choose a person with the right temperament and attitude, the two of them will probably become close as a result of their common experience-and losses.”
Downing had to nod. “Yes, if we create the right kind of bonding events, the odds are good that they’d develop a strong affinity for each other.” He lifted his snifter. “I must say, it’s an inspired bit of madness, Nolan. It might even work. So tell me about our ‘volunteer’: who is he?”
“It’s not ‘he,’ Richard; it’s ‘she’-”
CALYPSO
The first thing she was aware of was nausea and the overpowering smell of chemicals: sharp, artificial, astringent. And the smell was not just around her; it was coming from her, too.
Hard on the heels of that realization came the sense of cold: deep, numbing, down-to-the-bone cold. And she was tired, so tired.
Hours of repetitive drill worked even though her mind refused to. Altered senses, deep cold, drowsiness: onset of hypothermia. I’m freezing, blacking out. Gotta move.
And then she was wide awake, as though someone had slapped her with an electric cattle prod-but the source of her sudden alertness seemed to be the hypodermic that was now sliding stiffly out of her left forearm. That was when she heard the oddly brief klaxon-two shrills and then off-and opened her eyes.
She was in a bed-a hospital? No, there was a panel above her, hinged like the lid of a tanning bed or a-
Coffin? She sat up quickly, looking around. A surge of nausea almost knocked her back down, blurred her vision. All she could see were angular shapes in the darkness of this large room in which she had awakened. Shapes in the darkness-
Shapes and voices in the darkness. Cold and wet. Sudden light in the eyes. Then gone. More voices, most American, some British, a few translating rapidly into-what was it? Spanish? Portuguese?
The light came back. And sound. “Captain? Captain?” The light was so bright. Seemed so far and so close all at the same time.
“Nonresponsive. I say we triage and move on.”
“Excuse me, Major, but that’s my CO. You are not ‘triaging’ her.”
Shapes with shoulders, with hides of brown and green mottling, swam above her and between eddies of light and dark.
“Corporal, I’m in charge here-”
“Doctor, you are in charge here. But this assault rifle has a special veto power, if you get my drift.”
The voices stopped. No, no; bring the nice voices back.
“Son, I know about her-she’s a good officer, but we can’t save her. Look.”
She felt waves with fingers move her body, roll her to the left. There was pressure-unpleasant-behind her.
“Christ.”
— then the tide of fingers receded, lowering her, and she was flat and level and comfortable again.
“She won’t make it through surgery. And how long ago did she get hit?”
“About forty minutes now.”
“Evacced how long ago?”