“He’s telling the truth,” Marchey replied tiredly. “There won’t be any real doctors or nurses on that ship, just mercys with enough field medicine training to pass as medicos. You take them up on whatever little help they’ll be able to offer, and it will cost you everything you have left.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Fist has a file on it. The passphrase is Indian Blanket Benevolence.”
Jon frowned and shook his head. “I don’t get the reference.”
“Old Earth history. The settlement of the American West and the subjugation of its native peoples. One of the most efficient and effective strategies for killing off the indigenous peoples so their land could be taken was giving them blankets.”
“Blankets?”
“Blankets infested with highly infectious disease vectors. What looked like a philanthropic act was actually cold-blooded, premeditated genocide. A dozen blankets could wipe out a whole tribe.”
Jon shuddered, looking sick. “They really did that?”
“They did. In this case they don’t want you dead, but in debt. Accept their help, and you’ll be signing over mining rights, equipment, and yourselves as a ready-made work force all at once. I didn’t get all the mechanics, Fist just gave me the high points. It’s all in the file.”
“Just like old times,” Jon muttered darkly. “Here we were thinkin’ we were home free now we was rid of Fist.”
“I know. That’s why it’s imperative that you have nothing to do with the Helping Hands Foundation. If they get off that ship or land supplies, they’ve as good as won. All they have to do is bully somebody into signing the acceptance contract, and I doubt they’ll hesitate at using force.”
“Okay, I got all that, Doc,” Jon said evenly. “But I don’t see how we can keep them off our backs forever.”
“I’m trying to figure something out. If I can’t, I’ll just have to use my fallback plan.”
“Mind tellin’ me what that might be?”
Marchey sighed, not really wanting to say it out loud. “Worse comes to worst I point Fist at the situation and pull the trigger. He knows a way to stop them.”
Jon stared at him, his brown eyes wide with disbelief. “You’re kiddin’ me, right?” he demanded.
“I don’t know if I am or not,” Marchey admitted bleakly. No matter how much he tried to make it sound like there might be some other way out of this mess, he couldn’t see any alternative. All he could do was put it off until the last possible moment.
Jon’s face hardened, and he leaned closer to the pickup. “Listen, Doc, and listen good. That old man fucks over everthin’ he touches. He’ll fuck you over, too, you give him the chance.”
“That’s a definite possibility,” Marchey acknowledged. Once before Fist had given him what he wanted and very nearly destroyed him in the process. It was hard to imagine him passing up another chance.
“There has to be some other way out of this,” Jon insisted, sounding as if he really believed it. “You’ll find it. You won’t haveta go that far.”
“I sure as hell hope you’re right.” Jon’s optimism and faith in him was reassuring, and yet at the same time unnerving. How could they trust him? He’d deserted them, and left them open to this. “The longer you keep them at bay the better my chances.”
“I know I’m right. Anythin’ else?”
“Keep an eye on Angel for me. Keep her out of this. I don’t want her to get hurt.” Any more than she was already hurting herself. Any more than I’ve hurt her myself.
Halen nodded soberly. “We’ll do everthin’ we can. You can count on us.”
He knew he could, too. That was the one gleam of light in the byzantine labyrinth he had somehow strayed into, knowing he wasn’t facing it entirely alone.
But then again, he was the least of those who would suffer if he failed.
Angel watched Marchey’s face fade from the big main screen as the connection was broken. Jon’s face had been displayed on a smaller side screen that blanked at the same time, but she never noticed.
She sat quietly at the end of her pallet. The toll taken by the past few days showed in her face. Too many hours of work and too few of rest had pared it down, sharpening the curves and throwing her cheekbones into prominence. Her green flesh eye was sunken and kohled with fatigue.
It had only been by chance that she had taken a moment to stop by her cubby on her way from the minehead to grab a handful of manna before going on to put in a ten-hour shift at the smelter. Only chance that she had been there at just the right moment to listen in on Marchey’s call.
When she had gone into her room her mouth had been set in a grim line that said she was running on will alone. That line had begun softening when she saw his face, and now it was very nearly curved into a smile.
She had come within a heartbeat of breaking in and revealing that she could tap in on their call. It had been seeing the ghostly reflection of her own haggard face on the glassy surface of the screen that had stopped her. As badly as she wanted to make some sort of contact with him, she couldn’t let him see her like this. Now she was glad. The missed chance had become a promising opportunity.
Angel took a deep breath, let it out slowly.
He hasn’t forgotten about me.
He cares.
It was strange how your life could turn on such a small thing as the admission that you needed to eat. She had heard people use the word fate, but never really understood what it meant before this. Sometimes fate smiles, people said.
Yes, sometimes it did. Fate had given her a better way of atoning for her life as Scylla. A way to repay the Kindred for their forgiveness. A way of proving that she was Angel and not the hated other.
A way of helping him, and perhaps even proving that she was worthy of his attention.
Fate had given her the chance of a lifetime, and she intended to take it.
She crawled back onto her pallet and set her exo’s internal alarm to waken her in six hours. She would go on as before so that no one would know she had eavesdropped, but would rest more often and eat better.
Now she had a reason to harbor her strength.
Angel closed one eye and switched the other off to better see Marchey’s face inside her mind. Her face was placid. A tender smile of anticipation sweetened her lips.
Even before she fell asleep she was dreaming.
Marchey sprawled across his bed, his mind as restless as his body was still. You’ve got to sleep, he told himself for the hundredth time, only setting off a new chain of associations and memories.
To sleep, perchance to dream on if you think you’ve got to think maybe she’ll be all right if only I’d…
Even if he did sleep, he would only dream of all the things that plagued his waking hours. There was no escape. He felt as if he had fallen into a version of Alice in Wonderland rewritten by Kafka and Dante. A quicksand rabbit hole to Hell.
He turned his head to stare longingly at the glass on his bedside table. Enough 140-proof grain alcohol to start him down the road to unconsciousness like he had wheels on his ass.
But would the road really end there? If he drank that magic potion, he could slip free from the bewildering web of conspiracy, deception, and intrigue he had somehow become trapped inside for a time. Once free, would he ever come back?