"I'm so sorry. But if I hear of such a place, I'll let you know."
"You're such a comfort, dear."
Jory didn't even pretend to be fixing anything this time as he waited outside Demeter Coghlan's door. Eventually, she had to return here, and he intended to confront her when she did.
As a Creole, Jory had complete control of his time sense. He could speed it up or slow it down as needed. So it didn't matter, subjectively, when she passed by this point. He would be waiting with just as much eagerness, whether it was in the next ten minutes or forty-eight hours from now. Fortunately for the foot traffic in the corridor—and for the Golden Lotus's management—Demeter appeared at her hotel room sooner rather than later.
"Demeter!" he said, stimulating all his circuits.
"Oh, Jory!" A look crossed her face that was less than ecstatic, but never mind.
"I missed you, Demeter."
"I know. But things ... came up."
"I really missed you."
Damn, he thought, his words weren't coming out right.
"We probably shouldn't try see so much of each other," she said quickly. "We got into ... in a little over our heads. I need time to get to know a person before I... you know. We just went too fast—"
"Didn't you like my place? Wasn't it private enough?"
"Place? What are you—?"
"If there's someplace you'd rather do it, Demeter, more isolated, with less interference, then just say the word. I'll go anywhere with you. You know that."
"Jory..." Her face positively clouded over.
Den Ostreicher could feel the rejection coming off her like waves of infrared from a burned-out bearing.
"I'm sorry," he said, backpedaling. "I just need—"
"I know, Jory. But I'm not the girl you need. Believe me."
The young Creole put a hand up to his eyes, turned away, and ran back up the corridor. Even though his tear ducts had been excised long ago, he could still feel the pressure building inside his head. He barely made the turn through the next hexcube without slamming into the wall.
After Wyatt docked the walker, Lole Mitsuno gathered his geological samples and headed for the rear of the vehicle. The lock cycled open, and there stood Demeter Coghlan, looking like cold death.
"You've got a hole in your organization," she announced.
Mitsuno resisted the temptation to ask what Coghlan meant by that. Instead, he looked over her head at the ever-present video pickup, with the ear jack in the wall beside it.
"Let's get a drink," he offered.
"I'm serious about this, Lole."
"So am I."
He took her by the arm and started down the ramp into the tunnel complex. Maybe, if he could just keep Demeter moving, the grid wouldn't think to track them, piece together what she was saying, and thereby learn something incriminating. The Hoplite was one level down. It was the logical place for them to go.
"So far this morning, two people have approached me about—"
"Who?" he cut her off.
"Nancy Cuneo, who's from North Zealand and is actually a paid spy for their economic development organization, and our friend Jory."
"What did they want?"
"To know if I could take them someplace private. Cuneo even mentioned radio interference. Someone in your rebel group has a pair of really loose lips."
"Not since we talked last night," Mitsuno protested, working out the timing in his head.
"Well, then, from before. I don't know. It's all very fishy."
The entrance to the Hoplite was right ahead, around the next hexcube. Once they got inside, the grid's monitoring would be nearly continuous.
"Look," he said quickly, "why don't you invite Jory to come to the room? Tomorrow night would be good."
"Invite him? But don't you want—"
'Tell him it's a party. Jory likes parties."
"But. . ." Demeter's brows curled in on themselves as she tried to understand. "But..."
"Just do it. Jory's an old pal."
"All right, but I thought—"
"Here we are," Mitsuno announced, changing the subject. "I should call Wyatt and tell him to have Ellen meet us here. Are you hungry?"
Chapter 16
Head Fakes
"Boy, it's wet down here."
Demeter Coghlan listened for the Creole's footsteps behind her on the walkway, light and deft, like a dancer's.
"The damp won't harm your, um, systems?" she asked.
"Naw, I get into worse than this lots of times."
"Good."
Persuading Jory to come to the secret room, as Lole had suggested, wasn't a problem. Once Demeter made contact with den Ostreicher, via the grid, he was more than willing to meet her anytime, anyplace. So she had specified a tunnel junction not far from the reservoirs, and he had been there well ahead of her, waiting.
As they approached the plain door, Demeter heard a sound above the background drip of water: the chuckling of many voices, mixed and echoing in a small, tight space.
Jory drew back before she could completely identify it.
"Hey! I thought you wanted things private."
"It's all right. Lole's holding one of his parties."
"But we were going to be together."
"We will be."
"I mean, alone."
Demeter reached for his arm, hooked it above the wrist, and practically dragged him up to the door. She thudded on the panel with the heel of her hand.
Scree!
Demeter peered into the brighter interior of the secret room. The furniture had been pushed against the wall to make space. The bed with the leaky stuffing seemed to be gone. She fast-counted half a dozen faces, with Lole Mitsuno s lighter coloring standing out among them. Ellen Sorbel was there, too. And that Dr. Lee from her medical visits. The other people she had never seen before.
"Hi, everybody! This is Jory." She turned to her reluctant companion. "Jory, you know Ellen and Lole, of course. Everyone else ..."
"Hello, Jory!" one of the strange men boomed, coming forward eagerly and putting out a big hand. He was heavily built, athletic for a Martian, and Demeter thought he might be drunk or on drugs.
With the speed of a striking snake, the man's pale hand jabbed the center of the young Creole's chest, doubling him over with a whoop! Before anyone could react, the same hand rose up to somewhere near the ceiling, stiffened into the shape of a falling axe blade—
"Not the head!" Ellen called from behind the man.
—and landed across the back of Jory's neck.
He collapsed like a sack of bones.
"Jesus!" Demeter breathed. "Why would you want to—?"
But already the man was walking away, rubbing his hand.
Two others detached themselves from the crowd— Wa Lixin was one of them—and picked up the felled body. Dr. Lee pressed two fingers into the base of Jory s throat, nodded, and let the second person slide a black hood over the Creoles head. Together they dragged him to the far end of the room, lifted a fold of the hanging, bent down, and pulled him through.
Demeter turned and sought Lole's eyes.
"But why? I could have told him some story or other."
Mitsuno shook his head. "I know Jory. He would have been suspicious. And if not him, then the machines that control him."
"Are you going to kill him?'
"Oh, no!" Ellen cooed, coming forward and putting an arm around Demeter's shoulders. "We need him. Jory s going to be our link in addressing the grid. Our interface. When he's unconscious, I think we can get past his reticular programming, down to his core operating system."