Eventually someone's going to miss him."
Lathe frowned. "Hawking?"
"I think he's going to be okay," the other assured him. "It'll be several more minutes before he can go anywhere, but the initial reaction's already passing. He's not going to die out here, if that's what you're worried about."
"I was," Lathe acknowledged. Briefly, his right hand clutched at his left wrist. "All right, get moving. I'm going to gag you and tie your feet together," he added to Marcovich, producing a cord from somewhere. "By the time you can get loose, we ought to be long gone."
Marcovich nodded understanding as the two others disappeared off into the underbrush. Already the fire in his blood was fading away, and with it the immediate fear of death. "I didn't think you blackcollars cared about people like me," he told Lathe, struggling to get the words out.
"We don't," the other said flatly, busying himself with the cord. "At least, not very much. But we don't kill even Security men indiscriminately, and certainly not when it isn't necessary. Though I doubt you'd show similar restraint."
Marcovich thought it over, decided it wasn't worth lying about. "No, I wouldn't," he admitted.
Lathe grunted and finished his work in silence. Carefully, Marcovich tried moving his arms, but it was clear that his muscles were still a long way from full control. The blackcollars were going to get away... unless...
"By the way, my men took the batteries out of your communicator and emergency beacon when they picked you up," Lathe said, getting to his feet and inspecting his handiwork. "Same for your laser.
We thought your friends might try to track you that way once they noticed you were missing. Of course, you can try to get back and alert them, but since you don't know where you are, I wouldn't recommend it. My suggestion is to just sit here and enjoy what's left of the sunshine until they come to find you."
Marcovich gritted his teeth, his last brief surge of hope evaporating. "You blackcollars read minds, too?"
Lathe smiled faintly. "It's how we survive. Thanks for your help, Security man."
"Marcovich is the name," he said, moved by an only dimly understood desire to be more than just another gray-green uniform to this man. "Miro Marcovich."
Lathe nodded to him. "Thanks for your help, Marcovich," he said. Producing the gag—a length of permatape—he carefully applied it across Marcovich's mouth and around behind his neck. Then, turning away, he disappeared behind the trees.
And Marcovich was alone.
It took him the better part of an hour to get enough fine-motor control back to untie his feet. A quick inspection of his equipment showed the blackcollars had indeed left him no way to signal the rest of the Security cordon, and a few minutes of careful reconnoitering confirmed that he hadn't the vaguest idea as to which way Trendor's grounds were. And a permatape gag he knew better than to try to remove without the proper solvent.
With a tired sigh, he found a flat rock and propped himself up against it. There'd be a search party out eventually, and he wouldn't be that hard to find. Though they probably wouldn't be fast enough to catch the blackcollars and find out what the hell they'd injected him with.
Behind the permatape, he grimaced. Deep within him, he could feel the drug churning and grinding, tearing at his system like a canal digger. Changing his whole being... and gradually he came to realize that Lathe had been wrong.
The stuff was indeed going to kill him.
Leaning back against the rock, he closed his eyes and waited for the search party to come.
Chapter 40
Anne Silcox was waiting in a faint pool of starlight outside Reger's mansion as the two cars drove up. "The gate guards called and told us you were back," she said as Lathe got out and trudged with the others up the steps. "I was hoping to talk to you—when you have time, of course."
Lathe nodded and took her arm. "Let's go inside," he said. Signaling Skyler to take the others back to their quarters, he led Silcox in the other direction to the quiet and privacy of the main living room.
"Reger told me you were going to try and get inside Aegis Mountain," she said as they sat down on a couch together. "I... did you... meet anyone?"
Lathe rubbed his forehead tiredly. "I'm sorry, Anne, they were all dead when we got there. A couple of months ago, from the looks of things."
She took a deep breath, swallowed visibly. "I didn't lie to you," she said quietly. "I really didn't know where they'd all gone. It wasn't until Reger told me where you'd headed and I had time to think... Did you find out why they were there?"
"Yes and no," he said. "They were manufacturing a drug called Whiplash, but we never figured out what it was supposed to do. Does the name mean anything to you?"
Her eyes seemed to come back from somewhere else. "No, not really," she said dully. "They sometimes talked about Whiplash as a sort of sky-pie breakthrough that was supposed to free Earth from the Ryqril. But of course most of the projects had that as their goal. How... how did they die?"
"They were poisoned by leftover gas from the war." Easing the pack off his shoulders, Lathe leaned back onto the couch and closed his eyes. He was tired—more tired than he could ever remember being since the end of the war itself. So much for retirement, he thought, half bitterly. The last of the blackcollars. Maybe Bernhard was right, after all. Maybe we're the ones throwing our lives away for nothing....
"You realize, I hope, that you're making a mess of my couch."
Lathe opened his eyes. "Hello, Reger. Nice to see you alive."
The other grunted as he sat down in a chair across from them. "Yes, I'm rather pleased to be that way myself."
"Tell me about it."
"About the way Jensen said it would happen," Reger said with an uncomfortable shrug. "Five of them came in, two nights ago, right along the keyhole path and loaded for mountain lion." He shook his head in memory. "I tell you, Lathe, it was the goddamnedest thing I've ever seen. Like shooting cats in a box. They never even had a chance."
Lathe sighed. "If you expect me to be proud about it, you're going to be disappointed. Blackcollars shouldn't die like that."
"But it wasn't your fault, was it?" Silcox frowned. "I mean, it was Jensen who set the death house up and Reger who suckered Bernhard's men into it. You shouldn't feel guilty about it."
"Leaders are responsible for what their men do," Lathe told her. "You'll understand that someday.
Especially now that you're in charge of Torch."
"Me?" She looked startled.
"Who else? Someone's got to rebuild the organization, and you're the most reasonable candidate.
Though if it helps any, you probably won't have to start exactly from level zero. Isn't that right, Reger?"
Reger scratched at his ear. "I don't know, Lathe. You're talking a hell of a lot of risk for not much gain. I'm in this business for the money and power, not to play Quixote for the nobility of it all."
"What about the power that'll be available when the Ryqril are thrown off Earth?" Lathe said.
"You'll be in a clear position to grab some of that when it happens."
"If it happens," the other countered. "You don't have to go through all the arguments again—I remember them well enough. It's just that I don't see a hell of a lot of indication the roaches are busy packing their bags."
"Wait a second," Silcox said. "If you're talking about me linking up with Reger's streetlice operation, you can forget it. I've got higher standards than that."
"You can't afford to be choosy," Lathe told her bluntly.
"What, you think you and Kanai can start things up all by yourselves?"
"Kanai? Who said I was going to take him on, either?"
"Listen to her." Reger snorted. "This is the patriot who's going to lead all of us to freedom? You have to submit a full pedigree to even get in on the revolution."
Silcox glared at him. "I can find more trustworthy teammates than you under the rocks in your yard," she growled. "I may be young and inexperienced, but I'm capable of managing without you, thanks."