“Just don’t you dare try it with anyone else without telling.
“I don’t intend to try it at all. I just want you to know how much I love you, before I ask for more orl blood.”
Chapter twenty-one
At least the Array is safe. Titus struggled awake against the syrupy drag of nightmare. The Array is safe, but the probe is gone. Already the memory of horror was fading, as it always did, though the dream itself lingered in images of being buried alive under scentless bodies that screamed and writhed in slow motion. The nightmare was shorter now, and he was waking up sooner, healing inside.
And, he realized, for the first time since the sun had come up, he’d wakened refreshed, without the urge to vomit vying with ravening hunger. Still, what Inea had done to him the previous night rankled.
Sitting up, he discovered she had gone, turning off his magnetic field generator so he’d be sure to wake up eventually. A note was flashing on his screen. Scratching absently, he bent to read it.
“Couldn’t bear to wake you. I’m covering your shift with
“Hm, and I’ve switched our gym appointments, too, so you take over from Abbot this evening. Don’t forget your Medical at noon.
“ has it there’s some new treatment that takes an extra hour,
So “e early because you have the Department meeting right after Colby wants those reports this afternoon, too. I’m on K.P.”this evening. See you around midnight.“
“Whoever said life here would be dull and boring was flat-out wrong,” muttered Titus, knowing full well what the new medical treatment would involve. He wasn’t worried about Inea She wasn’t under any Influence. The Mark she wore wouldn’t show up, and the silencing would be evident only if they knew what questions to ask. But for him, it would be a challenge.
As he might have expected, Abbot was on top of things though he looked ten years older than he had a month ago. Just outside Biomed, he took Titus into a lavatory. “I’ve programmed the instruments to read normally, but there’s the problem of pupil dilation. Titus, we’re going to have to help each other on this one.”
“I can’t control my pupil contractions! And what about the contact lenses?”
“They’ll let you keep the lenses in. They don’t appear tinted. They want you to see normally, but think their way. I’ve read their recording and I know the cues. If you’ll let me, I can Influence your subconscious to provide the correct autonomic responses.”
Titus recoiled. Abbot pressed, “I’ll let you do it to me first. Titus, we don’t have much time!”
He still doesn’t know I got his transmitter out of the Array! Maybe Abbot hadn’t been able to get back into the observatory yet. He might be assuming the loss of control of the Eighth had come after his message was sent, under cover of Titus’s use of the Array. The Taurus window had been opening at the time though Titus’s message had gone a few degrees outside that window, to Earth, not deep space. The instruments had not registered any antennas pointed wrong, nor had there been any abnormal power drain. Still.
Titus assumed Abbot knew of the cargotainer project because he knew everything that went on. If Abbot thought that his message had gone out as planned, that he had summoned the aid he believed Earth’s luren needed, despite human opposition to revealing Earth’s location, and that his action remained undetected, then his offer of help in passing the medical could be genuine.
Even if Abbot thought he’d been defeated again, his offer of help ought to be genuine because he felt that the secret of Earth-luren’s existence had to be kept at all costs, at least until the galactic luren arrived.
On the third hand, Abbot might know what Titus had taken from the console and be totally unfazed by the theft. He might already have another plan brewing, despite loss of the Eighth. In that case, Abbot’s offer might be very dangerous.
What could he do to me besides plant physical-reflex controls? The exploitation of Influence had never been an interest of Titus’s, but Abbot was an expert.
“Come on, Titus. This will take at least five minutes.”
“All right. Show me what to do.”
Abbot had a notepad that displayed the list of verbal cues the hypnotist would use juxtaposed against a list of the proper responses. It took Abbot several minutes to teach Titus how to direct the pencil of Influence to induce the effects. Then Titus had to treat and test Abbot, to be sure he’d gotten it right.
By then, Titus trusted Abbot’s motives and submitted to him with some confidence. But he was late for his appointment, and subsequently late the rest of the day. Inea did come in just after midnight, but fell asleep over the orl blood she brought for him. He choked it down, and it stayed down producing only a slight queasiness that passed quickly.
The next few days, running late all the time, he had no chance to dwell on the impending arrival of the “tainers, or even to speak to H’lim about his advising Inea. H’lim was constantly surrounded by the Cognitive or Biomed people, and Titus wondered how he could find a moment to work on the booster, ”he day before the scheduled arrival, Titus again overslept, tremendously relieved by the few ounces of her own blood Inea had surreptitiously mixed with his ration of orl blood. Even the resulting quarrel, and lack of sexual release, had not impaired his sleep. The sun was still up.
Waking to the groggy miasma of lunar daylight, Titus realized he felt better than he had in months, and the mirror confirmed the impression. Despite the effectiveness of Inea’s treatment of him, his opinionated and willful woman had been given the worst advice in the galaxy, and, he decided, today was the day of reckoning. Tomorrow they might all be dead, or in the hands of the secessionists. But if they survived it all, he didn’t want to go through the whole ordeal he’d faced after leaving Abbot. If it’s not too late already. Dear God, don’t let it be top late already.
When he arrived at H’lim’s lab to relieve Inea, the guards let him through with a perfunctory warning that the security cameras were off.
Since Cognitive had tried to spy on H’lim’s private hours and he had caught them every time, Titus knew he could speak freely and somehow tell the luren to butt out.
Inside, Inea was seated on a tall stool leaning over the Thizan game board, looking tired but wholly absorbed. H’lim, welding mask over his dark glasses, was in the safety cage using an acetylene torch to mend a piece of glassware. His movements were deft, his concentration total, and a fog of absent-minded Influence filled the room brighter than the torch fire.
Titus watched until H’lim had finished the delicate job and the subliminal throb of Influence had abated.
Inea looked up. “Titus. I thought you’d be late.”
“I am.”
She checked her watch. “Ha! I must have lost track of time! Well, it’s only fifteen minutes. I forgive you.”
Titus looked at H’lim, knowing the luren had, perhaps unconsciously, Influenced her attention to the gameboard. His objection died on his lips, however, because he was more astonished at the deep tremor of violation he felt, and the pure animal rage lurking below it. Maybe it is too late.
Inea came to his side, gripping his elbow. “Are you all light-You seemed better. Look, I’m sorry I said all those really rotten things last night. Forgive me?”
Titus shrugged that off, eyes on H’lim. “It wasn’t your fault.” Did he Influence her to do that to me? He wouldn’t be surprised if H’lim’s touch slipped right through Biomed’s an hypnotic conditioning and past him. But the thought of himusing Influence focused on Inea made his lips peel back from his clenched teeth. He wouldn’t violate my Mark!
H’lim tilted back the welder’s mask and scrutinized Titus. “Earth’s luren are very different from the parent stock. Only in the last few days have I come to see just how different-and how uniquely valuable-Earth’s mixed genetic stock is.” His tone carried a note of apology that checked Titus’s outrage, capturing his curiosity instead. “Last night, Titus, I discovered, after I spoke to Inea about what she had to do for you, that I’d overlooked something vital.”