“He’s not crazy, and he’s not out to kill anyone else.”
“Titus, you don’t know what he did to Mirelle. He made me watch. He made me watch him drink until she convulsed and died and he told me that’s what you’d do to me for what I’d done to Mirelle. But I didn’t do anything to Mirelle, nothing wrong. I only gave her a shot of the booster.”
Convulsed?! Titus couldn’t bring himself to probe for details. H’lim asked, “You gave Mirelle the amounts I’d told you? But you used the batch I showed you this morning?”
“Yes.”
“What happened after that?”
“Mirelle fell asleep, just as you said she would.”
“How much later did Abbot arrive?”
“Oh, maybe an hour. He couldn’t rouse her and I told him I’d given her the booster. He threw things around and raged at me. I couldn’t understand what he said, but he wouldn’t let me out the door. Every time I went for it-” She buried her face in her hands. “Snakes and scorpions. It was awful. He’s mad, totally mad.”
Titus didn’t need any more words for what she’d endured to come vividly alive for him. I’d have broken!
H’lim, however, seemed unmoved. “What happened when Abbot went to take her blood?”
“She bled-too easily, he said. It tasted peculiar. He raged about that, not always in English. But then he said he had no choice, and he-he-he drank until she died.”
In the luren language, H’lim said, “She’d have died anyway. Inea gave her twenty-two times the dose she should have used, a hundred times what I’d have started with in Mirelle’s weakened condition. Don’t tell her now.”
Titus turned to H’lim and Inea asked, “What’d he say?”
“Will Abbot get sick from the booster?” asked Titus.
“Probably not. In fact, it could act to increase his own renewing ability, to give him endurance he hadn’t expected Titus, he just might make it, even under the sun.”
“Inea, will you go with us? Outside? To stop Abbot from using the Eighth to call in the galaxy.”
“Shouldn’t someone stay to cover for you?”
“It’s too late for that. Besides, no matter your intentions, you’ll do whatever Abbot commanded because we don’t have time to untangle the mess he made of your mind.”
“Then I’m going.” She headed for the door.
“Wait!” said H’lim cutting her off. While he extended Influence beyond the panel to mask their escape, he asked, “Titus, do you realize what this means?”
“That Abbot has several hours head start on us, and we’ll be pursued, too?”
“No. That Abbot didn’t plan everything he did.”
Inea’s eyes went to the tousled bed. As he opened the door and gestured them out, H’lim told her, “He cut her body into six pieces and smeared her blood around my bathroom.”
The words were out before Titus could stop him. Inea choked and almost gagged. Titus gathered her tight against him, guiding her steps as her eyes closed. “She was dead before that.”
“This is important,” H’lim said. “Titus, he’s not a demon with godlike powers. He’s a fallible mortal, and thanks to you, nothing’s gone right for him in months. Inea has ruined his last, desperate plan. He surely didn’t intend to kill Mirelle.”
“He did. Tourists kill stringers.” Inea shuddered under his arm. He imagined Abbot had explained how he’d taught his son to do it thusly, so she’d never willingly touch Titus again. “Abbot enjoys killing humans.”
“Hacking them apart? Framing blood relatives for it?”
It didn’t sound like a typical Nandoha scheme.
“You’ve got the upper hand,” insisted H’lim. “Not only can you win, but he knows it, and when he learns I’ve joined you at last, he’ll be twice as deadly.”
“You trying to scare me off?” asked Inea.
“No, Dr. Cellura. This isn’t a hopeless, suicidal mission.
We can stop Abbot, possibly without killing him. I don’t kill those of my blood.“
They suited up in the deserted locker room, guarded by H’lim’s powers. Titus, who had labored his way, heart in mouth, through the station before the ban on Influence, marveled at how easily the luren moved through the multiple layers of the surveillance net. “I’ve had a while to study it. Besides, it’s not hard. The instruments are very noisy and their operators are always easy to spot.”
“Their operators?” squeaked Inea.
“H’lim, the control center is across the station!”
The luren looked at them both blankly, holding his vacuum suit’s helmet above his head. “It’s not very far.”
“My God,” whispered Inea, sealing her own helmet.
As he led them to the dock where long-range, enclosed Toyotas were stored, Titus grinned. “Colby would crumble! She’s so sure you can reach only a room or two.”
In the earphones, H’lim sounded uncertain. “Should I have told her?”
“No,” answered Inea gravely. “But if they find out now, you’ll be considered to have kept it a secret, and that will be seen as a threat.”
“I sometimes think I understand Earth’s humans.”
They had no trouble commandeering a well-fueled vehicle. Since the quarantine, none were used beyond the station perimeter, and Colby, true to her absolute security on the operation, had not yet sent crews to stand by to collect the “tainers cargo. The vehicles, however, had been serviced and were ready to roll. The Brink’s guards, having nothing to do, were playing a modified version of Thizan on a crude board.
The three of them simply walked past the guards, cycled themselves through the lock, picked out a pressurized Toyota with a silver streak and a half-finished rendering of Disney’s Roadrunner hand painted on the side, climbed in, and drove off, just as easily as Abbot had.
Titus guided the windowless bus across station territory at a tentative creep, bemused by the idea of a Roadrunner as mascot of something that lumbered like a juggernaut over broken country, its tracks making its own road. H’lim Influenced those on duty at the scanners to “accidentally” turn the recorders off and to ignore the moving blip on their screens. “They’ll never notice,” he told Titus. “I’ve introduced a number of spurious failures into their efforts so that, should I need to move about another little problem wouldn’t stand out.”
“And you called us devious!” said Titus, jouncing over a boulder. His steering needed improvement.
“It’s a good thing you know how to drive these things,” gasped Inea, grabbing her helmet before it rolled away.
“I don’t. yet,” answered Titus. “I’ll get the hang of it in a bit. See if you can find a map stowed somewhere.”
“You mean,” she howled, “you don’t know where we’re going?”
He answered with a straight face. “I just don’t want to go the wrong way on a one-way street. Could cause gridlock.”
She sputtered. H’lim, barricading himself into an equipment locker he’d emptied, paused. He was the only one who hadn’t removed his helmet because the radiation level was already too painful. Noticing his agitation, Inea laughed so hard she doubled over. “Titus, he thinks you’re serious!”
Over his shoulder, Titus said, “H’lim, I know it’s that way.” He pointed then singled out the stellar markers. In the process, he began to realize the time. “How much of a head start do you think he has on us?”
“Maybe three hours, could be four,” said Inea, “depending on how long he spent. in H’lim’s room.”
“I’d guess it would take him at least a couple of hours to rig that transmitter,” said Titus. “He’ll have modified it into a mismatched nightmare. If just one fitting is the wrong size, we may get to him before he’s ready to send. But that’s the least of our problem.” Titus had studied the strategic maps carefully. “Blockaders will be crossing between us and the Erghfh right about the time we get there, unless I’ve misread the stars and the clock.”