Гэрет Уильямс - Темное, кривое зеркало. Том 3 : След на песке

"I think it would have been better for her to believe you dead, than for her to learn this."

"Damn you! Damn you all! Tell her what you wish. She will never love me."

"You are a fool, Kozorr. A stupid, arrogant, blind fool! She has loved you since the beginning, and you have not seen it." Sinoval kicked Kozorr's pike across the floor to him, and he picked it up. "Go from this place. Go to your new master and tell him….

"Tell him that if one more Minbari life ends at his hands, then I will hunt him down throughout the galaxy. I will destroy him and all who follow him, and his dream will be in ashes. We should be fighting the Enemy, not each other.

"See that he learns that."

"I will tell him."

"Oh, Kozorr…. think yourself fortunate. You could not have destroyed the Well of Souls. It is eternal and immortal. You would have died here, and your soul would have become just one of the countless thousands bound into the structure of Cathedral."

"Have you taken on the power of prophecy now, Primarch?" He spat out the title as if it were an insult.

"Yes," was the simple reply.

Kozorr left, and did not look back.

"You should have killed him," sighed the Soul Hunter.

"No. That is my way no longer. But as for you, my friend…. I think there are some questions you need to answer. This place…. will it talk to me?"

We welcome you, our Primarch.

Sinoval looked at his companion, and smiled.

Strangers were not entirely unknown in Sector 301, the area less than flatteringly dubbed the Pit. There were many inhabitants of Main Dome, Business Dome or the other, up-planet domes who came to the Pit for various reasons. Secret business deals, perhaps. Dark and unmentionable services that could not be obtained elsewhere. A need to find someone willing to kill or steal or kidnap for an appropriate price.

Or to find information. It was whispered that all knowledge was available in the Pit, for the right price, and if the seeker was willing to risk life and sanity looking for it.

Talia, nee Winters, formerly Stoner, and currently whichever surname suited her situation best, was certainly willing to risk life and sanity seeking the information she needed. There were a great many trails leading from IPX to the Pit, and she fully intended to follow them back out.

She was not worried by her surroundings. She had been in far worse, and she was still alive. This time she also had a bodyguard, which was unusual. Byron was less comfortable in the Pit. For one thing, he had to disguise his rank as a Psi Cop. Talia had long since got used to passing as a mundane, but then she was only a P5. Byron was a P12, and a powerful one at that. For him, badge, uniform and gloves were everything. There was simply nothing else.

"He's late," Byron snapped angrily. He was pacing up and down irritably, casting angry glances all around him. The street was quiet. This was a back alley in an area that made the rest of The Pit look normal and safe. The only place their contact would agree to meet them.

"He'll be here," she replied. She was much calmer than he was, her mind gently preparing itself. She ran through everything she knew about Mr. Chase, and she was convinced that he would show up. Her training in human psychology had been very thorough, especially mundane psychology. Chase was on the run; desperate, hunted and alone. He wouldn't pass up an offer of help.

"We shouldn't have to be waiting for mundanes. They should be waiting for us."

She grabbed the front of his jacket and pulled him sharply towards her with a strength he clearly found surprising. "Listen to me," she hissed, her voice low. "That attitude will get us both killed, and a mundane can pull the trigger of a PPG just as well as we can. We do not let anyone know what we are. We meet him, find out what we need to know, and that will be that. Understand?"

"This will all change once we take over and kick all these worthless morons into the gutter where they belong."

"Look around you, Byron. This is the gutter. Anyway, that day hasn't come yet, and until it does, we're going to have to play by their rules." She released him and returned to her relaxed pose. "Don't forget that." She was almost, but not quite, leaning against the wall. The muck on there would quite ruin her jacket.

There was the sound of a throat being cleared not far away, and Talia turned to look. There he was, Chase. A little more dirty and ragged than the last time they had spoken, but it was unquestionably him. "Miss…. Shaughnessy?" he asked. She nodded. Bridget Shaughnessy was an old alias of hers, one she had used the last time she'd been on Proxima, some years ago now. There was in fact a full history and background for Bridget Shaughnessy in the Hall of Records, very kindly planted there by Al. In many ways she was more real than Talia Winters.

"Yes. Come on, Mr. Chase. What do you have for us?"

He moved forward, and Byron began, very circumspectly, to move around behind him. "You can get me…. off Proxima?" he asked nervously. "Out of human space altogether?"

"Yes," she promised. "I told you. I'll be able to arrange a shuttle to get you into Narn space, and from there you can go where you like."

"Good. I've always liked the Narns. They'll protect me. I think…. I think someone's looking for me. I think…."

"Then the sooner you tell us what we need to know, the sooner you'll be able to leave Proxima and get away from them."

He nodded. "Yes. Yes. Good. Well…. um…. I used to work for IPX, as you know, and…. I accidentally stumbled across some of their…. projects they weren't telling anyone about. I mean, they own a couple of the lesser Ministers, and they've been trying to get more power over someone like Welles or Ryan for some time now, but that's…. common knowledge. At least," he giggled, "common knowledge amongst those of us in the business, anyway."

Talia could see Byron's face. His expression was hardening. He was getting impatient.

"Anyway," Chase continued, "I came across a bit more…. presumably what you're looking for. It was an accident, really. I was approached by some…. freedom fighters…. who wanted to buy some very useful items from us. IPX had a weapons contract from the Government a couple of years back, so I managed to siphon off some of the weapons and get them to these…. individuals."

"Which group?" Byron asked softly. Chase suddenly noticed that someone was behind him, and started.

"Uh…. some of the anti-Narn lot, mainly. Trying to…. ah…. kick the Narns off some of the newly liberated colonies. Acts of revenge…. stuff like that."

Byron nodded, a slight, ironic smile spreading across his face. That smile managed to unnerve Chase even more than he was already.

"Anyway, they wanted to make all the arrangements here…. in the Pit. It wasn't unusual. I mean, nobody really cares what goes on down here. The security forces are being paid off by everyone in existence, including some high-up people at IPX, and, well….

"It was through my dealings with the Security Chief here a couple of months back that I first discovered something was wrong. Allan, I think his name was. He was already getting a substantial pay-off from IPX, but he dug his nose into my business a little more than usual. He was expecting weapons to be coming through here, but for some reason the weapons I was helping supply weren't the ones he was expecting, or going to the people he was expecting them to go to.

"I did a bit of back-checking, because his attitude was starting to make me a little nervous. It turns out that for the past several years IPX has been funnelling a substantial amount of weapons and funds into the area, working through a man called Trace. Now I've heard of him, and I'm…. well…. put it this way, I'd rather stay as far away from him as I can get. I'm not certain what he's doing with the weapons and tech, but I can guess, especially since something goes back the other way, from here to IPX."

He fell silent, and mopped at his sweat-stained forehead.

"What's going back?" Talia asked softly.

"Bodies. In cryogenic suspension. Not many, but a fair number. Of course, no one can do any sort of census in the Pit, and Security don't investigate missing persons. Some of these people came from outside the Pit though; they're lured here somehow, and then disappear. Things are still chaotic up at Main Dome, and some people do vanish. But all these people had something in common, and that's what blew my little enterprise. As I said, Allan wasn't surprised that weapons were coming through here, even if they weren't going direct to Mr. Trace, but it was the type of weapons that tipped him off and caused him to report to IPX."

He shuddered, and looked at Talia carefully, as if seeking confirmation of something he suspected but didn't know to be true.

"What?" asked Byron angrily. "What tipped him off?"

"Well, the weapons I was funnelling through here were for use against the Narns, right. And Narns don't have telepaths. Almost every other weapon or piece of tech coming to Trace from IPX was for use against telepaths. I'd say that those missing people were all teeps."

"Ah," Talia said. That did explain a lot. She was about to say something when there was a sudden movement behind her, and she spun round. There was someone there. People, a lot of them, shimmering into view.

This was impossible. She should have been able to sense them. She heard Chase let out a wild cry and saw Byron start forward. She stepped back quickly, counting the new arrivals. Seven, at least.

"M…. M…. M…." Chase was spluttering.

"Shut up, Chase," snapped an angry voice. "Did you really think you'd evaded us all this time? We wanted to see who you planned to contact, and now we've found them…. Well, many thanks. Thanks to you, we're all getting extra bonuses this month."

"Mr. Trace," Chase said, finally managing a coherent sound. "Ah…. It's…. ah…. You don't want to hurt me…. You don't…."

Talia became aware that Byron was beside her, and suddenly realised what he was planning. So far this Trace and his companions hadn't tried anything aggressive, and she knew it was best to let the other person make the first move, sucker them into revealing more than they intended.

Byron didn't plan on waiting for anything at all.

She reached out to warn him, but it was too late. She could feel his telepathic invasion of Trace's mind, and his psionic suggestion to him.

You will leave this place. You will leave us alone.

Trace smiled slightly. "No," he said, in a friendly tone of voice. "I don't think so." He raised his hand, and revealed a small black box. He pressed a button.

Byron screamed and fell to the ground. He was unconscious by the time he hit it, his eyes rolled up into the back of his head. There was blood welling from his nose.

"He'll have a headache for a while," muttered Trace. "Are you going to make this easy, Miss…. Winters, isn't it? Because let me tell you, between the two of us and at the risk of jeopardising my hard-man image in front of my men here…. I really don't like hurting women. We've all got to have some sort of moral code, don't we? Otherwise we're nothing better than savages, howling in the wilderness."