Osprey chronicles comple.., p.70
Osprey Chronicles Complete Series Boxed Set, page 70
Lawrence closed his eyes and let out a shuddering breath.
“Jesus Christ,” Gil whispered. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. God. God…” His hands curled up around his skull as he doubled over, making the big man suddenly very small.
Gil pressed his face into the bloody gravel, besides the jellied mass of pulverized brain tissue, and screamed.
Lawrence jumped down from where he’d been standing knee-deep in Frank’s corpse. Gil didn’t flinch from his agony as Lawrence crouched beside him.
Something shone green and white in the light of the halogen lamps. It was one of Hank’s eyes. The rest of Hank lay crushed beneath Frank’s bulk. The rest of him not devoured, that was.
Lawrence wondered how much of their fallen brother Gil had eaten before he came to his senses.
He looked at Frank’s inhumanly large corpse and wondered if that thing counted as human. If it did, then by the feeling in his stomach, Lawrence was far more the cannibal than Gil.
Something moved in the shadows of the nearby lab building. Sarah lingered beyond the glow of the lamps, small and huddled by the door. Lawrence wasn’t surprised, and he was too tired to be angry.
He looked back at Gil, who howled and rocked on the ground like a child waking from a nightmare.
Except that the nightmare, Lawrence understood, wasn’t over. For people like them, it never would be.
Lawrence caught his head and caught the sound of words, forcing their way through Gil’s choking sobs.
“God, have mercy on me. Do not look upon my sins, but take away my guilt…”
Gil lifted his head as Lawrence placed a hand on his shoulder.
The whites of the big Marine’s eyes were as red as his hands.
“Make it stop,” he whispered.
Lawrence stared at him. At the tears tracking down his dusty face, mingling with blood and dripping red from the end of his chin.
“I couldn’t make it stop.” His gaze was distant. He trembled. “I couldn’t. God.”
Something glinted, and Lawrence turned his head to see the end of Hank’s dog tag poking out from beneath the dead man’s hand. He reached over and tugged the coded pass free from its chain. He slipped it into his pocket.
Then he drew his sidearm and checked the chamber. One bullet left.
He leaned forward and laid it on the ground beside Gil, who stared at him from behind the cage of his fingers like a frightened child.
“You remember what Sarge said about that soft place in the back of the throat?” Lawrence asked, his tone strangely distant to his ears.
Gil nodded. Given the right time and raw materials, vamp mods could recover from almost any injury. Through some unfortunate quirk of human biology, though, nothing separated the back of the throat from the deepest, most vital parts of the brain except a few centimeters of delicate cartilage that even the genetic artists had forgotten to reinforce.
Gil didn’t move from his huddle as Lawrence pushed to his feet. The big Marine didn’t look up, or stir, or call out, as Lawrence turned and walked out of the circle of light.
Sarah crouched beside the stairs, wide-eyed as Lawrence came to her.
“Come on,” he said. “We need to go.”
Even in the shadows, she must have seen something on his face that she hadn’t seen before because she took his bloody hand and let him lead her away from the building without one word of protest. She had his pack slung over her shoulders, and with her free arm, clutched a squirming thing to her chest beneath her tattered shirt.
They had walked about a hundred meters in howling desert silence before she found her voice and whispered, “Can’t we go back and help him?”
“Kid,” he said, “I’ve given about all the help I have to give.”
Somewhere behind them, a single gunshot split the night.
They didn’t say anything after that.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The man standing over Petra didn’t quite look the same without the signature twelve-pointed starburst painted over his left eye.
“Darling.” Thin lips spread into a wide grin as he offered her a glass. “Welcome to the Resistance.”
It was a layered drink, fading from red to yellow, and it smelled like the tropical beach from some immersive holo-drama. There was a slice of pineapple perched on the rim. It looked real. That was, of course, impossible.
Petra stared. The moment began to stretch, and slowly his grin faded. His nose wrinkled.
“Oh dear,” he murmured as the drink’s tropical perfume battled Petra’s l’odeur de recycling chute and lost. He set the drink on a side table carved to look like an elephant. “Perhaps you’d like the shower, first.”
“You’re Rush Starr,” Petra said. Suddenly she felt a bit dizzy.
“Enchante!” He rolled his wrist and bent in an elaborate bow. “I am so honored to meet you, Petie—”
Petra didn’t hear whatever he was going to say next because she’d fainted.
Petra woke up on the strangest bed she’d ever encountered. It bounced and roiled around all her curves. A waterbed, she marveled, poking the surface and watching it jiggle. She’d thought those kinds of things only existed in old movies.
Clearly, the bed’s owner valued it, too, because they’d spread a military surplus blanket across the duvet, putting a polite but firm barrier between it and Petra—who was still wearing an old guard’s uniform stained with recycling chute grease and hadn’t had a good shower in she didn’t know how long.
She sat up, fighting to keep her balance on the strange surface. The bedroom was about the size of the entire twelve-man barracks she’d shared with her squad. It was barely large enough for the massive waterbed and gold-plated wardrobe on the far wall.
There was a silver breakfast tray resting on the wardrobe. A teacup and small silver pot, still steaming. A crystal glass of orange juice. A quick sniff told Petra that it wasn’t spiked. A slender crystal vase and a bird-of-paradise flower delicately crafted from folded silk completed the tray. She recognized the flower from the cover of Rush Starr’s third album, Exotic Futures.
A folded note rested against the vase, written in elegant script.
Darling,
Bon Matin! Don’t worry about last night. I get it all the time.
Duty calls. I’ve gone to record an interview with the TNN. You have free rein of the flat while I’m gone. Make yourself at home. There are fresh clothes in the en suite.
P.S. You must try the sonic jacuzzi.
P.P.S. Really, I insist.
A single, many-pointed star signed the note.
Petra dropped the note and lifted the lid from the silver crock on the tray. It was full of warm oatmeal, pooled at the top with melted butter and dotted with raisins. The smell hit her, and she stood at the wardrobe, shoveling warm oatmeal into her face like an animal at the trough. After months of prison rations and leftover soups, a bowl of sweetened oatmeal tasted like heaven.
In her haste, she might or might not have spilled more than a little down the front of her shirt. No matter, she told herself. This guard’s uniform was going straight into an incinerator.
With her stomach deliciously full, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and passed into the en suite bathroom, half-dreading to see whatever “clothes” he’d laid out for her.
To her surprise, the three complete outfits hanging by the door were all perfectly modest, if a bit eccentric for Petra’s tastes. Mister Starr, or whoever managed his wardrobe, had also guessed her size quite accurately. Her options were a silky ultramarine pantsuit, a luxurious gray sweater with a long pleated skirt, or a cream-colored onesie jumpsuit that looked like a wealthy man’s interpretation of this season’s fleet casual fashion.
Petra shook her head and selected the sweater and skirt. Then she stripped out of her filthy prison garb, shoved it mercilessly down the bathroom recycling chute, and flung herself into the jacuzzi. The hydro-blasters sensed her presence and sprang to life, filling the air with a mist of warm, vibrating water droplets that beaded over her skin, slowly wearing away months of accumulated filth. There was a cornucopia of bottles and soap bars on the shelf. Petra devoted herself faithfully to opening every single one, sniffing the unique floral or musky scents, and rubbing a little on her skin.
Something flicked in the corner of her vision. She turned. There was a display screen mounted on the wall. Words flashed.
TNN updates available. View? Y/N
Petra tapped the Y. She hadn’t had a good veg-out with the Tribe Network News talk shows in ages, not since the viewer in the brig went out, and Internal Affairs said they wouldn’t allocate the funds to fix it.
Two people in fleet casual suits appeared on screen, sitting across from each other in white wicker chairs. This morning, the background hologram depicted the neatly coiffed hedgerow of an old English estate.
Petra was glad to see Harry Riles was still one of the hosts of the morning show. She’d met him a few times in fleet mixers. She liked his cute sideburns. Very distinguished.
She didn’t care so much for the shockingly beautiful picture of a woman filling the thumbnail over his shoulder as Harry faced the camera.
“…From the orphaned daughter of asteroid miners struggling to survive in the unsettled streets of Ganymede Station to the grueling ranks of the Seeker Corps to humanity’s best hope for a brighter future. Tune in tonight for the shocking, inspiring life story of Fleet Commander Nicholetta Kelba.”
Petra groaned. Shampoo suds dripped down to her eyelids, and she scrubbed away the burning. When she opened her eyes, a new face had appeared in the thumbnail over Harry’s shoulder as he moved on to the next headline.
It was her mugshot. Petra wanted to curl up and die, seeing the nine-mile gap where her two front teeth should’ve been.
“By now, everyone in the fleet knows the face of Petra Potlova,” Harry said somberly. “She escaped from custody on the Constitution around noon yesterday and remains at large. Internal Affairs was holding Potlova on charges of treason and sedition in association with last year’s mutiny and the disappearance of Tribe Six. She is armed and believed dangerous.
“Internal Affairs and MP officials are conducting a full manhunt across the fleet. If you’ve seen Potlova or have any information concerning her whereabouts, it is your patriotic duty to report to the nearest IA or MP immediately.”
Harry’s brow creased in the expression of deep, puppy-eyed concern that had made him the morning heartthrob for years. “Be safe out there, everybody.”
Petra’s mugshot disappeared, and Harry turned to his co-host, his grim expression melting into an easygoing smile. “In better news, Yasmin, I hear there are some breakthrough gene therapy treatments coming to the medical bays soon.”
The co-host was a tall, bronze-skinned woman with a fabulous cloud of curly hair and a killer smile. Petra instantly saw how she’d won the new co-host position.
“That’s right, Harry. The Guild of Genetic Artists is calling the new treatment Serenity, and if initial reports are correct, it’s going to be an absolute game-changer.” The thumbnail image reappeared, this time as a poorly rendered syringe graphic that made Petra scoff. Everybody knew that gene therapy didn’t come in a needle.
Yasmin’s voice grew somber as the broadcast cut to a recording of the Reliant’s prime medical bay. Exhausted nurses and volunteers in rebreather masks edged their way between double rows of occupied cots. Petra thought she caught a glimpse of her old friend Dolly, leaning over to take the temperature of a jaundiced man in a janitor’s uniform.
“We’ve all either fallen victim to the recent bout of flu or known someone who has,” Yasmin said. “In the past four years, incidents of significant disease mutation have risen twenty-six percent, and scientists and health experts have been sounding the alarms. Cramped living conditions and malnutrition have created fertile breeding grounds for superbugs. The wave of illnesses we’ve been seeing is, they warn, only the first phase of what might become a full-blown bio-war.”
The recording cut to an image of two white-coated scientists examining vials of clear liquid.
“But no more!” Yasmin’s voice-over went on, “The Guild of Genetic Artists, or GGA, has developed a breakthrough treatment. It will hypercharge the body’s defenses against dangerous pathogens and increase the ability to synthesize vital, hard-to-find nutrients from standard food rations. They’re calling the new treatment Serenity, and if initial reports are true, it’s such an effective proactive treatment against diseases that it might even increase the average lifespan by as many as seven years.”
Petra thought she heard movement out in the apartment and muted the screen, straining her ears. Yeah, that was the noise of a door sliding shut.
Even if only her host returned from his errands, Petra didn’t want to be caught alone with more than her pants down. Hastily, she scrubbed the last lather from her hair and turned off the hydro-blasters.
The image of all those sick people lying in the medical bay haunted her as she toweled off. The situation in Medical hadn’t gotten better in the months Petra had been out of the loop. She supposed she should be grateful she hadn’t come down with one of the superbugs herself. Probably she had her genetic mods to thank for that.
Still, something about that last news story bugged her as she shimmied the skirt waistband over her hips and tightened the cinch. More people surviving the bug cycles and living longer. It sounded great to Petra, which was what made her suspicious. Like it or not, supplies—from food to space to breathable air—were in short supply.
It seemed unlike top brass to push widespread treatment that would increase lifespans, thus competition for limited resources.
Oh, darn them all, she thought, disgusted, as she wiggled into the form-fitting sweater. The collar was wide enough to show off her collar bones, which had become notably sharp in the last few months. They’ve got me thinking like a bureaucrat.
Wrapping her hair with a hand towel, Petra shook away those ugly thoughts, squared her shoulders, and stepped into the apartment.
Until that moment, Petra had let herself forget all the strangeness that led to her being in this lavish place. As she stepped out of the bedroom, however, her host rose from where he had been lounging on a long sofa. He spread his arms wide in greeting.
“Petra, darling!”
Petra felt another surge of vertigo.
Rush Starr was a dramatically tall, thin man with a mane of platinum blond hair that must have been either a dye job or a genetic mod. He wore waist-hugging pants that flared at the calves and a puffy white shirt with a collar that, like Petra’s own, was wide enough to expose the shimmering gold astral signs tattooed onto his shoulders.
He stepped around the sofa and leaned forward, pulling Petra into a quick, bony embrace that she was too stunned to reciprocate. In a gesture straight out of some classic holo-drama, he planted a brief, dry kiss on each of her cheeks before pulling back.
“You’re looking very well. I am so glad you made yourself comfortable.” He grinned. There was a glittering diamond embedded in his left incisor, a fashion that had never caught on. Petra clamped her mouth shut in an awkward, closed-mouth smile, all the more self-conscious about her teeth—or lack thereof.
“Mauve suits you,” he added, brushing a finger over the wide collar of her sweater. Then he turned away and sprang to the sideboard along the far wall. “Can I offer you a drink? I must apologize. When you fell asleep, I helped myself to your Tequila Sunrise.” He glanced over his shoulder and winked at her. “Didn’t want it to go to waste. Can I make you another?”
Petra glanced around the room, licking her lips nervously. “Awful early in the morning for a stiff drink, isn’t it?”
“Is it?” Rush frowned. “I…don’t live by a common schedule, darling. When I am tired, I sleep. When I am hungry, I eat. No matter. Tea, then? Or perhaps coffee?”
“Coffee,” Petra said quickly. “Please and thank you.”
Old, stale, fabricated ditch-mud coffee had been a rare treat in the brig, and she hoped most ardently that the diva would have some of the good stuff. Her host didn’t disappoint, and as he busied himself assembling a small press, she stared around the apartment.
Rush Starr stared at her from every angle. LPs and old press releases covered the walls. First edition prints of Duty Lies on a Rocket Ship, Destiny, and even some of the oldest experimental stuff, from back before the fleet made him famous for his patriotic ballads.
Petra hummed old snippets of songs she remembered from her childhood in the slums as she browsed. The place was a museum.
Not a museum, she thought, pausing to study an autographed cover of Home is the Tribe. A shrine. Rush Starr’s shrine to himself.
There was a long, narrow table along the wall beside the bedroom door, decorated with dried flowers surrounding a crystal pedestal. Given the decor of the rest of the place, Petra would have expected the pedestal to be displaying Rush’s first album, or maybe that strange mask he wore in the famous Dancing in the Stars music video—the velvet one, studded with diamonds.
Instead, Petra stared at a rock. An oddly-shaped rock, to be sure—splayed into a crude cutting edge on one end and tapered to a jagged point at the other—but a rock.
“It’s a memento.”
Petra jumped, then took the cup Rush offered her. “You move too quietly for such a tall man,” she scolded.
He smiled apologetically.
Petra sipped and nearly spat. The rich roast, loaded with sweetener and velvety with cream, was a shock to her system after months of rehydrated protein packs and muddy ditch water.
“Be careful,” he advised. “It’s hot.”
Petra waved away his concerned hand and greedily chugged the coffee, ignoring the scalding burn working down her throat. “Not too hot,” she decided. She turned back to the elegant crystal shrine and the ugly rock crowning it. “Whaddya mean, a memento?”
