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He thought he knew where to find the answers, if that turned out to be his
desire.
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It all depended on Berg.
Berg was dead. He would know.
"Look at it," Nakamura said.
"Luna," Oranson replied.
The drapes were open to admit the night breeze. Thick scents of pine rolled
down the mountain and billowed past softly moving curtains. Almost everything
was shut down. A few candles burned here and there, smearing shadows on
ancient paintings and polished wood. Nakamura sipped at his scotch, savoring
the peaty blend of the single malt as it struggled with the odors of evergreen
and darkness.
"We can't wait any longer for Arius," Nakamura said. "Too much is in the
balance. What happened to the teams you sent?"
Oranson stood completely still. The flickering lights from the candles and the
white orb glowing on the desktop screen caught at his short blond hair and
made him look like a mad saint.
"Nothing. They came back. There's nobody left down there. Junk and ruin and
corpses."
"No sign of Arius?"
"There was a room," Oranson said slowly. "It looked like it was designed for
him. But something had exploded there. There might have been several bodies,
but the destruction was too great to tell anything more without a detailed
investigation."
"He doesn't need a body," Nakamura said.
"Are you sure?"
"No. Do you know what happened there?"
"An assault force invaded. Local gangsters, street rats. But well armed. We
found bodies all over the place. Everybody was dead.
Whatever survivors were long gone."
Nakamura's face was golden and impassive, his black eyes glittering in the
shifting gloom. "He could be dead. It would solve a lot of problems."
"Yes."
Nakamura tasted his drink again. "He did this to me once before, you know, got
everything up and left me in the lurch. It was part of his plan."
Oranson nodded. "Maybe this time, too."
"I can't wait any longer!"
Oranson blinked at the force of Nakamura's words. His boss rarely showed such
emotion openly. Oranson could read him, but
Oranson had keys not available to other men. There was an explosion brewing,
however. Nakamura had made his decision.
"What do you suggest?"
Nakamura's glance was like a razor slash. "We will continue. We have the
people. All those expensive people. The spies and traitors, the soldiers and
killers. The fanatics. All mine to use, if he's gone." He paused. "Do you
think he's gone, Fred?"
Oranson knew there wasn't any answer to the question. "What choice do we
have?"
"Exactly." Nakamura sounded satisfied.
But Oranson, deep within the ruined shell of his mind, wondered. Nothing was
ever so easy as it seemed.
He was the living proof.
Danny Boy had grown up in Midwestern hill country, so the forested sprawl of
the remote Wisconsin shore wasn't entirely foreign to him. He did, however,
understand that his present appearance would be likely to upset the natives.
Moreover, his rural reflexes had somewhat atrophied after several years in the
Labyrinth, and so he kept reminding himself: take it slow, take it easy.
There was, after all, no rush. The white ghost who possessed him told him so.
He came into the tenuous outskirts of Pale's Crossing a little after ten at
night. There wasn't much to Pale's Crossing; a Shell charging station,
dilapidated from little use, only two machines out front new and sparkling in
the half-moonlight. Next to the station was a larger building which housed a
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cafe and a store that sold dry goods and tourist trinkets. Further up the
narrow tarmac road a rocky field sloped down to the pavement, ringed by dark,
silent pines. In the back of the field he saw the shadowy outline of a shed,
and beyond that the rising flank of a mountain. He skirted the charge station,
entered the woods, and came on the field from the rear. The soft, moist earth
felt good on the callused soles of his feet; soothing and cool. Small night
noises filled the air. He thought he heard an owl call. Something scurried
through thick leaves overhead, a sharp, flapping noise that receded suddenly.
His nose was full of the pitchy odor of pine needles. He widened his eyes,
felt the moon on his forehead, and crept forward.
A strand of rusty barbed wire strung from a line of rotten fence posts caught
him chest high and pierced his shirt and the fur on his chest. He grunted
softly, stopped, untangled himself. Looked around, sniffed, saw nothing. Then
he ducked under the wire and made his way through unmown grass toward the
small building.
The door was off its hinges but still partially blocked the opening. He got
down on his paws and knees and crawled through the widest part. A small,
winged creature whistled shrilly and beat a sudden exit through a higher
crack, startling him. He jerked up and slapped the top of his head against the
edge of the door.
A bat? He grinned whitely. Sure it was. He remembered childhood dreams of
vampires. "Dracula," he muttered thickly, rubbing the wiry hair on the top of
his skull as he pulled himself the rest of the way in. He wished the bat had
stayed. It would have made a classic trio.
The vampire, the werewolf, and the ghost.
Just like a horror movie.
Shag Nakamura woke from his uneasy sleep in the middle of the night. He stared
at the horns of the moon through the windows of his bedroom. White, and sharp
as knives. His forehead was cool in the faint breeze from the open window. He
touched, and felt a sweaty slickness. What did the Americans say?
Like somebody walked on your grave.
Alone, he shivered and rolled over and pulled up the blankets. His own inner
beasts told him something was coming. But they didn't say what it was.
--------
*Chapter Five*
Wier closed his eyes. A lance of fire slammed into his upper chest. Molten
agony exploded across his forehead. He smelled his eyelids burning. _What is
-- ?_ he thought, but never finished. Just the question. Then merciful
darkness.
Bobby Schollander recognized the man. His name was Harry Dougan and he was a
third-class technician working on one of the ancillary Levin projects. A part
of his mind recalled that Dougan was a longtime immigrant, recruited from one
of the Terran megacorps for his expertise in small-body manipulation. Dougan
had been on Luna for years, almost long enough to pass for native. Yet there
was nothing native about the blank leer on his features, or the blaster in his
hand. He swept the stuttering weapon back and forth across
Karl Wier's blackened form like a man hosing down a wall.
Without realizing what he was doing, Schollander dived across the table, his
trajectory low and flat. He battered into Wier's side and knocked him to the
floor. A searing flash of light scraped across his shoulder and he squawked
with pain. Then he was on the floor himself, his own frame shielding Wier as
he frantically tried to roll them beneath the protection of the metal
tabletop.
He heard shouts and screams, saw a jumble of churning legs and feet. The harsh
chatter of the needler sawed across the top of the swamp of sound, then shut
off suddenly. The silence was like a door slamming. Slowly, then, gingerly, he
peered over the top of the table. Became aware that blood had soaked his
shirt, was running down, dripping from his fingertips. A lot of blood, his and
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Wier's together.
A man he didn't recognize held Harry Dougan in a complicated grip. Dougan's [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]