What Price the Stars? Part 10

The food served in the dreary, prefabricated common building was every bit as uninspiring as Mother Dumiel had promised. Tired, enervated, and not hungry in the least, Michael pushed the starchy mass to and fro on his plate. But sitting next to him, Alexi was tucking in like a thing possessed. She noticed his wide eyes.

“Sorry. Using the implants depletes my glycogen levels. It gives a girl a big appetite,” she said sheepishly.

Jørgen clucked solicitously and slid a steaming tureen of the dish across the table to her. “Eat, Lapooshka. You must recover from your shock.”

Li snorted in his seat at the far end of the table. “I cannot imagine why that foolish professor did not guess that you have a weapons suite. That technology is your company’s stock in trade, is it not?”

“It is,” Alexi confirmed between bites. “I have our Mata Hari Ultimate Undercover Package. I like it because it can’t be detected by security scans. I’d prefer the Minerva system, but the eye lasers are too conspicuous. I wouldn’t want to scare shareholders at the quarterly meeting.”

Li chuckled. “I don’t know, I would rather like to do that. But doesn’t your model contain a stun feature? Using it instead of your talons would have been less...inelegant.”

Alexi paused in her repast, a flash of surprise and annoyance bunching her brows. Then, she giggled. “I guess you’re right. But what would have been the fun in that?”

Jørgen and Li roared with laughter. Michael joined them, to be polite. At heart, he felt naïve and foolish. He’d had no more inkling that Alexi was armed than poor Rosencrantz did. Her bloodthirstiness shocked him to the core. Was she willing to murder to win the foundry? He was longer sure the answer was ‘no.’

The street door opened, and a familiar monk entered. Jørgen rushed to greet him with traditional air kisses. “Fra Grimaldi!” he exclaimed. “What brings you here? I thought you were busy protecting His Holiness from imagined assassins and sartorial emergencies?”

Grimaldi grinned. “Normally, I would be doing just that. But with Mother Dumiel in labor, the Foundry post was vacant, and I…”

Jørgen cut him off, suddenly deadly serious. “In labor?! Is she well otherwise? What of her babies?”

The big monk nodded furiously. “She and the twins are fine. After her shakeup, her water broke prematurely. The doctors chose to induce labor, just to be safe.”

“That’s a relief. How is the Professor?”

“He’s out of surgery and resting. But he’ll be in for a shock when he wakes up. The Guard is waiting to arrest him. They have quite a list of charges–Kidnapping, Assault, Breaking the Ban–that’s a bad one, to be sure–and Malicious Use of a Hologram. How they’ll prove the last one, I don’t know. We can’t find the emitter he used to project his black monster.”

“It will turn up,” Jørgen said brightly. “I’m glad that he caused no worse mischief than he did. Had he harmed the twins, he would have had me to deal with instead of the guard.”

“That reminds me,” said Fra Grimaldi. “Mother Dumiel sends Domina Petavia her heartfelt compliments on the excellent use to which she put her purloined neuron flail.”

Everyone turned to Alexi. “I didn’t realize that you used the flail on him,” Michael said, more aghast even than before.

“I saw no weapon when you returned. Did you keep it?” Li asked.

Alexi blushed. “No, I didn’t.”

“What happened to it, then?”

She rolled her eyes heavenward. “If you must know, I shoved it up his ass,” she sighed, and reached for her goblet.

“Bravo!” cried Jørgen, to peals of laughter all around.

Grimaldi turned to Jørgen. “Will your guests require meals tomorrow?” he asked.

Jørgen glanced at his antique wristwatch. “Only breakfast, and only for three. I must leave before dawn. I have urgent business elsewhere that cannot be put off much longer.”

“Most certainly. But what of the contest? We are much interested in the outcome, especially after what happened last time...”

Jørgen coughed, loudly. “Please excuse me. There is nothing to report. But a little time remains. Perhaps we will know more in the morning, yes?”

“Indeed, I look forward to it. Good night to you, Dominie Pangloss,” Grimaldi said, and left the building.

Li followed him. “Please accept my apologies,” he called to Jørgen. “The day had been long and difficult. I should like a walk in the fresh air to clear my head.”

“Please, be my guest. I will relax a bit myself,” Jørgen replied. He withdrew a small sheath of yellowed paper wrapped in cloth from inside his jacket–Michael had heard of such things, they were called ‘books’–and began to read.

Michael leaned close to Alexi. “We need to talk,” he said quietly.

She eyed him over the dregs of her goblet. “Well?”

“Not here,” Michael said, with a furtive nod toward Jørgen.

Alexi reluctantly pushed back her chair. “Let’s walk, then. I’m curious about the safe room Mother Dumiel mentioned. I can’t imagine its going to be comfortable.”

Bidding Jørgen goodnight, they left the common building. Outside, nothing had changed. The Hall of Receiving arched far, far above them, lit by the same thin light. The harsh floodlamps of Wrightstown painted inky shadows in the spaces in between the battered trailers and habitat modules. Li was nowhere in sight, but the safe room was easy to find: a stoutly armored pressure vessel directly across the street, with a prominent red cross on the hatch.

“How inviting,” muttered Alexi.

“It’ll do, come on.”

They entered the safe room. It was a typical model, identical to the units installed on space stations and large starships. There was a suit locker, a puncture-sealing patchgun, and twelve sleep bays, each equipped with a thin mattress. Michael sat down on one of them. Alexi settled opposite him, her back ramrod straight and her jawline set. This was going to be a hard sell, but Michael felt like he had to try.

“Okay, Mishka. What is it?” she asked.

“It’s you. You’re still trying to win. I want you to reconsider.”

“As well you might. But I’m not that easy to discourage.”

Michael shook his head solemnly. “It’s not like that. I’ve already told Jørgen that I don’t want the foundry.”

“Why not? Please don’t tell me that you’re afraid.”

“You saw and heard the same things I did. Can you honestly say that none of it disturbed you?”

She stared at a spot on the wall behind him. “Of course not. I’ve seen more than you, too. I saw inside the sanctum.”

“What was it like?”

“Like nothing I want to discuss, or ever think of again.”

Michael leaned toward her. “Then why, Alechka? Why not let it go? Let’s return to Earth. We know where the Inscrutable is. I watched Jørgen work the controls. I think I could fly it.”

Alexi grinned. “You’re scared of space ghosts, but you’d steal a spaceship from Jørgen? Remind me never to commission a risk assessment from you.”

Michael ignored her joke. “I’d do it for you, Alechka,” he said earnestly. “You’ve been a part of my life ever since we were kids. But in less than a day, I’ve watched you fall to your death and be abducted by an armed madman. What’s worse, I’ve watched you change. This game, this place–it consumes the souls of the living along with the dead. If we stay, we’ll end up like Professor Rosencrantz. I won’t stand by and watch that happen to you.”

A flotilla of emotions sailed behind Alexi’s blue eyes, leaving them soft and thoughtful. She caressed Michael’s cheeks with her gentle fingertips.

“My dear, sweet Mishka,” she said softly. “You’ve always been my greatest advocate and protector. I appreciate it, and I appreciate you, I really do.”

He hardly dared to breathe as he posed the question. “In that case, will you come away with me?”

Alexi’s lips curled into a strange, joyless smile. “In time I might, if ever you can forgive me. Sleep, Mishka.”

Her sizzling stun impulse hit his brain, and he knew no more.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10