Mists of The Ages, page 34
“The other one was just as amused and just as alert, but it didn’t make any difference. It seemed I was back on Gryphon, and that would save me some time and effort. I shrugged in answer to their unspoken question and simply went with them.
Despite it being early afternoon, Raksall really was in her office—with an officious-looking Filster sitting in a chair next to her desk. One of the men who had brought me there had called ahead, but I hadn’t heard what was said. When I walked through Raksall’s door, I didn’t so much hesitate as pause to catch my breath, but the S.I. woman misinterpreted the halt.
“Now, Inky, don’t be upset at Filster’s being here,” she said at once, raising a calming hand. “He’s just finished going through most of the reports that were filed, and he wanted to tell you what a good job he thinks you did.”
“What an efficient, satisfactory and extremely productive job you did,” Filster corrected with care, giving me a narrow smile as I lowered myself into a chair. “Not only did you perform with all of your ability on our behalf, you even made it possible for your teammates to have the time to summon the assistance you all needed. That was truly fine work, and you’ve vindicated the computer’s decision to make use of you.”
“Ah, Lidra tells me you may not know how she called the troops down and then found where they were holding you,” Raksall said hastily, probably because of Filster’s final, highly flattering comment. “She and Chal explained about the anomaly that ruined your time sense, but Chal says you should have no trouble remembering everything that happened. Is he right?”
I nodded with all the interest I was feeling, not to mention the pain from the trip up there, and she took the answer as though it were the height of enthusiasm.
“Then unconsciousness is the key,” she said, nodding happily. “Chal theorized that it might be, and you’re the last one we had to check. He tried to explain how the rapid readaptation of the metabolism in the conscious individual slurred the memory that was linked in and active, but I’m afraid I missed most of what he said. He doesn’t try to talk above people’s heads, but in his position it can’t come out any other way.”
“One cannot expect the brilliant to lower themselves,” Filster put in, narrow and stiff as ever. “The same, of course, goes for Lidra, who programmed her board with an equation that solved the anomaly, and was therefore able to contact the orbiting troop ship.”
“But let’s not forget it was Inky’s discovery of the anomaly in the first place that let Lidra know she’d need a conversion formula,” Raksall came back at him, smooth satisfaction in her tone. “They made an all-around excellent team, and if the troops homing in on Lidra’s signal hadn’t had to spend some time adapting to the mists, they would have reached Inky a good deal sooner. She did still have her ring on, you know, so her location under the headquarters building wasn’t difficult to find.”
“The delay wasn’t all that critical, considering the prisoners they were able to take at the end of it,” Filster said, thumbing through some of the papers he held. “The number of hours hardly matter, when you consider what we were able to learn. That one calling himself Jejin, for instance …”
“Filster, what’s wrong with you?” Raksall snapped, her eyes on me in a worried way. When the man had mentioned the delay he considered so acceptable, what had gone on during those hours had suddenly come back to me all at once. “How can you sit there and say what they did to Inky doesn’t matter? She wasn’t simply locked up during all that time, she was being tortured! Her being able to hold out was the only thing that got you those valuable prisoners!”
Filster looked up with a frown, blinked when he saw my face, then went back to the papers he was holding to search for one in particular. When he found it he spent a few moments reading, and when he finally looked up again he was definitely pale.
“I—somehow missed that the first time through,” he said, his eyes clinging to my face. “Electronically heated wires—such barbarism should be punished to the fullest extent of the law—I had no idea— And after you allowed yourself to be captured so the others would find it possible to escape—”
His words broke off and didn’t resume, his pain-filled stare refusing to leave me, but it didn’t matter. Whether his opinion of me had changed or not, it simply didn’t matter.
“Well, at least it wasn’t all for nothing,” Raksall said, leaning back in her chair while she pretended not to see Filster’s reaction. “The problem we found is considerably more far-reaching and critical than simple fraud, and we’ve only begun probing through the first few layers. Unraveling it all will take everything we can come up with.”
“Yes, well, with all those addicts,” Filster said, finally pulling himself together enough to go back to his papers. “The ones addicted in the Mists go on to addict others, but the drug isn’t being charged for. And there’s the fact that if there is some sort of counter or antidote for its influence, it might well be found right here on this world. The computer is suggesting the core group running this thing makes a habit of establishing a headquarters in ordinarily inaccessible locations, like the Mists of the Ages on Joelare and the wilds here on Gryphon. It’s a shame we haven’t been able to learn exactly how many headquarters locations they have.”
“Or what they’re really up to,” Raksall said, then she leaned forward and put her forearms on the desk. “Inky, you’re still not looking very well, and even though I knew you’d be out of that hospital before they wanted to let you go, I think you’d be better off going back now. I know just how badly they hurt you, and you won’t be over it for quite a while. Go back and let them take care of you.”
“You really must, you know,” Filster put in, looking at me soberly. “Anyone going into the wilds must be in absolutely peak condition just to survive, not to mention function efficiently. It won’t be long, so …”
“I’m not going into the wilds,” I said, the words forced out of me by the internal shudder I felt. I was beginning to feel really sick, and the pain was flashing through my body like an asteroids-warning beacon. I knew I had to get out of there, so I forced myself to my feet and started through the doorway, but Raksall and Filster came right behind me.
“Inky, you’re just not up to thinking about it now,” Raksall said, a mixture of pleading and coaxing in her voice. “Once you’ve recovered you’ll understand how badly they need your ability, just the way they did in the Mists.”
“This is of vital importance, young miss,” Filster put in his own oar, his voice now sounding anxious. “The original Situation had been reclassified as an A Prime Emergency, something none of us can ignore. Your sense of duty and honor …”
“I have no honor,” I interrupted without turning, stopping for a minute to let the dizziness pass. “I’m a thief, and thieves have no honor. Just leave me alone.”
“Leave you alone to desert your teammates?” another voice asked, a strong male voice. “You know you’re not the kind to do that, Inky. If you were, I never would have asked you for a date.”
It took some effort to turn, but once I did I saw that big blond field agent I’d met at the beginning of that mess, standing behind and to my left in front of an open office. He grinned at me in a way I vaguely remembered, but I had nothing to say to him. All I wanted was to get out of there, but before I could turn back toward the exit three people came out of me office behind him. Two of them were Chal and Lidra, staring at me with hurt in their eyes, and the third, of course, was Serendel. I realized they’d probably recruited him to be one of their associate workers, but that was hardly surprising. What was faintly surprising was the fact that this time he looked straight at me, and his expression was a careful neutrality. He seemed to have gotten control of himself, but I couldn’t say the same about me. Instead of returning his gaze I completed my previous intention to turn away, but the big blond agent couldn’t let it lie.
“We’ll have time for that date before we leave for the wilds, Inky,” he said, his voice strong and steady and persuasive. “You’ll go back to the hospital and let them help you, and then we’ll …”
“I won’t go into the wilds,” I said again, my own voice weak but no less determined. “I won’t have any more to do with you people at all, and I want you to leave me alone.”
“We’re not ‘you people’ any more, Inky,” the man persisted, the calm in his voice unchanged. “You’re one of us now, a full member with privileges earned the hard way, and you can’t expect to simply walk away. We won’t let you walk away.”
“There’s only one thing I am,” I said, wishing I could sit down right where I was. “Tell the man what I am, Mr. Filster, just the way you said it to me.”
“My dear young woman!” Filster protested, his voice tinged with distress. “What I said then was before I knew you, before I realized what you were truly …”
“Tell him!” I repeated harshly, aware that everyone in the office had stopped to watch and listen. “It’s the complete, unglorified truth, so I want you to tell him! What am I, Mr. Filster?”
“A—a thief,” the man whispered, the words torn out of him bringing pain to his voice. “Your talent is stealing, young miss, and you’re nothing but a thief.”
“Thank you, Mr. Filster,” I said, looking down from all the pity and compassion I could see in the faces of those who listened. That should have been the end of it, but unfortunately it wasn’t.
“If you’re nothing but a thief, then we don’t have to spend much time worrying about your feelings,” the blond agent said, his voice having turned hard. “If you prefer having it put another way, you can join us on the assignment, or you can be sent to a detention cell. Does the assignment sound a little more attractive now?”
“Fieran!” Raksall exclaimed in shock, the only sound in the entire office. “You can’t mean that! Don’t you know …”
“I know everything I have to,” the man Fieran came back, his tone still remorseless. “What about it, Inky? The assignment has started to look a little better now, hasn’t it?”
“No, it hasn’t,” I answered flatly, a heavy knot of satisfaction inside me due to the fact that my friends were long gone and no longer at risk. “I won’t go into the wilds with anybody, most especially not with you and them. Either arrest me, or let me go.”
“Now you’re giving me a choice,” the blond Fieran said, his tone suddenly odd. “Are you sure you won’t change your mind?”
“Positive,” I answered, the need to leave having grown absolutely critical. I didn’t much care where I went, as long as it turned out to be some place other than there. I started moving, vaguely wondering how far I would get before I passed out, but the question never came up.
“If that’s the way you feel, I really have no choice at all,” the blond man’s voice came after me, the tone filled with more authority than it had previously held. “As the Agent in Charge of this star sector, I hereby arrest you for actions damaging to the general public. You two men take her away.”
An uproar began all around, but that’s exactly what the men who had brought me there did.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Sharon Green, Mists of The Ages
