Ariadne Page 13

  The geek jumps before nodding. “Yeah. Why are you interested?”

  I pull him aside, deciding to keep the hair I found a secret for now. “Think it could handle a few DNA tests?”

  Understanding dawns across his face. He ponders for a moment before nodding enthusiastically. “I guess you want me to winkle out the imposter? Good move. We have an all-purpose geno-suite. And we would be safe in there. Safe against whatever killed Boyd.”

  “Where is it?”

  “Six decks up.”

  Another journey up the staircase. I groan. I may die in less than an hour’s time, but at least my cardio-vascular system will have had a good workout.

  “Klund will lead us to his lab where we’re going to hold up for a while,” I announce.

  “His lab?” Hewlis says. “What the hell for?”

  “It’s not a discussion,” I remind him, holding up my gun. “Just a courtesy announcement.”

  IT’S A long, slow climb up the staircase. A climb made longer by my mind that keeps returning to Xev’s revelation. To Esta. Millions of my neurones and ganglia desperately trying to fire every which way they can, wanting to fill all my available thinking time. But now isn’t the time to get overwhelmed. Instead, I try to focus on the investigation. In particular, a niggling feeling about Velez and Denny’s plan that won’t go away.

  I’m an all or nothing guy and their scheme seems way too passive for my liking. Velez is strong-willed, passionate and fiery. There must be more to Pirella being aboard than just a shaming. My bet is Velez planned to kill Glaxtinian somehow. Shooting her in the gut with a buzz-gun would’ve achieved just that. But Velez didn’t go to all that trouble recruiting an ambassador’s daughter to not go through with her plan. And if she had shot Glaxtinian, why not say so? She’d already given herself a death sentence by admitting her role in smuggling Pirella aboard in a supposedly Neo-Dawn operation. Why not go the whole hog and admit she killed her, if that is what she did? The answer is a simple one—she wasn’t responsible for the death of Boyd’s mother.

  Who the hell was?

  Hewlis breathes heavily from the climb—even after a few flights, the man is red-faced and, I admit, I’m also winded. I give the order to rest and we all sit down on the twisting stairs. I go down to the below landing where Pirella stands with Rooba.

  The Jen’s large eyes widen in pleasure at my presence. I wave her away before she can say anything, leaving me on my own with Pirella. Above me, Xev sits behind Velez, chatting to Hewlis. Rooba joins Eric Klund, whose face reddens to match the colour of the Jen’s skin. Drex squats against the wall, his unfocused eyes staring sullenly into the distance.

  Pirella stands hunched over, her jumble of limbs weak and flaccid-looking, chin on chest, her face hidden by her long, curly hair.

  We lean against the staircase rail.

  “How are you holding up?” I ask, aware of Velez watching us from above.

  Pirella says nothing.

  I push back her hair to reveal a puffy, tear-ridden face. “I want you to tell me again about the plan you hatched with Denny and Velez.”

  “It’s not how she told it,” Pirella says, nodding towards Velez. “Denny loved me. Velez is lying. She has to be.”

  We both know she’s fooling herself. The girl has been through a lot. Surviving a gassing that killed her lover and most of the crew only to find out she was being played. That is a lot to process. “Tell me more about Denny.”

  “I’d had other boyfriends. A lot of them. But he was different. More wise… real, you know what I mean? He understood me. Loved me.”

  “And it was his idea to get you aboard. To give your speech condemning the Company?”

  She nods.

  “Was it something you’d written yourself?”

  “Denny did it for me. He was good with words.”

  “Tell me the last line of the speech.”

  “Why”

  “Just do it. Like you are doing it for real.”

  “It was… What I am doing will send a strong message to the Company. Neo-Dawn will do anything and everything it can to stop this evil regime.”

  Pirella’s voice rings out clear and loud on the stairs and everyone turns their head to listen. Out of everybody, the girl’s words have the most effect on Velez, whose eyes glitter and sparkle, her neck thrumming faster than I’ve seen it before. Her body is tense—like she is readying herself for escape, but there is nowhere for her to go on the stairwell, other than up. And she’d be easily caught by Xev and Hewlis.

  “Denny said it was important that I gave the speech. Because of who I am,” Pirella says.

  I turn my attention back to the girl who is fingering the amber pendant hung around her neck. “Did Denny give you that?” I ask.

  “Yes.” She smiles at the memory.

  Sudden movement out of the corner of my good eye—Velez throwing herself to the floor, her hand darting into the pocket of her uniform—and a spike of alarm from Ariadne’s mind.

  I push Pirella as hard as I can over the staircase rail. Her face a mask of betrayal and confusion as she falls into the elevator shaft.

  A bright silent flash and I’m buffeted by a terrific gust that lifts me up and throws me against the stairway wall, the steps crumpling underneath me. A crash and smash, and the elevator comes thundering past, falling towards the bottom of the ship in the artificial grav, trailing cables, whipping the guardrail which is splintered into deadly, flying shards.

  I stumble to my feet. Xev and the others are strewn on what remains of the stairwell. My eyes penetrate the dust and murk to spot Velez trying to scramble away.

  “Don’t fucking move!” I shout, my voice muffled and faraway, like it belongs to someone else. “Or I’ll blow your goddamn head off!”

  VELEZ STOPS dead in her tracks, her body sagging.

  “Goddamn it!” The sound of my voice is distant under the whistling of my ears.

  Velez and Denny had rigged Pirella with a spread-bomb. The pendant Denny gave to her. Not as destructive as a regular bomb but devastating in enclosed spaces. And small enough to smuggle aboard without tripping detectors. Whoever designed it was a goddamn genius. Shipboard security would’ve been aware of who Pirella was—an ambassador’s daughter slumming it with a waiter may have raised an eyebrow or two—but she wouldn’t have been regarded as a threat. Yet she brought aboard a bomb hung around her neck and Velez set the thing off…

  Clever… but heartless and calculating.

  Throwing Pirella over the railing was pure instinct. She was dead already. Dead as soon as she fell for that prick Denny. But I can’t help feeling a stab of guilt. She’s not the first innocent who has died to keep me alive. Not by a long shot. I have Ariadne to thank for the warning. I may be blinded by the ship’s powerful empathy field, but Ariadne had felt Velez’s intent. An intent the ship inadvertently passed onto me. One thing is for sure though, without her forewarning, I’d be dead.

  “What the hell!” Xev groans, lurching back to his feet to balance on the edge of the smashed steps, becoming aware of nothing between him and the drop. “A goddamn fucking spread-bomb. Shit!” He stands back against the wall, covered in dust and debris, his eyes falling maliciously on Velez.

  “Grab her!” I order.

  Xev grasps Velez’s arm, twisting her roughly around. The chef screams in pain, crumpling on what remains of the upper landing. Part of the destroyed guardrail pokes out of her left side like a broken steel dagger, blood staining her chef’s whites red.

  I make my way up the damaged stairwell that took the full force of the spread-bomb blast and drag a trembling Rooba to her feet. The Jen is covered in powder and bits of blasted stairway but appears uninjured. “You okay?”

  Rooba says nothing, her doe-eyes wide and wired looking, staring past me at the destruction of the elevator shaft.

  Hewlis is also uninjured as is Drex.

  Klund stays on the floor, his eyes closed. “Eric,” I say, kicking at him with my foot.


  His eyes flick open, his expression one of horror. “What did you do?” he whispers.

  “What he damn well had to,” Xev answers for me.

  “The girl… Pirella. You… you pushed her over the rail!” Drex says as if speaking from the confines of some terrible nightmare.

  “It was straightforward self-preservation,” Xev says in reply. “Vatic did what he had to do. Pirella was booby-trapped with a spread-bomb.” He kicks at the chef. “And this bitch set it off.”

  “Velez?” Klund croaks, pushing himself up onto unsteady legs.

  “Yeah,” I answer, pointing towards the chef. “The pendant given to Pirella by Denny, her supposed boyfriend.”

  “That’s just evil,” Drex croaks, his eyes falling upon the chef. “Evil!”

  “Let’s get out of here, I say ignoring him.

  We stumble into a corridor leading to one of the lower decks, Xev dragging a screaming, bleeding Velez like a carcass, and dumping her on the corridor floor.

  A few moments later, my ears pop, although the whistling hasn’t gone away. I remember the silver hairs I retrieved from Boyd’s hand. I was holding them before the explosion. They’re now gone. Lost somewhere in the stairwell. Damn!

  I climb up to Velez. She lifts her head to stare at me with a dust-encrusted face, her expression showing pain at her injury—as well as fear and loathing.

  “Is that what you were planning?” I ask her. “To blow Pirella and those VIPs in the Hospitality Suite to kingdom come?”

  Velez’s pulls herself up to sit against the corridor wall, her eyes momentarily closed in pain.

  “Answer me!” I bark.

  “You’ve seen that room,” she croaks, more blood leaking from her wound. “The plastiglass window. All that was needed was a small device.” Velez coughs, a dry, hacking sound.

  “That was a clever idea,” Xev says jovially, as if getting almost blown up on a runaway spaceship was a fun day out for him. “For a terrorist that is. They’re not the most imaginative folk. The best they can usually come up with is to point a buzz-gun and shoot. I’m actually fucking impressed.”

  The twitch in Velez’s neck starts to thrum again, increasing in speed, her heart trying to fight the blood loss. “I told you, I’m not a terrorist,” she gasps through the pain.

  “Well, you sure act like one,” Hewlis says, his voice a low, guttural growl.

  I snort. “Velez and Denny planned it to make it look like a suicide attack. A speech against the Company followed by an explosion.”

  “That’s some cold, cold shit,” Xev says, shaking dust from his hair.

  Velez’s eyes dart down to her side and the blooming stain of blood now turning her whites almost fully crimson. “I think… I think I need help.”

  “With so much blood loss, she won’t have long to live,” Hewlis says.

  “We can’t let her die, just yet,” I say. “Anyone here have medic training?”

  Hewlis nods.

  “Good. See what you can do to stop the bleeding.”

  While Hewlis checks over the wound, I turn my attention back to Velez. “How did you get the ship’s schematics?” I ask her.

  “I was contacted by the real Neo-Dawn,” Velez croaks, wincing in pain from the engineer’s touch. “They knew I had history with Glaxtinian. They told me about tonight’s party and that she would be there. A red rag. They even supplied me with the spread bomb. A device small enough to put into the pendant Denny gave to Pirella.”

  “Did you meet this person from Neo-Dawn?”

  The chef grimaces, her face becoming paler as the engineer’s big hands press around her wound, blood leaking through his spatula-like fingers.

  “Answer the damn question!”

  “I didn’t meet anyone,” Velez finally replies, her once bright eyes dulling. “The instruction was to set the bomb off in the Hospitality Suite mid-party, with Glaxtinian and the other VIPs… I did everything I could to make that plan work. We were going to let Pirella act out our little fiction and then…” A small chuckle escapes her lips.

  “Blow everyone up!” Drex blurts. “Including me and Boyd?”

  “A neat plan,” Velez continues, seemingly enjoying the kid’s disdain. “Until everyone was gassed. We never got a chance to do what we came here for. And someone else killed that bitch Glaxtinian…”

  I digest her words. Velez, Denny and Pirella were here to kill Glaxtinian under the guise of working for Neo-Dawn. Someone wanted them aboard Ariadne to do their dirty work for them. At least my hunch was right—Pirella giving a speech wasn’t the full story. “Exploding that bomb in the elevator shaft was almost suicide.”

  “What other choice did she have?” Xev says.

  “He’s right,” Velez spits, her breathing becoming laboured, the twitch in her neck now a frantic blur. “You’re not going to get out of this mess, none of you are! And I was dead already, as soon as that brat ratted me out. I took my chance. If I survived, I was gonna head for the escape pods. Make or break.”

  Hewlis straightens and gets to his feet, wiping blood off his fingers with his oily rag and shaking his head.

  “Velez is gonna fucking die on us?” Xev says disappointedly. “I was looking forward to offing the bitch.”

  “Fuck you!” Velez rasps. “You’re all gonna be dead soon, dead and buried! All of—”

  A shudder fills the chef’s frame. Velez gives me a startled look, before her head slumps forward onto her chest and she lets out a final, rattling breath.

  Hewlis checks her over. “Dead,” he announces.

  “And good riddance!” Drex says, going up to the chef and spitting on her.

  “One thing is for sure, though,” Xev says, disappointed, “Velez isn’t a copy. Neither was Pirella.”

  Drex turns to stare at me. “I can’t get over what you did to Pirella, I just can’t.”

  “You think Pirella was innocent?” I reply. “Maybe she was. But I didn’t kill her. That was Velez. All I did was save your goddamn hides.”

  “Yeah,” Xev says. “Vatic is a goddamn hero.” He shakes more dust out of his absurd hair, brushing at his velvet coat and ruffles. “That’s two down and still no imposter. Which means it’s either Drex, Klund, Hewlis or Rooba.”

  “Or none of us,” Rooba says, keeping her head turned away from my old boss.

  Klund remains quiet, his expression distant, his mind elsewhere. I guess he’s still trying to process what just happened. They all are.

  “How the hell are we going to find out who it is?” Hewlis says, his eyes watery and red-lined. “You gonna kill everyone, like Xev suggested?”

  “I have a plan,” I reply.

  “Of course you do,” Xev says, the smile returning to his crooked lips, creasing over his over-whitened teeth—a nightmarish ghoul with perfect dentures.

  I push past him and the still warm body of Velez. “C’mon, let’s get out of here.”

  The corridor is full of dust from the explosion, grating at my throat. “Hewlis. You know this ship. With the stairs and elevator gone, how else can we get around?”

  “Service tunnels, ladders and hatches,” he replies, going to wipe the dust off his face with his now bloodied oily rag and changing his mind. “Why? You still want to go to Klund’s lab? After what just happened?”

  “Klund, come here!” I shout, ignoring him.

  The geek looks up and rubs at his ears, coming back to himself. I wave him over with my gun and he complies, his dust-smeared face showing understanding, although I can see he’s still in shock over Pirella’s death and the explosion. He’s a lab-type. The closest the guy gets to any action in the real world, is playing some dumb stream-game. Real life tends to hit people like him the hardest. I suppose for someone like Eric Klund, all this is a lot to take in.

  “Show Hewlis where your lab is located.”

  After a quick chat with the geek, the engineer leads us away.

  Rooba appears on my shoulder. She’s still trembling.
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  “You okay?” I ask.

  “What you did…” The Jen’s voice falters.

  “Hey, I did nothing other than to protect myself and everyone else. Are you telling me the Jen are not as ruthless as Velez and her supposed Neo-Dawn cell? That you’ve not killed a rival or a lover before?”

  Rooba shakes her stylised head. “We are prepared to do anything and everything to get what we want when we get the chance. Everyone knows that about us. Consorting with the Jen comes with its own risks—and rewards. You did what you had to, I understand the reasons, but it doesn’t mean I have to like them.”

  “I don’t care what you think. I’ll kill you just as easily if it comes to it. Just make sure you don’t give me a reason.”

  Rooba stares at me for a few moments and smiles. “You’re a good man, despite all your harsh words. I’m not an empath, but I can sense that in you.”

  “I’m about as far away from good as you can get.”

  The Jen draws breath to reply, but I raise a finger to my lips. “Don’t try to play me, Rooba.”

  A few steps ahead, Hewlis stops in front of a service panel and pops it open.

  “Everyone inside!” I order, waving my gun.

  ANY WORRY that Ariadne’s internal structure might be stuffed with more bio-matter or cooked flesh is quickly dispelled. The opening reveals nothing more than conventional electronics and mechanical components.

  Hewlis squeezes his immense bulk inside and Xev follows—good. I need him at the front of the party. He knows his job. Judging by the amount of relish twisting his mangled face, I guess it’s the first time in years my old boss has done anything important. And besides, he’s not exactly the bastard I thought he was.

  Drex, Klund and Rooba follow, with me bringing up the rear. I pull myself into the small tunnel, leaving the dust and debris-strewn corridor behind.

  “Don’t touch anything,” Hewlis shouts from ahead. “The ship is in enough trouble without us messing with its systems.”

  I stumble forward, having to crouch in the cramped space. Rooba, with her impossibly long legs and cloven hooves, is forced to bend almost double. And suddenly, she is absurd, cartoonish. The Jen’s allure comes from carefully contrived poses and stances to show off their attributes. Thrust into this service tunnel, she is nothing more than a series of long, red, awkward limbs.