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He went back to the dossier.
Matthew Keller. What idiot whim had made him ask for this? Keller senior was dead. Crippled, crawling, he'd gone off the Void edge split seconds before--
"Castro."
Jesus Pietro looked up with a start.
He looked down. Treatment reports... Not good, but no disaster. Too many people had been injured in the, mass escape, but some could be saved. Luckily the organ banks were full. And could be filled again, from the vivarium, once the Surgery Section found time. Why did everything have to happen at once?
"Castro!"
Jesus Pietro's chin jerked up--and he caught himself before his eyes followed. He'd done this once before, hadn't he? There'd been a noise... and someone had called his name... and what the Mist Demons was someone doing una
Crew clothing.
But it was rumpled and dirty, and it didn't fit, and the hands that rested flat on his desk had dirty short finger-nails. A colonist in crew clothing, for sure. In Jesus Pietro's office. Una
"You."
"Thats right. Where is she?"
"You're Matthew Keller."
"Yes.
"How did you get in here?" Somehow he kept the tremor out of his voice, and was proud of it.
"None of your business. Where is she?"
"Who?"
"Don't give me that. Where's Polly?"
"I can't tell you that. Or anything else," said Jesus Pietro. He kept his eyes fixed on the man's stolen gold belt buckle.
At the periphery of his vision he saw two big, none-too-clean hands reach down to his own right hand. His visitor leaned heavily on that hand, and when Jesus Pietro belatedly tried to withdraw it, he couldn't. He saw his visitor take hold of his middle finger and bend it back.
The pain was shocking. Jesus Pietro's mouth came wide open, and he looked up to plead...
He was reaching for Polly Tournquist's folder when agony struck his hand. He snatched it back as if trying to get it off a hot stove. Reflex. The middle finger stuck out at right angles to the knuckles.
Mist Demons, it hurt! How the blazes had he--
"Well, Castro?"
He remembered enough, barely enough, not to look up. Someone or something was in this room, something or someone with the power to make people forget. He made a logical co
"Right. Where's Polly Tournquist?"
"You. Matthew Keller. So you came for me."
"Let's not play games. Where's Polly?"
"Were you in the car that attacked the Hospital? The one that dove straight down?"
"Yes.
"Then how"
"Shut up, Castro. Tell me where Polly is. Now. Is she alive?"
"You'll get no information from me. How did you get back from the void?"
"I flew back."
"I mean the first time."
"Castro, I could break every finger in both your hands. Now where's Polly? Is she dead?"
"Would I talk if you did?"
There was hesitation. Then two arms converged on his right hand. Jesus Pietro yelped with the pain and reached with clawed fingers for a pair of eyes...
He was halfway through a stack of reports when agony bit into his hand. He found two fingers of his right hand bent back at right angles to the palm. With his teeth clenched hard on a scream, Jesus Pietro turned on the intercom. "Get me the doctor."
"What's wrong?"
"Just get me the--" His eyes caught a flash of movement. Someone in the office with him!
"You're right," said a voice. "I can't torture anything out of YOU."
Faint, fading memories told him not to look up. He said, "You."
"Go fly a bicycle."
"Matthew Keller?"
Silence.
"Answer me, damn you! How did you get back?"
Two hands slapped together on Jesus Pietro's right hand. His whole face clamped down on the scream, and Jesus Pietro snatched up his stu
He looked up again when the doctor entered.
"No point in replacing them," said the doctor. "They're only dislocated." And he deadened Jesus Pietro's arm, set the fingers, and sprinted them. "How the Mist Demons did you do it?"
"I don't know."
"You don't know? You dislocated two fingers, and you can't quite recall?"
"Get off my back. I said I can't remember what happened to my hand. But I think that infernal ghost, Matthew Keller, must have had something to do with it."
The doctor gave him a very peculiar look. And left.
Jesus Pietro looked ruefully at his right arm, sprinted and dangling from a sling. Oh, fine. And he genuinely couldn't remember anything about it.
Which was why he kept thinking about Matthew Keller.
But why did he keep thinking about Polly Tournquist?
It was time and past time for the next phase of her treatment. But surely she could wait? Of course she could.
He tried his coffee. Too cool. He poured it back into the pot and started fresh.
His arm felt like dead meat.
Why did he keep thinking about Polly Tournquist?
"Phut!" He stood up clumsily, because of his bound arm. "Miss Lauessen," he told the intercom, "get me two guards. I'm going over to the Planck."
"Will do."
He was reaching for the stu
Two open arcs, joined, in black ink. Three small closed loops beneath.
The bleeding heart. It certainly hadn't been there before.
Jesus Pietro opened the folder. He could smell his own fear, and feel it, in the cool perspiration that soaked his shirt. As if he'd been afraid for hours.
Front and side views. Blue eyes, yellow hair, skin begi
Something stirred somewhere in Jesus Pietro's mind. For just a moment the face in the folder became younger. Its expression changed slightly, so that it seemed both frightened and angry. There was blood soaking into its collar, and a piece freshly bitten from its ear.
"Your guards are here, sir."
"Thank you," said Jesus Pietro. He took one last look at the dead man and closed the folder. He put the stu
"I wish we could warn Laney," said Harry Kane. "This changes everything."
"You wouldn't even know what to tell her yet. Here, take this out." Mrs. Hancock put a steaming pitcher of hot cider on a tray, added four mugs.
They were in the kitchen. Hood was in the living room with Millard Parlette. Parlette, leaning on Jay Hood, had managed to stagger into the living room and into an armchair.
It had seemed a good time to call a break.
The wind screamed against black windows. To four conspirators in front of a convincing fire, drinking hot spiced cider against the cold, the living room seemed a haven.
A temporary haven.
"You've been thinking about this longer than we have," said Harry. "We never dreamed the crew might compromise. Just what are you prepared to offer?"
"To start with, amnesty for the Sons of Earth, for you and whoever remains in the vivarium. That comes free. We'll need you. Once the colonists lose faith in the crew, you'll be the only force for law and order in the colony regions."
"That'll be a switch."
"We need to discuss three types of medical care," said Millard Parlette. "Organic transplants, the ramrobot gifts, and minor medical treatment. You already have some access to standard drugs at the medcheck stations. We can expand those. I'm sure we can offer free access to the heartbeasts and liverbeasts and so forth. For a while your colonists will have to come up to the Hospital to get treatment with the ramrobot symbiots, but eventually we can build culture tanks in Gamma and Delta and Eta."