A Taste Of Despair (The Humal Sequence) (36 page)

Tane nodded. “I know everything that you know. Well, not everything. It’s not perfect and it’s only the last few years. But I get the gist of it. So, aliens are among us after all. Those crazy loons were right all along.”

“Not really.” Hamilton shook his head. “It’s only the last few years that they’ve been here. But you seem to know more about me than I do about you. That makes me a little nervous.” He hefted the stunner for emphasis.

Tane smiled. “You don’t seriously think you’d ever pull the trigger on me, do you? But you are right. I do have you at a disadvantage.”

“I go by the name Walner Tane now, but I have had many over the years. Decades, I suppose I should say. Being on the run does that to you. Every so often you have to disappear and reappear as someone else. I began my life as Marind Rell, a name that has mostly been expunged from common knowledge by the Empire.”

Hamilton had more than the typical educational background due to his wealthy family’s resources, so he knew the name, all right.

“The Mindstealer?” He scowled.

Tane sighed. “Such a childish title, designed to promote fear and loathing. That was never what I was about.”

“What you were about was civil war!” Hamilton pointed out.

“I wanted change, that was all.”

“How many people died in that war?” Hamilton asked.

“Too many.” Tane nodded. “But all we wanted was to secede from the Empire, nothing more. I suppose I was naïve to hope it would happen bloodlessly. But I was also very young and idealistic in those days. If I had it to do over again, I would do things differently.”

Hamilton scowled. “You mean, you’d mentally control more people!”

Tane shook his head. “Do you know the saying about history, Mr. Hamilton? That it is written by the victors? I never mentally coerced any of my followers. That was all propaganda by the Imperials. The truth is, you can’t make people do things that are against their nature. I may be a psion, and a powerful one, but the abilities I have are nowhere near as god-like as the Empire would have you believe.”

“I’m supposed to take your word at that?”

“I suppose you’ll have to.” Tane answered. “I lack the ability to provide the reciprocal information exchange that I used on you. I can read minds quite well, but I am unable to do the reverse, I’m afraid.”

“So what’s the Empire’s most wanted psion doing here? And weren’t you supposed to have died in the war?”

“I remind you again about history and the victors. But I have been many places, used many names. This is just the latest, though in truth I have an ulterior motive to being here.”

“I suppose you don’t care to share that motive?” Hamilton asked.

“Perhaps.” Tane allowed. “I suspect my fate is bound up with yours, now. It would be churlish to not reveal the rest.”

“Yes.” A new voice, female, from the doorway stated. “Do tell us all about it, Rell. Or do you prefer Tane, these days?”

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

Both men were startled. The speaker was a woman in an ImpSec coverall. She held an unpleasant looking heavy-duty laze pistol on them. Behind her, stood two more ImpSec agents, weapons drawn.

“Drop the stunner.” She ordered Hamilton. He glanced around at his companions, but they were still under the influence of whatever Tane had done to them all. Sighing, he dropped the weapon.

“Good boy Hamilton.” The woman smirked. “Looks like I’ll get that promotion after all. The Empire’s most wanted man of all time and the Empire’s currently most wanted terrorist.” She glanced down at the others. “Plus associated cohorts. Yes, I can see my career skyrocketing!”

“We’re not who you think we are..” Hamilton began, stalling.

“Oh please!” She sneered. “Do you think I was …..”

Her face abruptly went blank, as if she had fallen asleep in mid-sentence, though her eyes remained open. Hamilton did not wait. She was blocking the door, preventing her companions from entering or firing easily. He bent down to snatch up the stunner.

The laze bolt blew the weapon to pieces, several of which ended up embedded in his hand. Angrily, he snatched his hand back and glared at the woman.

Except, it was not the woman anymore. Rather, it was someone else entirely. She looked exactly the same, but her entire posture and bearing had changed in the blink of an eye. Hamilton hardly needed to see the self-satisfied, smug look on her face to know who it was. Whom he had know it would be all along.

“Walsh!”

The woman smiled and inclined her head. “I must really work on my tells if you can spot me that easily Hamilton!”

“Walsh?” Tane frowned. “The alien leader?”

“I’d say ‘In the flesh’,” the female Walsh said. “But that wouldn’t really be appropriate, I think.”

So who’s this poor sap?” Hamilton indicated the woman Walsh was possessing.

Walsh shrugged. “Who cares? Some fool who one of my associates decided would make a good drone.”

“I wonder what her companions might think of that?” Hamilton said, looking at the other two agents.

“Not much.” Walsh replied. “They’re drones too.”

“How are you doing that? Are you actually in the woman’s mind?” Tane actually looked horrified at the thought.

“No, of course not! For one thing, why risk myself like that? No. I’m safely very far away. I’m just using this creature’s body as a communications medium.”

“But how?” Hamilton fished. He knew Walsh’s kind had communications far beyond anything humanity had, but he didn’t know how it was done.

“How am I communicating across the gulf of space?” Walsh smiled. “Simple, really. Quantum entanglement. Much like your own StellarNet, but a lot more reliable and compact. Instantaneous, too.”

“And to what do we owe the pleasure of this almost personal visit?” Hamilton frowned.

Walsh smiled. “Actually, I’m not exclusively here for you, Hamilton. I know that might come as a shock to you, but there you are. I dealt with you and your people on Tantalus. So you managed to escape, big deal! It’s not like you’re much more than a nuisance. I knew you’d come here, I had that freighter of yours bugged just in case you managed to get away somehow, which you did. Bravo! I know all your schemes, Hamilton! But primarily I’m here for him.” The woman indicated Tane. “Catching you both here was just a matter of good timing in my part.”

“What do you want with me?” Tane frowned.

“Let’s review your file, Mr. Tane. Is it Tane? Or do you prefer Rell? I think I’ll call you Rell. You have no idea how much security footage and data I had to go through to trace back your various identities all the way to the beginning. Years’ worth of footage! Mostly it’s irrelevant, since I’m concerned with what you did in this persona, not any of the previous ones. But the effort was considerable, so I think I’ll call you Rell. It makes the research seem worthwhile, then!”

Hamilton shook his head and pulled a piece of plastic out of his hand. Walsh was settling in for another of his self-satisfied lectures.

“So, Walner Tane, aka Marind Rell. You’ve been here a number of years. Twelve, in fact. However, what interests me most is that about four years ago, Mr. Rell here orchestrated the theft and disposal of a Humal artifact from the Institute. A very unusual artifact, isn’t that right?”

Tane’s expression darkened. “How did you know about that? It never got out.”

Walsh smirked. “It never got out ‘officially’. But there are always secret reports. Well, secret to most people, not me, obviously.”

Hamilton looked confused. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

Walsh rolled his/her eyes. “Hamilton, what did I tell you when we last spoke? About trying to find out what happened in the war between my people and the Humals?”

“You think this artifact had something to do with it?” Hamilton scowled.

“Oh, I don’t think it’s any kind of doomsday weapon, or anything like that. But the preliminary report on it, before it went missing, described it as “A glass-like dodecahedron, emitting telepathic resonances and most likely some sort of information storage or retrieval device.” I felt it was worth looking into, so I did some background checks on all the employees working here at the time. Imagine my surprise when I discovered Mr. Rell here. A bona-fide psion, hiding here under an assumed identity. The Empire’s most wanted criminal – though only those in the highest positions knew he didn’t die, as was reported. I like to believe in coincidences as much as the next person, but that was too much.”

Tane merely glared at the ImpSec woman.

“So, we can discuss what it was and what you did with it here, or we can do it….elsewhere. Your choice?” Walsh grinned.

“I don’t think I’ll be telling you anything.” Tane stated.

“Well, I should point out, perhaps, that your much vaunted mental powers won’t work through the quantum entanglement link. So about all you could possibly do is fry this poor woman’s brain by trying to wrest control of her from me. My associates here might have something to say about that. Plus, we all know I have people everywhere and can communicate instantly, so even if you did dispose of her and my companions you wouldn’t get very far before you were apprehended. All those soldiers outside, too. So why not bow down to the inevitable?”

“You know,” Hamilton frowned as if in thought. “It seems to me that you’ve said much the same thing to me twice now, and both times I’ve managed to get away. I think you overestimate your omnipotence.”

Walsh wore a tolerant look. “Sheer luck, that’s all!”

Hamilton did his best to imitate the smug, self-satisfied look that Walsh liked to wear. “I’ll give you luck on the first instance. I had no idea what I was dealing with then. The second time was down to thinking ahead. Planning. You ought to try it occasionally. It makes you a lot more confident about what you’re doing and when things go wrong, it isn’t usually because you didn’t foresee the outcome. Or maybe your kind just isn’t that good at thinking ahead. Maybe that’s why the Humals defeated you?”

Walsh’s demeanor changed ever so subtly, almost imperceptibly, but Hamilton knew he had struck a nerve.

“Big words from someone who’s a fugitive from his own people! I planned ahead thoroughly for all eventualities back on Tantalus. I bugged your ship, in case you got away. Once you had, and I found out about Mr. Tane, here, I sat on him until you showed up. Killing two birds with one stone is the phrase your kind uses, I believe. Oh, and don’t worry about your friends on the
Ulysses
, I have quite the surprise waiting for them at the array!” Walsh pointed out.

“We’re both fugitives, it seems.” Hamilton agreed, indicating Tane. “And yet, despite that, here we are, in the heart of the Empire, free men.”

“Not for much longer. Now, I think I’ll…” Walsh began. He/she never got to finish the sentence.

Carl surged up from where he had lain, apparently unconscious, and landed a huge punch to the back of the ImpSec agent’s skull. She went down as if pole-axed. The other stunned members of Hamilton’s group then began to stir as well.

The two other ImpSec agents seemed to momentarily appear to have gone to sleep. Hamilton thought, as he lunged towards them, that despite Walsh’s claim of instant communication, there must be a delay, no matter how small, in transferring control from one person to another. So it appeared here.

By the time the two men stirred themselves, Carl had grabbed one of them and thrown him half across the lab, over a bench and causing glasswork to shatter as chemical apparatus was knocked flying.

Hamilton reached the second man an instant later. The agent, or whoever it was controlling him, brought up his own laze pistol a fraction too slowly. Hamilton’s foot caught him mid-chest, throwing him back out into the corridor and against the opposite wall. His gun went flying, the power cord to his waist pulling free of the belt-pack.

The man straightened up as if untroubled by the kick, then assumed a combat stance.

It was professional, but there was a certain stiffness about his movements that was very obvious to Hamilton’s trained eye. It wasn’t that the man had been injured, it was just as if he was unfamiliar with his hand-to-hand skills. Almost like he was rusty and out of practice.

Hamilton knew all ImpSec agents received regular refresher courses and constant skill evaluations, so lack of practice could not be the answer.

He’s awkward because it’s not him doing it
. Hamilton realized.
It’s Walsh, or one of his alien buddies controlling the man. And he’s unfamiliar with his new body.

The man charged at Hamilton, who spun aside at the last minute and tripped the man, sending him stumbling down the corridor on his hands and knees.

Hamilton snatched up the fallen laze pistol and jumped on the man, wrapping the power cord around his neck and heaving backwards with all his strength.

Despite the sudden lack of air to his lungs and Hamilton’s weight on his back the man, who was stick-thin by anyone’s estimation, surged to his feet and threw himself back against the corridor wall.

Hamilton grunted and tried to tighten the cord further but he was already using all his might. The man moved forwards then threw himself backwards again. Hamilton felt the substance of the flimsy wall behind him give under the assault.

Abruptly, the man bent forward as Carl, emerging from the lab, joined the fray with a kick to the man’s stomach. From inside the lab, there was the sound of repeated stunner discharges.

It was Carl that eventually finished the fight in the corridor. He tripped both the man and Hamilton over, then grabbed one of the man’s legs and twisted it with savage force. There was a horrible popping noise as the man’s knee gave out. The big Enjun wasn’t done, though. He snatched up the man’s other leg and did the same thing.

Hamilton crawled away, still clutching the useless laze pistol.

His assailant was far from unconscious but, with two useless legs, he was hardly a threat any more.

Jones and Klane emerged from the lab and stunned the man repeatedly until he went limp.

The rest of his team, along with Tane, followed them out.

Hamilton turned to Tane. “I wondered how much longer you’d let that go on.”

Tane shrugged. “Information is always useful. However that one was starting to get on my nerves. Releasing your big friend was never difficult. It was priming him to do the right thing instantly that took some time. Thank you for distracting … it.”

“Hamilton! What the hell happened?” Klane was staggering a little, looking around in confusion at unconscious agents. “Where did these agents come from? What happened?”