Child of Venus (54 page)

“Have they come in here to look for anybody?” Jeremy asked.

The woman and several other people shook their heads. “Not yet,” the woman replied.

“Then they'll find her when they do,” Chet said, jerking his head at Mahala.

“I can hide her,” Allison said.

Chet grimaced. “Not from a sweep, you can't, and there'd just be a lot more trouble for you when she's found.”

Mahala looked around the room. Most of the people looked angry or frustrated; she had the feeling that they would help her if they could. The Guardians must have come here to stop the conference somehow, perhaps by using Mukhtar Tabib and the other delegates as hostages. They were probably not interested in Lincoln's citizens or in the visiting workers at all, unless they got in the way.

“Then we have to get her to some place that's already been searched,” another woman said.

“I can do that,” Harriett said.

“No,” Mahala heard herself say.

“You're going to stay here?” Chet asked.

Mahala stood up, knowing what she would have to do. “They seem to be after the delegates,” she said. “You'll just bring trouble on yourselves if you try to protect me.”

“We're in trouble already,” Allison said.

“They won't make more trouble for you than they have to,” Mahala said. “I think I should give myself up—and before they come to search this place.”

“But you don't know what they want to do,” Harriett said.

“No, I don't, but friends of mine are being held by them, people I care about. It might get worse for them if I don't give myself up. The Guardians holding them might think they would know where I am.”

Jeremy sighed. “They could be questioning people about that. Guardian interrogations aren't exactly pleasant.”

Allison said, “I don't think you should go there.”

“I have to go.” Now that she had committed herself to that course of action, Mahala felt drained and empty. “You'd better let me out the back way. You don't want them to see me coming out the front.”

“I see Guardians coming out of Rosalie's shop,” a woman near the windows said. “Now they're going into Miri's place, so they'll be here pretty soon.”

“You might need somebody with you,” Harriett said to Mahala. “You still don't know your way around.”

“It doesn't matter,” Mahala said, “as long as they don't see me coming out of your place.”

A man said, “I'll come with you.”

Mahala turned her head toward the stranger as he stood up and came toward them. He was a slender man in the gray pants and shirt of a worker, of medium height, with a shaggy mop of light brown hair.

“Who are you?” Harriett asked.

“Edmund Helgas,” he said.

“He's been staying with my commune for the past couple of weeks,” a dark-haired woman who had been sitting next to him said.

“I can get you away from here,” Edmund Helgas said, “and it might go better for you if somebody's with you. Guardians can give folks a harder time when there's no witnesses.”

“He's right about that,” Chet said.

“All right,” Mahala said, “we'd better leave before they come here.”

“I don't like this,” Allison said as she opened the back door.

“I don't either,” Mahala said softly.

Edmund led her outside and along a darkened pathway behind several buildings. She could not tell if this was the same way Harriett had taken to get her here or another path altogether, and then they turned a corner. A man stood at the end of a passageway, silhouetted by the lights of the square.

A Guardian, she thought. The man turned toward them and raised his arm, and she knew that he was aiming a weapon at them.

“Who's there?” the Guardian called out, and a bright light was suddenly shining on them.

Edmund held up one hand and grabbed Mahala by the arm. “Look, I was fixing a homeostat in one of the shops,” he said in a high-pitched voice unlike the one he had used in the tavern. He walked toward the light, still gripping her. “Found this girl hiding behind a crate outside, in the back.”

They emerged into the square. The light winked out. Mahala did not like the hard look of the Guardian's face. The uniformed man stared at her, then motioned to his two companions. “She doesn't have her bracelet on,” he said, “but she looks like that holo we saw.”

The two other Guardians moved toward them. “Who are you?” one of them said to Edmund.

“Edmund Helgas. I was sent here to do maintenance and repairs. Just scan my
bracelet and you'll see—”

The Guardian suddenly struck him on the side of the head with his wand. Edmund staggered, still clutching her arm, then steadied himself.

“Maybe he expects us to give him a reward for bringing her in,” the third Guardian said. He was the tallest of the three, much taller than she and Edmund; he pulled Edmund toward him by the shoulders. “How do we know you weren't hiding her all along, trying to sneak her somewhere else?”

“We don't know,” another Guardian muttered, “so we'll have to bring him along.” He grabbed Mahala by the upper arm, his fingers digging into her arm so deeply that it hurt.

They were ushered across the square, toward the steps of the town hall. Someone has to stop them, Mahala thought. By now someone in authority had surely discovered that Lincoln was cut off from the outside. The Mukhtars and their aides would be worrying about the safety of the delegates, trying to find out what had happened.

She and Edmund climbed the steps with their captors; the wide entrance above them opened. Two more Guardians were there, with the bars of officers on their black collars. Someone was crying inside, emitting hoarse, rasping sobs.

They came through the entrance. The doors on either side of the wide hallway were closed; a Guardian was posted in front of each of them. Ahmad Berkur, one of the Cytherian delegates, was lying on the floor next to the booted feet of another Guardian; blood covered his face. The sobbing woman huddled on the floor near another Guardian was Ah Lin Bergen; she raised a bruised and discolored face to Mahala.

“We thought they might know where you could be hiding,” the Guardian holding her arm said, “but they didn't.”

Mahala was shocked into silence for a few long moments, then found her voice. “I'm a physician,” she managed to say. “Let me take care of them.”

“We don't have to let you do a fucking thing,” one of the officers said. “Baro, take that worker to the mayor's office and throw him in with the locals.” One of the Guardians who had led her here dragged Edmund across the hallway. The two officers took Mahala by the arms and propelled her toward a door.

The Guardian at the door stepped aside as it opened. A man was shouting inside, ranting in Anglaic. “Idiots!” he screamed. “Traitors! Do you think I can't stop this? I have already stopped it!” He spun around and faced Mahala; the jewel of a Linker glittered on his forehead. He was a tall man with graying dark hair and a sharp-boned face reddened and distorted by rage, and then she saw the gold stars of a Commander on his collar.

Malik was in the room, seated in front of a round table, bound to a chair, with Benzi tied to a chair next to him. Two Guardians stood behind them, wands in their hands. Tesia was there, and Hong Te-yu, along with a red-haired man Mahala did not know. Jamilah al-Hussaini, the former Liaison to the Project Council, was also under restraint. Mahala recognized the bearded face of the seventh person at the table, the only one of the captives who was not bound: Mukhtar Tabib al-Tahir, clothed in a formal white robe and headdress.

“Commander Lawrence,” one of the Guardians holding her said, “we found this one.” A hand pushed against her back, propelling her into the room.

The Commander strode toward Mahala. She feared for a moment that he would strike her. Incongruously, he suddenly smiled. “Salaam, Mahala Liangharad,” he said calmly.

“Greetings,” Mahala replied weakly.

“We have nothing against you,” the Commander said. “Let me assure you of that, young woman. We have nothing against any Cytherian—you are Earth's children, after all. But it wasn't at all wise of you to think you could hide from us.”

She swallowed. “There are two Cytherian delegates in the hallway.” A whining tone had crept into her voice. “They look badly hurt. I'm a physician—let me help them.”

He was still smiling. His open hand caught her in the face, knocking her against the wall. She grabbed at the nearest chair to right herself.

“Enough!” a man shouted.

“Mukhtar Tabib, you are in no position to tell me anything,” the Commander said. He clutched Mahala's shoulder and forced her to sit down. “And you, Mahala Liangharad, are in no position to make any demands of me.”

She kept still. Mukhtar Tabib looked angry; Jamilah al-Hussaini's widened eyes showed her fear. Mahala tried to imagine what it had been like for the two Linkers when they had realized that their Links were blocked. Unless they were Linking with people in other locations or searching for information that was not stored in their implants, they might not even have known that they were cut off until after these Guardians had entered the town. She glanced at Malik, who seemed strangely composed, almost resigned.

“Commander Lawrence,” Mukhtar Tabib said softly, “I will do what I can for you, but I must beseech you to tell me what it is that you want. I have been sitting here and waiting while you have been conducting a search for delegates to our conference and locking up Captain Dullea's detachment of Guardians.”

“There's two of those Guardians still missing,” said one of the Guardians standing in the open doorway.

The Commander turned around. “Then find them!”

“They're looking for them, sir.”

The Commander turned back to the others in the room. There was nothing human in his furious eyes and twisted face. Muhktar Tabib leaned forward, resting his arms on the tabletop, gazing up at the Commander almost as if he sympathized with him. “Commander Lawrence,” the Mukhtar said in his oddly gentle voice, “I will do whatever I can for you, God willing. Please inform me of your purpose in coming to Lincoln.”

“To stop this conference, this abomination.” The Commander pulled a weapon from his belt, an object that was slightly longer and wider than a wand. A beamer, Mahala thought, and felt her heart racing. Wands only stunned their targets; beamers were lethal.

“As long as you are keeping us here,” Mukhtar Tabib murmured, “the
conference cannot be held. It seems that you have stopped it already.”

“Don't insult me, Mukhtar.” The rage left the Commander's face; he almost looked happy. “You know that I can hold this area only for a short time. By now the Plains Administrators must be aware that Lincoln has dropped off the net. They will inform the Council of Mukhtars of that fact, and perhaps your colleagues are at this very moment studying scans and satellite images of this location. They will see that unauthorized Guardian vehicles are here, and they will be trying to decide what to do. And after enough time has elapsed, they will do what they must do to take us out, so to speak, regardless of any risks to the lives of others.”

“You have said it, Commander.” Mukhtar Tabib folded his hands. “You have already lost.”

“Do you think that I'm another of those weak-willed soldiers you pushed out of your way during your rise to power? Do you think I am the sort who plans his battles with his own self-interest in mind, who's afraid to risk his own hide? I know that I'll have nothing for myself when this is over, and stand a good chance of losing everything, but I will stop your conference, and that is what this battle is about. You want to strengthen our ties with the Habbers, and that will only destroy us in the end, destroy what we are. I am here to show the Habbers that they will never have our world as a gift, that they will never have our Earth, the planet they abandoned, turned over to them as a present by misguided people such as yourself. They may have deceived you with their spurious alien signal, but they haven't fooled me.”

“Commander—” the Mukhtar began.

“You believe them only because that serves your ends.”

“I believe them because we confirmed—”

“Lies,” Commander Lawrence shouted. “They will never have our world unless they fight for it, and I do not think that they are capable of that.”

“Commander,” Mukhtar Tabib said, “I urge you to think this over, to
consider—”

“You are trying to delay me, Mukhtar. You are trying to buy time.” Commander Lawrence lifted his arm, aiming his weapon at the red-haired man next to Benzi. Tabib rose from his chair; a Guardian moved toward him, wand out. The Mukhtar sat down again.

“Jeffrey Arnold,” the Commander said, “I know who you are, what you were. Everything you had was given to you by the Venus Project, and you threw it away to flee to the Hab-bers.” A short sound like a scream came from the officer's weapon as a bright light flashed. Mahala blinked, unable to see for a second, and then looked toward the back of the room. The red-haired man was still in his chair, his head thrown back, his body stiff. There was no mark on him, but Mahala knew that there was nothing she could do for him; the beamer had destroyed his brain and all the nerve cells of his body.

“Malik Haddad,” the Commander said, and for a moment Mahala stopped breathing. “You are an offense to your people, to your world, to God. You were given everything by Earth, and you rose to become a Linker yourself, but you could not stop yourself from spreading foolish ideas about the Venus Project, writing that it might become a bridge between Earth and the Habbers. Your Link was taken from you and you were sent to Venus, to atone for your mistakes, and instead you betrayed your people again to run to the Habbers. Now, at last, you will have the punishment you deserve and be an example to other traitors.”