Weight of the Heart (Bruna Husky Book 2) (20 page)

“No! No,” exclaimed the rep. “We haven’t come to kill you. The exact opposite. We want to find out who killed Yárnoz and why. Look.”

Bruna lowered her head slightly and took out her contact lenses, revealing her vertical pupils, the distinctive feature of technohumans. “See? I’m a techno. I remember you because my memorist, the real son of Nopal, implanted his own memories in my artificial memory. By revealing who I am, I’m putting myself in your hands, Frank. You know that reps are banned from this world. If they find out, they’ll kill me. You have to trust me, as I’m trusting you now.”

Nuyts looked at her, interested. He gave a slight nod of his head and said, “Talk.”

Bruna explained how Yárnoz had died, and told him everything they knew. Round tears began to fall down Nuyts’s cheeks.

“It’s my fault. It’s my fault,” he moaned. “When they discovered on Earth that Carlos was a spy, we took refuge here. They made him a nobleman to pay him for his services. But this repugnant, primitive, fanatical world is tremendously macho and patriarchal. They hate women and they hate gay men, even though the Masters and some of the Priests, despite their vows, abuse their male slaves whenever they want. But they don’t consider that to be homosexual, because to them slaves aren’t men but objects.”

Nuyts stopped speaking, his eyes glassy, sunk in who-knew-what thoughts.

“You were saying that they made Yárnoz a nobleman,” said Bruna gently to bring him back to the present.

“Yes. But they despised me. They classified me as a serf. They tattooed me!” Nuyts pulled off the handkerchief he was wearing around his neck and showed them his sinister
S
tattooed into his skin with the script of power. “There was nothing Carlos could do. He wasn’t here. They came for me. They took me away by force. They marked me with their despicable writing, and they cut off my braid. In this world only the nobility can wear their hair long.”

“I’m sorry.”

Frank wiped his tears with his sleeve. “Carlos was a Labarian in his heart. He had spied on Earth out of ideology, principles. He believed in this world. But after what they did to me he began to lose his faith. As a serf, I wasn’t allowed to play music. They didn’t let me compose. I tried to keep doing it secretly at home. I keep trying every day! But I’ve lost the talent. I’ve lost the inspiration. I’m dirty. I’m mute.”

“It’s from sorrow. Because of everything that’s happened to you, Frank, but you can overcome it,” said the rep.

“No! It’s this damned letter, this tattoo! It possesses me. It really does have power! It imprisons me!” As he said this, the man scratched furiously at the base of his neck. The skin tore; blood began to flow. Nuyts let his hands fall weakly onto his knees. His nails were red. “Carlos was working here for the reactor center. He was in charge of the acquisition of radioactive material on Earth, but in the past few years—”

“Wait a minute. Hang on a minute,” Bruna said, agitated. “What’s this about the reactor center?”

“It’s the source of Labari’s energy.”

“That’s not possible! Atomic energy is prohibited on Earth, and we wouldn’t allow it to be used on an orbiting platform. I thought the energy on this Floating World comes from a reservoir of water in the center of the ring that is full of algae that release hydrogen.”

“That’s the official version. But it’s not true. At the heart of this world there is a gigantic nuclear power plant.”

“And the business about the radioactive material from Earth?” asked Deuil.

“Nuclear fuel is purchased on Earth. Illegally of course.”

There was a brief silence while they digested the enormity of this information. Then Nuyts resumed his story.

“In recent years Carlos saw that I was in such bad shape that he no longer knew what to do to help me. And one day his contact on Earth, Alejandro Gand—”

“Gand?”

“Yes, he was like Carlos here. They were the two ends of the agreement. Carlos was Labari’s agent, and Gand was the agent of the seller on Earth. One day Gand suggested that they become independent. Gand would leave the organization he was working for, and Carlos would leave Labari and they would turn themselves into independent suppliers, earning fabulous sums of money. It seems that the extreme secrecy of the whole enterprise meant that very few people knew all the facts. Only Carlos and Gand knew the details of the process. So when they left they took that knowledge with them. They wanted to force Labari to buy directly from them.”

“But I don’t understand. Yárnoz left you here? They could have tortured you, executed you.”

“Carlos thought of everything. He did it for me! He also took enough proof to be able to show that Labari used nuclear energy and threatened to make it public on Earth if anything happened to me. I was going to join him when he notified me. Carlos left beforehand to avoid putting me at risk. He knew of an organization that could get us the best forged documents on Earth. Very expensive, but permanent and untraceable. Two completely new identities. We were going to start a new life.”

His tears began to flow again, streaking his expressionless face.

“But when he died you were left unprotected,” Bruna said.

“I didn’t know. Nobody told me he’d died, although I’ve had a terrifying foreboding for days. I discovered that something was wrong when they came to search the house and interrogate me. Last Acceptance Day, two Masters arrived with a whole lot of soldiers. They turned everything upside down looking for who-knows-what, and then they asked me if Carlos had said anything, if he’d left something behind.”

“What did you tell them?”

“The truth. This damn letter forces me to, and they know it. I can’t lie to a Master. But I didn’t know anything. I know nothing more than what I’ve told you.”

Nuyts lowered his head and sobbed for a while. Then he sniffed and looked up at them again, saying, “But he did leave me something. He left me a roll wrapped up in cloth. He said to me, ‘If I die, this is yours. Open it then, but only then. Look after it, because it’s very important. It’s all there.’ That’s what he said. I remember very well.”

“And you didn’t speak of this with the Masters?”

“I didn’t know he was dead! So he still hadn’t left me anything. The roll was his and his alone. That’s why I succeeded in keeping quiet and avoided the tattoo’s command,” said Nuyts with a sad little smile of victory. “They found the roll during their search of course. It wasn’t hidden. It was on top of the table, in a clearly visible place—where Carlos had left it. They unrolled it, but they didn’t think it was important. They didn’t understand it. To tell the truth, I don’t understand it either.”

Nuyts got up from his chair, walked to a large table at the back, and returned with a tube wrapped in black cloth and tied with a piece of string. He held it out to Bruna. The rep nervously untied the knot and opened the package; it was a piece of cardboard with a picture rolled up inside it. A very strange work. A ghostly half-melted man holding his hands to either side of his face, his eyes vacant and his mouth open in a sort of shriek. He looked like a skull. He must have been on a wooden bridge or a jetty; the sea was visible in the background. It was painted in an imprecise, furious manner, in brutal colors, the sky swirling, red, and asphyxiating. It was a horrific, terrifying image.

“It reminds me of something,” said Deuil.

“Frank, can you lend it to me? We’ll try to decipher it. I’ll return it to you—I promise.”

“Take it away. If it serves to trap Carlos’s murderer . . .” Nuyts trailed off, losing himself in the picture. “I’ll do something more for you. I can take you to the reactor center. We won’t be able to go into the plant of course, or even get very close. But there’s a spot in the ring from which you can see the center. Carlos took me there once. People don’t know what they’re seeing, and it’s quite far away, but if you film it, maybe the experts on Earth will be able to recognize that it’s a nuclear plant. It could serve as proof against Labari.”

“We’re leaving the day after tomorrow. Can we go now?” asked Bruna.

“It’s quite far. We have to catch Heriberto’s Finger and travel about two hours, and the Finger doesn’t run from 2:00 to 6:00 in the morning. That doesn’t give us time to go there and back tonight.”

“What about tomorrow night? We can come earlier.”

“I’ll be waiting for you tomorrow at eight,” Nuyts said.

He gently caressed the picture with the tips of his fingers before wrapping it in the cloth and giving it to Bruna.

27

T
hey returned far more quickly than it had taken them to get there. It was late, and Bruna was feeling unsafe carrying the picture. To her satisfaction the tactile was in fact an admirable runner and easily put up with the accelerated pace. Getting up to Deuil’s room was also easy—he gave Bruna a boost, and she climbed up and went in through the window without any problem. Then the rep removed her training pants, which were made of a light, breathable, and resistant material, and hung them from the windowsill. Deuil jumped, grabbed the pant legs, and the rep hauled him up.

They closed the window and lit a couple of candles with the lighter on top of the chest. They hadn’t spoken a word on the way back.

“What do you think?” asked Bruna.

“I suppose what he says about the nuclear plant is true,” said Deuil with a shrug. “It would explain many things. Among them Gand’s and Yárnoz’s radiation. But I don’t like Nuyts or his famous Yárnoz. That Yárnoz who loved him so much.”

“Why?”

“Yárnoz is your prototype of the perfect traitor. First he betrayed Earth, then the Kingdom of Labari, which accepted him in good faith. And he did it for money! Nuyts can say what he likes, but it’s obvious to me that Yárnoz turned to treachery again out of sheer avarice. He was a criminal, a man with no scruples. And as for Nuyts, I can’t decide if he’s a cynic or an idiot. He says that Yárnoz spied on Earth for ideological reasons. What about him? Why was he complicit?”

“Out of love,” answered Bruna, amazed to hear herself say it.

“Out of love? Do you believe in that love Nuyts told us about? Yárnoz brings him here, allows them to make him a serf without any protest, they live like that for years and years, and then he goes to Earth, leaves Nuyts stranded here, abandons him, and he’s still his great love? Look at what he said about the tattoo he wears. He says it possesses him! That it has power! He’s stupid.”

“What do you make of the painting?”

“I think I’ve seen it somewhere before,” said Deuil. “It’s disturbing.”

“It will have to be carefully analyzed. It might contain a nanochip.”

Bruna fell silent. There was nothing more to be said, and it was very late. It was time to go to her room. But neither of them moved. They just stood there looking at each other in silence. Deuil’s lips. His cheekbones. Those intense, implacable eyes. The warmth of his body so near. The rep became aware that she wasn’t wearing any pants, just her blue panties. A pang of desire squeezed her stomach and then descended, hot and liquid, to her sex. Without wanting to, without thinking about it, she opened her legs a little.

“So, you don’t believe in love,” she said gravely. It was the first thing that popped into her head to break the tense silence, and she felt like an idiot.

“Of course I believe in it. It’s essential to me. And you?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know if you believe?”

“I don’t know if I believe, and I don’t know if I know how to love. I don’t know if I want to learn.”

Deuil closed his eyes briefly, an expression of weariness or anger on his face. Then he opened them, and they were black and hard. He stretched out his arms, and grabbing Bruna’s butt with both hands, he pulled her in to him.

“Let’s find out,” he whispered.

His mouth surprised Bruna: soft, burning lips, a powerful tongue. He was a man who knew how to kiss. When they separated an eon later, they gazed at each other with that marvelous incredulity at having been able to feel so close. Burning with the desire for more, they released each other and undressed with frantic clumsiness. Deuil still had one pant leg and one sneaker to remove when Bruna flung him onto the bed. Laughing, the tactile pinched her, defended himself, and finally got up to remove the rest of his clothes. Bruna studied him from the bed with that tantalizing pleasure that comes with the discovery of a new body: that long, youthful, tattooed torso she already knew, strong legs, and a small, rounded perfect butt. Deuil turned toward her. He smiled, or maybe he just showed his pointed teeth, his vampire fangs ready to bite her and drink her dry. Then he fell on top of her, skin against skin, intricately joined, and his body was incredibly soft. Burning, the rep tried to turn the tactile over, climb on top of him, speed up her climax, but he fought back and sat astride her. He took a firm hold of Bruna’s neck with one of his large, wise tactile hands, and with the other covered her face and turned it to one side, pushing it gently against the pillow.

“Don’t move, don’t move,” he urged her. “Easy does it. Now I’m the hunter and you are my prey. Let it happen. You’ll like it.”

And yes. She did like it.