“I’ll call you back,” Stella said to MacRobert, and to Wilmots said, “It’s Ser Prescott, from across the street. Let him in.”
Wilmots opened the door. Prescott looked the very image of a dapper fussbudget, from the cut of his hair to his perfectly tailored slacks and jacket and the tie with its jeweled stickpin. “Are you the person in charge here? If not I demand to speak to him or her. This is outrageous! Flashing lights! Sirens! I want you to know I’m filing a complaint with the neighborhood association and the city: I have already called the police and told them to cite those vehicles out front for illegal parking. And as for that aircraft—!”
“Ser Prescott, how very good to see you again. How is your dear wife?” Stella kept her voice pleasant. Ky had mentioned once that Prescott seemed too interested in this house, but her parents had shrugged it off. Maybe she shouldn’t have.
His head turned. “Sera Vatta. What is the meaning of this… this outrage? It is the third time in the past tenday that unseemly noise and confusion has come to this house. If you are going to be the focus of this kind of annoyance and criminal activity you should move to a neighborhood where such things are more common. Nothing like this happened when your father was alive. You young people today—”
“Ser Prescott!” Wilmots stepped between Prescott and Stella. “Sera Vatta was attacked—she nearly died—”
“Nonsense. Some kind of costume party. And that ridiculous mess on your face, Sera Vatta—!”
Stella’s initial urge to laugh was overcome by pure rage that lifted her to her feet. Not only nosy but insulting, after what she’d gone through.
“Take him upstairs,” she said to Wilmots. “Show him.”
“Yes, Sera,” Wilmots said, and took Prescott’s arm.
“Let go of me; you can’t do that!”
“He can,” Stella said. His face showed the beginning of fear. Good. “This is my house; you don’t make the rules here.” She walked toward him; he stared at her feet, and then a little behind her. She glanced down. Her feet had left bloody marks on the carpet. She hadn’t noticed before.
“Your mother will be appalled,” Prescott said. “When she finds out you’ve walked in paint and then on her expensive Eskalin carpet—”
“It’s not paint,” Stella said, and smiled at him. He flinched. “It’s blood. Take him upstairs, Wilmots. See if he thinks it’s a party then.”
“No!” Prescott yanked back, but two more men closed in and pushed him, complaining loudly, up the stairs to the very top.
“That,” Stella heard Wilmots say as he pointed, “is a dead man. A man who tried to kill Sera Vatta. You can see the damage he did to that sculpture.”
Stella, at the foot of the stairs, put her hand on the newel post for support. She heard Prescott protesting, then saw him fold over suddenly and heard him vomit and then groan. When Wilmots looked back and raised his brows, Stella nodded. As the men brought Prescott back down the stairs, he was babbling, “I didn’t know, I didn’t know, it’s horrible I didn’t mean it I never thought it would be like this…”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Ky, taking her turn in the bed compartment of a long-haul truck, tried to relax and sink into the sleep she needed before the next phase. Her mind was too busy; she ran simulations over and over, trying to make sure she had every possibility covered, and knowing that was impossible.
She slept, finally, but not even the full two and a half hours that was her share of the time before they were at the first transfer point. Inside the big warehouse, Vatta employees moved about with loaders, transferring boxes from one cargo hold to another. The rig she’d ridden in drove off, hooked to a different trailer; Rafe and Inyatta and Teague were still in it. She and Barash climbed into a trailer loaded with twenty-kilo sacks of grain from a famous livestock feed manufacturer.
She caught another two hours of uneasy sleep during the next segment, and then, in another warehouse, climbed into the truck fitted out for the project at hand, modified hastily from the kind Vatta rented out as mobile offices. Instead of desks and cabinets, couches and reclining chairs were bolted to its floor. A complete shower/toilet fitted into the back corner, with effluent tank mounted below, and next to it a medical station.
“Med’s not here yet,” the warehouse supervisor told her. “On the way. We’ll pick ’em up when we swing by the airport to catch the latest shipments.” He winked. Ky didn’t wink back. Her stomach was tight. Unlike fleet command, where she knew her entire crew and most of the ship captains, this operation was a mix of civilians and military who had never worked on something like this before. Nor had she. It felt about as stable as a stack of ball bearings.
Another truck backed up to the docks. Rafe, Inyatta, and Teague walked in with the driver. “All we need is the big guns,” Rafe said.
“On the way,” Ky said. He knew already; he was just tense, as she was. A military team, handpicked by Sergeant Major Morrison, should be arriving within the hour. She looked out the window in the service door; the roll-up door to the loading dock was down. This truck belonged to a Vatta affiliate, Stevens-Vatta, and had backed up to this dock many times, as had identical trucks. No one who lived in the area would think twice about it being on that road or the other places they planned to intercept the prisoner transports.
Rodney, ensconced with all the equipment he and Rafe and Teague agreed he needed in Vatta’s shipping office at the Weekes City airport, pinged Rafe to signal that he had a lock on all those transports. “Given the distances,” Rafe said, “we expect they’ll start moving the Clemmander group any minute now. Rod’s got an alarm on the system, so he can let us know when they start and where they are.”
Staff Sergeant Gossin had hoped the sergeant major would recognize that the inmates had been drugged, but another day and another passed with nothing happening. She went through them in the same dull misery as the previous days, losing more hope every hour. A few days—she wasn’t sure how many—after the committee’s visit, the morning dose of medication was smaller; perhaps it was a shower day. Gossin took it obediently, but the mental fog lifted enough for her to realize that it would take time for the sergeant major to mount a rescue. And maybe, just maybe, she could do something herself to help.
The thought itself was energizing. “Shower day,” said a voice from the grille in the ceiling. The cell door opened; an attendant strapped her into a float chair. Once in the tiled shower room, Gossin fumbled at her clothes and an attendant, impatient, fumbled even more because of the protective gloves. Gossin finally got herself undressed and was able to walk the meter from the float chair to the shower and stand there while the attendant turned on the water. Gossin had to admit it was easier when bald. Not that she liked it. When the water ceased, she dried as best she could with the single towel provided. The attendant left the shower room, taking Gossin’s clothes. Gossin stood there naked, shivering a little, wondering what horror was coming now.
By the time the door opened again, she had rediscovered an old trick her granny had taught her, how to warm herself up without shivering. How could she have forgotten that? She’d used it in Miksland a few times. Their family had practiced some… training… she couldn’t remember the name. Her implant had stored it for her but now it was gone. Something about circulation. Doing it, whatever it was, felt good. Gave her confidence.
But the trio who walked in when the door opened drove it away. All in the same protective gear, their faces blurred by the face-shields. One rolled in a cart with a tray of instruments and medications laid out on the top, and a stack of folded clothes on the lower shelf. Gossin stared at the instruments. She already had an IV port installed… what were they going to do to her? She wanted to ask, but she was afraid of what they’d do if she did. One of them put down a square printed with foot outlines.