CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Greg woke to find he couldn't move. His toes and fingers were tingling, not so much pins and needles as pokers and knives; the aftermath of a stunshot charge. Arms and legs ached dully. Guts knotted tight, rumbling ominously. A livid collection of aggravated bruises and scrapes.
His cortical node prevented the worst peaks of neural fire from stabbing into his brain, but the cumulative effect was atrocious.
He opened his eyes, seeing greyness distorted by octagonal splash patterns. His whole body was quivering now, drumming against whatever hard surface he was lying on. The tingling bloomed into a sandpaper rasp which the cortical node hurriedly muted.
Consciousness seemed like nothing but constant suffering. He instructed the node to disengage his nerves altogether. Sensation fell away, leaving him alone in grey nothingness. He closed his eyes and slept.
At the second awakening his thoughts were clearer. He'd stopped bucking, still on his back and unable to move. Genuine tactile sensation had replaced the tingling. The surface he was lying on was vibrating faintly. Heavy machinery, somewhere not too far away. A stifled monotonous hum backed the supposition.
He opened his eyes again, focusing slowly.
Gabriel was lying beside him, shuddering, in the throes of stunshot backlash. Her mouth gaped, drooling beads of saliva.
Greg tried to reach out to her, found his hands were immobilised under his back. There was a rigid bracelet about each wrist, bolted to the floor; it was the same for his ankles.
Bloody uncomfortable.
They were in a small empty compartment, metal walls, metal floor, metal ceiling. Painted grey. The only light was coming through a grille in the door.
Greg blinked at that door, haunted by its familiarity. It was rectangular with curved corners, fastened by bulky latches. The last time he'd seen that particular arrangement was on board the Mirriam. "Oh, shit." And under way too, by the sound of it.
Thinking logically, they'd have to be heading down the Nene. Or up? No, the river wasn't deep enough to take the Mirriam west of Peterborough. The Wash and the open sea, then.
Next question: Why?
Not just to dump them overboard. There were far simpler ways to dispose of bodies. Besides Kendric had gone to a great deal of trouble snatching them alive.
Nothing pleasant, hundred per cent cert.
"Greg?" Gabriel's voice was tiny, fearful. "Greg, it's gone."
"What has?" His own voice wasn't much better. "No, wait, think before you speak. Remember they'll probably be listening."
"Bugger that. My precognition won't work. I don't know what's going to happen to us."
"You really gave your gland a workout snatching Katerina, remember? We all have to throttle back occasionally, nature never intended our brains to take the psi strain."
"Shut up and listen, arsehole. There is absolutely nothing. I can't see a second into the future. I don't even know what you're going to say!" He could hear the fright bubbling through her voice. She was holding back a long, terrified scream.
Hear it, but not sense it.
The corrosive throb of overdriven synapses had faded, he must've been out for several hours. He'd recuperated enough to use the gland again. It began to discharge a murky cloud of neurohormones. But that secret gate into the psi universe remained firmly shut. He couldn't even perceive the glow of Gabriel's mind, not fifty centimetres from his own. Impossible. His skin crawled, goose bumps rising at the black sense of deprivation. Mortal again. After fifteen years it was hard.
"Me too," Greg said. "Not a peep."
The breath came out of her in a woosh. She let her head rest on the decking, staring into a private purgatory. "What have they done to us, Greg?"
"They haven't done anything to us. You were using precognition right up until the Duo crashed. We didn't eat anything dodgy we certainly weren't infused with anything."
"What then?"
"Must be something which affects psi directly."
"What?" she shouted.
"I don't fucking know. Ask Kendric, he's the one into pilfering new discoveries before they even make it out of the laboratory."
Gabriel closed rheumy eyes in anguish. "Funny, I always thought I didn't want to see the end coming. Now I'm sure it is coming I'd like to see it. Not knowing is too much like cold turkey."
"Silly girl. You just want to see which of our escape plans works the best."
"Escape plans," she snorted in a resigned amusement which nudged disapprobation. "Sure, Greg. Sure." After a while she asked, "What do you think they want us for?"
"Information. They want to know what we've discovered of their operation, how much of that we've told Walshaw. Once they know that they'll see what they can salvage. Hopefully that isn't going to be much, we've done a pretty good job up to now."
"Great. That makes me feel one hell of a lot better." She lapsed into sullen silence.
Greg guessed they'd been lying in the blank metal cell for a couple of hours before the hatch swung open.
It was Mark who drew the latches, accompanied by two more of Kendric's bodyguards. A biolum came on above them. After hours of dusk, the glare sent Greg's tear ducts into frantic action.
"Still on your backs?" Mark gloated. "I thought I'd be pulling you off each other by now. Or aren't you up to that? Maybe fancy something different, animals and the like? I heard you gland freaks are kind've warped."
Gabriel glared at him silently, realising just how nasty things could turn if she started antagonising him.
Mark bent down and released Greg's legs with a complex-looking mechanical key.
Greg was jerked roughly to his feet. Every ache and pain suddenly doubled in intensity. His legs nearly collapsed as a wave of nausea hit him. He saw the front of his dress shirt was stained by a long ribbon of dried blood; his nose had been bleeding again while he'd been unconscious.
One of the bodyguards supported him as he stumbled out into the corridor. It didn't possess anything like the ostentation of the upper decks. Pipes ran along the walls, red letters were stencilled across small hatches. The engine noise was more pronounced.
Another three bodyguards were waiting for him outside. Including Toby, who glowered with unconcealed menace.
"Christ," Greg croaked. "I must scare you lot shitless."
"Gonna have you, white boy," Toby whispered dangerously. "Gonna take you a-fucking-part."
"Not yet, Toby," Mark said, pushing a shaky Gabriel ahead of him. "When the Man has finished with him."
Greg was marched up and out on to the afterdeck. The sun was nearly full overhead. Well over six hours since they'd been snatched from the Duo. Would Walshaw have noticed? He'd told the security chief he would help to analyse the data in the Crays, but he hadn't given a specific time. Of course, Eleanor would be frantic, but would she ring Walshaw? And even if she did there was nothing to make him look here.
At least he'd been right about 'here'. The Mirriam was sailing sedately down the Nene.
The course the Nene took for the first thirty kilometres east of Peterborough was a new one. The PSP's delay in authorising construction of the city's port meant that the old river course had been lost at the start of the Warming, disappearing beneath the water and silt which laid siege to the city boundaries. A couple of years later, when the wharves' foundations were being laid, the dredgers cut a straight line from the port right out to the old estuary at Tydd Gote.
Mirriam was following a huge container freighter out towards the Wash. There was another freighter trailing a couple of kilometres behind. They were the only things moving in a very confined universe. All Greg could see was river, sky, and high gene-tailored coral levees, covered in tall stringy reeds.