"It's not guilt!" he lied.
"No? Then what the hell is it? You told me you went to Etaria in search of what it meant to be human? Well, you got a dose of it, Lord Commander, and what you found horrified you. Didn't it? Admit it!"
"To be a slave and deal with the collar isn't human—"
"The blaspheming hell, it isn't!" She curled her lip in disgust as she pointed with a callused finger. "No, Staffa, I think — whether you'll admit it or not — for the first time, you felt what it was to be human. Hear? You FELT! Suffered, thirsted, tasted all the wretchedness it means to be really human! What scared you Star Butcher, was the feeling of humanity. Just like me, or Peebal, or Koree. You realized you were human after all — and it scared the pustulant piss out of you!"
Her tone of insolence and disgust stirred him. He jumped to his feet, a surging rage building. He closed to stare into those defiant tan eyes. Nearly berserk from the scornful tongue-lashing, he reached for her.
"Now what, Staffa?" she asked, voice level and challeng ing. "Going to hurt me? Come to finish what you started at Maika? Going to add me to your list of ghouls?"
His hands began to shake as he knotted his shivering fingers into fists and gritted his teeth. The anger eroded like sand in surf. Her truth twisted within him as surely as if she'd knifed him.
Helplessly, he raised a hand and let it drop, turning away to hide his eyes. "Yes, I wanted to hurt you for using that tone. Sometimes I scream defiance at the universe, other times I whimper and shake. I was so strong once."
"Because you don't know who you are, Staffa kar Therma. You never had the chance to find out Anger? Sudden fear? Rushes of emotion? Your soul is crying out. Defiance? You want to reassure yourself you're someone to take seriously. Each wavering of emotion is a sign of the pain you bear because you were shut away from the human tribe for so long. An exile in your own mind."
She paused. Then she added, "Isn't that one of the reasons you killed so ruthlessly? Wasn't it a means of getting back at the human condition you'd never had the opportunity to share?"
He lowered his gaze to his hands, slowly flexing his fingers. Was that it? Did I take my rage out on all humanity to pay back the sins of the Praetor and my parents?
She shook her hair back, watching him pensively. "Selfawareness is painful. Most of us learn we're not gods when we're still children. You didn't learn until the Praetor gutted your godhood on Myklene — and you weren't really sure until that Etarian judge clapped the collar on you and threw you in the sewer with me."
She hesitated. "I don't envy you, Staffa. If you want to see this through, you're likely to find you don't like yourself very much."
He laughed, the sound bitter with irony. "I don't like myself now."
"This is the hardest part, here, now, locked away with me. On Etaria you had hatred and anger to keep you going. Here, you're trapped. You've got nothing here but four gray walls. your conscience. memories — and me."
Chapter 24
Each LC had a command control module immediately behind the flight deck. There an officer had access to communications, observation, and weapons. Prom a circling LC he could monitor and orchestrate an entire battle. Computer equipment filled one wall while a fold-down table created work space or dining area, and the bench behind that could be slept on.
Sinklar felt the LC move. Through the command monitor, he watched dust boil out below as the craft rose above the gutted Regan military compound in Kaspa. The blackened pile of burned corpses piled in the center of the plaza spoke eloquently of the fate of the prisoners taken from Mykroft's Division: Targan retribution for Mykroft's execution of the Rebel prisoners that day in the square. Must have been a gruesome bonfire.
The LC rose and began a lazy turn to the south. Sink watched as the city dropped away beneath his craft. So much had changed since the first time he'd seen Targa through his night glasses. Now he left Kaspa again — this time under his control.
His Groups had retaken the city; resistance had been minimal and halfhearted. The "pacification" of Kaspa really amounted to little more than a meeting with business leaders and the heads of the mining labor committees. News of the defeat of the Rebel forces at Vespa had taken more fight out of the radical elements than another three Divisions could have accomplished.
"All right, Mac," Sink said into the comm, "we're up and on the way back to Vespa. The city's yours. Take care of it." He turned from the monitors that displayed Kaspa and glanced at Gretta. A pensive expression molded her face as she watched the charred corpses fall behind.
"We're on top of it, Sink," Mac's voice assured. "Take care of yourself. There's still a lot of passion loose. No telling what the Seddi might do in retaliation. More than one conqueror's won the war — and fallen to an assassin's knife the next day."
"Affirmative."
"Anything else?"
"Get a detail to haul those corpses out and bury them somewhere." Sink cut the connection and gripped Gretta's hand firmly. "War's over except for the shouting and flag waving and the small matter of mopping up the Seddi main temple. Makarta, wonder where that is?"
Gretta pulled glistening long brown hair over her shoulder to nervously twist it into a shining dark strand. "I'll bet Sylenian ice to Riparian mud your Arta Fera knows." She lifted an eyebrow suggestively.
Sinklar laughed. "A fascinating woman, that one. I don't know why, but there is something compelling about her. I. call it familiarity. Something…"
"I call it sex," Gretta grunted. "For some reason — phero mones, perhaps, or those eyes of hers? — men seem to find her a sexual magnet. I can't see it, but men take a first look and then stop dead in their tracks to stare — oblivious of the rest of the world. I thought it prudent to change the guard to females. The men we had down there kept drooling all over themselves."
Gretta considered him seriously before she asked, "You going to be wandering down to interrogate her about the mysterious Makarta?"
Sink glanced out the view port and pursed his lips. The Targan countryside flashed below: Ephemeral drainages in dendritic patterns cut rough jagged ridges of gray and brown rock; mottled masses of conifers blotched the northern slopes in dark green.
"No," he told her. "I don't ever want to see her again. She cost us too much. Cost Targa too much. I can't figure. How could she kill her lover that way? I heard the scream all the way down the hall. Eerie, inhuman, like some wretched nightmare."
"She thought we were bluffing. Not an entirely unreasonable assumption." Gretta settled herself into a drop couch, a frown starting to trace her forehead. "Now that I hear
you're not sexually infatuated with her like the rest of the men, I can feel sorry for her. Think of the guilt, of what it must feel like to have caused the end of everything. Must be a horrible weight to bear, all that blood and death. The end of her Seddi cause. All her fault."
"I've seen her on the holos," Sink agreed, turning back to the view port. "I think she's snapped. I don't know very much about such things, but maybe some of the psych personnel could do something with her."
Gretta pursed her lips, face pensive. "Perhaps. When we get back, I might wander down to talk to her. Maybe I can say something that will break her open — get her to feel something. If I can talk to her, maybe she'll tell us where we can find this Makarta."
Sink rubbed his chin. "Leave her alone. There's something very wrong about her. I can't put my finger on it. Something. frightening." He frowned, grappling with his image of the woman. And so Rotted familiar. Why do I feel like I now her? There's some memory I can't place. deep in my mind.