Memories of Peebal's wasted body lurked in his mind. He thought of how Anglo's fingers caressed Kaylla, and the disgust reflected in her expression. He remembered her husband, standing tall, his head exploding in a red haze
from the pulse pistol while those beautiful children Kaylla had loved cried
in terror at his feet. The demons in his imagination pictured Chrysla, the woman he'd cherished, charred by plasma, that precious body exploded in decompression.
Loss swept at the corners of his soul as he fought the long section of pipe forward. All those years, he'd kept his distance from Skyla and what would come of it? Another dead body?
"They'll kill me here, Skyla," he whispered. "I'll never look into your eyes again, never tell you what I've learned. You were the only one who ever understood me. The only one who ever cared. Why did I never see that? Blessed Gods, I should never have let you go!"
It might have been the wind, but he swore he heard the Praetor's cackling laughter.
Chapter 14
"You have a wretched look about you, Butla. What has gone wrong?" Magister Bruen asked as he moved to the huge table and settled himself on a purple-cushioned grav chair. Around them the gray rock of Makarta made a comforting womb against the hurricane of violence beyond the mountain.
Butla Ret — already seated — slouched at the polished table with a granitelike brooding face. He twirled a thinbladed stiletto between thick ringers, the needle point spinning on the shiny black duraplast tabletop. Butla's gaze shifted slowly to Bruen's. "Arta is gone."
Bruen's heart skipped. "Gone? What do you mean?"
The assassin's hard eyes smoldered. A slight tick at the corner of his lip betrayed his iron control.
"She wanted to love me, Bruen. I… I turned her down. Knowing what would. She tried to — to seduce me. The results scared her. The subliminal training activated her revulsion. She fled. Ran out before I could stop her and disappeared into the streets."
"Oh, Blessed Gods," Bruen whispered as his senses whirled. "We never anticipated she would develop an attraction to—"
"Well, she did!" Butla exploded violently, slapping a callused palm on the table with a thunderous clap. He lifted the knife, eyes slitted and deadly. "And I came to love her, Bruen! You hear? / love her!" Corded jaw muscles knotted and jumped under sleek black skin while strong fingers clenched and unclenched around the menacing black dagger.
Bruen fought to swallow. "No — oh, no. We must find her. Bring her back here. If you are separated, perhaps this fatal attraction will—"
Butla Ret leaned forward, sighting down the stiletto with one buing eye. His voice came as a hissing threat. "Too late again, Bruen."
Bruen closed his eyes, heart hammering.
"She hid her trail well," the assassin's voice began in bass vibration. "It was the middle of the night. I don't know where she went, or how it happened, but some Regan soldiers got her — flesh peddlers, you see. Must have surprised her. That and she left my place preoccupied, worried about why I turned her down. Worried about her irrational fear of physical love, maybe feeling the trigger. Whatever it was, the reason doesn't matter anymore. They captured her."
Bruen closed his eyes, imagining.
"As far as I could determine, they raped her repeatedly. Time and time…"
"God's curses." Bruen's blood seemed to slow in his veins.
"Yes," Butla hissed, "God's curses on you, Bruen. Curses for what you did to that girl! You played with her brain! Played God with her mind, damn you. Well, now it's all come undone, Magister!" He spit the last. "Reap your benefits, you… you despicable BASTARD!"
Bruen recoiled as if struck. "Then it is undone Master Ret. And there is nothing we can do but grieve. For her— and ourselves."
"Grieve? A curious word for a monster like yourself, Bruen."
He nodded, accepting the horrid truth. "Perhaps I am a curious monster. Like Arta, I'm no more than the product of my times. Like her, I, too, am damned to do what I will with nothing more than blind trust. We're all puppets acting—"
"Damn you! Butla Ret stopped the stiletto as it dimpled Bruen's wrinkled throat. Face-to-face they stared at each other.
"Yes, Master Ret," Bruen crooned. "Look into my soul. See my pain? See my guilt? Yes, you understand, don't you? I loved her, too, Butla. Loved her!"
Bruen felt the tip of the dagger waver and withdraw. Those implacable black eyes held his for an eternity. The big assassin took a deep breath and dropped back into the
chair, violence and frustration seeping away into dejected weariness.
"I came here to kill you," Ret said woodenly.
Silence stretched while Bruen looked at his fragile hands and slowly rubbed his thumb across his fingertips.
"What have we become, Magister?" Ret cried poignantly. He ran a hand nervously over his face before he shook his head. "I mean, where are we going? What kind of people are we? Where is our purpose in all this injustice, in the suffering? We had responsibilities once. Morals. Remember? Were those just empty words? Slogans?"
"No, old friend." Bruen leaned back and his arthritic hip sent a twinge aong ancient nerves. "I still believe them to be truths. Morality? Responsibility? Two different words for the same principle." Bruen cocked his head and lifted a hand. "But something has happened. We are no longer in control. All the plans we laid so long ago are in disarray. Even talking to the Mag Comm, I get the impression the machine, too, is lost. It keeps asking for more and more data."
"The machine! Always the machine. The quanta exceeded probable reality phase changes." Butla made an angry gesture. "Just the way we've always thought. It's damned us, Bruen. Damned us to a hell of its own making."
Bruen let his blue-veined hand drop in defeat. "We don't know that for sure." / am so tired. If only I could go and sleep. I never asked for this mantle to be laid upon my shoulders. I never hungered for this damning power — to sit in judgment over humanity. Arta, my poor, poor Arta!
Butla leaned on his elbows, covering his face with his palms. "Then all we can do is react." He blew a heavy sigh past his fingers. "You know what kind of strategy that is, Magister?"
"The strategy of ruin," Bruen replied gloomily. "But tell me of Arta."
"She killed them, of course. She got loose somehow and killed each and every one of them." Butla frowned. "She was thorough. I saw the bodies. Most horribly mutilated. All her frustrations, the anger, the violence you seeded into her brain exploded in a destructive frenzy. Her rage and confusion must have augmented the subliminal training. I won't go into the details.
" take it from your tone that you don't think she'll be back?"
Butla Ret shook his head slowly. "I gave her two days. She sent no word, Magister. Not a peep through any of the channels she knows to use in an emergency."
"I see something else in your eyes, Butla."
He fingered the dagger absently. "She's still out there, Magister. During those two days, Regan soldiers died one after another. Each one died in the streets — cut to pieces the same as her slave-trading rapists. A couple of witnesses saw her. They reported the killer to be a young woman, very beautiful, with auburn hair and amber eyes."
Bruen's guts loosened with a sinking sensation. Sotto voce he added, "What terror have we wrought?" Magister Hyde's remembered words mocked, "The problem with a psychological weapon is that you never know when it will go off."
"Don't do it, Tuff." Kaylla's warning brought him spinning on his heels, hands low, feet spread for balance.
She walked up the side of the dune, her slim figure outlined against the glistening night sand. She stood before him, hands on hips, head tilted, eyes shadowed by wisps of blowing brown hair.