“It’s all been a setup from the start. You didn’t have to say you loved me. You had me hooked good, lady. I’d kill you right now, except it looks like you’re working for the good guys. So who are they? Where are they from? You must be a sleeper, planted here at birth.” Eric shook her for emphasis. Tears were streaming down her face.
Nataly closed her eyes as tears gushed. “Oh Eric, I do love you, I really do. Now I’ve ruined everything. When you started making excuses again I just lost it. I shouldn’t have said what I said. Oh God, the Council will be furious. Vasyl will be furious.”
“The people you’re working for?”
When she opened her eyes they were blazing green. “I’m not working for anyone. I’m working with my own people, your own people, trying to help the human race reach the stars.”
“What?”
“Let go of me!” she shrieked with a fury that shocked him, and he released her.
Nataly put her head in her hands, and sobbed. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this. I was never supposed to fall in love with you, but even that first night I saw the part of you that is like me, and—and, well, I have a human heart, too. It was so easy to give it up.”
She was talking in riddles, he thought. “If this is supposed to make me feel sorry it isn’t working. So you’re an agent for the good guys on my side, whoever they are. You’ve been a conduit for information I needed. You didn’t have to make me get crazy about you. You mind-fucked me, Nataly. That isn’t the first time a woman has done it to me, but I sure never expected it from you!”
Eric’s voice cracked, and tears burned his eyes. Nataly looked at him and broke into hysterical sobs. Eric watched her helplessly, was embarrassed by his own tears.
“Don’t worry, I’ll get over it. Over the years I’ve built up some good armor plate in my head. And when the pressure gets too bad I can always go out and kill someone. That’s who I really am.”
Nataly shrieked, and fled from the room. A door slammed.
“Well, I think it’s safe to say that dinner is off.” Eric stood up, took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He wiped his eyes with a hand. “That’s what I get for thinking things could be different.”
Coldness spread across his chest, but it felt like his heart was being cut in half. “Don’t bother!” he shouted. “I’ll let myself out!”
Eric left the room with the table set with delicate china and illuminated by candlelight. The odor of nicely cooked meat wafted from the kitchen, and there was the distant sound of sobbing from behind a closed door. The tears that gushed again made him furious, and he slammed the door so hard behind him it sounded like something fell off the wall and hit the floor inside the house.
The guard at the gate saw him coming and opened the gate quickly, leaned out of the kiosk to wave at him but jerked back inside as Eric roared past in his car. He ran two stop signs and a light getting home. He pulled the telephone cable from the wall, had two beers for dinner, and cleaned his guns. The smell of Breakfree and powder solvent was somehow calming to him, as if he were preparing for a firefight.
He went to bed early and fell exhausted into sleep. There were no dreams about starships, Nataly or a golden man this time.
He was alone again.
Nataly heard the front door slam so hard it shook the house. Her instinct was to run after him, but her body refused to move. She hurt all over, and the pillow’s surface at her cheek was soaked. She lay there for a long time, wanting to think it was all a bad dream and soon she would wake up. The real Natasha was not capable of such foolishness, but could imagine it.
Reality returned, and with it the consequences. In a moment of blind frustration she had not only lost a love she would never find again, she had jeopardized a project her people and her father had worked long and hard for. Yes, it was Eric’s fault, in a way. She sensed his love, but also his reluctance to commit, always leaving a door open so he could flee from a relationship. It was like a switch had been thrown, and suddenly she’d lost all patience, had an emotional meltdown she hadn’t even imagined before. This was not Natasha. But who was it?
Natasha returned to her at that instant. She couldn’t change what was done, but she could warn others about it. She rolled off the bed, snatched the telephone from the nightstand and dialed.
Thank God he was there. “Vasyl, something horrible has happened.”
She told him everything, with every detail.
“Oh Natasha,” said Vasyl. “This couldn’t have happened at a worse time. I should never have gotten you involved. Don’t try to contact Eric again until after the flight. I’ll do what I can.”
Vasyl hung up on her before she could reply.
She went out to the kitchen and found the roast still cooking and beginning to burn. A small voice urged her to throw it in the trash. She ignored it, wrapped up the meat in aluminum foil and put it in the refrigerator.
She went to the living room, blew out the candles on the table, but left the table settings where they were. The storm outside was breaking, and the clouds to the southwest were beautifully tinged red.
A kind of numbness overtook her. Nataly undressed and went to bed. The entire pillow surface was soaked with her tears.
She turned the pillow over, and soaked it again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
THUNDER IN THE BAY
There had been many emotional experiences in his life, but sitting home alone for a day and a night after the fight with Nataly now ranked among the worst of them. Eric had reconnected the phone the morning after, but no calls had come in. He was crazy to think she might call. It was all a sham, a ruse to accomplish the tasks of the people running her. Naming Vasyl had possibly been a slip. A Russian name. She was undoubtedly a sleeper, probably trained in Siberia before she was an adult. They would have done well to keep up her psychological profile. She was still young, and lonely. Maybe she really had fallen for him, and in doing so made a mess of things. Her masters might think Eric would now be so distraught he couldn’t do his job. I will not give them that satisfaction, he thought, but a secret part of him also knew he would be protecting Nataly.
He survived the day by taking two five mile morning and evening runs in the back country, penetrating so far into the wilderness area that he spooked a javelina that ran squealing from him. Once, he had to leap high over a rattlesnake basking in the morning sun. The exercise left him catatonic for part of the day, and that night he slept like a dead man.
Next morning the usual van arrived for him at five, and by six he was taking the elevator down to Sparrow’s bay.
The doors opened, and four guards were standing there. “Emergency, sir,” said one of them. “We’ll walk you to the bay.”
The guards walked on either side of him the few yards left to the personnel door of Sparrow’s bay. Four more guards were standing there at port arms, looking grim.
“What’s the problem?” asked Eric. “I have a flight coming up in the morning.”
“Sorry, sir, it’s been scrubbed. Sergeant Nutt will explain when he gets here.”
“What?” Eric’s face flushed with anger. Hell, she told someone what happened, and now they’re going to pull me out of the assignment. How stupid can things get?
“Red alert, sir. The base is being locked down. That’s all I can say.”