She crouched, facing him, every cell, every atom of her being set against him now. In that brief moment of darkness something had changed in her. Whatever had been light in her was gone, extinguished by the blow. What confronted him now was more animal than human. Even so, the core of her obsession remained intact, undamaged. It was that which drove her now. That and nothing else.
Her voice too had changed; had shed the veneer, the polish it had had only moments before. It was harsh now and guttural, the words falling awkwardly from her lips, like shards of broken pottery.
"Yuu erhh mae-en," she said, one hand making a clawing motion at him. "Yuu aan mee, Kih-m. Turr-ge-thuur. Cle-ya. Wee urrh Cle-ya."
"No," he said, appalled by the dreadful sound that was coming from her. "No, Becky, please . . ." But it was too late. Snarling, she threw herself at him, teeth bared.
He beat her off, hurling her back against the desk, winding her momentarily, but she was at him again in an instant, her fingers clawing at his eyes.
"Becky!" He thrust her away a second time, barely aware of Feng moving around him and running for the door. "For the gods' sakes, Becky, no!"
But she was beyond words. With a savagery that frightened him, she leapt at him again, coiling her arms about him tightly, as if to drag him down into the depths she now inhabited. And this time he knew he would have to hurt her if he was to stop her.
Choking, he struck out at her blindly, hitting her in the face and neck and chest, surprising her with the viciousness of the blows, forcing her to loosen her hands from about his neck. As she staggered back, he brought his fists down hard, knocking her onto her knees. He was about to finish it, to strike her one last time, when there was a shout.
'Ward; No.'"
Kim stopped, looking across. Administrator Schram was standing there on the far side of the lab, Feng Wo-shen and two armed guards just behind him.
"Come away, Ward. Now. We'll deal with this."
Kim looked down. Rebecca was kneeling just beneath him, her face tilted up toward him, but her eyes were blank now, unseeing. As he watched, a tremor seemed to go right through her, and then, slowly, her tiny frame slumped, collapsing in upon itself.
I've killed her, he thought, horrified. Killed her ...
Schram was beside him now, taking control of things; ordering the guards to bind the unconscious girl and take her, then turning to point at Feng, instructing him to clear things up. But Kim was aware of none of it. He was back there, suddenly; back in Rehabilitation, kneeling beside the damaged cage, staring in at the lifeless bird, the vision so real that he felt he could almost reach out and touch it.
Again, he thought, letting a shivering breath escape him. Events like ripples in the great ocean of Time, circles of darkness stretching out toward the distant shoreline of the future.
He groaned, thinking of the friends he had lost. First Luke, then Will and Deio, and now Rebecca. Clay, they had been, each one of them, formed from the earth and molded by dark circumstance. But to what end? What point was there to all that death and suffering? What reason? So that he might go on? No. It made no sense. No sense at all.
"Ward!"
Schram was staring at him, concerned, and shaking him. "Snap out of it, Ward! It's over now. She's gone. We've taken her."
"Taken her?"
Kim turned, looking at Schram, seeing, behind the surface of the eyes, the savage delight the man took in this tragedy. For him this sad display had been a kind of triumph; proof positive that he was right— that Clay was Clay and could never be raised, never be made truly human. But Schram didn't understand. No, nor would he ever understand. He would have had to have been there, first in the darkness and afterward in the unit, with Luke and Will, Deio and Rebecca.
Kim sighed, realizing for the first time the depth of his loss. They had been something. Something bright and fine and wonderful. For a time they had promised everything. Like a beautiful, golden-eyed bird. A caged bird that had never flown.
"Come on now, back to work," Schram said, touching his arm, but Kim batted his hand away.
"Don't touch me," he said, glaring at the man. "Don't you ever touch me."
He saw the anger flare in the man's eyes and felt something harden deep within him in response. Slave or no slave, he would not suffer this kind of thing a moment longer. From here on he would fight it, wherever he came up against it, not just for himself, but for those who were no longer there to fight it. For the children of the dark he'd come to love . . . and had lost.
For Luke and Will and Deio, and, finally, for Rebecca.
"Call Campbell," he said, staring back at Schram defiantly. "Now! Tell him I want to speak to him. Tell him I want out of here."
THE EDGES OF THE HATCH were still hot from where they'd burned their way through. The Yu squeezed through delicately, then twisted and pushed as she'd been taught. The movement took her across the room, to where the lifeless body of the Security lieutenant rested in the chair, his arms floating out in front of him. Big globules of blood and visceral matter were drifting out from the shattered mess that had been his head. Unconcerned, the Yu swept it aside and pulled herself down beside the corpse.
A quick inspection showed that the man had had no chance to damage the desk. She turned and looked back at the hatch. One of her colleagues was looking through the jagged hole into the room.
"Well?" she said impatiently, using the narrow-band frequency that linked them all.
"All functional," the woman by the desk answered. "Vesa can put the power through again. I've got the tapes."
Leaning over the corpse, she took two small tapes from a pocket at the neck of her suit and slotted them into the surface of the desk. Power had been out only two and a half minutes, but it was time enough to sound warning bells down below on Chung Kuo. A squadron of fast and heavily armed fighters would be heading toward them already. The tapes might confuse them, maybe hold them a while, until things were more advanced.
Abruptly the power came on again. On one of the screens she saw two of her team, firing down a corridor, the bullets arcing with the Coriolis effect they had been warned about. On another screen she saw a figure in silks, floating motionless, facedown in the ornamental pool, a dark red stain spreading out from among the long black strands of its hair. A third screen showed two guards, waiting, their backs to a large, heavily ornamented door. They looked scared to death, but determined.
She watched a moment longer, fascinated, then looked away, busying herself, getting down to work.
KRIZ STOOD on the viewing plate, looking down past her feet at the image of the world. Often, in the run-throughs, she had paused and, for the briefest moment, looked down. But this was different. This time it was for real. She could feel the long, cold drop beneath her. It was like standing with only a sheet of transparent ice between you and all that space. She shuddered and looked across the room toward the stairs, listening to the constant stream of messages in her ear.
It had gone well. Better than they'd hoped. Two minutes more and it would be all theirs.
"Kriz! Kriz! Are you there?"
It was Donna, her lieutenant. Right now she should be in Li Yuan's quarters. * "YouVe got him?"
"No! He's not here! We've missed him!"
Kriz frowned. It wasn't possible. His shuttle was still in the dock, and his schedule showed that he was here. "No," she said quickly. "Search everywhere. He has to be here!"