“And she’s your subordinate,” Frieka retorted, the humor disappearing from his eyes. “What, you want her to suggest an affair to somebody who outranks her by as much as you do? What if you said no? Never mind that we both know you wouldn’t—Dona doesn’t know that. But she does know that if your romance goes sideways, she’s just blown her career out the air lock.”
The chief stared down at him, struck by the insight. “You know, you understand the finer points of human relationships a hell of a lot better than you pretend to.”
“I hate to break this to you, but it’s not exactly astronavigation.” Frieka dipped his head for a few more laps, his vocalizer flashing as he drank. “You people like to think you’re soooo complicated, but take away the tech, and you’re just bare-assed apes.”
“It truly pains me to say this, but you’ve got a point.”
“A whole mouthful of them. See?” Frieka raised his muzzle to display the teeth in question. “The difference between us is that I know I’m an animal. Your problem is those opposable thumbs give you delusions of grandeur. Speaking of which, use ’em on that bottle, would you? My bowl is distressingly dry.”
“That’s all I need—a hundred kilos of drunken timber wolf.” But Alerio refilled Frieka’s bowl anyway before topping off his own glass. Settling back into the couch’s heated grip, he took a deep swallow, barely feeling the burn anymore. Which is probably a bad sign. “Then there’s Ivar. Tits of the Goddess, I’d like to take a blade to that bastard. Or my fists. Or hell, my boot.” He gestured with his glass, ignoring the ale that sloshed over the rim. “Right up his ass.”
“Yeah, I’ve been waiting for you to tube that botfucker. Baran would have slit Ivar’s throat years ago for some of the shit he’s pulled on Dona.” Riane’s father, Baran Arvid, had been Frieka’s first partner. The Warlord was something of a legend in Temporal Enforcement; he’d been the first to figure out you couldn’t change history.
Alerio nodded boozily. “I knew there was a reason I liked Baran.”
“Well, he’s a likable guy when he’s not gutting people that piss him off.” The wolf added earnestly, “Mostly just the assholes. It’s a public service, really.”
“I’ve always thought so.” Alerio picked up the ale bottle before reluctantly setting it aside again. “I have wondered if my jealousy made Ivar seem worse than he was.”
“Nope, he was pretty damn fucking bad,” Frieka opined. “And then he got worse. I do not understand why Dona didn’t slam his ’borg ass right through the nearest bulkhead. It was almost as if she believed whatever Ivar told her.”
Alerio nodded, ignoring the way the room spun. “I had the same impression.”
“He’d say the most vicious shit in this really concerned voice, like honey poured over rotten meat.” Frieka growled softly, ears flattening. “I was tempted to bite the fucker, oh, half a dozen times, but Riane said you’d throw me in the brig for attacking another agent.”
“She was probably right. Though I’d have secretly cheered while you chewed.” A new question occurred to him. “Frieka?”
“Yeah?”
“Why would the Xerans allow a human traitor to wear the horns of a priest? Especially considering how seriously they take that lunatic religion of theirs.”
“Do I look like the source of all fuzzy wisdom?”
“I’m serious.”
“And drunk.”
“True, but beside the point. Look, when Terje first defected, I assumed they’d pay him a pittance and send him off into one of their flesh slums to drug himself to death. Instead they’ve got him leading missions. How the hell did that happen?”
“A complete lack of common sense and simple primate decency?”
“We’re talking Xerans, so yeah, that’s a given.” Alerio frowned as his instincts clamored at him through the ale haze. “But something tells me we’d better figure out just what the hell Ivar Terje has on the Victor.”
You idiot bastard, Ivar thought viciously. You and your stupid ideas. “I’m bored—I’ll become a Xeran spy.” And look where I ended up: the puppet of a psychopath with delusions of godhood.
He floated in a mental fog that numbed his every sensation and left him as helpless as an infant. If he concentrated, Ivar could see out of his hijacked eyes, hear what the Victor heard, detect the thoughts running through his own stolen brain.
But he couldn’t do a damn thing about any of it.
The Victor had seized Ivar’s cyborg body in the aftermath of his battle with Nick Wyatt. Six months later, he still showed no sign of releasing control. The fucker was convinced his own priests were plotting against him.
And though the Victor was unquestionably paranoid and borderline batshit, he was also absolutely right. His priests had turned against him. The rebels meant to destroy him and seize control of the Xeran theocracy.
It was all Nick Wyatt’s fault. He was the one who had exposed the Victor’s lethal weakness and blown him into ooze. Though the half-breed hadn’t quite succeeded in finishing the Victor off, Wyatt had destroyed Ivar, who was, for once, nothing more than an innocent bystander.
Bastard, Ivar thought, not even sure if the thought was his own or the Victor’s. I’m going to kill that half-breed abomination if it’s the last thing I do.
Actually, that particular thought sounded more like the Victor’s than his own. It was sometimes hard to tell his mind from that of his hijacker/rapist.
Another thing he could thank Wyatt for.
A memory emerged from the mental fog: Wyatt, half-breed guardian of the alien Sela, his human body wrapped in the glowing energy form of one of their ancient warriors. The creature had looked something like one of the Earth’s extinct tigers—if the tiger in question was the size of a grizzly, with six powerful legs tipped in claws like daggers.
Wyatt had used that deadly Sela construct to rip into the Victor like a grizzly with a honeycomb. Despite the Xeran god’s nine-foot golden body and massive two-handed sword, Wyatt had beaten him right into the ground. Then he’d blasted the Victor into a black, oily rain. Too bad it hadn’t stuck.
Turns out the Victor’s original cyborg body had been dead for more than a century. All that remained were the microscopic nanobots that had once enhanced his strength and intelligence.
His priests had frantically raced around, trying to collect the Victor’s scattered nanobots. Some of the ooze had crept up armored legs, silently pleading for rescue and protection. Gods, the memory of those frantic moments scalded his pride. Wyatt needed to die for that humiliation alone.
Even as they struggled to collect the Victor’s components, his priests had been horrified to realize the truth about their golden god: he was nothing more than a bot colony that hadn’t been human in a century.
True, the nanobots retained the memories of the original cyborg warrior who’d once declared himself the god of the Xer. Yet the colony itself was neither god nor man. In fact, it had no real idea what it was.
By sheer bad luck, a particularly large glob of the nanobot ooze had found Ivar and promptly crawled up his boot, slimy and determined. It was like being attacked by an enormous hunk of sentient snot.
He’d been revolted, of course. After all, Ivar was no priest. Besides, the thing reminded him entirely too much of a nilik.
Back on his home world, that particular predator had the habit of disguising itself as a puddle across some well-trafficked forest path. Whenever an unsuspecting victim fell into the nilik, he’d be horrified to discover the “puddle” was actually five meters deep—and it had started digesting him alive. It usually took the poor fucker an hour to stop screaming. A day later, there’d be nothing left but bones.