Charlotte Boyett-Compo- WIND VERSE- Hunger's Harmattan (18 page)

Jost cursed Strom as he bulldozed his way
past the general and headed straight for Strom’s office with Felix Harmattan
striding close behind him. He came up short when he saw the Amazeen facing him.
“Where is he?” he demanded.

“Where is who?” Strom inquired.

“The Reaper!” Jost shouted. He too was
looking about the room.

“Do you see him?” Storm asked.

Jost’s jowls wiggled as he closed in on
Shanee. “Where is he?” he demanded again. “Why didn’t you bring him with…?”

It was then the door to Strom’s office
slammed shut, making everyone jump as all eyes went to the door only to find no
one even close to the portal.

“Who the hell did that?” Jost snapped.

The chairs in which Ailyn and Shanee had
been sitting suddenly lifted up from the floor and sailed across the room,
governed by unseen hands. The two other chairs that sat before the desk soon
joined the others.

Felix Harmattan stumbled back until his
shoulders were pressed tightly to the wall. His eyes were wide, his mouth open
and he appeared to be trembling.

Jost’s florid face paled and he rushed to
the door and tried to open it but it was sealed shut, and no matter how hard he
turned and twisted the lock, it would not budge. He spun around, his fearful
eyes scanning the room. “He’s in here,” he said. “I know he is!”

Strom calmly took his seat behind the desk
as Shanee walked to his side. They faced the general’s visitors with
emotionless faces. “Why are you here, Vice-Counselor Jost?” Strom inquired.

“Show yourself, Reaper!” Jost shouted.

“I wouldn’t call him that if I were you,”
Shanee said. “He doesn’t like it.”

To emphasize her words, one of the chairs
levitated from the floor and became nothing more than kindling in the space of
a breath. The debris fell to the floor.

Jost gasped and slid along the wall to get
close to his stepson. “I meant no disrespect,” he muttered.

Two chairs rapidly skidded from the wall to
in front of Strom’s desk.

“Sit down!”

The disembodied voice was harsh and
threaded through with a savage growl that brooked no disobedience. Both Jost
and Felix practically ran to the chairs across the room and sat down—Jost
nearly tumbling from his, the chair tipping precariously before he managed to
right it.

A faint smile hovered over Strom’s face as
he leaned back in the chair. “Would you like to sit down, Colonel?” he asked.

Shanee replied that she’d stand. She could
sense her husband near though she could not see him.

“Please, Ailyn…” Jost began.

“It is Commander Harmattan,” the Reaper
said, and appeared. He was standing beside Shanee with his arms crossed, his
stony glare directed at Jost. “You will never again address me by my given name.
Is that understood?”

“Aye, Commander,” the vice-counselor was
quick to agree.

Felix was staring at his brother with
several emotions seemly crossing his young face. There was fear mixed with awe
in his dark eyes but his mouth was mulishly set, his cheeks dotted with color.
“And what is it I am to call you?” he asked Ailyn.

Ailyn shifted his stare to the young man.
“You were but an infant in swaddling when last I saw you,” he said, his voice
losing some of its animosity.

Felix’s chin came up. “I’m a man now.”

A hint of a smile tugged at Ailyn’s mouth.
“Well, you’re on your way to becoming one at any rate.”

“Mother is dying,” Felix said. “She wants
to see you before she…” He faltered. “You know.”

“She wants one of my fledglings so she can
live,” Ailyn stated.

“By the gods, she doesn’t!” Felix said with
a gasp. “You are…you’re a…”

“Reaper,” Ailyn finished for him. “And aye,
Felix, all she wants is what I can give her.”

“How can you say that?” Felix questioned.
“You are her son, her firstborn. She…”

“Hated me from the moment I was born and
the only reason she’s willing to see me now is to gain a parasite to cure her,”
Ailyn said.

Jost timidly raised his hand to gain the
Reaper’s notice. When those amber eyes flicked to him, the vice-counselor
blanched for there was cruelty and vengeance in that penetrating stare. “Will
you…” He swallowed before he could continue you. “Will you give her a parasite,
Commander?”

“You will be delighted to know that I
won’t.”

“Ailyn!” Felix shouted, jumping to his
feet. He did not hear his stepfather’s sigh of apparent relief. “You have to.
If you don’t, she’ll die!”

“Do you think she cared about me while I
was interned at R-9, little brother?” Ailyn asked. “She didn’t give a damn what
they were doing to me.”

“She didn’t know,” Felix denied.

“Oh but she did,” Ailyn insisted. “It’s all
a matter of record.”

Shanee exchanged a glance with Strom. There
had been no mention in the files either of them had read on Ailyn that
indicated Elspeth Harmattan knew her son had survived the crash of his father’s
ship the
Abroholos.

“I don’t believe you,” Felix said.

“Vid-com on,” Ailyn snapped and the screen
powered up. He didn’t bother looking toward the screen. “Access file EFB-ID
2648759515, password stinger.”

A copy of an ID card flashed onto the
screen. In the center of the card was the picture of a young woman identified
as Elspeth Briza. The document bore the seal of the Aduaidh Alliance.

“Our mother worked for the Burgon before
Ryden Bakari,” Ailyn said. “I believe the correct term for what she was engaged
in was called a honey pot.”

“That’s a forgery,” Jost said. “It has to
be. A honey pot was an antiquated euphemism for spying.”

“Actually it was
sexual
entrapment to gain information,” Strom corrected him.

“She married our father to gain access to
information needed by the Alliance. According to the official Alliance records,
it was her knowledge of the movements and mission of the
Abroholos
that
gave her handlers what they needed to destroy the ship and everyone on board
it,” Ailyn said. “Access file #KGH-6197975652-A_05-14-2320.”

Documentation of the information—signed by
Elspeth Briza—given to the Alliance regarding Duke Harmattan’s ship flashed
across the screen which was split into two sections. The left section contained
a vid-sequence of a flyover showing the destruction of the
Abroholos.

“This can’t be happening,” Jost said, his
face even paler than before. He buried his face in his hands. “This can’t be
happening. She can’t be a spy for the Alliance.”

Felix walked over to the vid-com screen and
read what was written there, his face washed out by the silvery glow of the
screen. When he was finished he turned to look at Ailyn. “Even if this is true,
she couldn’t have known what would happen to the
Abroholos,”
he said. “A
woman doesn’t send her husband and her child to their deaths.”

“Ours did,” Ailyn said. “Access file
ALH-6891234658-A_05-20-2320.”

The final document also came up on a dual
screen. On the right side was a vid-sequence of Ailyn having a parasite dropped
onto his back. On the left side was a signed authorization giving the Alliance
scientist Perse Cean permission to use Ailyn LeVey Harmattan in their
experiments. The document bore the initials EBH—Elspeth Briza Harmattan.

“Since she was a valued member of the
Alliance, they had to get her permission before they could torture me,” Ailyn
said in a flat voice. “She knew what was going on at R-9 but she gave that
permission anyway.”

Felix was staring wide-eyed at the
vid-sequence as Ailyn began to Transition. He finally tore his attention from
the horror taking place on the vid-com screen and staggered to his chair. He
sat down, staring straight ahead of him, his lips parted.

“She knew where I was, Felix,” Ailyn said,
“but she didn’t care. She also knew where I was taken when I left R-9. I can’t
prove it but I’d be willing to bet it was her finagling that got you assigned
to the
Revenge
so you could discover me among the Reapers. Do you blame
me now for not wanting to help her?”

“But she’s your mother,” Felix said, tears
glistening in his eyes. He looked up at Ailyn. “She gave you life.”

The sound that came from the Reaper might
have passed for a laugh had not those in the room not been looking at his face.
“She gave me life, all right, and she tried to take it. When that didn’t work,
she sentenced me to a hell you cannot even begin to imagine, little brother. I
should let her have one of the hellions just so she’ll know the agony I went
through because of her.”

“She’s been a good mother to me,” Felix
said, but Ailyn could sense the lie his younger brother was telling. “Please,
you have to help her.”

“No I don’t,” Ailyn said, stressing each
word, and then he vanished again.

“Ailyn!” Felix shouted.

“Leave him be,” Shanee said. “He’s suffered
enough because of your mother. Let her pay for what she did to him.”

Chapter Ten

He was waiting for her out in the corridor
as she knew he would be. She said nothing as he held out his hand and together
they walked toward the elevator. His hand was steady in hers, his flesh warmer
than usual. They waited silently for the elevator to arrive. When it came, she
saw his eyes search the cage before he led her inside and knew from now on that
would be the case whenever she was with him.

“Two down and one to go,” he said as the
elevator doors closed behind them.

“That was a cakewalk compared to what we’re
going to face with my mother,” she told him.

“We’ll see,” he said. His gaze was on the
panel showing the floors they were descending.

“Were those documents real?” she asked.

He nodded. “Only too real.”

“We didn’t know about any of that,” she
said.

“You didn’t know where to look,” he said.
“When we were first brought to Theristes, Tariq asked Bakari for all Alliance
data that had been removed before the shutdown of the Reaper program and the
Burgon complied. Tariq told me how to access that data. He thought I should
know. He said he believed it would help me make my decision of whether or not
to accept what it is I’ve become.”

“And it did,” she said.

“And it did,” he repeated.

“Strom should be given the data,” she said.

“He will be,” her husband agreed.

The elevator settled and they got off to
take the tram to the hanger where Shanee’s runabout was docked. It would take
them to her quarters outside the city.

Her runabout was a sleek midnight blue
Fiach with a dark purple stripe from nose to elevated tail. The ship stood out
among the other runabouts.

“Sweet,” Ailyn said as they neared the
gleaming machine.

“If you play your cards right,
ehemann
,”
she said, “I might let you take the controls once we’re out of traffic.”

He snorted. “Don’t trust me in traffic with
it, huh?”

“It’s been awhile since you’ve flown, big
boy, and things have changed considerably,” she chastised him.

“Think it,
ionúin,
and I can fly it
with the best of them,” he reminded her.

She stopped—putting a hand out to halt
him—and gave him a challenging look. “You believe that?”

“I
know
that, little Amazeen,” he
replied confidently.

Her grin was all he needed.

Twenty minutes later he was sailing her
precious little craft into the hanger at the complex where she was quartered.
After settling the expensive Gearmánach vessel into its docking harness, he
shut down the engine and turned to give her a wink. “How’d I do?” he taunted.

“Ask me that after you’ve survived my
mother,” she mumbled.

“Oh,” he said. “Are those Class 10s in your
quarters?”

“Aye.”

“Are they activated?”

“Not yet. Why?”

“Do me a favor and don’t activate them
while I’m around,” he asked.

Shanee frowned. “All right but why? We may
need them on our missions,
ehemann
.”

“On missions, perhaps, but not where I am
living and sleeping, Shanee,” he said. “I hate cybots.”

“Not a problem,” she said.

Queen Polemusa was pacing the floor as the
door to Shanee’s quarters opened. She whirled around to face the man who came
in right behind her daughter. “
Ich fordere Sie, Kanaille heraus!”
she
threw at him. “
Außenseite im Hof!”

“Mother, really,” Shanee said, wincing at
her mother’s challenge to Ailyn to meet her in the courtyard and calling him a
cur. “This is…”

“
Wenn Sie bereit sind, Ihren Esel unten
sich setzen zu lassen, holen Sie ihn an, meckern
,” Ailyn said in perfect
Amazeen.