Brain Ships - Anne McCaffrey [156]
Alpha tossed her head and tried to pull away from Polyon, but he was too strong for her. "There's nothing to tell, really. I was tired—wanted a change of scene. That's all."
"Is it?" Polyon murmured. "Funny. The way I heard it, there were some other people who wanted to change your scene. The newsnibblers never beamed the story, did they? Can't have scandals about a High Families girl going out as entertainment bytes. But I fancy our friends on board here would find the story very entertaining."
Alpha stared up at Polyon, looking for a hint of compassion in the sharp planes of his face and the ice-blue eyes that had seemed so attractive a moment ago. "I did nothing to be ashamed of," she whispered. "The tradition of scientific experiments—"
"Does not include testing Ganglicide on unwitting subjects." His voice was so low the others could not hear it.
"Charity cases," Alpha defended herself. "Street bums. Some of them were so far gone on Blissto they didn't even know what was happening to them. They were incurable—nothing but an expense to the state as long as they lived. I did them a favor, making sure their lives ended for some purpose."
"Somehow," Polyon murmured, "I don't think the court would have seen it that way. But then, you never did come to trial, did you? Hezra clan and Fong tribe wouldn't let that happen. Private settlement in the med school offices, records sealed."
"How—did you find out?" Alpha gasped. He was very close to her now, his voice the subtlest vibration of sound from lips that almost brushed her cheek. The raw power of his will and his anger wrapped about her. She felt weak from the spine out. His smile made her shiver.
"That's my little secret," he told her, still smiling. His face and gestures might have been those of a courtship; Alpha realized that the others in the room might imagine they were flirting. That was a relief. Anything was preferable to having her humiliation made public before these people who were to be her constant companions for the next two weeks—having them see her as the disgraced failure she was, instead of the successful young researcher with a social conscience she pretended to be. "You were lucky to get off with five years of community service on Bahati, weren't you?" Polyon commented, stroking her cheek with his free hand. "A commoner would have been doing time. Hard time. Who knows, gorgeous, you might even have wound up on Shemali—getting a chance to check out Ganglicide at first hand, so to speak. Wouldn't our innocent little friends love to hear the story?"
But he was still speaking in a low voice, head partially turned away from Fassa and Blaize and Darnell, who had grouped together in the far corner of the cabin and were pretending deep interest in a round of SPACED OUT.
"What—do you want?"
"Cooperation," Polyon said. "Only a little—cooperation."
Blindly, drowning in a sea of air that somehow gave her nothing to breathe, Alpha turned her face up to meet Polyon's parted lips.
"Not that sort of cooperation," Polyon told her, laughing gently, "not yet." His eyes measured her with a cold glance that made her more afraid than ever—and, somehow, more excited too. "Maybe later, if you're a good girl. You were too uppity before, you know that, Alpha? Now you're the way I like my women. Quiet. And respectful. Stay that way, and we won't have to discuss any—ah—painful subjects with the others. Come with me and follow my lead. That's all I expect of you—for now."
Submissive, head bowed, Alpha drifted towards the three SPACED OUT gamers in Polyon's wake. They were still pretending to be totally involved in the