Brain Ships - Anne McCaffrey [219]
The stimpad slapped down on chill, firm flesh. The array of needles clicked but did not sink in. Alpha felt a moment's cold apprehension. Something is wrong here. Something is very wrong.
And Qualia Benton's dark eyes were wide open, watching her with amusement.
"The right arm prosthesis is real lifelike," she said cheerfully, "but you won't get stimpad needles through the plastiskin. And now—oh, no, dear. I wouldn't do that. I really wouldn't."
From under the bedclothes she had produced an ugly, snub-nosed needler. Where did that come from? The old bitch isn't wearing anything but a hospital gown.
"Whatever you had in that stimpad, the charge is wasted now," Qualia Benton informed her in that same cheerful tone. "There should be just enough left for a lab on Central to analyze. Please don't try to throw it away; I'll want to put it in an evidence bag for the trial."
"Trial," Alpha croaked. "Evidence bag." She backed up a step, frozen with horror, while her intended victim swung one real leg and one permalloy prosthesis out of bed, fussily straightened her gown, and produced a plastic bag from under the pillow.
"Just drop it in here, dear, and don't make any sudden moves. You wouldn't want to startle a poor nervous old woman. This needler is set on wide spray, and it's loaded with ParaVen. I don't really want to paralyze you," she said thoughtfully, "but if necessary . . ."
Two more backward steps brought Alpha to the door. She dropped and rolled into the corridor, momentarily out of range of the needler. "Baynes! Moss!" she shrieked. "32-A, patient out of control, Code Z, stat!"
Running feet pounded down the corridor and Alpha closed her eyes in momentary relief. That heavy tread had to belong to Baynes. Let this crazy snoop of a woman waste her needler charge on the aides—then Alpha would spirit her away to the violent ward. She promised herself a long and entertaining series of experiments on the bitch, once they got that damned needler away from her.
"Stop right there," the old woman called in a voice too clear for her apparent age. "I am a legally constituted representative of Central Worlds Internal Investigation. Any attack on my person is treason, punishable by law. You're under arrest."
"The hell I am," countered a voice that most certainly did not belong to the thick-witted Baynes. Alpha looked up and saw that Bryley man, the one she'd sent Baynes and Moss to take care of. "I'm the Central Worlds rep here, and you're under arrest. What have you done to my witness?"
"The guy in the next bed?" For the first time, the Benton woman sounded uncertain. "He's not going to be a lot of good to you. Too blissed-out to know his own name. But you're welcome to him, if you want him. I expect she was going to kill him next, after she took care of me."
"Kill? You?" Now Bryley sounded equally confused.
From her crouching position, Alpha saw the Benton woman bend and fumble along the side of her leg prosthesis. A crack opened and she drew out a thin holographic strip that shimmered with rainbow colors in the hallway lights. So that's where she hid the needler. . . .
"General Micaya Questar-Benn," the woman introduced herself. She was standing straighter now, without the hunch and the bent leg that had made her look so small and helpless before. "Undercover assignment for Central, checking out the suspiciously high death rate on the charity side of Summerlands. My colleague Forister Armontillado y Medoc should be somewhere around; he can vouch for me. And you?"
"Sevareid Bryley-Sorensen, on temporary assignment to investigate fraud in a Bahati construction company." He looked down at Alpha; she had a dizzying glimpse of blue eyes and an expression as if the cat had dragged in something better left in a back alley. "I think our cases may be connected. I was here to collect Valden Allen Hopkirk, witness to