Death in Winter - Michael Jan Friedman [79]
And she needed sleep.
“Come on now, stay with me!”
This time, Beverly didn’t bother to look around. She was too weary, too firmly lodged in the embrace of encroaching slumber. It felt so good to finally give in to it…
And to set the voices aside.
Akadia shoved his fellow centurion into the unyielding stone wall of their barracks, to which they had returned after a long day of searching. Then he snarled, “I do not care to hear that spew a second time!”
His victim, a rangy fellow named Retrayan, glared at him. “With all due respect,” said Retrayan, his voice rank with sarcasm, “you will hear it-if not from me, then from a dozen others.”
Retrayan held out his hands, the backs of which were liberally adorned with tiny green spots. They were the same sort of marks displayed by the Kevratan corpses so routinely found frozen in the snow.
Until a day and a half ago, they hadn’t been seen on a Romulan. Suddenly, it seemed everyone had them-Akadia included.
“Then I will see to it,” said Akadia, “that those dozen others are graced with cells in this very building. That is the reward of those who defy Commander Sela.”
The other centurions in the room-all twenty or more of them-appeared to take the warning with the seriousness Akadia had intended. But he feared it was only a matter of time before their panic overcame their good sense.
All the more reason to find the human doctor, and to do it quickly. If she could devise a cure for the Kevratan version of the plague, why not the Romulan one?
“On the other hand,” said Akadia, “they who carry out their assignments without complaint will be the first to receive a cure when we obtain one.”
That got their attention, he noted, seeing the glimmer of self-interest in the centurions’ eyes. Just as Sela said it would. Nothing motivated a Romulan like the promise of advantage over his peers-especially when it was so intimately intertwined with his chances of survival.
“Of course,” Akadia went on, “there will only be a cure if we find the prisoner.” He glanced meaningfully at Retrayan. “And that will only happen if we keep our wits about us. Do I make myself clear, Centurion?”
Retrayan frowned but said, “Eminently so.”
Akadia nodded. “Good.”
After all, he had had ample opportunity to witness the suffering of the Kevrata. He wanted to avoid firsthand knowledge of it as much as anyone.
Eborion smiled to himself as he sat in front of his computer monitor and reviewed his family’s weapons manufacturing accounts for the last several days. In point of fact, he had been smiling that way all morning.
But it wasn’t his expertise at expanding his house’s wealth that gladdened him so. He had reached the point where he could do that with his eyes closed. Rather, it was his investment on Kevratas that was giving him cause for celebration.
Manathas’s communication to Tal’aura had discredited Sela’s ability to command much more thoroughly than Eborion ever could have. Soon, the half-human would be no threat to him at all.
Engaging the services of Manathas had been a stroke of genius on Eborion’s part. Unfortunately, it left a thread dangling. He couldn’t take the chance that the spy would someday betray him or try to blackmail him.
So when this Kevratas affair was all over, he would arrange to have Manathas killed for his trouble. If all went well, the spy would be dead long before he got the opportunity to set foot again on Romulan soil.
And Eborion, the praetor’s sole confidant, would go on smiling for a good long time.
Manathas slipped through the doorway of the government hall, placed his back against the wall beside it, and waited for the door to close behind him. Only after he heard the wooden relic lock into place did he allow himself to relax.
He had expected his fellow centurions to be a thorn in his side, an impediment and perhaps even an occasional danger to him as they scoured the city. But he hadn’t expected them to be everywhere, as ubiquitous as snowflakes.
Three times, they spied Manathas at the opposite end of a street