Double Helix 03_ Red Sector - Diane Carey [102]
“Take the vial. You no longer need Zevon. Killing him is better. I will be happier. lf you cannot kill him, infect him.”
The small undecorated bottle was slightly warm, as if it had been kept heated. He noted the temperature and planned to keep it insulated. If he was going to do this thing, he would do it right. “Needle?”
“It must go in the body. Skin contact is not enough. Only Zevon’s DNA will absorb the virus. Get it into him any way you can. Report to me on this frequency when you have succeeded. The Romulan family dies, you become sector governor and get more than your dreams. You’re a small and greedy man, Orsova. But take no insult… I need small and greedy men.”
Orsova tucked the vial deep into his jacket, against the warm skin of his chest, and looked up to the faceless persona that promised him glory. “Small and greedy governors;’ he corrected.
“Something weird’s going on. Why wouldn’t they want help? The Constrictor still comes-it’s obvious from the architecture. And that pig’s no provost or magistrate. I don’t know how he got that kind of power, but he’s nothing but a glorified jail guard. You saw how he acted! Nobody runs a planet honesty and forthrightly and then turns down help.”
“He did seem somewhat cross-purposed.”
“He’s got some kind of racket going on here. How else in hell could a brutal superficial lout like Orsova end up in control of a whole planet?” “How could a corporal become Fuehrer?”
Stiles felt his face pinch. “Who?… oh. How’s your leg? It’s still bleeding?”
“Yes, it seems to be.” The ambassador turned his leg for a better look at the wound. “You were right. I should have left the projectile embedded.” “Let me wrap it up.”
Forcing himself to put Orsova aside in his mind, at least long enough to open the first-aid kit they’d been given, Stiles knelt beside the cot where Speck was sitting. The smell in here was so familiar-that combination of dust and moisture that never quite goes away ….
Speck pressed his hands back on the cot, tightened up visibly, and endured the stinging pain as Stiles cut the trouserleg away from the wound. The puncture bad clotted some, though blood and tissue still leaked from it. Stiles tried to remember how big the projectile had been. Details failed him. All he could do was apply antiseptic, then pressure, both of which caused Speck to stiffen noticeably. Typically Vulcan, Speck was suppressing both the pain and any appearance of it. Stiles wondered if he could do that well if somebody put an arrow through part of him.
“At least they gave us a medical kit,” he muttered as he gauzed the leg. “They may have an ulterior motive,” Speck suggested. “You mean they want us to escape?” “Possibly. What do you think?”
Confronted with having to cough up an answer, Stiles felt as if he were back in grade school and hadn’t done his reading assignment.
“If anything made sense, I’d have something to think. Orsova as a planetary leader, no sign of Zevon… all sorts of technology and architecture that wasn’t here ten years ago… that composite beam reaching out of the atmosphere and grabbing a ship as big and powerful as a CST-even Starfleet can’t mix those properties that way. How could the Pojjana do that in just ten years?”
“From what you tell me,” Speck contemplated, “Zevon knew what every civilization needs to make its quantum leap. Energy. Yet, to build and use high energy, he