Double Helix 03_ Red Sector - Diane Carey [39]
“They’ll let you. You’ll convince them. Don’t you stop trying, right? If you stop trying, I’ll be dead for nothing. I don’t mind being dead, but dead for nothing stinks.”
Inexpressibly disturbed, Zevon nodded. “I promise, Eric.” Scarcely were the prophetic words out than the door suddenly rattled and both men flinched they hadn’t even noticed the sound of footsteps in the hall. Abruptly aware of the great serviceability of silence and how much they sacrificed if they talked too long, Stiles willed himself to a sitting position and shifted until his legs hung over the end of the cot and Zevon was sitting almost beside him. They didn’t stand. That would’ve been taken as threatening. They’d learned that too, a long time ago, the hard way.
Orsova rolled in, a little less drunk than before, his bulky guard uniform somewhat askew and a bundle under his arm.
Desperate at the prospect of two beatings in a single day, Zevon bolted to his feet between the big Pojjana and Stiles, standing out of the way of Stiles’s grasping hand. “Leave him alone! If you want me to beg, Orsova, this time I will.”
But the big assistant warden skewed a glance at him, then said, “I didn’t come to beat him. I came to give him clean clothes.”
The astounding claim literally drove Zevon back a step, enough that Stiles could get a grip on his arm. “Why?” Stiles asked.
Orsova dumped the bundle of clothing onto Stiles’s lap. “Because a deal’s been made. They’re coming to get you. You’re going home.”
“Starfleet’s coming?”
“Somebody is;’ Orsova confirmed without commitment. “The orders to free you come all the way from Consul Bellihorn, and he hates everybody.”
At the name of the chief provincial judiciary consul, Stiles felt the air fly from his lungs. “We’re. ?. we’re going home?” Orsova shrugged. “Just you.” “What? What about Zevon!” “He’s Romulan.”
Stiles used his grip on Zevon to yank himself up despite the protests of his body and rage gave him the strength to be there. “You’re kidding! I’m not going without him? “Yes.” “No! You’re doing this on purpose!” “Stop, Eric.” Zevon pulled him back.
Orsova blinked his reddened eyes, peered with something like sentimental regret at the bundle of clothing, shrugged again, and simply left the room, bothering to chink the door shut behind him, as if to give them a few final minutes alone. Courtesy? Since when?
Shuddering like an old man, Stiles stood beside Zevon, and the two of them stared at the door. They couldn’t look at each other. Not yet.
“He’s lying,” Stiles rasped. “He’s tricking us for some reason… he wants something. That’s got to be it, Zevon. He’s telling lies. This is Red Sector. Starfleet wouldn’t come in here. It’s a lie.”
“Perhaps something has changed,” Zevon suggested reasonably. “If the sector has been declared green, how would we know it, here in prison?”
“We’d hear about it… somebody would say something. We’d hear rumors.”
Slowly shaking his head, Zevon stood with his arms at his sides and common sense on him like a cloak. “No, Eric. No.” “We’d hear about it ….” “No.”
Barely aware of where his legs were, Stiles sank back onto the cot. The metal frame squawked under his weight and the sound nearly knocked him unconscious. His head drummed, hearing the squawk again and again. Before him, Zevon’s legs seemed to be surrounded by a slowly closing tunnel.
After a moment, Zevon came to sit beside him. Together they stared at the lab, still not looking at each other. Their world, this lab, this prison, this planet, turned inside out for them both in the next ten seconds. Suddenly everything was changed, heaving as if in some kind of earthquake, and for a ridiculous moment there seemed to be a Constrictor holding them both to this cot, to this floor, to the bedrock beneath the building.
Who was coming? If the Sector had turned green, they probably would’ve heard about it, and there hadn’t been a whisper. Not a thing had changed, not