Double Helix 03_ Red Sector - Diane Carey [91]
Sentinel Iavo was poised ten feet from them in an attack stance, staring at the body of his guard. Summoning the commitment he had made, he forced himself to swing once again at Dam with his dirk blade slashing. The blade fell on Data’s shoulder and glanced off. Iavo stumbled.
In that instant, Data managed to drive off all three remaining attackers at once, just long enough to grasp the dagger hilt that was still sticking out of him. With a final yank, he drew it from his body. The blade dripped with colored fluid as he turned it toward the charging guards and the Sentinel. He was armed.
His eyes narrowed and his teeth gritted, Data’s jaw locked, and there was a flush of effort in his complexion. The Sentinel and two of the guards attacked him as a unit with their blades, met with driving force by Data’s weapon. The clang and shriek of metal against metal erupted over the harpsong.
“Uh-oh, he’s getting mad,” Crasher observed. “And they say he doesn’t have those emotions… apparently he’s got something like adrenaline on his side.”
“How can he do this?” Hashley asked. “How can he throw those big guards around!”
“He eats his broccoli. This is what happens to all conspirators, Mr. Hashley. Sooner or later they have to show themselves.”
Iavo spun around and glared at her while two of his men lunged at Data and were thrown off. “Conspirators?”
‘The Sentinel did it, didn’t he?” Ansue Hashley reckoned, taking the topic and running with it while the other men fought their way around the arena. “He poisoned the royal family! He wanted power all the time. He’s been close to it all his life, like
the prime minister waiting for the queen to die, but he gets impatient. I’ve heard of that.”
Crusher rewarded him with a nod, then accused Iavo with a glare. “I guess he thought he could get away with killing the entire royal family.”
In the middle of a dagger-swipe, Iavo let his move be parried without challenge as he sang out, “I did nothing to make this happen! I have no idea why they turned ill at the same time! I thought it was their blood!”
Wondering how good an actor he was, Crusher moved sideways, keeping behind the periphery of Data’s slashing weapon. “Who helped you engineer the vital terrorism?”
“I did not do it!” Iavo shouted. He actually stopped fighting, backed away from Data, and stood there waving his weapon in a kind of helpless gesture, as one of his guards writhed in pain at his feet and the other braced to charge again. “This was providence working! I had the power to see what could be! I wanted to change the hearts of our people, not this… this-stop it!”
He lashed out at the last guard, driving the charging soldier sideways into the table just before the other man would’ve plowed back into Data’s circle of engagement. “Stop, all of you!” Iavo ordered. “Stop… stop. No more.. :’ The other guards-the two conscious ones-clasped at their bleeding and broken limbs and obeyed him. Mindful of Data’s dangerous abilities, they shrank back, away, and crouched near the fireplace. Somehow Crusher could tell that they weren’t obeying because they were beaten. They were obeying because they knew they were wrong.
Emotionally destroyed, baffled and sickened by the rankness of what he had been tempted toward, Iavo stalked the width of the room, then finally sank into the chair at the center table as if some magical pry bar had opened a valve and let the air out of him. He raised his striking jewel-like eyes to Crusher, and she saw mirrors of anguish.
“A thousand loyalties,” he mourned, “a thousand pressures… these days have been torment for me… I have spent my life in the service of the royal family, never once thinking such thoughts, until along came tiffs miracle, this disease that struck every one of them… at first it seemed tragic, soon changing to a glimmer… the allure of opportunity… to cut away the throne’s ancient core… change the future of the empire, dilute the power of blood succession that causes these terrible dangers and finally try something new-this might’ve been the only chance in history to