Double Helix 03_ Red Sector - Diane Carey [92]
Demolished, Iavo sank back on the vanity, his head hanging, his arm draped across the console.
“I could let them die,” he moaned, “but I could never kill them. You must believe me….” “Data, stand down,” Crusher ordered.
The android lowered his weapon, although Crusher was reassured when he did not put it away, and remained poised in the middle of the room, ready to spring in case anybody got any ideas.
“Good work,” she said as she came to the android’s side. “How badly are you hurt? “A little lubricant leakage, Doctor.” “I’ll fuse you up in a few minutes.”
Emboldened, Crusher crossed the furry carpet in three strides and got the dazed Sentinel by the collar, her hands knotted like cannonballs at his throat. She leered into the crumple of his face.
“All right, Iavo. Look at me. I’m willing to have seen nothing here today, do you understand me? Data’s not only the devil with a handweapon, he’s also got what you might call a photographic memory. We’ve got a record of everything that’s gone on here, but I’m willing to keep it between us if you do exactly as I order. You get your buddies out of here and don’t show me another armed guard for the duration of my visit. You’re now the empress’s one and only bodyguard. Monarchies are stupid, but that little girl didn’t do anything except get born into the royal family. It’s like a curse, y’know? It’s not her fault,”
“You must believe me” he beseeched. “I know nothing of the plot to make them all ill….”
“I believe you.” She dropped his collar so abruptly that he flinched. “This biological assault’s been going on all over the quadrant and it’s never involved the Romulans till now. As
much as I’d like to hate you right now, nothing points to you. You’re just an opportunist. A clumsy one, at that. You think I can’t tell that you’ve never done anything like this before?”
“I never have… please forgive me… I never expected you to be so brave. We have always been told that humans whimper and sneak, stab in the night… I have served loyally all my life, until this opportunity raised it head-“
“And you can still have your coup d’etat someday, I’m all for revolutions, but not while the opposition is lying helplessly ill and I’m around to make them better. If the empire falls this way, this fast, you’ll take all the rest of us down the drain with you. You threatened to kill me, so here’s the counter often You won’t kill me, and Data won’t have to kill you. I keep treating her and the rest of the royal family, and you and your men pretend none of this happened and quit thinking that this is a good way to change things. You can all keep your positions and get another chance some day to do it right. I’ll send you a biography of Benjamin Franklin and you can get some ideas, but until then be patient and do your jobs with some statesmanship. For now, you’ll back off and let me do my job without any more theatrics. Simple enough?” The fire snapped, and the harp chimed.
Chapter Nineteen
“MR. STILES…”
The devil’s own carnival ride. Hands still tingling. Hate bad dreams… Orsova, loomimg over him while some creepzilla who’d won an auction rayed the flesh off him with bare fists. Arms throbbed. Legs, back… wake the dead with that drumbeat. Leave me alone. Can’t go back, can’t go back there ….
Lips clamped together and teeth gnashed, coming down on gritty shme. Stiles swam back to consciousness. Threads of grit made way between his teeth, file side of his tongue, the back of his throat he gagged himself awake.
As if something were crawling across his face, he backhanded himself in the mouth and wiped moist filth from his face, then heaved up spitting, weed pods netted with slime sheeting off the left side of his uniform as he rolled.
Someone groaned-he opened his eyes and seemed to see the sound of his own complaint rush into the sky like a bird. Pressing grit from his watering eyes, he forced himself up on both arms and hovered there on hands and ‘knees, as his head battled to clear. He was kneeling in shoulder-high ferns. The ground was soft, sticky,