Inherit the Earth - Brian Stableford [126]
The newcomer looked very tired—as well he might, given that there had been no sound of rotor blades. He’d come on foot, at least for the last kilometer or so.
Damon figured that Saul would be disappointed not to see Conrad Helier, but on his own account he was profoundly glad that the man standing in the doorway was Silas Arnett, very much alive.
“It’s very good of you to come, Silas,” Saul said with only a hint of mocking irony. “Do join us.”
As Silas came forward Damon jumped to his feet and ran to meet him. It wasn’t a five-star emergency, but it was a five-star opportunity. Silas seemed slightly surprised, but he accepted the hug before wincing under its pressure.
“Mind my stigmata,” he muttered. The wound in his chest was overlaid by his suitskin, but the cloth clung so tightly to the contours of his chest that Damon could see the outlines of the swelling.
“I thought it really might have been the Eliminators who got to you first,” Damon said.
“It really might have been,” Silas agreed sourly. “As it was, they came too close for comfort to being accidental Eliminators. It seems that Karol thought it would be a good idea to declare me dead, just in case I decided to deny that heartfelt confession he put together on my behalf when I returned to public life. As you’ve probably found out, leaving the group means that they’re very reluctant to trust you in future. Is this the piece of shit who was judge and prosecutor at my trial?”
Damon could feel the tension in Silas’s arms, and he knew that an affirmative answer was likely to call forth an immediate and violent response. He was sorely tempted to say yes, but Saul had softened him up just enough to make him hesitate. “He says not,” he said in the end. “He says we can call him Saul, but he didn’t say whether it’s his first name or his last.”
Silas obviously wasn’t immediately convinced by the first item of information, but he extricated himself from Damon’s embrace and looked hard at the seated man. “Oh shit!” he said eventually. “It really is you, isn’t it?”
“It’s been a long time, Silas,” Saul said evenly, “but everyone remembers the spectacles. You really didn’t know the man who conducted your interrogation, in spite of that teasing coda he tacked onto the broadcast tape. That was just to prepare the way for the VE pak that went astray—the one that falsely implied that the supposedly late Surinder Nahal was your captor.”
“Whereas, in fact,” Damon put in, “Surinder Nahal is presumably heading up PicoCon’s own zombie biotech team, in direct opposition to yours. Who is this guy, Silas?”
“His name really is Saul,” Silas admitted. “Frederick G. Saul was his favored signature way back when—but that was in the days when everybody knew what the G stood for without having it spelled out. I thought he was long dead, but I should have known better.”
“I never pretended to die,” the bespectacled man observed drily. “I just faded out of view. Would you like something to eat, Silas?”
“I’ve eaten,” Silas replied brusquely.
“To drink?”
Silas looked at Damon’s glass. “Just water,” he said. He let Saul go to the bathroom to get it while he studied Damon. Saul didn’t hurry.
“You all right?” Silas said. “I heard they shot you too.”
“Twice,” said Damon. “My own fault—the first time I wouldn’t lie down for the gas and the second time I wouldn’t wait for a polite invitation. I’m fine—and still alive by everyone’s reckoning, including the Eliminators who have me down as an enemy of mankind. What does the G stand for?”
“Gantz,” Silas told him, watching the bathroom door at which Saul had not yet reappeared. “He’s Leon Gantz’s grandson, nephew of Paul and Ramon—and his other granddaddy was one of the insiders in the Zimmerman coup. He’s one of the last best products of the Old Reproductive System.”
Damon said nothing while he mulled over the possible significance of this revelation.
“How’s Diana?” Silas asked, groping for a topic of conversation more suited