Mirror Space - Marianne de Pierres [84]
‘Thales Berniere,’ said an all-too-familiar voice. ‘Heavens to Crux. What are you doing here?’
‘Godhead.’ Thales kicked out at Tekton. ‘Get off me.’
Then the infirmary attendants swooped on them, easing Tekton to a bed of his own and wheeling Thales off to wash.
Though Thales returned clean, it was as though the hot, wet spew was still on him. The ignominy of being vomited on was difficult to shake, though it was tempered by curiosity and surprise.
Tekton was sitting up in his adjacent bed while the attendant pored over deep, ragged cuts on his legs.
‘You appear to be in the wars, sir,’ Thales commented, finally.
‘And you,’ said Tekton, indicating the curative skin pasted around Thales’s neck and across his cheek. ‘Looks like you tried to cut off your own head. And my apologies, good fellow, for earlier. I have been through some trying circumstances.’
Thales accepted Tekton’s regret stiffly. When the two had last met, Tekton hadn’t wished to disclose anything that might help Thales further. Bethany didn’t trust the Godhead. Something had happened on The Last Aesthetic that she wouldn’t talk about.
Thales wasn’t sure if Tekton was friend or antagonist. The man was clearly brilliant but with an inflated sense of his own importance. Don’t be fooled by glamour, Bethany had said.
And here they were, thrown together once more.
Tekton remained silent while the medi-lab attendant finished dressing his wounds.
‘I wish to leave,’ Thales said as she finished up.
‘Sammy says you’re to stay until the sample analysis comes back. We might need to run the test again.’
‘And what if I don’t wish to wait?’ Thales heard his own petulance and didn’t care.
The attendant glanced towards the guard at the door. ‘Sammy said wait. So I would, if I were you.’ She retired to her small, partitioned office, shut the door and turned her back on them, not prepared to get any more involved than that.
Tekton lay comfortably propped up on his pillows, his face relaxed by the pain relief flowing from the capsule stuck to the crook of one elbow. Their beds faced each other across a small array of blinking equipment.
‘Where to start, young fellow? You first,’ said the Godhead.
Thales set his jaw, refusing to be so easily compliant. ‘I recall you had little to share with me at our last meeting, sir. Perhaps it is you who should begin.’
To his surprise, Tekton made an unhappy sound. ‘You were right to be seeking information from Lasper Farr, Thales, and I was foolish withholding what I knew. Little enough as it is. I had thought to use the situation to my advantage, but Farr is a man without moral bounds.’
The Godhead then told Thales the extraordinary recount of his visit to Farr’s prayer room and his ensuing near-fatal escapade.
‘But why did you go there, Godhead?’
‘Lasper Farr has a secret.’ Tekton lowered his voice. ‘I think he’s found a way to predict the future. In fact I’m sure of it. He let me try and find his system.’
Thales frowned. ‘Even if such a thing were possible, why would he do that?’
‘It was a game, a test of intellect. See if I could work it out. Of course, on the off chance that I did, he needed to dispose of me in case I found a way to use the knowledge against him. Fortunately, someone was on hand to prevent murder. Jelly Hob,’ finished Tekton, ‘may be uncouth and eccentric by most standards, but he saved my life - and more so, Thales, the man can fly like a genius.’
A silence fell for a time between them as Tekton rested, eyes closed from the effort of his retelling, while Thales cogitated what he’d heard.
‘It seems,’ said Thales finally, ‘that we are both beholden to strangers for our lives. Commander Farr also sought to rid himself of me. Why? I’m not exactly sure. I expect he wished to prevent me speaking of the details of the DNA retrieval. If that is the case then the Baronessa and the mercenaries should also be marked. For they all knew about my task.’
‘But they do not know about the outcome,