CHAPTER

THIRTEEN

Nexus II

Rafe had not believed he could sleep, but once he lay down on a cot in Gary’s underground headquarters to wait for his transport, the relief of the rescue sent him under. Gary woke him only two hours later.

“Sun’s coming up. Time to hit the road. You’re still a new helper in the business, same ID as what I gave you yesterday. We’re going to my workshop—”

“You really do make windows and doors? And why there instead of Balcock?”

“My people need salaries even when we don’t have a specialty job. And I have a legitimate small business within two hours of each of my…secure ops command posts, like this. The people at the nearest business don’t work that op. And so far, that’s worked for me. Enough chatter…you should pretend to sleep in the van. You’re lazy. Once we’re at the shop, you should have time for a real nap before you shower and change back into your Cascadia persona. We need to have you seen coming back to pick up your ID, which should be free by late afternoon. I’ll take you in, then you and I will head for the next transfer point. And don’t ask me where.”

“How are they? Have you heard?”

“Alive. Signs of maltreatment, but they’re not in danger of dying—at least not from that. They’re still being assessed. I know you won’t relax, but I don’t cut corners on medical stuff.”

By the end of that day, Rafe felt as confused as he hoped anyone trying to trace him was. Sid had driven the van to Gary’s shop—a typical light-industrial shop with ventilation hoods rising from its pitched roof. Everything about it looked completely legitimate, from the sign out front to the fence around the paved yard, where another van with the same logo and a heavier truck with a load of wood were parked. Inside, it smelled of sawdust and machine oil; saws screamed and routers snarled as at least a dozen workers, all in similar coveralls and wearing safety glasses and ear protectors, worked on what Rafe assumed were actual windows and doors.

Gary’s office, at the back, had a wide table piled with samples of wood, design displays, and paperwork; through a side door, there was a tiny efficiency apartment—a cot, a cooler, a bathroom with shower and toilet. In the afternoon, Gary appeared—looking rested himself—and Rafe, back in his Genson Ratanvi disguise, got into Gary’s car for the drive to the village. They arrived near sunset; Lilyhands met them outside the bar and handed over Rafe’s ID with a smile.

“Judicar got back this morning, Ser Ratanvi; she said to apologize to you for the inconvenience. And we all wish you the best.”

“You were most gracious hosts,” Rafe said. “And I do apologize for the misunderstanding.”

“I’ll be glad to run you into the city,” Gary said.

“That’s very kind,” Rafe said. Probably everyone in the village was in on the ploy, but it never hurt to be courteous.

From there, Gary drove him through the night as Rafe struggled out of Ratanvi’s disguise once more and put on the sweater, slacks, and wool jacket Gary provided. At a private airfield Rafe boarded a small craft, and spent two uncomfortable hours wedged between crates, and a pilot who never spoke. Outside, just before they landed in the early morning, he could see lower hills rising close to a wide brown river they seemed to be flying along. He spent the last leg of the journey locked in the back of a bread truck making deliveries, and obeyed the driver’s instruction to walk around from the loading dock and present himself at the front door of the clinic.

It reminded him unpleasantly of the Green Hills Center with its broad green lawns, its exposed public drive to the front, and the concealed drive up which the bread truck had come. On black glass doors etched with a pattern of leaves, the clinic’s name and specialty was embossed in ornate gold script: ALARO CLINIC. SUBSTANCE ISSUES.

Inside, behind a dark stone enclosure, a uniformed man gave him a sharp look and then opened the door beyond. “This way, please. You’ll want to see Doctor Alaro.” Tension knotted Rafe’s stomach. He trusted Gary; he had to trust Gary, but this could be a trap.

The hall beyond the door, carpeted in dull olive, appeared to stretch the depth of the building. A man came out of a doorway ahead and turned toward him. “Ser Dunbarger, isn’t it?” He was taller than Rafe, trim, with dark hair becomingly streaked silver.

“Yes,” Rafe said.

“I’m Doctor Alaro. You’ll have many questions, but you’ll want to see them first, I’m sure.” Without waiting for an answer, he turned and led Rafe down the hall to a cross-corridor, then turned again. “We’re going down—there’s a lift just here—” The sign by the lift said STAFF ONLY, and it required a key. Once in the lift, Alaro kept talking. “There’s been no evidence that anyone knows they’re here. Apparently there’s quite a bit of activity up north, and in the northwest, but nothing to worry about. If you’re wondering, this is—most of the time—a private and very expensive clinic for moneyed individuals who habitually poison themselves with undesirable chemicals. We also take in the occasional wealthy psychotic who refuses treatment elsewhere.” The lift stopped; he led the way out. “Just down here…”

It looked like every hospital corridor Rafe had seen, very clean and—for something underground—very airy.

“Your mother and sister first; they’re conscious. Talk to them first, then come talk to me,” Alaro said. “There are decisions to be made. Be gentle; don’t try to interrogate them, but let them talk if they want to. When you’re through there, Doctor Kinjon will take you to your father. He’s assigned as your father’s primary physician while he’s here.”

Rafe’s mother and sister both wore thick fleece robes incongruously printed with bright pink flower shapes that looked ugly against the bruises. Following doctors’ instructions, Rafe kept his tone light and soft.

“Mother? It’s Rafael—”

“Rafe? Oh, my—” She burst into tears and reached toward him. Rafe moved closer and took her hands in his, careful not to dislodge her IV line. “Raffi, why weren’t you here? He could never have done it if you’d been here.”

“Shhh…” Rafe stroked her hands. Don’t ask questions, the doctors had said. Don’t disturb her. But she was already disturbed—how could she not be? “I’m here now, Mother,” he said. “And you’re safe.” She clung to him, her eyes still desperate. Rafe fought down the rage she must not see; his anger had frightened her so before.

“Is he…they won’t tell me…”

“Father is alive,” Rafe said. “He’s very weak.” How much to tell her? How much did she know, or guess? “He escaped; he tried to get out and find help, but it was too cold.”

“They hurt him,” his mother said. “They hurt all of us. I can’t believe he’d do such a thing—he was going to be CEO anyway—”

“Father?” Rafe asked.

“No, no! I forgot, you don’t know. Lew. Lucky Lew, your father called him. A fine young man, we thought. He always seemed like a fine young man…a good family, nice manners, a hard worker…I can’t understand it. Why—”

“I never liked him.” The voice from the next bed startled him. Rafe turned to look at his sister Penelope. Her dark hair hung lank and stringy beside a pale, gaunt face; she looked nothing like he remembered, or like the formal portraits displayed at home. “You told me how wonderful it was for Father to have such a reliable, competent successor, but his daughter was scared of him.” She looked at Rafe. “I knew her at school.”

“You never told me that!” Indignation lent a touch of color to his mother’s cheeks.

“I tried to. You told me not to meddle, that all children get crosswise with their parents on occasion.”

“They do, but—of course you couldn’t have realized. But Raffi—why did it take you so long?”

“So long?”

“You didn’t get your father’s messages?”

“No, nothing. That’s one reason I came back to Nexus to visit. I didn’t know anything was wrong until I tried to call and didn’t get an answer.” Best not tell her about the trapped phone connection; she didn’t need something else to scare her. “Then I went to the house, and it was obvious—”

“What—what did you find at the house?”

“My room,” Rafe said. He hadn’t meant to say that. “You kept my room the same.”

“Oh, Rafe…” Tears rolled down her cheeks. “You saw…”

“I expected you to clean it out. You told me not to come back.”

“I knew you would,” she said. “I knew you would someday come to your senses and be our son again. And then you’d come home, and your room would be ready for you just as if…as if it had never happened.”

But it had happened, and all his life since, and theirs, had been changed forever that night the invaders tried to kidnap him and his sister, and a young boy had taken a lucky swipe with a display weapon and killed a man twice his age and size.

“I saw it,” Rafe said. “You even kept my old models. I wish you’d been there with me. Anyway, I didn’t know where you were, or what was wrong—just that something was.”

“They told him—your father—that they’d set traps for you, that you couldn’t possibly get through. Was it you who got us out? I didn’t recognize—”

“I hired the team,” Rafe said. “I wasn’t on it myself; I’m not trained for that.”

“I thought we were going to die,” his mother said. Her grip on his hands tightened. “I thought they’d kill us. I thought nobody would find us even if they were looking. He said they wouldn’t, that he had convinced the police it was for our safety that we were sequestered.”

“He convinced someone,” Rafe said.

“How did you know that we needed help?” his sister asked. “Or where we were?”

“The house, for one thing. The plants were dying. I couldn’t imagine Mother leaving the house without arranging for their care—in fact, without leaving servants there, if only to guard it from thieves.”

“Did you water them?” his mother asked. She had always loved her plants; the big tigis in the living room was her pride, raised from a nub only a finger tall.

“Mother!” his sister said. “Don’t be ridiculous!”

“No,” Rafe said. “I didn’t. I could tell something was wrong; I was afraid if I turned on the water, it might bring…trouble.”

“You always were the smart one,” his sister said. “If I hadn’t been so scared that time—”

“You were only a little kid,” Rafe said. “Of course you were scared.”

“You were only eleven.”

“Eleven-year-olds are big kids,” Rafe said. “At least, eleven-year-olds think so. Penny, don’t feel guilty, please. None of this is your fault.” Tears spilled over and ran down her cheeks; he couldn’t stand it. “I’m going to check on Father,” he said. “I’ll be back.”

His father would live. They had promised him that. His core temperature had been dangerously low, but the outside temperature hadn’t been enough to cause serious frostbite. Rafe stared through the glass panel. His father lay still, IVs dripping into both arms, a warming blanket over his body and other tubes coming out from underneath. Rafe didn’t want to think about what had caused those marks on his hands, his feet, his face…his first hot rage had turned cold, colder than the glacier above Aurora Adventure Lodge.

“You shouldn’t try to rouse him yet,” Dr. Kinjon said, coming up beside Rafe. He was Rafe’s height and almost as plump as Rafe’s Cascadian persona. He glanced at Rafe’s face, took a step back, then turned away. “He’s sedated right now; his core temperature has stabilized, but with his other injuries and the drugs he had in his system, we felt mild sedation was a good idea. He was also dehydrated and clearly has been malnourished for some days.”

“But he’ll recover?”

“Yes. But it will take time.”

“Fully?”

“We’ll just have to see. The stresses…his age…there is the possibility that complete recovery will be prolonged, or…not entirely complete. When someone’s implant has been tampered with…the neuropsych specialist will be here tomorrow. When we know exactly how much damage the implant took—and possibly delivered—we’ll know more.”

His father had been intelligent—more than intelligent, brilliant in many ways. Intelligent, charming, commanding…and now he lay almost comatose, his body battered, his brain…Rafe shook his head sharply. “He has to recover. It’s important—”

“It’s always important,” Kinjon said.

Before he knew he had moved, Rafe had the doctor’s collar in his hands; the man’s face went white with the shock of that sudden attack. “You don’t understand,” Rafe said. “It’s not just him; it’s not just my father…he was snatched for a reason, and that reason affects not just Nexus but a thousand other systems. Someone’s trying to bring down ISC—do you have any idea what that means?”

“Gggghhh…”

“Sorry.” Rafe let up the pressure, but didn’t let go completely. “Do you know who he is?”

“A hostage that…that Gary rescued. That’s all I know; that’s all I’m supposed to know.”

“And you rightly assume rich and powerful, and you wonder that you haven’t heard anything, am I right?” The man nodded; Rafe went on. “That’s the CEO of ISC. He was abducted on the orders of the next in succession…who certainly has hooks in the government, judging by their complicity in this. What you may not know is that hundreds, at least, of ansibles are out of service, and ISC personnel are involved in that…I believe on the orders of the man who kidnapped my father. People are dying because my father is here”—he nodded toward the room—“and not in his office. If that man isn’t stopped, none of us is safe.”

“That still doesn’t give you the right to choke me,” Kinjon said.

Rafe let go. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I’ve been…distraught.”

“I gathered.” To his surprise, Kinjon even chuckled. “Gary did warn me about you, but you just don’t look like the type. I’m sorry I upset you; we’ll be easing up on the sedation over the next twenty-four hours, and you should be able to talk to your father then.”

Rafe had been given a room in the staff wing of the clinic; the next day, when he went down to the hospital level, Alaro met him outside his father’s room. “Let’s go see what the neuropsych says about your father’s implant. He’s done an initial neural assessment. He’s in the lab.”

The neuropysch expert, introduced only as Tony, stared at the trace from Rafe’s father’s implant. “Mmm. Not liking this a bit.”

“What?”

“Well…they tried to probe the implant before they removed it. In lay terms, they ran too much power into it, trying to force it to work, and caused damage—and enough power that it heated up part of his brain.”

“And that means—”

“It means he has brain damage, possibly permanent but certainly something it’s going to take time to repair, and his implant cannot be replaced. Most people depend on an implant for a good part of their knowledge base: he can’t.”

“But you can install another one, can’t you?”

“Not anymore,” Alaro sighed. “Not with the brain damage. If we boost the signal enough to pass the damaged portion, we risk the same damage to something else. For now, we’re leaving the damaged implant in: it gives him some function he would not have otherwise. But it has to come out so we can start the repair of the brain itself, and at that point he will seem worse than he is now. How much worse, we won’t know until we take out the implant. Basically, he’s like a stroke patient, and in his case a serious stroke patient. Luckily, he chose to have his implant on the right side, so his language centers are relatively unaffected, but you’re looking at a long, slow, incomplete recovery.”

“But he can talk?”

“He can talk now, a few words at a time. He tires quickly; he’s still somewhat confused. It’s too early to test all his cognitive functions, and with the sedation he’s become disoriented. We’ve changed the setup of his room, which should help. I’ve tested his facial recognition: that’s intact, too. He recognized your face in a picture we showed him. So if you want to go in and talk—keeping it calm and not asking questions and not upsetting him—you can do that.”

Rafe entered his father’s room with what he hoped was a pleasant expression.

“Rafe…” His father’s face, with eyes open and focusing, looked more like his father, and yet unlike: for the first time, he was looking down on his father, and for the first time he had no fear, no anger, and no contempt, only a great sadness.

“Father—you’re looking better.”

“I can’t—I can’t sit up by myself.” His father’s voice sounded weak and querulous. “My left arm—”

“Father, don’t worry. You’ll get better.”

“Rafe, you have to know. It was Lew, Lew Parmina. He’s—I don’t know why, entirely, but he’s gone completely insane. That’s the only reason I can think of…he knew he would succeed me; I was going to retire in five years. He’s been my friend for years—I thought my friend—”

“Father, don’t wear yourself out—”

“But you have to know; you have to help me—”

“Help you how?”

“I told you, in my message—”

“I never got your message. I came back because I hadn’t heard from you in too long and I was worried.”

“You never got—” His father looked stricken. “But you came anyway…Rafe, I always knew you’d…but he said…but maybe…”

Rafe felt old memories, snatches of overheard conversations, sequences of events, coming together in his mind. “Father, was it Lew who first told you I was dangerous? Was he the one who recommended that therapist?”

His father’s gaze wavered again. “I—I can’t quite remember…I know later, when you were in trouble at that school, he was sympathetic. Said he knew it must be hard to be disappointed…and I was sure you’d come out of it, you’d been such a sweet child…”

Sweet? Rafe had no memory of being sweet, even before the home invasion. Polite, well mannered, that was expected. But sweet?

“You used to be so affectionate…when I came home you’d climb in my lap and butt your head against my chin…”

His father’s expression now was pleading; he clearly wanted Rafe to remember those times, but he didn’t. “Mmm,” he said, just to make a soothing sound.

“But Lew said it was rare for children who killed to change, that it was usually a sign of deep-seated personality disorders…he had references. The therapist agreed. He said I had to be realistic, be concerned for the welfare of ISC, both employees and those who depended on our services. Then when I was given the job of CEO, and you were…on remittance…” His father’s voice trailed off. He looked suddenly grayer.

“I’ll come back later,” Rafe said. “Just rest.”

The next morning, Dr. Alaro spoke to Rafe in the corridor. “I don’t know what you’re planning, and I don’t need to. But if it involves, for instance, transporting this patient and expecting him to…oh, to speak to a group about business, for instance, you had better do it within the next ten days. We can’t risk leaving the damaged implant in longer than that.”

“Can he survive travel so fast?”

“With the right supports, yes. He’s getting a little stronger each day. You can expect that his concentration will vary, however, and your visits should be short.”

“I think,” Rafe said, “that Lew has had something like this in mind from the beginning.”

“He couldn’t,” his father said. He had said it before. “It’s impossible—”

“They never traced the intruders that night,” Rafe said. “They never found who hired them, right?”

“Well…no…”

“Lew found that therapist for you, I would bet on it. The therapist and Lew chose the school you sent me to. I know for a fact that Lew set me up with girls when I went to college—”

“I didn’t know that!” his father said.

“I thought it was with your approval, since he was your assistant. He gave me money; he gave me names and numbers. When he sent me money later—my remittance—he used to tell me how disappointed you were, and then give me contacts to…elements I found surprising.”

“But he was always so nice…”

“To you, I’m sure he was. You were his ladder, to be kicked away when he thought he had his hands firmly on the top of the tree.” Rafe shook his head. “And I didn’t see it. I was too hurt, too angry, and mostly I was not here. Which I’m sure was his intent.”

His father’s gaze had sharpened, almost to the intensity Rafe remembered. “I think…you may be right. I can’t quite…this blasted implant thing. There’s information in there that would help me think clearly about it but I can’t…it’s not working right. I need a new one.”

“You can’t,” Rafe said. “Not yet, anyway. When they’ve done the neural repairs to your…head…”

“My brain,” his father said with surprising energy. “I know…I can’t think. That’s why I need your help. And you’re as sharp as ever—it didn’t take you long to find Lew’s trail in our lives. You’re going to have to take over—”

“Take over?” Panic swallowed him; Rafe struggled to stay calm. “You can’t mean take over ISC?”

“That’s exactly what I mean. We can’t let Lew have it. I don’t know all he’s planned, but what they did taunt me with, while I was hostage, was bad enough. He’s determined to maintain the monopoly and he’s working with some kind of military leader, someone named Gammis Turek. The ansible outages—”

“—are his fault. And I know something about Gammis Turek—”

“You’ve met him?”

“No. But a bad guy we—uh, more on that later—ran into over in Sector Five had a suicide circuit implanted to keep him from revealing the name. And supposedly it was Turek’s people who attacked Bissonet and took over its system government. I suspect something similar almost happened at Slotter Key.”

“Lew has friends on Slotter Key,” his father said. “The Vatta family—Vatta Transport, Ltd. You must know their ships.”

“They’re mostly dead,” Rafe said. “I’ve been traveling with a couple of them.”

“Probably his spies,” his father said. “Fed you any number of lies.”

“I don’t think so,” Rafe said. “I’ve known Stella for years, and it wasn’t through Lew. Her cousin Kylara—very much the straight arrow, Ky.”

“I thought Lew was,” his father said. “Right now I wouldn’t trust anyone Lew called a friend. The Slotter Key ansible’s still down, isn’t it?”

“As far as I know, yes.” No use trying to explain how he was sure that Stella and Ky weren’t lying about their families—or that Vatta had been an innocent dupe, not complicit.

“So you can’t check what they told you. But that’s another problem for another day. Right now, Rafe, you simply must get to the Board and convince them of Lew’s perfidy. You can’t let him take over. At the least, your life and ours will be in danger.”

“But—I don’t know anything about running a corporation—let alone one as vast as ISC.” Even as he said it, he knew that wasn’t quite true. He’d had his own businesses; he understood how business worked. He had grown up in ISC, he had done work for them. “And I can’t—why would you trust me? Why would they?”

“Because,” his father said, “if I was that wrong about Lew, then I assume I was that wrong about you, too. If I think of the little boy you were, all that intelligence and fire and sweetness—yes, sweetness, don’t flinch like that—the way you never did a single underhanded thing other than the usual ‘She broke it’ when a dish dropped, and that was only the once, then I see the potential in the man to be as intelligent, capable, honest as you were then.”

Tears sprang to Rafe’s eyes; he blinked them back. “I’m not that little boy anymore, Father.”

“No, and a good thing you’re not, or we’d all be dead,” his father said. “You’ve had a hard life; you’ve learned hard lessons, harder than some of mine. It will take someone like you; I’m sure Lew has collaborators on the Board and elsewhere in ISC. I want you to find a secure way to reach the next board meeting—what’s the date?”

Rafe told him. “But, Father—I’m just not cut out to be an executive—”

“Nonsense. You’re my son. You’re also the only weapon I’ve got. You have to do this, Rafe. Or millions—probably billions—of people will die, and more will be ruined, because of Lew and his allies.”

He had never wanted the job. He had told himself that over and over: he was a free lance, a lone wolf, a wild rogue adventurer, able to go and come as he pleased, only partly dependent on that remittance credit once he found he could support himself one way and another. He felt the weight of it pressing on him now, all that responsibility he didn’t want. And yet—

“I trust you, Rafe,” his father said. “Not just because you saved my life—our lives—just now. Not just because you were a good child. But in part because you killed those intruders, and in part because you have survived on your own and developed skills I never needed—or thought I needed. I am trusting you with this, and you will not let me down.”

Whatever his father had lost, he had not lost the ability to inspire loyalty and delegate…Rafe took a long breath, feeling now the full weight of what his father wanted him to do firmly on his shoulders.

“All right,” he said. “I’ll talk to Gary—and we also need to get the accounts open so I can pay him and his team.”

“When you are sure you can get to the meeting without being killed, I will make a shielded video call…I have to show myself to them, to convince the ones Lew hasn’t already corrupted. He’ll probably try to tell them that you kidnapped me and have pressured me—”

“Thought of that,” Rafe said. “I’ll bring them here, one at a time, by roundabout routes, to talk to you.”

“I think most of ISC’s loyal,” his father said. “I just don’t know who.”

“Where are your implant backups?” Rafe asked. “Did you have them?”

“I did. He got them. But although they might contain information to convict him, they wouldn’t tell him anything he didn’t know.”

“My…er…cranial ansible,” Rafe said. “The access code for it?”

His father’s eyes closed briefly. “I’m sorry, Rafe. They got that out of me when they threatened to kill the baby…and then they did anyway.”

“What about Linnet and Deri?” His older sisters, who had never married as far as he knew. The night of the attack, they had been off at boarding school.

“Dead,” his father said. “Supposedly both accidental, though now of course I wonder about that. Linnet had gone on a ski trip with her boyfriend…Lew’s cousin, now I think of it. She was a good skier, but there was an avalanche…no one’s that good.”

“The cousin?”

“Also died, along with fifteen others who were on that slope. Deri—Deri had taken a commerical flight with several friends to go to a wedding; it crashed with no survivors. Pilot error, the safety board ruled: a night landing and the pilot undershot the runway—altimeter wasn’t set properly, and there was a little hill, hardly a hundred meters high…” His eyes sagged shut, then opened again. “I see now…either one could have been arranged, if you didn’t mind killing a lot of other people.”

“So there was just Penelope left. And me. What about Penelope’s husband?”

“He died when we were taken. Tried to defend her. Nice boy. Lew hadn’t thought much of him; he wasn’t ISC at all. His father was a wholesale grocer, decent fellow, very down-to-earth. We got along fine. Penelope adored Jared; they were so excited about the pregnancy—” Tears rolled down his face.

Rafe let him cry a moment, turning aside to look at the cheery picture of a woman cradling a child by a window that overlooked a pleasant green field.

“All right,” his father said, a few moments later. “Let’s get to work.”

Lew’s tentacles had reached far into the government as well as ISC’s power structure, as Rafe’s discreet inquiries proved, but Vaclav Hewitt Box, one of his father’s oldest friends, was clean of that taint.

“Garston!” he said the moment Rafe’s father called. “Where in thunder are you? Lew’s been telling us you’re in safekeeping for fear your demon son will kill you, but he won’t tell us where.”

“I’m at a secure clinic, recovering from the treatment Lew Parmina’s goons gave me. Ardath is alive, and so is Penelope, but Jared and the baby are both dead.”

“What!”

“Listen. I don’t think any communication on this planet is truly secure, Vaclav, so I don’t know how long we can talk without the call being traced. If it is, your life is in danger, too. I believe that Lew engineered the deaths of my other daughters as well. Rafe saved our lives—”

“That sounds like hogwash, Garston. He went bad; bad boys stay bad.”

“Poppycock,” his father said. “He didn’t go bad without help, and he’s not bad now. He saved our lives; he got us out of the hellhole where Lew put us with his goons. Vaclav, remember Christine?”

“Ah, yes, Christine of the flowers…”

“Christine of the owls, you nitwit.”

Vaclav’s expression changed. “All right. What do you want me to do?”

“I want Rafe to take over for me, for now. I’ve got serious injuries, and my implant’s fried.”

“You sound sane enough.”

“Right-sided installation. No speech damage, and yes, I can think. But my left side is involved, and I can’t change implants until they’ve done some repairs.”

“Good—grief. You really were—”

“That close to death, yes. I don’t know who on the board are Lew’s plants…Termanian, probably, Oster, maybe Wickins? But Lew’s the real danger. I need to meet you in person—you’ll know then that I’m not some zombie plant of Rafe’s.”

“Where is Rafe? Do you know?”

“He’s here, with me. Like I said, he got us out.”

“By himself?”

“No. But this is going on too long, Vaclav. Will you come? Quietly?”

“Yes. Anywhere. Tell me.”

“I can’t. But I can tell you what to say.”

Rafe had never been in the Boardroom. As a small child, he’d been taken to headquarters, shown the office his father had then, had seen assistants and secretaries scurrying to do anything his father asked. One of them had given him candy. Now, armed with ID and credentials Vaclav had provided, wearing a new suit altered overnight to his measurements by one of Gary’s contacts, he pushed the float chair with his father up to the entry. They were flanked by four of Gary’s people.

“Ser Dunbarger!” the guard said. “The rest of the Board are all here. Ser Parmina said you wouldn’t be in today again—he said—”

“As you see, I’m here,” his father said. “Only a little the worse for wear. You won’t remember my son, Rafael—and these are my security—”

“They’re not ISC,” the guard said.

“No,” his father said. “For the moment, I’m using a private service.”

“I don’t know if I should—”

“You should,” his father said. “I vouch for them—can’t come from higher than that, can it?” He managed a grin; the guard finally smiled back.

“All right, Ser Dunbarger, if you’re sure. They’ll need tags once they’re inside.”

“Waiting for us,” his father said. He looked past the guard. “Vaclav—over here.” Vaclav Box, taller than Rafe by a head, waved and came forward.

“You said four tags…here they are.”

“Go ahead,” the guard said. Rafe pushed the float chair forward. The guard would no doubt report this to someone—possibly someone in Lew Parmina’s pay—when they were past, but that shouldn’t matter. The executive elevator was just ahead, its doors already open. They all crowded in.

Vaclav gave him a sardonic look. “You’ve changed, Rafe.”

“Time does that,” Rafe said. The edge in his voice would have sliced a ship hull; he tried to soften it. “I believe the last time I saw you, I was fourteen or fifteen, wasn’t it? Not my best year.”

“No, it wasn’t,” Vaclav said. He looked away. “This is going to be interesting. Are you ready for any…surprises?”

“Surprises surprise because one is not ready,” Rafe said. “I expect trouble, if that’s what you mean. He’s had years to set this up; we’ve had only a short time to unravel it. We’re bound to have missed something.” His hand wanted to slide into the suit, be sure of his weapons, but he made himself stand relaxed.

“You always were a confident so-and-so,” Vaclav said.

“He got that from me,” his father said. “Only in his case, the overconfidence was beaten out of him early.”

The elevator rose smoothly past floor after floor, coming to rest at last. The doors opened onto a carpeted space with a receptionist’s desk angled to give a view into the elevator. The man there was scribbling something on the desktop; he looked up, and his brows raised.

“Ser Box…the meeting started several minutes ago; didn’t you hear your page? And—” His face changed as he looked at the man in the float chair. “Ser Dunbarger! I had no idea you were coming! Ser Parmina said—”

“I know what Ser Parmina said,” his father said. “But I’m feeling better, and I decided to come in. Vaclav waited for me downstairs. No, don’t bother to announce us. We’ll just go on in.”

One of Gary’s people had stepped to the desk and had the receptionist’s hand in a grip that, Rafe knew, could tighten in an instant to excruciating pain. He nodded at Rafe.

The Boardroom double doors were not locked during meetings; there had never been need. Now two of Gary’s people pulled them open and stepped inside while Rafe pushed his father through. Vaclav walked beside him.

Lew Parmina, at the head of the table, had been pointing at a display hovering over the group. Rafe tipped his head; one of the guards stepped that way. Lew had gone white, but he recovered quickly.

“Ser Dunbarger—Garston—we didn’t expect you today. What a pleasant surprise!”

“Is it?” his father asked. Rafe didn’t look down at his father; he was watching Parmina’s hands. “It wasn’t a pleasant surprise when your goons abducted me and my family from our home, killed my son-in-law, and spent the next several tendays torturing us.”

“My goons? What do you mean? You’re confused; you—”

A stocky redheaded woman on the far side of the table spoke up. “You said Garston had to go into hiding for fear of his life, Lew. You said you knew where but couldn’t tell us, for security reasons…” Rafe’s implant informed him that this was Madeleine Pronst, senior vice president for human resources. Headhunter, hatchet woman, and yet not universally hated. Madeleine, his father had said, was ruthless with the incompetent, as willing to chop off a VP or division head as a terrified new hire, but oddly compassionate with those who had real problems, and fair-minded with everyone.

“He—I thought—that’s what I was told.” Rafe could just about see the gears whirling in Parmina’s head, trying to cover himself.

“Interesting,” his father said. “The men who killed my grandson—my daughter was forced into induced labor while captive, and the men then murdered the infant in front of me and my wife—told me with great pleasure that you had ordered it. And what you planned to do with the power you would gain as CEO of ISC.”

“I—he did it!” Parmina pointed at Rafe. “He’s been bad from the first; he’s jealous of me; he wants the power himself. He came back; he had you abducted; he had his hirelings tell me you were in hiding, told them he was acting on my behalf, and then he fooled you by pretending to rescue you—”

“It wasn’t pretense,” Rafe’s father said. “I would have been dead in a few hours if he hadn’t come. And I think I know my son better than you do. A lot of things make more sense now, Lew.”

Rafe watched Lew’s hand slide under the table. That would be the panel for the emergency response, his father had told him. “It won’t work,” he said, surprising himself by his own tone of voice: light, relaxed. “You have no communication with the outside world, Lew. No, not even your skullphone, as you’ve no doubt been noticing while you tried to buy time.”

“This is ridiculous!” That was Oster; Termanian and Wickins hadn’t yet moved, though they were sweating more than the innocent would. “Lew is a respected member of this corporation; he has been handling things since you disappeared. You can’t just walk in here and expect us to fall in line—” His hands, below table level, jerked up suddenly.

Rafe felt a surge of glee, drawing and firing his pocket needler before Oster’s weapon was clear of the table. Oster slumped forward, his face thudding onto the table’s polished surface. He had hardly taken his eyes off Parmina; he had felt Oster’s move as much as seen it.

“You!” Parmina said. All pretense gone now; teeth bared, he glared at Rafe. “You disgusting little leech! Why didn’t you die?”

Rafe pretended to blow smoke off the end of his needler and slid it back into its holster. “Only the good die young,” he said. “And you’re older than I am, Lew. Feeling lucky today? By all means, go for that pocket blaster. It’s a messy way to commit suicide, and it will make things hard for your family, if they care. I understand your daughter’s not fond of you…so my sister says. But you might be able to set it off before one of us drilled you.” He let his smile widen. The directors nearest Lew at that end of the table leaned away, ashen-faced.

“If I surrender,” Lew said, hands wide.

“Oh, I don’t think you’ll surrender,” Rafe said pleasantly. “I think you’ll do something stupid, and we’ll have to kill you.”

“That’s murder!”

“Is it? Wasn’t what you did to seventeen skiers murder, when you set off that avalanche to kill my sister and her boyfriend and it also took fifteen others? Wasn’t what you did to the passengers in that plane murder, when you tampered with the instruments so the pilot flew into a hill and killed another of my sisters? I think it was.”

“You can’t take the law into your own hands!” Lew shouted. “It’s illegal—it’s—”

“Scared now, are you?” Rafe asked. He pulled out his needler again and pretended to polish it with his handkerchief, all without taking his eyes off Lew.

“You have to let me explain,” Lew said, standing awkwardly, trying to back away from the table. “You have to listen.”

Rafe cocked his head. He could feel everyone’s attention, including his father’s. The rush of anticipation merged with the rush of pleasure from shooting Oster.

“No,” he said, pretending to sigh, thumbing the selector over. “I don’t have to listen,” and he fired.