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The High Jerak's private interrogation chamber looked unpleasantly similar to any well-equipped laboratory with its mechanical testers, glowing specimen containers, and cluttered work stations.
It was not the sort of place I wanted to be, especially with him standing at its center.
A hard shove sent me stumbling inside.
Seok's hand snapped out, catching me by the throat. His long fingers wrapped almost twice around my neck as he lifted me off my feet to stare into my face. "The Vivi Zant Human." His grip tightened until I felt my heart punching beats inside my chest. My fingers pried at his boney hand as the pressure in my head mounted.
Yeah, I should have let him kill me right there, but in moments of mortality, the will to live usually overrides everything the brain reasons.
"It is good you are here." Though his face was nearly against mine, I did not feel his breath on my skin. "I suspected something was afoot when the ship signaled an error in the life-containment area. We could only wait until the Faulpaxit dropped out of foldspace to investigate. That is yet several hours away. This is better. I have many questions and it will take time for the Hive to wrest you away from me." He released me and I fell limply to the cold white floor.
I curled there, staring at the bases of strange, menacing equipment as I struggled for breath.
Behind me, I heard a rattle of armor against chitinous limbs as Seok transferred his attention to the guards who had brought me inside the Grip.
"You are a disgrace to the Empire," he told them. "The fool who nominated you for the Sat Quar will know the cold darkness of the Endtime before this day closes. Your living families, back three generations, are sentenced to public death by the flyss."
I can confirm firsthand Endar guards do emit a bad odor when a merciless commanding officer sentences them to terrible fates. Choking on the sulfurous scent, I tried to squirm away.
Something hit the floor in front of my knees. For a moment, I thought the High Jerak's foot was blocking my retreat. Then I saw it.
Emitting a most un-Marine-like squeak of horror, I scrambled away from the guard's head, oozing yellow liquid, as it rolled against my shins. The eyes blinked once—I swear they made a clicking sound—then stayed open. At the same time, there was another sharp-scissor snip above me. Something heavy and liquid struck the side of my thigh and I heard another dull thud behind me.
I froze, too terrified to move. And saw the kid, huddled against the wall in front of me.
She looked at me, eyes wide with terror, and lifted a small, trembling hand, palm outward, as if pleading for me to stay silent about her presence.
She crossed a massive city, walked into this stinking hellhole, performed her hoodoo on the demons who occupied it, then followed me into a hopeless situation and appealed for my silence?
Well, hell. I stared back at her, helpless to protect either of us from what would come.
"Two of you. Remove the trash. The other two, get this cringing insect up." The High Jerak stepped back, blocking my view of the kid.
Talons pulled me up and held me so the balls of my feet barely touched the floor.
This was the nightmare scenario the Tabisee had warned me about. The Endar were going to rip my brain apart and know everything and everyone I had interacted with, here or anywhere in my past.
"Where is the child you stole from us at the Proambu facility?" Seok asked. "Her body was not in the debris."
He didn't see her, three meters behind him, against the wall.
"I didn't steal anything from you," I rasped. "I rescued a survivor from a ship your people destroyed."
His hand flashed forward, and I shivered at the light touch on the muscle at the back of my neck. He leaned in close. Whispered. "I know the child did not wipe your mind. You could not have answered my question just now if she had."
Yet he didn't see her right here in the room with us...
He straightened away from me. "Do not test the Endar Primacy's resolve in this matter. Where is the child?"
When I remained silent the claw slowly pressed into the flesh above the collar of my skins. "Where?"
I might have whimpered a little. Maybe my feet thrashed once.
Now that he had moved closer to me, the kid was back in my visual range. She cringed, her eyes locked on me. I tried to pull my reaction together and compose my features, but I didn't do too well.
Her little features hardened with resolve as she tensed to step away from the wall.
"No!" I gasped.
The High Jerak thought it was my answer to him, but the kid settled back, her expression tight and frightened. She couldn't touch my brain, but it appeared she understood the context: she shouldn't reveal herself to these bastards.
Warm blood trickled as the claw pressed deeper.
"You have no right to lay claim on any Human!" I gasped.
The pressure lightened, as if my torturer was surprised at my response. He withdrew his hand and took a step backward. Stared at me.
For a moment, silence and private pain reigned.
"Lirilune is not Human," he said.
"Liri—?" My brain stumbled on his words.
"The child. Lirilune. She is not Human," he repeated.
"So you altered her genetic codes. It doesn't mean—"
"The Makima are not Human."
Makima? "But..."
"But they look Human? Indeed they do. It is possible you once shared a common origin. No more. They are not Human; we are sure of that." He cocked his head in what I took as a mocking gesture, inviting me to pursue the statement.
It wasn't necessary. I got his drift: they had experimented on our two genetic materials to compare them. "You kidnap—"
"No! You kidnap! Zam Fiella is a world inside the Endar Star Association. Its residents claim the protection of the Primacy. The Ritto-ssa ship logs do not record her rescue. Where is she?"
I opened my mouth to say something, then closed it, my brain churning with all the things that had slapped it since leaving Mandragala Station. This situation went beyond a damaged ore processor and a few murdered people.
Seok watched me, waiting.
"I'm guessing their world is in a star system close to the Proambu processing facility," I finally managed. "That's why you're contesting Proambu claim on that adjacent area of space. You don't want them anywhere near a world full of telepaths—especially with the Primacy in charge of security here on the Moneyworld."
"Humans have such an annoying ability to connect random bits of information and arrive at correct conclusions."
"Anyone could figure that one out," I said, goading him.
I must have hit a sensitive spot beneath all the leather because he twitched. "But no one else will, because they will never know the Makima world exists," he said. My translation software actually blinked a yellow hostility-level warning in my left eye—something it hadn't even done during my interactions with Mathet or Shoff. "No other species besides Humans goes blundering through the galaxy, invading other peoples' star associations, digging into things that don't concern them."
No one else except the MoMo...
Well, Sonnofabitch! I must have a sign nine meters wide on my back declaring 'the universe's biggest patsy.' His Frilliness and that bastard Thok had reeled me in like an asteroid in a tractor beam—probably manufactured the whole quarantine situation. And I had helped them along by getting into a fight with Dallas Ellerby, which sidelined me long enough to prevent us rejecting their offer.
I was an idiot.
Being an idiot was not illegal. It was just extremely painful when you realized it.
"I did not invade your territory," I told him.
"You were there to assist in a criminal act against the Primacy. Your complicity forced us to destroy valuable Primacy assets. And now you are here, on a world where your species is specifically banned, interfering in things that do not concern you. Humans! You disgusting vermin insert yourselves into everyone's business. Always interfering. Tampering. Always trying to change things."
That was true. Sorta. I even understood how some of those things annoyed them. But, if the Endar Primacy had a problem with us, there were avenues to address it. As far as any criminal acts were concerned, my being here on the Moneyworld was accidental. Their actions at Idwal were a direct result of cold, murderous calculation.
The large white room with its reclining rows of fair-haired people flashed in my mind. The guards had called me a Minder...
"You're using telepaths to spy on other members of the Consortium!"
My translation device didn't tell me if the hollow sound he made was a laugh or a hoot of scorn. "They are not only telepaths; they also have the marvelous ability to perceive another being's thoughts, undetected. They are the perfect tool, naïve and living on a world so isolated they only know what we tell them. Yes, we use them to target individuals with potential influence in the Consortium. They sweep the Zones, looking for despicable, devious thoughts and behaviors—which further reinforces what we tell them about the people they monitor. The filthy, devious things people do here! The Minders glean information and channel it back to the room you saw, where someone evaluates its usefulness. It takes many Makima to cover the number of potential candidates inside the Consortium. They are simple, disposable conduits sucking up information for the vast complex system behind them."
I glanced over at the kid. She was staring at the High Jerak, her expression a mixture of horror and pain, and, I realized, as a citizen of a world inside the Endar Primacy, she probably understood Arpi.
She had just heard some terrible things.
She was young and didn't deserve this pain. Unfortunately, the universe is a harsh place, and the young are often caught on reality's front line.
"The Earth Alliance is arriving onworld at any moment," I raised my voice to draw her attention. I had no idea if she was equipped with translation hardware for any other languages, but I thought if I could get Seok to say something and she understood it, she had a chance of getting out to safety before he discovered she stood right beneath his flat gray nostrils. "They'll arrive at the Saalyu soon. I demand to speak to someone from their delegation."
I gave her an intense glare, willing her to understand: if she could find the Human delegation, she could get help.
"You think the Primacy will let you go after what you've seen and heard? We have a better use for you. You will spend the rest of your limited days knowing Humans will never have diplomatic status here."
"Because you'll blackmail the other members to vote against them!" I blurted. I had to keep his attention focused on me.
He took a step forward, his right hand coming up, fingers clawed as if to slash at me. "That is why Humans will never be part of the Whooex Trade Consortium," he hissed. "It is why we have resisted your membership from the beginning. We don't need your endless, infernal interference! We don't need your—how do you say it—your 'white knight' to ride in."
Especially considering what they were doing.
"Besides," he continued. "It is the members' own weaknesses that trap them." The layers of leather creaked as he dropped his hand. "We do not force them into their bent, deviant, unscrupulous behavior. It becomes their choice to preserve the lie."
"You're breaking Whooex Union laws you're supposed to protect."
"We are protecting the Primacy against the weakness and decay surrounding it!"
"Why? Why should the Primacy care what the other members do?"
"The weak and the corrupt cannot rule effectively. Their depravities make them vulnerable. We will carve the decay from the Whooex Union of Stars and make it strong."
It looked to me as if the Primacy had a few depravities of their own. "You think you can control the Whooex Union? Well, don't hold your breath." I didn't know if the phrase held any relevance to him. "No one will accept it!"
"They will accept whatever we tell them once Human influence is gone and we finish crushing the few foolishly hopeful, errant strays. We should have destroyed Humans ages ago, when you were isolated to one miserable planet and no one else knew you existed. The names of those who failed to put the Endar Primacy first in their duty are no longer a part of our glorious history. You are an inconvenience that will soon be remedied."
"You can't go to war with another Union member!"
"Not openly," he agreed. "That is why I cultivated Lirilune. She is the jewel of my personal project. Her abilities go far beyond other Makima. The ones in the monitoring center, the Minders, search among the influential minds inside the Trade Zone day and night, looking for transgressors. They submit those potential targets to the Threadmaster . He can see the links between Whooex members and potential effects. He generates possible lines of attack, which enable us to secure the member's cooperation. "
All those thousands of lights out there; they must represent every influential Whooex citizen inside the Consortium. All with a Makima spy peeking into their brain, evaluating their thoughts and activities, and submitting them up the chain of blackmail. The brighter ones inside the nebulous clouds of webs must be the targets of the Threadmaster.
The image of the blonde being staring down at me from the perch high above flashed in my mind.
But the Endar didn't have control over all the Trade Consortium members. "Their range is limited," I said, "Otherwise, you'd have control over the Tabisee and the others."
"You think you are so clever, Captain Zant. Yet, you, single-handedly, have brought down your allies. The Tabisee are under our influence; they simply have not accepted it yet. The same with the Ritto-ssa and the Xix. The security of their economies is what matters most to them. They will all reject the Earth Alliance bid for membership in the Whooex Trade Consortium because they must maintain their own trade status here. You Humans, of all species, understand that best. What do you call this place? The Moneyworld? Crude but appropriate.
"I, for one, would allow your membership here. Your species is weak-minded and ambitious. What would be more efficient than observing and countering your actions in order to keep you under control? That is not the Primacy's current strategy, however. They want you isolated and destroyed.
"Which is my own fait accompli! You see, I am the one who heard the whispers about the phantom child, who could block perception and hide from the sight of other Makima. I found her. I saw the potential and envisioned the plan to create an army of her kind."
Create? My mind stuttered. Even Humans had learned better than to— "You're trying to clone her?"
"Trying? No. We have cloned her."
Horror twisted inside me. Now I knew why he'd shown up in the Xix hospital and tried to shanghai me: he wanted his original subject back and he thought I knew where she was.
But—did he realize she could block Endar awareness too?
The High Jerak continued. "Our labs are working furiously to create more children with her skills—Makima who can move about, unseen, anywhere—who can alter and erase memory. We will use them to infiltrate the highest levels of the Earth Alliance government, reaching into the most secured places to influence minds. Under Endar direction, our phantom children will move out across your worlds, inserting themselves into places of power, using their skills to precipitate wars and catastrophic events, and erasing memory of our influence. We will destroy your civilization from the inside, moving you back to the barbaric state in which you belong. Humans will fall below acceptable membership levels of technology and the Whooex Union, which, by then, will be under the control of the Primacy, will eject you. We will rule everything and Humans will disappear from history and from memory."