Nicole hadn’t given numbers to the access doors into the various heat-exchange ducts. She hadn’t even counted them, for that matter. But she knew approximately where they were, and she certainly knew how to get to them.
As it happened, she didn’t even need that much information. The moment the duct door closed behind her and Jeff, dropping them onto Q3 level 36, they could feel the flow of warm air coming steadily down the corridor from the front of the ship.
“Looks like they figured out a way to get the access door open,” Jeff murmured.
“Yes,” Nicole agreed, frowning. Shipmasters and Wisps could open the doors, and of course the Q1 Wisps obeyed the Shipmasters. No real mystery as to how Trake could get here.
But every other time she’d crossed the ducts the doors had closed again as soon as she and her party were across. The flow of warm air here, though, suggested the door was sitting open. “And to keep it open.”
“I gather that’s something new?”
“I haven’t seen anyone else do it,” Nicole said. “Though on a ship this size, that doesn’t mean much.”
“I suppose,” Jeff said. “This could be easier than I’d thought it would be.”
“Maybe,” Nicole agreed cautiously. The hot air was still flowing across them, meaning the door was still open …
“We doing this?” Jeff prompted.
Nicole squared her shoulders. “Absolutely.” She turned to the two Wisps she’d commandeered to ferry them across from Q4. “Wait for us here, please. Jeff?”
“Ready,” he said, hefting his spider gun. “Unless you’ve changed your mind about carrying this yourself?”
She shook her head. “Thanks, but I’m good.”
It would be best if Jeff carried the weapon. Trake always assumed unarmed people were helpless, and she really wanted him to think of her that way right now.
Besides, the only thing that he would hate more than losing to a woman would be losing to an unarmed woman. “Let’s go.”
They were standing in front of an open vent door as Jeff and Nicole came around the corner: four figures, no more than a couple of feet from the edge of the vent, their bodies swaying a little with the gusts of hot air jostling them from behind.
Nicole had guessed that Bungie and Trake would be there. She’d also assumed Cambria would be with them, since in Trake’s mind there was no point in taking a prisoner if you couldn’t terrorize him.
What she hadn’t expected was that a Shipmaster would also be standing among them.
Or rather, kneeling among them.
She felt her stomach tighten as she and Jeff walked toward the little group. She’d seen a couple of Shipmasters without their armor once before, and even then, tense and terrified, she’d noticed how small and frail and helpless they looked. But this one had gone way past even that assessment. He was slumped forward, his face turned toward the deck, his kimono-style robe torn and wrinkled. Bungie was gripping his right arm at the elbow, and Nicole had the feeling that if he opened his hand the Shipmaster would collapse flat on his face.
A second later Trake spotted them. “About time,” he called, the smugness in his voice matching the smugness in his expression as he gave Nicole half a wave with his spider gun. “I was starting to think you didn’t think as highly of this thing as everyone said you did.”
“I care about everyone aboard the Fyrantha,” Nicole said as she and Jeff continued toward them. “That’s what it means to be the ship’s Protector.” At least Cambria was standing tall and straight, unlike the Shipmaster, and apparently unharmed.
Or so Nicole thought until Trake turned toward her and she saw that Cambria’s wings were pinned to its back by multiple spider shots. “You didn’t need to do that,” she said.
“Probably,” Trake said with a casual shrug. “But it was fun. You remember fun, don’t you, Nicole? You used to be so good at it.”
Nicole felt a flush of anger and embarrassment rise into her cheeks. Jeff was standing right there beside her, and she could guess what he probably thought Trake was talking about. For a second she froze, wondering if she should defend herself, or deny it, or just let it pass—
“We’re not talking about Nicole,” Jeff put in calmly. “We’re talking about you. Most people where I come from would think it’s pretty damn cowardly to pick on someone who can’t fight back.”
“Don’t really care what you think,” Trake said, flashing Jeff the kind of look Nicole had usually seen him reserve for rival gang leaders.
“Fine with me,” Jeff said. “More interested in seeing what people do than what they think. So what’s this current farce supposed to prove?”
“And you can shut your freaking mouth anytime,” Trake snarled.
“Yeah, about that,” Jeff said casually. “You could come over here and try to make me.” He hefted his spider gun. “Course, I’m pretty sure I’m a better shot with this thing than you are.”
“You want to try it?” Trake challenged, his eyes narrowed, his forefinger tapping on the side of his weapon. “Any time you want. Of course”—he half turned and peered down into the shaft behind them—“if you miss, you’re going to send someone a freaking long way down.”
“I’ve got 50 percent chance that it’s you or Bungie,” Jeff pointed out.
“Enough,” Nicole said, gesturing Jeff back. His awareness of her mental state and his verbal sparring had given her the minute she needed to regain control of herself. “You’ve got Cambria. Fine. You didn’t ask us here just to gloat. What do you want?”
“Pretty boy said this wasn’t about you,” Trake said. “He’s wrong. We’re here to find out what kind of person you are, Nicole.”
“Not the kind who has fun, we know,” Bungie put in.
“Shut it,” Trake said. His voice was calm, and he didn’t even look at Bungie. Just the same, Bungie flinched as if Trake had hauled back to hit him. “Here’s the thing. Our new friends think you’re a sweetheart who’d never hurt a fly. I told them they were wrong, that you could be just as nasty as they are.”
“So I’m wrong, and they’re wrong,” Jeff said. “Going to be your turn to be wrong next.”
“I am going to shut you up, you freaking butt wipe,” Trake grated out.
“We’re back to you making me,” Jeff pointed out. “I don’t see that happening anytime soon.”
Nicole felt her breath catch in her throat. Trake absolutely hated anyone picking at him this way, especially in front of any of his gang.
And yet, he wasn’t doing anything. He wasn’t shooting at Jeff, or coming at him, or even sending Bungie to take a swing at him. Whatever he was planning, apparently he and Bungie needed to stay right where they were. “Yeah, this reminds me of all the fun you say we used to have,” she said. Time to get him to show whatever cards he was carrying. “Tell me what you want, or we’re leaving.”
“You’re going to make a decision,” Trake said. “One of these helpless butt wipes is going over the edge today. You get to pick which one.”
“You mean, pick which one dies? And why would I do that?”
“Because if you don’t, all of them die,” Trake said, his voice suddenly low and deadly. “And I mean all three.”
Beside him, Bungie twisted his head around to stare at his boss, his mouth dropping open. “Trake—?”
“Shut it,” Trake bit out.
Again, Bungie jerked back. A sudden image flashed across Nicole’s face, that of a dog she’d once seen flinching from its owner’s suddenly clenched fist.
“Why do you think we’d care if Bungie took the long step?” Jeff asked.
Bungie turned suddenly furious eyes toward Jeff. “You rat-ass bastard—”
“I said shut it,” Trake said. “I won’t say it again.”
“Sure, Trake,” Bungie muttered. “Sure.”
“But hey, if he’s the one you want to drop, come on over and do it,” Trake said, gesturing to Nicole.
Nicole clenched her teeth. Trake had always liked playing with his victims. The more terrified he could make them, the better. Threatening Bungie with instant death played right into that pattern.
But what did he intend to accomplish by dragging in Cambria and the Shipmaster?
“And we haven’t got all day,” Trake added. “Come on. Let’s get it over with.”
Could he be setting her up for an ambush? But there wasn’t much of anything between her and Jeff and the open vent; no room doors that she’d be conveniently putting her back to as she approached them, and no concealing walls or other hiding places where the rest of his gang could be lurking.
In fact, if that was the direction he was going, the perfect move would have been for his gang to come up behind her from the corridor they’d just left. Surreptitiously, she glanced over her shoulder.
But there was nothing. None of his gang, none of the Koffren.
So they weren’t trying to capture her? Were they trying to kill her, then? Hoping she’d let Trake lure her close enough for him to grab her and throw her down the shaft?
And then, suddenly, she understood.
“Wait here,” she murmured to Jeff, and started forward.
“Nicole—” Jeff warned, taking a long step to her side.
“No, it’s okay,” she said, gesturing him to stop. “They’re not going to hurt me. They don’t dare.”
Jeff came to a reluctant halt. Nicole continued forward, watching Trake closely. He seemed surprised at first, but as she steadily closed the distance between them his expression changed to confusion, then suspicion, then gloating anticipation.
She came to a halt a couple of steps in front of the group, half closing her eyes to protect them against the blast of hot air still streaming into her face. The force of the wind required her to lean slightly forward to keep from being pushed backward, bringing her a couple of extra inches toward Trake. “So,” she said. “One of you needs to die?”
“Or all of them do,” Trake said. “That’s the deal.”
“What if the one I pick is you?”
Trake shook his head. “I’m not part of the bet.”
“Yes, but I don’t know all the rules,” she reminded him. “I might break them without knowing it.”
“Let’s make it clear,” he said, waving his spider gun across the three lined up beside him. “One of them has to die. You get to choose which.”
“And then, what, you’ll push them down the shaft?”
He smiled thinly. “The Koffren already know I’m a nasty-ass killer. They want to know if you are, too.”
“So I’m supposed to push them?”
“You push one, or I push all three,” Trake said. “And now you’re just stalling.”
“Not really,” Nicole said. “I just wanted to make sure I’d figured it out right.”
Trake’s eyes narrowed a little. “You mean about the one or the three?”
“No, I mean about the real reason for this little game,” Nicole said. Almost …
“I already told you—”
“The Koffren want me out of the way,” she said. “But they’re worried about what Sam said about killing the Fyrantha’s Protector. So they’re thinking now that if they can get me to not be Protector anymore, maybe they’ll have a shot at me without the Fyrantha making trouble for them.”
Trake’s expression had gone rigid. Either the Koffren had told him, or he’d figured it out on his own.
“The Protector is supposed to defend the ship and everything aboard it,” she continued. “So I guess the idea is that if I kill someone—not just let someone get killed because I can’t stop it, but actually and deliberately make someone dead—the Caretaker and Fyrantha will decide I’m not worthy of the title. Once that happens, they figure they’ll be free to do whatever they want with me.”
Trake shook his head. “Bungie said you’d gotten smarter. Thought maybe he was just getting dumber. But he was right. Only you’re missing the big point.”
Abruptly, he reached to his side and put his arm across Cambria’s chest. “And I figure that if you could stop a death and didn’t, that might be enough.”
“I doubt it,” Nicole said. “But anyway, it’s already too late.” She lifted her arm and pointed back toward the corridor she and Jeff had come from a few minutes ago. “Firth! Hagert! Now!”
Trake and Bungie both looked toward the corner, Trake lifting his spider gun and tracking in that direction—
And as they did so, in the shaft behind them the two Wisps Nicole had called floated down into view, their wings curving as they angled toward the group at the edge.
“The two humans,” Nicole ordered.
Either Trake had a sudden premonition about what was happening, or else he saw something in Nicole’s eyes. He spun around, his body jerking as he saw the Wisp moving toward him, trying to bring his spider gun around.
But there was no time. He was facing Firth, his gun arm stuck out to the side, when the Wisp wrapped its arms around him and froze him.
Bungie, without any of Trake’s insight or reflexes, was caught flat-footed right where he stood.
Nicole huffed out a breath. “Jessup, Lehigh, you can come down now, too,” she called up into the shaft. She moved over to Cambria and took its hand, leading it away from the shaft edge.
Thank you, the Wisp said into her mind.
You’re welcome, Nicole thought back. What were you doing there, anyway?
I was captured when the human Trake attacked the Ponngs.
What I meant was why were you there in the first place? Did Moile or Teika ask you to go with them?
I was summoned by the Caretaker.
Nicole stared at it. You’re saying Ushkai called you? What did he want?
I don’t know. There was no time to speak before the attack.
Nicole felt her lips curl back from her teeth. No time to speak, because the ambush was all primed and ready. How very, very convenient for someone.
And she was pretty sure she knew who.
She pulled Cambria a couple more steps into the corridor and then let go of its hand. Stepping back to the shaft, she grabbed the Shipmaster’s arm, the one not still being held in Bungie’s frozen grip. “You and I need to talk—what the hell?” she broke off as she finally spotted the thin plastic strap binding the Shipmaster’s wrist to Bungie’s.
“The Koffren could not deduce whether you hated us more than you hated the human called Bungie,” the Shipmaster said, an odd almost sadness in his chattering alien language. “So they decided that whichever of us you chose for death, the other would follow.”
“A two-for-one deal,” Jeff commented as he came up behind Nicole. “Not sure whether to be impressed or disgusted.”
“You can have both,” Nicole told him. “Call it another two-for-one. Which one are you?”
The alien lifted its head, its eyes boring into hers. “I am Nevvis.”
Nicole felt her eyes go a little wider. “You’re Nevvis? Master of the masters?”
“Hardly,” Nevvis said. “I’m now merely one among many prisoners.”
Nicole exchanged looks with Jeff. “So the Koffren are running the Fyrantha now?” she asked.
“We still control the Fyrantha,” Nevvis said. “But they control us.”
“Hostages,” Jeff murmured.
“Yes.”
“I guess that explains where Trake’s other four goons are, too,” Jeff said.
“Also hostages,” Nicole said, nodding. “I guess the Koffren don’t trust anyone.”
“With their track record, that’s not really surprising.”
“I suppose not,” Nicole said.
“And now they come,” Nevvis added softly.
Nicole felt her stomach tense. Damn it. “It’s an ambush, all right,” she said, throwing quick looks both ways down the corridor. No Koffren yet, but that wouldn’t last. “Only they were waiting to spring it until I’d lost my Protector status.”
“Time to fall back?” Jeff asked, pulling out a knife and getting to work on the strap tying Nevvis to Bungie.
“Time to fall back,” Nicole confirmed. She went over to Trake, worked the spider gun out of his frozen hand, and took a couple of steps back. “Firth, Hagert: let them go.”
The two Wisps opened their arms. Trake started to lunge toward Nicole, stopped as she raised the spider gun warningly. “You think you’re smart, don’t you,” he said coldly. “Well, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. There are twenty of them, and only one of you, and they’re desperate. Sooner or later they’ll get you.”
And then, out of the corner of her eye, Nicole saw a group of Koffren charge around the far corner. “Firth, take me,” she ordered, turning and backing into its arms. “Hagert, take Jeff; Lehigh, take Cambria. Into the sha—”
The word was cut off as Firth’s embracing arms paralyzed her. But none of them needed to be told what to do. Even as the Koffren raised their spider guns and opened fire the Wisps carried the three of them into the shaft and rose swiftly on the updraft. Below them, the faint corridor light vanished as the shaft door finally slid closed.
Where do you wish to go? Firth asked.
Bring all of us to Q4, Nicole told it, scowling inside. Too late, now, she wished she’d had Jessup grab Nevvis and bring him along. But the Koffren had been on the move, and her first instinct had been for her own people.
Still, it sounded like the Koffren needed Nevvis. Anyway, the Shipmasters hadn’t been part of this particular scheme. Trake and Bungie should be the ones to get the sharp end of the stick.
But there were things she needed to know that Nevvis probably could have told her.
Never mind. She was starting to learn that there were always other ways of doing things.
Besides, the Ghorfs had sat on their hands long enough. Time to bring them into the game.