James Axler Outlander 26 Sea of Plague

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Lakesh again.
"You should have killed Sam when you had the chance," Grant grunted, "instead
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of letting him give you a youth treatment."
Quavell raised a brow arch. "What makes you think Dr. Singh had the chance to
kill him? And if he did, would he have been able to do so?"
"We were all there with Sam, too," Domi snapped. "We coulda tried to kill him,
but we didn't."
Brigid said sympathetically, "You're absolutely right, Domi. We can't blame
Lakesh."
Sea of Plague 183
Tears shone on Lakesh's cheeks as he lifted his head to look at her. "No," he
said, voice thick with self-loathing, "Grant is right. I sold myself to Sam
much like Faust traded his soul to Mephistopheles in exchange for an illusion
of youth. But my crime is worse than Faust's, because I sold out all of you
along with myself."
Quavell sighed. "Dr. Singh, I think you are suffering from a terrible
self-deception, if not a delusion. Or perhaps you simply enjoy playing the
martyr."
'
'Shup!''
Domi cried fiercely. In her anger, she reverted to the Outland mode of speech
and combined shut and up.
"You don't know what you talking about!"
"I know he is trying to retreat from responsibility." Quavell's soft voice
carried no heat or edge of accusation, but Kane found himself staring at her
in surprise. The hybrid had maintained such a low profile in the weeks since
she arrived at the redoubt, her calm words now were as attention-getting as if
she were in the throes of a hysterical fit.
"You know shit," Domi half shrieked. "You not even human "
She bit back the rest of whatever she had to say, but Quavell nodded as if in
understanding. ' 'But we share similar interests, do we not? We are kin in
spirit. Our bonds are finer and stronger than bonds of blood. Except I will
not abandon myself to hate and violence." She touched her swollen belly. "Nor
will my child."
Lakesh's face twisted as if he were in great pain. Then, slowly, he pushed
himself to his feet, filled his
184 JAMES AXLER
lungs slowly and then emptied them in a prolonged sigh. He turned toward Bry.
"Have you detected any
ELINT signals indicating movement among the barons who oppose Sam?"
Lakesh made an oblique reference to the Comsat eavesdropping system. Several
months before, Lakesh and Bry had created a communications scanner with ville
radio frequencies and channels, involving the redoubt's satellite uplinks.
They hadn't heard much about the reaction of the rank-and-file ville citizen
to the rule of the imperator most probably knew very little about it, but they
had picked up signals confirming Quavell's report of civil unrest in some of
the baronies.
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Bry shook his head. "The electronic intelligence I've patched into is
basically flat-line. Nothing unusual has been transmitted from any of the
villes or the outposts for the past couple of weeks. Not since the op to the
Antarctic, anyhow."
"There really wouldn't be," Grant stated. "The sea water level has pretty much
gone back to normal." He glanced quizzically at Shizuka. "Right?"
Shizuka nodded. "Yes. There has been no further flooding on any of the New Edo
island chain."
Less than three weeks earlier, Grant, Brigid, Kane and Brewster Philboyd had
traveled to the continent of Antarctica to prevent Grigori Zakat's scheme to
cause the great ice sheet to slip into the ocean.
"So," Bry continued, "if Baron Cobalt is making a move to regroup or reach out
to other barons so he can lead a resistance force against Sam, he's doing it
very covertly."
Sea of Plague 185
"Or," Quavell interjected, "he has yet to implement any plans he might have
made. In his present circumstances, survival might be all he can focus his
attention upon. Even if he received a full complement of medical treatments
before the siege of Cobaltville, he would be in dire need of boosters by now.
And the question of where he has been hiding for the past six months is still
unanswered."
Lakesh sighed dolefully. "There are many questions, and not just about Baron
Cobalt, that have yet to be answered." He fixed Kane with a direct stare.
"Regardless of the information imparted by your future self, it doesn't seem
as if the baron is in any kind of position to accomplish what you he alleges
he accomplishes in such a short time."
Brigid said, ' 'The only other possibility is that everything we've been told
has been part of a ruse." She flicked her penetrating green gaze toward
Sindri. "An elaborate plan to get inside Cerberus and gain our confidence."
For a moment Sindri seemed unaware of both Brigid's stare or the implications
of her statement. Then he glanced up at her, forehead furrowed in
consternation. ' 'I can assure you, Miss Brigid assure all of you that
everything I've told you is the truth. I don't have any ulterior motives in
all of this."
' 'Which in and of itself is enough to make me suspicious as hell," Grant
growled. "You and Sam would work pretty fucking well together."
Sindri sighed. "Mr. Grant, despite your justifiable dislike of me, if I was
truly in cahoots with the im-perator, engaged in a joint plan against
Cerberus, this
186 JAMES AXLER
is not the way I would put my end of it into action. As a trained tactician,
you should agree that there are far and away too many elements left to random
chance first and foremost that you or Mr. Kane could have simply shot my fair
young ass dead as soon as you saw me step out of the gateway unit."
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Grant said nothing, nor did his scowl lift, but it was apparent he found
himself in grudging agreement with
Sindri's argument.
"Besides," put in Bry, "if anybody should fall under suspicion of working with
the imperator, it would be
Lakesh. He sent Sam our gateway coordinates, remember? He allowed him to gate
right into the redoubt."
Domi glared at Bry, but Lakesh asked calmly, "What do you propose to do with
me now that it's been established I compromised Cerberus security?''
Kane chuckled suddenly, surprising everyone. "Don't be so melodramatic, old
man. What we propose to do is have you contribute to an overall strategy."
He swept his glance across the faces of everyone assembled out on the plateau.
"It's a strategy everyone
needs to contribute something to. Especially you, Sindri. You're the only
eyewitness we have who can offer firsthand intel."
Sindri grinned up at him. "Mr. Grant's suspicions to the contrary, I have
every intention of helping in whatever way I can. The imperator's adaptive
Earth is not my idea of a viable future. It doesn't seem like any fun at all."
"My idea of a viable future," said Shizuka coldly,
Sea of Plague
187
"is one where that conniving dwarf has been tossed over a cliff."
"Please," Lakesh said with a feeble attempt at a smile. "We don't need to
revive the fine old sport of dwarf tossing."
When his comment elicited only blank looks, he cleared his throat and [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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