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alive. You ready, Cassius? Cassius nodded. Give him a taste. The machine whined. A tiny scalpel flayed a few square millimeters of skin off Dee s nose. A second waldo bathed the exposed flesh with iodine. A third applied a small dressing. The anaesthesia program intensified the fire of the antiseptic. Dee shrieked. Enough. You see, Michael? That rig is a little toy I put in when we slapped this place together. I had a feeling you d make me use it someday. What it will do is skin you a few square millimeters at a time, here and there. You ll get plenty of time to heal so the skinning won t ever end. Think about that. Pain for the rest of your life. Dee whimpered. His eyes seemed glazed. Mouse turned his back. He kept jerking from the stomach upward as he fought to keep his breakfast down. Cassius laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. Easy, he whispered. Storm snarled, Michael, Michael, you ve just got to play your games. You can t claim you weren t warned. You can t say you didn t know the risks. He waved a weak hand at Cassius. Do an eyelid now. Dee flushed a pale shade of death. My face . . . Cruel men. Cassius laughed. The sound was so malignant it seemed no artificial voice box could have produced it. There ll be scars, Storm promised. His voice was soft, musing. Yes. That will hurt more than the skinning, won t it? Cassius, make sure there are Page 108 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html plenty of scars in the program. Do something artistic. Dee cried, Damn it, Gneaus . . . This isn t a pleasure spa, Michael. This is hell. Your own private hell. You brought it on yourself. Then you expect the rest of us to feel sorry for you. It doesn t work that way. We aren t kids now. You can t fool us the way you used to. We re on to all of your tricks. Gneaus, not my face. You want to tell us why Blackworld means so much to you? It s my way out . . . Dee shut up. He refused to speak again. Cassius, before we leave I want you to position them so they have to look at each other. Put a sound baffle between them so they can t talk. Now, before we tackle my questions again, tell me what you found on The Mountain. Cassius sketched the story. Storm occasionally interrupted with a question or to make a point. When Cassius mentioned the elderly assassin, he asked, Sangaree? Cassius nodded. Storm turned to an attractive and frightened Michael Dee. So that rumor is true. Youhave been dealing with them. That won t make you any friends, Michael. He shook an admonitory finger. Go on, Cassius. This is getting interestinger and interestinger. A minute later Storm muttered, I ve got a feeling I ll be eligible for Social Insurance after I pay your instel bill. Possibly. The man s name was Rhafu. Storm sent a puzzled glance Michael s way. Dee seemed both disappointed and relieved. It doesn t make sense, Cassius. It does. Keep listening. He explained what he had learned from his friend in Luna Command. Why would this mystery Sangaree wait till now to get even? I take it he s really a low-key sort. Tries to get everything lined up perfect before he makes his move. He s probably been chipping away at us for a long time. Storm looked at Dee. That could explain a lot of things. But not too clearly. I ve been doing some thinking. It was a long trip out, watch and watch. Not much chance to talk. Mainly, I tried to figure out why a man would want to destroy his brother so bad he would cut a deal with Sangaree. I didn t come up with anything. Each time I thought I had it, I came back to the same thing. The only things you ve ever done were in reply to something a Dee did first. Our friend here is a son-of-a-bitch, but in the past he usually took his lumps when he deserved them. And until just lately he was always pretty impersonal about his crap. So I went back and thought it through from the beginning. There had to be a Page 109 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html clue somewhere. I think it started because he wanted to get even with Richard Hawksblood. Including you was a sop for this Deeth creature. In others words, it s not really personal. It s an arrangement. Deeth helps him get Richard. He helps Deeth get you and the Legion. Storm stared at his brother. Michael looked terribly uncomfortable. Why the hell would he take up with this Deeth? That s where I had to strain the old logic box. We have to go back to your father and mother to put it together. You know the family stories. He met her on Prefactlas. She was pregnant when they got married. Boris never found out who Michael s father was. Emily wouldn t say. Like that. Check my reasoning. Emily was born a Sangaree pleasure girl. Her genetic tagging was distinctly Norbon. We know she spent several years traveling and living with a boy who may have fathered Michael. He vanished completely once your mother moved in with Boris. There was a more notorious disappearance at the same time. The grand master of the Prefactlas underworld, a man we called the Serpent. My friend Beckhart [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |
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