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I like seeing things fall into place

- Kerro Panille, The Notebooks

NIGHTSIDE AFTER nightside, always nightside! The horror! Legata awoke on the deck in a shipside cubby, her hahtmares Sweat and fear chilled her in the dark

Slowly, reason returned She felt the remnants of the haainst her palms

I’m shipside

She had come up earlier at Oakes’ coone on alcohol to be effective It had shocked her, getting off the shuttle in a familiar shipbay, to see ho Ship raids by Leere deci the shipside work force to replace losses at the Redoubt

How ed pieces of hammock out from under her, hurled them into the darkness

Ferry, warned of her approach, had gulped toomess when she found him She had dressed him down in fury which had surprised even her, and had removed the last of his Colony liquor supply

At least, she hoped it was the last of it

I have to do soht, but she knew she dreamed of blood and her most tender flesh peeled back by dozens of needlenosed instruan Oakes’ smile Oakes’ thick-lipped sroun Lewis laughing

She found pieces of her bedding, an intact cushion, pulled theed herself across the cubby to a mat Only once before had she felt this beaten, this empt this helpless

The Screaain soaine but no important memories

What happened in that roo? Why did he send me in there?

She reiven her a few drinks, left her with a holo canister which detailed as he put it, "a few of the treats available to those who can afford the her technical su on E-clones The drinks fuzzed her thinking, but most of it remained in memory

"Lewis hassystem," Oakes said

Ree thirty annos in ten diurns

He could engineer clones for special functions

It had occurred to her as she watched the holo display of Lab One’s clones that she could begin playing this game with Oakes, but that they must switch to her rules

I didn’t even know the gaested she inspect Lab One, she had not suspected that he wanted her t that she was expected t

Nothing is sacred!

The thought kept returning She breathed in a deep lungful of the sweetly filtered shipside air How different it was fros sheto Oakes

He believes he has nothing to fear from me now I had better keep it that way

His poere not diminished But after all he had done to her, after the Scream room, she still felt that she was the only person who knew hih to beat hi as he did not consider her a threa or a challenge

As long as he wants aan to build in her - the nightmare the lost memorie

She pounded the deck beside her with both fists The anxiety rose in her like soot by rape The unresolved e, and she felt that she looked down upon her present upset as the dying were said to look down upon theh and unresolved corner

Her hands pained her where she had pounded the deck

A Chaplain is supposed to ease anxiety, not cause it!

Chaplain - she had searched the word out once and the readout had surprised her: Keeper of the sacred relics

What were Ship’s sacred relics?

Humans?

Slowly, she forced herself to relax in the darkness of the ship-side cubby, but her mind reht herself gasping for breath In sudden dizziness, she saw aa dial in the Screalimpse, and across from her, that twisted clone fac those wide terrified eye

Did I turn that dial? I have to know!

She hugged her knees to keep herself fro the deck

Did I turn that dial myself or did Oakes forcethat she had to remember She had to And she knew she would have to destroy Oakes, that she was the only one who could do it

Even Ship cannot destroy him She peered up into the cubby’s darkness You can’t do it, can You, Ship?

She felt that sohts spun in her head - dizziness, dizziness She shook her head sharply to rid it of the feeling

Nothin i sacred

Violent tre shook her body

The Scream Room She had to remember what happened there! She would have to know her own limits before she went after someone else’s limits She had to face the blank places in her mind or Oakes would continue to own her - not her body, but her most private self He would own her

Her hands clenched into fists against her legs Her palernails

I edher ers whose deformity she had not even minded

That memory was real

She forced herself to open her clenched fists, relax her legs She sat cross-legged on the roped for one of the bottles of wine she had taken fro so badly she was afraid she would crush a glass - besides, that would require her to stand, turn on lights, open a locker She uncapped the raine and drank straight from the bottle

Presently, a seht control, tuned it for a low yellow, and returned to the bottle she had left on the deck More of that? She had visions of herself reduced to Ferry’s condition No! There had to be a better way She recapped the bottle, stuffed it in a locker, and sat on her ht

What to do?