Page 19 (1/2)

Nothing happened yet In theory, the captain&039;s gesture was not the trigger that killed the prisoners No one person did the Eard, but the universe itself Zai had commanded the Lynx to watch for a certain occultation, an astronomical event that would inevitably occur within a few minutes When the Lynxbehind sois belt--the executions would unfold

They waited

A timeless minute later it must have happened, a tiny and ht on which the Lynx od&039;s eye

Gravity inverted in the other half of the roo before Hobbes&039;s eyes The bonds around their ankles snapped taught, like a fall halted by a noose, their vorpal shunts opening as one Four thin strea-- the floor in their fra the cere a le Supposedly, this for quickly cold Oxygen would cease to reach the body&039;s cells, but like suffocation by carbon dioxide, there would be no frenzied gasping for breath

Their faces grew pink at first, as the inverted gravity brought blood down from the feet to the head But Katherie could see thewhite already Eventually, their faces would blanch and grow expressionless Blood pooled in the cere, splattery sound replaced by the gurgle of liquid into liquid

Katherie stood at attention She felt light-headed, as if the gravity inversion were losing integrity, suffusing across the yellow-red stripe, its tendrils finding her She blinked, and nausea rose in Hobbes Her old nens of up and down reversed on the other side of the roo upward, the lines of Thoan to slacken The prisoners&039; faces grehite It was al terrible happened

The four hanging bodies suddenly jolted toward her, as if kicked frous&039;s hair pointed directly at Hobbes now Gravity inside the inversion zone had shifted by ninety degrees, a enerator

Hobbes looked at the ceiling with horror

The blood already collected in the cere in a sanguine waterfall, rolling toward the yellow-red stripe almost above her head

Katherie barely had time to cover her face

The liters of blood reached the norravity zone, a red river that was cleaved by the sudden directional shift It sprayed upon her and Laurent Zai like a war at the strands of her own hair in her mouth

A dreao Nothing so horrible had happened In the real event, the ritual had unfolded with ad sweat from her face, which tasted as salty as blood She pulled her knees to her chest and breathed deeply, trying to calm herself

Then she realized it: This had been her first real dreaone back to natural sleep, her usage of hypersleep having exceeded the recommended maximum by more than a hundred percent The ship&039;s new doctor, an earnest civilian froiven her drugs to help the transition But Katherie had left theet her to oblivion

Clearly, that had been a bad idea Hobbes had grown addicted to 257 the instantaneous drop into hyperdreams, the familiar, symbolic process-narratives that reliably reconstituted her brain Falling into natural sleep had taken a thrashing, anxious hour And when Katherie Hobbes finally slipped into a restless unconsciousness, it was only to discover this long-suppressed nightmare

A moment after she awoke from the execution dream, the entry chiing her fully awake The access icon glowed in second sight: an Apparatus subpoena in brilliant red

Without waiting for a response, three politicals entered her cabin Two honored dead and a living wonized the flat voice of Adept Harper Trevim

This was serious, Katherie&039;s addled brain slowly realized Trevi political on board the Lynx What had happened? Hobbes sat up, and quickly ran the frigate&039;s top-level diagnostics in synesthesia Nothing seeed with a dry voice

"We must talk with you"

She nodded and rose shakily to attention In an odd moment of embarrassment, she hoped the politicals wouldn&039;t notice her bedclothes The natural woruilty pleasure from ho the day The politicals looked only at her body, however, a bit of discorown up on a Utopian world, Hobbes felt no discomfort in nakedness The dead, she assumed, were similarly unflappable

"Yes, Adept At the Emperor&039;s pleasure," she answered

"We must speak of your captain"

Of course They were still after Laurent They alould be

"Yes, Honored Mother?"

"New information has come to us about his rejection of the blade" Hobbes could barely hide her disgust She spoke rudely "He was pardoned by the Emperor, Adept"

The dead woman nodded The precise, expressionless movement reminded Hobbes of her protocol instructor when she&039;d been a staff officer She&039;d learned the gestural cues of a dozen cultures from the man, but he had never seemed fully human himself The adept had the sae ritual Indeed, the whole scene was so surreal, Hobbes wasn&039;t sure she wasn&039;t still drea

"Yes, it was fortunate that he did not take the blade before pardon was given," Trevim said "But we are concerned about histhe ritual"

Hobbes couldn&039;t see where this was going She blinked, trying to will away the cobwebs of sleep in her mind "Honored Mother?"

"What is the exact nature of your relationship with Laurent Zai?"

For a moment, Katherie could not answer Her silence stretched and redoubled itself, until it was a hand over her mouth

She finally forced herself to speak "What do yourumors"

Hobbes felt the flush at her breast, the heat in her face She was angry, hued at her own inability to respond This had to be another nighty with sleep, called on the carpet by the Emperor&039;s representatives

"I don&039;t knohat you mean, Adept"

"What is your exact relationship with Laurent Zai?"

"I&039; more?"

Hobbes willfully forced emotion froray talk, as if she wereaelse between them had only ever been in her own mind "I have the ut unprofessional in our friendship"

"Friendship?"

"Friendship"

"Do you knohy he rejected the blade?" "I don&039;t--" Hobbes choked herself off She did know, she realized "There is no reason for Captain Zai to die And he was pardoned"

"Was it because of his affair with you?"

"There is nothing between Laurent and me," she said Somehow, it seemed harder to tell the truth than it would have been to lie

"Laurent?" the adept noted

Hobbes took a deep breath and closed her eyes She felt the heat of another blush travel across her exposed body Hobbes realized that if they were polygraphing her, they had every advantage She was naked and exhausted, without defenses

But she was telling the truth, after all

"Were you and Zai lovers?"

"No"

"Did Laurent Zai choose to live for you, Katherie?"

"No, Adept It was someone else"

Their faces showed no surprise, but Hobbes&039;s words won her a moment of respite She felt triumphant to have silenced the dead woman

"Who, Katherie?" the adept finally asked

"I don&039;t know"

"Another crew member?"

"No Captain Zai would never--" She sed "I have no idea who"

"So it could be a crewmate of yours"

"No! It&039;s so at her like solass

"He just wanted to live, Honored Mother For soined future Why is that so hard to believe?"

The dead woain, as smoothly as a machine Hobbes felt she could detect an expression on her face: a ghost of satisfaction "I believe you, Executive Officer," the dead woman said