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I think it's a capital idea myself."
Sea of Plague 277
Sharpe raised his hands palms outward. "There you are."
Angrily, Brigid spit, "Sindri only wants to go so he can use you, Baron!"
"By a pleasant coincidence, that's pretty much why I want him to go with me."
Sharpe favored Sindri with a speculative stare. "A mutually beneficial
situation, wouldn't you agree?"
"I would," Sindri replied smugly.
"You can't trust him, Sindri," Grant gritted through clenched teeth.
Sindri laughed loudly, contemptuously. ' 'But I can trust you? What did you
intend to do with me after this crisis passed? Let me go on my way?'' He shook
his head in disgust. "Please."
"We wouldn't have harmed you," Brigid countered hotly.
"Perhaps not," retorted Sindri. "More than likely you would have kept me as a
permanent prisoner. At best you would've tried to return me to Mars, but in
such a manner so I could never return to Earth."
Sharpe shot him a startled glance. "Mars?" he repeated skeptically.
No one responded to Sharpe's inquiry. "At least you'd be alive," Grant argued.
"With the baron here, you'll never know where you stand. He could tire of you
tomorrow and have you sent to Area 51 so your liver could be pureed and added
to a chem bath."
"At least we're the devils you know," interjected Brigid.
Sindri shrugged. '"He eastern out devils through the prince of the devils.'"
278 JAMES AXLER
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Sharpe frowned at Sindri. "I don't quite know what you meant by that, but I
have the distinct impression
I've been insulted. Still, on that note "
Baron Sharpe swung his right arm out from the shoulder in a fringe-whirling
circle, then stabbed a finger directly at the redoubt's entrance. "Let's take
care of business."
Sharpe, Sindri and Crawler stepped toward the opening. Grady maintained a
steady aim on Grant, the bore of his pistol trained directly at the center of
his chest. Before they walked underneath the sec door, Baron Sharpe paused
long enough to say, "Regardless of how this meeting turned out, I thank you
for the warning about the imperator's plot. I promise to do what I can to
insure it never comes to pass."
Sindri put in cheerfully, "And that's what this whole long, strange trip has
been about, right?"
Grady followed them into the dark maw of the redoubt and within seconds the
heavy vanadium-alloy portal descended, sealing the installation with a thud
and a crunch of gravel.
Philboyd's voice floated into his ears. "If you want, we can try to blast the
thing open with the Manta's rockets."
Grant didn't react to the suggestion. He closed his eyes the way a man in pain
did. Lines deepened around his eyes and mouth and his jaw muscles worked. He
gusted out, "Zurui chibi...
sneaky dwarf. I
should've taken that literally."
Opening his eyes and turning to face the TAVs, Grant said, "Never mind,
Brewster. Prep your ship for takeoff."
Sea of Plague
279
Brigid forced a resigned smile to her lips. "Sindri was right about one thing,
you know. We hadn't discussed what to do with him. You know Kane wouldn't have
agreed to simply setting him free."
Grant nodded absently. "I suppose so. We've done all we can do here. Let's
go."
Climbing down the tumbles of rock was no more strenuous than climbing up them.
As they strode toward the Mantas, Brigid asked, "So it's a straight shot now
to Assam?"
' 'For me it is, yeah. You're going back to Cerberus with Brewster. Monitor
the ELINT signals that come in from the villes, so you can get an idea of
Baron Cobalt's movements if there are any."
Brigid was too shocked to say or do anything except to continue walking beside
him. Her thought processes seemed numb. Finally, almost too stunned to
formulate words, she forced herself to husk out, "I'm not going with you?"
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"No, you're not." Grant's tone brooked no debate as he continued walking.
Brigid grabbed him by the arm and pulled him to a halt. "Why?"
With an expression as impassive as if it were carved from teak, Grant turned
to face her. "The same reason Shizuka isn't going."
Brigid blinked at him incredulously. Her senses stumbled. "I don't
understand."
Flatly, in a voice that was edged with fear, Grant declared, "Kane and I
discussed this before we left.
We're doing it this way to further knock the timeline
280 JAMES AXLER
out of true, to put more obstacles in the way of Sam's Great Plan."
"What's that got to do with sidelining Shizuka and me?" Brigid demanded.
Grant gestured with both hands. "It's got everything to do with it. We have to
change things in the here and now, and that means we shouldn't undertake
actions that mirror those in the future."
With sudden clarity, Brigid exclaimed, ' 'Four plus years from now, both
Shizuka and myself are killed in
Assam. So you and Kane figure if we don't go near the place, you'll doubly
insure that aspect of the future never happens. You're trying to create a
probability wave dysfunction."
Grant shook his head gloomily. ' 'To be honest, we don't really know what the
hell to think or what to do. We're just guessing. But we know it makes sense
to minimize the risk to you and Shizuka as much as possible."
Brigid regained some of her composure although her mind still raced. She
realized Kane was driven to protect her through any means possible, and her
initial reaction was anger and resentment.
"I see," she whispered as she felt the familiar ache fill her whenever she
thought of Kane. Questions
always surrounded their relationship, and knowing they were to be married a
few years in the future did little to reveal much to her.
Yet, if the shared memory they'd experienced during a bad mat-trans jump to
Russia was correct, they had been together before. A sick knot twisted through
Brigid's stomach. The memory hadn't had a good
Sea of Plague
281
ending, and there'd been no guarantee how together they'd been. Even Morrigan
had told them they'd been together and separated a number of times in past
lives.
Grant levered his body atop his Manta's wing. "I hope you won't argue with me
about this, Brigid or do something like fly back to Cerberus to pick up
Shizuka and then meet us in Assam."
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"No." Brigid's tone was studiedly casual. "This is an unprecedented set of
circumstances, dealing as we are with temporal fault and fracture lines. We
might be able to repair one breach, but then another crack could open up and
it might be the one that swallows me, Shizuka and everyone else."
Grant dropped into the cockpit and strapped himself into the pilot's seat.
"Try to explain it that way to
Shizuka, will you?" He grinned sheepishly. "I'm afraid she thinks I'm coming
back for her."
Brigid nodded. "I understand. I'll do what I can so she will, too."
Philboyd pushed himself up from the cockpit of the second TAV and called, "I
know you've got the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
