Chapter 14: The Use Of A Prisoner Part 2

Chris woke up in the Hilbert Space vehicle and everything was fine. Nobody was trying to kill him. Nobody was trying to break his ride home. And his head rested on someone's very soft lap.

The Ginger Princess stroked his hair, humming and smiling at him. She'd changed into more, well, comfortable clothing wasn't the word. The outfit looked like one giant fishnet stocking, or lots of blond doilies all knitted together. It made him wonder if he might be hallucinating after all.

The rosy bubble burst. Chris ducked out from between the Princess's crochet-wrapped thighs. "Where's Dr. Yang?"

The girl raised her hands, Chris's powersuit froze, and he realized he was sick to death of this game.

"Please just tell me." Chris felt like a lost tourist. "Doesn't anyone here speak English?" he wanted to say. "Don't mess with me. I'll call the consulate! Where's your manager?"

Ginger Princess seemed to understand. She shouted something through the vehicle's open door. "Yang," she said.

"Yang and Andrea?" Remembering, Chris tapped the HUD-bindi on his forehead and blinked a command: PING OTHER SUITS IN NETWORK. Nothing pinged back.

"Andrea," Ginger Princess made pointing, walking motions. A hard look flickered across that pretty freckled face. "Trals," she said, "something something."

"Yeah, the barbarian slung her over his shoulder and carried her off. But where to?" Chris blinked commands and a holographic map fuzzed into visibility between them. After only a little oohing and ahing, the native girl started pointing out features. The river, the forest around the river, the big, scrubby floodplain southward.

Ginger P. spread her hand over a spot on the map inland and south of them. "Trals," she said, "Andrea." She really didn't sound happy. Some personal history there? God. History? Here in the late Maastrichtian? This was a whole world of people who shouldn't exist.

Chris put a hand out to steady himself. "So what am I supposed to do? Just head out into the jungle at the head of a bronze-age army and rescue Andrea?" Dr. Yang would be pleased as hell with that plan. "We'd better see how my boss is doing." He pointed out the door.

Ginger P. shook her head, pointing "here" and tugging at his leg.

"Yeah, well much as I'd love to stay in here cuddling with you, Dr. Yang is probably up by now and she'll be pissed enough with me as it is, abandoning her like that." Chris grimaced and made for the exit.

"No." The native stepped in front of him. Chris's suited hand whipped out and he just managed to stop himself before he backhanded Ginger P. off her feet.

A frightened twitch sent him bouncing away like a jackrabbit. No wonder the suit's designers had put in that civilian defense thing. The sensitivity was turned up so high it shorted out his impulse control. Chris clenched his fists, tried to breathe deeply.

"Let me out," he said, "please."

Without taking her eyes off him, Ginger P. called out the vehicle's door. Metal clanked and Beardy let himself in. Behind the soldier came that older man in formal robe and odd-looking forked beard. Too bad "beardy" was already taken. Baldy, then?

Neither man spoke to Chris. Instead, they shouted at each other, with Ginger P. inserting shrill bons mots. Finally, the old man stepped forward and said, "You stay, pleas-ee."

"No, look," said Chris. "I don't - " he squinted. "You speak English."

"Yes, pleas-ee." Baldy made a weird sort of bow, arms crossed, each hand clasped around half of his beard.

"Um. How?"

"The peh-jiss. The bai-bell." The old man gestured wildly.

The bible? Now was not the time. "My friend," Chris said, "where is my friend?"

"I am saw-ree." He pulled something out of his robe.

Chris looked down at the folded powersuit. "You got it off her? How is she?"

Baldy gestured and Chris automatically took the rumpled ball of smart fabric. "Why is this...this is burned!" A shudder, magnified by his suit, shook the ruined million-dollar material in his hands. "What did you do to Dr. Yang?"

Beardy growled something and Ginger Princess hissed an angry reply. Baldy said a few words in their language, then, "You have prez-sent."

"I don't care about this thing." Chris's heart pounded and his suit added a menacing couple of centimeters to his height. Spines extruded from his shoulders and forearms. "Where is the person who was inside it?" And why were they keeping him in the vehicle? The suit swelled around him as he spat down at the natives. "Where is she?"

A feather touch through his suit. Beardy's gauntlet grabbing his wrist. Chris barely had to think about throwing him off.

The bell-like sound of crashing armor dopplered away as Chris streaked out the door.

The fort was a disaster area. The ground was still wet with blood, the wall was still smoldering, and that dark clump over there was a pile of shrouded bodies. The soldiers left alive lurched about their duties, looking pale, sleepless, and shell-shocked.

How could he have left Dr. Yang in this? Chris clenched his fists and ridges of armor grew up over his arms. If the natives had done anything to her...

"Where is she?" Chris shouted at the people around him, but apparently no one else here had Baldy's English. They just ran away from him. A man with legs chained together tripped, fell at his feet, and Chris ran him over because he had found Dr. Yang.

Her blackened corpse lay in the center of the compound.

They'd burned Yang like a witch. Spoofed her suit into immobility while they stacked up wood around her feet? Or had they simply stabbed her in the face and burned the corpse?

The pile of ash slumped over, horribly like the nodosaur Andrea had killed. Chris wheeled. Looking toward the time machine, as if only he could go back and fix this. As if time travel worked that way.

"You killed her." Chris twitched, and his suit blasted him into a passing soldier. "Get away from me!" Another soldier drew his sword. Chris flinched, but what was he afraid of? He grabbed the sword in an adamant black hand and flung it away.

More soldiers running toward him now. Quilted armor swinging, spear hafts clenched in heavy leather gloves. Back at the vehicle, three figures hurried toward him. They had known. Was Baldy responsible for this murder, or Beardy? Chris lurched toward them and soldiers moved to block his path.

Chris shoved them aside. "You, you killed her." He reached toward Beardy.

Who sighed and put up his hands.

EXITING COMBAT MODE.

What was Chris going to do? Hit the man?

Ginger Princess was babbling something Chris couldn't understand. The hot, stinking fort spun around him. They'd killed Yang. Enhanced by his powersuit, his shudders of fear and disgust became violent, uncontrollable spasms.

Chris sobbed, and the suit lashed his arms out to rip apart the murderous natives. He stumbled, he reeled, never quite falling, never quite putting his fist through someone's chest, his HUD a solid mass of warning popups.

Upraised hands surrounded him. Froze his suit. They were going to trap him. Kill him. Chris stumbled into the firewood, right on top of the blackened remains of Dr. Yang. No. He would not end like her.

Chris started to think. Slowly, he reached out, closed his hands gently over the closest soldier, deliberately lifting him into the air. The soldier thrashed in the air, panicked. He dropped his arms. The peace mode symbol winked out of Chris's HUD.

And Chris threw the solider as hard as he could.