Chapter 6

Still, the elevator crawled downward. The fate in the air grew thicker. Pitney fought back the urge to cry. No crying matter, Scolan. Still, he couldn't help wondering what would happen if he said yes to the transfer and never woke up again.

Jace's rush of words shattered the silence. "Sir... I... I just want you to know I've done everything I can. I know it all sounds harebrained, but I know a vet, a really fucking good one, with a degree in nanobiology." There was a sharp, almost possessive note of pride in his voice. "I rushed her to the base on the premise that-well." His tone softened to something almost tender. "That I needed her on Makops. And I got you a ride out of here, someone I trust. We'll rendezvous somewhere Tristan won't think to look, and take it from there."

Pitney clung to the one strand of Jace's outburst that resembled hope. "Perks aside, why don't I just forget the dog business and take the ride? Blaze my way out of here, and-"

"Sir." Jace made a soft sound of patience growing thin. "There are three people on this base loyal to you and there are three hundred sixty-eight loyal to General Tristan. I appreciate the vote of confidence, sir, but hundred-twenty-some to one odds are the stuff of holo-stories even you can't star in."

Pitney's fists clenched, but he said nothing. There was nothing to say. There was no arguing those odds.

"Unfortunately," Jace said, sounding like he would rather do anything than continue.

"Unfortunately? Is it not unfortunate enough already?"

"Unfortunately, the only way to get you past all Tristan's loyal people is to make you into something they would never suspect of being disloyal to him."

As the elevator creaked and moaned and the cold grew truly bitter, the full force of Jace's suggestion dawned on Pitney. "You don't. Mean."

Silence. Heart-sinking silence.

"Yeah," Jace said finally, "I do."

There was one thing on Makops so loyal to Tristan that no one would suspect it of the ultimate treachery. There was also one daugment.

Pitney started to cackle, a sharp-edged laugh that built on itself as it ripped out of him. There was nothing else for it. It lasted and lasted and extended spidery feelers into the dark until Jace raised the lighter and cracked a tired grin.

The elevator came to a gentle stop, and Pitney's laughter cut off. The doors trembled open and a dim ambience made them both into fuzzy man-shaped blobs.

Jace pocketed the lighter. "So, sir-in or out?" He took a deep breath and raised one hand. "I will ask Thurza and Liev to go out shooting to protect you, if you're out. If it's too much. If you just want to try and make a run for it. But I know...I know you've given yourself chances to live again. I know about the clones. And I think...maybe...this is why you did that. Call it fate. Call it a rich man's life insurance. I call it a damn good coincidence for you."

Pitney closed his eyes. He tried to regain some of what he'd felt when he'd stood in front of the mirror-was it only days ago? It seemed like a year. Now he could barely make sense of the sensations of his own body as he contemplated whether to die or to become a lesser being.

If he chose to live, he would never truly live as Pitney Scolan again. Even if, by some miracle, he could retreat to Prowess and her experimental medical facilities. He would never be this man again.

Whatever he chose, he was choosing his death.

He closed his eyes. Tried to linger in every nerve, tried to encapsulate what exactly it meant to be Pitney Scolan.

It meant to creak. It meant to ache, and shake, and burn hot and cold where his feeling had started to go.

Maybe he wouldn't miss this old thing.

He grunted, resting his hand on the railing as close as he dared to Jace's. "Well. I suppose-I'm in. What's a general if he can't put himself on the front lines now and then."

Jace's face very carefully showed no expression. "Very well, sir. Please come with me."

Pitney briefly indulged in self-pity. "Please don't be formal with me, Jace. Can't stand that right now."

Jace's throat bobbed. "This isn't easy on me. Protocol helps me maintain my focus. Sir." He unwound his long arm to gesture his superior officer forward, and Pitney stepped first into the underground storage level.

As their weight left the elevator car, the doors slammed shut and whisked the car away into the darkness, much faster than it had come down.

"Emergency recall," Jace said grimly. "Walk fast. We've got no more than forty, probably thirty minutes."

Spurred by the adrenaline prickling in his blood, Pitney speed-walked around the indistinct shapes of long-forgotten items. His shoes crunched over ancient tarps and shuffled across dusty concrete. This close to Makops's core, the cold was oppressive, stifling. Pit could no longer feel his feet in the slippers.

The clip of Jace's boots echoed and echoed in the silence. Their shadows stretched out behind them, lengthening and darkening as they drew closer to the nebula of hazy light.

They went wordless for a while. Fears like demons crowded in Pitney's brain until he had to break the silence.

"So. I'm going to die. You gonna kill me yourself, Jace?"

Jace's whole body shuddered. "Gods. Sir. Please."

"Oh. Sorry. Just-gallows humor. Oooh, more poor taste? More poor taste. Sorry. I'm-bad at walking to my doom. Doom and gloom, gloom and-sorry, sorry, mouth running off. Do that from time to time, when I'm nervous."

"I know, sir," Jace said, tragically gentle.

"Oh." Pitney's heart sank. The demons scattered, replaced by a very clear image of Jace helping him up off the ground as explosions rumbled around them. "Right."

They were silent the rest of the way to the light source.

It coalesced into a single, harsh bulb in a small side room, so bright that Pitney had to shield his eyes with his forearm. As he squinted, two grey-clad figures took shape.

"Thurza. Liev." Jace's voice betrayed his relief, and he clasped each of their hands. Pitney caught the looks they all gave each other, the way they were drawn to one another's physical orbit.

"Jace. You're alright." Liev tipped his square chin at Pitney. "This him?"

"General Scolan, this is Thurza, Liev. Thurza is the nanobiologist."

"And veterinarian," Thurza said, shaking Pitney's hand. Her piercing black eyes seemed to size him up and deem him worthy.

"And vet, yeah," Jace said. "And Liev's my-man. Keeps an eye on both of us." His left hand drifted of its own accord towards Liev's.

That sense of convenience once again struck Pitney: the nanobiologist-veterinarian who just happened to be Jace's partner; the bizarre technological impossibility masquerading as an escape plan; the assassination attempt the day of his retirement. His head started to swim.

At the back of the room was a table draped with a thin sheet of paper. He stared at the polished metal surface with cold horror.

That's where he'd lie down in a few moments and offer himself into the hands of three strangers. People who could drill holes in his brain and then proudly present him to Tristan for a reward. People who could decide it was much cleaner for General Pitney Scolan to never wake up, in any form.

That wasn't fair to Jace.

But still.

Strangers.

Too late now.

"You all look out for each other, yes?" Pitney said, looking at each of them in turn, seeking anything that would distract him from the back of the room, from that table.

"Yes," Thurza said immediately.

"Thurza," Liev warned.

"It doesn't matter now!" She pushed at him with the flat of her hand, then sobbed without tears. "Oh, Liev...I'm sorry. Apologies, sir," she added to Pitney, low and urgently, "but I love them both and I don't care."

"Well, my dear," Pitney said, leaning in, wishing his smile could dazzle like it used to, "I don't care who you love. I'm at rest going under your knife, or knives. At rest as a walking corpse can be, ah-ha-ha-ha? Too much?" Even as he resented the stupid remark, he relished the hot rush of blood to his cheeks. It was a last moment of humanity. Awkward laughter and an idiot's flush.

"No, that was funny, sir." Thurza's smile worsened the blush.

"No need to humor me."

"I completely agree," she said, the smile deepening in those black eyes.

"Sir," Jace said, inserting himself between Pitney and Thurza, "we've got a very brief window before Tristan sets his best people on us. If you don't mind-"

Pitney chuckled. It was a genuine laugh. "Rest assured, Jace, this woman's heart is yours. And now my brain is hers." He shuddered and extended both arms by his sides. "Well. Let's get this over with."

Jace awkwardly helped Pitney out of his jacket, then his shirt, and his pants, until finally he stood only in his underthings. Pitney climbed up onto the table with all the slowness of his sixty-nine years.

Laying his head back on a gauzy camp pillow that Thurza slipped into place at the last second, he stared up at yet another stained ceiling.

He realized he really had no idea how transfers worked, other than the horrible things they would have to do to extract his consciousness.

He realized he'd seen no evidence that they'd been able to sanitize their equipment, their hands.

He realized he hadn't seen them in possession of that revolting beast, Horus.

He shuddered as Liev put something warm and sweet over his face.

Then Pitney Scolan died.