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"Less than a dozen. And you were responsible for killing several of them?"
"Yeah. Probably three down."
"Then the fog came?"
Ryan suddenly realized that what had appeared at first to be disinterest was
now, more obviously, something that was completely different.
Disbelief.
"The fog came," he repeated.
Tomwun drained his drink and leaned back, his chair creaking. "Convenient."
When Ryan had been a younger man, his temper had been legendary fierce, ever
ready to flame, sometimes slipping from the bonds of his control.
Often to the pain and misery of others. Occasionally to himself.
It had been the Trader who'd gradually persuaded him that his blinding rage
would, eventually, only hurt that one person. Himself. And, since then, Ryan
had tried really tried to control that blood-eyed anger.
But now he could feel the long scar down his right cheek beginning to twitch
and burn. He took a deep breath and lifted his hand to touch the gouged
cicatrix that
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sliced across his face from his good eye to the corner of his mouth.
"What's the matter with you, Cawdor? Just commented that the fog was
convenient for your story." Tomwun shrugged, hands spread like a merchant in a
pesthole low-jack store offering a customer a dubious bargain.
Ryan was across the room and leaning over the leather-topped desk before
Tomwun could even blink. He grabbed him by the collar and hauled him to his
feet, heaving him up so that their faces were only inches apart.
"What did you " the scientist began. But Ryan tightened his grip and the words
were choked off.
"You gutless little bastard! You torture those dolphins so that they'll go
kill for you. Try and enlist us on your side as hired guns. Then when we run
into those same pirates, you sit there, smug as a gaudy whoremaster, and make
it fucking obvious you don't even believe me."
Tomwun was fumbling for a small automatic pistol tucked into his belt. But
Ryan slapped him hard across the face with his free hand, stopping the
movement. A
bright worm of blood crawled from the man's nose, across his lips, staining
the bared teeth. Drops of it pattering onto the white coat and onto the pile
of papers on the desk.
Now Ryan was experiencing that frightening exhilaration that went with brutish
power. The taste of Tomwun's fear was in his nostrils, rank and heavy,
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bringing a buzz with it that was almost sexual in its delight.
"Please& " The word was muffled with blood. Tomwun's eyes, red-rimmed,
protruded from their sockets as though they were on stalks. His tongue,
blackening, lapped at the air between lips that were turning a cyanotic blue.
"You piece of& " Ryan pushed him disgustedly down into his seat, which tilted
right back so that Tomwun's feet pointed for a moment at the ceiling.
"Blood of the Martyrs, Cawdor. You might have killed me. Might have throttled
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me."
"If I'd wanted to chill you, then you'd be on the last train by now. Just that
you touched me on a sore kind of place. Place that doesn't like being called a
liar."
Tomwun didn't speak, massaging his bruised neck. "You understand what I'm
saying?" The scientist nodded, his eyes down on the golden edge to the leather
top of his desk. "Didn't hear you, Tomwun. I asked whether you understood why
I
was a little angry."
"Sure. I understand."
"Fine. Now that's out of the bastard way we can get to talking about what
happened. What might happen. And what's best to do about it."
IT WAS FULL DARK. A fine rich clam chowder had been served in their quarters
by the two Bobs. It was almost as though they'd never left the institute, as
though there'd never been the run-in with the pirates and the murderous
exchange of fire.
The thick soup was followed by a huge bowl of pasta, liberally larded with
shrimps, prawns, mussels and delicious shredded crab meat.
Tomwun, now far more eager to make amends, had also sent over three bottles of
a better-than-adequate pink wine that Mildred described as being an acceptable
substitute for a white zinfandel from before skydark.
Ryan had called everyone together straight after his stormy meeting with the
professor and run quickly through what the two men had discussed.
And what had been agreed.
It didn't take long.
"We stay another five days. If there's an attack during that time, then we'll
do what we can to side with the people here. If the pirates don't come, then
we'll
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carry out a single recce on the fifth day. Then, if there's still no sign of
any threat, Tomwun lends us a boat and a pilot and we get taken back north by
sea to the redoubt."
Everyone was broadly happy with that.
With the possible exception of Michael.
He slowly got up and walked around the room, standing and staring blankly out
of the rectangular window that faced the Lantic.
Ryan watched him, seeing from the young man's body language that there was
going to be an argument. He was unable to guess on what grounds, though
Michael had been spending a deal of time with Miranda from the institute.
It crossed his mind how much the teenager had changed since he'd first been
plucked from the lifelong security of the monastic retreat of Nil-Vanity. Then
he'd been withdrawn and shy, often hardly speaking. He'd been a barefoot
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