as the other went inside, took him into the dark interior of Mascari’s, into the
mingled effluvium of liquor and sweat and floor-jarring music. Heads turned, of
those in the bar, who could see him better than his unadjusted eyes could see
them for the moment, and he panicked, not alone at being recognized, but knowing
that there was something in this place which he recognized, when he ought to
know nothing on Pell, not after that fashion, not across the gulf he had
crossed.
He was pushed to the leftmost corner of the room, to one of the closed booths.
Two men stood there, one a hangdog middle-aged man who rang no alarms with him…
and the other… the other…
Sickness hit him, conditioning assaulted. He groped for the back of a cheap
plastic chair and leaned there.
“I knew it was you,” the man said. “Josh? It is you, isn’t it?”
“Gabriel.” The name shot out of his blocked past, and whole structures tumbled.
He swayed against the chair, seeing again his ship… his ship, and his
companions… and this man… this man among them…
“Jessad,” Gabriel corrected him, took his arm and looked at him strangely.
“Josh, how did you get here?”
“Mazianni.” He was being drawn into the curtained alcove, a place of privacy, a
trap. He half turned, found the others barring the way out, and in the shadow
when he looked back he could hardly make out Gabriel’s face… as it had looked in
the ship, when they had parted company—when he had transferred Gabriel to Blass,
on Hammer, near Mariner. Gabriel’s hand rested gently on his shoulder, pushing
him into a chair at a small circular table. Gabriel sat down opposite him and
leaned forward.
“My name here is Jessad. These gentlemen—Mr. Coledy and Mr. Kressich—Mr.
Kressich was a councillor on this station, when there was a council. You’ll
excuse us, sirs. I want to talk to my friend. Wait outside. See we get privacy.”
The others withdrew, and they were alone in the dim light of a fading bulb. He
did not want to be alone with this man. But curiosity kept him seated, more than
the fear of Coledy’s gun outside, a curiosity with the foreknowledge of pain in
it, like worrying at a wound.
“Josh?” Gabriel/Jessad said. “We’re partners, aren’t we?”
It might be a trick, might be truth. He shook his head helplessly. “Mindwipe. My
memory—”
Gabriel’s face contracted in seeming pain, and he reached out and caught him by
the arm. “Josh… you came in, didn’t you? You tried to make the pickup. Hammer
got me out when it went wrong. But you didn’t know that, did you? You took Kite
in and they got you. Mindwipe… Josh, where are the others? Where are the rest of
us, Kitha and—
He shook his head, cold inside, void. “Dead. I can’t remember clearly. It’s
gone.” He was close to being sick for a moment, freed his hand and rested his
mouth against it, leaning on the table, trying to subdue the reactions.
“I saw you,” Gabriel said, “in the corridor. I didn’t believe it. But I started
asking questions. Ngo won’t tell whom you’re with… but it’s someone else they’re
after, isn’t it? You’ve got friends here. A friend. Haven’t you? It’s not one of
us… it’s someone else. Isn’t it?”
He could not think. Old friendships and new warred with each other. His belly
was knotted up with contradictions. Fear for Pell… they had put that into him.
And killing stations… was Gabriel’s function. Gabriel was here, as he had been
at Mariner—
Elene and Estelle. Estelle had died at Mariner.
“Isn’t it?”
He jerked, blinked at Gabriel.
“I need you,” Gabriel hissed. “Your help. Your skills…”
“I was nothing,” he said. The suspicion that he was lied to grew stronger still.
The man knew him and claimed things that were not so, were never so. “I don’t
know what you’re talking about.”
“We were a team, Josh.”
“I was an armscomper, on the probe ship…”
“The undertapes.” Gabriel seized his wrist, shook at him violently. “You’re
Joshua Talley, special services. Deep-taught for that. You came out of the labs