Earthbound by DM Arnold (free books to read txt) 📖

Andra released her grip. Nyk fell to the floor, gasped and felt his throat. “Andra, I can understand your hatred, but we mustn't take justice into our own hands. We'll convene a tribunal aboard the scout. I'll be the judge and you'll be the prosecutor. We'll listen to the evidence, convict him, and then you can kill him. Nykkyo, you're under arrest. I'm afraid you'll have to come with me.” Nyk made a run for the staircase. “Not so fast,” Zander said and jumped toward him.

Nyk picked up the cephalopod shell and began swinging it in Zander's direction. Zander ducked. Nyk backed away and swung the shell again. Zander ducked, but on the back swing Nyk connected and Zander's temple oozed blood.

Zander shook his head and felt his injury. “You continue to surprise me, Nyk.” Zander pressed toward him. Nyk backed away and stumbled over a footstool. Zander lunged at him but Nyk planted the pointed end of the shell into the upholstery. The open end caught Zander in the solar plexus and he doubled over. Nyk scrambled to his feet and ran for a vidisplay.

Zander stood and headed for him. Nyk grasped the small end of the shell with both hands, lined it up with Zander's head, lifted it and brought it down. Zander dodged and it grazed his shoulder. He grabbed Nyk's wrist and bent it backwards. He dropped the shell.

Nyk wrenched free from Zander, hopped over a bench and snatched Andra's lifxarpa. He located the injector. Zander grabbed Nyk's arm and pressed a thumb into a tendon. Nyk's hand opened and the injector dropped. Zander picked it up. “What's this? Andra, catch!” He tossed the injector to her. “Dispose of this.”

Andra acknowledged with a snap of her head and headed for the waste reprocessor. Zander withdrew another injector. He grasped the needle guard in his teeth, pulled it off and spat it out. “Careful of this one, Nyk. It's poison.”

Nyk backed away from Zander and found himself in a corner. Zander advanced and touched the tip of the needle to Nyk's arm. “Don't move or you'll feel this. Andra, there's a shuttlecar parked outside. Under the seat is a polymer case. Fetch it here.” She started down the staircase. Nyk tried to edge away. Zander shook his head. “Don't, Nyk.”

Andra appeared at the top of the stairs and handed the case to Zander. “Now, down on the floor, Nyk. Face down.” Nyk lay on the floor. Zander began flipping through a collection of injector cartridges in the case. “Here we are. Don't worry, Nyk. This one's only a sedative, but a strong one. Something to make you a bit more cooperative.” Nyk started to squirm away. “Careful, Nyk. Which one do you want?” Zander removed an injector from the case, flipped it open, cocked the roller, inserted the cartridge and snapped the gadget shut. He grasped the needle guard in his teeth and pulled it off. Nyk felt Zander lift the hem of his tunic to expose his buttock.

He eyed the point Zander held to his arm. The other needle bit into his backside. In the periphery of his vision caught some motion, and he tried not to betray what he saw. Andra was approaching Zander from behind. Something she held glinted in a shaft of light. She jabbed Zander's shoulder, and Nyk heard the snap of an injector's discharge.

“Aahhh!” Zander exclaimed, stood and dropped the injector. He started to grab for his shoulder, but fell like a board to the floor and began convulsing. His head thrashed from side to the side, his tongue slipped out and he began to froth at the mouth. He made a gurgle and was still, eyes staring at the ceiling.

Nyk removed the undischarged injector from his rear and sat up. He glanced at Zander's lifeless body, averted his gaze and pinched his lips together.

Andra knelt and threw her arms around him. “Oh, Nykkyo, I hope I didn't hurt you! I had to make it look real.” She peppered his cheek and neck with kisses.

“You made it real enough. I was convinced and so was he. How did you know to do that?”

“Colonial politics is serious business, and that's the assignment Vebinad Academy trains us for.”

“They must've also taught you acting... How did you overcome his drug mixture?”

She smiled, lifted the hem of her tunic, and showed him a green splotch on her thigh near a cut where the needle grazed her skin. He stood and embraced her and she lay her head against his shoulder.

“His post-hypnotic directive -- how did you overcome that?”

She looked into his eyes. “I don't know ... I ... I saw him threatening you and I knew I had to stop him.” She pointed to the spent injector, still embedded in Zander's flesh. “I was saving it for me.”

Nyk placed a vidphone call to Internal Affairs and was told a skimmer was being dispatched. The vidisplay began signaling an incoming call. He answered with a wristscan.

Senta's image appeared in the vidisplay. Her hair was disheveled and she had a bruise under one eye.

“Nykkyo! Oh, Nykkyo, quick! Zander's on his way there -- he came here looking for Andra. I heard the chime, opened the door and there he was -- he forced himself in and ransacked the apartment. He asked me where Andra was -- I wouldn't tell him -- he came after me with an injector. We struggled and he overpowered me -- he injected me and I lost all my will.” She began crying. “I told him Andra was in Sudal at the Residence -- I couldn't help myself -- I tried, but I couldn't keep from telling him! I know he's headed there -- he's after her. Do something! Hide her -- send her away!”

“You're too late.”

“Oh, no! Don't tell me he took Andra!” She buried her face in her hands and began sobbing. “He'll kill her, or she'll kill herself. She said she'd die before returning to him, and I believe her. I can't bear it. Poor, poor Andra, it's all my fault,” she wept. “I talked her into running away. I don't know how I'll live with myself. I love her so much.”

“No, Senta. Zander's dead. Andra killed him with nerve toxin.” Nyk beckoned Andra to the vidisplay and stood back.

“I'm all right, Senta.”

“Oh, Andra, thank goodness, thank goodness! I'm coming to Sudal. I'll be on the next train. I'm so happy you're all right, and I'm so happy you're finally free from that horrid, horrid man.”

Andra turned her shoulder to the vidisplay and touched the diamond- shaped Baxa wedding crest tattoo. “No, Senta. I'll never be free from him.”

“I'll see you tomorrow.”

“Senta, you shouldn't come down here until we get the all clear from Seymor,” Nyk said. “It may not be safe. I'll call once I hear from him.”

“Do you promise you'll call?”

“I promise.” The vidphone window went black.

Andra stooped, picked up the shell and held it to her bosom. They climbed the spiral staircase to the trapdoor in the roof. Nyk pushed it opened and they stepped onto the flat observation deck in the center of roof and looked toward Sudal. Starlight illuminated the countryside to full-moon brightness.

“I can't believe you had the presence of mind to do what you did. I'm useless in a fight.”

“You were wonderful, Nyk. We defeated him together.”

“So you didn't really inject yourself all those times.”

“Cooperation was better than punishment. The academy taught us one lesson above all others. The first order of business is survival. I cooperated to survive.” He felt her arm around his waist. “I'd never have gone back to him, not after tasting my freedom. Senta's right -- I'd have used that toxin on myself, first. I'd have used it eagerly.”

Nyk pointed toward a large skimmer approaching in the distance. It set down beside Zander's shuttlecar and a squad of men emerged. They were armed with stunners and wore sashes identifying them as Internal Affairs officers.

Nyk led Andra down the spiral staircase. He stood by the main entrance and met the officers. “This way,” he directed them up to the main living level.

An officer gestured toward Zander's body. “From the look of it, he died a rather unpleasant death.”

“ID him.”

An officer approached Zander's body with a portable scanpad and held it to his right wrist. The scanpad chirped as it read the ID chip in his metacarpal bone. The officer looked at the scanpad. “The ID comes back for Frax Hawryt.”

“That's impossible!” Nyk exclaimed. “This is Zander Baxa, no doubt.” He lifted Zander's left wrist and pointed to scars. He showed the officer those on his own wrist. “Zander and I made these marks on each other as boys. It was our bonding ritual.”

The officer consulted his handheld vidisplay. “We are requested to bring Frax Hawryt in for questioning. It seems he disappeared from Exo-401 over a year ago.” He touched the screen. “Zander Baxa is wanted, dead or alive, for his involvement in the Ricin Plot.”

“Do you have a photoimage of Frax?” Nyk asked.

The officer manipulated the vidisplay. An image appeared and he compared it with the body on the floor. “The resemblance is close -- quite close. We'll take him for positive genetic identification. Until that's done, I'll ask you two please not to leave Sudal.”

“We're not leaving this house,” Nyk replied.

The officers put Zander's body onto a levitating pallet and loaded it onto the skimmer. The skimmer lifted off.

Nyk led Andra to the house's control screen. He scanned his wrist, touched the screen and scanned his wrist again. “Scan yours,” he directed. She pressed her wrist to the scanpad and it chirped. “Now only you or I can open that door.” He touched the screen again and the door slid shut and latched.

Nyk heated a pair of dinner packages and set one in front of Andra. He sat at the table and opened his. “Ten days -- we've been cooped up in here with the shutters down for ten days.” He held up his thumb and forefinger. “I am this close to going stark, raving mad. How can you stand it?”

She picked up the shell and put it to her ear. “I can hear the sea.” She smiled. “I'm happy to be with you, Nyk.”

Nyk stood. “More tea?” She nodded and he refilled her cup.

“Senta called last night,” she said. “You were asleep. I think she's sorry for some of the things she said about you. She said she wishes you hadn't gone on that Agency assignment. Things might've been different. But might-haves don't count, do they?”

She reached across the table and took his hand. Nyk patted her forearm. “I can't believe what an idiot I was about you, Andra. You and I might've been good friends.”

“We are now, aren't we?”

“Yes, but I agonize over the time I wasted.”

The vidisplay signaled an incoming call. Nyk answered it with a wristscan. “Lad, I think the coast is clear. We've rounded up the lot of them. The assistant director of the ExoService has committed suicide. The headmistress of Vebinad Academy was detained, and has undergone interrogation.”

“With truth drug?”

“Yes, lad. She wasn't very cooperative, so she was transported to T- Delta. The authorities there are less squeamish about using truth agent. She became very cooperative once they started pumping the drug into her.”

“What was the Service head's role?”

“He was a double agent for the Altian faction. He arranged communication and transportation for the ricin plotters, and he recruited the crew manning the Exo scout. Zander was his right-hand man. The Vebinad headmistress was also his.”

“There's our link to the academy,” Nyk replied.

“Yes -- her cousin was one of those executed five years ago. The commander of ExoScout 327 has been detained. The Service overseer in charge of the 300-class Scouts has disavowed any knowledge and the commander is being permitted to twist in the breeze.”

“Tell me I'm not crazy, Seymor -- that was Zander.”

“No doubt. Internal Affairs made a positive genetic match.”

“What of the man whose identity he assumed?”

“Good question, lad. Frax Hawryt went AWOL from a 400-series Exo cruiser a year ago during a port-of-call. His shipmates said he had an assignation scheduled on Lexal.”

“So, Zander seduced him for his identity chip. Who looks at faces these days?”

“Zander could assume either identity at will.”

“What of Mykko Wygann and the weapons?” Nyk asked.

“Wygann has issued the following statement: 'I can with complete honesty categorically deny that anyone in my administration has received weapons from Earth or from anywhere else. Lexal is a peaceful colony, and the Lexalese a peaceful people.

'I can speak without encumbrance on behalf of the Lexalese colonial legislature and the Lexalese people. We deplore the transshipment of weaponry anywhere within the Floran hegemony, and we sincerely hope the perpetrators are captured and punished.' He also stated the man who visited Zander's apartment, one Rud Vadima, left his administration two years ago and his current whereabouts are unknown.”

“Do you believe that?” Nyk