Beka had
spat at him and screamed curses, damning him for a treacherous bastard as they
dragged her away - to death or slavery he hadn't enquired.
Dylan had
dropped brittle frozen words edged with hurt fury, still disbelieving he had
once more been betrayed. Unable to accept that his Systems Commonwealth would
undoubtedly fall again, collapsing inwards once it was known he was dead and the
Andromeda Ascendant in Nietzschean hands.
Trance
had vanished, not even the most thorough search team able to find her, and in
some strange way he was more relieved that she had escaped than if it had been
any of the others.
The
avatar was now just a heap of scrap metal in a corridor on level 12.
And the
last prisoner...the last prisoner looked at Tyr with steady blue eyes and for
once in his life was silent.
"Nothing
to say, little man? No diatribe on my betrayal of your trust?"
Even to
himself the words sounded bitter, the canker in the apple already making itself
apparent to him, now that the Jaguar had what they wanted, and Kodiak had what
he wanted. Harper stood there silently, and for long moments Tyr thought the
human would say nothing. Then he spoke quietly.
"You've
never betrayed the measure of trust I have for you."
Tyr
sneered, certain of Harper's forthcoming insult.
"And just
how far does that measure go?"
"I trust
you to make it quick."
Not for
the first time, Tyr was struck by the fact that for someone who usually wriggled
out from under Death's thumb by begging, whining and screaming, there were
instances when Harper shone with a pure indomitable dignity.
A dignity
that would be stripped from him by the Nietzschean interrogators. Because Harper
was too dangerous to use as an engineer, and too well known to leave
unbroken.
Tyr
reached out, ran a hand through the wild blonde hair, found it as soft as it had
always looked. Leaned over, tasted the lips and found them as sweet as he'd
always thought they would be.
"You were
right to trust me, Harper."
He said,
and pulled the trigger.
.