Hunt the Heavens: Book Two of the Shadow Warrior Trilogy Read Free Page B

sound like someone we want wandering around with his mouth at full drive,” Wolfe said.
    “I suggested just that quite strongly, and he pissed and moaned, and eventually said it’d add another ten thou to his bill.”
    “I’ll pay it,” Wolfe said.
    “I wish I’d been able to get somebody else,” Cormac said. “But you were in a hurry.”
    “What’re the odds any other disbarred doc’d be different? At least he doesn’t have a jar in his nose or an injector in his arm.”
    “So far,” Cormac said glumly. “Look, I’ve got to get back to it. If I bust ass, about the time you start looking like a human being, I might have something to show you. You sure you don’t need anything?”
    “I’m sure.”
    Cormac left the apartment. Wolfe heard the outer door close, then lock. There was no sound but the soft murmur of music from the player in the apartment’s central room and the hiss of the air recycler.
    Then he
felt
the presence.
    “May I enter your burrow?”
    “You may.”
    There was a long silence. Then the other said, still in the same language:
    “How unusual. Using the same senses you have, I see there shall be a vast difference. But beyond, you remain as you were. I am curious to see, once you are healed, what your own seeing shall grant you. I must say, you are incredibly ugly at the moment, even more so than normal to me.”
    “I’m not trying to fool
you
,” Wolfe said, changing languages. “Just all these goddamned people who want my ass on toast for wanting to help you.”
    The other also changed to Terran. “I listened to what that Cormac said and assume he meant the ship will be ready.
    “I have been wondering something. I sought the Mother Lumina, even though I have, as yet, no concrete proof of its existence. Was I correct in that? Or should I have been searching for the handful of other Al’ar whom I must believe were left behind when my people made The Crossing? I bow to your wisdom in this.”
    “The Mother Lumina, or your Guardians?” Wolfe said. “You seemed most convinced of the Guardians’ existence when you first explained your search.”
    “I was and am.”
    “I don’t know,” Wolfe said.
    He reached in the table beside his bed, took out the Lumina he’d taken from the cache of a thief he’d killed, touched it.
    The gray stone came to life, and a thousand colors pulsed through the room, flickering over Wolfe’s ruined face.
    • • •
    Joshua came suddenly awake.
    “You shouted,” said the one beside him. “Are you experiencing pain?”
    “No,” Joshua said. “At least … not much. No. I was in a dream. No, not a dream. I was being attacked. By … I do not know what. I heard a buzzing, though. Such as insects make.”
    “There are no insects on this artificial world,” the other said. “Or there should not be, at any rate. So of course it must have been a dream.”
    “I know.”
    “Look at your arm,” his companion said suddenly. Wolfe’s forearm showed red ridges, streaks. “What could that be?”
    “I don’t know. Maybe a reaction to the painkiller?”
    “But you have taken none since this afternoon.”
    “I don’t know.” Wolfe stared at the marks. Slowly they began to fade.
    Then he heard, in his mind, the sound of angry insects once more.
    • • •
    “Actually, I would like to have some trumpets for a proper fanfare,” Brekmaker said. “You have been an excellent subject. Now, take a look at yourself.”
    Joshua looked at the three screens.
    “I look like me,” he said. “Quite awhile ago. And I’m bright pink.”
    “That’ll change. I’m going to put you out again, and repigment the skin. One thing, Mister Taylor. I must caution you to work on your facial reflexes. If you frown as you always frowned, if you smile as you always smiled, then the lines will start coming back, and your resemblance to your former self will become far more marked than otherwise.
    “Now, lie back. You’ll be unconscious for perhaps half an hour