Crawford stood at a penthouse suite of an expensive hotel, overlooking the dazzling lights of Tokyo. Autumn frosts were sharpening and brightening the air.
He turned and smiled at Silvia. "Nakatsugawa's got most of Kritiker. Now it's Esset's. It's so close now. Everything we could want. Things we never thought of wanting."
"Everything?" she asked hopefully.
He nodded toward a small table, set like the cover of a romance novel. Down to an oversize bouquet of red roses, and a bottle of champagne. He ushered her into a chair, opened the bottle efficiently. It was so romantic. Silvia wished she wasn't quite so aware of those fast, heavy hands. Just a little pressure, a little coaxing, and it snapped open. The cork was thrown away.
He lifted his glass. "Here's to us," he said. "Forever."
Steel lined ceiling, walls, and floor, reinforced doors with combination locks. Rosenkreuz' underground rooms made very effective cells even without the jailer.
The nameless jailer, a minor talent, had been listening to the radio, and switched it off reluctantly. He stared at Sally Phelan avidly, but it was her guard he addressed. "Okay, Berger, Crawford got Kinugawa before Kinugawa got him. Pay up."
Berger was a man big enough to handle the small Sally physically, and his green dyed hair showed membership in Rosenkreuz' self proclaimed elite, the telepaths. He handed over a few tokens. They were cheap looking, but Sally knew they represented unlimited power over weaker human beings.
Only then did the jailer open the door to Farfarello's room.
Sally caught her mental slip fiercely, and glared at Berger, who'd caught it, too. It was Jei who was waiting for her inside. Not a monster, but the man she loved. The man who'd stood up to Esset with her, and exchanged vows, while Farblos was still spluttering threats. Her husband.
Still, she looked anxiously into the face of the man facing her. It was sane and human. But the shadow was never far away, and she thought maybe it had grown a bit stronger.
He walked up to her and held her, hiding his face in her hair. She could almost feel Farfarello through his skin. Now the madness loosened its grasp. "Sally, don't do this!"
Her voice was still a bit hoarse. She'd had a full fit of screaming hysterics when Esset had first told her what they wanted. "I managed to get them to agree to use artificial insemination."
He shuddered. Or perhaps it was her. "That's not the main point. As your husband, I'm ordering you to - "
She said quickly, "Don't! I won't obey. It'll just add an argument between us. I agree I'm going to do something horrible. I almost want Berger to..." take away her self and will. Make her just a flesh android for Esset's use.
Which would leave Esset free to turn Jei back into Farfarello, their weapon.
Berger sneered and looked at his watch. "Okay, you've seen your pet freak's as okay as he gets. We've a plane to catch."
After a final kiss, Sally stood back. If Berger used force, Farfarello would rouse. To her husband, "I know you have the harder part." Weeks in this blind little cell, with nothing to do but fight madness. "I trust you."
Berger's sneer slid into a scowl. Sally's Christian charity rather failed at Berger. Nonetheless, as she followed him meekly out of Rosenkreuz steel walls into autumn, she could understand his annoyance. He was considered Rosenkreuz' top telepath. Yet he was kept in Rosenkreuz, a flunky for the Elders, while others were sent out to command teams, if not armies. And now, when he was allowed out, it was as a guard.
Sally thought his appointment to guard her might have been a sign of favour from the Elders. She strongly suspected that for all their age and arcane knowledge, when it came to interpersonal relationships, the Elders sucked.
The little airport nearest Rosenkreuz was dominated by its presence. Only a few international flights stopped over. Both their passengers and crew always found something felt wrong in that little field. They were apt to blame it on the weather, or think the high mountains around stifling. As long as it kept them herded close together, and eager to leave, the broadcasting telepaths didn't care.
Sally had somehow thought it would be just her and Berger flying to Japan. It wasn't an enjoyable prospect, but she wasn't please to see Berger's little friend, Layla, waiting for them. Simple mindedness was one thing, but the little, telekinetic redhead was plain creepy. She giggled at them, as usual sounding just a hair off key. "Japan!"
Sally looked at Berger with surprise. "You don't think you can take care of me yourself?"
His scowl had never quite gone away. "Layla will help. I might get distracted. I want to be able to do some scanning without my attention on you."
Layla said, "Anyway, I'm not going only as a guard. I'm going for the same reason you are."
They were boarding now. With Jei's life and sanity at stake, Sally was as eager to avoid attention as they were. Not until they were snugly ensconced in first class did she ask, "Are you going to be Esset's second string, then?"
"No. I'm going to someone else. My kid's going to be a big talent, to serve yours."
Sally wondered whether the change in altitude was stupefying her. "How can they be sure? Talents seem to be a complex trait, not carried on one or two genes."
Layla's untroubled expression barely flickered. "Something about – genetic homogeneity."
Sally's skin crawled. Because she came from a mountain village, Rosenkreuz people were prone to think her ignorant. But for her first thirteen years, she'd had Italy's standard state schooling, and done well. She knew what 'genetic homogneity' meant. Layla was talking about incest.
Sally said carefully, "You do realise such a child is likely to be unhealthy, and perhaps retarded?"
Berger returned his attention from the passengers near their seats. "We're after a strong talent, and that's the way to get one."
Sally looked at Layla. Normally, Layla's expression was that of a nasty child. Now she looked rather older, and even nastier.
Sally turned to the in-flight movie.
It was in Japanese. This had seemed a good way to help Berger's implant of the Japanese language take hold. Unfortunately, it was an art film. Its makers would have called it existential, if they'd thought it worth while to learn the word. It depressed Sally immensely.
Narita Airport was full of people who looked exactly like the ones in the film. Sally had never quite realised there were that many people in the world. As they flooded around her, she found herself shrinking closer to Layla. When she swerved away again, she bumped into a neat Japanese businesswoman, who snarled elegantly at her.
Berger hauled her back into line. His fingers dug painfully into her left arm. He nodded over part of the seething mass. "That's where our car will be waiting." His tone implied, 'had better be waiting'.
There was a long line of limousines waiting, and crowds of people heading for them. Layla made a small, unobtrusive telekentic shield around herself, but Sally was outside it,being jostled and trod upon.
Sally blindly pressed after Berger. Just as she felt she was about to be suffocated by human flesh, a hand grasped her right arm. It was as strong as Berger's grip, but didn't hurt. A deep man's voice. "Mrs Phelan?"
Sally blinked and stared into a pair of grey-violet eyes. Those, and the red hair, couldn't be natural, could it?
With formal manners, the young man settled her into the back of a plush limousine. Sally noticed Layla bristle. She'd consider a top rank telekinetic count more than a healer.
Once both women were in the back seat, the redheaded man turned to Berger. "Berger-san, I'm here on behalf of Schwarz to take you to a comfortable safe house. If you want to spend any time seeing Tokyo, Schwarz has opened a bank account for you." He offered a gold card.
Berger refused it. "I have a platinum card of my own. And we rate more than a mundane."
The young man bowed. "Normally all of Schwarz would have come to meet you, but Crawford was out of town. This means extra work for Schuldig and Lin."
"Fujimiya, isn't it? Crawford's chosen a bad time for a holiday."
"He is on the business of the One." Berger looked at him for a moment. His frown grew worse. Fujimiya said, "Schuldig's taught me to shield. There are some things to be kept even from you." Berger sulked all the drive to the safe house.
Sally could deduce he'd been looking forward to rubbing Crawford's nose in his failure. Underlings weren't quite the same. A mundane one least of all.
However, Schuldig and Lin were better than nothing. Especially, Schuldig. Esset's training methods being what they were, there would be history between Berger and Schuldig, and not good history.
The six Esset agents arranged themselves around the table of a disappointingly Westernised dining room. Berger took the head of the table. Schwarz had put chairs for Sally and Layla on the opposite side to themselves. Layla's chair lifted over the table and set itself beside Schuldig. Close beside.
Berger said, "We are here to discuss the Vessel."
Schuldig reassured him, "The Vessel is secure, and in the best of health."
Berger shook his head. "Someone so retarded? He's spent most of his life in low price institutions until he was used as a doll for some sadist's little games. However well Schwarz has treated him, he won't be in the best of health. And he's soiled. Schwarz has failed in its assignment. The obvious host, the one Esset expects, is an unborn child."
Schuldig sneered. "And you think the One's going to like that?"
"I think the One expects us to provide the best host we can. Physically and genetically."
"One of Tsuji's little clones?"
Berger nodded at Sally. "This woman is a homozygous carrier of loci for aggravating somatic expression of the Kramer-Crowley allele." He was looking at Schuldig.
Schuldig looked at Fujimiya, of all people. Possibly because he didn't want to hear Berger explain it to everyone in that patronising tone, Fujimiya answered him aloud. "If that isn't the nonsense it certainly sounds, it means she carries a gene to enhance any Talent."
Silvia said suddenly, "But it's really dangerous for the mother."
Berger shrugged. "There's a chance. She and her husband don't have any chance otherwise."
Layla relaxed her grasp of Schuldig's arm enough to say, "Besides, what an honour! To be mother of the One!"
Lin touched her own belly, and shuddered. To Sally, "How far are you gone?"
Berger said, "That's why we want Crawford. The child must have the best genetic inheritance, and if you knew Sally's husband...The worst!"
Schuldig managed to choke down his laughter. Rosenkreuz pupils learn early, its high brass don't appreciate people laughing in their face. "You mean you want Crawford for his - " Lin and Fujimiya gave him identical looks. "Okay." To Sally, "Sorry. But Crawford?"
"Clairvoyance is the one human talent the One might not naturally possess. Besides, Crawford must have good genes in other ways. Before him, there was a rule about strong clairvoyance. The man broke the talent or the talent broke the man."
Sally reminded him, yet again, "Esset have agreed to artificial insemination."
Layla said, "I wouldn't want artificial insemination. Creepy!"
Trying to disengage her from his arm, then his shoulder, then his neck, Schuldig said, "Keep it for your memoirs. Why should I care?"
"We're going to have a baby. Esset says so."
"Hold on. Why us - " suddenly he recoiled out of his chair to step back a long pace. He looked at Berger. "Oh, no."
Both the other Schwarz seemed to have heard his realisation. Fujimiya got to his feet, and looked at Schuldig. "You can't do this."
Berger said, "He will do this. This sort of sentimental twaddle is for sheep."
Schuldig and Fujimiya looked at each other for a moment. Then the mundane seemed to blank out. He walked out of the room. Schuldig made to follow.
Whatever Berger thought at Schuldig, it dragged his attention back sharply. When Schuldig had sat down again, Berger went on. "But we want the foetus ready for midwinter. So the sooner the better."
Lin frowned. "But the foetus will be only..."
"We think an early foetus will give the One more flexibility to adapt it to its needs."
Faced with the needs of the One, Crawford had agreed, via his telepathic link with Schuldig, to be at the clinic the next day. In Japan, Esset had none of the private clinics it did in Europe, so Crawford, or perhaps Schuldig, had come up with the idea of using the biggest, busiest clinic in Tokyo.
If Lin altered the hospital computers to bump Sally's insemination to head of the queue, the medical staff would just think they'd forgotten. Berger could always encourage that belief.
Needed by Esset to burn an old library down to the cellars, Geisel had arrived at Tokyo on a slightly later flight. He was sitting on the other side of Sally, in the waiting room, though Berger didn't really think Sally would now panic and run. He wanted an excuse to stop Sally being Sally, and had been trying to make her panic and rebel for some time now. He'd developed a grudging respect for her nerve.
Crawford's message had been he wanted to do this quick, and get back out of Tokyo to – whatever he was doing. More on edge than he would have admitted, Berger kept a telepathic watch out for him. But he was concentrating on the street entrance, if only because of the Kritiker agent on watch. He didn't know whether he was Nakatsugawa's or the holdouts', but he didn't like it in either case.
Thinking of ways to take it out on Crawford, he almost missed the flicker of Crawford's mind deep in the was Crawford, wasn't it?
He stood. Geisel sharpened his watch of Sally as Berger entered the crowded corridor.
Trampled by mundanes, Berger wondered if he should just go on waiting for Crawford. After all, it was Crawford's fault if he didn't turn up, wasn't it?
Berger could just imagine what Esset would say to that excuse.
Anyway, he was almost sure it was Crawford. Over there, wasn't it?
Berger did some trampling of his own.
He searched pretty well the entire hospital. After checking with Geisel, and finding Crawford hadn't arrived, or sent a message, Berger concentrated on tracking down that mind.
He rather thought it was from the intensive care unit. A quick scan of the staff's minds elicited there was no recent admission of anyone at all like gaijin, so he began checking both visitors and the staff itself. Crawford would be at least as well screened as the rest of Schwarz, so that meant doing it physically. For an hour or so, anyone over medium height was apt to find a tall, green-haired gaijin peering into his face. Berger especially checked operating room staff. The mask would be such a good screen.
"Nothing," he sent to Geisel. "Nothing your end?"
No one answered.
Berger sent a quick burst of mental noise to his teammate, the equivalent of a wordless shout. It got no response.
Berger scrambled through the crowd as fast as he could, but it still took a long time to reach the room. It was empty.
Beyond the inner door, the doctor was already busy with his next patient. Berger wouldn't even have to smooth memories from his mind.
For a second Berger thought he must have come to the wrong room. He backed out and checked the Japanese crowding the corridor. He glanced through several of the nearer rooms, knowing he would find nothing.
The first room was the right one. The furniture, the magazines and the paintings were identical. Except one of the couches had been pulled a little away from the wall. He could see the bottom of a man's European style shoe poking out from behind it.
There wasn't a flicker of life.
Behind the couch, Geisel was the only corpse. He was lying on his stomach, a small patch of dark crimson between his shoulder blades. Berger would leave that to the doctor, when he found it. He had no desire to burden himself with a corpse.
He sauntered out the street entrance.
Feeling secure between two empty ambulances, the Kritiker agent didn't even see him coming. There was a mental blur. Then he found himself flat on his back. A man twice his size was standing over him, foot heavy enough on his throat so it took all his strength to breathe. He was staring down at the agent with dead, lilac eyes.
"Has Kritiker got her?"
The agent was determined not to answer, even if the big gaijin had let up the pressure on his throat. Yet all the agent could think of was what he'd seen earlier. A small, blonde woman being escorted from the hospital, by a white haired gaijin, who kept his arm around her all the time.
Berger told himself it was only common sense to crush the agent's throat. He'd seen a fragment of Esset politics Esset wouldn't like known.
That Berger enjoyed it was only incidental.
Sally kept holding Jei as he escorted her to the back seat of a rented car. He sat down with her andnodded to the driver. "Sally, this is Rudolf. He helped me escape Rosenkreuz."
Sally smiled blindingly at the jailer, whose name she'd never bothered to learn. She opened her mouth to thank him, and found herself beginning to cry.
Slightly appalled, as a man's apt to be when confronted with unexpected tears, Rudolf said, "It's a pleasure, ma'am."
When he'd taken the mail from the box, Ran couldn't stop himself riffling them for his own name. He told himself he was a grown man. He shouldn't fear seeing his own name on an envelope, even in Schuldig's jaunty handwriting. They'd made a bargain. Ran help Schuldig and Silvia out of their hole, and he could walk out of Schwarz, and stay out. It was something he'd forgotten to hope for.
The talk with Birman had given Ran more hope.
Despite Nakatsugawa, if there was anyone in Japan who'd believe talk of ancient demons, and who could do something about it, it was Kyouko Takaoka. Perhaps prompted by a well-hidden romantic streak, more likely prompted by Queen, she'd even suggested Ran allying with Crashers.
He'd tried to be honest with Yuushi. Though he was gay, he didn't think he'd be ready for anything romantic for a long time, and perhaps forever. Yuushi had smiled at him from his five years' seniority, which was annoying, yet oddly reassuring as well. Yuushi had said he could wait, when it was something worth waiting for. Even now the memory of the words warmed Ran. And of the deep, rich voice they'd been spoken in.
Meanwhile, Ran could help Yuushi's work with the Japan Deaf-Blind Association. The low pay would be enough. Mrs Fujimiya was going to put Aya through St Lukes College of Nursing, so Ran didn't have to worry about that.
Wondering if his mother would be prepared to invest some Fujimiya money in a school for the blind, Ran walked up the stairs to his mother's flat, opening it with his key. Fujimiya style was rather different from Takatori. Mrs Fujimiya lived in a small flat, if a fairly luxurious one. She patronised opera, not golf courses. Her security was not four men in white suits, but unobtrusive top of the line electronics.
Which was no good at all if a telepath could read the codes from the owner's mind.
Ran stared numbly at the scene for a moment. His mother sat in a chair in the middle of her living room. Berger stood behind her. "Good afternoon, Fujimiya." When Ran stepped forward, Berger lay his hand on Sumiko's head. Pain whitened her face, and she braced herself not to show more. "I can kill her with my mind before you take another step." Ran stood very still. "Tell me about Schwarz."
Ran looked into those dead eyes. "I'll tell you anything. You don't need to hurt her."
"Drop your shield first."
Ran hadn't even realised he'd raised it. He dropped it, and braced himself.
It was as effective as bracing himself against a swinging plank. Schuldig might be a stronger telepath, but he'd never entered Ran's mind as brutally. Berger was after memories of Crawford. He ignored the earlier ones. Ran was dragged back to the morning of nine days ago.
He was dressing himself, against Schuldig's ingenious efforts, when the telepath pulled away with a loud and vivid curse. Ran was sleepy enough to wonder if he was the cause, until Schuldig threw on his technicoloured dressing gown, and ran from the bedroom.
Ran found himself following. Somehow his sword was in his hand.
Schuldig banged open the door of Crawford and Silvia's bedroom.
Silvia had donned her best kimono. She was made up as if for a formal dinner party. Face carefully composed, she was sitting, with straight back and folded hands, beside Crawford, who was in bed, arranged like a corpse for viewing. Ran saw his chest move in slow, sleeper's breaths.
Schuldig turned round on Ran, and snarled, "This is your fault!" Silvia looked startled. Schuldig went on, "It was your idea a shot of joyjuice wouldn't trigger a precog's defenses." Ran could barely remember that one, among the many ideas he'd offered Schuldig, in the early days. Had they really bothered to tell Silvia, and she bothered to remember? "If you think I'm going to go along with turning Crawford over to Farblos - "
Suddenly much less composed, Silvia stood up. "I'm not Farblos any longer! They'd be the first to punish me for breaking obedience." Schuldig looked at her. Reading her mind made him shake his head in amazement. Ran knew Rosenkreuz training was to look for plots and double crosses. Ran was less surprised than either of them. Almost as if explaining to herself what she'd done, "I did my best for this team. It's just...He said forever. I couldn't face this forever." She composed herself, "I thought you might take over Schwarz."
"And if I don't?"
"Then Crawford will kill me."
"If all that was at stake was power and immortality, I might. But Crawford promised me freedom. You bitch, we were going to escape Esset!" He advanced on her with murder on his face.
Ran thought he'd never seen his lover naked before. But there was still Silvia's neck to save. He said, "He promised you freedom. He promised Silvia she'd be his respected partner."
They'd been together long enough, Schuldig hardly needed telepathy. "You can't lie to a telepath."
"You want to bet everything on that?"
Berger was so excited by news of Esset's pet oracle plotting defection he skimmed later memories. Schuldig, being almost sure of Crawford, putting him in the best intensive care in the same hospital where Sally had vanished, and for the same reason. It was the largest forest to hide a leaf. Of course, the hospital records were as unCrawfordlike as possible. Schuldig promising Ran, if he'd back up his lies, Ran could walk free of Schwarz. Schuldig, still determined to win free of Esset.
Ran felt Berger's mind bearing heavier on his. Berger was going to shatter his mind.
Sumiko seemed to have decided screaming for help was the only thing she could do. It certainly distracted Berger.
He looked down at this brief nuisance in annoyance. "Then join him, you bitch!"
As soon as Berger's attention flickered, Ran moved. Schuldig had always emphasised a mundane would only get one blow at a psychic, and the edge of Ran's hand hit Berger's neck at just the angle Schwarz had drilled into him.
Pulling Berger's corpse off Sumiko, Ran wondered how they'd rate that kill. Sloppy, he'd guess. Over-emotional.
Sumiko closed her eyes. She would still be dazed from Berger's skilled application of pure pain.
Ran knelt down beside her chair, and held her hands. "The pain will go. The man who did it's dead. He's not hurting you any more." He hesitated. Perhaps it wasn't the time, but he should have said this before. "I know you loved Father, and miss him. But Aya and I need you, too. We're so very glad Takatori didn't get you." Looking at her thoughtful face, "Not just us. You've friends, and employees, and those charities of Yuushi's that you help."
Sumiko squeezed his hands back, then gently pulled free. "You seemed to know this freak."
Ran put sentiment aside. "Well, to start with, it's best not to call them freaks. It's rather a trigger word."
That was all the information she got for a while. Her screams had brought several neighbours, banging on her flat door, shouting anxiously.
They trampled in, staring at Berger as if they'd paid admission, and milled around until the
neighbourhood cop came in. He opened his notebook. "Now, this gaijin broke in and menaced you. Did he give any clue to his identity?"
Sumiko looked at Ran. Ran had worked with a master misleader for a while. He disclaimed, "I can recognise German. But I can't actually speak it."
"Pity." The cop looked around at the rich, respectable Japanese looking to him, and said importantly. "No harm in telling you. This guy is wanted in connection with the murder of another gaijin. He was seen wandering distractedly around a hospital just before he killed the other man."
Everyone looked at Sumiko with a sort of satisfied horror.
If Schuldig had been honest with himself, he would have admitted there had never been any chance Ran could forget how Schuldig had forced him. But Rosenkreuz education doesn't worry much about facts and logic. And there was someone so easy to blame, close to hand.
"I'm sorry about your teammates," he said truthfully. The thought of Layla being assigned to Schwarz horrified him, and she seemed to have decided to assign herself. "We can put off starting that baby for a few days."
For a moment the expression on Layla's face could almost be termed thoughtful. Layla hadn't spent much time thinking about a flesh-and-blood baby. Then things returned to normal. She said quickly, "My duty to Esset comes first."
Schuldig wondered if Ran would feel sorry for the desperation forcing this woman to hang onto his arm. He was often soft about young women, and Layla would always be very young. She was so scared of failing Esset, it hadn't sunk in, yet, she ought to be scared of whoever killed her two teammates.
He managed to retrieve his right arm, and let her grasp his left. "Then perhaps we can drive down the river, and look at the moonlight on the water." Schuldig had always considered the docks a lucky killing ground.
A few hours later, half a world away, a withered old hand wrote Layla's name on the list.
The list of names were under the heading Farfarello. There were quite a few. Some were definitely dead. Some, like Crawford, just disappeared. Among them, agents who'd normally be suspected of defecting. With the others, however, they made an unmistakeable pattern.
Well, hunting psychics, sooner or later Farfarello would bite off more than he could chew. Meanwhile, he'd weed out some weaklings from Esset.
Sally was a loss, but certainly there were other ways for the One to enter this world.
His intercom said in a diffident tone, "Professor Tsuji has arrived, sir."