“How could you kill a human being?” Grant asked, incredulous despite himself.
“To prepare the way for His kingdom,” she said, as if reciting from rote. “To do His work. I’m willing to give my own life, if needed.”
“But that’s not what God wants.”
“How would you know?” she sneered. “You’re on
Grant went to her desk and sank into its chair. “Tami, this isn’t about religion.”
“Oh, no?”
“No,” said Grant, feeling weary, drained. “It’s politics. Don’t you see? The New Morality is using religion as a cover for its political agenda. It was never about religion. It was always politics.”
“You’re dead wrong, Grant. We’re doing God’s work. You secularists are on the side of the devil.”
“By their fruits—”
“Don’t quote Scripture at me!” Hideshi snapped. “Don’t try to convert me to your atheist ways!”
“But I’m a Believer!”
“So you say.”
It was like talking to a statue, Grant thought. Then he recalled his real reason for coming to her.
“You killed Irene Pascal, didn’t you?”
Hideshi looked surprised, almost shocked. “Me? Why would I do that?”
“To wreck the deep mission.”
She laughed at him. “Brightboy, are you ever wrong! I didn’t kill anybody.”
“Then who did?”
“Kayla.”
“Kayla! She’s one of you?”
With a satisfied smirk, Hideshi said, “Go ask her.”
Grant prowled through the station, searching. Kayla, he was telling himself. She’s one of the Zealots. The whole station must be infested with them. I’ve got to find her before she does any more damage. Before she kills someone else or tries to blow up the whole station.
The more Grant thought about it, the more he was convinced that Tamiko had told him the truth. The Panther, with her perpetual angry scowl, had been alone with Irene that last night. Kayla fed her the amphetamines that killed her.
At first he had thought it must have been Devlin. The Red Devil has access to all kinds of drugs, and he’d sold some to Irene, Grant knew. But Irene was too intelligent to take a harmful dose. She would never do that to herself. No, the overdose had to be slipped to her unknowingly, by someone she knew and trusted. Someone she loved.
Kayla Ukara. A Zealot. A fanatic. A murderer.
He searched the station for her, starting with her usual workstation in the sensor lab and combing labs and maintenance shops until at last he pushed through the doors of the mission control center.
The center was silent, dimly lit, the big wallscreens blank, the consoles dead. Except for the one at which Ukara sat, staring into one small screen, hunched over, elbows on the console keyboard, head resting in her hands, eyes locked on the single glowing screen.
Grant padded softly down the ramp that had been built to accommodate Dr. Wo’s wheelchair. He stopped when he could see, over Ukara’s shoulder, that the screen she was watching displayed a video of Irene Pascal.
“You killed her,” Grant said.
She wheeled around, shock showing clearly on her face.
“You murdered Irene.”
For an instant Grant thought she was going to leap at him, fingers curled into claws. Then she relaxed, the anger and surprise in her face faded away, and she slumped back in the little wheeled chair.
“I killed Irene,” Ukara admitted. “It wasn’t murder, but I killed her, yes.”
“You tried to wreck the deep mission,” said Grant.
Ukara shook her head. “All I wanted to do was to save Irene. I didn’t want her to go on the mission. She herself was frightened of it, terrified almost, but she was too loyal to refuse the assignment.”
“Save her?” Grant snapped. “By feeding her enough amphetamines to kill her?”
“It wasn’t a fatal dose,” Ukara replied, looking miserable now. “I didn’t know it would kill her. I just wanted her to get sick enough to be taken off the mission.”
Grant pulled up one of the other chairs and sat down next to her. “I wish I could believe that.”
“I didn’t know it would affect her so strongly in that soup they were living in. I didn’t want to kill her. I loved her.”
Grant studied her face. Ukara didn’t look like a panther now. She looked desperately unhappy, close to tears.
“But you’re a Zealot, aren’t you?” he asked.
Ukara’s eyes flashed wide. “A Zealot? One of those fanatics?” She broke into a bitter, angry laugh. “Oh, yes, certainly. A black lesbian. They have troops of us in their ranks. Whole battalions full!”
She jumped to her feet. “I killed the person I loved! Isn’t that punishment enough, without an idiot like you asking stupid questions? Dr. Wo understands what happened. Who appointed you to be the prosecutor-general around here?”
Again Grant thought she was going to strike him, but instead Ukara strode angrily out of the control center, leaving him sitting alone, stunned, with Irene Pascal’s face still framed on the single working console screen.
He sat there for a long time, thinking, remembering, replaying the hours and days and weeks. So much has happened, Grant said to himself. Everything’s changed so much. The whole world has changed.
He turned to the console and powered up its communications systems.
The screen showed one of the young men who had accompanied Beech in the infirmary. He was still dressed in a somber dark suit, clean shaven, hair neatly combed.
“I want to make a call to my wife,” he said.
The young man shook his head. “You are being held incommunicado. That means no outgoing calls. Be grateful that we allowed you out of the infirmary.”
Grant nodded curtly and cut the connection.
“Red Devlin,” he told the communications computer.
The screen remained blank for a few moments, but at last Devlin’s youthful, mustachioed face grinned back at him.
“Hey, there, Grant, what can I do for you?”
Devlin appeared to be in the kitchen area. Grant could see tall stainless-steel freezer doors behind him and the corner of what looked like an electric stove.
“I need to make an outgoing call,” Grant said, “and the powers-that-be want to keep me incommunicado.”
Devlin arched a brick-red eyebrow. “You want me to skirt around the New Morality blokes, is that it?”
“Yes. Can you do it?”
“For you, chum, damned right I’ll do it. You’re a bloody hero and those silly bastards are a major pain in the backside.”
Grant hesitated. “Uh, it’ll be a personal message. To my wife.”
Devlin nodded. “I understand. Compress it and squirt it to me on the regular phone system. I’ll send it to a pal of mine Earthside along with my usual purchasing list. He’ll shoot it off to the proper party for you.”
“Thanks, Red,” said Grant. “I owe you one.”
Laughing, Devlin replied, “Hey, you’re gonna be a big mucky-muck around here one o’ these days. I’ve gotta be on your good side, don’t I now?”
Grant kept his message to Marjorie brief. He told her he was fine, but there were some problems with the official red tape that kept him from calling her directly.
“We’ll get it all straightened out pretty quickly, I’m sure,” Grant said, thinking of the shiploads of journalists
