Fish Swim in the Lake

Part 5.3 | Just cares for me

"I'm not a very good hostage," Colin said. His teeth sounded like twisting concrete. "Vlad won't pay for me."

"Fasten it." Bright, brittle tone notwithstanding, alphaDana now wondered if she'd acted too fast. Vas said Vlad would protect her -- from what? -- and abruptly then that Vlad was a threat and they had to get away -- why? Why was Vas concerned about her seeing something that, while unusual, was -- was hardly, in the words he'd used, top secret!

"I'm not holding you for ransom," alphaDana said. The road was trickier here. It went up and around the rough, thick-treed hillside. There were no streetlights. Clouds of fireflies imitated city neon. Silver water made a plausible highway, flanked by stripped grey trunks like burned out lamps. "I'm holding you hostage," she said. "So Vlad won't just bomb the whole car."

"You think he'd kill me?" the astronaut mumbled thickly from the back seat. "I'm a diplomat."

"So was Tony, a diplomat's son at least. Now he's in the trunk. Right, Killer?"

"I didn't mean!--"

"I know. I said I know!"

"I never killed anybody before," Colin said. "I never even arrested anybody."

She turned down the on-ramp to the Gatineau Parkway. The road still jerked but not so hard. There was a meter or more of close cropped heavy green grass, stained black by night, cleared on each side of the pavement. She extruded a sensor on the left side of her head, opened the driver's side window, and started recording the swamps and stark, leaf-shaggy hills. Waste not, etc, she thought.

She wanted to ask Vas right now, what was going on, but it was evident that Colin would have something to say too. Colin would probably lose his calm and the last thing she needed was him yammering in her ear like an antique tin carousel while she was trying to drive.

Besides, it looked like Vas had gone to sleep. His chest thrashed unevenly. He'd tucked his inhaler between his body and his right arm; his left arm hung loosely over the side of the seat. His mouth was wet and bubbling.

"Lean back there," she said to Colin. "Make sure he's OK."

Colin unbuckled and twisted back. He worked his arm between the front seats to strain his palm over Vas's twitching chest. "I don't know," he said. "His pulse is OK." He turned around and refastened his seat belt.

"How did you know I'd go to Lola?" she asked Colin. It seemed a safe and short question.

"Where else would you go?" Colin sounded surprised. "Aren't you two lovers?"

Posted by gtaylor at May 08, 2002 09:28 AM