Awakened by the Giant Read online

  He reached for her again and she stepped away from him.

  “Don’t you dare touch me!”

  “Fine, I won’t but you have to come on.” He glared at her. “Will you come with me now or do I have to pick you up and carry you?”

  “I’ll come.” Clutching Snuffy to her chest, she followed him out of the lab. But just because she was going with him, didn’t mean that she believed him, she told herself grimly. Calden had a lot to answer for—not the least of which was the fact that he’d known his animals weren’t dying from natural causes. Apparently he’d been implanting them with suicide devices that killed them when their time was up. And even worse, he’d implanted one in her too!

  If I don’t die, she thought murderously, glaring at his broad back as he led the way down the corridor, I’m going to fucking kill him!

  Fifteen

  Madeline seemed to have some strange idea that he’d cloned her more than once. And she was upset with him—extremely upset—for cloning her in the first place.

  Well, he could certainly understand that, Calden admitted to himself. He’d been meaning to tell her the truth but he’d wanted to assure her future aboard the Mentat station first. And now it looked as though he’d be lucky if he could assure her any future at all.

  Calden shoved the thought away. He had to concentrate on the here and now—on getting Madeline off the station and finding her some help. That was all that mattered at the moment.

  You should have at least hidden her original body better, whispered a little voice in the back of his head. That was a hell of a way for her to find out the truth. You should have moved it out of the lab!

  He’d meant to, of course—but it had never seemed to be the right time to move her original remains. Once they began to get close, he’d had Madeline with him almost all the time and it was hard to make a good enough excuse to be gone long enough to move her body…

  Stop making excuses, whispered the little voice. You made a grave miscalculation, Calden. You might even say you fucked up. If she does live, it’s going to take Madeline a long time to trust you again.

  But he couldn’t think like that—couldn’t allow himself to think the word “if.” She had to live—he would make sure she lived!

  They reached his quarters and went inside. Calden grabbed a bag out of the wall storage unit—the same bag he’d brought his few meager possessions in when he had first moved to the Mentat station, five cycles ago, in fact.

  He didn’t take much—some Kindred meal cubes, the coin-sized storage disks that held his data, a tiny holo picture of his mother—the only one he had—the last picture she’d taken before she’d died when he was only eight cycles old. Then he went to the small desk and unlocked the drawer.

  He stared at the sleek, deadly blaster stored there. It was illegal to have it here but he’d smuggled it in, though he didn’t know why. Maybe he’d done if for the same reason he’d planted the bonding fruit seed. He’d taken the blaster at his friend, Bram’s insistence, who had wanted Calden to have protection, even though Calden had explained that the Mentat station was a non-violent space, devoted only to research and science.

  Might not be quite so non-violent now, Calden thought grimly. He grabbed the blaster and tucked it into the waistband of his trousers, under the white lab coat he wore. He wouldn’t use it unless he had to. But if he had to, he wasn’t going to hold back, he told himself.

  Then, almost as an afterthought, he swept up the small bonding fruit plant. Its silvery-green leaves were lush and full and several ripening fruits were clinging to its branches now. He and Madeline would probably never get to use them. But taking the plant was a gesture of hope—a gesture of defiance.

  If there was any way to get her to safety, Calden was damn well going to do it. And if they did get to safety and Madeline got her unit removed and ever forgave him, he wanted them to have a chance for a full and complete life. Without the bonding fruit, that wouldn’t be possible.

  So Calden took the plant and sealed it carefully into a side compartment of his bag. Then he turned to Madeline, who was still clutching the little brantha to her chest.

  “Come. We need to go.”

  She nodded, her eyes still shadowed with doubt, and didn’t say a word.

  But when Calden passed his hand over the door and the metal panel slid open, it wasn’t an empty corridor that greeted them.

  At least a dozen Mentats, Grack-lor in the lead, were standing right outside Calden’s quarters and all of them looked enraged.

  “What’s this? What in the Seven Hells are you all doing here?” Calden demanded, glaring at the huge Mentats who were standing there. Maddy saw with a shiver that Grack-lor was among them and he looked extremely pissed off. The pouch beneath his chin was bulging oddly—maybe because it was hugely swollen—and dripping black, oily liquid which might be the Mentat version of blood.

  “We’re here for you—or should we say we’re here for that little cunt of yours,” the big Mentat snarled. “So send her out now, Calden, if you don’t want to get hurt!”

  Calden seemed to grow even larger and Maddy saw his topaz eyes flash red.

  “You have no right to Madeline—she is mine,” he growled. “Now just step aside and let us pass. We are leaving this place so you’ll never have to see us again.”

  “I’m afraid we can’t let you do that, Calden.” Kro-thur stepped forward, cawing self-righteously. “Not with your work, that is. You know that you promised anything you worked on while you lived here with us would belong to the Mentat station. FATHER has sent us to collect it before you go.”

  “All right, fine.” With jerky movements, Calden reached in his bag, grabbed his data disks, and threw them at the Mentat. They bounced off Kro-thur’s scaly chest and clattered to the floor like shiny, silver coins. “There—satisfied?” he demanded.

  “By no means, Calden.” Kro-thur frowned. “You see, your specimen’s DNA still contains traces of the nutrient bath she was grown in. You know that is a proprietary formula which must never leave the station.”

  “Which means you’d better turn her over now,” Grack-lor snarled. “So we can dispose of her.”

  Maddy felt like her blood had turned to ice in her veins. She wasn’t sure what Calden was going to say but her stomach clenched like a slick fist when she saw the angry gleam in Grack-lor’s eyes.

  He’s going to kill me, she thought, feeling sick. Going to get his revenge. I’m going to wish I was already dead by the time he gets done with me!

  She looked anxiously at Calden again, seeing that the big Kindred’s eyes were now completely blood-red. But strangely, he didn’t say a thing. He shook his head and reached under his lab coat.

  “Calden, as you know—” Kro-thur began self-importantly but he never got to finish what he was about to say because Calden shot him right between his black, oil-spot eyes.

  After that, everything was a blur. Maddy watched as the other Mentats’ eyes grew wide and they stared with incomprehension as the tall, thin Kro-thur began to sag where he stood, his eyes blank, his mouth slack and drooling oily black blood.

  Calden didn’t give them a chance to react. Even before Kro-thur’s scaly body pitched forward and hit the floor, he was shooting the rest.

  Grack-lor gave a huge bellow of pain as he went down with three blaster-shots to the chest. Jong-tar, Calden shot right in his big mouth, as the Mentat started to protest. Even old Nusper-veis took a blast to the heart and never got up again. A few of the Mentats got away but all of their accusers fell dead, leaking oily black blood on the metal floor.

  Then Calden was grabbing her by the wrist and they were running—running as though their lives depended on it and FATHER was calling over the intercom as the lights in the corridor flashed from pale yellow to warning orange to angry red.

  “Calden, come back. You have committed several egregious violations of the oath you took when you came to us. Calden—”

  There was a small door off the sid