“Tolliver,” I answered.
On the deckplate I heard hoofbeats, the crash of Talis’s horse. And then someone began to scream.
“Shut that off! God!” Elián wrapped his arm around Burr’s neck and twisted both their faces aside.
But the tablet was across Grego’s body from Da-Xia, and Elián was busy, and I did not care.
“What do you want, Greta?” Burr’s voice was rough because of the pressure on his Adam’s apple, but he seemed calm.
I had frankly no idea what I wanted. The recording on the floor was screaming intolerably. Then it stopped.
“Which one’s the broadcast jammer?” Elián panted. He sounded strained, much more so than the man he was choking.
Tolliver Burr jabbed the thumb of his free hand toward a certain machine. “That one. I’ll shut it off for you. I’ve got no loyalties to Cumberland. There’s no need for drama.”
“Drama!” said Da-Xia. “You just shot Grego!”
The recording had looped around to its beginning. “That’s lovely, dear,” said Burr’s voice. “That’s perfect.”
“Worth a shot,” said Burr. “I thought you might be angry enough to kill me. But you’re not, are you, Greta? You really are a pacifist.”
“I’m not,” said Elián, and pushed the dull edge of his knife harder.
Da-Xia stood up. “If you think so, Mr. Burr, then you do not understand the Children of Peace.”
The recording said: “We can all hear you, Greta; you’re a star.”
“Give me the gun, Greta,” said Xie.
But I didn’t move. My whole arm, held stiffly out and ending in a gun, was alien to me.
The recording caught a murmur. “Oh, Greta, you are perfect.”
“You are,” Burr echoed himself, smiling fondly. “You were raised to just take it.”
I closed my eyes.
A shout, a struggle—I opened my eyes and Tolliver Burr was lunging toward me like a rabid dog.
I lifted the gun and my hand twitched around it, and I—I—
I did not shoot him. The moment opened and seemed to stretch, and in that endless moment I did not shoot Tolliver Burr.
Elián caught Burr and growled, “I’ll cut your damn throat.”
Just take it indeed. “You do not understand me, Mr. Burr.” My voice rang out, as if I were speaking inside a bell. “You do not know the first thing about me. And I do hope that terrifies you.” I moved the gun some ten degrees and fired into the darkness. Burr yelped and jerked—but I had been aiming at the machine he had said was the broadcast jammer. The bullet struck metal with a spark and a smash, and the jammer’s lights winked off one by one.
My father told me something once. A quiet night on one of his boats, drifting on the glassy sea. He told me about le point vierge, the untouched place—the cupped and open space in the center of the human soul, where only God can enter. In that dark little room, with the blood between my toes, in that endless moment, I fell into the untouched place. I became Greta again, and whole. I was not afraid.
I handed Xie the gun.
She took it, and she shot every machine in the room. After all, there was no way to know if the torturer had been telling us the truth.
The sound was shattering. Ringing filled my ears. I worked my elbows back into their slings. Pain faded. I couldn’t hear, I didn’t hurt, and I was not afraid.
And in that strange state, I knew something. I saw something. I saw a way out. A way to save Elián, and Pittsburgh, and my soul—if not my life. A way out.
It was dazzling.
When every machine in the room was smoking, Da-Xia turned the gun on the smartplex tablet at my feet. It shattered. Each fragment kept playing a different piece of the recording of Tolliver Burr torturing me. But they were small pieces. I felt I could handle them.
I had seen a way out.
As if watching a vid on mute, I noted that Burr was still struggling. Elián gave his pinned arm a jerk, and suddenly the torturer went limp in his grip. His mouth widened with pain. Something must have broken, torn, dislocated. I cannot say I was sorry.
Elián had stopped trying to restrain Burr and was trying, now, to hold him up.
“What do we do with—” Elián couldn’t seem to decide whether to ask about Burr or Grego’s body first. But it didn’t matter, because at that moment a squad of soldiers burst into the room.
The soldiers had guns drawn but, fortunately, not blazing. I do not know what had alerted them—if the ampoules of goat pheromones had been discovered, if the soundproofing of the ship had failed in the face of all that gunfire, if the destruction of the broadcast jammer had set off an alarm. It did not seem to matter. Here they were, five soldiers, at the ready. Buckle was at the back of them. She looked more tired than ready.
Seeing them, Da-Xia dropped her weapon at once, and raised her blood-gloved hands. Elián hesitated, grunted, and let Burr drop. The communications specialist flopped to the floor like a hooked fish. I still wasn’t sorry.