Betrayer of Worlds Read Online Free Page A

the words in the fine print.
    Six. Five.
    Beyond that disc were truths he had sought all his life. His past. His roots. If he did not go, could he live with himself?
    Four. Three. Two.
    Louis stepped—

NEVERLAND

4

    Nessus flicked into the isolation booth aboard
Aegis.
    Tonguing his transport controller again, he reappeared on a disc outside the booth on the reflecting side of the one-way glass. Shuffling off the disc he caught a glimpse of himself: twitchy, disheveled, wild-eyed. The manic state into which he had worked himself had all but dissipated.
    At any second Louis might arrive.
    Nessus was almost too drained to care. Courage and caution—madness and sanity—must balance. Escape into catatonia would no longer be denied. Half a deck away, his cabin was too distant to attain. His heads darted between his legs. His knees started to buckle. . . .
    Had he reconfigured the booth’s stepping disc? If not, Louis would flick out!
    Nessus shook with fear. How could he not remember how he had left the booth disc configuration! Only one way: he was too near complete collapse to function. Checking the transport controller would do nothing useful. He would only wonder anew in a moment.
    Somehow Nessus withdrew his heads from between his legs. He grasped the stepping disc by its rim and lifted it from the deck. The disc slipped from his teeth; he overbalanced and stumbled backward against the hull.
    Nessus braced himself with his hind leg; his hoof scraped paint from the wall. He gripped the disc again and heaved. His hind leg, straightening, pushed him away from the wall. The disc tipped up, up . . . and over. It crashed to the deck, dark side up. Upside down.
    Control settings and address modes no longer mattered. With its active surface flush against the deck, safety interlocks rendered the disc inert.
    Nessus bleated to himself, the double-throated glissando edged with hysteria. He could have engaged the same failsafe circuits simply by remaining on the disc.
    Louis flicked into the isolation booth.
    Nessus collapsed. Eyes squeezed shut, heads pressed against his belly, he squeezed and squeezed the fleshy ball of self until he could scarcely breathe.
    Until the only sound in the universe was the muffled beating of his hearts.
    What the . . . ?
    A curved, clear wall. Louis turned, squinting against sudden brightness. He was inside a capped cylinder. It had no door! The room beyond was all but empty. He saw only a floor-standing mirror, a dark circle on the floor, and a leather-covered hassock.
    Slowly, the hassock swelled and contracted. Swelled and contracted. Breathed? Nessus, apparently, with his heads and legs curled under his torso.
    “Nessus! Let me out! Nessus! Someone!” And a few seconds later, a bit plaintively, “Anyone?”
    The only response was painfully loud echoing inside the little booth. The “hassock” did not stir.
    Louis pounded the clear wall with his fist—once. The wall was
hard.
“Tanj it, Nessus! Let me out!”
    Once the echoes trailed off: silence.
    What did he know about Puppeteers? Not much. Louis studied the “hassock.” By starlight he had been unable to discern color. Nessus (as much as Louis could see) was off-white with scattered patches of tan. His mane was a darker brown.
    Behind Nessus, the wall held a slight curve. On every surface, recessed handholds (well, mouth holds). A ship, then. The room was big: this was a cargo hold.
    For three months his first thought upon waking and his last thought at night had involved getting off Wunderland. About getting—somehow—to a ship. A bitter laugh bubbled out of Louis. Be careful what you wish for.
    He kept looking around. Anywhere but the mirror. Anywhere.
    The fleshy mass looked as tightly clenched as ever. Would he know when Nessus began to recover from his fear? Shouting accomplished no more than it had before.
    Depression settled over him like fog. Nathan or Louis, what did it matter? He was a druggie, a danger to himself and