Episode 121. Part 2
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He is the genetic twin to Arden, whom she’s recently slept with, but she’s got no illusions they are in any way the same. Nika maintains a grip and looks him in the eye.
Nika: Well what can I do for you?
Swordsman: I’m not sure what I’m going to do with you, at this stage.
He sits opposite her, says nothing more and stares, letting her sweat a little. She refuses to respond and stares right back. Then:
Nika: (shrugs) Let me know when you figure it out.
Swordsman: I assume Dr. Arden is in Larson? The Lieutenant tells me there’s been some injury done to your nephew. Your sister runs the ranch here, I take it.
Nika: She does.
Swordsman: Is there anything you want to tell me?
Nika: (hard stare) About what?
Swordsman: How about the location of Mr. Carter, to start with.
Nika: I actually don’t know. As soon as we got him loose, we got rid of him.
Swordsman: Where did you get him loose?
She tells him: Hera. He asks where she got rid of Mike: Salibury.
Swordsman: Salisbury?
Nika: We dropped him off on Salisbury. That’s where he wanted to go.
Swordsman: Very good. And would you care to explain your activities on Osiris? You used my card, so I know you were there.
She does not care to explain her activities. The Swordsman continues.
Swordsman: The doctor… I suppose we could check your weapons. Just in case the authorities on Osiris would like to have a solution to that crime.
He’s referring to Dr. Roger Duncan, the neurochemical engineer Nika had shot point blank through the head at OCURC.
Swordsman: So what were you doing at that hospital?
Nika realizes that he’s got enough to nail her to the wall. She’ll have to cooperate, if only a little. If only to buy herself some time to get out of this. The first rule of lying is to tell the truth, to make the falsehood plausible enough so the truth wouldn’t be recognized when it’s finally given up. The trick is knowing how much truth to leaven the falsehood with. Too much, the story expands beyond your ability to manipulate. Too little, and your story falls flat.
Interrogators know the trick, too, and Nika makes her first move the verbal cat-and-mouse to follow.
Nika: Visiting a doctor. In the hopes that she could help out Mr. Carter.
Swordsman: And was she successful?
‘She’ being Dr. Valerie Sampson.
Nika: Not that I’m aware.
Swordsman: Not that you’re aware.
Nika: (shrugs) She tried, but I have no idea if the treatment will actually work or not.
Swordsman: What did you notice?
Nika: Not much.
Swordsman: You don’t seem to be very forthcoming.
Nika: I can’t give you answers to that. I don’t know—
Swordsman: Luckily, we have some things to make you more forthcoming if you’d like. We could use those. Would you like to use those? You know what they do.
It’s time to show some desperation, to convince him of her sincerity. Time to confess.
Nika: What do you want to know?
Swordsman: I want to know—
Nika: (cutting in) He hung around with the crew.
Swordsman: And?
Nika: He chatted with us.
Swordsman: And?
Nika: I didn’t notice anything much different in his behavior. I don’t know if it’s going to work on him or not.
Swordsman: I don’t believe you. (A beat) So, now… that isn’t good for you. For me not to believe you.
And now it’s time to sweat a little.
Swordsman: If I don’t believe you, bad things might happen to you. If I don’t believe you’re cooperating with me, if I don’t believe that you’ve given me everything you can to possibly save your life, I don’t feel that strong a desire to save your life.
Threats versus Safety, Hope versus Despair. It’s a delicate back-and-forth dance to the death, and Nika’s dance card just got full.
Nika: Okay.
Swordsman: At the moment, you’re somewhat useful to me, because my little brother probably won’t try to flee while I have you.
Good God, does Swordsman know about Nika and Arden’s relationship? How? Did he bug their quarters? Or is he just shooting in the dark and waiting to see what happens?
Swordsman: But as soon as I have him, I’ll no longer have a use for you….unless you can tell me something I can use.
Nika: Ask me what else you want to know.
Swordsman: How about this: Why should I not bind you by law and send you back to Osiris? For murder? Any reason?
His tone is quietly conversational. He could be offering her tea and dumplings as easily as a death sentence.
Swordsman: Do you have anything of value?
Nika: Probably not.
Swordsman: Mm-hm. (A beat) Okay. Well, I guess I don’t have any more questions, then.
Swordsman sits there and waits, letting her sweat it out some more. Nika sourly considers turning in Nguyen on Beaumonde. She could sing like a canary, turn the Colonel in, and give over to Swordsman an entire network of Dust Devils…only she’s not completely sure if everyone in Nguyen’s network is a Dust Devil. She didn’t miss the implied threat of torture, pharmaceutical or physical, and Swordsman’s demeanor didn’t hold out much hope she’d avoid either if he thought she wasn’t being ‘forthcoming’.
Time to review her options.
She has no weapons. They’ve been taken from her. She has no way to leave unobserved. She saw the armed guard outside the door when Swordsman walked in. The shuttle is only two hundred yards from where she sits but it might as well be a world away for all the chance she has of getting to it. And she has no idea if Christian and Rina have been likewise rounded up and detained, either. Any belligerent move from Nika might well mean a bullet through their heads. All she has to work with is her knowledge of Nguyen and for Swordsman to believe it genuine, she’s going to have to reveal it under torture.
Right.
Her course charted and her decision made, Nika sits and waits for the next round in the game to begin.
Back at Cheyenne Hospital, Arden is surprised to find that Kevin isn’t getting better, he’s getting worse. He stops the current treatment and goes back to the drawing board. Literally a drawing board, with a list of symptoms and possible connections scrawled on it. And he starts at square one, going over each step in turn to see where he made his mistake. Blood work—it was done before he’d arrived and the treatments given had been determined by those results. Arden decides to do another blood test. If the boy’s condition had changed undetected, the new results from the labs may give Arden a direction to go in treatment.
The blood work comes back practically the same. Knowing the Johansens’ recent windfall in lithium and that the boy could conceivably be poisoned with it while visiting his Johansen relatives, Arden decides to treat the boy for lithium poisoning. If he’s right, Kevin will recover. If he’s wrong, Kevin would be little worse off than he is now. At least Arden could rule out yet another cause of the boy’s illness if the treatment doesn’t work.
Back at Nala’s ranch, Rina is going through Kevin’s room, looking for anything new. Anything that could have been recently introduced to act as a vector for the poison. Finding nothing, she looks for a favorite toy or blanket to take to Kevin in the hospital, knowing the little boy would want it with him when he wakes. She finds a blanket and a teddy bear and puts both in her bag.
Christian joins her in the house and together they take another turn through the rooms. Nothing. They regroup in the main room and something catches Christian’s eye about the area rug. It’s plain, of wool and cotton, braided from strips and sewn into a coiled mat. Nothing particularly remarkable. Christian bends over, tweaks the rug to the side and there, at both their feet, a floorboard lies ajar.
As these things go, it’s not a very big crack. However, it’s just big enough for a two-year-old to pry up the floor board. Which Rina and Christian do using Rina’s knife. Beneath it they find an open pill bottle amongst a scattering of pills. They check the label. It’s made out to Trey Johansen, the drug is called trixaphenamine, one pill to be taken once a day. Christian gets on the horn to Arden, tells him what they’ve found. Arden looks it up and tells them it’s an anti-psychotic drug to counteract rage and PTSD caused by another drug that was administered to soldiers during the War to help them fight better, longer, faster. Christian stays on the line and tells Arden something else important.
Christian: You have family here.
Arden: I don’t have a family.
Christian: You have family here.
Arden: (getting it) Oh, joy.
Christian: Nika is with him right now. On his ship.
Arden: Uh-huhn. One problem at a time. Let me get the boy taken care of.
Christian: Absolutely.
Arden cuts the channel and goes back to Nala and Lawrence. He tells them Kevin is suffering from trixaphenamine poisoning and while that sinks in, he goes back to work. What he wants to know is what the drug was doing in the house in the first place. It’s hard to get on a planet like this. Vanderburg may have it, or Ares. He makes some calls to the hospitals there and asks for a course of treatment. He finds out that the drug is classified and while the treatment is available it will take a while to extract it from special records… Basically it’s a runaround, and telling them the patient is a two-year-old isn’t speeding the process.
Back at the ranch, Christian scoops the loose pills back into the bottle and together he and Rina return the floorboard and the rug to the state they found them.
On Alliance vessel, Nika is getting grilled by Swordsman again.
Nika: Look, I don’t know what you’re chasing or what you want. You’ve asked me where Mr. Carter went and I’ve given you that information. What other information do you want?
Swordsman: Well if you’ve got nothing of value, then I guess we’re done.
Nika: I don’t know what you’d consider valuable.
Swordsman: I guess you don’t have anything. That’s okay. Why don’t you think about your life, while you still have one.
He leaves.
Outside, Christian and Rina look at the Alliance shuttle.
Rina: (grim) What do you think they’re doing to her in there?
Christian: I don’t know.
Rina: I could guess. It’s not pretty.
Christian: I know. We should try to find out.
Rina: (warning) You don’t want me doin’ that.
Christian: No, I know we don’t want you doing that.
Because he knows Rina would try to kill every last Purplebelly aboard before she either sprang Nika free or they killed her, whichever came first.
Christian: Here’s what I want you to do—take the shuttle, go back to the hospital in case they need a quick ride somewhere.
Rina: And leave you here?
Christian: Leave me here.
Rina: You have your comm?
Christian: Yes.
Rina: (sighing) Call me if you need me. Do you want me to take the medicine?
Christian: (gives it over) Arden might need it for a counter-agent.
When Rina takes off, Christian marches right up to the Alliance craft and politely asks to see the man in charge. He’s let aboard and the Lieutenant takes him to a wardroom. Swordsman is sitting there, working on some paperwork, and Christian finally sees the man in the flesh. Swordsman doesn’t even look up but tells Christian to take a seat. Christian does so, realizing it’s a tactic to make him feel unimportant. He knows the game and how to play it.
Swordsman: I assume you’re worried about Miss Earhart. She’s fine.
Christian: Reassuring to know. I have to say, the resemblance is uncanny. I didn’t realize that the cloning was that close.
Swordsman: Well, that is one of the consequences of cloning. It is a sad fact that experience and education undoubtedly makes up for far more than pure biology. As is evidenced by the…how shall I say…the unfortunate lifestyle of my little brother.
Christian: He’s actually done some pretty amazing things out there, considering his resources.
Swordsman: He was meant for more.
Christian: Quite possibly. You mean his crèche meant him for more? Or his genetics meant him for more?
Swordsman: Perhaps I am merely being poetic.
Christian: You could be. I mean, you were obviously meant for something that I don’t think is your current job. I’m just guessing. I could be wrong.
Swordsman: Hm. It’s always good to guess. My…research profiles suggest that your value here is less than needed. Unless there is something I can help you with. Although, I’ll let you know that eventually the detectives on Osiris will break Doctor Sampson and undoubtedly your little group of merry mercenaries will be put on the Cortex.
Christian: I don’t think I’ve ever actually met Dr. Sampson, though I’ve been to her office.
Swordsman: I don’t particularly care about such things. I have bigger fish to fry.
Christian: You strike me as a man with the largest fish to fry. Which fish? Maybe I can help you.
Swordsman: (smiles politely) I suspect you’re being as much of a help now that you can be.
Christian: You might be surprised. Does it go to Mr. Carter or is it higher than him? Is he a means to an end, or is he the end?
Swordsman: Carter is… a person of interest. Are you interested in being more forthcoming than Miss Earhart? Or are you all sworn to some sort of Browncoat conspiracy?
Christian: I don’t know what she told you.
Swordsman: Well, why don’t you tell me what you’d like to tell me?
Christian: About Carter?
Swordsman: Yes. Perhaps you can save her life.
Christian: We dropped him off on Salisbury. He said something about a monastery and when we checked there later to see he wasn’t infected with the disease that had infected us, they said he never arrived there. We were unfortunately the target of murder by a small and bitter man on Bernadette.
Swordsman: Yes, Potemkin.
Christian: Yes. Beyond that I cannot tell you much. Obviously, since he’s a person of interest, you’ll know he’s had contact with Browncoats at some point in the past. I’m not sure how active he is now. I know that his condition wouldn’t make him a very good spy anymore.
Swordsman: That’s certainly true. He is, in fact, more valuable to us on the loose than he would be in our custody. You might let him know that. Of course, why he’d believe word from you coming from me, I wouldn’t know, but it serves my purposes equally well.
Christian: If I meet him again, I certainly will. I don’t think that’s likely to happen anytime soon.
Swordsman: And Beaumonde?
Christian: Beaumonde? Oh, yes. I was on the ship for most of the time on that trip.
Swordsman: Then perhaps you don’t have any direct issues then.
Christian: That depends on what is gained from sharing what I do know.
Swordsman: It depends on what you have to offer, but at the moment there is little that I need that I do not have already.
Christian: Well….you see, now we’re doing this little dance where I pretend you’ve made a counteroffer—and we’ve both done this enough to recognize it for what it is—and you have my friend. I don’t know what you intend to do with her, which is my disadvantage in this little exchange. I could think of things you could do with her, which are quite horrific because I don’t think it involves puppies or flowers.
Swordsman: True.
Christian: So. I suppose my question is: Is she free to go?
Swordsman: Not yet.
Christian: Do you foresee her being free to go?
Christian is getting nothing off the man—he’s unreadable even to a Companion.
Swordsman: Let’s say I am interested in maintaining the hope that you might all survive this encounter. That hope will probably serve my purposes as well as anything else, so yes, let us say that she might very well survive. As would you. There is a reasonable chance.
Oh, now the man is just toying with us.
Christian: Are we able to bargain as group? Or are you preferring to bargain individually?
Swordsman: What usually happens is a group will strive at first to stay together and then—
Christian: You try to break down an individual person. Yes, I understand the basic dynamics of group psychology. More importantly, if we get to the point where one of the group breaks, will you honor a deal for all of us? Or, are you….?
Swordsman: Hmmm. If one of the group breaks and makes a deal with me?
Christian: Yes.
Swordsman: That includes the rest of you?
Christian: Yes.
Swordsman: Would I honor it?
Christian: Yes.
Swordsman: If I am to make a deal like this, I believe in honor. I believe it is what we fought for and what keeps us together as an Alliance of worlds.
Christian: I don’t disagree with that. I think many soldiers in the Alliance were fighting for the best of what there was.
Swordsman: Most of them were fighting for a paycheck.
Christian: Well, yes. But for the idea itself…
Swordsman: Were joining for a paycheck and then were fighting for their lives.
Christian: (undeterred) I think the basic idea for the war, from that side.
Swordsman: There are very few people who have an ideological interest in the Alliance. I have been …properly raised to have an appropriate one.
Christian: Civilization. Peace. Prosperity for everyone. I see nothing bad in that.
Swordsman: Hm.
Christian: All right. So. This is the point where I say “Can I see her, to make sure she’s alive?”
Swordsman: Let’s see…..after all this time you were together...
Christian: Were I any of my companions, you might have something to worry about. You very likely know that I just had my license reinstated and I don’t want to do anything that would jeopardize that.
Swordsman: I see no harm in it. Why don’t you go to her? Perhaps together you might think of something.
Swordsman has the Lieutenant escort Christian to the med bay. Christian suffers another patting down, despite the fact he’d undergone one already and had given up any weapons and communications equipment he’d had. The Lieutenant ushers Christian in and leaves him alone with Nika.
Christian: Hello.
Nika: Oh my God. How is Kevin?
Christian: We found what was poisoning him.
Nika: What was it?
Christian: Apparently, some anti-psychotic your brother-in-law was taking.
Nika: Or not taking.
Christian: It was under the floor boards, with just enough room for a little kid’s hands to get under them and grab pills. Arden’s taking care of it now, arranging for treatment.
Nika: (relieved) Okay.
Christian: So. We got that. Rina will go and provide them with the shuttle if necessary.
Nika: Okay. And him? (points out the door)
Christian: I told him we left Mike on Salisbury.
Nika: So did I.
Christian: And that we don’t know where he is because when we checked back afterwards, he wasn’t where he said he was going to be. And he said that Mike was actually more useful on the loose than he was in their custody.
Nika: Not terribly surprising.
Christian: (agreeing) No.
Nika: If he makes contact with anyone, he can follow them.
Too true. Use one spy to find others.
Christian suggests that they could give up information Swordsman wants in exchange for medical care for Kevin. Nika is willing to do it without cavil, even though she knows someone may end up paying for it dearly. Kevin means that much to her. The trick now is determining what they can offer that will get Kevin what he needs, yet reduce the collateral damage that’s bound to ensue. Christian cautions that Arden is even now working on the cure and he may yet come up with the solution on his own. We may yet dodge the bullet—Arden’s very well trained.
Arden is finding his training pushed to the limit as he wrangles the arrangements with Vanderbur’s hospital. They are reluctant to use his precious resources on a shaky diagnosis of medicine poisoning. Some rancher’s kid isn’t all that high on their priority list, but maybe if we could bring him in, they could maybe take a look at him. Arden stresses that the patient is an innocent two year old boy. What’s it going to take to get him the proper medical care he needs?
Answer: How much do we have?
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