Aneka Jansen 7: Hope Read Online Free PDF Page A

uniform was cut to fit well, though the dark grey colour did nothing for him. There was a symbol on the breast pocket of his jacket: three overlapped triangles in gold, with the middle one taller than the others.
    ‘I am speaking English, as it has been spoken for over three thousand years,’ he stated.
    Ella grinned at him. ‘No… I’ve met someone who speaks it as it was spoken a thousand years ago, and your vowels have drifted a bit. And historically that version of English came into use around–’
    ‘You would be advised to keep your observations to yourself, girl. Heresy is punishable by death and we already have you on bioterrorism charges.’
    ‘Now wait a min–’
    ‘You will cooperate. You will tell us who you are working for and how this weapon you were developing is used and countered.’
    ‘We weren’t developing a weapon! We were studying a nanovirus which already existed!’
    ‘So that you could use it on us.’
    ‘I don’t even know who you–’ She stopped, peering at him. ‘Wait… that symbol. I’ve seen that symbol before… Old Earth historical databases… Pinnacle. You’re Pinnacle.’
    ‘And you wish me to believe you did not know that?’ He put the kind of disbelief into the phrase which could only stem from total disdain for his target. Well that fitted with what she knew of the Pinnacle.
    ‘We know you attacked Old Earth centuries ago and were beaten back. I know of someone who ran away from you people a lot more recently. Aside from that, we had no idea where you were. No one I know of has seen anything of you in decades. Longer. I’m an archaeologist. Lacora was a mystery I was trying to solve. My microbiology specialist had got some way to working out how that virus came into existence, but… What happened to her? She was in the same building as me when you attacked. What happened to my team?’
    ‘We required one prisoner,’ he stated flatly.
    ‘Bastard.’ It was barely a whisper. They were all dead? He could be lying… Somehow she doubted that.
    ‘The slave collar you are wearing has a neural induction circuit. On command, or if you attempt to remove it, it will cause pain.’ He paused, maybe for effect. ‘You heard the screams as I entered? That was the gunner whose misdirected strike damaged your laboratory and our evidence. He is wearing one of those collars.’ He paused again, but this time it was likely to allow that thought to sink in. ‘I will return in a few hours to begin your interrogation. I will be bringing the control for your collar with me.’
    The door hissed again and he was gone. Ella was thankful when the door closed behind him, cutting off the screaming, but the idea that she might be doing the same soon had not yet entered into her head. They were all dead. All of them. And she was alone, in the hands of the Pinnacle.
    ~~~
    It felt as though she had been lying there for days wondering when the pain would start, and Ella knew that was an unproductive line of thought so she turned her attention to what she knew of the Pinnacle.
    They were, as far as she knew, a line of Humans who had set themselves up as the supreme strain of Humanity. They were, according to them, pure. Genetic alterations which had been made to many of the subspecies had been eschewed, though there had been some improvement. They were, essentially, a eugenics exercise which had become something like a religion. Her interrogator’s comment regarding heresy had confirmed that. It appeared that they were convinced that they were what Humans were meant to be like and anything else was wrong.
    Centuries ago they had mounted an assault on Old Earth, their original home world, but Yrimtan had been running things then. Aneka’s more-or-less twin had reacted badly to a war fleet appearing in her system and the Pinnacle ships had been pushed back, many of them in pieces. Ella had read accounts of the battle, which was why she recognised the insignia, but they were more or less