Captain Serrano 2 - Sporting Chance

by Moon, Elizabeth

  "I can tell you that the maintenance drugs targeted voluntary muscle innervation, motor and sensory both. Thus I expect you to regain some sensation of touch, and some ability to move. How much is impossible to say. It is unusual for someone with your level of deficit to be able to breathe spontaneouslythey did a fine job of sparing respiratory function. It's amazing that you can hear, and yet the few medical records we were able to get indicate that you couldn'tthat your auditory cortex was inactive in the presence of both speech and sound. Either someone fiddled with the scans, or . . . I can't imagine what."

  Cecelia struggled to remember the early days, what everyone had said. She knew the lawyer had been told she could not hear; she had heard that. She remembered hearing about the scans that were supposed to prove it. That suggested intentional deception. But she had no way to let Dr. Czerda know what she had heard.

  Over the next few days, sensation returned slowly, in odd patches. One time Cecelia woke, she felt the side of her face as if it were a patch of harsh cloth laid on her skull. She felt the slight pressure of air against it from the ventilator. The nurse's gentle facewashing felt like being scrubbed with a broom. Still she could not move, could not flinch away. Later that day, she had an uncanny sensation in her left arm, as if something were crawling down it from shoulder to elbow, and from there along the outside of her forearm to her little finger. The feeling grew to a tingle, then an itch, then a painful throbbing that subsided gradually over far too long a time. Each time Czerda came in, she touched Cecelia everywhere, explaining the process over and over. The monitors they had, crude as they were compared to those in a major neuro ward, showed Cecelia's response . . . and Czerda was mapping the return of sensation. The nurses and Brun massaged her, too . . . and gradually, fitfully, she remapped the feeling of her own body.

  Blank patches remained. Her left upper chest had no sensation: Czerda explained that was where the implanted ports were. They'd probably destroyed the innervation there. That was standard practice. She felt nothing on the insides of both arms . . . where the median nerve should have supplied sensation and controlled movement. One foot regained sensation, in a maddening pins-and-needles form, days before the other. Her nose itched.

  The first movement, the first real movement, came when the nurse's washcloth dripped cold on her shoulder. She flinched . . . and knew she moved even as the nurse exclaimed. She tried again.

  "Again!" said Czerda, who had come at the nurse's call. Cecelia twitched again, as proud as if she'd just taken a big drop jump. "That's great. Now try the other one."

  Cecelia tried, but couldn't remember how to move that shoulder. Someone tickled her, just above the collarbone. Ah. Yes. She struggled again, and felt her skin move against the sheet.

  "Not as strong, but something. Good progress . . . keep doing that."

  She kept doing that, but it didn't seem to lead anywhere. She tried to imagine what it looked like, the twitch of a shoulder. Not as communicative as a facial expression. And no matter how she struggled, she couldn't move her hands. Surely she would have to move her hands to use sign language. Then, three days later, when Czerda had pulled her lower jaw down, she snapped it closed so hard her teeth hurt. She couldn't open it . . . but she could close it when Czerda opened it again. Czerda chuckled.

  "Yesa good response. Now we start your communication training. I know you're an intelligent adult, and I know there's lots you want to say, but we'll start with what we need to know first. We want you to have a yes and a no. Right now your shoulder jerk is your strongest motion: let's try one jerk for yes, and two for no. Understand?"

  Cecelia twitched her shoulder with contemptuous ease. She could have done that three days agowhy hadn't they told her? Why hadn't she thought of it?

  "Good. Now . . . did you like your breakfast?" Breakfast had been a bland flavor of custard; she had never liked bland anything. She gave two twitches. "Excellent. You may not realize it, but you've just demonstrated that your higher language functions are still intact: you understood both directions and a question form. Did you like lunch?" One twitch. Lunch had been the date-caramel-almond custard, her favorite of the flavors she'd had.

  "Now I've got to ask you a lot of boring questions that are standard on neuro-psych exams. And I'm going to record this, on full video, because it may be used in court to establish your competency."

  Cecelia hadn't thought of that. Could someone who only twitched one shoulder be considered competent legally? She had thought she couldn't fight that battle until she was well.

  "Is your name Cecelia de Marktos?" One twitch. That wasn't her full name, but she used the short form oftener than the long. "Do you know where you are?" Now that was a hopeless question. She knew she was on a yacht, but she had no idea where the yacht was. She shrugged both shoulders, the right more strongly. Apparently that got through; Czerda muttered, "Bad question" and changed it to, "Are you in a hospital?" Two twitches. "Are you in a spacecraft?" One twitch. "Are you aware of the nature of your disability?" One twitch. "Was this disability the result of natural causes?" Two twitches. No one was going to believe this, Cecelia thought. It might convince Czerda, or Bunny, but she couldn't see it working in court. Czerda proceeded to questions of reasoning and general knowledge, most of them ridiculously easy: "Is a circle a geometric solid?" No, of course not. "Is a horse a mammal?" Yes, dummy. "Did you name Heris Serrano a beneficiary in your will?" Yes. Cecelia came alert again. "Did Heris Serrano unduly influence you to make her a beneficiary in your will?" No! She made that twitch as big as she could, and then a muscle in her back cramped. She gasped. Czerda stopped the questions, and patiently massaged the cramp out.

  "I wish we could give you muscle relaxants," she said. "But I don't want to risk any more dissociation between your nerves and your muscles. Things are bad enough."

  Cecelia wondered what that meant. She had thought things were going well. If she could move a shoulder now, if she could answer questions . . . she pushed aside her own doubts and refused to pay attention to the doctor's. Whatever the medical agenda, her own would include figuring out a way to ask for specific foods, things with more flavor and more texture.

  Now, with even that meagre amount of communication, the days moved more swiftly. Would she like to try something with more texture? Yes . . . and a mouthful of something soft but grainystill too blandchallenged her ability to move her tongue and swallow it. Would she like music? Yes. This music? No. Trial and errormore error than success, at firstremapped her choices in flavors and music. As she had feared, the dietician could not be persuaded to offer really tasty food, and there was no way to say More garlic, you idiot! with a twitch of the shoulder.

  She learned to move her knees, one by one, and wished someone would think of using the twitch of her other shoulder and both knees for other useful signals, but no one did. Yet. In her mind she fashioned her own code: more, less, not yet, hurry up, enough, go away, question. The question signal would have been really helpful; she had more to ask them, she thought, than they had to ask her. But she realized, from their talk, that they were fully engaged already in discovering what had been done to her, and what might be done about it. For the urgency they conveyed, she could forgive a lot.

  "Captaintwo young . . . gentlemen to see you." Petris's voice carried some message, but she wasn't sure what. This had to be the prince, and presumably some necessary companion. Valet, bodyguard, whatever. Heris made her way quickly to the access tube.

  The prince all right, just the same as she'd seen in Sirialis, with that smug little smile on his face. Beside himshe blinked as she focused on the other face. The same face, rather. Side by side, two apparent princes, both with that smug little smile. Both in uniform, for a wonder . . . her mind ran headlong into the logical flaw here.

  The prince and his double, of course, but the prince and his double were not to be seen together. Certainly not here, not now. If someone saw them both enter Better Luck and only one of them left . . .

  "Welc
ome aboard," Heris said, trying to think this out. "Mr. Smith, I believe?" She offered the same bland smile to both of them, no longer sure which was which. It was very good plastic surgery, she told herself.

  "Yes," they said. "Mr. Smith." Even their voices sounded alike, which might mean vocal training or surgery there, too. Impressive, but still stupid. If they'd both come up on the shuttle with the others, then everyone on the Station knew.

  "We don't have a lot of time for games," she said, trying for a combination of sweet reason and firmness. "We'll be departing as soon as the Outworld Parcel cargo comes aboard, and in the meantime we'll need to ensure that your . . . er . . . double has appropriate cover."

  "I just came to tell you I'm not going," one of the young men said. "I don't want to spend more time on this yacht, especially since it's not even carpeted." He looked at the bare deck and bulkheads with contempt.

  "But your father planned" Heris began. The other young man interrupted.

  "If my father insists, let my double do it."

  "Sir, it's extremely important" Heris began, but the first one interrupted this time.

  "Besides, I'm perfectly healthy; there's nothing wrong with me. My own physician checked me out after we arrived at Rockhouse." His voice was petulant; Heris wondered if it was really higher, more childish, than it had been. His blue eyes were guileless as a child's; his expression mildly annoyed. Nothing quite fit.

  "Your father told us to take you," Heris said. She softened her voice, speaking as she would to a younger child. This time the prince didn't interrupt. "He really wanted you to gohe said you would"

  "But I don't want to," the second young man said. In exactly the same voice.

  "But he'll be mad at me," Heris said, in almost the same tone, with the same quaver. She'd seen that work once, with a hysterical Senior Minister. It didn't work this time.

  "So?" They both glanced around, boredom and contempt plain on their features. Heris wanted to smack their heads together.

  "We shouldn't discuss this here," she said. "Come along to the bridgeyou never saw it before, did you?and we can settle things there."

  "It won't make any difference," said one of them languidly. "I'm not going."

  Heris refrained from comment, simply gave them the regulation smile that so often got her way. They shrugged and followed her into the ship, scuffing their boot heels on the deck and commenting on the yacht's ugliness in this state. At least they didn't comment on any odd smellsperhaps the last of the cockroach odor had adhered to the powdery scavengers in the air circulation. She stopped by her office, to show the prince and his double the official authorization from the king himself.

  "I didn't doubt you," the prince said. She hoped this was the prince. "I quite understand that you are who you are, and my father told you to come get me. But I'm not going." Oh yes you are, you little tick, thought Heris. Aloud, she said nothing then, leading the way to the bridge.

  "Pretty," the prince said, as if she'd given him a toy he didn't want, and he felt it necessary to be polite. He was looking at Sirkin, she realized after a moment, not the bridge layout at all. Ginese gave him a look and Heris began to hope the other one was the prince. She'd forgotten the prince's temporary attraction to Raffaele; perhaps he liked dark-haired girls best, and considered Sirkin an adequate substitute.

  "If you had more girls like this," the double saidor was it the prince? "I might reconsider. But it simply won't do."

  "Perhaps you should take a look around," Heris said. "Your suite is a little bare now, but we've funds to provide some . . . amenities . . . from the Station sources. Let Mr. Ginese show you around" She gave Ginese another look; he nodded. The prince and his double shrugged.

  "It's terribly dull on Station this timemight as well." And they followed Ginese meekly. Heris allowed herself a brief grin.

  "Lambs to the slaughter," she said softly. Meharry grinned, but Sirkin looked shocked.

  "What are you going to do?" asked Petris.

  "I wish you hadn't asked," Heris said. "If we take him by force, that blows the double's coverand the king said it was important to have the double to cover for him."

  "If we don't take him by force, he won't come," Petris said. He had a plug in his ear, listening to the conversation with Ginese somewhere else in the ship. "He's blathering on about the social calendar on the liner where they will have plenty of girls, he says."

  "I knew this was a stupid idea," Heris said. "His father should have known he wouldn't want to come. Unless that was the plan. The possibilities for a double cross on this mission are endless." She drummed her fingers on her console. "I'm afraid we're going to have to do it, though. The only way to help Lady Cecelia is to lead the trouble away from her . . . and if we're believed to have kidnapped the prince, everyone in the Familias will be after us."

  "How can we be sure we've snatched the right one?"

  "Standard ID scan. We've got the data from his father."

  "It won't work," said one of the princes, when she put it to them.

  "Of course it will," Heris said. "You can't fool a full-ID scan with plastic surgery."

  "Fine. Go ahead." He smirked. So did the other prince. Heris wanted to hit both of them, but thought better of it. If she did, she'd be sure to hit the real princeand that wouldn't do.

  The ID scans of both young men took only a few minutes, but the results made no sense. "Both of them are the prince," said Heris. She heard the disbelief in her voice. "Or neither, if they're identical twinsclones"

  "Clone doubles are illegal," Petris said. "Not that that would stop the Crown."

  Heris felt like pulling her hair. "It's . . . ridiculous. Why didn't the king tell us"

  "If he knew."

  "He must have known. This is just like the slownesshe, of all people, cannot not know." Heris glared at the scan results. "How am I supposed to know which is which? Dammitit's like something out of an entertainment cube, a joke or something. And it's not funny."

  "Sowhat do we do?"

  "We take them both," Heris said. "And we keep them separatewe'll have to use the original guest suitesand surely there'll be something in the real prince's memories of the affair on Sirialis that will make it clear who is which."

  "Umm. And the . . . er . . . reaction?"

  Heris found herself grinning in spite of everything. "Well, you know what they saywhen you haven't any other place to step, it doesn't matter which foot lands in the shit first."

  Chapter Thirteen

  Naverrn Station expected ships to arrive and depart on their own powera fortunate circumstance. With Kulkul and Petris on the boards, the Better Luck powerup went smoothly, the displays rising through orange and yellow to the steady green of full insystem power. The FTL drive nextit was only slightly risky to powerup the jump units while docked. Using them was another matter; Heris had no intention of risking another near-planet jump.

  "Weapons?" Heris asked. Arkady Ginese flashed her a wicked grin.

  "Code Two," he said. "We'll go three once we're outside the near-scans." Bringing their weapons to full readiness might set off the Station's own defensive armament. Too many bloody results had taught Stationmasters to take no chances with ships in dock.

  "Nav?"

  "Ready, ma'am," Sirkin said. Her voice was steady; she had plotted an unusual course around to the Guerni Republic. They both hoped it would confuse any chance encounter, and avoid any confrontation with ships of the Compassionate Hand.

  "Naverrn Station, the Better Luck requests permission to undock" Still formal.

  "On the count, Better Luck . . ." On the count, the cables and umbilicals detached, some coiling back to the Station and others to the ship. Tiny attitude controls nudged the ship back, away from the rotating Station. With the power on, the ship's own artificial gravity created their internal field; they felt none of the change in acceleration so visible in the external monitors as Heris brought in the main drives and began the long curve out toward the safe jump radius. Naverr
n shrank visibly, the terminator creeping along its blue-and-white ball as they swung toward the nightside. An hour passed, then another and another.

  "Station scans faded below detection; no other scans detected," Ginese said. He glanced at her, brows raised.

  Heris had considered whether to wait until they made the first jump transition to bring the weapons up, but that had its own risk. If they were unlucky, they could come out of jumpspace into trouble. "Weapons to Code Three," she said.

  "Sir," said Ginese; now his board had a row of scarlet dots at the top, with green columns below. He grinned. "The tree's lit, Captain."

  "Thank you, Mr. Ginese," said Heris formally; she grinned back at him. "Now if we"

  "Oh, shit." No one had to ask what had happened; all the boards showed it. A shipa large ship, armed, its weapons ready, had just dropped into the system and painted them with its scans. And there they were, their own illicit weaponry up and active, as detectable as a searchlight on a dark night. "Douse it?"

  "Too late," Heris said. "We'd look even more suspicious if we blanked. We shouldn't be detecting their scans. What is it?" Their scans should be as goodand the other ship wouldn't know they had such accurate scans. She hoped.

  "Bigmilitaryarmed to the teeth, light cruiser. If we're lucky it's a Royal ASS ship full of rich playboys. Lemme see"

  "Dumping vee like anything," Oblo commented. "They came in really hot, and they don't care who knows it. That turbulence pattern's a lot like"

  "Corsair class. Not Royals. Regs. Standard assortment up" Which meant about half the total armament. Heris felt a pang of longing and pushed it away. She had had the bridge of a Corsair Class cruiser . . . she knew exactly what that captain would be seeing. And thinking.