I joined them. I would need to be there and on call all the time because we had no other therapists available to take Veofol’s place, what with all the chaos after the attack. So the centre would be my home for the time being. I didn’t mind; I had no real reason to stay in the city, and the only pang of discomfort came from the occasional impulse to call for Veofol to help with the group, and the sudden memory that he was gone.
6. Liss
I postponed formal therapy sessions for a while, and allowed the group some time to settle in and explore. Liss, of course, did not have quite as much luxury to wander while she was still bedridden, so I made daily visits to see how she was doing, and induce her to talk.
“How’s it going?” I asked her one day. She raised her arms to show me. Through the transparent healer, the day by day improvement was quite apparent.
“That’s good,” I said. “Is this kind of healing a common thing on your world?”
She shrugged, then winced at the pain of stretching her burns. “I’m not the only one—” she stopped, then sighed. “I keep forgetting. I am the only one.”
“That was a very brave and selfless thing you did, saving Olivia.”
“I didn’t think about it.”
“There’s not many people who’d be able to do that.”
“No. Only one.” She raised her arms again; she was being sarcastic.
“I don’t mean physically.”
“Like I said, I didn’t think about it.”
“And what if you’d had to think about it?”
She looked back at me and frowned. “Hm. Olivia. Hmm…” Then she sighed. “I suppose I’d have done it anyway.”
I nodded. “And you know what happened to Veofol wasn’t your fault?”
“You can’t save everyone.”
“I remember, when you first joined us, you said that was a saying you had on your world…”
“Yes.”
“It’s just that, when people go so far as to have a saying for something like this, it usually means they’re trying to console themselves for feeling bad about it.”
“Yeah. So?”
“Are you sure it doesn’t take a toll?”
“I stopped counting the people I couldn’t save when it went past a couple billion.”
“There’s no need to be sarcastic, Liss.”
“I’ll stop being sarcastic when you stop stating the obvious.”
She wasn’t in the mood for co-operation. But she wasn’t Olivia. I looked back at her, and said: “Okay."
“Okay what?”
“I’ll stop stating the obvious.”
“Right. And…?”
“I’ll let you do it.”
“What?”
“I want you to tell me what’s wrong.”
She laughed in exasperation. “I’m the last daughter of a dead world! You think I’m enjoying myself?”
“No. But I think your problem’s obvious.”
“So tell me then.”
“No. It’s obvious. You tell me.”
“Is this supposed to be therapy?”
“Yes.”
“Isn’t it your job to tell me what’s wrong?”
“It’s my job to help you help yourself.”
She shook her head, amazed. “I cannot believe you’re turning this into some kind of mystery!”
“Who killed your world, Liss?”
That silenced her. I went on: “Everybody else here has a pretty good idea of what happened. I’m not saying they’re always right, but they have some idea. You don’t. And you came here to find out. Didn’t you?”
She was still too surprised to answer.
“That’s what’s obvious to me, Liss. You’ve given up. I’m not saying you didn’t have a reason. But you’ve given up.”
“Oh. My. God…” she said, amazed at my effrontery. “What the hell do you think I’m supposed to do?”
“Find the culprits. That’s what it says in your protocols.”
“Oh, just like that. And then what?”
“I’d say you should cross that bridge when you come to it.”
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m no good at all this! I got caught, for god’s sake! I don’t even know where to start any more!”
“You won’t have to do it alone. Didn’t the ICT talk to you?”
“Ugh. They’re useless. They can’t even do anything…”
“That might not always be the case.”
“Oh, because that’s going to change overnight…”
“A lot of things changed overnight.”
She stopped to think about it. It was true that a great many options were being discussed at the highest levels. Activating the Interversal Criminal Tribunal was suddenly on the table.
“Do you think they’ll…?”
“I don’t know. But they’re talking about it.”
“Damn…” she looked outside again. “I can’t. I don’t even know what to do. I was just following the protocols…”
“Didn’t you say you saved the world once?”
“Once. Kind of.”
“How many people can say that?”
“It wasn’t… I didn’t really do anything, I was trying to save myself, and… and we didn’t have a plan… it was luck, that’s all.”
“So maybe you were the right person in the right place at the right time.”
“I was panicking for most of it.”
“But you did the right thing.”
“It wasn’t just me. There were thousands of others, lots of people saved the world…”
“That doesn’t mean you weren’t one of them.”
“It doesn’t make me qualified!”
“Hm. Liss. I seem to be at a bit of a disadvantage here. You know all about this, but I know nothing.”
“Just grab the files from the PRG and read the reports.”
“I would, but I don’t think we’re going to get much back for a while. To be honest, it’s not a priority at the moment.”
She sighed. “No. I guess not.”
“Can you tell me about it? It must be quite a story.”
“Aw, crap… just another disaster. The world needed saving every other week.”
“Why did it need saving this time?”
She took a deep breath. “The moon blew up.”
“…Ah.”
“Don’t ask me to explain how it happened because I don’t know, okay? It was one of those superbrain things. Somebody did some earthquake experiment on the moon and it blew up, and some bits were going away from us and some bits were going to hit us and that was going to be bad.
“They decided to give every country a few chunks of moon to deal with, and we got allocated this big one, we had to put some gravity gizmo on it that was supposed to knock it out of the way, don’t ask me how. So we went up there and—”
“I’m sorry, Liss, I don’t want to interrupt, but can you tell me how you got involved?”
“Oh. Well, it was my boyfriend. Yott. He was the one who was called up. We were both at college but he was the clever one, I mean, really clever…”
“He was a superbrain?”
“Yeah. They weren’t all bad. Most of them were fine. Well, a bit crazy. But in a good way. Yott was like a super-engineer, he could make almost anything… it was like, if somebody else worked out a theory, he could make a machine that used it. He was the star at college, I mean he had to have psych tests every couple of weeks, just in case, but he was okay as long as he had a toolbox handy.”
“How did you meet?”
“Oh… well, I caught him, um…”
“I’m sorry? You caught him doing what?”
“I didn’t catch him doing anything. I mean I… caught him.”
“Explain…?”
“He had this gravity rocket thing he was working on and it went wrong and he ended up flying all over campus and I’m the one who was dumb enough to try and catch him before he
killed himself. Well, it was more like he flew right into me, I dragged him to a stop, and, heh, well, one thing led to another.”
"Ah. I see."
"Yeah."
“So how did that make you an adventurer?”
“There was a club at college, Yott was in it. I didn’t really want to join but he dragged me along and everyone said, hey, you’ve got powers, you saved someone, of course you’re one of us. We didn’t do anything much, because you had to be over 21 for adventuring unless it was the end of the world. And then of course it was the end of the world, so we got called up.”
“Were you ready? I mean, for dealing with the moon?”
“Are you kidding? Yott was the one they wanted. They wanted him there in case the gravity thing went wrong and it needed repairs or they had to build one from scratch. And he wanted me along because he was terrified he was going to screw it up, so they swung it as a bodyguard thing.
“Ugh. I hate going into space. He loved it, of course. I was all tangled up in seatbelt straps and he was off flying around the cabin while I was throwing up everywhere, nobody was talking to me after the third time…
“So anyway we got to the moon chunk thing and landed on it and we were getting ready to do the gravity whatever-it-was when we found out somebody else got assigned to the same chunk. They messed up the paperwork or something because there was this Scandian team there as well and they wanted to set off a bomb and knock it out of orbit or something. I don’t know, I was in the bathroom being sick.
“No one could agree on who was going to get to deal with it. Ground control said hang on until we can figure it out, so we’re all just sitting there like lemons, well I was, they were all arguing. I wasn’t doing anything other than look out the window, and then there was this chimp outside—”
“I’m sorry…?”
“There was a chimp outside.”
“In a spacesuit?”
“Of course in a spacesuit! How else are they gonna breathe in space?”
“Okay. Intelligent chimps. I think you mentioned those before.”
“Yeah, yeah, some wacko anthrobiologist made a load of chimps intelligent, they set up their own republic, lovely guys, except for the ones that wanted to knock over the chimp government and they’d gone into exile and guess where they’d gone? The goddamn moon. We’d landed on their chunk of it, with their moonbase inside it, and they were pissed. They blew the airlocks and killed everyone in the ship.”
“But not you.”
“No. I saw them in time, but no one was paying any attention to me, of course, so I grabbed Yott and stuffed him in a spacesuit and then the airlocks blew and he had to get me in a spacesuit and, well, we were the only ones who made it.”
“Quick thinking.”
“Bullshit. Quick thinking would have saved everyone. And I had to kill one of the chimps as well… I punched in his faceplate. All the air came out like it was some kind of fire extinguisher, and then I could see him dying in there…”
She closed her eyes for a moment. “So we got the hell out. Yott had his gravity rocket so we got away pretty easy. Wasn’t charged up properly, though, so we couldn’t get off the chunk. We hid in the chimp base, a lot of it was wrecked from when the moon blew up, so that was easy too. And then we didn’t know what to do. We sat in there for hours…”
“What happened next?”
“We found out what the chimps were up to. Yott patched into some cables… they wanted to use the gravity thing we brought along to make the chunk crash into Africa and wipe out all the other chimps. They had this madchimp in charge, he’d spend the whole time yelling at people about how he was going to make everyone pay for everything…”
“But you stopped them. Isn’t that right?”
“We figured we were dead anyway so we might as well do something stupid. Yott figured we could use the Scandian ship to do what they were planning to do in the first place. The chimps weren’t using all that stuff because they preferred the gravity thing on our ship, so they weren’t even guarding the Scando ship. And then it was just… get him there without getting killed. He got the ship back online, dropped the bomb, and we got out of town.”
“And it worked?”
“Are you kidding? Of course not. The stupid chimps found out and set off their thing at the same time we set off the bomb. It didn’t knock the chunk out of the way — it just broke into bits. A couple of them made it down and started a tidal wave in the Atlantic. They got most people on the coast out of the way but a couple thousand died. And all the chimps on the chunk. And everyone who went to try and stop it, apart from me and Yott.”
“Do you blame yourself?”
She thought about that for a moment. “More people would have died if we hadn’t done it. They’d have wiped out most of Africa, not just the chimps, I mean that would have killed everyone.”
Her protestation sounded rehearsed. “Is that what they told you when you got back? I mean, did you have therapy?”
“Yeah, right. There wasn’t time, we had to go to work with all the cleanup crews because we were already drafted. But the chimps helped, I mean the ones on the ground, the chimp republic. They sent a lot of aid to say thanks for, you know, saving their species.”
“Did you get any therapy at all?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Things were crazy. Our chunk wasn’t the only one where it went wrong. We were all running around like mad for a year and a half just cleaning up the mess. Nobody had any time for therapy.”
“I see.”
“So that’s it. That’s how I saved the world. Stupid, isn’t it?”
“Not at all. I think you showed remarkable presence of mind, especially for someone who says she isn’t any good at that kind of thing.”
“Yott did the work. All I did was get him there.”
“Could he have done it by himself?”
“No. Neither could I. That’s the point. I can’t do it by myself. I don’t know where to start, I’m no good at this, I never have been. I’m an office manager, not a hero! I mean look…” she held up her polymer-encased arms. “This is what happens when I try to save someone. Someone else has to come in and save me.”
“What if we could help you? I mean, if the ICT were up and running?”
She considered for a moment. “I don’t know. I’ll believe it when I see it.”
7. Katie
Katie was often found in the infirmary, having tests done on her stump to see if her arm could be safely reconnected. The technology was highly advanced but not beyond that of Hub — it was simply different. This could probably have been done in a day if the world’s electronics experts weren’t preoccupied with the aftermath of the attack; as things stood, one engineer was trying to figure out the problem remotely in his spare time, and progress was slow.
Her presence in the infirmary did, however, allow us to observe her closely, and we soon noticed she was developing uncontrollable tremors. Her remaining hand would shake, or her otherwise expressionless face would twitch. She repeatedly denied these symptoms existed, despite all evidence.
Otherwise, she kept her own company, and it was therefore a surprise when she presented herself at my office, which I had only just finished restoring to its former state. Coffee was quietly brewing and the place was just about beginning to feel right as Katie chimed at the door and I let her in.
“Take a seat,” I said.
“My request is brief,” she said.
“Okay. Go ahead.”
“I wish to volunteer in the armed forces of the Interversal Union.”
“Katie… we don’t have any armed forces.”
“The Interversal Union has been attacked. It is reasonable to expect it will shortly require armed forces. I wish to volunteer.”
“I can see how you’ve come to that conclusion, Katie, but I’m not sure it’s accurate. Also, I’d feel much more comfortable if we could discuss this while sitting down.”
&nb
sp; She sat in as formal a manner as ever.
“I have sat down.”
“Thank you. Let me repeat what I just said: The IU has no military. There’s no one to volunteer to. And I haven’t heard any plans to the contrary.”
“My offer is contingent upon the creation of a military. I am aware it does not currently exist.”
“Okay… but consider this. If the IU formed a military, there would still be a number of barriers to you volunteering. First of all: you’re not an IU citizen. You’re under the care of the IU, but that does not make you a citizen. I don’t think we’re likely to let people fight for us unless they have citizenship, or they’re volunteering from an IU member species.”
“I am prepared to risk my life in defence of the Interversal Union.”
“Perhaps. But any release from this centre depends on the success of your therapy. At the moment I don’t think it’s likely that I’m going to allow you to put yourself at risk when you’ve experienced severe psychological and medical trauma.”
“The persona will not emerge again.”
“No?”
“I have taken steps to ensure the persona will not emerge again.”
“This is something I’d like to discuss. I mean the whole business with Elsbet. Do you remember anything about what happened?”
“No. It is irrelevant.”
“She accused you of war crimes.”
“She is mistaken.”
“We’re going to have to investigate, when we get a moment.”
The Last Man on Earth Club Page 36
