“Well, our sleeping prince has finally awakened . . .”
The heartiness of the doctor’s voice instantly annoyed me. “How long have I been sick?”
“Feisty, he is, too. And that is a good sign . . .”
“How long?” I snapped.
“Let’s see . . . about ten days . . .”
“TEN DAYS?” That was impossible.
“You’re lucky to be alive, young man. Surviving nerve poison isn’t exactly commonplace.” She studied my eyes, and flashed a small light around.
“Nerve poison?”
“We don’t know how you managed to get a small enough exposure to survive, but once you made it past the first few hours, it was just a matter of treating the symptoms. You’re just lucky that your lady friend found you before it was too late.” She was taking my pulse or listening to my heart.
“Lady friend?”
“But your signs are good, and I think we can get rid of this last tube and let you have clear liquids. The sooner, the better. You’re too thin. All you travellers have too high a metabolic rate.”
I wanted to say something.
“Not that any of you will ever get fat, but you’ll starve on a diet that would feed a healthy farmer.” She prodded my too-tight shoulder muscles. “Well, let’s get started.”
“Started?”
“Some high-protein, high-energy, clear liquids before you turn into a true shadow of your former self. Don’t you feel light-headed when you work too hard for too long?”
I had to nod, feeling wrung out as well as light-headed.
“Tendency to chronically low blood sugars. Runs in the breed, I suspect. Now, let’s get you something to drink.”
“Water would be fine.”
“Not enough. You want to end up with more tubes in you?”
“No.”
“Didn’t think so. I’ll be right back. Or Nerlis will.”
Nerlis?
As she swept out and opened the door, my view of the room improved with the increased light from the corridor outside. There wasn’t much to see, just the bed, a plastic chair, a hospital-type table, and several thin structures on wheels draped with tubing. And one bouquet of sun daisies, framed by greens, with a card beside it, sitting on the window sill.
The flowers drooped, as if they had been there for some time.
Click, click, click.
Then the single overhead light flashed on, and my eyes watered.
“Let’s get that out of you. I’m Nerlis, Trooper, and I’m glad to see you awake.” She had short silvered hair, wrinkles, and a genuine smile.
“So am I. So am I.” I coughed to clear my throat. “Where am I?”
“You wouldn’t know; would you?” She laughed, a soft hoarse sound. “You’re in the base infirmary. That’s why you’re still alive.”
“But . . .”
“Everyone knew you had to go back. But it wasn’t your fault. The armourer committed suicide, you know, after giving you the wrong weapons.”
“Janth . . .”
“His family was killed in the looting after the enemy attacks. They say he’s never been quite the same since. The colonel-general had worried about that, but there never were enough trained armourers.” She busied herself with the needle attached to the tubing. “Look somewhere else, and relax.”
“Somewhere else . . . ? All right.”
“Aaaah . . . bring your arm up. That’s it.” She manoeuvred a dressing into place where the needle had come out. “Now just hold your arm like that for a few minutes while I get the Sustain.”
“Sustain?” I hated asking stupid questions.
“High-energy clear liquid,” said Nerlis as she marched out of the room, her boot heels clicking on the tiles.
I licked my lips and tried to swallow. Tried, because my throat was so dry. Outside, the darkness was beginning to lighten, and I could see blurred clouds.
“. . . in a little while . . .”
Nerlis’s voice echoed down the corridor. She was talking to someone else. Their words were muffled. So I tried to shift my weight one-armed, leaving the dressing in place. How long before I could straighten my arm?
Click, click, click . . .
“Here we go.” She was carrying a beaker of an off-purplish liquid and a cup, both of which she placed on the bedside table. After pouring a small amount into the cup, she held it up. “Take a sip. A small sip . . . and you can relax your arm. Any bleeding should have stopped by now.”
My hands shook as I lifted the cup, easing a few drops into a mouth so dry that none even seemed to reach my throat. The second sip lubricated my throat, and a third may have reached my stomach.
“Wait a moment.”
I put down the cup, marvelling at how much effort three small sips took.
“Shouldn’t be too long before some of the light-headedness starts to pass. Might be a minor stomach cramp or two.”
“Uh . . .” Minor stomach cramp? I could barely keep from doubling over, and my forehead burst out in another cold sweat.
“Try to relax.” Nerlis wiped off my forehead with a dry cloth, before folding it neatly and putting it on the bed-table next to the cup. “The reaction should pass quickly.”
She was right about that, too.
“Another sip,” she commanded.
I just looked at her.
She looked back at me.
I picked up the cup and took another series of small sips. My hands didn’t shake the second time.
“The second set of cramps should be less violent.”
They were. Instead of wanting to double up and die, I only felt like the three ConFeds had charged into my guts. I fumbled for the cloth and managed to wipe off my own forehead.
“Another sip?” I asked after the sweat and cramps passed.
“One more. Then wait for a while. You should start to feel better. You need to finish the entire beaker by midmorning.” She started to leave, then turned back. “And no matter how good you think you feel, don’t try to get out of that bed or sit up with your legs over the side.”
“But . . .”
“You’re dehydrated enough you don’t need to use the facilities immediately, and we don’t need you plastered face down on the stone.”
“Yes, Nerlis.”
“Thank you, Trooper.” She left shaking her head.
I waited, then took another series of sips from the cup, and suffered through the entire process of cramps and cold sweats again. By the time I had recovered from the third round of Sustain, I could see a grey, grey morning.
Wryan stood at the foot of the bed—from nowhere.
I gaped. It was one thing to surprise others, another to be surprised.
“Are you feeling better?”
“I thought you didn’t dive?”
“I didn’t.” She smiled wryly. “But someone told me it was possible, and then left me hanging, and I worked on it.”
“What really happened to me?” I found myself lowering my voice.
“Did you actually enter the ConFed fort?” The doctor was frowning, but she didn’t look as formidable as before.
“No. Stayed strictly under the now. I’m not that stupid . . . but . . .” I shook my head. “Didn’t seem to make that much difference . . .”
“It did. You’d be dead otherwise. Your reaction was from the mental feedback, I think, trying to convince your body to replicate the symptoms.”
“Replicate?” I shivered. “Do you know . . . really know?”
Wryan just kept watching me, meeting my eyes.
“. . . never . . . never . . . again . . .”
“Killing people, you mean?”
“Not that. Torturing them. Do you have any idea . . . ?” I was not just shivering, but shaking all over as the images pounded back at me.
“Try not to remember. Not just yet.” Wryan’s hands covered mine.
“Try not to remember? How . . . ?” That woman putting a gun to her head . . . or the man slashin
g his own throat . . . or the whole screaming, pounding pulsation of pain that had buried me . . . how could I not remember?
I could feel her hands tremble. “You felt it, too? You looked?”
“Not so closely as you did.” Her face had paled momentarily.
“What happened?” As I freed one hand and used the cloth to wipe my forehead again, I was beginning to get an idea of what had occurred.
“They think you picked up traces of the nerve poison. You showed all the symptoms. The doctors claimed Odin Thor could be tried for murder. The nerve gas was banned throughout Query generations ago.”
“Ahhhhh . . . and then the colonel-general claimed he thought it was only nausea gas to flush them out?”
“Exactly.”
“Poor Janth.”
“The armourer?”
I nodded.
“He really did suicide, Sammis. Not that I blame him.”
“I don’t either.”
Slowly, as I stopped shaking, she removed her hands from mine and stepped back. I realised she had stopped wearing the makeup to make her look older.
I laughed harshly. “All that equipment’s lost, at least for a season.”
“Not nearly that long, unfortunately. The nerve gas will decompose within days.” Wryan looked around. “You’re not supposed to have visitors yet.”
After the stimulation of seeing Wryan, and the reaction to those too-vivid memories, I felt drained again. So I reached for the Sustain. This time, the reaction was but a slight jolt and a damp forehead.
“Don’t they understand? How horribly they all died? The back-ground sheets said it was quick, not that it was like an eternal agony compressed into a thousand breaths. Even after. . . . even after . . . my father . . . no one . . . nobody . . . should die like that . . .”
“No . . . but you didn’t know.”
“Does that excuse it, Doctor?”
“No.” Wryan looked straight back at me, her eyes clear. I respected her for that lack of evasion. “But it means you understand.”
I had to lean back on the pillows, Sustain or no Sustain.
“You will have to kill again, Sammis. You know that. Chaos leads to violence, and some violence can only be halted by removing the causes.”
Unfortunately, I knew what she meant. “Not now.”
“No.” She shook her head. “Not now.” Looking around, she smiled faintly. “Goodbye.”
She was gone, just like I had left her on those nights I had appeared in her quarters.
Click, click, click . . .
“Trooper? Who were you talking to?”
“Me?” I forced a grin. “Guess I was talking to myself.”
Nerlis didn’t believe me, but she just looked around, shook her head, and pointed to the cup. “Keep drinking.”
“Yes, nurse.” I reached for the cup again. It was going to be a long morning, a very long morning.
XXXV
ONCE I HAD struggled through the entire beaker of the Sustain, my recovery was a matter of time, and enough calories. I was ready to leave. Neither Nerlis nor Dr. Dyrell would agree.
“You have no bodily reserves, Trooper. None at all. Your immune system is depressed . . .” Dr. Dyrell, although hearty in tone, was less flexible than Odin Thor. “. . . and you probably never ate enough.”
“I can’t eat any more.”
Dr. Dyrell just shook her round face at me. Her dark hair, peppered with grey, was so short and curly that it didn’t even move. “You can’t take in enough calories with three standard meals. You need a minimum of five full meals. Three or four and an equal number of heavy snacks will do the same thing.” She glared at me. “Until you get some weight on that scrawny frame, you can’t leave. Trying to do it overnight puts too much strain on your heart. We’ll measure it out until we get you up where you belong.
“In the meantime, if you leave here using those mental travel tricks, it’s your health. Maybe your death.”
She wasn’t joking. I had to go for the meals plus snacks routine. Five full meals I just couldn’t take. Even after a day or two, I could tell the difference. Not that I looked much different, but I could use my undertime sight—and it was sharper—without feeling an instantaneous physical drain. Hard to believe that I had been operating on the edge of starvation, or that eating the diet of a healthy farmer had been insufficient.
Deric arrived with a stack of notebooks and the suggestion that I could spent my recuperation learning what every good diver should know. Most of the time, studying beat staring out the window, and gave me a welcome break.
Two days later, ploughing through some overripe fruit and stale cheese and leafing through the third notebook, I heard footsteps.
“Sammis?”
“Mmmmpphhh . . .” With my mouth full, I just mumbled at Mellorie.
“Is that all you have to say?” She grinned momentarily. In her dark blue tunic and white trousers, she looked professional.
I shrugged, swallowing quickly. “Medical opinion was that I was near starvation. They won’t let me out—officially—until I remedy that.”
“Poor Sammis . . . you look a sight better than when they carted you out of your room. I’m sorry I didn’t come earlier, but . . .” She looked down, then out the window, where high white clouds darkened into afternoon thunderstorms.
Something—more than just something—was bothering Mellorie.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“No . . . but I should.” She kept her back to me, with her hands clasped. “You . . . you thought . . . but I didn’t. I couldn’t. Not after Nepranza . . .” If she hadn’t found me, who had? The doctor had said “woman friend.”
“Nepranza?” I temporised. “That bad . . . ?” I didn’t know what she was talking about.
“They said it wasn’t that bad.” Her voice was flat. “They say I must have been imagining things. They say that no one would have touched a child. Not the daughter of a lord. That’s what they say. . . .”
Nepranza! The name connected. Farren had mentioned the place— molesting a lord’s daughter . . . as if the only bad thing had been the killings of nearly innocent young men.
“They never talked to you?”
“My father wouldn’t let them—before. He died in the riots. The ConFeds made sure of that. They made sure of a few other things.”
“I see . . .” Not that I did. “Is that why you were attracted to me?”
Mellorie shrugged, still looking out the half-open window.
A roll of distant thunder punctuated her gesture.
“Yes.”
I could barely hear her voice.
“Sammis . . .” She finally turned around, but she did not look at me. Her tunic was buttoned all the way to the neck. “Don’t you understand? I was afraid. I knew you were sick, but I wouldn’t go into your room. I wouldn’t come see you until you were well.” Mellorie finally looked up and into my eyes, almost glaring at me.
“Why don’t you sit down?” I took a deep breath.
“You want me to stay? After I nearly killed you?”
“First,” I sighed, “you didn’t nearly kill me. I did. Second, there was nothing physically wrong with me. And third . . . we’ll get to that. Now sit down. You owe me that.”
She didn’t owe me anything, but I wanted her to sit down.
“Do you know what happened?” I asked.
“They said you must have tried to check—“
“No. I’m smarter than that. I just wasn’t prepared for the feedback. For all the deaths.”
Mellorie’s face went blank, as if a screen had covered it. “They deserved it. Every instant of it.”
“Even the woman who took her lover’s gun and blew out her own brains because the pain was so great? Or the boy who kept banging his head against the stone walls . . .”
“Don’t talk to me about them . . . please . . . don’t talk to me about them . . .”
“Mellorie . . . I damned near died because I pick
ed up their deaths . . . my brain was trying to tell my body it was dying—five hundred times over. Do you know what it was like dying—“
“Stop it! Stop it, stop it, STOP IT!!!!” Mellorie lurched to her feet. She grabbed the railing at the bottom of the bed and shook it enough to make the heavy bed sway. “STOP IT!!!”
Click, click, click, click!
Nerlis stood in the doorway. I motioned her back, but she stayed there.
Mellorie didn’t seem to notice. “All you can think about is their deaths! What about my sister? What about my father? What about me?”
“What about my father?” I asked quietly. “They burned him alive in his own house.”
“Then how can you feel anything for them?” Her voice was lower.
“Because I felt every single one of them die. And nobody should have died like that.”
“Would you do it again?”
“Would you do it?” I countered.
“In an instant. Would you?” A thin film of perspiration coated her forehead. “Would you do it again?”
“I don’t know.” I tried not to shake my head, but the images kept running through my thoughts—the woman grasping for the gun, the soldier with bloody fingers clawing his way along the floor . . .
“Goodbye, Sammis.” She brushed the red hair back off her damp forehead with her right hand, as if nothing had happened. Her left still held the bed frame. “I hope you’re back to normal before too long. Let’s have dinner some time when you come back.” Her face was almost expressionless. Then she grinned, and the falsity made her face look like a carnival mask. “Just mark it down as the hysteria of a pampered lady gentry. All right?”
Nerlis eased back into the corridor, although Mellorie had never even taken notice of her.
“Whatever you say, Mellorie. Whatever you say.”
She let go of the bed frame. “I still like you, Sammis, but you don’t understand. So let’s just be friends. All right?”
I nodded slowly. “Friends.”
“Friends.” This time I got a faint smile, but a real one. For a long time, I looked blankly out the window, letting the breeze ruffle my hair, drawing in the air that bore the hint of the on-coming storm, and the ebbing scent of the one just departed.
“Are you all right, Trooper?”
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