by Manda Benson
“Jananin, I never told anyone about Ivor Pilgrennon, or what happened in the Information Terrorism attack on London, or at Cape Wrath. I could have done, but I didn’t. You say it’s not up to you to decide, but I know you could do something if you wanted to. The people who are supposed to decide don’t even need to know that Peter and Gamma and the wyvern came out of the Emerald Forge alive!”
Jananin appeared to think about this for a moment. A tension had spread over her. Dana’s breath came in ragged gasps. She was starting to feel weak and dizzy.
“Are you attempting to blackmail a Spokesman for the Meritocracy?”
Jananin and Dana stood, staring at each other, until Jananin spoke again. “Rajesh?”
The Air Commodore turned around from where he’d been speaking to the other men.
Jananin glanced away from Dana to draw attention to where Gamma sat hunched up on the damp ground. “Take this child to Torrmede. Guard her closely and see that she does not have access to computers. The boy and the construct are to be sent to MOD operations base in Stornoway and the boy is to receive treatment, there to be transferred to a secret location. I will send precise instructions later.”
Dana felt greatly relieved as the soldiers marched Gamma over to the Landrover, but Gamma threw a look of disgust over her shoulder at Dana as they pushed her inside.
Jananin’s jaw was set rigidly. She spoke in a low voice so only Dana would hear it. “Pilgrennon intended you as a weapon. As he does not wield you, I have decided not to interfere as yet. If you make an enemy of me, you may some day find yourself in the situation Gamma would have been intended for.”
Dana had noticed many people make meaningless threats: You’ll wish you’d never been born, Dana’s old teacher Miss Robinson had used to say. People say I’m going to kill him when they are angry with someone. I’ll have your guts for garters. Jananin’s threat did not feel that way. Could she really have Dana taken from her home? She had the influence to do it, but would she really do that? Despite their blood connection, Dana did not really know Jananin.
She watched Peter fighting weakly, spitting. What if he wasn’t taken to Stornoway with the wyvern as she’d wanted? When that car drove away, its occupants would be gone from her life, and she might never know how their stories continued. Although Jananin seemed to have little concern for the lives and wellbeing of others when they conflicted with her own intentions and what she saw as being morally just, Dana had never known her to lie outright or renege on her word. Quite possibly it went against the personal code of honour she upheld with people like Rajesh and Osric. She believed Peter and Gamma and the wyvern would be treated in the way she’d asked, and hoped her feelings were not merely wishful thinking.
“Your ambulance is here,” said Tarrow. Blue lights flashed over where the road was.
“Good-bye, Dana,” said Jananin.
“They’ll be leaving base tomorrow morning if you want to visit,” Tarrow suggested, but Dana knew Jananin would deliberately avoid proximity to her and Cale until they went home.
Rajesh carried Cale back to the road, Dana and Tarrow walking beside him. Dana’s legs ached terribly, which hadn’t mattered so much when there’d been problems to deal with, but now the pain and the exhaustion were too much, and she had to hold on to Tarrow’s arm for the last bit of the walk to the ambulance.
Rajesh lifted Cale in through the back doors of the ambulance and put him on a bed while Tarrow settled Dana on a chair, with a blanket over her and a plastic cup of cold water. Rajesh saluted to her and smiled before getting out.
Tarrow put a pale blue blanket over Cale. She rolled up his sleeve and set about putting a drip into his wrist, like the one Dana had in the hospital. He wasn’t awake yet, but Dana knew he would be soon. In his dream, he happily wandered a gloomy half-lit museum, after all the staff and the other visitors had gone home. She wasn’t about to spoil it by waking him. There was a big, squishy plastic bag full of liquid hanging over his bed and flowing slowly through a tube into the vein in his arm. Looking at it was reassuring in a way. She knew Tarrow could keep them safe now, and they were going to a nice hospital that would make Cale better, not like the awful hospital in the nightmares.
An urge of worry fidgeted briefly over the calm she felt: what about at the end of the holidays, when she had to go back to school and face Abigail Swift and Eric, and having to turn into a woman? Thinking about them like this, these concerns suddenly seemed rather less important. If she could face a man like Sanderson who was bigger than her and more experienced, and a bully like Gamma who was older than her and could get inside her head as well, surely stupid bullies the same age as her could be defeated? And if she’d made an embarrassment of herself with Eric, surely it was no worse than any embarrassment she’d made with any other person, and surely plenty of other people make embarrassing mistakes with their lives. Having to become a woman might not be as bad as she expected, if Tarrow and Jananin could still be themselves despite having done it. At any rate, it was no use worrying about things before they’d even happened.
Tarrow’s voice interrupted her thoughts. “I’m going to sit in the front. Keep your brother company and we’ll be back at Site Twelve soon.”
Dana nodded. Tarrow got out and set about closing the back doors, shutting out the starry sky and the cool night air.
She put her hand into her pocket and took out Sanderson’s phone. She switched it on, silencing it with a thought so Tarrow and the ambulance driver wouldn’t hear it. It didn’t take long to find the video. Ivor, or a brief moment of him preserved in the tiny LCD screen, the Ivor before he came face to face with the products of the chances he’d dared to take. She wished she’d had time to ask Sanderson more questions, but at the same time she knew no answers he could give her would be any use. Nobody could answer her questions about Ivor, because nobody else had known him like she had, not at the end. The Ivor Sanderson would have known was not the same person.
Dana wiped away a dampness that had formed in her eyes as the ambulance’s engine started. She put the phone back in her pocket. Life went on.
-THE END-
Forthcoming from Tangentrine Ltd
The Lambton Worm
Book 3 of Pilgrennon’s Children
Some of the science in The Emerald Forge has real-life applications:
ORGAN DONATION
By registering for organ donation, you are giving permission for your body to be used to help others if you should die and no longer have need of it.
Organs such as the heart, lungs, liver, and kidneys can be used by doctors to save the lives of other people.
Anyone can be an organ donor. To find out more about organ donation, see the websites below or discuss with your health provider:
United Kingdom: www.organdonation.nhs.uk
USA: www.donatelife.net
Canada: www.transplant.ca
BLOOD DONATION
Donated blood and extracts from blood can be used by doctors to save lives. Donating blood does not harm the donor, who regenerates new blood to replace what is donated. In most places, you have to be 17 or older to give blood. Find out more from your health provider or the links below:
England and North Wales: www.blood.co.uk
South Wales: www.welsh-blood.org.uk
Scotland: www.scotblood.co.uk
Northern Ireland: www.nibts.org
USA: www.americasblood.org
Canada: www.blood.ca
