“You had been arrested by then?” I asked.
“Oh yes, I was arrested. Held in solitary for four days. But there was ho direct evidence of my involvement with the League and Eldon pulled strings on my behalf. He’s always disliked Helmine. I was released after ten days.”
Roger did indeed have friends in high places; Eldon was a former mayor of Helixport and a highly respected politician. He had retired two seasons previously but clearly still wielded a considerable influence over governmental affairs.
“What of Helmine?” Eilan inquired. She still looked tense, cautious, as if she expected the good news we had already received to be counterbalanced by some dire revelation.
“Ousted,” Roger said with relish. “She overstepped herself. At the end of last cycle she tried to get the Senate to endorse her for a third term. But there had been a growing unease about the possibility of a dictatorship throughout Winter—Helmine’s strong-arm tactics and her blatant disregard for civil liberties were becoming more and more apparent. So Eldon mobilized his support and when Helmine attempted a third endorsement, he swooped. I had already hinted that we believed that she was responsible for the fire-bombings which had been blamed on the League and he produced conclusive evidence of this. She was impeached and quickly removed from office. She’s in jail now and Nathan is mayor. The new Senate is far more democratic and is seeking to embrace all shades of opinion. The constitution is being rewritten to increase its number to ten. There’s a place for you if you want it.”
Eilan showed a modicum of surprise. “This seems a remarkable turnabout.”
Roger grinned broadly. “Not as remarkable as my last two items of news. The M’threnni have left Gaia and a starship is on its way from Earth.”
The news of the incoming starship had broken a month previously when astronomers at the Hart Observatory in the Crescent Mountains had detected a new object of the twelfth magnitude during a routine sky-scan. At first they had assumed it to be a comet but attempts to calculate its orbital period had revealed that it was on a direct course for Gaia and that its point of origin could be traced back to the star Sol. The starship was now clearly visible in the night sky and its arrival was anticipated within a matter of days.
If this news had been sufficient to create a stir, what had happened next had been equally surprising. Just four nights ago a M’threnni freighter had arrived on Round Island and had taken off some ten hours later—a much longer stopover than normal. When dawn broke, no cargo lay waiting at the centre of the terminus but a group of Voices. The M’threnni had departed the island, abandoning their human servants. The Voices, all apparently catatonic, had been removed to the hospital and were currently under observation. All attempts to gain access to the tower had so far met with failure.
Roger continued talking, telling us how his clientele at the restaurant had fallen off drastically since the departure of the M’threnni, thus forcing him to close down for refurbishment. I was only half-listening. Annia had been released from the tower and she was at the hospital, mere kilometres away. I had to see her.
It was too early for lunch, but Roger must have decided that our island-leanness was a sign of undernourishment for he dispatched a waiter to a nearby bakery and the man returned with a tray of honeyed pancakes. They seemed such a delicacy after our primal island diet that we wolfed them down within minutes.
The talk went on. Eilan wanted to know more about the proposed changes in the constitution but Roger could tell her little. She asked about the current status of the Voices: what was being done with them and what results had been obtained? Roger didn’t know. I sensed that she was eager to bring herself up to date on current affairs, that she would have liked to leave immediately for the city but felt constrained by Roger’s hospitality. I was wondering how best I could slip away when there was a sudden cry from Junith. She was holding her belly and gulping in air.
Eilan rose quickly and said to Roger: “Fetch your floater. We have to get her to the hospital.”
Roger exited at speed while Eilan attended to Junith, loosening her garments and laying her flat on the sofa.
“Can you hold out?” she asked. “We’ll be at the hospital within ten minutes.”
Junith swallowed more air. “I’ll try,” she gasped.
Roger returned to say that the floater was waiting outside. By now Junith was somewhat calmer and she was able to walk out to the vehicle. I insisted on accompanying her and Eilan to the hospital. Eilan, who must have been aware of the dual nature of my motive (I had told her all about Annia), raised no objections. Alma required little persuasion to stay behind to greet Wolther and Islor.
As Junith was easing delicately into the front passenger seat of the floater I noticed that her pet bird—which she had insisted on bringing home with her and had promptly forgotten as soon as we had stepped ashore—was waddling along the embankment, pursued by two small girls. The bird, ill at ease amongst the stone and concrete of the harbour, flapped its stunted wings in a pathetic attempt to escape the attentions of the youngsters. Finally they cornered it on a narrow jetty and began waving their arms with glee. For the bird, their exuberance at discovering such a quaint creature was nothing more than a threat; it cowered on the edge of the jetty, burbling pitifully.
Roger drove at speed to the hospital, paying scant attention to the surrounding traffic; he was thoroughly unnerved by Junith’s condition. Junith herself was somewhat calmer now. Her labour-pains had ceased and she rested her head on the seat, her eyes closed and a hand across her belly.
Eilan, who was obviously familiar with the hospital, brushed aside the nurses and orderlies who attempted to block our path and took Junith directly to an empty operating theatre. Within minutes a doctor had appeared and after brief and whispered consultations with Eilan, he departed to find some literature on obstetrics.
Eilan came over to me. “You can do nothing here. Junith’s in capable hands.”
“I’d like to see the birth,” I said.
“Junith doesn’t want it. She insists that only I and the doctor be present.”
I looked across at Junith, She was staring wide-eyed at the ceiling and she looked frightened.
“Come back in a few hours,” Eilan said, putting her hand on my arm and smiling, as if she knew what I was going to do next and was silently endorsing it.
I wandered down the white corridors, wondering where the Voices might be quartered. I knew that strict security measures would surround their enclosure and that, unannounced, I was unlikely to gain admittance. I went down to the main entrance hall and asked the receptionist if Doctor Wendi Carver was on duty. He checked his roster, then referred to his watch.
“She’s about to come off for the morning. Shall I page her for you?”
“Please.”
Wendi arrived about five minutes later. I was sitting in one of the semi-circular couches which lined the main entrance when I saw her emerge from one of the ward-corridors. She was dressed in a pale blue smock with silver ribbing and she wore a navy-blue scarf about her forehead, tied into a knot above her left ear.
She stopped at the receptionist’s desk and he pointed in my direction. She walked over, a frown of puzzlement on her face. Then, as she drew near, she broke into a smile.
“David! I didn’t recognize you with ail that hair. How are you?”
“I’m fine,” I said, rising. “You look very prosperous.”
I was referring to the silver neckband and the crystal cheek-drops which she wore: she radiated affluence.
She smiled winningly, as if inviting me to expand my observation into a direct compliment.
“I thought you might have gone back to the High Valleys,” she said. “I went back to the villa a few times, but it was always empty. What have you been doing with yourself?”
“Oh, nothing much,” I said. She was obviously unaware of my involvement with the League. “Do you remember Annia?”
“Annia?” she said, pondering. I couldn’t tel
l whether or not she was pretending to have difficulty in recalling the name.
“The girl from my commune that I thought was dead.”
“Oh yes.”
“Well, she isn’t. The M’threnni took her as a Voice. I think she’s now under observation here at the hospital. I’d like to see her.”
“I see,” Wendi said, staring towards the entrance. A man in a wheel-chair was attempting, rather unsuccessfully, to manoeuvre himself through the swing-doors. Wendi called to a passing orderly and he went over to help him.
“You realize, David,” she said, “that all the Voices are completely uncommunicative? She won’t talk to you.”
“I’m prepared for that. I’d just like to see her.”
She studied me for a moment, perhaps wondering (as I was) whether Annia, whom I was now convinced she did remember, had been the spectre that had hovered over us throughout our liaison, finally forcing us apart.
“I’ll see what I can do,” she said, and went off.
I sat down again and watched a young boy playing with a spinning top across the hall. He was unable to flick the top with sufficient vigour to get it going, so I went over and started it for him. The top careered off across the tiled floor, the boy chasing after it with whoops of delight. I studied the arabesqued tiles. Green and cream, the interwoven patterns seemed to go on for ever…
It was some time before Wendi eventually returned. She was accompanied by a heavily bespectacled middle-aged man with all the authoritative mien of a “senior consultant”.
“This is Doctor Jacobsen,” Wendi said. “He’s our senior neurophysiologist and the overall head of the team who are studying the Voices.”
“You must understand,” Jacobsen said without preamble, “that these people—the Voices—are exhibiting all the classic signs of catatonia. All our efforts to engage them in any form of communication have so far been unsuccessful. They show a complete lack of interest in the world around them.”
“That has been explained to me,” said.
“Several of these people have already been visited by friends, and nothing fruitful has come of it. It can be quite distressing if the person was once close to the Voice.”
“It seems a singularly inappropriate name, given their present condition.”
Jacobsen did not appear to appreciate the irony; his severe features remained set in their granitic mould.
“I’m prepared for the worst,” I said with a hint of impatience. “I’d like to see her.”
Jacobsen stared at me for a moment, then nodded.
The Voices were quartered in an isolation ward on the top floor of the west wing. The only access was via an elevator. A militia woman stood outside the door, talking to a male nurse. The door itself held a large sign, red letters on white, saying: no unauthorized entry. Wendi told me that the sign was common to all wards in this part of the hospital and had not been put up especially for the Voices. Nonetheless, they had been securely cocooned in the most inaccessible area. We did not enter the ward, but Jacobsen allowed me to peer in through the circular window.
The beds were all empty and the Voices were gathered at the far end of the ward. A series of couches had been arranged around the glass-faced wall and the Voices were sitting or standing in the sunlight, attended by three yellow-frocked female nurses. I counted nineteen, ten men and nine women. About two-thirds of them were elderly or middle-aged, the rest somewhat younger. They all wore white patients’ tunics, their left sleeves rolled up to accommodate the nutrient pads fixed to their upper arms. None of them moved or showed the slightest awareness of their environment; they were frozen like holo-figures, their hairless faces utterly blank. It was a tableau vivant of the eeriest kind.
“How many are there all together?” I asked.
“Twenty-three,” Jacobsen said.
The same as the number of days between the freighter shipments, I recalled. Coincidence, or some magic number for the M’threnni?
“We’ve arranged for you to meet Annia in private,” Jacobsen said. “Wendi will sit with you.”
I turned away from the window. “I’d like to see her alone.”
He shook his head. “Impossible. The Voices must be under qualified supervision at all times. If you wish to see her, then you will do so under our conditions or not at all.”
Annia was sitting in a private bedroom just along the corridor. I say “sitting”, but the verb is inexact, since it suggests some conscious act on her part. She had been sat in the chair—presumably by the orderly who now stood at her back, his face almost as impassive as hers.
“This is Annia, I take it?” Wendi said.
“Yes,” I replied.
“We didn’t know her name until you arrived today. She was the only one who fitted the age criterion. She appears to be the youngest of the group.”
“No one from Silver Spring has been to visit her?”
“No.” She motioned to the orderly and he departed. We took seats facing Annia’s chair.
Over a cycle had passed since I had last seen her, and she was no longer a young girl, but a young woman. Her head was as glabrous as an egg, her skin far paler than I remembered. Her face expressed—not inertness, but neutrality, as if she had fallen asleep with her eyes open. She stared straight ahead at the wail, giving no indication that she had even registered our entry.
“None of them have spoken so far?” I asked.
“None,” Wendi said.
I noticed that the pupils of Annia’s eyes were abnormally contracted, as if the sunlight, which was streaming through the window to her right, was far too strong for her.
“Annia?” I said. “Annia, it’s David. Do you remember me?”
As if in a trance, she continued to stare at the wall.
“Annia,” I said more loudly, “I thought you were dead. At the commune, they told me you were dead.”
I had a feeling of deja vu; then I realized that I was paraphrasing my dream parlour conversation with her.
“Perhaps they’re all deaf,” I said inanely to Wendi.
“No, they can hear sounds. They just don’t react to them. They don’t react to anything.”
I pulled my chair up to her and took her hands in mine. They were cool; not cold, but cool. I had deliberately blocked her line of sight so that she was now forced to look directly at my face. But if her eyes focused automatically, there was no sign that she recognized me or even acknowledged my proximity.
“Annia, you have to fight this,” I said. “Whatever they’ve done to you, you have to fight it.” I squeezed her hands in emphasis of my words, “You can come back, Annia. They’re gone now, the M’threnni have gone. You can be whole again.”
Nothing; I might have been addressing a statue. Her hands remained limp in mine. I looked down at them and saw Jax’s snake-ring on my own finger, I slipped it off, raised her right hand to the level of my chin, and slid the ring on her middle finger. Her eyes moved to the ring, then back to my face.
“It’s Jax’s ring,” I said. “Remember it? Jax is dead, Annia.” I waited a second, then added: “I killed him.”
Even this dramatic half-truth failed to stir her. But she had looked at the ring; for a split second she had shown some awareness of the world around her.
I turned to Wendi. “Did you see it?”
“Yes,” she said, smiling. “I saw it.”
Junith was still in labour, so Wendi and I had lunch together at a restaurant near the hospital. She must have been intrigued by my confession of murder to Annia but she said nothing of it. I, in turn, did not ask her about her life since leaving me; but she confessed, unprompted, that she was now in liaison with the banker, Theo. She described him as a kind and considerate man—adjectives which by their very blandness telegraphed that she was not completely happy with him. I felt a little uneasy; I didn’t know whether she was offering me an olive-branch or an invitation, I moved the conversation on to generalities. We talked of the departure of the M’threnni and the i
mminent arrival of the starship from Earth. But Wendi had no real stomach for such weighty matters and we discussed them in bantering tones, with Wendi speculating that Gaia might become a holiday resort for Earthfolk, and I countering this by remarking, with totally unfelt humour, that the M’threnni had probably fled from Gaia because they disliked tourists. But when we left the restaurant, Wendi took my hand momentarily and said: “I’ll help all I can with Annia, you know.”
I returned to the villa and found that it had lain idle since my departure. The garden was derelict; storm-sand had drifted across the untended flower-beds and the pool was clotted with weeds. The house itself remained as I had left it—dustier, perhaps, and disused, but inviolate. There was a pile of Chronicles on my desk in the living-room; put there, no doubt, by Wendi during one of her visits. They were dated up to a month after my departure for the Antipodean Isles. I dumped them, unread, in the disposal chute.
I was surprised that the villa had not been relet in my absence; the properties on the estate were keenly sought after. Perhaps Helmine had put the place under surveillance following my disappearance in the hope that I would eventually return there. No doubt when she was deposed, the house had been left empty to await my return: a reward for the exiled hero.
The solar heater was still operational so I took a long, hot bath, relishing the luxury. Afterwards I fell asleep in my favourite chair and when I awoke it was early evening.
I returned to the hospital, stopping off on the way at a barber’s to get my hair trimmed. I decided against having my beard shaved off; it could remain a while longer.
When I finally arrived at the hospital I discovered that Junith had given birth to a boy. She had been placed in a private room on the northern corner of the main building; a host of doctors and nurses stood in the corridor outside, enthusiastically discussing this strange phenomenon of endogenesis. As I threaded my way past them I was tempted to announce loudly and proudly that I was the father.
Junith herself was attended by Eilan alone, her baby (somehow I could not really think of it as our baby) nestling on her breast. She looked quite composed, and was obviously enjoying all the attention she was receiving. We talked for a short while, and I took the baby from her and held it in my arms. It began to cry; a raucous, uninhibited bawling. Although strictly ugly in the manner of most newborn babies, I must confess that the child kindled in me something which I can only describe as a glow of paternal pride. But Junith was soon asking for the baby, and I handed it back to her. It was clear that she considered the child hers and hers alone. I raised no objections.
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