by Ilsa J. Bick
“Try slim to none. How many reported cases in the records since the Cataclysm?” He held up his good hand, the left. “Three. Now your records clearly document that this…Bashir,” he made a vague conjuring gesture, “if that’s even his name…suffered minimal traumatic damage, correct?”
She said nothing.
“In fact, didn’t your own brain imaging studies reveal several anomalies? Neural functions that have no correlate in our database?”
“Anomalies happen, Blate. We call them mutations. We call them syndromes. For all I know this is something that’s already been described but the data was lost after the Cataclysm.”
“Perhaps,” he said, like he’d sucked on something very sour. “But no damage other than the usual EEG slowing seen after a concussion, isn’t that so?”
“Yah. And, Blate, well, I’m impressed. Soon you’ll have my job.”
“No, Colonel. Soon, I will have your patient.”
“Care to make a little wager?”
“Bashir is lying. You know he is. And I have eyes and ears, Colonel.”
“As do I, Blate. Torturing Bashir won’t get you anywhere. Keeping him alive and cooperative is much more in our interests. His physiology alone merits further study—”
“You’ve had time to study. But you and Major Arin withheld information—”
“Hold on. Dr. Arin was following my orders, Blate. You have any quarrels, you have them with me.”
“No, I don’t think so, and do you know why?” Blate laced his fingers, like a professor. “Because loyalty is key. Loyalty is the glue that binds us Kornaks together and makes us strong. Loyalty allows us to function as one, with one goal, one mind, one purpose.”
“But there’s the individual, Blate. You can’t control hope, or fantasies, or dreams.”
“But we’re well on the way, aren’t we, Colonel? You’ve had your failures, of course.” He paused. “But your primates, they’re an example, yes?”
“I still can’t separate them for long.”
“A problem you’ll solve, I’m sure. Besides, perhaps autonomy is not desirable.”
“People have to be able to choose, Blate.”
“You didn’t always think so.”
“But I think so now. Besides, we only know of one donor, and now he’s gone. I can’t replicate someone so unique. We need a single voice to direct the others. If not, then what’s the point? The others might function as a unit, yes, but they can only go so far. Anyway, Bashir is so different, I can’t see how he could be the one to—”
“We both know that your patient is no random mutation. His story is shot through with lies. I can prove it.”
She had a sinking feeling in her gut. This was precisely what she’d been afraid would happen. “The fMRI? In your dreams. His brain’s so different, it won’t work.” A lie. The fMRI would prove Bashir a liar, and that was only the first step down a road that could only end in a place she didn’t want to be again.
Blate said, “I disagree. You will run the scans in a week’s time. Only I will ask the questions, not you.”
“And why a week?”
“Because General Nerrit’s quite interested.”
Arin muttered a curse. She felt dizzy. A week didn’t give her much time…and to do what, exactly?
Because you believed in this once. Else why keep on with the work? Why keep separating the primates to see if maybe you’ve cracked it? Because we’re dying, that’s why; if I can’t take this further, do something…
“Well, we’ll certainly look forward to seeing the general again,” she said with as much enthusiasm as she could muster. “You said there was something else?”
“Yes,” said Blate. “I thought you might like to know what we determined about Bashir’s very interesting suit. An amazing bit of technology. It’s designed to provide air, pressure, and temperature control. It’s got a battery pack that we don’t understand and a novel form of computer integration my people can’t crack. We know that the Jabari and the other Outliers don’t possess this technology. We certainly don’t.” He paused. “Tell me, Colonel, have you ever seen a machine that flies?”
She was confused. “You mean, other than a propellant grenade? No. No one has. We can’t…it’s not possible.”
“Mmmm. What if I told you that Bashir’s suit flies?”
She was so stunned she couldn’t speak for a moment. “Fly? You mean, off the ground, through the air?”
“Yes. The suit is designed for flight. We think only for a limited period, you understand, and it seems that the suit would function better with less friction. But this thing could fly.”
“But…no one flies,” Kahayn said, stupidly. “No one knows how.”
“Not precisely, Colonel. We did know once, didn’t we?”
“But that’s all ancient history, Blate. After the Cataclysm, the ban…”
“Prohibits development and so on and so forth; I know, Colonel. But that would explain much, wouldn’t it? How, after all, did Bashir get inside the perimeter? There is no other way except by underground tram, and he’d have needed a pass which, I think we can agree, he didn’t possess. But this suit flies, Colonel. That’s troubling, don’t you think? What are the chances that a people this advanced live in some idyllic country we’ve never heard of?”
She said nothing.
“Yes, I’d thought you’d agree. So,” Blate said, ticking the items off on his fingers, “Bashir’s suit provides for pressure, air, heat, propulsion, and also, we think, communications. Everything you would need.”
Her heart was hammering so hard she felt the rhythmic pounding, like a timpani drum, in her temples. “For what?”
“Why, for traveling in space, Colonel.” Blate folded his hands upon his desk and gave Kahayn a beatific smile uglier than a snarl. “It has everything you would need for space.”
After Blate rang off, Kahayn and Arin stared at each other. Neither spoke for a long time. Then Arin stirred. “You don’t have to do this. You have a choice.”
Kahayn pulled in a deep breath. “No.”
Arin frowned over his glasses. “No, what? No, you won’t do it, or…?”
“I mean, no, I don’t have a choice. We have to do something, Arin.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, or we’re all gonna die.” Arin chewed on the inside of his cheek. Then he jammed his glasses back into place. “Explain something to me. We go through all this trouble to save this guy, protect him, keep him isolated so no one messes with him, all so you can cave? So you can kill him?”
“I was doing my job,” she said, but distractedly. Her mind was going around in circles: The suit proves it; but if I convince him to give up the information willingly…Or maybe I shouldn’t; maybe our only destiny can be what we’ve already made for ourselves…. “I’m still doing my job. You wouldn’t understand.”
“Yeah? Well, I understand this.” Arin pushed to his feet. “When did we become the monsters?”
“We’re not monsters,” Kahayn said. She pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger and sighed. “We’re just trying to survive, Arin. This is a war, if not with the Jabari or other Outliers then with our bodies and this dustbin of a planet.” She made a helpless gesture with her hands. “We’re just trying to survive,” she said again.
“Until when? The military’s swallowed us up and locked us down tight. When was the last time you even heard about cleaning the air or water, or doing something about the soil so radioactivity doesn’t stunt crops or saturate our systems; or even helping people have a normal baby?”
“Damn you, Arin!” Kahayn brought her artificial fist down on her desk with a sharp bang. “Don’t you understand? Blate said it. The suit can fly! Put it together! We figure out the principle—”
“From one dinky suit?”
“Better than a propellant grenade. It’s a start. Besides, every particle of anything this guy’s ever seen could be ours. There’s an excellent chance that he knows much more that he
thinks.”
“That’s not ours to take, Idit.”
“Says who? You want to stay here? Because this is about getting us the hell off this rock! Maybe not in your lifetime or mine—”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. Keep switching out parts, and we might last a good long time.”
“You know we won’t. Eventually, our bodies will outlive our brains. But he could be the key. Just because we can’t see the stars anymore doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try for them.”
“Nothing justifies murder.”
“I won’t kill him.” A pause. “He won’t die, I promise.”
“Why should he be any different than the others?”
“Because he is, Arin. Have you ever seen a brain like his? Ever? I’m not talking simply structure. I mean, function. His brain is working better, faster, and more efficiently than you or I or the smartest person on this planet could ever hope. He picks things up that would take us triple the time. He’s not just intelligent, Arin. He’s brilliant. And to top it all, he’s antigenically neutral. So maybe he’s the one who could facilitate repair and—”
“So that justifies a bargain with the devil? With Blate? What, the hell we’re living in right now isn’t good enough for you?”
“Don’t you lecture me, Arin. Not when I spend my days ripping out organs that don’t work, or hacking out cancers, or reeling out rotten gut.”
“Idit,” said Arin, but it was a hopeless sound. Like someone who’d used up all of his strength. “Don’t you see? Blate has his reasons for wanting whatever information Bashir’s got, and you have yours, except they really don’t come close to overlapping. Do you really, really think Blate or Nerrit wants what’s best for us?”
“I don’t know about what’s best. All I know is war, Arin. Fighting the rot, or the planet, or Blate…all I know is how to fight. If you stop fighting, you might as well just walk out of here and into the desert, and keep on until you drop. Or put a bullet in your brain.” She was silent for a moment and then said, a little dreamily, “In the beginning, it all seemed like such a good idea, a way we could stop fighting among ourselves. A way to keep going in these bodies for a near eternity. It can still be a good thing.”
“Are you trying to convince yourself? Even you must surely see that whatever your dream was, Blate will pervert it to a nightmare.”
“I still have to try.”
He searched her face. “Maybe you do. But what, exactly, are you going to call this now? An experiment? Or exploitation?” Without waiting for a reply, Arin limped for the door, favoring that left knee. He yanked the door open, then paused. “You talk about reaching for stars. But maybe this is all we deserve. Maybe people like us shouldn’t be allowed out there,” he gestured toward the ceiling, “messing up stuff for everybody else. And maybe he knows that our place is here.”
“Arin, if the situations were reversed, would you help his people?”
“Of course.”
“As would I. So who is he to judge us?”
“He’s a person, Idit. However different from us, he’s still a person. If he’s lying, maybe it’s for a good reason. Perhaps that’s where his honor lies. An ethical line he cannot or will not cross. There are some universals, Idit. Dignity, respect. And honor. Heaven knows, I’ve lost mine.”
They were silent. Then Kahayn said, miserably, “I’m doing the best I can. I’m doing what I have to do.”
“Oh, shut up.” Arin’s face twisted. “Lie to yourself, but don’t expect me to bless you for it. You think this is a war? Do you know what they say about war?”
“What’s that?”
“The first casualty in war is the truth.” Arin gave Kahayn a hard stare. “That’s what they say.”
She was quiet for a moment. Fidgeted with a stylus. “When the time comes…”
“I’ll be there.” He sounded resigned. “I always have been.”
“No, Arin. I don’t want you to assist.”
Arin stared. “What?”
“You heard me.”
“Yeah, I just don’t believe it. Why not?”
“I don’t want you involved. Whatever happens, I’m responsible. Someone has to be responsible. That’s me. You understand?”
“But I’m already involved!”
“And I’ve appreciated everything you’ve done.” She was still playing with the stylus, then tossed it aside with a sigh. “But this far, and no further, Arin. You’re out of the loop as of now.”
“You don’t trust me?”
“No, I don’t.” She read his sudden pain, and waited for an explosion of anger. Maybe she wanted it. But it never came.
Instead, Arin blew out a breathy laugh that had no humor in it. “Well, this is a hell of a thing.” He paused, almost seemed to think better of what he was going to say and then changed his mind. “I’ve known you a very long time. I’ve been your friend. I used to think I was a little in love with you, even when Janel—”
“Arin—”
“No, let me finish. Janel was my friend, Idit, before he ever was your lover. But I…I respected both of you, and when he died, I stayed away.”
“No, you didn’t. You were always there for me, Arin.”
“But only as a friend, and I knew that. I still hoped that maybe, someday…Anyway, now I wonder what that’s like.”
“Love?”
“Hope,” he said. “Because here’s the hell of it: I’m your friend, Idit. I always have been. You need me more than you think, because you’ve the devil on one shoulder, and an angel on the other, and sometimes you need reminding of which is which. Janel’s gone, Idit. But I’m here, and I always will be, even when this is over. Because if you go through with this, you’ll hate yourself, and you’ll need me to remind you that, once, you were on the side of the angels.”
He turned away. The door snicked shut.
Kahayn sagged back in her chair and exhaled a long sigh, suddenly very weary. “I know, Arin. That’s just the problem.”
Chapter
3
Almost two months. She’d been here two months. And still counting.
Lense was filthy, and her clothes—blood-stiffened khaki pants, a khaki tee ringed with a necklace of sweat edged with dried salt—could probably stand on their own. Her mouth was gummy and dry, like she’d been marooned in Vulcan’s Forge for a month. But at least she’d acclimated to the low oxygen. No headaches or nausea in two weeks. Her sleep was still off, though. Dreams of fire, and Julian, always there, forever just out of reach.
She slumped on a rock slab outside a honeycomb of mountain caves about three days’ travel from that inland sea. That hazy orange ball of a sun was setting now, throwing rust-red bolts across a sky filmed with a yellow-brown smear. But better here than back in her ad-hoc recovery ward, a gray dank cavern reeking of old blood, stale urine, and fresh pus.
I just want to go home. She slipped her hand into her right trouser pocket and fingered her combadge, tracing the familiar contours. Please, I just want to go home.
She couldn’t get that near disaster this morning out of her mind. All right, maybe that was melodrama. Worst-case scenario, she would have revised the amputation up, kept cutting until she had enough artery to tie off. But she wasn’t doing anyone any good, hacking and tearing and cutting them up bit by bit. Who was she to think that she could?
She stared south. The terrain reminded her of Vulcan’s Forge, too, only flatter. Long stretches of pancake-flat, sun-blasted red desert shimmering with heat waves. But where the valley opened up, there were boulders edged with stunted trees and irregular swaths of scrub. The horizon wavered with heat, and the air wobbled like something alive. This high up, she could just make up the edge of the sea, black as the blood crescents beneath her nails.
Three, four days’ walk to that compound, probably. Even if she went there—if she didn’t cook on the way—what then? Would things be any different, better there? Probably not.
Besides, there was Saad. Good-looking. Ok
ay, more than that; very…well, drop-dead gorgeous. Very nice eyes. Beautiful hair, all that brown spilling over his shoulders. Odd thing, though. No scars, at least none that were visible. Maybe, beneath his clothes, probably had a nice back…
Whoa, kiddo. You start thinking about some guy, you know what you’re really saying? That you’re stuck. That they’ve stopped looking for you…
“Elizabeth?”
“Saad.” She swallowed, quickly knuckled away her tears, blinked the others back. “Just taking a break, but I’ve got to get back. My clothes, I’m a mess, I need—”
“You need rest.” Saad slid next to her. He’d changed out of his bloody tunic, and he smelled clean and, faintly, of musk. Beads of condensation dewed a tall gray mug he held in one hand. “I came to apologize.”
“For what?”
“Getting angry. I know you’re doing the best you can.”
“Hunh.” She gave a wan smile. “Best isn’t good enough. I thought I could pull this off. Back in my…country, there are stories about wars from very long ago. People getting all blasted to hell, and doctors operating with cleavers. I used to think that was heroic. Frontier medicine, you know?” That reminded her of Julian—how cruel she’d been and how much she wished she could take back everything she’d said—and she had to push past a sudden lump in her throat. “Winning against all odds, that kind of stuff.”
“And now?”
“Now, I think it’s vanity. Arrogance. Oh, a doctor has to be pretty narcissistic to begin with. Otherwise, you’d never pick up a, uh,” she’d been about to say protoplaser, “scalpel. A doctor’s got to believe in her hands and her head. On quick thinking and no room for doubt or error.”
“And what about this?” Saad flattened his palm over his sternum. “Is there no room for heart?”
“Not much. Compassion, sure. But the heart has doubts. The heart gets in the way.”
“Of everything?” He said it mildly enough but she was suddenly very conscious of how close he was, his scent. The way he was looking at her now, with a degree of intimacy she didn’t think she was imagining. She wasn’t entirely sure she disliked it.