Crossways: A Psi-Tech Novel

by Jacey Bedford

  “You want me to fly the bus, Boss?” Gen asked.

  The quickest way to get Cara back to Civility Jamieson was to flash into foldspace from low orbit and emerge less than fifty klicks from Crossways itself. Gen would balk at that. He should do it himself. He could do it. Couldn’t he?

  One mistake and none of them would make it. Better to arrive safe and slow than not at all.

  “Do it, Gen.” He took his trembling hands off the control pad.

  “Warn them we’re coming. Tell them to clear a path. Have Jamieson standing by to do two implants.”

  Gen boosted Solar Wind’s antigravs just as ground vehicles were screaming into the hospital precinct. They shot steeply upward on extended wings. One thousand meters, two thousand meters, three thousand.

  The comm sounded again. “Solar Wind, this is the Monitor ship MS Lomax. You are impounded by law. Please stand down and prepare to be boarded.”

  Four thousand meters. They were still well below the altitude of commercial liners. Lomax must be above them.

  “Get her position, Kitty,” Ben said.

  “Right there.” Kitty put Lomax on screen.

  She was, indeed, between them and escape.

  Ben left Gen to take the pilot’s seat and activated his vox. “Alexandrov, is that you again?”

  “Benjamin, stand down.”

  “Like hell I will.” He muted his vox and turned to Gen. “Now Gen, into foldspace.”

  “We’re still in Chenon’s atmosphere.”

  “Do it.”

  Alexandrov didn’t waste time on a warning. Lomax released a missile. Gen gave a strangled squeak and plunged Solar Wind into blackness.

  The void dragon comes at him, just the big one this time. Ben’s fairly sure it’s the same one. It’s come looking for him. Why him? Why can’t it leave him alone?

  It wants to talk. How can it? They don’t even share a language.

  *No. Not me. Cara. Find Cara, please.* He wraps his arms around his head. It seems to be telling him that he can’t avoid a conversation sooner or later. He’s on the riverbank again, his dad’s in the water. The chasm of darkness swirling at his feet. Jump, his dad says.

  *Talk,* the void dragon says.

  “No,” he replies and steps back.

  His dad floats effortlessly away into midstream. The void dragon dips its head in acknowledgment and vanishes, leaving the flight deck empty of hallucinations. But there’s an echo of soon.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  RENEWAL

  THE SICK BAY SHUDDERS AND THOUGH THE lights don’t dim, darkness swirls in, tangible. They are in the Folds. Cara hardly feels the jump; she’s far too preoccupied with what’s in her head, or rather what’s not in her head.

  It’s just like it was before, she tells herself. I survived nearly a year with my implant turned off. I can do it again.

  But she’d needed an array of tranqs to help her through it and she’d always known that with one flick of her tongue against a back tooth she could power it up again.

  She pulls the blanket around herself, shivering, though it isn’t cold.

  “Breathe,” Ronan says. “You’ve got to get rid of that thing. Jamieson can replace it when we get back to Crossways.”

  “You don’t know that for sure, Ronan. Stop bullshitting me.”

  “Look at me, Carlinni.” Jussaro cups her cheek and turns her face toward him. “You have one chance. Imagine . . . no, not just imagine . . . You have to know that your implant is not you. It’s a thing apart. You have to believe it. Really believe it.”

  “That’s all it takes?”

  “Uh, not really, but it’s a start.”

  “You got rid of yours.”

  He nodded. “With some help.”

  “You look like shit, Jussaro.”

  “Welcome to the club.”

  Something swirls into sick bay, a formless shadow. It bumps Jussaro, nose to forehead.

  “Here,” she hears him tell it. “Another one for you.”

  He pulls her upright. She shrinks back.

  “It’s all right Carlinni. It wants your implant. I’m not sure why.”

  “Talk.” There’s an audible rumble that she can feel all the way down to her toes. Is the thing speaking?

  “Learn.”

  “Holy shit!” Jussaro chokes on his own words.

  Ronan is looking around in amazement. He hears something, but obviously can’t see the source.

  “Mind,” the thing growls.

  Is this Ben’s void dragon?

  “It’s learning from the implants.” Jussaro’s voice is filled with wonder. “Give it yours. Imagine you want it gone.”

  She can’t. She knows she can’t. Getting rid of her implant is the last thing she wants to do. She wants to reactivate it, restore it, retain it. She tongues her tooth, but nothing happens.

  “It’s mine. It’s me.”

  “Not anymore,” Ronan says. “It’s dead. Diseased and dead. Let it go before it kills you.”

  She wraps her arms around herself and tries to act small.

  Ronan kneels at her feet and pulls her hands into his. “Trust me, Cara.”

  Ronan helped her when she was mind-blocked on Olyanda, when she knew there was something in her head that she’d been prevented from sharing by McLellan. He helped her to break the conditioning. She trusts him more than anyone except Ben. She sees his expression. He’s scared for her.

  “Trust me. Let it go.”

  Diseased. If she thinks of it as diseased, she might want to get rid of it.

  “Yes, you can do it,” Ronan says, his voice urgent. He transfers both her hands into one of his and with his thumb rubs her forehead where the slight bump of her implant scar still hides beneath her skin.

  “It’s not you anymore,” he says gently, squeezing her fingers.

  She nods and squeezes back.

  “All right. I’m ready.”

  “Stay very still, Carlinni,” Jussaro says.

  Something ripples through her head with butterfly softness.

  She relaxes. Then sharp pain stabs through her skull.

  Ronan catches her as she falls forward. “It’s over,” he whispers. “It’s out. Gone. Sucked away into nothingness.”

  “It’s his now,” Jussaro says. “The void dragon has it.”

  She bursts into tears.

  “Shit, Benjamin, you really know how to make an entrance. Don’t make a habit of this.” Mother Ramona was waiting for them on the dockside by the time the air pressure had returned to normal.

  Cara and Jussaro were both in float chairs, one from the Solar Wind’s med bay and the other requisitioned from Fowler, who would follow at a more sedate pace.

  “I love you, too,” Ben said, not stopping as he pushed Cara’s chair toward the entrance. “Got the clearance we asked for?”

  “The tub lanes are all clear,” Mother Ramona said. “You’ll have a straight run. Now can we get this station running normally again?”

  “Thanks. I’m sorry.” He left her behind.

  “No, you’re not.”

  “You’re right. Not sorry, but I am grateful.” He turned his head to shout back. “Please introduce yourself to my family. My grandmother’s looking forward to meeting you. My brother may not be quite so civilized. Go easy on him.”

  “Not so civilized. That’s one way of putting it.” Ronan, pushing Jussaro’s float chair, kept pace with Ben to the entrance and they loaded both patients, still in their chairs, into the waiting tub. Syke and three guards shot ahead of them and a second tub of guards followed behind.

  “Do we still need a guard?” Ronan asked. “Now that Crowder’s dead.”

  Crowder dead. Ben hadn’t let himself think about the third dart he’d pumped into Crowder. The tub careened
around a corner and he reached over to steady Cara. No time for Crowder right now. “Are you still with me?”

  “Still with . . .” she said. “Not getting any easier.”

  “I guess it’s not.” He clasped her hand, small and frail, like a bag of bird bones, with no answering squeeze.

  “Professor Jamieson’s in the implant suite.” Nine met them at the front door.

  “He knows he’s got two patients, right?” Ben asked.

  “He knows. He says he’ll take Jussaro first because he’s already done the preliminary tests. While he’s doing that I’ll run Cara through the tests, so she’s ready.”

  Ben didn’t ask what happened if the tests proved Cara wasn’t suitable for reimplanting. She sat very quietly in her chair, eyes closed, but he was sure she was listening.

  “Don’t worry.” Nine put her hand on Cara’s shoulder. “Professor Jamieson is the best.”

  Cara nodded, but didn’t reply.

  “Professor Jamieson also said to ask whether you got either of the implants out whole.”

  “Both of them,” Ben said. “But we didn’t get to keep them. Would you believe me if I told you a void dragon sniffed them up like they were some drug?”

  “I might, but Jamieson . . . not so much.”

  “Make something up then, but don’t tell him until after he’s done the implantations. We might have a recording of the whole thing, but don’t tell him that until afterward either.”

  Nine flashed a grin at him. “I see you’re beginning to understand what makes the professor tick.”

  “I’ve met men like him before. Single-minded to a fault, but frankly, I don’t care what makes him tick as long as he can do the job.”

  “Do you understand me? I’m going to clamp your head so that you can’t move.”

  Cara heard Jamieson’s brisk voice as if from a long way away, but she could see shadows cross her closed eyelids as figures moved between her and the light.

  “I said do you understand?” His voice was up close now. She could smell him. Dry, clean, antiseptic.

  “Yes.”

  “You sat in on Benjamin’s procedure, so you know how this works. I don’t need to immobilize you completely. I’ve tweaked the head restraint since then. This isn’t an experiment.”

  “How’s Jussaro?” she managed.

  “Fine, recovering quietly. He screamed like a girl, but it all went according to plan.”

  “Am I supposed to say girls don’t scream and then try to prove it?”

  “Scream all you want, just don’t move. And for the record no one goes through this, awake, without screaming.”

  Ben squeezed her hand and that was the first time she realized he was still there. She squeezed back. “Once for no, twice for yes?” she asked.

  “You’ve got it. I’ll be here.”

  “I know you will.”

  “Ronan’s here, too.”

  “Hey, let’s have a party.”

  “Ready for the head restraint?” Jamieson asked.

  “Yes. No. Ben . . .”

  “Here.”

  “Kiss me.”

  “For goodness sake we haven’t time . . .” Jamieson protested.

  “Out of the way, Professor. There’s time for this,” Ben said.

  She felt Ben’s lips on hers, warm, tender, full of promise. There was no need to say the words, but she did anyway. “I love you.”

  He kissed her again and breathed the words back to her.

  “All right, Professor,” she said. “I’m ready now.”

  The head restraint was a tight fit. She had a moment of claustrophobic panic, but Ben grasped her hand. The restraint shaped itself to her skull, covering crown, eyes, cheeks, and lower jaw, while leaving a cool open space in the center of her forehead and a triangular opening over her nostrils and mouth. She heard the robotic arm begin to move above her head and felt a slight pressure as it made contact. Then there was a blinding pain as the needle bored through her skull.

  Surprisingly that part was over quickly and she felt the needle withdraw. The implant must be in place already.

  “All right so far?” Ben asked.

  She squeezed twice for yes, and then it began.

  A million baby snakes frolicked through her brain, wriggling, tickling, fondling, jostling, and just plain thrusting through. Pain and pleasure followed in waves like good sex for all the wrong reasons or bad sex for all the right ones. She was losing her virginity all over again at the same time that her head was being sawed in two. She clutched Ben’s hand and held on tight as her body spasmed from top to toe.

  It could have been a minute, it could have been a lifetime.

  *Cara. Cara! Are you back with us? Are you back?*

  *Yes. Oh, gods, yes. Yes!*

  She began to laugh.

  “I’m fine, Nine. Don’t fuss,” Cara said.

  “Professor Jamieson wanted a full set of bloodwork six hours after implantation.”

  “I’ve had so many sharps stuck in me I feel like a pincushion.”

  “Sorry.”

  “I’m not sick. In fact I feel better than I’ve felt for years.”

  “Euphoria. When it drains you’ll crash. Jussaro’s already sleeping like a baby.”

  “Well, I don’t intend to stay in here another hour, let alone another night. Time I was gone.”

  *And you called me a bad patient!*

  Cara whirled around to find Ben in the doorway. “See, Nine, my transport awaits. My Knight in Shining Armor has come to whisk me off to his castle and make mad, passionate love to me.”

  “Don’t bother to wrap her, I’ll take her just as she is!” Ben said. “That’s the best offer I’ve had since . . .”

  “Since Olyanda.” Cara ducked around Nine and grabbed Ben’s outstretched hand.

  “On the other hand, wrap her.” Ben grabbed Cara’s hand and twirled her around, laughing. “Singlet and shorts are very fetching, but maybe a wee bit underdressed for Crossways.”

  “You’re no fun, Benjamin.”

  “I am. Really, truly, a lot of fun.”

  She pulled on her buddysuit trousers and then flung herself straight at Ben, plastering herself to his front so hard that their suit bottoms rubbed together like rhinoceros hide and her breasts were squashed against his chest armor. She pulled his head down to meet hers and liplocked so fiercely that she felt his utter surprise and then delight as he gave back in good measure.

  “Unhhh,” Ben surfaced. “I’ve got this, Nine, if you’ve got all the bloodwork you need.”

  There was a gap where Nine had been.

  “Are we alone?” Cara asked.

  “Oh, yes, just us and a ton of nurses and doctors, not to mention patients just the other side of that glass. Here, put this on.”

  She shrugged into the buddysuit top but didn’t stop to anchor it to the trousers or to fasten it, but wore it like a loose jacket. “Back to the Solar Wind, right?”

  “With you in this mood? No way. There’s a hotel around the corner.”

  The hotel was literally around the corner from Dockside Medical. Cara let Ben sign in with a wave of his handpad and clung to his side like a limpet. It was a lot like being drunk, something Cara experienced only rarely because alcohol messed up her Telepathy in the worst way. They rode up the antigrav tube together and Ben grabbed the rail and exited at the correct floor. By that time she didn’t know whether she was on her head or her heels. Normal weight returned as they hit the hallway ceramic and the second door down on the right opened at the wave of Ben’s handpad.

  All she focused on was the bed, huge and soft with fluffy pillows and an airquilt that rippled with their entrance.

  “Oh, yes, perfect.” She flung herself on top of the quilt and bounced.

  “Come on, let’s get y
our clothes off.” Ben held her jacket while she shrugged out of it.

  “Yours, too.” She yanked at the touch-and-close fastening around his suit neck. “Ooh, Ben Benjamin, you don’t know how much I’ve missed you.” She ran her hands across his chest, over his singlet, and around the side of his well-muscled ribs. “How long has it been?”

  “Too long.” His voice was husky.

  She tugged at the fastenings on her own trousers and his. It was complete and utter magic how two people could shed clothes so quickly and completely when the need was so urgent.

  “Oh, yeah. It’s long, but it’s not too long.” She slid her hand between them and heard him gasp. “I can take that.”

  He groaned as she pulled him onto the bed and he cradled her with his right arm while his left stroked her breasts and down her ribs to her belly. She writhed against him.

  “Thing about euphoria . . .” he said.

  “Hmmm?”

  “Is that it’s great while it lasts . . .”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “But when you crash . . .”

  “Not gonna . . .”

  “You crash . . .”

  “. . . completely.”

  Ben felt all the tension melt out of Cara as she flopped against him, utterly relaxed, half-asleep already. He reached for the airquilt and pulled it over both of them, willing his hard-on to subside. He’d known she wouldn’t go the distance, but his body had betrayed him anyway.

  “Hmmm.” She made a comfortable sound and curled against him.

  He stroked her flank gently as if she were some favorite pet.

  “I’ll give you just four hours to stop doing that,” she murmured.

  He kissed the top of her head, her cropped hair little more than fluff. “Go to sleep. You’re safe.”

  “My white knight.”

  “You’ve saved me more times . . .”

  “Who’s counting?”

  “No one. I love you.”

  “I love you, too.” Her voice trailed off as sleep overcame her.

  He’d not planned to sleep as well, but he did.

  “What time is it?” Cara’s voice was thick and low.

  “I don’t know. Lights.”