"You got slowly worse. We floated where we were for close to a week, with nothing to look at except reefs and dust rivers. And still nothing changed."
Hooglich paused and gloomily shook her rat's nest of tangled hair. It sounded to Jeff as though she were telling a late-night horror story, one that finished, "So we all died."
"But something must have changed," he said. Although he had thought on first waking that he had been unconscious for a long time, he was finding it hard to believe that six days or more had vanished from his life.
"Yeah." Hooglich laughed, for the first time since she had appeared at Jeff's side. "It changed. Me and Russo, we figured we couldn't be in much more trouble, no matter what we did. So we sent the Mayday. Squeaky went crazy when he found out what we'd done. Said we'd be locked in the brig. Trouble is, the Aurora doesn't have a brig; it's way too small for one. After six or seven hours, he stopped frothing at the mouth—because a Cloudship rolled up alongside. I thought, thank God, we're saved. With all the excitement aboard, I'd pretty much forgotten about the ultimatum the Aurora had sent to the Cloud government. But Dufferin hadn't. He said the same thing again, when the Cloudship contacted us to offer help. It had used our original signal as a beacon, and it was curious to find out what the 'else' might be in our 'surrender or else'. What sort of ship had the firepower to make a threat like that to a whole colony?
"Not us, that's for sure. We were floating without a drive. We had all the destructive power of a toy in a bathtub. The Aurora's weapons weren't much to start with, and the ship's drive provided all their energy. No Omnivores, no weapons.
"If you think Captain Dufferin was grateful to be rescued, or at least embarrassed by the threats we had made, you don't know the man. The Cloudship jinners came over and gave us temporary power. We agreed that the Auroral Omnivores would be out of commission without a full dock overhaul. We went aboard their ship and met their commander. And Dufferin repeated his order one more time: the Messina Dust Cloud government must surrender."
"They refused?" More and more, Jeff wondered what combination of circumstances had brought him to a ship commanded by Captain Eliot Dufferin.
"Not exactly refused." Hooglich had moved over to study the bank of monitors by Jeff's bedside. "The head of the Cloud-ship was Captain Trask. The answer wasn't a yes, and it wasn't a no. It was more like a suggestion that the two of them could talk the whole matter over on the way to the Cloud center, where the Aurora would be repaired and refurbished. I'd say more like Squeaky was humored, the way you would some harmless half-wit. Except we all know, he can be anything but harmless."
A worry had crept into Jeff's thoughts while Hooglich was talking. At the mention of the Cloudship's captain, it moved to center stage.
"Is Trask a cyborg—like Tilde?" He turned his head, to see if the eight-legged oddity had returned. It hadn't.
Hooglich's face twisted into a scowl. "Didn't you agree not to interrupt? I'm trying to tell you something important."
"This is important."
"You horrified by cyborgs?" When Jeff said nothing, she went on. "I sure hope not, given everything. Anyway, I'll answer your question. Captain Trask is Captain Docie Trask, and if she's not all human she keeps it well hid. As for Tilde, that's a Logan—a smart machine. If Earth wasn't so hung up on keeping intelligent machines off the planet and out of the solar system, you'd have seen Logans long ago. Now can I go on?"
Jeff managed a minute nod, but he was thinking of the first thing she had said. "You horrified by cyborgs?" Was he? Probably. He was frightened by plenty of other things. "I sure hope not, given everything." What did Hooglich mean by that comment? It suggested that although Captain Docie Trask and Tilde the Logan didn't happen to be cyborgs, other beings on this ship, or wherever he was being taken, would be.
"The other thing I want to talk about, Brother Kopal, is you." Hooglich chose the perfect word to bring Jeff's attention back. "I said you were in bad shape when Russo brought you down from the observation bubble, but I didn't tell you how bad. I'll tell you now. You were a mess. You had a broken shoulder blade with a piece of chair still stuck into it. You had lost a liter or more of blood. You had four crushed vertebrae, burst veins in both eyes, a fracture and hemorrhage at the back of the skull, two dislocated hips, hematomas all over your arms and legs from blood pooling on the undersides, and five broken ribs. I think that's all."
Jeff heard the catalog of injuries with a mixture of horror and disbelief. Certainly, he didn't feel good. But with all those things wrong, shouldn't he feel far worse?
"Am I on painkillers now?"
"Not according to the monitors. Do you want to be?"
"No." Jeff risked a slight side-to-side movement of his head. It wasn't his imagination; the pain was less, each time that he moved. That was impossible—unless he had lain unconscious for months and been slowly healing for all that time without knowing it. "How long has it been since the sounder?"
"Nine days."
And five or six days of that had been waiting, before the Messina Cloud ship came onto the scene. He had been receiving proper medical treatment for only half a week. It was all impossible. He ought to feel like death, far worse than he did.
"How long before the cast comes off?"
"Not my department." Hooglich stood up. "Also, you are scheduled for more beauty sleep in just a few minutes."
"I don't want to go to sleep. I want to talk to Captain Dufferin. If he puts in my record that I'm to blame for the loss of the ship, and that gets back to Sol and my family—"
"I'm sorry, Brother Kopal." Hooglich sat down again. "Sorry three different ways. First, Squeaky already put it into the official record. You, me, and Russo are all labeled as bad guys. Second, there's no way we can stop it getting back Sol-side."
"Yes, there is. Nothing can get back to Sol unless it goes through the node, and you said we're heading in the opposite direction."
"True, and true again. We are heading for Confluence Center, the place on the other side of the Cloud where the dust rivers meet. But Squeaky isn't. I said I was sorry three ways, and I mean it. The third way is that two days ago, Squeaky and the rest of the Aurora officers made a break for it. When everything was quiet they went back to the ship, blew the pinnace clear, and hightailed it for the node."
"We have to stop them." Jeff tried to raise his head, but he couldn't do it. The monitor by the side of his bed was hissing, and dark waves were moving in to obscure the ceiling. His tongue seemed too large for his mouth as he mumbled, "We can't, we can't let them . . ."
"Sorry, Brother Kopal." Hooglich was a million miles away, her voice dwindled to an echoing thread of sound. "It's too late. You see, Captain Dufferin is going . . . going to . . . ."
Jeff did not learn what their superior officer was going to do. Because he himself was gone.
Chapter Nine
WHEN Jeff awoke he was sure that this time he had been unconscious for a much longer period. First, he was in a different room, a square-sided blue-walled chamber with a door on one side and an outside port in the wall opposite. Second, he was lying on a normal bed, with no sign of medical equipment. Third, his whole body cast had been removed. He looked down at himself and found that he was dressed in shirt and pants of a soft dove gray, with comfortable loafers on his feet.
Finally, and most important, he did not hurt. Anywhere. He turned his head. Not a twinge. He could sit up easily, swing his feet to the floor, stand up, and head across to the port. Nothing felt sore or damaged or delicate. In fact, he felt better than he had ever been. There was only one source of discomfort—a hunger that started to gnaw inside him as he approached the port.
He was tempted to turn and go at once to find something to eat, but the sight of the sky outside held him. Although he was still in the Messina Dust Cloud, this was a different part of it. Here, the great dust rivers coiled and curled and twisted, in braided strands of gold and pink and deep purple. This was where the streams of ionized dust, moving i
n response to the Cloud's gravitational and electromagnetic fields, must meet and intermingle.
Not everything visible was a natural feature. To the left and to the right he could see long linear constructs like cylindrical spokes, glowing lilac and magenta in reflected light from the Cloud. The thirty-meter-thick spokes began at the main body of the structure, close to where he stood, and stretched away kilometer after kilometer to infinity.
This could not be a ship. It was too big. It could only be Confluence Center.
And if he were here—memories of his last awakening were returning—then Eliot Dufferin was already Sol-side, reporting on Jeff's failure. It was unlikely to surprise any of his family. Except for his mother and Uncle Lory, no one would really be upset.
As he examined the sky again, seeking some pattern that might tell him the direction of the node, he became aware of another mystery. He had weight, not far from the weight he had on Earth. Confluence Center was big, but not big enough to produce a gravitational field. Unless the Center was rotating fast enough for centrifugal force to give the sensation of weight, he should be floating. Yet his view of the Cloud was static, with no sign that he was turning in relation to it.
He could see no sign of the node that the Aurora had used to reach the Messina Dust Cloud. The change from his last Cloud position made everything unfamiliar. The node could be beyond any one of the glowing patches—or behind him, on the other side of the sky.
That would have to wait. His hunger had passed beyond reasonable to ravenous. He turned to head for the open door and heard an odd scuffling beyond it.
As he walked forward, he heard a hissed "Stop that! I only wanted to look. I've never really seen one."
"You can't." More scuffling. Then, "You were told to stay away. Come on. Ouch!"
"It's your own fault. Let go of me!"
Not Hooglich, and not that funny machine, either. What was it called, Tiddler? No, Tilde. He must still be a bit groggy from waking up.
Jeff walked through the open door and emerged into a blue-walled corridor that ran thirty or forty meters before curving away out of sight. Just outside the door a strange tableau met his eyes. A stocky boy of six or seven with bright black eyes and a mop of dark curly hair was trying to pull free. Holding him from behind, one hand on his shoulder and her arm around his neck, was a tall, strongly built girl about Jeff's age. She had short-cut hair the color of fresh straw, and his first impression was of a younger version of his own cousin, Myra. That changed when the struggling pair moved and he had a good view of her face. She was panting with the effort, and fair devil's eyebrows scowled above a pair of startling blue eyes.
The two caught sight of Jeff at the same moment. They stopped tussling and slowly moved apart. They stared at Jeff, the girl sheepish and the boy openly curious.
At last the boy spoke. "Huh," he said. "He doesn't look anything special. He looks normal"
"I told you," the girl said. "What did you expect? A freak show?"
"Well, when people say he's a Kopal and a cyborg, you'd think—"
"Do you mind?" Jeff stepped closer. They were talking about him as though he wasn't there.
"It's his fault." The girl was speaking to Jeff but she gave the boy a punch on the shoulder. "We knew you'd be waking up now, and I was told to come and get you. Before we go inward, I'm supposed to see if you need anything. But nobody asked him along."
"Nobody said I couldn't."
"You're a piece of space junk, Billy. I don't know why we didn't leave you there."
"Hey!"
"Shut up." Then, to Jeff, "I'm Lilah Desmon."
"I'm Jeff Kopal."
"I know. And this disgusting bit of space flotsam is Billy Jexter. Do you need anything, Jeff Kopal?"
Jeff had the dizzying feeling of a situation totally beyond his comprehension. But he could answer her question without having to think.
"I need food. Lots of food."
"Easily done. Come on."
Lilah led Jeff along the corridor. The boy trailed along behind, muttering, "Cyborgs do eat, then."
"Billy!" the girl said warningly. "Just ignore him, Jeff. He's a total animal."
Jeff wasn't taking much notice. As they walked, he seemed to become lighter and lighter. Also, something very strange was happening inside him. Was it all the side effects of hunger? The pangs had grown and grown until he was unable to think about much else. He didn't care what he was given to eat, he would chew happily on a dead dog. His mouth watered at the prospect. "Can we hurry?"
"Nearly there." She took them along a curved section of the corridor, and into a room leading off it. Haifa dozen tables sat in the center, and one wall held half a dozen autochefs.
Lilah waved her hand. "It won't be anything much, unless you are willing to wait a few minutes. I can—"
"No. No wait."
She turned to stare at him. "Well, all right. Sit down."
The next two minutes were the longest in Jeff's life. It became worse when the smell of hot food wafted over from the autochef. Billy Jexter had seated himself opposite and was staring steadily at Jeff, who scowled back. When a bowl of soup and a loaded plate appeared in front of him, he stopped looking at anything. He ate and drank and drank and ate until there was no room inside for another morsel. At that point he stopped, leaned back, and took notice again of his surroundings and the other two people.
Billy Jexter was still staring at him, but with a new expression. "Wow. I've seen Link Musterthwaite eat, and I've seen Fat Winkleman. But I've never seen anybody eat as much and as fast as that."
Jeff recognized a compliment when he heard one, and he realized that the look was admiration. He didn't deserve either. He had never gulped down food like that before, and he didn't think he ever would again. He must have been badly starved—and there was an obvious explanation.
"How long was I unconscious?"
"Let's see now." Lilah began to count on her fingers. Jeff waited. He wouldn't be surprised by any answer, weeks or months or even a year. To heal the injuries he had suffered took a long time.
She finished her figuring and said, "Altogether, from the time you were hurt, it's been ten days."
"That can't be right!"
"Why not?"
"Well, Hooglich told me it was nine days from the sounder encounter when I first woke up. I felt terrible then, and she told me I was in awful shape. Now you are telling me that it's less than forty-eight hours later, and I feel better than I've ever felt."
She sat down opposite and regarded him with her head to one side. "You don't know, do you? You really have no idea."
"I'm not sure he is one," Billy said. "I think they were kidding. He doesn't look like one."
"One what?" Jeff had taken as much gibberish as he could stand.
"A cyborg," Lilah said quietly. "But there's no doubt about it. You are."
A cyborg? Jeff stared down at his hands, as though they might suddenly turn to metal claws. "What are you talking about? I'm not a cyborg."
"You are," she repeated. "If I hadn't known before I saw you eat, I'd know it now."
"You're crazy. This is Cyborg Territory, but I'm not one."
"Sit down." Jeff had started to stand up—amazingly, he was starting to feel hungry again. He ignored her and kept going. "Look," she said as he headed across to the autochef. "I think we're talking past each other. What do you mean when you say 'cyborg'?"
"A combination of human and machine." Jeff wasn't quite sure what that meant. His own mental picture was of a poorly defined image of flesh and metallic parts, combined in some vague yet definitely unpleasant way. "Perhaps a man's body with artificial arms and legs. Artificial eyes, too, maybe."
Billy snorted in disbelief, and Lilah asked, "Why would anybody make a thing like that?"
"I don't know." Jeff spoke through a mouthful of bread. "To fight as a soldier? You ought to be the one to answer that. I'm from Earth, this is Cyborg Territory."
"It is not. Look at Billy, and l
ook at me. Do you think we're part machine?"
He turned and stared at both of them, seeking anything he might have missed on the first inspection. Either of them would not have been out of place on Earth. "No," he said at last. "I don't. But you say I am. I don't see the difference between us."
"There's a huge difference." She came to stand by him. "You ate a ton of food a few minutes ago. Now you're eating again."
"So what? I'm hungry."
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