Chapter Twenty
Two days after Janis’ visit, Ran-Del felt well enough to perform the morning ritual and meditate for a few minutes. The warm comfort of samad state helped him considerably, even though he came out of his meditative trance to find his room full of alarmed medtechs who didn’t understand why his heart rate had dropped.
Ran-Del dismissed them with a brief explanation and picked up Kidnapped. Francesca had brought him a dictionary so that he could ask it for definitions when he found words he didn’t understand, and he had made progress in following the story even with its alien setting. He was immersed in the book when the door opened and Georges Rangoon stepped into his room.
“Hello, Georges,” Ran-Del said, pleased to have another visitor.
Georges grinned and looked him over, then offered his hand. Ran-Del could sense Georges' relief as he shook hands, all the while seeing images of his own blood-soaked body.
“Hello, wild man,” Georges said. “You’re looking better than I expected for someone who was dead last time I saw him.”
“Thank you for helping me.”
Georges shrugged, his mind full of chaotic scenes of Francesca’s flyter hovering over the damaged bridge. “We didn’t do much but call the med team.” He looked down at the book in Ran-Del’s hands. “Clara told me she gave you that book. How are you doing with it?”
Ran-Del could see a warm, affectionate image of Clara as Georges spoke her name. “I need to keep a dictionary handy, but it’s better than a regular book. It feels real.”
Georges grinned happily. “I’ll tell Clara.” He gave Ran-Del a quick scrutiny. “How are you feeling?”
“Better.” It was true. The rehabilitation exercises helped because they made him less restless. “I still sleep a lot. I hope Clara doesn’t mind if I keep her book for a few weeks.”
“Don’t sweat it. You can bring it back when you come back on the job.”
Ran-Del didn’t answer for a moment. “I think you had better look for someone else, Georges,” he finally said. “I won’t be coming back.”
Georges’ eyebrows knitted in a quick frown. “I thought you were expected to make a full recovery. That’s what the Baroness said when I called her.”
Ran-Del nodded. “I certainly hope so, but that’s not why I can’t work for you anymore.”
“Then why?” Georges demanded.
Ran-Del had had time to think it through. “Because whoever killed Stefan Hayden didn’t care who died with him. If they look at what happened to him and what happened to me, they might decide to do a more thorough job. I don’t care to put my friends at risk like that, Georges.”
Georges mulled this over and stuck out his lower lip. “You going to hide there in the Hayden compound and not come out?”
“No,” Ran-Del said, hoping it was the truth. “Not if I can keep my wife from locking me up. But I can’t have a job outside. If someone were to try again, that’s the first place they’d do it.”
Georges nodded reluctantly, a vision of his warehouse in flames leaking from his mind to Ran-Del’s. “You may be right, but it kills me to have to say it.”
“Why shouldn’t it? It killed me to learn it.”
Georges guffawed. “You’re making progress, wild man.”
They spoke for a few more minutes. Georges filled Ran-Del in on what had happened that night on the bridge, relayed greetings from the other staff, and then related a few anecdotes about Guillermo’s still unlucky social life.
A voice at the door interrupted.
“Sorry, citizen,” said a man’s voice. “It’s time for your exercises.”
Ran-Del looked up to see a familiar face. The black-haired man coming in the door wore a tunic like a medtech, but Ran-Del couldn’t place him. The man turned his head, and his profile clicked in Ran-Del’s memory. He didn’t know this man personally. He had seen him only in the mind of the golden-haired medtech who still tended him sometimes.
Ran-Del said goodbye to Georges without really paying much attention. He let the specialist shift his body and move his limbs but all the while his mind was working. His new gift was real. It wasn’t his imagination. Somehow his psy gift had expanded.
He needed his grandfather.
The Sixth Discipline Page 78