He glanced at her nightgown as if he had just noticed it. “Anika’s going to stay here for a bit. I don’t want her alone at our house until we can guarantee there are no more intruders on the estate.”
Rishi gave Anika a brief smile. “No problem. There are plenty of guest rooms. But don’t expect me to entertain her now. I’m going with Praxiteles.”
“Fine,” Hari said. “Go get dressed. I’ll take you in your flyter.”
She was suspicious. He wasn’t arguing, but he was trying to separate her from Praxiteles. “Why can’t I go with him now?”
“You’d just be in the way. He’s out cold, and he won’t know if you’re there or not. Besides, you’re not dressed. It may be a while. Do you really want to hang around a hospital dressed like that?”
Rishi looked down at her lace gown. Praxiteles’ blood spotted the front, and she had torn the hem getting up off the floor. She looked as if she had been attacked. No wonder Arnuchh had stared at her. “You’ll take me right away?” she asked Hari.
His eyes met hers easily. “As soon as you’re dressed. I promise. Now, go change. We need to get out of here before the Captain comes back or we’ll be stuck for a good long while.”
He had never broken a promise. Rishi hurried to her room to change.
RISHI tapped one foot as she waited by the flyter. Tinibu, Chio, Qualhuan, and Nakamura clustered around her. All of them were fully dressed in Trahn security uniforms, and all were armed with stun guns.
“Prax will be okay, Mistress,” Nakamura said. “It didn’t sound that serious.”
Rishi managed a weak smile. She had never needed reassurance from her security staff before. “Thank you.”
Hari strode into the pool of artificial light of the flyter pad. “What’s all this?”
Nakamura cleared her throat. “Mistress Trahn needs an escort, and we want to see how Prax is doing.”
Hari surveyed the four guards. “Who’s watching the prisoner?”
“Ogilvy,” Qualhuan said, “with Moreno and Chong. We cleared it with Rurhahn.”
“All right,” Hari said, opening the flyter door. “Let’s go, then.”
Rishi was too nervous to fly, so she let Hari take the controls. She sighed with relief as she strapped herself in. Finally, they were getting somewhere.
When they got to the hospital, Praxiteles was still in surgery. They sat down to wait. For an hour, Rishi alternated between abject fear that something was wrong and intense anger that it was taking so long.
The doctor who finally stepped into the waiting area to see them was a slight Terran woman, just a little older than Hari, with salt and pepper hair and a perpetual frown. She introduced herself as Dr. Chiang.
“Are you the young man’s family?” she asked, looking at the mixed group in disbelief. Rishi was glad she had changed to trousers and a jacket, so she at least looked respectable.
“We’re his friends,” Hari corrected before Rishi could speak. “He has no family on Subidar.”
“I see,” the doctor said.
“Is Praxiteles all right?” Rishi asked. The frown was beginning to worry her.
“He will be,” the doctor said. “Or more accurately, he should be, in a few days.”
“And what does that mean?” Hari said.
“It means that we’ve repaired extensive tissue damage. The laser—a barbaric weapon, but thankfully less damaging than a burn pistol—is almost like a drill. It burns a tidy hole in its target. In this case, the hole went almost the entire length of this young man’s right arm. We couldn’t simply use a healing accelerator. The nerves, muscles, and tendons that were damaged had to be repaired surgically. The same is true for the damage to his right lung. Now we’ve applied the healing accelerator to finish the job.”
Rishi had no patience with medical details. “Will he be all right or not?”
“He should be fine in a few days,” Dr. Chiang said. “But it’ll take longer before he regains full use of his right arm.”
“But he will regain it?” Qualhuan asked.
“He should,” the doctor corrected. “Still, we can’t make absolute predictions. It’ll depend on how well he heals.” Her frown deepened. “He has an amazing amount of scar tissue all over his torso.”
“They don’t worry about scars where he comes from,” Hari said.
Rishi had had enough discussion. “When can I see him?”
“He’ll be conscious soon,” the doctor said. “He’ll be rather woozy from the medication, but he’ll be able to converse.”
“And when can he go home?” Rishi asked next.
“In a few days,” the doctor said, starting for the corridor. “It depends on how well he does.”
They waited a few more minutes, and then a medtech came to tell them that Praxiteles was awake. Rishi went in alone to see him.
He lay on a bed, but he had been propped up so he wasn’t quite flat on his back. A healing accelerator in place over his right side glowed orange. A plain gray blanket covered Praxiteles’ lower half, but left his chest bare so the accelerator could do its work. Praxiteles seemed to Rishi to be more than a little woozy. He stared at the room around him as if he had no idea where he was. The small square room had no windows, but a large quantity of medical equipment occupied various corners.
Praxiteles’ face brightened when he saw Rishi. “Hello, lady. Where have you put me?”
Her heart lifted. He knew her. He would be all right. “You’re in a hospital. You needed surgery to fix your arm.”
“It doesn’t hurt anymore. I want to go home now.”
“I’m sorry, darling. You have to stay here for a few days.”
Praxiteles frowned. “It smells strange here, and the air is very dead.”
The urge to fix things overwhelmed her. She had to do something. “It’ll be all right. I’ll see if they can put you in a bigger room, maybe one with a window.”
He tried to twist on his bed. Rishi noticed that a slender loop of duraplast tethered his right wrist to the bed frame. Another loop held his chest down firmly.
“It’s all right, Praxiteles,” she said. “Don’t try to move. They have you tied down in the right position for the healing accelerator to work properly.”
“I want to get up!” Praxiteles sounded annoyed. He tugged at the restraint on his right wrist with his left hand.
Horrified, Rishi pulled his left hand away. “No! You mustn’t do that. You’re blocking the accelerator.”
The door to the room opened and Hari stuck his head in the door. “How’s he doing?”
“He seems all right,” Rishi said, glad for the potential help. “Except he’s being very stubborn about staying still.”
Hari stepped into the room and looked down at Praxiteles. “Hello, Prax. How do you feel?”
“I feel fine,” Praxiteles said. “Why can’t I go home now?”
“Because you just had surgery,” Hari said.
“I feel fine,” Praxiteles repeated. He pulled his hand free from Rishi’s grasp and tugged at the restraint again.
“I see what you mean,” Hari said. “Why don’t you ask the doctor to give him something to make him relax?”
Rishi hesitated, reluctant to leave Praxiteles. On the other hand, he needed attention and it would make her feel better to see that he got it. She started for the door. “You stay with him, Hari.”
Hari nodded, and she left the room.
Out in the corridor, Tinibu and the other guards trailed her until she found a medtech and explained the problem. As soon as the man promised to tell the doctor, Rishi returned to Praxiteles’ room.
She found Hari holding down Praxiteles’ left hand.
“You came back, lady,” Praxiteles said with a pleased smile as she came into the room. “Why did you leave me alone with him? He wouldn’t let me
get up.”
Before Rishi could answer, Dr. Chiang came through the door.
“What seems to be the problem?” she asked.
Hari released Praxiteles left hand, and the Elliniká immediately began to try to free himself from the restraint on his right hand. He didn’t have a hope of succeeding, but he was clearly interfering with the range of the healing accelerator.
Dr. Chiang’s frown became more pronounced. “I see. I think perhaps I’ll give him some nempathenol.”
Hari looked surprised. “How will that help?”
“It puts the patient in a compliant state,” the doctor said. “Nempathenol is known as a truth serum, but its effects are really nothing more than drug-induced cooperation.”
Rishi waited, but Hari didn’t protest, so she assumed nempathenol must be safe enough.
While the doctor went over to a workstation set into the wall and prepared a hypospray, Rishi busied herself trying to keep Praxiteles from twisting his wrist in an effort to slip out of the restraint. When the doctor came back to his bed, he watched her with alarm.
“What’s that?” he said. “I don’t want anything. Take it away!”
Dr. Chiang paid no attention. She placed the hypo against Praxiteles’ bare right shoulder and pressed the activation switch. “It takes about ten seconds.”
Rishi took Praxiteles’ other hand and stroked it. He still seemed divorced from his surroundings, as if he didn’t really understand what was said to him. “It won’t hurt you. Just relax, Praxiteles.”
After several seconds, Praxiteles lay back against the bed and stopped pulling against the restraints. He stared straight ahead.
The doctor leaned over and spoke to him. “What’s your name, young man?”
“Praxiteles Mercouri.”
“I want you to lie still for a while, Praxiteles,” the doctor said. “I want you to relax, keep still, and don’t try to move around. Do not touch the healing accelerator. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” Praxiteles said, not even blinking.
“And will you do it?”
“Yes.”
“Amazing,” Hari said. “There have been times I could have used some of that stuff.”
“That’s why it’s a controlled drug,” the doctor said dryly.
The change in Praxiteles’ manner was so sudden and so drastic, it alarmed Rishi. “How long will it last?”
“An hour or two,” the doctor said. “Long enough for the accelerator to finish its work.”
Rishi glanced around the room. If Praxiteles was going to be incapacitated for a while, it was a good time to work on logistical problems. “Can we move him to a room with a window? He has rather severe claustrophobia.”
“If there’s one available,” Dr. Chiang said. “You’ll have to speak with registration. There’s a terminal at the end of the hall.”
“I’ll do that now,” Rishi said. When the medication wore off, Praxiteles would be anxious again. “Will you stay with him, Hari?”
Hari looked reluctant. “He seems fine.”
“Just stay with him,” Rishi said insistently. “When I go, my four watchdogs will follow my every move, so there’s no one to watch Praxiteles but you.”
Hari lifted his brows as if to suggest she was being unreasonable, but then he gave it up. “All right. I’ll stay.”
Rishi went out, giving Praxiteles one last anxious look.
AS soon as she finished her errand and stepped into Praxiteles’ room, Rishi could tell Hari was hiding something. The look on his face reflected nothing but studied casualness.
“What have you been up to?” she asked.
He looked offended. “I haven’t left the room. You asked me to watch him, and I did.”
Rishi wasn’t convinced but she let it drop. Praxiteles looked much better. The healing accelerator had started working already. New pink scar tissue had formed on the incisions on his chest and arm. “Well, the room change is taken care of. As soon as the healing accelerator is finished, they’ll move him to a nicer room with a big window.”
She leaned over and gave Praxiteles a kiss on his forehead. “Wouldn’t you rather be in a room with a window, Praxiteles?”
“No,” Praxiteles said.
Rishi blinked in surprise. “Would you rather stay here?”
“No.”
“Then where do you want to stay?”
“Your room.”
“Be careful what you ask him,” Hari said. “He’ll tell you anything in this state.”
Rishi smiled and gave in to temptation. “Do you love me, Praxiteles?”
“Yes,” Praxiteles said.
“Not very expansively, though,” Hari said. “Unless you ask the questions right.”
“I’m so relieved,” Rishi said. “I was terrified when I saw him lying on the floor this morning.”
“That reminds me,” Hari said, “I need to find out what happened out at the estate. If you’re going to be here a while, I’ll go use the com set in the flyter. It’s more private than using a portable.”
Rishi nodded, and Hari went off to tell the team where he was going.
Praxiteles still stared straight ahead.
“How much do you love me, Praxiteles?” Rishi asked, and then felt ashamed of herself for taking advantage of him.
“More than I love anyone else.”
The flat tone of his voice robbed the words of any passion. Rishi decided to wait to ask any more questions.
WHEN Hari came back, he looked worried. “I need to get back out to the estate. The munis want to know what went on out there this morning.”
“Go ahead and go,” Rishi said. “I’m staying here.”
Hari shook his head. “I need to take you and the team back, too. The munis want to talk to everyone who was there.”
Rishi’s resolve hardened. “I didn’t see anything until it was all over. I can talk to them later.”
“They’re upset about the guy Prax stabbed. We need to make it clear to them that it was self defense. I don’t want Prax to get into trouble.”
The injustice of it made Rishi indignant. “Why should he be in trouble? He’s on our security staff, and they were intruders!”
“That knife is hardly standard issue.”
“So what? Laser pistols aren’t legal anywhere on Subidar, not even for ThreeCon forces.”
“All right. I’ll explain that to them. Of course, I’m not the head of the House of Trahn—”
Rishi glared at him. “Is this a trick to get me home?”
“Not entirely,” Hari said, in his most sincere tone. “I do want you home, but one of the reasons is I want you to deal with the munis for me—and in case they ask me where Prax was going when he stumbled on the break-in.”
She frowned, suspecting a trick. Not for the first time, she wished she had Praxiteles’ gift. “What do you mean, where he was going? Wasn’t he working?”
Hari shook his head. “The shift had changed. Early watch had taken over. He must have been on his way to see you.”
She could feel the blood draining from her face. It was her fault. Praxiteles had almost died because of her. “I asked him to come as soon as he was off duty. I nearly got him killed, Hari!”
“Don’t be silly, girl. It’s not your fault. How could you have known?”
Rishi said nothing, but she still felt guilty.
“Look,” he said, “I don’t know whether it’ll come up or not, but I think it’d be just as well if you were there to talk to the munis.”
Perhaps he was right. Praxiteles seemed fine now, even if he was a little unresponsive. If there was going to be trouble with the police, she was the one to deal with them. “All right. I’ll come. But I’m coming back here afterwards.”
“We’ll talk about it later.”
Rishi went over to the bed and spoke to Praxiteles.
“I’m sorry, Praxiteles,” she said. “I have to go for a while. I’ll come back as soon as I can.”
Praxiteles didn’t say anything.
Rishi gave Hari an anxious glance. “He’s all right, isn’t he?”
“He’s fine. I’ve seen people on nempathenol before. It makes them a little spooky until it wears off. They don’t talk unless you ask them a question.”
“Will you be all right alone for a while, Praxiteles?” Rishi asked.
“Yes.”
“You know I love you, don’t you, Praxiteles?”
“Yes.”
“See what I mean?” Hari sounded eager to get her away. What had he been up to? “It’s just as well to leave him alone when he’s like this.”
Rishi agreed reluctantly. They left Praxiteles lying quietly on his hospital bed, staring at the wall.
AS they set down at the estate, Hari called Rurhahn. Rishi heard the Miloran tell him that the munis had finished going over the office and the corridor, and were working on the grounds. Captain Arnuchh was waiting in Rishi’s outer office to see Hari.
Hari walked with her to her outer office. The Shuratanian woman she had met earlier rose to greet them.
“Thank you for seeing me, Mistress Trahn,” she said politely to Rishi. “I have a few questions for you, but I’d like to talk to your security chief first.”
“This is Hari Ijeomah, my Chief of Security,” Rishi said. “You can ask us both all the questions you need to ask.”
Captain Arnuchh’s jewel-like eyes flickered from Hari to Rishi and back again. Was she debating whether or not to insist on separate interviews? Evidently, she decided against it.
“Very well,” she said, “shall we all sit down?”
They took seats against the wall. The chairs had been moved out of the way to make room for the investigation. The intruder’s body had been removed from the corridor, but a dark stain on the carpet still marked the spot where his blood had pooled. A smaller stain in the outer office gave Rishi chills.
“Now, Citizen Ijeomah,” Arnuchh said, turning to Hari, “I’ve already heard an account of what happened this morning from your senior guard. Why don’t you tell me your version of it?”
Worlds Apart (ThreeCon) Page 29