“Annabel,” Xai said anxiously, “do you have pressure packs?”
“The Annabel Tellorian is equipped with ten pressure packs,” the Tellorian replied, affronted, “in drawer F-6.”
Xai darted over to drawer F-6 and took out the pressure packs—four narrow cones perhaps ten centimeters long, each wrapped in a protective sack.
“Insert three packs into the wound on his stomach,” Jemima said calmly. “Then turn him over and insert the last pressure pack into the wound on his shoulder.”
Xai took a deep, anxious breath, and tore the bag of the first pressure pack open.
“Take it in your fingers,” Jemima said, her tone steady and reassuring. “From the thick end. With your other hand, open the wound.”
Xai paused with her hands over Joaquim’s stomach, not certain she could do it.
“You don’t have much time,” Jemima said gently. “He’s lost a lot of blood. If you don’t act soon, he will certainly die.”
Xai steeled herself. Holding the cone in her left hand, she opened the sides of the wound with her right. Blood gushed up to her fingers.
“Insert the cone. Don’t worry,” Jemima added gently. “It knows what to do.”
Xai thrust the cone into the wound. Joaquim groaned slightly. The cone disappeared into the flesh and blood, melting away from Xai’s fingers.
“The other two now,” Jemima said. “Quickly.”
Xai inserted the other two cones. The last closed the wound entirely, leaving a roughly-shaped oval of gleaming blue plasma, hardening quickly.
“Roll him over,” Jemima said.
Xai pushed Joaquim’s good shoulder and rolled him over. Joaquim groaned sharply and fell ominously silent.
“He’s fainted,” Jemima said calmly. “It’s all right—perhaps it’s even better this way. Now insert the pack.”
Xai inserted the last pack into the smaller wound and gently pulled Joaquim back so that he was facing upward. His face was pale and deathlike. She turned to look at her mentor then, a woman hundreds of years dead, a calm and friendly ghost.
“Very good,” Jemima told Xai, her light eyes cool and reassuring. “Now, he’s in shock, because of the blood loss. He desperately needs more blood. Do you have any blood universals?” Blood universals were basic nano-haemoglobins, which did the work of blood until the body had regenerated enough of its own.
“We can’t give him universals,” Xai said, suddenly very worried. “He just got out of stasis.”
“How long was he in stasis for?” Jemima asked, sounding uncertain for the first time.
“Thirty five years.”
Jemima frowned and shook her head. “Blood universals are out of the question, then. He’ll need a real transfusion.”
“Real blood?” Xai said apprehensively. She had no idea where to find real blood.
“Real blood,” Jemima replied. “What’s your blood type?”
“Type four,” Xai told her.
“And the patient?” Jemima asked the computer.
“Blood type one,” the Tellorian replied. “With the following factors—factor alpha, negative, factor—”
“That’s enough, Annabel,” Xai said. She looked anxiously around the interior of the ship. Where could she find blood? Where could she go? The Salak gleamed before her, brilliant and enticing before the great backdrop of the stars. Who should she ask? Marco, perhaps? Prama might be willing to help her. But she had been very angry. Joaana? Somehow all of Xai’s worries about the Messinian seemed to pale compared to the loss of Joaquim’s life. But how could she find her?
“You must find a compatible donor,” Jemima told Xai. She glanced over at Joaquim and frowned. “Do it quickly,” she added. “There is little time.”
Xai stiffened her resolve. “Annabel,” she said, “don’t let anyone other than myself onto this ship.”
“Confirmed,” the Tellorian replied.
Xai took a deep breath and walked though the hatch, back toward the space station.
Chapter Forty-Two
SHE saw him coming before he saw her, his small, ugly face protruding from the red suit unmistakable against the backdrop of the access tube. Rage flooded her entire being, pooling in her throat, a suppressed roar of fear and fury that impelled her forward at a flat, fast run—t’meio, assault. He looked up and she saw the recognition flash in his eyes. Then she was upon him, pushing him back against the hard interior of the umbilical, her forearm against his throat, choking him, her knife tip braced against his cheekbone, pointing into his eye. A breath too deep and he would be dead.
“Did you do this?” she snarled. “Tell me you did this!” She was so angry words almost failed her. She felt an enormous desire to kill him, to take his life and have her revenge.
“What?” Vlad replied, startled, uncertain. Beneath her knife he seemed old and somehow pathetic. His eyes were bloodshot. He smelled drunk.
Xai, enraged, pushed her forearm up against his throat, her teeth bared in a snarl over which she had no control, and Vlad finally saw all the blood on her, on her arms and chest and shoulder. “What has happened?” he asked. “Did you—they did?” he began, real fear on his face. “Am I too late?” he asked. Tears swelled into his eyes and his chin began to tremble. For a moment he looked all of ten years old, his world was on the verge of falling apart. “Am I too late?” he repeated, his eyes locked with Xai’s. “Gods, no,” he whispered. “No, dear gods,” he said. Tears began to run down his cheeks.
Xai loosened her hold. His nervous collapse sapped her resolve, filling her with uncertainty. “Not yet,” she said, stepping back. The last thing she had expected was for him to fall to pieces. “But he will die if I don’t find him blood.” She needed to be going.
“He is not dead?” The hope that came into his face almost embarrassed Xai with its intensity. “I—I can help you,” he said hurriedly. “I am of Joaquim’s blood type, type one. He gave me his blood once—that is how we met. Now I can return the favor.”
Xai examined his eager face suspiciously.
“You have no reason to trust me,” Vlad said, speaking very quickly, his light eyes wide in his narrow, drawn face. “I do not expect you to. Bind me if you wish. Or, if you will not accept my blood, at least let me help you. I have resources. I know people. Surely that will be of some good.”
Jemima von Zorn had said the blood was needed quickly. Xai realized she didn’t know what to do. She didn’t trust this man. And yet, less than fifty steps away Joaquim lay on a bed, dying, and Vlad said he was of the same blood type.
Vlad could see Xai’s disbelief and it seemed to age him further. “Let me help you, please,” he said urgently. “This is my fault. When you came… It had been so long, and I… I was not myself. I knew Ricardo had spies in the Ruus—I knew who they were. They came here several days ago. I… Ricardo will kill him. He has no choice, now.”
Xai peered at Vlad, trying to see the truth, feeling Joaquim lying behind her as it was not a memory but a physical weight.
“Trust is earned,” Vlad said, his eyes bright in his manic face. “Let me earn yours.”
Xai let out a long breath. “Every man deserves redemption,” the Abbot M’aat had once said. She didn’t trust him. And yet Vlad seemed sincere enough in his desire. What worried Xai was that she had the distinct feeling that Vlad was always sincere in his desires, but that Vlad’s desires were always changing. Still. He said he had the right blood type, and Xai had little time. Xai decided it was a risk she had to run. Where else would she find a blood donor? And, she thought, with a feeling very close to satisfaction, if he was lying to her, she always had her knife. “Come with me,” she said. Vlad flushed with relief and followed her quickly in the direction of the Tellorian.
Vlad paled when he saw Joaquim’s bloody body lying on the bed. “Gods,” he said, his voice choking, “he is covered with blood!” He went to stand over Joaquim, his face tight and anguished.
“Annabel,” Xai asked as soon as Vlad
was through the hatch, “what’s the blood type of the individual with me?”
“Individual is of blood type one,” the Tellorian replied. “The factors are—”
“Enough,” Xai said sharply. “Do you have blood transfusion hardware?”
“Blood transfusion hardware is in drawer 12-A.” Xai silently thanked her stars Marcus had equipped his ship so well.
“His own brother!” Vlad said, almost to himself. When Xai met his eyes, she saw rage there, and something close to the madness she had seen on his starbase. She realized she didn’t have time for this.
“I have to bind you now,” she said. Vlad returned to the present, the blood lust fading from his eyes, and nodded.
“I would do the same,” he told her.
“Sit,” Xai said tersely. Vlad sat gingerly beside Joaquim, seemingly uninterested in what Xai was doing, focused entirely on Joaquim’s pale face.
“If you will take off the top of your space suit,” Jemima said, “it will make the transfusion easier.”
Vlad unzipped the top half of his space suit and took it off, leaving Xai with the sight of a pale, bowed, hairless chest. He seemed very small without the suit, weak, childlike. There was a great mass of roughened red skin on the inside of the elbows. Xai looked up at him, shocked. He nodded. “Yes,” he said. “I am a kamk addict.”
Kamk was a slaving drug that had gone wrong—it made the slaves too ecstatic to work effectively. Highly addictive, habitual users were prone to mood swings and violence. Worse, the only way off the drug was death. The filters in the transfusion hardware would prevent it from affecting Joaquim, but still…
“I was one of the first ones,” Vlad told Xai, “one of the testing children.”
Xai paused for a moment, looking down at him. She didn’t know what to say. He had been addicted to the substance all of his life. He would die without it. The force of will to continue living with an addiction like that was almost beyond belief.
“Tie me up,” Vlad said. Xai nodded and tied short cords between his hands and his feet, left to right in both cases, so that the interior of his arms were exposed.
“Strap the elastic cord just above the elbow,” Jemima said. Xai glanced at Vlad. He seemed to have relaxed somewhat since he had been bound, the madness slipping back beneath the surface. He nodded. Xai did as she was told. A huge vein pushed its way up.
“Swab it,” Jemima told Xai. Xai swabbed the tough skin over the vein with a disinfectant.
“Insert the needle labeled A,” Jemima said. Xai did as she was told, wincing slightly. Vlad’s eyes had fallen shut and he sat before her, his face impassive and calm.
“Stop,” Jemima said. “Now do the same for the patient.”
Joaquim didn’t move as Xai prepared him. He lay on the bed, his skin pale and waxy, his breathing swift.
“Set the filters,” Jemima said. Xai connected the lines to the filters that would clear Vlad’s blood of impurities. “Start the process,” Jemima told Xai.
Xai activated the button, and watched, mesmerized, as the dark red blood flowed swiftly through the cable attached to Vlad’s arm and into the filters. After a moment, blood, redder than before, crept with exquisite slowness out of the filters and into the cable attached to Joaquim’s arm.
“Attach the patient’s arm to the bed so that he can’t move it,” Jemima said. Xai did as she was told, strapping it with adhesive bands.
“He did this for me when I was a boy,” Vlad said dreamily. His eyes were shut—he seemed lost in another world. “I must have been eleven. I was one of the kamk children. They soon realized we were useless for any sort of labor. The only thing we were good for was prostitution.
“I ran away. Stole two weeks worth of kamk and stowed away on his freighter. I thought death was preferable.” Vlad snorted. “I had no idea.”
Xai was silent. Whatever the difficulties of her childhood, they were nothing compared to those of this man.
“He found me,” Vlad continued in that calm, distant tone of voice. “By then the drug had begun to erode my hemoglobin. I was in the process of suffocating inside myself, my organs dying slowly for a lack of oxygen.” He paused for a moment, remembering. Then, abruptly, he returned to his story. “He gave me blood transfusions every day,” he said, “for three weeks, until we arrived at a space station where we could find kamk. He even bought it for me.”
Vlad opened his eyes and looked directly at Xai. “He saved my life. He kept me on as crew for five years, until I had my own stake. He never gave me anything but goodness.” He glanced down at the man lying beside him on the bed. “I loved him as I have never loved anyone. When he disappeared I felt… abandoned. Betrayed.”
Xai nodded. Sometimes she felt that way about her own parents.
“That is sufficient for the moment,” Jemima said calmly. “Any more may do harm to the donor. You may undo the connection on his side.”
Xai reached up and covered the needle with a healing pad. Carefully she pulled the needle out, replacing the cover.
Vlad smiled at her. He seemed oddly at peace. “Thank you for allowing me to assist you.”
Xai shrugged. She didn’t know what to say. Her chief desire at the moment was to get him off the ship. She didn’t trust him—she couldn’t, given what he had done to her the first time the had met, given the manic energy in his eyes.
“Do you want to stay until he wakes up?” she asked reluctantly.
Vlad looked down at Joaquim, his expression unnervingly blank. “No. I merely came to warn him. To warn him and,” he added, his countenance flushing a mottled red, “to rid my people of certain traitors. I have given my warning, for what it was worth, and I know where the traitors are. I shall have them soon, and when that is finished my work here will be done. A day or two of the festivities, some small trade, and I will be on my way. The Salak is not a place for men like me.” He examined Joaquim for a moment. “When he wakes,” he said finally, in an oddly tentative tone of voice, “tell him, if you like, that I expiated some of my debt to him.”
“Very well,” Xai told him. Without another word she reached down and undid his bindings.
Vlad zipped up his suit and rose to his feet. He looked at Xai then. There was something oddly joyous about his expression. “I am a tainted man. Joaquim is… my goodness. He is what is whole in me. Best I let that stay in your hands. As we both saw, if it was left with me, I would do it harm. I almost hurt you both, the last time I saw you.” He glanced away from Xai, his face shadowed with self-loathing.
“I did you an injustice,” he told Xai finally. “And you repaid me with your trust. If you need anything, let me know and I will find a means to help you.”
“Thank you,” Xai said. She had no idea what else to say. Vlad smiled.
“Don’t, yet,” he told her.
Xai watched with relief as he walked out of the Tellorian—an aging man with the steady tread of a spacer, moving back into the umbilical and the space station.
Chapter Forty-Three
JOAQUIM woke three hours later. By then, Vlad’s blood had finished trickling into him. Xai had put a field dressing on the wound at her shoulder, changed into one of Marcus’s oversized space suits, and was drowsing in the seat next to his bed. “Xai,” he murmured. She bolted out of sleep, wide-awake and worried.
Joaquim’s eyes met hers, green and gleaming. He didn’t seem well. While his breathing was more regular, his skin still had that pasty, unhealthy color. “What happened?” he asked. His voice was very weak.
“We were attacked. You lost a lot of blood. Vlad was here. He gave you a transfusion.”
A strange expression ran across Joaquim’s face, a mixture of anger and reluctant affection. “You?” he asked.
“I’m fine.”
Joaquim nodded and turned to look out through the Tellorian at the gleaming wheels of the Salak. “Mika,” he said after a moment. The words seemed to cause him pain but he forced them out. “I want to see her.”
&n
bsp; “Joaquim,” Xai said gently, “you need a doctor.”
“Mika,” Joaquim said stubbornly. “Then a doctor.” He turned to Xai, his eyes intense and insistent. “It’s been thirty-five years,” he said, gripping her hand. “Thirty-five years during which she thought I… Please. Help me. Ask her if she would be willing to see me. She’s with Hanu Kumar. Ask any droid and they will guide you to his home.” His hand tightened on hers. “Please.”
Xai took a deep breath. “I’ll see what I can do,” she said. Joaquim gave her a wan smile of thanks, and turned his head away, slipping back into sleep.
Hanuman Kumar’s house was on the Fourth Circle, in a commercial district catering almost entirely to T’lasians. The Ring had obviously been constructed at much the same time as the Fifth—panels were impossible to distinguish. Whatever repairs had been done after the great accident were not obvious. The great backdrop of the stars stood behind everything.
Lights ran along the buildings set on the inner side of the boulevard. The area bustled with commerce, small shops with their wares displayed along the edge of the street. There seemed to be a preponderance of fresh foods with strong scents and, Xai noted, a large number of older T’lasian men shopping. Three teenagers played a long, complicated instrument that boomed out a sibilant, rhythmic music. Several younger T’lasian children from a variety of Clans danced acrobatically before them to the hoots and cheers of their companions. Xai stood out and everyone watched as she walked past, the hum of their voices dying down as they turned to look at her, an obvious interloper.
Xai stiffened her back, straightened the cuffs of her oversized space suit, and depressed the communicator on Hanu Kumar’s door, trying to act as if she knew what she was doing.
A stern voice said something in a language Xai didn’t know.
“I’m looking for Mika Kumar,” Xai said in Basic.
“Next door,” the voice replied, changing languages easily. “Under the sign.”
Xai looked to her left. Down several steps there was a small, discreet sign hanging over an equally small, discreet door. “Mika Kumar, tattooist,” said small lettering in Basic, beneath large, bright blue script of what Xai assumed to be T’lasian. Xai took a deep breath. “Thank you,” she said, and ducked through the door.
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