Crossways (32 page)

He looked up in mild annoyance, therefore, when he found Stefan hovering in the office doorway.

“Sorry, sir, but you said you wanted to be informed if anyone of the mercenary persuasion showed up on immigration scans.”

Crowder's insides lurched.

“Who?”

“Not sure, but definitely mercs. Three of them, two upright and one badly wounded. Seeking medical treatment. We don't have much detail. I took the liberty of arranging for them to be interviewed.”

“Send Danniri—no, wait.” That was overkill. He scratched his ear. “Are they still at the port?”

“Yes, waiting on an immigration officer in an interview room.”

“Patch me through and give me a direct audio link to the interviewer on Priority One Protocol.”

“Yes, sir.”

Crowder scanned their credentials on screen. He didn't recognize any of their names. They were each listed as
private contractor
working out of New Rio. He didn't have long to wait before a holographic display of a bare interview room opened up on his desk. There were three individuals, two of them seated, the other lying on a medevac float.

The interviewer, Masood, entered, wearing a small earpiece. He went through their credentials with each one and rechecked their handpad readings. Everything correlated, including their DNA.

Masood asked all the right questions and got all the right answers from Tengue and Gwala: private contractors here to purchase reconstructive surgery for an injured colleague.

“Check the injured woman,” Crowder said directly into Masood's earpiece. “Make sure she's genuine.”

Masood gave a slight nod and moved over to the float. “Would you mind showing me your injuries?”

“You want to look at my tits?”

“No, I want to see your injuries.”

“That's what I said. Amounts to the same thing. Go ahead, there's nothing there to stir a man up anymore.”

“What'd I say?” The merc who seemed to be the leader had a warning note in his voice.

“Oh, yeah, that I'm still a hot chick even with half my chest looking like barbecue. Go ahead, Agent Masood, grab an eyeful while the painkillers are still doing their job. Can't feel a fucking thing.”

The woman's chest was a pulp of red. Masood stepped back when he saw it and Crowder's gorge rose, even though he was viewing it on a holo.

“Seen enough of the freak show?” The woman's voice cracked.

The boss merc reached forward and held her hand. “We'll get you fixed up. Surgeons here are the best we can buy.” He looked at Masood. “And the sooner we can get you to the burn unit, the sooner they can get started. Are we good to go, Agent Masood?”

“Let them in,” Crowder said, and closed the connection.

He turned to Stefan, who was still hovering. “Keep a watch on them. Let me know if they step out of line, but they look genuine to me.” He sucked in air through his teeth. “I think it's time I took a little trip out of town.”

He'd planned to take a trip anyway while the Grapple Championships moved into the stadium. He couldn't
reschedule a national sporting event for his own convenience. He hadn't expected Benjamin would take this long to walk into his trap.

“Where will you be, sir?”

“Where no one will expect to find me. It's time I paid my ex-wife a visit. Let Mr. Leyburn know that I'll be on Norro if he needs to contact me.”

“Cara!”

She stood in the doorway, looking tough in black. There was no softness in her expression as she glared at him. Ben had hoped she'd come back, had rehearsed what he wanted to say to her half a hundred times, but he wasn't sure he'd see her again before the implantation procedure, and afterward, well, who knew?

“You're an idiot,” she said.

“I'm an idiot. Hey, I was going to say that first.”

“Just shut up and listen. You don't need to have this implant restored just because you think you need to be a psi-tech to run the Free Company, and you certainly don't need to do it on my account. No one gives a shit whether you're connected or not. We all . . . I love you. Just as you are. Tell Jamieson to go fuck himself.”

She stepped into the room and he held out his good hand. She came close and took it. Their fingers connected and suddenly everything was right with his world.

“Thank you.”

“You'll call it off, then?”

He shook his head. “I'm not doing it for you. I'm doing it for me. Because I have to. When it happened . . .” He took a deep breath. “And if I tell you what did happen to me out there, you'll tell me I'm a fantasist, but in case this doesn't go well I've recorded it all on my handpad. It may have been a big hallucination, but it felt real.

“Anyhow, after I got rid of the limpets I was pretty beaten up, but I made it back to the flight deck. I was in foldspace and I couldn't see the line to an exit point. There's always a line, a way to go.
The
way to go. It was like swimming through tar. I've never been
lost
like that. It scared me. Really scared me. Maybe I realized I didn't have my implant anymore, maybe I didn't. I'm a bit fuzzy on that.

“Then, instead of a line there was a . . . path is too strong a word. It was like following a trail of breadcrumbs where there's one or two crumbs every hundred paces, and you're never sure if this will be the last one.”

“Your underlying talent.”

“I guess so, but it was so insubstantial.”

“It brought you home.”

“Not the first time. It took me to some point at the ass-end of the galaxy.”

“You had to make a second jump?”

“Blind. Using the ship's automatics. It wasn't enough. I knew it wouldn't be enough.”

Her grip on his fingers tightened.

“I've never been scared of foldspace before, but I was scared then. Scared sick.”

“But you did it.”

“I tried to knock myself out with anesthetic but . . . well, let's just say if I hallucinated it was all remarkably consistent with what I thought I'd seen before. But I had to do it, scared or not. It was the only way home . . . back to you.”

“You're here now. No need to—”

“I can't live my life terrified of the Folds.” He squeezed her hand back. “After our parents were lost, Rion said he was never leaving Chenon, never going into the Folds. He never even took an aptitude test. Never wanted an implant, never wanted anything except the farm, especially if it meant he could stay put. Kai tested negative for psi talent. Now Rion's worried that little Ricky will test positive, and he's right to be worried. All the signs are there. I wanted to talk to him about it, but Rion wouldn't . . . We had words . . .” He shrugged. “Families, you know?”

“I know.”

“Nan's trying to sit back, to let Rion and Ricky sort it out between themselves. Rion's not going to be able to keep him on the farm. The kid's going to fly.”

Cara had her head on one side, as if trying to make sense of him.

He took a deep breath. “I can't live my life like Rion, afraid of going anywhere, doing anything. My implant's too much a part of what I am now. If I can get it back . . .”

“You're willing to risk everything.”

He cleared his throat. “Damned if I do, damned if I don't.”

Ronan arrived at the door with a float chair. “They're ready for you now, Ben. I'll take you down. Civility Jamieson's supposed to be the best there is, but I'm not going to let him do this without me there.”

Ben looked at Cara. Her pale face said everything. “Will you come too?” he asked.

“Try keeping me out.”

C
ARA HAD NEVER BEEN PRESENT AT AN Implantation before, only her own, but the anesthetic was all she remembered. A pleasant, muzzy feeling as she drifted to sleep and waking slowly to a world that was so different. It was like being dropped into a rainbow after being blind her whole life. It was all noise and color and brightness inside her head. That was the point at which some new implantees started screaming, but Cara had taken a deep breath and plunged right into it, reveling in the experience. After a while she'd learned to tone down the brightness, tune out the unwanted sounds, focus.

And it had all started like this.

Ben sat in a treatment chair, his head immobilized by a padded clamp. A complicated-looking piece of equipment with a robotic arm loomed behind him, but it was still offline while a techie loaded a cartridge into the business end.

It brought back the image of herself in such a chair with Donida McLellan . . . No, don't go there. What McLellan had done to her was irrelevant. She'd be useless to Ben if she was wrapped in her own misery. McLellan was on-station somewhere, little more than a vegetable. Sooner or later Cara would go and confront her own nightmares, see
the woman and get it over with. Until then, better to keep the memories sealed away.

“All right?” Ronan asked her as if he knew what she was thinking. Hell, he probably did.

“I'm fine. Holding together at least.”

He nodded. “Good. I'll be monitoring Ben throughout. If I need extra whammy—”

“I'll be here.”

“Good, thanks.”

*Me, too.*
Another mental voice inserted itself into the conversation.

*Jussaro?*
Cara recognized him instantly.
*Where are you?*

*Corridor waiting area. Close by. I heard what was happening. You can't keep anything secret when your company is psi-tech. I've been through something like this, recently. Oh, not without an anesthetic, and my neural pathways had completely closed up, but I know what it's like to wake up to something you thought you'd never experience again. Let me help.*

Cara looked at Ronan and he nodded.

*You're in, Jussaro.*

*Standing by.*

A gaggle of student types entered the observation gallery, a slightly raised box enclosed by a clear wall. Their conversations stilled as they came through the door. One of them, a round-faced girl with sawn-off dark hair and almond eyes, moved to the front and waved at Ben. He responded with his good hand.

“Hey, there, Nine. Get a good mark for your assignment?”

She nodded. “I went with the unlikely explanation.”

“Good for you.”

“If you've finished . . .”

Cara hadn't seen Civility Jamieson come and slide into the surgeon's chair behind a bank of equipment with shaped pads for the operator's hands and a gantry above with a jointed arm carrying a full facemask.

“Sorry, professor.” The girl Ben had called Nine sat down with her fellows.

The techie finished installing the cartridge and patted the machine fondly. “All ready at this end.”

“Places everyone,” Jamieson said. “Commander Benjamin, the bot will give you a shot to immobilize you.”

“It won't be necessary. I can keep still.”

“It will be necessary, trust me. There's zero tolerance for movement, but we need you to be able to communicate, so you'll have use of your right hand. Doctor Wolfe is going to monitor you and Miss Carlinni will have your hand.” He looked at Cara. “Well, what are you waiting for?”

Cara stepped forward.

“Hey there,” she said.

“Hey there, yourself.”

“I'm Doctor Wolfe's assistant.”

“So I understand.” The corners of Ben's lips twitched and he squeezed her fingers. “Once for no, twice for yes?”

She nodded. “And squeeze like hell for ohmygodsthathurts.”

“Will do. Is there a sign for I love you?”

She brushed her thumb lightly across the outside of his hand. “Maybe.”

The bot sidled into position behind Ben's head and its arm snaked over and tapped the side of his neck. Cara felt all the tension go out of his body as the immobilizer kicked in. She squeezed his hand and he squeezed back.

“Stand by.” Jamieson pulled the face-piece down from the control gantry and rested his head into it while his fingers found the sensor pads. “Commencing.”

Ronan moved to Ben's other side and rested his hand on Ben's arm, just above the wrist case. Cara reached across Ben and took Ronan's free hand with hers to close the loop.

The robotic arm moved up to Ben's forehead and suckered on. She felt Ben's fingers twitch and through Ronan's connection knew that the tiny hollow needle had pierced Ben's skull. She held her breath.

It hurt. Everywhere. Not just the needle through Ben's skull, but the implant, stretching its tendrils through his brain, triggered sensations in body parts unconnected with the process, or so he'd thought. His left foot was on fire, but he couldn't do anything about it. Then his hip. The pain flowed like acid across his belly and down to his groin. Oh,
gods, he was going to cut off the circulation in Cara's fingers at this rate.

Relax, it's not real. Let it flow through.

Easy to think. Harder to do.

The fire ate his spine and burst through the top of his head.

He heard Jamieson's voice from a vast distance. Something about pathways, but it wasn't directed at him.

“Ben.” Cara's hand squeezing his. “Are you still with us?”

He twitched back. Once. Twice.

“Does it hurt?”

He twitched back. Once.

“Liar.”

Twice.

“Not lost your sense of humor, then?”

Once. Then: twice.

“Jamieson says the implant's in place and it's spreading along the expected pathways. Can you feel it?”

Twice.

“Ronan says you're doing fine.”

He didn't know how to answer that. They hadn't agreed a prearranged signal for bullshit. It was comforting bullshit, though. Had the pain eased slightly? Probably not, but at least Ronan was telling him there was no external damage. His legs weren't actually on fire. The top of his head didn't have a crater in it. The implant was—

Ohgodsohgodsohgods.

A void opened up in his head and foldspace rushed into it. He was outside the
Solar Wind
once more, turning to catch the bony crest of a void dragon, only this time it was rainbow-hued. Slick oily blue-green shimmering with a thousand different colors. It turned its head and breathed on him, a mighty wind roaring in his ears.

Fire. Consuming the void dragon from tail to tip. It burned blacker than emptiness and he began to slip and slide away into the hard reality of foldspace, sucked down and down.

A voice that belonged to neither Cara nor Ronan said something about new pathways and abort. Ronan's voice said, “No, if you do that now you've lost him.”

“Keep going. We'll bring him back.” That was Cara's voice.

*Ben, hold on.*

He grasped Cara's hand and she drew him upward. Ronan was there as well, and someone else. Ben struggled to identify the third person, but he had wiry strength. They weren't going to let him go. He clawed upward, searching for the line. He must find . . .

There.

“Ben.”

He squeezed Cara's fingers. Once. Twice.

“We've got him,” Cara said.

“He's stabilizing.” Ronan's voice this time.

Reality came back slowly, one jumping muscle at a time, until a wave of shudders rolled through his body from feet to scalp.

Cara wobbled and would have fallen but someone grabbed her shoulders from behind and steadied her. A purple-black hand reached over and held her own hand over Ben's so she couldn't let go.

Ronan had already disengaged and had slumped backward into a chair against the observation gallery wall.

“Don't let go yet.” Jussaro's lips were close to her ear. “He's relying on you.”

“Not letting go,” she said.

“You can when I tell you.”

“Don't want to.”

“No, but you will. You're exhausted. I'll take it from here. It's what I'm good at—teaching. It's what I did before they caught me teaching more than they wanted their psi-techs to learn.”

Cara felt Jussaro's presence ease between herself and Ben. There was a surge as Ben realized she was backing off.

*It's all right. I'll be back.*

*She needs to rest,*
Jussaro said.
*I'm going to stick around for a while if that's all right?*

*Whatever you say.*

Cara disengaged her mind and, finally, her hand. Jussaro stepped around her and took her place. One of the students, the one Ben had called Nine, guided her into a chair and shoved a bottle of water into her hand.

“You'll be dehydrated. Drink.”

She drank. “Thanks.”

Across the room another student was attending to Ronan. Civility Jamieson had departed without a word.

“Where's your boss?” Cara asked.

“He's not strong on bedside manner,” Nine said.

“I'm surprised you stick with him.”

“He's the best there is. I'd like to be half as good as he is one day and if I can learn from him I'm willing to put up with his rudeness.”

“Don't tell me, he really cares about his patients.”

“No, I don't think he does, but he cares about his reputation and every patient he loses puts a dent in that. Patients are a game to him, a puzzle to be solved, and he doesn't like to lose. He'll take on cases other specialists won't touch, because he wants the challenge.”

“I'm glad Ben was a sufficiently intriguing puzzle.”

“He's certainly that,” Nine said. “Has he told you what happened to him in foldspace?”

She shook her head. “Not entirely.”

“Here, check this out.” She held out her right hand and fistbumped Cara to transfer a file. “That's the original recording from when I was taking Commander Benjamin's notes. You might find it interesting. I did.”

Two of their security team waited outside Dockside Medical to take her back to Blue Seven with Ronan. Cara didn't have the privacy in the tub to play the file Nine had given her, but Gen had a room ready. It showed signs of still needing work, but there were four solid walls and a door that closed. It was furnished with a bed, a chair, and a table, and it had a window. Currently it looked out onto a building site, but it would eventually look out onto an enclosed courtyard. Maybe there would be plants in tubs, a place to sit, and a blue-sky ceiling.

Until then . . . she activated the privacy screen and the window darkened.

Right, let's see what we've got here.

She sat on the edge of the bed and accessed the file. It was unmistakably Ben's voice, if a little husky. She listened to all of it and felt her mouth going slack in surprise.

That couldn't be right.

She activated it again and listened through as if the recording might change, add something or leave something out.

On the third pass, she decided to take it a section at a time.

Ben's voice said:
I was half-dressed from the shower when a team of bastards I thought I recognized tried to blow me and my ship to atoms without much of a care for station security. I sprang the ship for the air lock and straight into foldspace before she blew.

That much was absolutely true. She'd picked up the abandoned buddysuit top herself and left it at Dockside Medical for Ben. And she'd seen
Solar Wind
exit Port 22 and wink out into foldspace. If the station had been merely ship-sized it could have been pulled into the Folds like the
Simonides
had been.

All right, so far, so good, but the next bit . . . She activated the next section of the recording:
While in foldspace I floated through the hull of my ship, got my wrist crushed, breathed vacuum for hours, and rode a void dragon to peel off four limpets.