Empire & Ecolitan (32 page)

With a second sigh, not of relief, he began to resuit.

In less than a quarter of a standard hour, the man in greens and the heavy vac suit stood inside the outspace lock from the maintenance space, locking the power reel connections in place, first on the rod-shaped device, then to the special receptacle inside the open lock.

He touched the rod. The indicators on the cutting laser flared red.

The pilot tugged on the safety line again, making sure that the lock lines were secure before easing his way through the open hatch.

Supposedly, what he was about to do would work, according to the more obscure survival manuals that no one ever read, but he was not aware that it had ever been tried.

Inside the helmet, he smiled. In fact, the emergency conversion didn't have to work. He only had to do it well enough so that the majority of the courier reached planetside on Timor II.

His momentum carried him to the end of the line, where he steadied himself with a gauntleted hand. The dark bulk of the observation station shielded him from the direct light of Timor as he triggered the laser.

Fifteen hours to modify the courier, drop it planetside, make a rendezvous, and disappear. When the Empire eventually got around to investigating, the Service would find the bodies of the four people who had ravaged Missou Base and New Kansaw orbit control. Finish to one Major Jimjoy Earle Wright. Except that was just the beginning.

“T
RANSMISSION FROM THE
observation station off Timor II, sir.”

“Timor II? And…?”

“The remotes indicate that Dauntless two—that's the
D'Armetier
…the courier taken from New Kansaw—has locked in there.”

The Admiral straightened in his chair. “How good is the data?”

“Good enough that Special Ops analysis insists it's a real courier.”

Frowning, the senior officer sat back in the padded chair. “That's a class four planet, isn't it?”

“Yes, sir. Marginally habitable.”

“Do Service catalogs show the station as unmanned?”

“Yes, sir. But with limited repair capability.”

“…makes sense…Wright could gut the station with his abilities…refuel and be off…before we get there…”

“Sir…?”

“Send a corvette. Just one.”

“Just one, sir?”

“One way or another, he'll be gone before the ship gets there, if he was even there to begin with.”

“You think it's a setup?”

“Given Major Wright? I doubt it. That man works for no one but Major Wright. There's no sense in taking chances. Warn the corvette crew. It could be an ambush, probably set up inside the station. Have them take their time. I'd like to see if there's any indication whether anyone else is involved.”

“You really don't think so, do you?”

“No. But he's outguessed us all so far.”

“What do you really expect?”

“I don't know. The time delay bothers me. He's been somewhere, and that's the real question. I doubt we'll find out that.”

“But we have to try?”

The Admiral shrugged. “Have any better ideas?”

“No, sir.”

“Send the corvette.”

J
IMJOY SHIFTED HIS
weight from one side of the chair to the other. “You didn't mention psych treatments.”

The silver-haired woman who stood at the other side of the small office met his eyes without challenge, but without flinching. “You didn't ask. And as I recall, you weren't exactly in a position to ask for too many conditions, Mr. tentative Professor Whaler.”

He sighed. “Why? So you can ensure I don't upset the proverbial quince wagon?” His jaw hurt, and they hadn't even really started in on the real work.

“Apple cart,” she corrected him, picking up a thick file from the desk beside her. She thrust the bound stack toward him. “Because you are, to put it bluntly, a borderline sociopath, with no recognizable form of unified ethics and no conscience.” The Ecolitan looked at the man who sat in the hospital chair, his bandaged face so covered as to be unrecognizable.

“Strong words…” His headache was beginning to return.

“Do you want an accounting? A listing of the names, a categorization of the millions of liters of blood you have spilled, frozen, or cremated? It's all here, unless there's even more than the Institute could uncover.”

“Ecolitan Andruz…I admitted I was scarcely perfect. But if you insist on turning my psyche inside out, you'll have less than nothing.” He wanted to know why she was pushing the issue even before the major surgery had begun. “And why are you insisting on all this now?” A flash of pain scorched up his jawline, needling into his skull.

“You are already resisting. If you don't change psychologically, at least to some degree, the Empire will pick you up from your old profile within months. Is that what you want?”

“Do you want some lily-livered professor? With skills and no way to apply them? Is that what
you
want? No challenge to your expertise and authority? My so-called imbalance is certainly part of what I have to offer.” He tried to lean back and ease the tension in his body, but the combination of the pain and the muscle relaxants made conscious control difficult—one reason that he had always avoided drugs.

“That is doubtless true, and for that you should be grateful. We still think we can improve some of your underlying attitudes without crippling your ability to act. That means knowing more about how you work. Whether you know it or not, you are paying a price for what you have done.”

“So? I paid it. Not gladly, but I did.” The dull pounding in his temples had become a heavy continuous hammering. He eased himself forward in the chair again, trying to concentrate on the woman.

“You really don't understand exactly how heavy a price…”

“You don't know everything, Ecolitan Andruz.” His voice sharpened. “What do you want? True confessions of a confessed mass murderer? Tales of tragic triumphs in service of the mad Empire?”

“If you want to tell those tales…but frankly, I could care less. I'd rather see you stew in your own poisons.” She deposited the heavy folder back on the desktop. “What you do is your choice, not mine.”

“Then why…”

“Because the Prime Ecolitan insists you're worth saving. I agree with Sam's sentiments, but question the reality.”

“Aren't
you
optimistic?” He didn't bother to disguise the sarcasm. Not only did his head ache, but he was getting dizzy.

“You wanted my thoughts. Your possibilities are only limited by the greatest pigheadedness I've ever seen.”

He sighed, leaning forward and holding his head in both hands at the top of his forehead, where there were no bandages.

“Are you all right?”

“No. Does it make any difference?”

“You…” This time she was the one who sighed with heavy exasperation. “We'll talk about it later. I didn't mean to push.”

“Don't bother.”

“You're refusing?”

“No. Pigheaded, but not stupid. Accepting. I don't have to like it…” Lifting his head, he sighed again, softly, aware that sudden movements triggered the heavier throbbing. “When does this all start?”

“When you feel better.” She touched the console, then waited. A tall and thin woman entered the room. “This is Dr. Militro. Doctor, this is…Professor…Whaler. I wanted you to meet each other now…”

Jimjoy stood, aware of the rubbery feeling in his legs, but determined to make the effort. “Not exactly pleased, Doctor, but…appreciative.”

“Please sit down, Professor.”

Jimjoy sank back into the chair, watching Thelina Andruz rather than the doctor.

“Professor…Doctor…I need to be going…” Her piercing green eyes rested first on Jimjoy, then upon the black-haired doctor.

Jimjoy only nodded.

“Thank you, Ecolitan Andruz,” the doctor noted politely, turning again toward Jimjoy, but waiting until the heavy wooden door had closed. “Professor…”

“Call me Jimjoy.”

“Very well. This is not a time for heavy analysis or deep thought. I would like an accurate summary of your background, beginning from when you can remember. You do not have to use names. We are talking patterns. First, though…how do you feel?”

“Honestly?”

“Honestly.”

“Like hades.”

“What if I meet you in your room when you feel better?”

“I'd like to start now…before I think too much…”

The doctor smiled. “Believe it or not, it won't be that bad.”

“Not for me, Doctor, but for you…it will be hard to remain objective.” Jimjoy grinned brittlely under the bandages, recalling the incidents on New Kansaw, on Halston, on
IFoundIt!
—just for starters. Maybe Thelina was right. He shrugged, then winced as the pain ran up his jawline again. “At the beginning…I was born on White Mountain, the Hampshire system. That's right at the edge of the habitable zone, lots of lakes, and rocks, and ice. Short summers. My mother was the Regional Administrator. Women run most things there, except for the heavy equipment and the asteroid mining…”

The doctor nodded without taking her eyes off him.

19 Novem 3645
Demetris

CRACK
!!!

A single bolt of lightning jabbed from the towering thunderstorm that straddled the center of the lake.

WHHHHsssttttttt
…The first dark funnel dipped toward the skimmer as he guided it between the three-meter waves raised by the storm. By the time that funnel had brushed the wave crests to the west of him and folded itself back into the thunder-dark clouds, another funnel was snaking toward his skimmer, this time from the south, as the storm beat its way northeast.

Jimjoy could feel the whiteness of his knuckles on the tiller of the light lake craft, as much as he tried to relax and avoid overcontrolling.

CRRRACCKKK!
Another bolt flared, even closer.

WHHHSTTTT
…

CRACK!!

He glanced to his right, trying to catch sight of Clarissa's skimmer. Once again she had dared him, older experienced sister to younger brother, and once again he had fallen for it, going deeper into the storm pattern than was wise, just to prove he could do her one better.

HSSSSSSSTTTT…CRACK! CRACK! CRACKKKK!

The last flare of the lightning lashed less than a quarter kay from him, almost outside the main storm flow.

“NOOOO!” The hellish energy had not struck in the storm, where he tossed, fighting his way through and around waves he should have been able to avoid if he had only gauged the storm track correctly, but right through the blue skimmer that had almost dashed past the curtain winds and into Barabou Notch.

“NOOOOOO!!!” Not Clarissa. Not again.

“Noooo…” groaned the man in the hospital bed.

No one answered his groan, and Jimjoy slowly opened his eyes. The monitoring equipment focusing on him reported the change in his awareness.

“Hades…same dream…again…” He wanted to shake his head. Instead, he lay there for a time. The ceiling overhead was green, a pale green that reminded him of the way his stomach currently felt. Turning his eyes to the side without moving his head, he could see that the heavy wooden door was ajar. No one passed by outside.

Clarissa—how many years back? Hadn't he gotten over that? Lerra—not mother, don't call me mother—had never said one word about it. She had just gone and had Anita. Was Anita the Regional Administrator now? No, not yet; Anita was still too young. She couldn't have finished all the requirements. Besides, could she be Regional Administrator if Kaylin were the System Administrator? That was what Lerra had wanted.

He blinked slowly, feeling the wetness in the corners of his eyes, wishing it would go away before anyone came in. Dr. Militro would certainly be interested in the dream. He tried not to shiver, to push away the feelings he had felt on a slow skim back into Barabou Harbor all too many years earlier.

He slowly eased his head away from the direction of the door, wincing at the tingling in his scalp and the increased intensity of the headache he felt with the movement. The softness of the light outside indicated twilight at the Institute.

Funny, until he was actually in it, he had never realized that the Ecolitans had quietly maintained a complete hospital. Even in his previous months as a “guest” instructor, he had not noticed the facility. They hadn't so much hidden it as simply placed it within the central research complex.

Deciding to sit up, he slowly—very slowly—used the bed controls to ease himself more upright. Just as slowly, he reached for a tissue. He put it down, afraid that poking around the bandages might result in scars.

Then he noticed the stack of tapes and materials on the hospital's bedside stand. On top of them was an envelope.

He reached for it, ignoring the twinges in his head and the residual soreness in his shoulders and ribs.

A single note card was inside, and he slipped it out.

“You're all heart, Thelina. All heart.” Just like Lerra. He did not even bother to sigh as he studied the pile of material. Finally he lifted the thin manual that was supposed to provide an overview.

Click…tap…tap…tap
…

He ignored the footsteps.

“Well, I see you're awake even earlier than Dr. Hyrsa had anticipated. We'll be taking off the pressure bandages on your face tomorrow, I think, and we'll all get to see what you look like, Professor Whaler.”

“Not really a professor…uccouughh…” The cough was almost painful, both in his shoulders and in his face. Like the nurse, he had to wonder exactly what he would look like. While he had seen the profiles and sketches, there was a big difference between art and your own flesh.

Dr. Hyrsa had been careful to point out the limitations of what she, or any surgeon, could do, given his insistence on not having his muscular abilities and coordination impaired.

“We can alter the fingerprints, retinal prints, eye color, and facial bone structure…improve the chin. Fix the hitch in your shoulder. It will start giving you trouble before long anyway. We can extend your legs about five centimeters with the bone we've cloned from you, but that will mean at least three months of therapy and supervised physical redevelopment…”

“Isn't that a risk?” he'd asked, worried about the operation failing and losing his legs or their complete use.

“Any surgery is a risk, but the leg extension is relatively simple as these things go, and our unqualified success rate is above ninety-eight percent. Broadening your shoulders is a slightly higher risk, but there we have an incipient problem to correct anyway…”

The other problem had been the cosmetologist.

“Permanent color? Not sure I like that…”

“There is a slight risk, less than one case in one hundred thousand, according to the risk assessments, of triggering simple skin cancers—not melanoma. The identity chart matrices show that without a complexion alteration the other changes will not be sufficient…”

He had shrugged, wondering what he had let himself in for.

Now he knew. He ached all over. He had been in the hades-fired hospital for more than six weeks, and now he had headaches. He had never had headaches.

“They all say it's just a formality, Professor Whaler,” added the nurse. She was white-haired and professionally grandmotherly. “And the way those Institute folks look up to you, I'm sure that you're just being modest.

“Now let's take a look at you…”

He put down the thin manual. It could wait a few minutes. But that was about all, from the amount of the materials Thelina had left.

His scalp half itched, half hurt. They'd warned him about that too. “And don't scratch!” Thelina had added. As if she had ever had to go through what he was undergoing. Fat chance.

“…uuummmm…”

“That shouldn't hurt, Professor…”

“Doesn't…except when I cough…”

“Coughing's good for you. Just hold a pillow against your diaphragm if it's too much.”

Damned if he'd use the pillow. Of course, Dr. Militro would point out that stoicism that served no purpose was mere masochism. He let his breath out gently and reached for the pillow laid next to Thelina's materials.

Outside, the twilight was sliding into dusk, the green of the upper hills he could see from the window fading into gray. The nurse switched on the room lights and twitched his covers back into place.

“Monitors show you're doing better than expected, and they had projected a quick recovery. Haven't had one this special for several years.”

“Do you have many cases…like…”

“Like you, you mean? Distinguished scholars who want to start all over…not many. One every year or so. There was—but I really shouldn't discuss it, they say. They never tell us who you were, only who you are. That's better. Always look to the future. That's where we'll have to live.

“Is there anything else you need?”

“Something to drink?”

“You can have just a little bit of this.” She went out into the corridor and returned with a paper cup. The cup was the first disposable thing he had seen at the Institute, either this time or in his earlier visit. For the hospital, it made sense.

“Now just sip this slowly. If it stays down, and it certainly should, you can have some clear liquids for dinner. You should be back on solid food by tomorrow. That's really just a precaution until Dr. Hyrsa is sure everything has stabilized.”

He almost shivered. Stabilize? What was there to stabilize?

“Don't worry. If the doctors here can't do something, they don't. It's just that simple.” She checked the nonintrusive monitors again. “I'll be back with some more to drink later.”

He looked out at the twilight on the eastern hills, picked out a single star winking in the gray-purple sky, then tried to identify buildings from their outlines. He had been brought in quietly, through an underground tunnel that he had never suspected even existed, directly into the hospital area. He had not seen the Institute itself this time. The outlines looked as he had remembered them, although some of the trees were now bare in the local winter.

So far as he knew, only Thelina, the cosmetologist, and the doctor had actually seen his unchanged visage. None of them, himself included, had seen what he looked like now, or would look like once he healed and the various swellings and stiffnesses subsided.

But the dream…he had not thought about Clarissa's death since…since at least pilot training…perhaps longer. He started to shake his head and stopped in mid-shake as both scalp and headache warned him.

With a sigh, he retrieved the manual. Studying and learning were less dangerous than remembering. He'd understood that for a long time.