Missing Elements (The Lament Book 3) (25 page)

That got a head shake, but after
a moment he started the large metal cart thing and it lurched forward.

"I know. We finally have a
chance to make things right, and these clowns are going to destroy it, before
it even has a chance to start."

If they hadn't already, Pran
thought.

She didn't mention it though.
First she had to figure out how to save Donal. If he wasn't already dead.

The world wasn't dark yet, but it
was starting in that general direction. The dark clouds and heavy snow made
dimmer than it should have been. It was hard to see where the sun was behind
the clouds, and Pran had never owned a watch. It was before five bells, at a
guess, but it was hard to know.

Or should have been.

Almost instantly she heard the
bell in the distance. There were five heavy chimes, meaning two things. First,
she was
right
. Almost exactly, which didn't distract her from the
bleeding mess that was her bandaged stomach. It really hurt, but she didn't let
it show. Whining about it, or moaning, wouldn't get anything helpful done.

The second thing was one that
shocked her. She'd thought that they'd be heading directly to the base, or
house, where Donal was being held. For some reason they were headed back into
the city. The road smoothed under them, as they hit a well paved road. It was
bumpy, but better.

"How are you doing? Still
with us?" The driver didn't glance over at her, but almost as if trying to
hit a dramatic arc, the metal panel behind her suddenly opened, and a grasping
arm poked through. It was getting a bit dark, but given how strong it was, it
had
to be Dovish. Tammy wouldn't have managed to choke her that well.

That didn't last long, however,
since she pulled the tiny sap and started smacking his fingers with it. That
meant clipping her own chin, but other than the brilliant and almost white
pain, it worked pretty well. Dovish screamed, and pulled back, which let Zeke
slow the cart and use both hands to push the sonic weapon through the hole,
wiggling it around until there was no more noise from that direction.

"Oops. Sorry about that. I
should have tied them up better." The driving resumed, and if anything he
seemed embarrassed, rather than scared by the dangerous would be killers in the
back seat.

Which was the appropriate thing
for him to be feeling, she decided. Her throat hurt now too, along with the
alternating sharp and dull stabbing sensation in her middle. She didn't know,
but from the feeling of weakness it was pretty clear that the bleeding hadn't
stopped much.

Lincoln wasn't big, not when you
were hurtling along a road at nearly thirty kilometers per hour. Or faster.
What she didn't know was where the man was planning to take her in particular. Some
secret base that the downloads had hidden right in the center of power? A
doctor's office? A nice flat stable where she could lay down, rather than fall
over? It was interesting to think about, but they pulled up directly in front
of High Bard Clarice's home.

Getting out, once the thing
stopped, was harder than it might have been. The snow didn't help, since it was
half melted on the ground still, making things slippery. The blood loss
probably didn't help either.

"I..." She stood, pain
or not, and started walking, going slow, because she didn't want to fall down
on the front walk. "Feel sick."

It was an understatement. Little
black and blue sparkles around her vision, leaving a little window in front of
her that got smaller as she approached the fine wooden door of the Bard's home.

Zeke was yelling, but she didn't
know what he was saying. Help was a big part of it, along with something that
sounded like complaints. Those... She couldn't track it, but it was about her
bleeding all over everything, she was willing to bet. Someone came to the door,
but she didn't make out who it was, her little perceptual zone having gotten
too clouded over for that.

Snow hit her still, she thought.
It was cold and damp at least.

Right until she lost track of everything,
except a strange sense of falling.

When her eyes opened, sometime
later, a cool rag was mopping her brow. It hurt to make the face focus, but it
was a bit shocking to find who was doing it.

"Um... Doctor Soros?"
That kind of made sense, given that the man was staying with her hosts too, but
she'd thought, for some reason, that Doctor Millis would be doing it. He was
there, she saw, over to the left. Turning her head was a bad idea however, and
she nearly threw up. Only the pain in her middle got her to stop that. It
wasn't a thing she'd known could be controlled, being ill like that, but she
managed it, on the fly.

That was interesting, but Pran
needed to keep from moving to make it happen. Only by holding very still was
her lunch going to stay in place.

Doctor Millis moved over to her
then, his old face worried.

"Ezekiel told us about what
happened. I'm so sorry, dear! We shouldn't have had to deal with this at all.
You
shouldn't, at any rate."

Pran didn't nod, guessing without
knowing that it might be a poor plan to even try. That meant giving speech a
chance.

Her voice was soft, but not weak.
There was no breathy quality to it, just a lack of volume. She didn't try to
sit up, even though in a play she would have.

It just hurt too much to even think
about doing.

"Donal. They have him, and
mean to... Honestly I don't know. Torture him to take back their power or
something silly like that. It won't work."

Doctor Millis sighed and shook
his head.

"No, it won't. I believe the
goal is actually to enrage the head of the intelligence service so much that he
undoes the current treaty. That won't work either. The man is more than happy
to have our help in hunting these people down. These zealots have lost already.
I do hope that the Guardians can free that man alive however. Your friends have
gone to see to it, along with Ezekiel. His changing positions on this matter is
what really convinced Judge Clair. Now we can only wait. Are you in much
pain?"

It took a while to understand
what he meant, but she managed to smile. It wasn't a big thing, but enough to
be noticed.

"I've felt worse. Not often,
but it won't kill me. I don't think? If so, you should both be panicking more,
trying to save me."

The other Doctor chuckled,
"you'll do fine. We didn't even have to do a blood transfusion. You'll
have a scar, but only a small one. I did the stitching, so you know it's done
well."

"Ah? Good then. Well, I
should... Do something useful." She grinned a bit more nicely then, and
backtracked instantly. "As long as it means not moving. I think that being
still for a while might be a pleasant way to spend the rest of the day."

She wasn't in a bed, she
realized, but in the front sitting room of Clarice's home. On her nice sofa.
Hopefully not bleeding anymore. Before anyone could answer her words, or
suggest that she better stay still, or
else
, the woman herself came in,
carrying a tray with cups on it. Tea or coffee. Probably.

"You're awake. I was so
worried about you. I... I can't believe anyone would shoot you like that. Did
that woman say why she did it?"

"Payback. I shot her once,
not too long ago. Fair, I guess. We... Need to get with the High Council.
Riley. Make sure this doesn't ruin it all." She was sleepy sounding, and
didn't feel good, but it was important to her. Otherwise... Well, Clark would
probably have to try and kill everyone in the System.

Not all of them were bad though.
Even the Firmament wasn't evil, really. Or that Remembrance group. Lacking in
common sense, possibly, and not very willing to adapt to change, but that
wasn't the same thing. Good people did things like that all the time. It was
too easy to see everyone else as bad, if they didn't agree with you, wasn't it?
Pran probably did that a lot, but didn't think it was the case this time.

Even Dovish and Tammy were just
hurt and lashing out. She'd shot Tammy, for instance. Then the woman was taken
away, put in a cell, and tortured for information. It wasn't shocking that the
lady
might
be a little upset about it all. Yes, she'd needed to be
stopped in the first place. Pran didn't doubt that at all.

Dovish... It was a mistake to
take things out on her or Donal, but understandable. The man had made mistakes.
Who didn't?

The night wore on, which she
counted on the bells.

Everyone was worried, and it
showed in the little things they did. Clarice fussed over her, offering
constant sips of cool water and broth. It was enough that Pran finally had to
ask her to stop, before the stitches split on her stomach.

Doctor Soros kept going over
plans, most of which centered on the idea that things were about to fall apart.
That Donal was already dead, or mutilated, and that these savage people of the
new world would take it out on the rest of them. Punishing them with attack and
torture.

On the seventh or eighth
iteration on that theme, Doctor Millis stopped him. Gently.

"Except that these people
are
less
violent than we are. We, the people of the System, are the ones
that brought danger and harm into this world, aren't we? Oh, they aren't
perfect. No one ever has been. They
aren't
savages however. Less
technologically advanced than they could be, but even that is our fault."
He stopped and looked Pran directly, his face calm and ancient.

"How is it your fault? You
saved everything." That was the history lesson, at any rate.

"Sure. I
did
, by
making up rules that more or less punished generations of innocent men and
women. The life you have isn't hellish, but it isn't free either. It's the one
I
gave you, you know. I was the one, the single person, that decided we couldn't
sustain the numbers that we had back then. People were dying, in the billions.
Disease, mainly. It was the poor sanitation, the wars, the lack of clean water
to drink. So I commissioned the System, in an attempt to save the knowledge we
once held. Then... I forced those that survived to give up almost everything.
You don't even know what's gone now, it's been so long. This used to be a world
of wonders."

Pran wanted to shrug, but knew
better than to try.

"It still is." The man
seemed doubtful, but she rolled her eyes up at him, as he sat about ten feet
away. "Think about it. We
aren't
poor and crippled creatures. We do
everything that's needed. We have art, and science, and... people mainly get to
eat. Maybe it's not the same as what used to be, from what I heard, but we
don't starve, or..." She ran out of things to say, or nearly did.

After a second, Pran let her eyes
close.

"And... just recently I
heard a rumor that we might be having some new things coming. Weird people from
the past are giving it to us?"

That got a laugh, from Bard
Clarice. It was happy enough.

"Things do seem to be
changing, don't they?"

There was a muttering that she
didn't understand, from Doctor Millis. It was a bit muted, but he turned away.

Almost embarrassed. Because, as Michael
Morse, he'd had to give people less than he thought they
should
have.
Riches and splendor wasn't their lot, and he seemed to feel bad about that.
Like wealth was the only thing worth having? Pran would have given up every
chance of having a wonderful house like the one she was in currently for a real
family. To have ever had parents that loved and cared for her, even. Her
friends were worth more than all the techno tricks that ever existed, to her.
Even these people with her now were.

Pran didn't want to argue the
point, but nodded at the High Bard. It hurt, but had to be done.

"They always do that.
Change. Hopefully this will be good. If not, then we start over and try again.
That's what you did, wasn't it?" She managed to fix the old Doctor, the
former leader and creator of the society she lived in. "Things stopped
working, so you did it over. Until you got it right."

The man didn't speak, but there
was a sad and slow smile on his face.

A commotion came from the front
door then. It wasn't loud, but after about ten seconds Guardian Clark called
out.

"We have him! Donal Cartman
is alive. Beaten, but not harmed beyond that. Those that had him captive have
been taken to the city jail. Also alive." Guardians didn't kill, if they
could help it. That was part of their training.

Pran got up, while everyone was
looking toward the front of the house, and started to hobble that direction, to
help get Donal inside. He wasn't
there
, naturally. No, he was taken to
receive help. At the door, standing next to the giant Guardian, were several
faces she recognized, but they all seemed unharmed. Mara, Clair, and Judge
Brown were there. Along with Tuvin, and oddly enough, Tims. The missing floor
boy.

Not missing at all, it seemed. In
fact he was the one that spoke first.

"You... should probably be
lying down." His face looked older now suddenly. He was hundreds of years
old, even if in the body of someone no older than she was. It showed around the
edges.

Pran grinned.

"And miss out on all the
visitors?"

That got a few grins, but she was
still led back to the sofa in the other room, and helped into a reclining
position by Clark and Mara. Judge Clair came and felt her forehead, as if she
were ill. Well, she might well seem that way, being a bit pale and all that.
Blood loss could do that, she was discovering.

Clark nodded toward her, and
then, almost as an afterthought the others that were there.

"The System people helped
get this settled. No lives were lost, though it was close. A few were injured.
There will be a trial in the morning. Then..."

He shrugged, his face turning
away a bit.

Mara smiled, and did the same
thing, her eyes moving back to Pran reluctantly.

"When The Lament comes back,
we're on circuit again. There are some things to take care of, but the
interesting things will be here, no doubt. We'll be out for three months, barring
incident."