Steel Sky (39 page)

Edward cuts the dead flesh from the man’s swollen hand with a #10 blade, removing the necrotic tissue and dropping it into a bowl, leaving as much healthy muscle and ligament as possible. The man watches with anaesthetic apathy, his eyes and his lips half open. Feeling as empty-headed as his patient, Edward applies an antiseptic salve to what remains of the hypothenar muscles. He finds himself thinking of Astrid, as he has been all morning, as he has been ever since he met her. It is an unfamiliar situation for Edward. He has never thought of himself as a man for whom sex or companionship is very important. The challenges of his work have always been all he needed. Now the routine struggle seems so futile. Images of her swim unbidden through his mind.

The first thing he had done was requisition a drug to stop her lactating. She was nervous when he told her what the medication was for — she had been selling her milk since puberty — but Edward was firm. He was going to take care of her from now on.

He bought her a new wardrobe as he had promised and changed her hairstyle to something more appropriate for the upper decks. At first Astrid was shy in the shops and on the causeways, but it didn’t take her long to learn the unspoken rules of her new life. Now she walks with her head high, flashing her ident as if she has had it all her life. Edward, who has always had simple needs, was surprised by how much it cost to accoutre a fashionable woman for primary society. But the joy on her face when she tries on a new outfit makes it all worthwhile. He would give her everything, he realizes. Everything he owns.

He wraps the man’s hand in gauze and gives him a supply of antibiotics. The man thanks him awkwardly and stumbles to the door. The whole hand is probably going to have to come off, Edward thinks, but there’s no need to tell him that yet.

He writes the man’s case up on his panel. He presses the intercom. “Is the next one here?” he asks.

“Not yet, Doctor.”

Edward leans back in his chair. His caseload is light these days. During his short absence some of his cases were picked up by other doctors. Other patients — the poor ones — have been dropped from the roster altogether. Edward finds it simultaneously reassuring and disturbing to be reminded that he is not indispensable. He hadn’t realized how strongly he wanted to be needed. Every unhappy soul that walked into his office was a bolster to his ego, reassuring him of his importance.

How lonely he had been.

He is smiling and thinking of Astrid when his next patient wanders into his office. It is a young man he has seen before, one of those pompous Rakehells. The young man looks confused. Stubble covers his chin and his forehead where his artificial widow’s peak is growing back in. With him is a slim young woman. She is one of the Engineered, judging from her hair. She wears a simple coverup and no makeup. She is very pretty, though there are dark circles under her eyes.

He glances down at the panel attached to his desk.
Cadell Tichener
. With a quick tap he calls up Cadell’s chart.

“Good day, Cadell,” he says, studying the chart. “It’s been a while since we last saw each other, hasn’t it?”

Cadell ignores him and begins to walk toward one side of the room. The woman grabs his elbow and maneuvers him toward the chair in front of Edward’s desk. “Here you go, sweetheart. Sit, sit.”

He drops into the chair, looking distracted. The woman remains standing.

“How are you, Cadell?” Edward asks. “Still having trouble with that knee?”

The woman clears her throat. “I’m Amarantha Kirton. I’m the one who brought him here.”

“I see,” Edward says, though he doesn’t understand why that should matter. Then, looking at her face closely for the first time, he nearly drops the chart. “You’re the one who . . .” He shuts his mouth abruptly.

“I’m the one who what?”

Edward feels his face flush. He turns back toward Cadell, tilting his face as far from Amarantha as possible to hide his confusion. “Nothing,” he says quickly. “I was thinking of somebody else. What’s the matter with Cadell?”

Now it is Amarantha’s turn to be flustered. “He’s been . . . He isn’t . . .” She takes a deep breath. “Look at his neck,” she says finally.

Edward walks around the desk. He places one hand on Cadell’s shoulder and firmly lifts his chin with the other. A deep red scar with yellow edges runs across his throat. “Would you mind if I touched it?” Edward asks Cadell.

“He’s not talking,” Amarantha says, her voice uneven. “That’s why we’re here. There’s something wrong with him. He hasn’t said a word in almost two days.”

Edward runs his finger gently along the scar. “What happened to him?”

“He was trying to . . .” Again at a loss for words, Amarantha puts her fingers to her forehead. “There was a fight. A clop got his shockstick around Cadell’s throat, and he wouldn’t let go.” Amarantha shudders at the memory. “I don’t know why he wouldn’t let go. Of course Cadell was struggling; the clop was holding him so tight he was lifting him off the ground! His face was so red it was almost purple. Sparks were flying off the stick. The clop didn’t let go until Cadell stopped moving.”

Amarantha covers her eyes with her hand and leans against the desk. Cadell watches her with a quizzical look on his face.

Edward puts his hands on either side of Cadell’s jaw. Cadell flinches at his touch, then relaxes. Edward turns Cadell’s head from side to side. He pulls out a light and shines it in his eyes, watching the pupils contract.

“Has he ever been execrated?” Edward asks quietly.

Amarantha lifts her head and looks at him. “Why?”

“It can cause deep neural damage, but sometimes the effects don’t present until a second trauma. Oxygen deprivation, for example.” “He was execrated when he was sixteen. It was years ago, before I met him.”

Edward puts his hands on Cadell’s temples. On either side, just above the ears, he can feel a small lump where the microwaves burned him. “How long was he execrated?”

“I don’t know. Not long, I think, because it wasn’t a serious offense. He was an actor.”

“Mmm.” Edward’s mother took him to plays when he was a boy. The fear of being caught was part of the pleasure for her. But the audiences were rarely punished — there were too many of them. It was the actors who suffered for their art. Edward had never thought about them much before now.

He performs a series of tests. There is little he can do in cases like this. His equipment is so meager, and he has to wait such a long time to use the more expensive equipment, but there are simple procedures he can perform that tell him what he needs to know. The results of the tests are exactly what he expected.

He takes a deep breath. “Amarantha,” he says, “I’m sorry, but Cadell’s condition is very serious. I’ve seen these symptoms before in people who have been execrated, and they indicate a profound change in Cadell’s mental state.”

“What’s wrong with him?”

“It’s called dissociative autism. Execration causes emotional as well as physical pain. That’s why it’s so effective. But sometimes it has adverse long-term effects on the brain. The neural damage actually affects the way Cadell perceives reality. His personality and reasoning are unchanged, but his intellectual and emotional interpretations of that data are transfigured. He sees and hears what’s going on around him, but he . . . well, you could say he thinks it’s all happening to somebody else.”

“What can we do about it?”

“No one has ever been able to reverse it. We don’t even know exactly what’s wrong in Cadell’s brain. Nobody knows how execration works. It was discovered by trial and error.”

Amarantha reaches out and grabs Edward’s hands in hers. Her fingers are cool and dry. The tips are rough with small callus pads. “Listen,” she says. “I need to help him. I need him back. And he needs me. Together, we’re both so much better than we are apart.”

Uncomfortable with this unsought intimacy, Edward looks away. He is unsure whether he should try to disengage his hands from hers or not. “I’m sorry,” he says. “A hundred years ago — even fifty — I think maybe something could have been done for him. But today . . . the most sophisticated equipment has all been reduced to scrap.” “You’re not listening to me!” Amarantha’s tiny hands squeeze Edward’s. He is astounded by her strength. “Before I met him, I didn’t know what life was. Now I know. It starts with him, and then it goes on forever.” She squeezes tighter. “I’ll do anything to bring him back. What can I do?”

Edward looks at Cadell, who has taken the atomizer from Edward’s desk and is turning it over in his hands. Edward says, “I wouldn’t recommend hoping for . . .”

“It’s not a question of hope. Tell me what I can do.”

As gently as he can, Edward pulls his hands free from Ama-rantha’s. Her eyes follow him intently. Her irises are such a pale green they are almost yellow. She is so young, he thinks. Too young for this. “Talk to him,” he says. “Keep the connection between
words
and
things
alive in his mind. There’s a slight chance he might be able to grow new neural pathways in his brain.”

She listens to the advice carefully. Her face is very solemn. If she is aware of the truth — that the things that Edward is saying are only reassuring lies — she gives no sign. For her sake, he hints at possible treatments and a chance of remission, but in his mind he has already given up on Cadell.

When Amarantha and Cadell are gone he picks up his panel and writes simply, “Traumatic autism. Prognosis: negative.”

EPIPHANY

Second Son hurries down the hallway, stumbling past the Scrutators, shrugging aside those who wish to talk to him. His face is flushed, and his breathing is quick and shallow.

Suddenly Dancer is standing in front of him, hands on her hips, blocking his path. He tries to dodge around her, but she moves with him. She grabs him by the shoulders.

“Where have you been? I’ve been looking all over for you!”

“Out of my way!” he shouts, trying to squirm free of her grasp.

“I need to talk to you.” Her voice is low and serious, almost sad.

“I don’t have time. My eyes have been opened. I need to see!”

“Stop babbling and listen to me! We lost the vote.”

Second Son blinks, taking it in. Then he resumes his struggle. “It doesn’t matter. It hit me in the library. All of a sudden. I know what to do now.”

“We need to talk.” She loosens her grip. “We need to plan. This is our future we’re talking about.”

He ducks and slips under her arm. “No, it’s not. Not anymore.” She lunges after him, but this time he is too quick. He runs down the hall as fast as he can, not looking back.

Finally he reaches the rotunda. He punches in the security code to enter the sensoriums. He does not hesitate; he activates the emergency entrance code to the Master Sensorium. He clambers up the stairs and into his father’s chair. This one is softer and wider than his own. He spins it around, hitting buttons as he turns, keeping his eyes on the cyclorama above him.

The lights dim. Moving pictures slide across the interior of the dome, criss-crossing one another. Occasionally they change direction abruptly, or disappear as Second Son manipulates the controls.

“Intersection,” he whispers to himself. His eyes dart from one image to another. “Intersection. Connection.”

The pictures move more quickly now. A wide grin grows on Second Son’s face. “Intersection. Connection. Connection!” he says, louder. He starts to laugh.

The pictures move still more quickly. His eyes follow them effortlessly. “Intersection. Effect. Cause.” Second Son’s chair spins like a top. His hands flash across the controls, calling up images from across the Hypogeum, from the past and the present. The depth of his vision is limited only by the time it takes him to strike the next key.

The moving images multiply and engulf him in a mad frenzy. Second Son watches them all, his face bathed by their flickering light. Tears are streaming down his face, but his eyes continue to flit furiously from one image to the next, drinking them all in.

“I see it all now, Father,” he shouts, spreading his arms wide. The pictures whirl on their own accord now, out of control. Still his eyes swallow them all. “I thought you were lying, but everything you said was true! I see it, Father! I see it all!”

THE STORY

“Do you really think we can find him this way?” Brax asks. With his long stride, Brax is able to maintain a leisurely pace and still keep up with Kitt Marburg’s hurried steps.

“I don’t know,” she says. “But I’ve got to find out what’s going on. Something strange happened on the roof that day, something the other clops won’t talk about, and I aim to find out what it was.”

Brax looks down at her. Reflections of the hallway lights flow across his black visor. “Perhaps the Winnower was killed or captured. He did say he didn’t expect to elude them forever.”

“No. If he was dead, I’d know it. Don’t ask me how, I just would.”

She comes to the door she has been looking for. She rings the buzzer. There is no answer. She waits, then rings again. Still no answer.

“He’s not home,” Brax says.

“He’s home,” Kitt replies sharply. “Can you jimmy the door?”