Trang (22 page)
Authors: Mary Sisson
The Magic Man twisted further to
face him, the same damned smile on his face. And then a burst of light came at
him from behind. He exploded into a million tiny fragments.
The golden light slammed into
Philippe, throwing him onto his back.
Everything went black.
He could feel, hear nothing—but the
burst was still there. Philippe watched, perplexed, as the golden light slowly
coalesced into a shape against the overwhelming darkness.
It was a Host. He was there,
looking down at Philippe. He was gold and glowing and gazed reassuringly at
Philippe.
“Don’t worry,” the Host said to
Philippe. “You will live.”
And that was all he knew.
Chapter 10
Philippe realized something.
He felt
terrible.
Something was hurting. Something
was definitely causing him pain.
Ow.
Philippe wanted it to stop.
What hurts?
he wondered.
He thought about his feet, and
there they were. So he thought about his legs, and then his torso, and they,
too, seemed to ease into focus, taking shape but giving no hint of the location
of the pain. His arms, maybe? His head?
But he couldn’t pinpoint what hurt.
He thought about opening his eyes. It was nice with the eyes closed, he
thought, it was pleasant in the dark. But if he opened his eyes, maybe he could
see what had been hurt.
That made a lot of sense. Philippe
contemplated the sense that made with satisfaction for a spell. It was nice
when things made sense—it was gratifying.
He realized that nothing in
particular hurt. He was just sore. Everywhere.
I should probably open my eyes
now,
he thought.
Now
that
hurt—a sharp,
sudden pain. The light was really, really, really, really bright.
Bad, bad
bright light
, he thought.
Bright so bright it hurt, like knives. Sucked.
Who made the lights so bright?
Stupid person. Don’t they know it’s too bright?
Philippe rested a little and tried
again. The light didn’t seem quite so bad this time.
They’re adjusting,
he thought, and left his eyes half open. His lashes helped filter the light, so
it wasn’t so bright. Eventually he saw the ceiling. It was very bright, very
white.
This looks like Beijing,
he
thought.
I’m back in Beijing.
“Hello, Philippe Trang,” said a
voice.
That voice is weird,
thought
Philippe. He peered through his half-open eyes, and saw a small green man in
the chair next to his bed!
“I didn’t know there were
leprechauns in China,” he croaked. His throat was dry.
“I do not understand you,” said the
leprechaun, in his weird, precise, leprechaun voice.
Philippe smiled.
Those
leprechauns! They are tricky!
“Don’t try to fool me,” he said,
looking back up at the ceiling. He noticed there were panels in it. “Tricky
bastard.”
“I am afraid that my Union English
is not sufficiently fluent for me to understand what you are saying,” said the
leprechaun.
Right.
“Well, that’s too
damned bad, because I don’t speak Chinese.”
“I still do not understand you.”
“Mandarin! Or Cantonese! But I
think it’s Mandarin—I don’t speak it anyway, even if it is Cantonese. Never
stationed there. Not enough trouble.” Philippe tried to wave his hand in the
air, dismissively. His hand moved just a little bit, so he looked at it. There
was a sheet over it, holding it down.
He looked back, blurrily, at the
leprechaun. “Show me your gold,” he said. “You have to show me your gold.”
The leprechaun, who had really
grown since the last time Philippe had looked at it, turned gold.
“Is this color more soothing to a
human suffering from injury?” asked the leprechaun.
“How the hell—?” said Philippe, as
the leprechaun came into focus. He bore a striking resemblance to a beloved
elder statesman who, Philippe had been told on good authority, you had to
contact before three in the afternoon if you wanted to catch him sober. The statesman
was mostly gold, although other colors were visible swirling around in his
body, which was semi-transparent.
“Magic Man!” said Philippe. “I
apologize for my comments. I believe I am ill. Where am I?”
“In a room,” said the Magic Man. “I
was told that you were injured by your attackers and wish to express my dismay
to you that I did not defend you against attack as you attempted to defend me.
As you are not of the body I did not defend you against one who is of the body
although that one was not behaving as those of the body should to those not of
the body who might someday become of the body and that one was punished by your
defenders for this failure an action that was just because your defenders are
not of the body. Your defenders did not include those of the body particularly
and regretfully myself because that one was of the body despite that behavior
and the body must not attack itself although when one of the body behaves in an
unjust manner toward one not of the body another of the body may allow those
not of the body to punish the one of the body. Regardless your behavior toward
me was exactly the behavior that is required by those of the body toward others
of the body despite your not being of the body if you had not realized that
that one was not attacking one of the body but instead attacking one not of the
body particularly you. Therefore I encourage your people to become of the body
in the future for then I may reciprocate such defensive behavior regardless of
your attacker whereas now I am constrained if your attacker is of the body for
I am of the body and you are not of the body.”
When I wake up a little more,
all that is going to make sense,
thought Philippe. He looked at the Magic
Man again.
“Aren’t you dead?” he asked.
“A little sensor tells me that
someone’s awake,” George said merrily as he opened the door to Philippe’s room.
He froze when he saw the Magic Man,
then said in the same cheerful tone, but at a much louder volume, “Oh,
look,
a
guest!
”
The doctor stepped nimbly to one
side, holding open the door. In a flurry, Shanti, Patch, Feo, Gingko,
Five-Eighths, and Mo bolted through the doorway, hands to their pockets.
“I’m fine!” said Philippe, sitting
up with a sudden rush of energy. “I’m fine! I’m OK! The Magic Man was just
dropping by to see how I was doing! It’s a friendly gesture, isn’t it? Visiting
a sick friend in the infirmary, in a friendly sort of way. And I’m fine!”
The six SFers stood looking at the
Magic Man, their bodies tense.
“How did he—” Shanti began.
“I’m sure that’s a conversation for
another day,” said Philippe. “Right now, I’m just so happy to be feeling
better, and I’m glad that the Magic Man is alive and well after that horrible
attack we both suffered! I sure hope he stays that way! Alive and uninjured!”
“I, too, am pleased that you are
well,” said the Magic Man. “I hope you reflect on what I said.”
“I certainly will,” said Philippe,
who was beginning to think that sitting upright had been a bad idea. “Thank you
for visiting and talking to me. It was a big relief to see that you were not
hurt.”
“I repeat my desire that the
situation would have allowed me to prevent your injury,” said the alien.
“Can we escort you back into the
common area?” said Shanti through gritted teeth.
The Magic Man agreed, and Feo,
Shanti, and Five-Eighths followed him out.
“How’re you feeling, Trang?” asked
George.
Philippe slumped back on the bed.
“Exhausted. Fine. He didn’t do anything to me,” he said as George and Gingko
began looking him over.
Patch and Mo were still standing in
the doorway, propping the door open with their bodies, so Philippe could hear
it once the Magic Man was on his way and Shanti felt at liberty to inquire as
to how he had accessed the infirmary. Of course, he probably would have heard
her inquiry if the door had been closed. Or if he had been back on Titan. Or
Earth.
“Mo,” he said. “How’s Sucre?”
“Good, good,” said Mo, with a
smile. “You were the only one to take a hit.”
Philippe laughed weakly. “You can
tell who the amateur is, right?”
“No, you did the right thing,” said
Mo. “I mean, OK—first you did the smart thing, and
then
you did the
right thing, but you acted like a real SFer out there. I was really proud of
you.”
Philippe blinked back the tears.
“Thank you,” he croaked. “Thank you for everything.”
Mo beamed at him.
Philippe smiled back, and then
looked around him. “What happened?” he asked.
“You got electrocuted,” said
George.
Philippe tried to fit the word
“electrocuted” into his memory of the attack, but he was too tired and quickly
gave up.
“What?” he asked.
“Oh, guy, yeah, you got zapped by a
Cyclops. He went
krach!
with his hand,” said Patch, throwing his left
arm out dramatically and nearly hitting Mo in the process. “And then this bolt
of, like, lightning hit the Magic Man, and he blew up—”
“But not really,” said Mo.
“But not really, ’cuz he’s still
here,” said Patch, suddenly distracted from his story.
“Unless there’s two of him, but I
think he would have said something,” said Mo.
“Yeah, weird, huh?” Patch replied.
He noticed Philippe again and launched back into his tale. “And after he blew
up, the lightning hit you!”
“And you
flew
all the way
across the room, and we thought you might be dead,” said Mo. “But the doc here
saved you.”
Philippe looked up quizzically at
George, who was shaking his head. “You were never dead,” he said. “Just knocked
around and a little scorched.”
“Hey, Trang!” It was Sucre, coming
in, followed by Baby and Bubba and everyone else.
There was a brief, impromptu party in
the infirmary before George and Shanti broke it up, George because he wanted
Philippe to rest, and Shanti because she wanted to find out how “that fucking
dead-eye smiling rainbow-colored fucking freak show got the fuck in here.”
It was good that everyone left
because Philippe was suddenly overcome by an urge to pass out. He slept for a
few hours more. The moment he woke up, Shanti knocked on the open door and came
in, carrying a scroll.
“You sleep well?” she asked.
“Like the dead,” he replied.
“Fun
ny
,” she said. “You
didn’t hear the ruckus?”
Apparently while he was sleeping
the White Spider had decided to decamp from his office and head back out to the
common area. Everyone had forgotten that it was there, so when it set off Vip’s
motion detectors there was a great deal of confusion, and Shanti noted that she
“damned near” forgot to disarm the no man’s land before letting the White
Spider go through it.
“I didn’t even know,” Philippe
said, smiling. “Seems kind of minor, now.”
“I guess it does,” said Shanti,
looking uncomfortable. “Uh, speaking of what happened, there’s something you’ve
gotta know, and I think you might get upset about it, and it might create
problems for you.”
“We killed the Cyclops,” Philippe
said.
“We did. Or that is what the
Cyclopes say. He ran off to their living area, so we didn’t see it, but they
say he died soon afterward.” Shanti twisted her mouth, as if tasting the story
for authenticity. “Probably that’s the truth. He didn’t get that far; their
area is on the same floor as the Hosts’. And he took two scramblers to the
chest, one high and one low. A fucking elephant can’t survive that, you know,
that’s like a blender to your insides.”
Philippe had no idea what a
scrambler was, but he nodded. “How are the Cyclopes reacting?”
“They’re saying he’s a crook, a
thief, good riddance,” Shanti waved her hand dismissively. “He apparently was
someplace in the Hosts’ living area where he wasn’t supposed to be—I guess it’s
not
all
open to the public in there—and he got caught. He made a run for
it, but the alarm went off.”
“That was—that shrieking noise was
an alarm?”
Shanti smiled at him. “It was the
Swimmer drones. Effective, huh?”
Philippe shuddered. “It was
horrible.
I’ve never heard anything like that.”
She held up the scroll.
“Do you want to see it?” she asked.
“We can watch it without the sound.”
Philippe nodded and sat up in bed.
Shanti unrolled the scroll and put it on his lap.
The scene had been shot from an
overhead camera, which covered the entrance to the Hosts’ living area, as well as
the area in front of it. Philippe could see himself talking to the Magic Man,
only a few meters from the door.
“Now, Mo and Sucre? They’re over
here,” said Shanti, gesturing off the screen with her finger. Between them and
the doorway was one of the Hosts’ café platforms.
Suddenly, the Philippe on the
screen began running toward the wall. The Pincushions dashed out of the scene
before he even reached it. (“Look at those fuckers go,” muttered Shanti. “You
never would have thought they could move like that.”)
Sucre and Mo appeared behind the
platform, lying on their bellies and using it as cover. Philippe noticed that
they had their hoods on, and realized with sudden embarrassment that he should
have put his on, too. He shot a quick, shamed glance at Shanti, but she was
watching the screen, so he returned his attention to it.