Part 16 (1/2)

Some day Forister would have to know and face those details, but not yet. She would leave him alone until he requested the recordings of this conversation, and then she would let him listen in privacy.

And so Nancia was the only witness when Fa.s.sa's confessional came to an abrupt ending. After she finished the tale of Blaize's misdeeds, Sev probed her.

”I've looked up the records of that first voyage,” he said, almost casually. ”There were five of you in it together, weren't there? You, Dr. bint Hezra-Fong, Overton-Glaxely, Armontillado-Perez y Medoc, and one other. Polyon de Gras-Waldheim, newly commis- sioned from the Academy. What was his part in the wager?”

Fa.s.sa clamped her lips shut and slowly shook her head. ”I can't tell you any more,” she whispered.

”Only - don't let them send me to Shemali. Kill me first. I know you never cared for me, but as one human being to another-kill me first Please.”

”You're wrong in thinking I never cared for you,”

Sev said after a long silence.

”You said so yourself.”

”You asked if I liked you a little,” he corrected her.

”And I don't. You're vain and self-centered and you may have killed a good man and you've yet to show any interest at all in Caleb's fete. 1 don't much like you at all.”

”Yes, I know.”

”Unfortunately,** he went on with no change of ex- pression, ”likeitornot-and believe me, I'm not at all happy about the situation - I do seem to love you.

Not,” he said almost gently, ”that it'll do either of us much good, under the circ.u.mstances. But I did think you ought to know.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

Caleb recovered with amazing speed. Two hours after his arrival at the clinic, forty minutes after Alpha bint Hezra-Fong had a.n.a.lyzed the poisons in his blood and slapped on stimpatches of the appropriate antidotes, the nervous convulsions had stopped. Nancia knew exactly when that happened, because by then she had thought to send Sev Bryley to Summerlands with a contact b.u.t.ton discreetly replacing the top stud in his dress tunic and a second contact b.u.t.ton to clip onto Caleb's hospital gown.

While Forister remained on board as a nominal guard for Fa.s.sa, Sev lounged about the public rooms at Sum- merlands trying to look like a worried friend-or-relative and chatting up the recuperating VIPs. Nancia watched the clinic from two angles: the convulsive shuddering view of a cracked white ceiling, emanating from Caleb's contact b.u.t.ton, and the repet.i.tive views of artificial potted palms and doddering old celebrities to whom Sev talked.

On the whole, the potted palms were more valuable than the celebrities; at least they didn't waste Sev's time with their reminiscences of events a century past ”None of these people know anything about Hopkirk,” she whispered through Sev's contact b.u.t.ton.

”I've noticed,” he replied as the senile director emeritus of the Bahati Musical College, aged one hundred seventy-five Standard Central Years, tottered away for his noon meds.

”Can't you do something more productive?”

”Give me time. We don't want to be obvious. And stop hissing at me. They'll think I'm talking to myself and hearing voices.”

182.

Anne McCaffrvy & ”From what I've seen of these befuddled gentry, that'll make you fit right in.”

”Only,” said Sev grimly, ”if they don't hear the voices too.”

Nantia hated to leave him with the last word in an argument, but she was distracted at that moment.

Something had happened - or stopped happening.

Caleb's sensor b.u.t.ton was no longer transmitting a jig- gling view of the cracks on the ceiling; the image was still and perfectly dear.

Not quite still. A regular, gende motion a.s.sured her that he still breathed.

A moment later, two aides exchanged a flurry of rapid, low-voiced but mainly cheerful comments over Caleb's bed. Nancia gathered that the news was good; his (three-syllable Greek root) was up, his (four-syl- lable Latin derivation) was down, they were putting him on a regular dosage of (two-word Denebian form), and as soon as he was conscious they were to start him on a physical therapy routine.

She complained to Forister about the jargon.

”Now you know how the rest of the world feels about brains and brawns,” he said soothingly. ”You know, there are people who think decomposition theory is just a little hard to follow. They accuse us of mystifying the mathematics on purpose.”

”Huh. There's nothing mystical about mathe- matics,” Nancia grumbled. ”This medical stuff is something else again.”

”Why don't you translate the terms and find out what they mean?”

”I didn't have a cla.s.sical education,” Nancia told him. ”I'm going to buy one when we get back to civilization, though. I want full datahedra of Latin, Greek, and medical terminology. With these new hy- perchips I should be able to access the terms almost as fast as a native speaker.”183.

Somebody shouted just out of visual range of Caleb's sensor b.u.t.ton. The view of the hospital ceiling swayed, blurred, and was replaced by gla.s.s windows, green fields, and a white-clothed arm coining from the left. ”Here,” said a calm, competent voice just before Caleb bent over the permalloy bowl before him and gave up the contents of his last meal.

The contact b.u.t.ton gave Nancia a very clear, sharply detailed close-up view of the results.

After that, though, he recovered his strength with amazing speed. Throughout the day Nancia followed his sessions with the physical therapist. At the same rime she tracked Sev while he prowled the hallways of Summerlands Clinic and listened for any sc.r.a.p of in- formation about a patient named Valden Alien Hopkirk.

By mid-afternoon a new aide was able to a.s.sure Caleb that there would be no permanent nerve damage as a result of the attack.

”You're weak, though, and we'll need to retrain some of the nerve pathways; the stuff your s.p.a.ce pirate used was a neural scrambler. Damage is reversible,” the aide said briskly, ”but I'd advise a prolonged course of therapy. You certainly won't be cleared to act as a brawn for some time. Has your s.h.i.+p been notified?”

”She knows everything that goes on here,” said Caleb, placing one finger briefly on the edge of the contact b.u.t.ton.

Nancia got a good look at the aide's face. The man looked thoughtful, perhaps worried. ”I... see. And, um, I suppose the b.u.t.ton has a dead-man switch?

Some alarm if it's inactivated or removed?”

”Absolutely,” Nancia responded through the contact b.u.t.ton before Caleb could tell the truth. Some such ar- rangement would be a great safeguard for Caleb, and she wished Central had thought of it. But failing that, the illusion of the arrangement might give him some &f protection. She went on through the tiny speaker, ig- noring Caleb's attempts to interrupt her. ”Please notify all staff concerned of the arrangement. I would be sorry to have to sound a general alarm just because some ignorant staff member accidentally interfered with my monitoring system.”

”That would indeed be ... unfortunate,” said the aide thoughtfully.

After he left, Caleb said quietly into the contact but- ton, ”That was a lie, Nancia.”

”Was it?” Nancia parried. ”Do you think you know all my capabilities? Who's the 'brain' of this partners.h.i.+p?”

”I see!”

Nancia rather hoped he didn't. At least she'd avoided lying direcdy to Caleb. That was some- thing ... but not enough.

She had never before minded her inability to move about freely on planetary surfaces. Psych Department's testing before she entered brains.h.i.+p training showed that she valued the ability to fly between the stars for more than the limited mobility of planet-bound crea- tures. ”I could have told them that,” Nancia responded when the test results were reported to her. ”Who wants to roll about on surface when they could have all of deep s.p.a.ce to play in? If I want anything planetside, they can bring it to me at the s.p.a.ceport”

But they couldn't bring her Caleb. And she couldn't go to the Summer-lands clinic to watch over him.