Stephen Baxter - Ark

Holle, as she had for seven years, felt the strain of just being in the same room as Zane 3. His passiveness, his depression, his all-consuming self-pity were crushing. It was a small consolation to her that Mike Wetherbee, according to the marginalia of his notes, had often felt the same way.

After the Split and Mike Wetherbee’s kidnapping, Wilson had had to find volunteers to take over various aspects of Wetherbee’s medical role. Grace Gray, grave, apprehensive but responsible, had taken the lead, and was self-educating into the role of ship’s doctor as best she could. And Holle had stepped up to take over Zane’s complex case. She had already shadowed some of Wetherbee’s sessions, knew roughly what the work involved, and she saw that it needed pursuing if Zane was to be salvaged.

And it had been Wilson who had suggested that Theo support her. Wilson, shuffling what was left of his crew after what he called Kelly’s mutiny, thought Theo needed another focus, another key duty aside from his gatekeeping of the HeadSpace booths. Theo had done well, after initial reluctance. He had thrown himself into the studying. His experience with virtual systems was a help, in a way-for it was as if Zane was living in some faulty virtual reality of his own.

As she’d got to know him better, Holle started to see how poor Theo’s education had been; rightly or wrongly his father, who he always called “the general,” had identified a military career as Theo’s only option in a drowning world, and had restricted his wider development. In different times, given the opportunity, his personality and talents might have expressed themselves in quite different ways.

But that was probably true of her too. None of them was ever going to know.

Being with Zane 3 made her realize how tired she was herself. As seven years had worn away since the Split the burden of keeping the hull going weighed ever more heavily. She had very few spares, very little in the way of redundancy or backup, and any fault required ingenuity to fix, even the manufacture of replacement parts in the machine shop that were never as good as the original. The thought that the journey might last another twenty-two years was crushing. She was tired, all the time.

But she had to park that feeling outside the door of the surgery, and focus on Zane. Maybe it did her good to have two burdens to distract her, rather than just one.

When Zane was safely under they checked the recording equipment was working, and Holle made a diary note of date and time. “All right, Zane. We’re going to try to help you welcome the alter we call Zane 1.”

Theo glanced at the notes on his handheld. “He’s seventeen years old. He carries the shame you felt when Harry Smith abused you in the Academy. That was his purpose, that was why he was created. To help you cope with that.”

Zane sneered. “So you say.”

“Are you in your safe place?”

“I’m in the museum. In my room.”

“What can you see?”

“The door is open.”

Holle said, “What can you see through the door?”

“A boy. He’s frightened.”

“I know. Well, you can help him, Zane. Can you go get him, and bring him into the room with you?”

“I don’t know.” Zane twitched on the couch.

“You can send him out again any time you want.”

Zane lay silently for a minute, then stirred.

“Is he there?”

“He’s standing beside me. He’s smaller than me. Skinny. He’s sort of shivering.”

“Can I speak to him?”

Zane shuddered, and when he spoke again, his voice had a subtly higher pitch. “I can’t see. It’s dark.”

It had always been dark when Harry Smith had come for Zane. “Do you know who I am?”

“Doctor Wetherbee?”

They went through this every time. “No. I’m Holle. Dr. Wetherbee asked me to help. Do you remember we discussed that?”

“Yes.”

“And do you remember what we said we’d do today?”

“You said you’d try to make me go into Zane 3.”

“How do you feel about doing that?”

“I don’t know what it means.” He rubbed his arms, which were pitted with the small scars of the self-harm he still managed to achieve, periodically. “I’m dirty. I should wash first. Zane won’t want me.”

“No. You’re clean. Clean inside. Zane knows that, Zane 3. He wants to welcome you, because that way he can help you, he can take away how you’re hurting, and you can help him, because he needs to remember what you remember. So it’s all a good thing, isn’t it?”

“I’ll be gone, if I go into him.”

“No. You’ll still be there, everything that makes you unique. It’s just that you’ll be inside Zane 3, not outside. I won’t forget you.”

Zane suddenly opened his eyes and stared straight at Holle, his face twisted. “Promise me that.”

Holle had never helped Zane, or Venus or Matt, while the abuse was actually going on, though all the Candidates had suspected what Harry Smith was up to. For years she’d turned her back, afraid for her own position. Now, hearing this plea for help as if from the boy Zane had been back then, but expressed in the gruff voice of a thirty-nine-year-old, her heart broke. “I promise. Maybe you could step back and let me talk to Zane 3 again.”

After another pause the alter Zane 3 emerged, visibly. “So what now? How do we actually do this? How do I get him inside me?”

Holle glanced at Theo. The texts and case studies were vague on the precise mechanics of this crucial moment.

Theo leaned forward. “Can you see him? What’s he doing now?” “He’s crying.” Zane sounded faintly disgusted.

“Then just hold him,” Theo said. “Put your arms around him. See if you can stop him crying.”

“OK.” Zane sounded reluctant, but his upper arms twitched, a vestige of movement. “I’m holding him. He’s making my shirt wet. He’s stopping crying. I… Come on. It’s OK.”

Holle asked, “What’s happening?”

“It’s like a shadow falling across me, I-oh, I can see him, but he’s inside my head now. Inside my eyelids!”

“Don’t be afraid,” Holle said, soothing. “It’s going well. Everything’s fine. Can you hear his voice? Can you hear what he’s thinking?”

“I can hear, I can see, oh God. I can see his memories. It’s like HeadSpace porn. Did this happen to me? I remember now, I remember the first time, Harry was comforting me about the antimatter accident, he put his big heavy arm around me-oh, shit.”

“It’s OK, Zane, you’re doing well.”

“And this poor kid has been carrying this garbage around for all these years?”

“He did it for you, Zane. I’ll count down from five, and then you’ll wake up, you’ll be here with me and Theo in the surgery. OK? Five. Four…”

On waking, Zane was subtly different. More anguished. Angrier.

Holle asked, “Are you OK? Do you want anything, some water?”

“No water. I’m fine.” He sounded anything but fine. He looked dazzled; he shaded his eyes. “Everything’s bright. Ow, and loud. ” But the only noise in the room was the unending hum of the ECLSS pumps and fans. “I hear my heartbeat.”

Holle spoke softly. “What do you remember?”

“That I didn’t remember before? Years of systematic abuse by that prick Smith. And, in retrospect, years of grooming even before that.” His eyes snapped open. Suddenly he was mocking, angry. “Or maybe you put this shit in my head. Nothing else about this experience is real. Why should these memories be any more valid?”

Holle felt beaten. “Zane, we’re just-”

“Are we done? Can I go?”

Five days after Seba arrived in Earth orbit, Masayo called Kelly to the shuttle flight deck.