C. Cherryh - Cuckoo's Egg

"Wake up."

He was lying on the table. The sheet was over him. He was drenched in sweat. He wanted only to lie there and his eyes stung as if sweat were in them; it might be. Someone wiped his face and the cloth was neutral-feeling, wet and rough but neither cold nor hot. Someone lifted a weight off his chest and legs. "Are you sure you ought to? He's not awake yet." He was, but he preferred to keep that secret to himself, and stare at the stark steel of the machinery, ignoring the faces and the touches, the sudden nakedness of his body as they peeled electrodes away in small twitches he ought to have felt keenly and did not.

"His color isn't good."

(I'm cold, fool.)

Something stung his arm. It was not a great pain. In a moment he began to feel his heart thumping the way it did in nightmares.

(Go away. Let me alone. Don't touch me.)

"Hold him, don't let him move."

He blinked. Meds held his limbs in a hurtful grip. He lifted his head. "Let go. I'm awake. I want to sit up."

They looked foolish, with a dropping of their ears. After they had mulled it over they let him go and one at his side got a hand beneath his back and one and another helped him sit up, holding him.

"Are you through?" Thorn said.

"We're through," one said. They rarely spoke to him at all. "We'll put you to bed awhile."

"I'm going home." Thorn gave a sudden heave and landed with his feet on the floor. His feet were numb, but his knees held. The med reached and he stopped that reach with a backhand lift of his arm, slow-motion, gentle warning. The med took the warning when his stare followed the turn he made, and backed off.

"Sagot," someone said, "Sagot, get in here fast."

Thorn waited then, if Sagot was coming. He remembered he was naked. "I want my clothes." A med gave him his kilt, and he took it and worked with numb fingers and diminished balance to put it on.

A door opened. He looked up at Sagot. "Sagot," he said; he was very careful to be polite. Duun would hit him if he was rude to the meds, and he was desperate. He made his voice ever so calm and courteous, and stood as easily as he could. "Sagot, they think I ought to go to bed here and I'd much rather go to my own and sleep. Please get me home, Sagot."

Sagot looked at him with her thin mouth all taut. A long while she stood there. "All right," Sagot said. "Call his guard and call Duun and tell him we're coming back." Sagot came and took Thorn's arm, wound her thin, fragile forearm about his and locked both her hands on his, and he walked with her, out of that room.

"We'll wait here a moment," she said in the other room; and stood there with him, holding to his arm. In a moment the door opened and the guard was there who walked with him everywhere. Ogot was his name. He said little, but he was a pleasant man; he was Duun's, and if Ogot had taken him to this place and never told him, perhaps Ogot had not known half as much as Sagot had. Ogot looked worried to see him, and Thorn felt ashamed to be so helpless.

"It's all right," Sagot said, "they've just given him a little sedative; we'll walk slowly. The boy wants to go home now. Come on, Thorn."

He was not in his bed, he was lying on cushions on the riser that touched the main room wall, the windows showed branches lashing in the rain, glass spotted and distorted with water. The audio played thunder and rain-sound. Lightning flashed. The air-conditioning wafted moist, cool air and the smell of woods in rain. He lay against the cushions in the room he knew (but the walls always changed) and blinked. He knew those trees, the one that bent, the crooked limb, the rocks, the way one could climb-

"Here." Duun sat down on the riser and took a cup and poured him tea. "It's got aghos in it, don't spit it: you could use the calories."

He took it in one hand and sipped at it. The spice was sickly sweet, but it tasted better than his mouth did. He blinked at Duun. His neck was stiff; he had been sleeping wrong.

"That's good," Duun said. "I moved you in here."

"Carried me?" He remembered bed; remembered Duun rousing him once and making him drink.

"I still can."

"Duun, they-"

"Hush."

Thorn caught his breath. So he had been about to embarrass himself. (You have a need, Thorn.) He felt drained and placid now after the storm before. The illusory rain spattered the windows. "That's Sheon, isn't it?"

"I saved that image. I had it done about a year ago. I thought I'd use it someday."

(Some special day. Today? Is it a gift? To make up for the other thing?)

"More tea?" Come on. I want you to wake up now. We're going to have a round in the gym this afternoon."

"You'll kill me."

"I'll go easy, minnow." Duun's face staring at him, half good, half bad, with that forever mocking smile. "You'll manage."

(Is he happy with me now? Was it a test I passed?) "Duun, they had me-"

Duun lifted his right hand, the single finger. Silence, that meant. (I don't want you to talk.)

"They-"

"It didn't happen."

"Dammit, it-"

"It didn't happen. Hush."

Thorn's pulse picked up. He lay there staring at Duun's scarred face, at the unblinking stare. His heart thumped against his ribs. (What are you doing to me? What are you doing to me, Duun-hatani?)

"You're slow, Thorn. Slow. Speed!"

Thorn tried. He spun and lost his centering, dived backward to save himself as the capped knife crossed his belly: he felt the touch of it, spun away and brought his blade up in defense at what followed. Time, Duun called, and hunkered down. Thorn sat down and wiped his face.

"I'm off. I'll get it back."

"You'll go on practicing," Duun said.

"What-'go on'?" (Has something changed? What's wrong?) Go on had the sound of finality.

"Three mornings of a five you'll have your study. Every other day you'll go back to that room. It's another kind of study."

"Duun-"

"-which we won't talk about."

"Duun, I can't!"

"Can't?"

Thorn flinched. He clenched his arms about his knees. "Have you? Have you been through it?"

"We won't talk about it. Every other day you'll face that. You'll know you're going to face it; and you'll walk in on your own and be polite with the meds. This is the only time I'm going to tell you this. If you truly begin to suffer they'll put you down to once a five-day. But that's something the meds will decide for medical reasons, not your untutored whims."

" Forever? For the rest of my life?"

Duun hesitated. Duun rarely hesitated in answers, though he might stop to consider. In this, the pause was minute and Duun frowned. "It's a test, minnow. You're not going to fail it, hear? I'm not going to tell you how long it lasts. You're not going to bring the matter through that door. Next time you'll sleep it off in the medical section. When you can walk home on your own you'll do it; and you'll walk in at whatever hour and say Hello, Duun, I'm home, what are we going to do?-the way you do every day. Sagot was soft and let you do as you pleased, and I should have sent you back right then and not coddled you. Life's not likely to coddle you."

"Neither are the meds, Duun! It hurt , it-I don't know how to handle it, Duun, give me some help, for the gods' sakes tell me how I ought to handle it!"

"Accept it. With dignity. Embrace it. With all the strength and cleverness you've got."

"Did I fail today?"

"No," Duun said. "No, you did marvelously well. You can be proud of yourself. You've made a lot of people happy with you, people you've not met. But we won't talk about it anymore. You'll come home and you won't have to talk about it; we'll do everything we always do. I think you'll be glad of that."

"You won't shout at me."

A second time Duun looked taken aback, and that was rarer still. "No, minnow, I won't shout at you."