Michael Kube-McDowell - Odyssey

Derec could not order Dr. Galen to stop worrying about him, so he resigned himself to living within the robot’s restrictions. In some ways, Derec welcomed the vacation from responsibility. His body had had time to heal, but his mind still vividly remembered the erupting surface of the asteroid, the electric blue pain from Aranimas’s stylus, the sudden flash of the booby trap exploding in his face. He had a right to a few days of peace.

Or so Derec thought. But one day of idleness was enough to satisfy that need. The next morning he did not wait for Dr. Galen’s ritual visit and examination, but went looking for the robot himself. He found him standing at the biomedical monitor at the foot of Katherine’s bed in the ICU.

“Good morning, Derec,” the robot said. “I am sorry that I was delayed. How are you feeling today?”

“Restless,” Derec said. “I’m ready to get back to a normal life.”

“But you are in the fugue state of an amnesiac episode,” Dr. Galen said. “A normal life is not possible for you now.”

“I’ll settle for the substitute at hand,” Derec said. “I can’t just sit around here hoping my memory will come back.”

“What is it you wish to do?”

“I guess I won’t know until I find out what’s already been done for me,” Derec said. “Outside of the robots on the station, who knows that I’m here? Is anybody trying to find out who I am?”

“I cannot say,” Dr. Galen said. “I am certain that the station manager reported your arrival to the district supervisor at Nexon, as I did to the medical supervisor. That information may have been passed to any number of interested parties in the interval since. Why, is there someone you would like to contact?”

Derec pointed across the room at the sleeping Katherine. “Her. How much longer till you bring her out?”

“I concluded some days ago that she might hold the key to unlocking your loss of memory, and decided to allow her to wake at the earliest opportunity when her own health and comfort would not be at risk,” said Dr. Galen. “She was taken off the sleep-inducing drug at midnight. According to her brain waves, she is dreaming now. I expect her to wake sometime this morning.”

Derec glanced around the ward. There was nowhere to sit except the floor.

“There is no need for you to conduct a vigil,” Dr. Galen said as though reading his thoughts.

“I want to be here when she wakes up.”

Dr. Galen nodded understandingly. “I promise, I will call you.”

Derec whiled away one hour, then another, with a bookfilm titled “The Architects of the Machine.” He hoped to find among its profiles of notable designers and engineers a clue as to who the “minimalist” behind the asteroid colony might have been. With all the more tangible evidence lost or destroyed, it was one of the few unexplored leads left to him. Genius of that sort had to have left a trail.

But only three of the biographies were of contemporary designers, and the choices were entirely predictable. The roboticist Fastolfe. March, the Havalean wizard of micromagnetics. The human ecologist Rutan, whose services were so much in demand by the wealthy on a dozen Spacer worlds.

All three had become celebrities, acclaimed by those who knew nothing about what it took to do what they did. But the engineering community had its own celebrities, based on its own standards. Every exclusive group did-those persons who had won the respect and admiration of their peers but were completely unknown outside the circle. Fastolfe ranked here, too, but March was regarded as a toy-maker and Rutan as a joke.

Yes, he needed an insider’s perspective. Someone would know Derec’s mysterious genius-

“Master Derec, if I may interrupt.”

Derec’s head jerked up. It was the medical orderly. Like Dr. Galen, the orderly had fallen victim to the supervisor’s perverse sense of humor. “Yes, Florence.”

“Dr. Galen said that you should come right away.”

Pushing back the viewer, Derec jumped to his feet. “Coming.”

When he reached the ICU, the sterilization lights were already off and Katherine was beginning to stir. She now wore an ankle-to-neck beige gown, etiquette having changed along with Dr. Galen’s changing perception of their relationship. Derec hung back as Dr. Galen bent over Katherine and spoke softly to her.

“Good morning,” he said. “Don’t try to move.”

But she lifted her head a few centimeters all the same and surveyed the room. “Hospital?” she asked hoarsely.

“Yes, Katherine. I am Dr. Galen.”

“On what station?”

“Rockliffe Station.”

She nodded and looked past Dr. Galen to Derec. “Some rescue,” she said.

Despite her hoarseness, there was a laughing note to her voice that Derec did not like. Taking a step closer, he said stiffly, “We’re both alive, aren’t we?”

“Which just goes to show that there’s no justice in the Galaxy,” she answered, closing her eyes. “I thought you’d have been smart enough to disable Aranimas’s security system before you started to poke around in his hidey-hole.”

“Look, I’m sorry it didn’t go more smoothly,” Derec said, coming to the side of the bed. “But we did get away. And there was something we were going to talk about once we did-”

Her eyes fluttered open and searched past Derec for the robot’s face. “Dr. Galen, the headaches are back,” she said. “Would you ask Derec to leave, please? I just don’t think I can deal with company now.”

“How long could it take to tell me my surname, my homeworld-”

But Dr. Galen intervened, gently pushing Derec back toward the door. “I understand your impatience, Derec. But I must consider Katherine’s health, too. Please leave. I will find out what I can. When she is stronger you can talk with her again, if she consents.”

Derec took his frustration for a walk, leaving the hospital by the main entrance. He was sure that Dr. Galen would report him or send a robot after him to bring him back, but he did not care. He simply could not calmly stay there and wait. To be so close to answers, to the promise of being whole again, was too great a test for his patience.

The section of the station where the hospital was located was a tomb. He walked dimly lit streets past ranks of closed stores and sealed residential blocks. Only the main throughway was even lit. The side streets and courtyards were black pits.

No robot pursued him. He walked and walked until the edge was off his jumbled emotions, and then he turned back. He stalked through the reception area and into Dr. Galen’s office.

“Did she tell you anything?”

“She was not able to offer any insight into your affliction.”

“You discussed my condition with her? But you wouldn’t tell me-”

“Correction. She was already aware of your condition.”

“What did she do, ask your advice on how to deal with me?”

“Derec, I promised Katherine that I would not discuss our conversation with you.”

Crossing his arms over his chest, Derec blew a sigh ceiling-ward. “I don’t understand why she’s being so secretive. If she knows something about me, she should just tell me.” He cast a raised-eyebrow glance in Dr. Galen’s direction. “Isn’t that right?”

“The advisability of that would vary from case to case, depending on the individual, the cause of the dysfunction, and the particular personal data concerned,” was Dr. Galen’s measured answer.

“You won’t even give me a hint, will you?” Derec said ruefully.

“I regret that I may not.”

Derec frowned. “Can I see her, at least?”

The robot turned to one of the two active displays on the wall behind him. “She is awake and her algesia has moderated. But she is the final arbiter.”