Timothy Zahn - Conquerors' Pride

"And it was a reality that too many of my teammates didn't want to leave."

Aric looked at him, a shiver running through him. "You mean like an addiction?"

"I mean like a total withdrawal from reality," Quinn said bluntly. "They walked around offlink like ghosts. Just going through the motions of living, doing whatever they had to do so they could get out of this pale imitation of reality and back to the real thing. Some of them went so far as to steal wireless jack connectors so that they wouldn't have to face the real world at all."

His lip twitched. "Some of those never came back. Not even when the Mindlinks were forcibly taken away from them. They never came back."

Aric gazed at his face. At the lines of tension in his jaw... "You feel it too, don't you?" he said.

Quinn turned away. "All Copperheads do," he said. "And I'm convinced that it does damage to us every time we link up. But the Peacekeepers didn't want to give up the program. Neither did NorCoord." He shrugged fractionally. "They're screening the applicants better these days—we got that much out of Parliament at the hearings. Maybe it was enough. I don't know. I'm not sure I want to."

Aric grimaced. "I'm sorry. Sorry, too, for dragging you into this in the first place."

Quinn turned to face him again. "Don't be," he said, "I told you all this so you could try to understand, not so you'd waste time with sympathy. When lives are at stake, you do what you have to, whether it's personally comfortable for you or not." He cocked an eyebrow. "I doubt this was something you really wanted to do, either, if you want to get right down to it."

Aric shrugged. "It's not exactly the same situation."

Pheylan frowned. It was an odd sort of sound, now that he was concentrating on it. An aircar? No, more likely a spacecraft. One whose engines made an unusual sort of twittering drone.... And suddenly every muscle in Pheylan's body went rigid, his throat tightening as he strained to hear. Half-afraid he was imagining it... but there was no mistake. The sound was unique and unmistakable.

A Mrach ship.

With an effort Pheylan forced his muscles to relax, the hammering of his pulse abruptly loud in his ears. This was it. His best chance—maybe his only chance—of getting out of here. His training at the academy had included a unit on Mrach ships, instrumentation and flight technique both. If he could get to it, he would be out of here.

If he could get to it.

He lay there another minute, running through all the nebulous gambits and wild schemes he'd thought up in the past three weeks. None of them were all that terrific, but there was no time now to come up with anything better. Outside, the drone of the Mrach engines had fallen silent, and there was no way of knowing how long it would be before the ship took off again. It was now or most likely never.

Taking a deep breath, he propped himself up on one elbow. "Hey," he called plaintively, pointing to one of the techs as they all turned to look at him. "You. Go get Thrr-gilag. I don't feel well. I think I'm going to be sick."

The tech turned back to his console and began speaking quietly into the intercom. Pheylan stayed where he was, rubbing his stomach and making all the faces he'd learned to use on his mother when he wanted to stay home from school and his symptoms were only marginal. The Zhirrzh had learned a lot about humans from him, but there were one or two things that might still surprise them. And if it surprised them enough...

Half-hidden behind its console, the prep-room door swung open and Thrr-gilag stepped through. "Good day, Cavv-ana," he said. "You not well?"

"Not at all," Pheylan said, screwing up his face in agony. He had no idea whether or not Thrr-gilag could even read human body language, but this was no time to go half throttle. "Fact is, I'm bloody sick. You've got to let me get out into the sunlight right away."

"It only three days," Thrr-gilag reminded him, moving up to the glass wall and peering at him. "You without sun seven days before."

"I wasn't coming down sick with something then," Pheylan said.

"Why sunlight help?"

"Because it will," Pheylan said, suppressing a grimace. Clearly, Thrr-gilag wasn't going to give in for the performance alone. He was going to have to go all the way with this. "I know this sickness. It's common among humans—" He broke off, letting his face go stricken as he kicked off his blanket and swung his legs over the side of the bed. "Oh, God—here it comes."

He stood up, throwing a hand up the glass wall to steady himself. His other hand went to his mouth; and under cover of the motion he stuck his finger into his throat.

And vomited at the wall directly in front of Thrr-gilag.

The Zhirrzh jumped nearly a meter backward in a single leap, barking something startled sounding. The four techs scrambled into motion, two of them heading toward Pheylan's cell door, the others running toward the prep room. "They bring suit," Thrr-gilag told Pheylan, his voice noticeably higher pitched than usual. "What that happen, Cavv-ana?"

"Like I said, I'm sick," Pheylan said, weaving his way to the shower on trembling legs and starting to have some belated second thoughts about this. He'd expected the cramps that were twisting through his stomach muscles, but he hadn't counted on this sudden weakness that had hit his legs. If he wasn't ready to act when the time came, this wasn't going to work at all.

Still, he had a few minutes before it came to that. Turning on the shower full blast, he stepped halfway into the stall, shoving his face into the stream and spitting mouthful after mouthful of water onto the shower floor. "What this for?" he could hear Thrr-gilag shouting over the noise. "Cavv-ana? What this for?"

"I'm rinsing my mouth," Pheylan said, shutting off the water and stepping wearily out to lean against the side of the stall. Good; his legs were starting to settle down again. "These stomach juices are full of acid. Very bad for my skin and mouth. The vapors aren't good for my lungs, either. You've got to let me out of here."

From the prep room the two Zhirrzh techs reappeared and hurried toward the cell door, one with the obedience suit flapping in the breeze behind him, the other fumbling with the black trigger gadget Nzz-oonaz normally handled. One of the two techs at the cell door reached over to unlock it, stopping at a sharp word from Thrr-gilag. More instructions, and the Zhirrzh with the obedience suit stooped to stuff it through the dog flap. "You can put on?" Thrr-gilag asked Pheylan.

"I'll try," Pheylan said, straightening up and making his way across the cell. So much for doing this the easy way. He'd rather hoped that this startling new behavior from their pet human would have rattled Thrr-gilag enough to forget either the obedience suit or the standard procedure concerning it. Clearly, the other had more presence of mind than that.

Which just meant Pheylan would have to do this the hard way.

He got the obedience suit on as quickly as he dared, trying to balance the feigned weakness of his illness with the need to make his move before more Zhirrzh could be called in on the crisis. "All right," he said, leaning briefly against the doorjamb as they got the door open. "I'm—wait a minute," he interrupted himself, reaching again to his stomach. Turning around again, he stumbled back to the toilet and dropped on his knees in front of it.

There was even less available to come out this time around, and about all Pheylan got for his efforts was dry retching and another bout of cramped stomach muscles. But that was all right. All he really wanted was an excuse to get back into the shower... and by the time he staggered out again, the obedience suit with its wonderful water-wicking action was well and thoroughly soaked. "All right," he said, mopping his face uselessly with an already saturated sleeve as he returned to the waiting knot of nervous Zhirrzh. "Let's go. Before it happens again."