Jeffrey Carver - Eternity's End

Remembered running for her life. Leaning on Legroeder. Why Legroeder? They were fleeing… pirates in pursuit.

Maris groaned softly. She tried to sit up, and failed. Her head was on a pillow. She turned it slightly to look around. Where am I? she wanted to ask, but swallowed the words. Don’t talk yet; don’t know where you are . She remembered excruciating pain—and footsteps, pounding. Pursuit. Must hide. But where? Nowhere to hide.

She wondered if she could move now; maybe just a hand. Slowly, forcing every inch of movement, she dragged her left hand across her chest and brought it to touch the hurt on her right shoulder and neck. What was it? Neutraser fire… there was shooting … Probing under the loose fabric, she felt a spray-on bandage; and under the bandage, the ridges and bumps of a wound. At first there was no sensation from the touch of her fingers; then the fire flashed up her neck. She rasped in a sharp, agonized breath and lay trembling, clutching her arms together.

A wooden door to her right burst open.

She blinked, trying to focus. A man and a woman stood in the doorway, staring at her in astonishment. “You’re awake!” the woman said.

Maris struggled to find her voice. She couldn’t; couldn’t even swallow. Her throat was dry and cracked.

“Here, now,” said the man, pushing past the woman. “Don’t try to sit up, you’re not ready for that.” He stepped to Maris’s side and bent to peer at a medical monitor.

She tried to move her right arm and felt a new pain. She was tied to a monitor and a set of IV’s. Was she in a hospital?

The man urged her to lie still, and she didn’t argue; she was dizzy anyway. But not too dizzy to wonder, Who are these people? Had she made it away with Legroeder? Where was she? And where was Legroeder?

She tried once more to swallow, then heard the man send the woman for a glass of water. Good. Good. The water arrived, and the man lifted her head as she tried to drink. She sipped greedily, water splashing down her chin, soaking her neck. With a gasp, she sank back as the woman dabbed at her with a towel. “Take it easy, now,” the man was saying. “You’ve had a tough time of it.”

Tough time of it…

The woman was muttering something she couldn’t quite make out, and the man replied, “We really should get her seen by a doctor.”

“No doctor!” the woman said sharply.

“Look at her, Lydia. You can see she needs help.”

No doctors. Not a hospital, then. Maris listened with growing alarm. Where am I? What’s happened to Legroeder?

“What’s she saying?”

“Legroeder,” the woman said. “She’s calling for Legroeder. Her boyfriend. The one who skipped bail.”

Had she spoken out loud? No —you have it wrong. What do you mean, he skipped bail?

“Watch what you say, now she’s awake,” the man murmured. He leaned in closer. “Miss O’Hare—can you hear me?”

Maris drew a breath, and with an almost superhuman effort, shouted: “ Where—am—I—?”

“She said something,” said the woman. “What’d she say?”

“I’m not sure,” said the man. “Miss O’Hare?”

She grunted in frustration and tried again, harder. This time words came out. “Where… am… I?” Her voice sounded harsh and unnatural.

“I think she said, ‘Where am I?’ ”

“Huh,” said the woman. “Don’t worry about—”

“Wait,” said the man, cutting her off. He moved around the bed, to where Maris could see him more easily. “Miss O’Hare, you’ve been in a coma for weeks. We finally managed to deactivate your implants—”

Implants . Of course, the pirates had put them in the back of her neck. How had she been able to escape? There’d been a plasma leak…

“—which were keeping you unconscious.”

She tried to focus. The pirates had told her that escape was impossible; the programming in her implants was like a knife at her throat.

“Damn near killed you, as far as I could tell. But I guess they were rigged to incapacitate, rather than kill.”

Maris strained. “Where—?”

“You’re in the North Country. Away from the city.”

Maris shook her head weakly.

The man finally seemed to catch on. “On Faber Eridani.”

Maris’s breath caught. “Faber—” She’d made it out, then. Made it back to civilization. Or had she? She squinted at the man and woman, and thought with a shiver, Why won’t they let me see a doctor?

“You’re safe here,” the man continued reassuringly. “You’re among friends.” He smiled and turned away.

“But Harriet—we can record the whole thing on VR and bring it to you here in the embassy. There’s no need to risk your going out.” Peter stretched his big hands out pleadingly.

Harriet fixed the Clendornan PI with her gaze. “I don’t want to see it on the VR, Peter. I want to see it in person. You can bring me right back when we’re done. But if I’m going to use this for a legal case, I need to know everything. How it sounds, how it feels, how it smells. And not through some damn electronic reproduction!”

The light in the back of the Clendornan’s eyes flickered as he gazed at her.

“Peter, I appreciate your concern. But I’ve got to do this.” Besides, if I don’t get out of this embassy soon, I’m going to lose my mind. How can such a beautiful place feel like such a prison?

Peter gave in at last. “All right. But at least let me talk to the embassy staff. Maybe they’ll let us travel in one of their vans. Less likely to be intercepted that way.”

“I knew you’d understand.” Harriet grabbed Peter’s arm. “Come on, let’s go find the assistant ambassador…”

All the way in the Narseil floater-van, Harriet found herself checking the security sensors, and peering back through the darkened windows to see if they were being followed. Her courage of an hour ago had evaporated. She sank back in her seat with a sigh. “Harriet, there’s no reason to think we’ve been seen,” Peter said, glancing back from the front seat.

“I’m sure you’re right,” she murmured. She glanced to her right at the tall form of Dendridan, the embassy attaché. He had come along to observe, as well as to lend diplomatic legitimacy to their use of the Narseil vehicle. Dendridan’s vertical eyes gleamed, but he said nothing.

Leaving the city proper, they glided through the northeast suburbs, past an area Harriet barely knew even though she’d lived in Elmira all her adult life. The Narseil driver followed Peter’s directions flawlessly, and twenty minutes later they were parked between two other vehicles in back of a peeling white wood-frame house.

“Stay here a moment while I do a check,” Peter said. He ducked out of the van, leaving Harriet with Dendridan and the Narseil driver. He reappeared a few minutes later, with one of his men. “The coast is clear. Let’s go inside.”

Leaving the driver with the van, they entered the house through the kitchen and made their way upstairs to a large bedroom that had been converted into a makeshift VR studio. There were cameras on tripods everywhere, and a large white screen across one wall. Peter introduced his assistants Norman and Irv, whom Harriet recognized from the earlier holo. There was no need to introduce Rufus the dog, who lay on a small cot, panting slowly. He was wired up like a marionette with optiwire feeds. The dog’s tail twitched when he saw Harriet—was it possible he remembered her?—but everything about him seemed in slow motion. “He’s under a relaxation field,” Peter explained. He cocked his head, studying the setup. “Downloading information from a dog is not as easy as you might think.”