Майкл Бишоп - The Final Frontier - Stories of Exploring Space, Colonizing the Universe, and First Contact

Only a little more, and the point would be wide enough for him to climb through.

“Lieutenant!”

The sound was a shockwave rattling his ears.

“Lieutenant Greenau! Mitchell!” Baz appeared out of nowhere. No—he’d opened the door, and he shoved Mitchell back, grabbing his hands.

Mitchell tried to explain. “No, it’s all right. I know what I’m doing. It’s all in the mathematics.”

“Mitchell, focus on me. Focus.”

That was what Keesey had said to Morgan. Mitchell looked at Baz, the cleanshaven face lined with worry. Mitchell’s gaze furrowed with confusion.

“Mitchell, look at your hands.”

He did, as Baz lifted them to hold before him.

They were bleeding, the fingertips shredded, bits of torn flesh dripping red. Mitchell lurched, trying to get away from the vision, but they were his own hands, and they followed him.

He fell against the wall, breathing hard, his arms rigid before him.

Baz touched the door controls. The door shut, revealing a red stain, blood smeared across the metal from the point through which Mitchell had been trying to escape. He’d rubbed his hands raw and bleeding against the door. Where he’d seen a jump matrix, there’d been nothing.

So what had there been when he directed the Drake to those coordinates, the ones he’d been so sure were safe?

“Come on, Mitchell. Come on, buddy.” Baz manhandled him off the floor, got him to stand, and walked him, puppet-like, to the infirmary. He murmured condescending encouragements. Mitchell heard them only distantly. He kept staring at his hands, which were the wrong color.

This time when he woke up, he was restrained. His hands, still stiff and sore from treatment, rested at his sides. He couldn’t move his legs. He lurched up anyway, thinking he must have been imagining it, that he couldn’t really be tied to the bed. He got his shoulders off the padding, then had to stop, because no matter how much he pulled and strained, he couldn’t move any farther.

He rattled his hands to make the bindings rub and squinted against the searing light that lanced pain through his mind. His whole head throbbed.

“Please,” he said, clearing a hoarseness from his throat. “Turn the lights down, please. They’re too bright.”

“The lights aren’t on, Mitchell,” said Doctor Keesey’s voice, but he couldn’t see her, couldn’t even tell where she was. She might have been close by and whispering. He winced. He knew he was in the infirmary. It smelled like the infirmary. He didn’t know anything else.

“I don’t understand.” The rich tone of despair in his own voice startled him. The voice came from another place, far from here, a place he hadn’t yet arrived.

Someone touched his arm, and he let out a startled yelp, because he hadn’t heard anyone approach the bed, but someone must have. Another dose of sedative warmed his blood, soothed his muscles, and he fell asleep gratefully.

Another voice woke him, this one speaking very close by.

“I don’t have much time, Mitchell. But I wanted to talk to you. You did it, didn’t you?”

He opened his eyes and was more relieved than he could have imagined to see the beds, supply cupboards, and equipment of the infirmary around him, gray and lurking in the dimmed to near-nothing light.

Dora was leaning on the bed, speaking close to his ear.

“Dora.” His mouth was sticky, his throat dry. His wrinkled jumpsuit scratched against his skin, his scalp itched, and he suspected he smelled ripe. He felt like an invalid, too sick for the luxury of a shower.

“Easy.” She rested a hand tenderly on his arm. “Mitchell. You have to tell me how you did it.”

“Did what?”

“Saved Morgan. You saw him—the orderlies were talking about it. You saw his soul pass on. That was what you saw, wasn’t it? He jumped to the next phase, and you saw it, and you’re getting ready to follow him. I want to know how you did it.”

Mitchell stared at her, meeting her wild-eyed gaze. Her fingers clenched on his jumpsuit, like she expected him to help her somehow, even though he was the one strapped to the bed. One of her hands had a fresh white bandage wrapped around it.

“You aren’t supposed to be here, are you?”

“I cut my hand. I did it so they’d bring me here.” She displayed the bandage. “I had to talk to you. You have to tell me what you saw.”

“I don’t know what I saw, Dora. I don’t know.” His visual cortex was damaged…

“But you do. You’re special. You are, Dalton says so. Tell me about Morgan. Tell me.”

Baz or one of the doctors must have been in the next room, distracted while Dora stole in to speak with him. Dora’s urgency must have meant she didn’t have much time until they discovered her and returned her to her quarters. Which meant Mitchell didn’t have much time, either.

He had to learn to the truth.

“Dora, untie me. Undo the straps, please. Then I’ll tell you.”

Nodding slowly, she touched the straps, studied them a moment, then moved to a control panel at the head of the bed. She tapped a couple of keys, and the tension on the straps released. He could move his feet, and by wriggling his hands he freed his wrists.

Dora held his hand and pressed something flat into the palm.

“I took Baz’s wristband. He didn’t notice. You’re going to follow Morgan, aren’t you?”

“Maybe, maybe—”

“Dora!” Keesey called, reprimanding, from across the room. “Dora, I asked you to wait in the chair.”

Mitchell wrapped his hands around the loose straps and hoped the doctor didn’t examine him too closely. Dora didn’t move until Keesey called again.

“Dora.”

Slowly, Dora stepped away, her gaze still on him, not wavering, until she reached the doorway where Keesey was waiting. The doctor was a shadow, indistinct in the room’s dimness, but he recognized her shape, her posture.

“Mitchell?” she said. “Are you all right?”

He swallowed back a laugh. “Not really.”

“I know this is difficult.” She sounded sympathetic, but it was the sympathy of a person who didn’t really know what she was sympathizing with. “I’ll come back to talk with you in a little while, all right?”

“Sure.”

When she was gone, he slid off the bed to his feet, and his head swam and vision wavered. He was still tired and woozy; whether from the remnants of the sedative or his rebellious senses, he didn’t know. He was ill. He could admit that now. It only meant he had to be a little more careful. He slipped Baz’s band around his wrist.

The corridor was empty. He reached the first bulkhead door. He showed the wristband to the scanner.

The door slipped open, an escape portal, and a weight lifted from his mind. Free. He could run if he wanted.

You’re going to follow Morgan .

If he could only see space again, see ships traveling against the backdrop of stars, he’d remember, and everything would be all right. He’d remember and tell them what really happened.

He passed the common room. Only Jaspar was inside, which was too bad. If Sonia had been there, he might have asked her if she wanted to go with him. It didn’t matter what she replied; the words that came out of her mouth didn’t matter, as long as she went with him.

Still working on impulse, he crossed the room and took hold of the man’s helmet. Jaspar looked up at him. If he had looked at all confused or scared, Mitchell would have left him alone. But the man looked resigned. So Mitchell took off the helmet. His stomach spasmed with shock.

Jaspar was missing about a third of his skull, a great bite taken out of the right side, from his temple to the top of his ear and disappearing around to the back. A jagged edge of bone showed under his skin, which stretched to cover the remains of his head, dipping like a sinkhole into a concave space where the right half of his brain should have been. Looking at him from the left side, one might never guess he had anything wrong with him. From the front, he was a ruin.