Paul Hardy - The Last Man on Earth Club

I paused a moment. “I won’t leave them.”

“You can have a week to hand over to another therapist.”

I tried to find some steel to put in my voice. “I arranged for entirely adequate supervision. It was the Quillians who insisted on meeting at the Negotiation Centre. What happened was not my fault. I will not abandon my patients and you can’t force me.”

“I can put you on indefinite medical leave.”

My gut clenched. “What…?”

“You’ve already put in the request for leave of absence for medical reasons. Now I can see why. Your lack of judgement has led to serious embarrassment for this service. So you can go away and make yourself better and take as much time as you like doing it, or you can go to the Lift and do your job. Any questions? No. Now get out of my sight. Mykl will arrange for another therapist to take the group. I don’t care who. Talk to him about the handover.”

Henni picked up a pad and scrolled through another document. I stood up. But I couldn’t go. My hands were balled in fists. I stood there and waited until Henni had no choice but to address me again.

“You’re still here, Dr. Singh. Do you want me to have security throw you out as well?”

I tried to keep my anger in check. “What if she’s right?”

“I’m sorry?”

“I said: what if she’s right?”

“I don’t care.”

“You say they might save a million lives. But they might have murdered billions.”

“They did murder billions, Dr. Singh, but Ilfenard was a long time ago.”

“They might have murdered three billion more just last year!”

“That’s an accusation, not a fact.”

I swallowed. “Yes. And Liss has the right to make that accusation before the Interversal Criminal Tribunal.”

Henni put her pad down. She was about to yell at me but put a hold on herself for a moment and considered her words more carefully. “I am trying to save a species, Dr. Singh. People who are still living. I can’t bring back the dead.”

“They need to be investigated.”

“Do they need to be investigated now? ”

“Yes.”

“You really think this is a good time?”

“There’s never going to be a good time. There’s always going to be another evacuation.”

“And would you want to be left behind to die just so we could feel better about ourselves?”

“I wouldn’t want to be rescued by someone who might have committed genocide.”

“Well. And did you know they helped with the evacuation from your world?”

I didn’t answer. A memory flashed before me: the Quillian Government Crest. I’d seen it before, so many years ago, on a dying world, on the side of a ship…

Henni realised she’d found a weakness in my argument, or perhaps just in me.

“Think about that, if you would,” she said. “Let me know when you make up your mind about your job.”

She picked up her pad again, and this time I left. I stopped outside, and steadied myself on the wall. She’d had the measure of me from first to last, and there was very, very little I could do. I couldn’t go to the media because of the confidentiality of my patients. An employment tribunal, perhaps? But she was right; I was only in my position because they’d been having trouble finding someone to replace me. I’d still be put on leave while they decided my case and the group would end up with whoever could be found, rather than someone I could trust to do the job.

I needed help.

Ranev wasn’t by the sea. He didn’t even have his feet planted on solid ground. When my call found him, he was high above the world, higher even than the Lift: he was on Grainger Station, the massive reception and quarantine station at the L1 point halfway between the competing gravity of Earth and Moon.

“I’ve been reassigned,” he explained, and turned his pad to show me the view of the Arrivals Bay: he sat in a viewing hall that looked down on rows and rows of docking ports for all the little shuttles that would come in from the transit spheres, and kilometres distant, the wall of spheres itself. Twenty of them, girder-shells floating in space that could send you anywhere. Or pull you back, if you were in the right position and waiting. I saw the flashes of energy inside half a dozen that meant ships were being brought through to our universe, ships that could only be coming from Ardëe.

“It’s crazy,” said Ranev. “They’re pulling in everyone. They’ve put me on triage. I don’t know how we’re going to manage these numbers…”

“Yeah.”

“A billion people . Maybe more…”

“That just leaves all the ones who have to stay behind.”

He nodded. “I know. I know.”

“Makes you wonder how they’re choosing who lives and dies.”

“You’re right. It puts all our problems in perspective, doesn’t it?”

“Apocalypses tend to do that, yeah.”

“I’m sorry, Asha. I forgot. You must be thinking how it was for you. Are you calling up for a session? I think I’ve got half an hour before they need me.”

“Yes. No… I don’t know. I need advice.”

“Okay.”

“They’ve reassigned me as well.”

“Oh?”

I looked away. I was sitting in a park in Hub Metro. Behind me, a ten storey building was being added to, floor by floor as new levels were lifted onto it and slotted into place, all of it dormitory space for the refugees who were hurt but not so disturbed that they had to be kept away from the city. “Medical leave,” I said. “Compulsory. Permanent.”

“What happened?”

“Liss attacked someone again,” I explained. “It ended up in a diplomatic incident… they’re blaming me. And I was all set to take leave on medical grounds anyway…”

He sighed. “I’m so sorry…”

“Did you tell them? Anything?”

“Now, Asha. You know our sessions are confidential.”

“Yeah. Yeah.”

“You said yourself: you were taking leave on medical grounds. Was it Henni who made the decision?”

I nodded.

“That makes sense. She’s never one for patience.”

“She’s going to assign someone else to the group.”

“What…?”

“She said she didn’t care who.”

“That’s really not a good idea…”

“Don’t you think I know that?” I shouted. Ranev was surprised.

“Are you angry, Asha?”

“Yes! Yes, I’m angry! They’re going to get some student in to deal with the group and everything’s… all the work I did… my patients — they don’t trust anyone else! Some of them hardly even trust me! ”

“I see—”

“Aren’t you angry? Who’s taking your group?”

“I had an assistant,” he said. I looked down and squeezed my eyes shut to try and stop the tears. “I’m sorry,” he added. The tears came anyway.

“Veofol could have taken them…” I said.

“Yes. He could. He was a fine therapist.”

“He was.”

“How angry are you?”

“What?”

“How angry are you, Asha?”

I looked down at the pad, at him, sitting there on a space station, making no sense.

“I don’t understand.”

“Okay. You don’t normally get angry, do you?”

“No.”

“You absorb pain. You bear the suffering. You shoulder the burden and you hardly ever complain. But you don’t get angry. You don’t trust yourself when you’re angry, do you?”

“I make bad decisions.”

“I think being angry will help you now.”

“What?” I was about to tell him exactly how crazy I thought he was, but he carried on regardless.

“If you’re going to help your patients, you can’t do it through the usual channels. You need to think of something else. Being angry can help with that. Use it, Asha. Help your patients.”