WARP world (48 page)

The respite was short lived. They pushed her through a doorway of sorts, though not like any doorway she had ever seen; this one opened up like a mouth.

Nothing was like anything she had ever seen.

She looked back, relieved to see Seg walking in the same direction. If she lost him, what would she do?

Were their eyes weak? Was that why everything was so bright?

They pushed her toward a glaring white table as they continued to talk at her.

“Seg,” she said, coughing the taste of the liquid out of her dathe, “what’s going on?”

He answered in broken Kenda, his voice clipped and low. “Clean you they. Sick…yes, no. No talk me.” His eyes were like two stones, “Danger. No talk, Ama.”

Shortly after she was settled on the table, Ama watched the suit-men leave; they were replaced by men and women who wore plain, white robes. No, not exactly robes, more like coats. They attached something to her arm, much like the sleeve Seg had put on her for her shoulder. An image appeared out of the sleeve, she recognized it as a body but with all the inside parts visible. One of the men reached a hand toward her dathe and Ama gasped. His hands were white and the flesh on them was abnormally smooth. Two other men held her as he prodded her dathe.

It didn’t feel the same as when Seg touched her there. It felt like a violation. But then, Seg was gentle with her dathe, this man pulled and poked at them. “Careful!” she spat out as he pinched one of the folds of skin between his fingers.

He ignored her. They all ignored her. She looked to Seg again but he was talking in his language to two men dressed in plain grey coats and trousers. Seg had a similar sleeve on his arm but the white-handed men weren’t interested in poking at him. He wasn’t a freak, like her. He had also been given a robe to cover himself. She tried to understand what the men were saying to Seg but everyone’s face just looked hard and angry.

The two uniformed men stood at the door, waiting; the white-handed man spoke something at Seg who then stood and followed the other men out. Ama waited for him to return, to come back and take her away with him, but the doors he passed through never opened again.

He’s left me.

“Can I have my clothes back now?” she asked the men, after a lengthy wait. They didn’t answer her, didn’t even glance in her direction. She studied the room to see if there was something to cover herself with but found nothing.

“I want to talk to Seg,” she demanded after another stretch of silence. “If someone doesn’t talk to me, I’m going to go find him myself.”

She waited for a response; there was none.

Well, I warned them.

When the white-handed men turned their backs, she leapt off the table and ran out the door.

Jarin entered the corridor leading to the secondary quarantine room, his face set in a frown. His instructions had been specific: immediate notification upon the recon squad’s intrans. Not only had he not been informed, someone had deliberately misled him regarding the time of the scheduled intrans window. Given the rigorous attention he had paid to this mission, the responsible party had gone to great lengths to keep him away from Segkel, who he had only just learned was returned and alive.

Though he was positive Director Fi Costk’s hand was all over this misdirection, he had yet to discern the purpose.

From around the corner, he heard a series of shouts and stopped in place.

“Stop! Get back here! Security!”

A moment later, a woman charged around the corner. She was running for her life, obviously an Outer, and completely bare. Her eyes skipped over Jarin. “SEG!” she yelled, head moving left and right as she ran.

Segkel, what have you done now?
Jarin sighed.

Around the corner, two intrans medicals labored after her, no match for the girl’s well-toned muscles and youth. “Stop her!” they called to Jarin.

He raised a hand to speak to the Outer but she barreled past him. He rotated where he stood. At the other end of the corridor, two security personnel appeared, stunners drawn.

The escapee skidded to a stop, body folding from the halt in momentum. Her fingertips brushed the floor; she pushed up and off, then reversed her course. The two Security ran after her. The net would close shortly.

“STOP!” Jarin bellowed in his language. Then repeated the order in the Outer language.

The girl’s head whipped around in his direction.

“Come here and do everything I say,” he told her. She paused, mouth open, chest heaving, then ran to his side.

“You speak my language?’ she panted.

“Yes. Quiet,” he ordered as the medicals and security arrived together.

“Theorist Svestil, thank you,” one of the medicals huffed, hunching forward to catch his breath. “Theorist Eraranat left the Outer behind, he’s been taken to in-processing.” He coughed and stood upright. “Stun it and take it for processing and grafting,” he added to Security.

“Did Theorist Eraranat give the order to have her processed and grafted?” Jarin asked the medical.

“The Outer is dangerous, it escaped from decon,” the second medical answered.

“I will assume the answer is no,” Jarin said. He regarded the young woman, “And dangerous? This girl?”

“Dangerous and unstable,” the medical affirmed.

“Outer! On your knees before People!” Jarin bellowed at the woman in his language. She stared, uncomprehending. “No chatterer yet?” he asked the Medicals.

“That order wasn’t given,” one of the men explained.

“And neither of you bothered to upload the lingua forms from the recon to your own chatterers?” The medicals offered embarrassed head shakes. “I see.” He faced her again, “Girl! I am shouting for the benefit of these men. Get on your knees and bow your head, pretend to be afraid! Quickly.”

She did as ordered.

“Quite docile, once she understands her orders,” Jarin said to the medicals. “Fetch her clothing. I would prefer not to walk these halls with a naked primitive.” He waved away security. “The Outer is my responsibility until Theorist Eraranat is done with in-processing.”

The men hesitated then went in their separate directions.

“You may stand now,” Jarin said, when the four were out of sight.

Now that the chase was ended, the woman colored at her lack of clothing and positioned her hands and arms to cover herself.

“That was very reckless behaviour,” Jarin chastened her, “but of course Segkel made no province for your reception. Typical. My name is Jarin Svestil, Senior
Theorist
of the Cultural Theorist’s Guild. Welcome to the World.” He waved his hand around the corridor, with a wry smile. “Your clothing will be returned to you shortly. Segkel will be detained for some time longer for in-processing.”

The boy had no idea what he was in for. It was fortunate that the Council vote had been taken well early into his escapades, because the Guild was buzzing with consternation over his actions and proposed plans, and now the CWA was nosing into the mission as well. If the episode that had just occurred was any indication, Segkel had managed to find even more trouble than he had let on over the comms.

Well, the in-processing had begun, he had missed the opportunity to speak with his student alone, but Segkel was his own man now, and he would have to face whatever awaited him on his own. All the same, Jarin hoped, fervently, that Segkel would show a modicum of restraint.

Seg walked down the long corridor toward the in-processing room, struck for the first time by how lifeless the facility was, how devoid of color or identity. The People prided themselves on functionality and practicality; the color of the World was provided by captured trophies and Outers taken in raids. This was something he always belived set them above the Outers they conquered, but now the absence of decoration did not feel as much evolved as it felt empty. He briefly considered the fact that there was no sensation of Bliss in returning to the World, but the thought did not occupy him for long, as he found himself standing in front of the door for in-processing.

He had a complicated raid to coordinate and oversee, a terrified woman anxious to return to her home world, and no patience for the maze of bureaucracy the Guild expected him to run.

“Theorist Eraranat,” the processor said, as Seg stepped inside the small room, “please have a seat.”

“I believe that medical issues take priority over in-processing,” he said as he continued to stand.

“Under normal circumstances this is true. These are not normal circumstances. At present, the Contract House for your venture has assembled in excess of two thousand infantry troops, four detachments of armor, six detachments of combat skimmers, nine air detachments, and is currently negotiating for fourteen special service detachments. At this point, your raid will go through as designed simply because the forces have been assembled and dissolution of the various contracts would bankrupt the House. However, this means that you cannot be allowed any spare time away from in-processing and preparation. Tell me, honestly, will your physical situation deteriorate in the next two days?”

“No,” Seg admitted, grudgingly, then settled into the hard chair. “They will need more than nine air detachments.”

“You aren’t financing this raid, Theorist Eraranat,” the man said curtly. “Now then, you’re familiar with the basic action review process. To repeat the formula—”

“To repeat the formula, the basic action review process is vital to gathering first impressions before the details are altered by basic memory process—”

The processor waved an impatient hand. “Yes Theorist, you can quote the book at length. I’d heard that about you.”

“Good, then you know that I know the process. My final raw recordings are in my digifilm and available for upload. I am aware that my action review would normally be completed by this point, but this raid is proceeding, as you have pointed out, under extraordinary circumstances and I will complete the review as soon as I am treated for my wounds. I recorded my findings with one arm bound from the broken bone I am going to be treated for, and I’ve had enough of working under that constraint.”

“Theorist Eraranat,” the man said, “any number of your actions have been cast as unortho. It would behoove you to stay and attend these matters before they become a larger issue.”

“My validation will come with the mission,” Seg said as he pushed himself out of the chair. “I killed nearly a dozen Outers on the extrans, I am in severe pain, and I am feeling quite cranky at the moment. I will have my injury tended to, complete my action review, then return here when I am ready. You will perform your recordkeeping duty and enter the information you received.”

He turned and started out the door.

“Theorist Eraranat!” the man shouted as he rose to his feet. “You can’t just walk out on a in-processing brief!”

“I remind you, Processor, that I am a Theorist of the Guild, and you are a functionary,” Seg said. His words came out in barely constrained bursts. “Press this matter and I’ll see you in an amp chair before the day is done.”

He stalked down the hallway, fuming. He was on the verge of completing the most thorough observation of such a rich target in possibly the history of the Guild. Yes, he had been unortho, not once or twice but with incredible regularity, but he had also produced results, as the raid would show.

At the infirmary door, he stomped inside, shoved aside a curtain and nodded to the medical on duty, “I have an injury that needs to be tended to.”

After the raid was done, he planned to sleep for a week.

Jarin spoke her language! Not perfectly, not as well as Seg, but at least now Ama could communicate. And he wasn’t a barbarian, as all the others seemed to be. She pulled on her clothes, happy to finally know some modesty.

Jarin was old, very old perhaps. His hair hung down like sea moss, and his face was weathered. Not in the way Kenda faces weathered, from sun and wind and salt, but simply from the passage of time. His eyes reminded her of Stevan’s, as if this man carried the weight of a thousand secrets. He was the first of Seg’s kind that didn’t scare her.

“My name is Captain Amadahy Kalder,” she said, when she was dressed. “And I need to get back home.”