A Matter of Oaths (21 page)

“Breathing.”

Gods, if Rallya had told him last night what she had told
him this morning, none of this need have happened, Joshim thought angrily. He
turned away, unable to trust himself not to fling that accusation at her,
knowing that it was not her but Elanis and the vile shadows behind him that he
ought to accuse.

Rafe’s breathing was shallow with shock, his pulse erratic,
his skin waxy grey under the congealing shub. But his brain trace was regular
under the spikes of residual discharge and he had never stopped breathing,
Joshim reminded himself hopefully.

“Has he been conscious?” he asked Jualla.

“For a moment, when we pulled him out. Long enough to feel
the web-burn,” Jualla answered. “I put ten units of Daraphine into him.”

“Good.”

The web-alarm fell silent and when Joshim looked up briefly,
Vidar was moving away from the central monitor. “Pass me an empty injector,” he
told Jualla, breaking the seal on the vial that Rallya had given him. “Then get
something to dry him off with, and a blanket to wrap him in.” He took the
injector and used it to give Rafe twenty units of R-K-D.

“How is he?” Rallya repeated, taking the place that Jualla
vacated.

“Alive,” Joshim said shortly. “Gods know how.” He gestured
angrily at the livid burns on Rafe’s wrists and neck, evidence of the unseen
damage to the nerves. “Or for how long.”

Rallya frowned calculatingly. “Can you move him?”

“Not far.”

“Your cabin?”

“That’s what I planned.” Joshim watched Rafe’s brain trace
as he spoke, looking for the first effects of the R-K-D.

“He’s as tough as they come,” Rallya promised. “He’s going
to make it.”

“A pity Churi isn’t so tough,” Joshim said bitterly.

“Gods and Emperors, do you think I don’t know it’s my fault!”
Rallya hissed. “Do you think I don’t care?”

Joshim shook his head. “I know you do,” he muttered. “And
you couldn’t have predicted this. Only filth like Elanis would think of this.”
He shook his head again, fixing firmly on the present. “How is Churi?”

“On the respirator. Otherwise the same. Vidar’s with him.”
Rallya leaned forward, ostensibly to watch the traces with him. “Now listen,”
she whispered. “Rafe is going to die — officially — shortly after you get him
to your cabin. And you’re going to stay in there grieving while we take his
body into deep space for committal. Clear?”

Joshim nodded comprehension. Rallya’s idea made sense, he
thought angrily. The only way to keep Rafe safe — if he survived — was to
convince his enemies that he was dead.

“I’ll need more R-K-D than we have aboard,” he warned.

“You’ll have it. Anything else?”

“You could try praying, if you ever knew how.”

“I’m praying already,” Rallya promised vehemently. “For Rafe’s
life. And for vengeance.”

I, JOSHIM (OE-P5971-17529), Webmaster
of
Bhattya
, hereby certify that RAFE
(NE-P9000-42775) and CHURI (OE-P81113-07375) died this day as a result of
injuries sustained in the web, namely (i) systemic nervous overload and (ii)
transference shock.

…His body has been retained by the ship
Bhattya
for committal in space. It will be possible to retrieve the
body from space later, if you wish, but not to intervene at this stage…

…I have already made arrangements to question Carher’s agent.
The explanations for his absence during this incident and the incident last
year are plausible, but…

…It remains a possibility that the death was an accident,
although my preliminary investigations show that the ship
Bhattya
has an excellent safety record and her Webmaster is well
regarded by his peers… If it proves to have been an accident, all those guilty
of negligence will be identified…

…I will continue to investigate personally.

Rafe moved restlessly and muttered something
unintelligible. Rallya paused in her jump calculations and watched him closely,
until she was sure that he was not waking. Surely, it could not be much longer
until he did wake, she thought in frustration. He had progressed so quickly to
this point, just below the threshold of consciousness. She could not believe
that he would hover there indefinitely.

Nor did Joshim’s apparent patience fool her. He was as
desperate as she was to know the true extent of Rafe’s injuries. To know
whether there was somebody they would recognize as Rafe within the body they
were tending, or whether there was deep-seated brain damage that would never
heal. However much of a miracle it was that Rafe had survived the overload at
all, it would not be enough unless he made a full recovery.

There
were
hopeful
signs, she reminded herself. Rafe’s web continued to regenerate at a speed that
only his near-human blood could explain. He moved and muttered and all his
autonomic reflexes operated. He took food if it was placed in his mouth with a
spoon, was no longer dependent on a network of tubes. Best of all, Rallya
thought, Joshim now consented to leave his side, to eat in the web-room or to
work a shift in the web. That must mean that the Webmaster was more optimistic
than he claimed. Or that he had admitted to himself that there was nothing more
he could do for Rafe…

At least Joshim’s reappearance had steadied
Bhattya
’s web-room. The death of two
web-mates in the web had shaken them so badly that it had been easy to persuade
Maisa that they were only fit for the Zfheer border patrol. Learning the truth
about Rafe and the reasons for Churi’s death had jolted them out of their
depression into a high pitch of anger and expectancy, but that had shifted into
apprehension as the days dragged on and Rafe stayed stubbornly unconscious.
Even the ritual farewell when they committed Churi’s body to space had only
been an antidote to their confusion for a few hours. Like Rallya, they wanted
to be doing something positive, instead of waiting passively at the bedside of
the only card they had left to play, not yet knowing whether he was an emperor
or a fool.

Rallya still found it hard to believe that Elanis had
out-thought her, that she had missed something as blindingly obvious as a trap
in the web. Of course, they had found no snoops when they searched the ship;
Elanis had removed them all before he left. Of course, they had found no
explosives, no sign that the drive had been tampered with, no subtle changes in
the comp to send their jumps astray, no evidence of anything except a tragic
accident. Elanis — or his backers — had been thorough in covering their tracks.

They had provided an explanation for the accident, a
heat-damaged monitor circuit which had failed catastrophically during the
overload. The station web-techs had taken it away for examination, but they
would find nothing unexpected, Rallya told herself sourly. To flood a web so
rapidly, to bind its occupants so tightly, the circuit must have been modified
by an expert. Somebody who knew their way around a monitor circuit, and how to
turn one into a death-trap, and how to destroy the evidence afterwards.
Somebody who had to be a webber or an ex-webber, Rallya added grimly. It was yet
another piece of circumstantial evidence. They were submerged in circumstantial
evidence, she thought savagely. What they needed was proof.

“Wake up, damn you,” she urged Rafe angrily.

“Yours to command, ma’am.” The voice was scratchy with
disuse.

She swallowed her surprise immediately. “How long have you
been awake?” she demanded.

“You can’t please some people.” He opened grey eyes and
blinked at the light. “Not long.” His voice was getting stronger. “How long
have I been out?”

“Fourteen days.”

“Gods.” He moved his arms and legs experimentally.

“Everything works,” Rallya assured him. “You’ve been
thrashing around on that bed enough for us to be sure of that.”

“My web?” Rafe craned his head to look anxiously at the
monitor screen beside the bed.

“No permanent damage.” Rallya confirmed what he could see
for himself, a little envious of his self-control. He was hardly wasting a word
as he set about getting the information he lacked. He might have planned the
sequence of questions in his coma, she thought approvingly. Or while he was
lying there, pretending still to be unconscious, she amended suspiciously.

“Churi?” It was the obvious next question.

“He died in the web.” He would not thank her for withholding
the truth, or for trying to soften it. He had been conscious throughout the
overload; he would have felt Churi dying.

“Damn.” He closed his eyes again. “The committal?”

“Five days ago.”

“Damn,” he repeated softly. “He’ll hate being out there alone.”

Rallya said nothing, knowing that she had not been intended
to hear his grief. There was no comfort she could offer him; even if there was,
he would not accept it from her. His image of a lonely Churi drifting in dark
space was one he would have to cope with unaided. All Rallya could do was to
make it harder for him, by telling him the reason for Churi’s death, and Joshim
had extracted a promise from her not to do so until he was present.

“We’ve left Aramas,” Rafe said after a short silence,
unfastening the bindings on his wrists to release the monitor contacts as he
spoke.

“Leave those,” Rallya suggested, avoiding his unspoken
question. “Save Joshim the trouble of putting them back.”

Rafe carried on.

“Conscious, you’re going to be a lousy patient,” she
predicted, reaching for her messager and using it to beep Vidar. Joshim was in
the web; the Captain would have to relieve him.

“Conscious, I’m not going to be any kind of patient.” Rafe
pushed himself up the bed into a sitting position. “I can read those screens as
well as anybody.”

“Then fourteen days ago, you would have thought you were
looking at a corpse,” Rallya said flatly.

“Want me?” Vidar asked, coming through the door. Then he
halted and smiled broadly, the first true smile that Rallya had seen aboard
Bhattya
since the web-alarm sounded. “Should
you be sitting up?” he asked Rafe.

“No,” Rallya answered.

“Yes,” Rafe contradicted her.

Vidar laughed. “I’ll fetch reinforcements,” he suggested
mischievously. “They’re obviously needed.”

“Do that,” Rallya told him. “I’ll try tying him down until
Joshim gets here.”

“You haven’t told me where we’re going,” Rafe said when
Vidar had gone.

His eyes said clearly that there was no hope of him acting
the invalid for her. Even Joshim was going to have difficulty getting him to
cooperate, Rallya judged. Not because he did not feel weak — there was a faint
frown on his forehead that suggested pain behind it, and his hands were
trembling slightly as they rested on the comforter — but because it was his way
of dealing with Churi’s death. If Joshim was not firm, Rafe would be out of bed
and trying to work days before he was fit. Rallya decided that she would back
Joshim to win that argument, but not by much.

“You can have all the answers you want when Joshim gives me
the go-ahead,” she promised honestly.

Rafe glared at her. “Does that include the ones you don’t
want to give me?” he asked.

“What makes you think there are any of those?” Rallya
demanded, startled.

“The way that you’re sidling around everything I ask, unless
I can work out the answer for myself. The way you’re waiting for Joshim’s
go-ahead, when you wouldn’t bother if it didn’t suit you.” He ticked his
reasons off on the fingers of one hand. “The fact that I’m here, and not in the
infirmary at Aramas. The fact that you’re playing nurse at my bedside, with a
face like an explosion waiting to happen when you think nobody’s watching you.
Is that enough?”

That was the last time Rallya let anything show on her face,
even if she was sure she was unobserved, she resolved. Damn him, how long
had
he been awake before she noticed?

“There’s something unnatural about anybody who comes out of
a fourteen day coma and notices so much so quickly,” she said tartly. “And you
needn’t think that you’ve won yourself any answers. I did promise Joshim I’d
keep those until he was here and I wouldn’t put it past him to throw me out if
I don’t. So sit still, shut up and concentrate on convincing Joshim you’re well
enough to be told. And that’s an order.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You’re the only person I know who can pack quite so much
disrespect into that word,” Rallya accused him.

“I try, ma’am.” He closed his eyes, conceding a temporary
defeat or conserving his strength. Rallya could not tell which. She realized
with a jolt that she had pulled rank on him for the last time. Gods, he was
unbiddable as a First; how much worse could he be when he knew that he had been
a Commander?

“Who said you could sit up?”

Joshim did not wait in the doorway for an answer but crossed
to the bedside, the relief on his face giving the lie to the tone of his voice.
As he gripped Rafe’s shoulders, Rallya had the distinct feeling that her
absence would be appreciated, at least temporarily.

“I suppose they’re swinging from the light fittings out there,”
she said. “Somebody should go and supervise the riot.”

The two people clutching each other on the bed gave no sign
that they had heard her. And Joshim had warned
her
against overtaxing Rafe.

Half an hour ought to be sufficient time for them to disentangle
themselves, Rallya thought as she backed through the cabin door with a handful
of mugs and a bowl of stew balanced on top of them. And if it was not, they
could save the rest for later; they would enjoy it more when Rafe was stronger.
If he still felt like it when he had heard what she had to say.