City of Golden Shadow (50 page)

"I don't know. But . . . but I think I may have upset somebody. I've been looking into what happened to Stephen. Doing some research on my own."

Long Joseph shook his head, still frowning. "What kind of silliness you talking, girl? Who following you, a crazy doctor?"

"No." She wrapped her hands around her own cup, strangely glad of the warmth despite the hot day. "I think something happened to him because of the net. I can't explain, but that's what I think. That's why I went to see my old teacher."

"What good that old white witch do you?"

"Damn it, Papa. I'm trying to talk to you! You don't know anything about Doctor Van Bleeck, so just shut up!"

He made a motion as if to rise, sloshing his coffee.

"Don't you dare get up. I'm talking to you about something important. Now, are you going to listen to me? I'm not the only relative Stephen has, you know-he's your son, too."

"And I'm going to him tonight." Long Joseph was full of wounded dignity, despite the fact that it was only his fifth visit, and all of them at Renie's strenuous urging. But he had settled back now, pouting like a scolded child.

She told him as much as she could, leaving out the more arcane bits of speculation and avoiding entirely the story of her last hour in Mister J's. She was too old and far too independent to be forbidden to do what she was doing, but she could not ignore the possibility that he might decide to protect her from herself, perhaps by damaging her pad or other equipment after a few drinks reminded him he was partly descended from warrior Zulus. She could carry on with her investigation from work if she had to, but she had already involved the Poly more than she'd liked, and she was also far behind on work because of her illness.

Long Joseph was oddly quiet after she finished her explanations. "I'm not surprised you almost kill yourself, working all day and then running around with all that other mess," he said at last. "That sounds like a lot of craziness to me. Something in a computer made that boy sick? I never heard of that."

"I don't know. I'm just telling you what I've been thinking about and doing. I have no proof."

Except one very blurry picture of a city, she thought. But only because I took my pad with me to Susan's. Only because I wasn't at home when that fire happened.

As if hearing her thoughts, her father abruptly said: "You think somebody came and set our flat on fire?"

"I . . . I don't know. I don't want to think it's that serious. I've been assuming it was just a normal fire-you know, an accident."

" 'Cause if you been messing with the wrong people, they'll burn you out. I know about that, girl. I seen it happen." Long Joseph stretched out his legs, staring at his stockinged feet. Despite his height, he suddenly seemed very small and very old. He leaned down, grunting softly as he felt on the floor for his shoes. "And now you think someone following you?"

"Maybe. I don't know. I just don't know anything right now."

He looked up at her, sullen and a little frightened. "I don't know what to say either, Irene. I hate to be hoping that my daughter is crazy in the head, but I don't like that other idea very much." He straightened up, captured shoes in his hand. "Let me put these on, then we better go see that boy."

After the visit, she led her father to the changing room so he could take off his Ensuit, then carefully changed her own, folding it before dropping it into the chute marked for the purpose. When she had finished, she walked to the restroom, sat down on the toilet, and cried. It started modestly, but within a few moments she could barely catch her breath. Her nose was even running, but she didn't care.

He was there, somewhere. Her Stephen, the little baby boy with the surprised eyes who used to crawl into her bed, was there somewhere inside that body. The lights on the machines, the monitors on his skull, all the instrumentation of modem medicine-or as much of it as was available in the Durban Outskirt Medical Facility-declared that he was not brain-dead. Not yet. But his limbs were more contorted every day, and his fingers had curled into tight fists despite the physical therapy. What was that horrible, horrible phrase? "Persistent vegetative state." Like a shriveled root. Nothing left but something stuck in the ground, darkly motionless both inside and out.

She couldn't feel him-that was the most horrifying thing. !Xabbu had said his soul was somewhere else, and although it was the sort of spiritualist homily that she usually nodded at while remaining privately scornful, she had to admit she felt the same way. The body was Stephen's, and it was still alive, but the real Stephen was not in it.

But what was the difference between that and a persistent vegetative state?

She was tired, so tired. The more she ran, the more she felt stuck in the same place, and she did not know where she would find the strength to keep running. At times like this, even a death as terrible as her mother's seemed a blessing by contrast-at least there was rest and peace for the victim and some kind of release for the mourning family.

Renie pulled down a hank of industrial-rough toilet paper and blew her nose, then took some more and wiped her eyes and cheeks. Her father would be getting restless. The kind of old magazines lying around the waiting room were not the kind of magazines that would keep his attention. Why was that? Were hospital magazines only ever provided by kindly little old ladies? The scarcity of sports news or semi-naked women showed that the reading material was never selected by men.

She dabbed at her face a little more as she stood in front of the mirror. The smell of disinfectant was so strong she thought her eyes would start watering all over again. That would be perfect, she thought sourly-work hard to look like you haven't been crying, then come out of the toilet with your eyes streaming anyway. She gave her lashes a last defiant blot.

Her father had indeed become restless, but he had found something to do. He was annoying a nicely dressed woman only a little older than Renie who had slid all the way down to the end of the couch to avoid Long Joseph's attentions. As Renie approached, her father scooted a little way nearer.

". . . A terrible ruckus, you see. Fire trucks, helicopters, ambulances. . . ." He was recounting the fire at their flatblock. Renie smiled a little, wondering if by showing up she'd spoiled the story of how he'd carried out all those women and children by himself.

"Come on, Papa," she began, then recognized the woman as Patricia Mwete, Soki's mother. They had not spoken since the disastrous conversation when Stephen's friend had fallen abruptly into seizure. "Oh, hello, Patricia," she said politely. "Papa, this is Soki's mother. Sorry, I didn't recognize you at first"

The other woman regarded her face-undoubtedly still tear-stained despite her best efforts-with a curious mixture of fear and uncomfortable sympathy. "Hello, Irene. Nice to meet you, Mister. . . ." She nodded carefully toward Long Joseph, obviously not yet sure that he wasn't going to come sliding farther down the couch toward her.

Renie paused for a moment, uncertain of what to say. She wanted to ask why Patricia was here, but the curious, almost superstitious courtesy of hospital waiting rooms didn't permit it. "We've been visiting Stephen," she said instead.

"How is he?"

Renie shook her head. "Just the same."

"They make you wear a foolish damn suit," Long Joseph offered. "Like my boy had the fever or something."

"It's not for that. . . ." Renie began, but Patricia interrupted her.

"Soki's in for tests. Three days, two nights. Just routine." She said that last defiantly, as if daring Renie to tell her otherwise. "But he gets so lonely, so I come see him after work." She lifted a package. "I brought him some fruit. Some grapes." She seemed about to cry herself.

Renie knew that Soki's troubles had not been either as mild or temporary as Patricia had claimed during their last meeting. She wanted to ask more, but didn't think it was the right time. "Well, give him my best. We'd better be going. I've got a long day tomorrow."

As her father began the apparently complicated process of standing up, Patricia suddenly put her hand on Renie's arm. "Your Stephen," she said, then stopped. The look of controlled worry had slipped; a mask of terror peeped through.

"Yes?"

Patricia swallowed and wavered a little, like someone about to faint. Her formal business clothes seemed the only thing keeping her upright "I just hope he gets better," she finished lamely. "I just hope they all get better."

Long Joseph was already heading for the exit. Renie watched him a little anxiously, as if he, too, were a troubled child. "Me, too, Patricia. Don't forget to say hello to Soki for me, okay?"

Patricia nodded her head and settled back on the couch, feeling for a magazine on the table without looking.

"She wanted to tell me something," Renie said as they waited for the bus. "Either that or she wanted to ask me something about Stephen."

"What are you talking about?" Her father prodded a discarded plastic bag with the toe of his shoe.

"Her boy Soki . . . something happened to him, too. While he was on the net. Like Stephen. I saw him having a fit afterward."

Long Joseph looked back toward the hospital entrance. "Her boy in a coma, too?"

"No. Whatever happened, it was different. But his brain was affected. I know it"

They sat side by side in silence until the bus pulled up. When her father was settled into his seat, he turned to her. "Somebody should find those net people, make them answer. Somebody should do something."

I am doing something, Papa, she wanted to say, but Renie knew that she was not the kind of somebody he had in mind.

It was dark. Even the stars barely shone, faint as mica chips in black sand. The only light in all the universe, it seemed, was the small fire burning within the circle of stones.

She heard voices, and knew that she was listening to her own children, and yet in some way they were also a tribe of strangers, a band that traveled through unimaginable lands. !Xabbu was one of them, and although she could not see him, she knew he was sitting beside her, one of the thin murmur of invisible souls.

A greater darkness lay on the distant horizon, the space it occupied the only part of the sky that contained no stars. It was a vast triangular shape, like a pyramid, but it stretched up impossibly high, as though they sat close to its base. As she stared at the great shadow, the voices around her murmured and sang. She knew they were all aware of that tall dark mass. They feared it, but they also feared to leave it behind, this the only familiar thing in all the night.

"What is it?" she whispered. A voice that she thought was !Xabbu's answered her.

"It is the place where the Burned One lives. On this night, he comes."

"We have to run away!" She suddenly knew that something was moving out beyond the firelight, something that lived in darkness the way fish lived in water. They were being stalked by something vast and tenebrous, and in all the twilit universe the only uncorrupted light came from the flames of this small fire.

"But he will only take a few," the voice said. "The others will be safe. Only a few."

"No! We can't let him have any of them!" She reached out, but the arm she clutched turned insubstantial as smoke. The murmuring grew louder. Something was coming nearer, something huge that rattled the trees and stones, that hoarsely breathed. She tried to pull her friend back, but he seemed to come apart in her hands. "Don't! Don't go!"

Old Night itself was coming down on them, the jaws of darkness stretching wide. . . .

Renie sat up, panting. The murmuring still filled her ears, louder now, voices gasping and growling. Something was thumping in the darkness nearby. She did not know where she was.

"Quiet yourself in there!" someone shouted, and she remembered that they were in the shelter. But the sounds were not distant. Bodies were struggling on the floor only a meter away from her.

"Papa!" She fumbled for the torch, turned it on. By its light she could see limbs moving erratically, thrashing and rolling, banging up against the fiberboard partitions. She could see the pale striped length of her father's pajamas, and nearby another torch lying on its side, spilling light like a tipped goblet. She rolled off the bed and grabbed Long Joseph's attacker around the neck, shouting: "Help! Someone, help us!"

There were more noises of complaint from other compartments, but some of the occupants seemed to be rousing themselves. She kept her grip on the stranger and curled her fingers in his hair, then pulled back hard. He let out a high-pitched shriek of pain and clawed at her hand.

Her father used the moment's respite to scramble free. The stranger had wriggled loose from Renie, but instead of fleeing, he crawled into a corner of the compartment and huddled there with his hands wrapped around his head to ward off further attacks. Renie kept the flashlight on him, then saw her father coming back with a long dull carving knife in his hand.

"Papa! Don't!"

"I kill the bastard." He was breathing painfully hard. She could smell the rank alcohol sweat coming off him. "Follow my daughter around!"

"We don't know! He could have got the wrong room. Just wait, damn you!" She crawled a little way toward the cowering stranger. "Who are you?"

"He knew what he doing. I hear him whisper your name."

Renie had a moment of horror-could it be !Xabbu, looking for her? But even in partial darkness, the stranger seemed far too large. She reached out carefully and touched his shoulder. "Who are you?" she repeated.

The man looked up, blinking in the torchlight. He had a cut across his hairline which was sheeting blood down his forehead. It took her a long moment to recognize him.

"Jeremiah?" she said. "From Doctor Van Bleeck's house?"

He stared for a moment, clearly unable to see her behind the torch. "Irene Sulaweyo?"

"Yes, it's me. For God's sake, what's happening here?" She stood. Already several people from the neighboring compartments were gathering outside the curtain, some with defensive weapons in hand. She went out and thanked them, telling them it had been a case of mistaken identity. They gradually dispersed, all relieved, some muttering imprecations about her drunkard father.