Fluency (19 page)
18
It was womb-like and quiet. No sound disturbed her drifting slumber. She bobbed in and out of twilight, opening her eyes for brief moments of clarity, gazing into the gloom through the glo
wing, colored-glaze of the gel, long enough to register that she was there and whole and mending somehow, before something like sleep swept her under again, to wander through unknown landscapes, to touch foreign stars, amidst the scores of remembrances Ei’Brai had gathered from the individuals his mind had touched.
Only the broken leg was completely immobile now. Her other limbs floated within the slackened web-matrix that anchored her, the mechanicals of the device still swarming over her like busy insects. In the hushed stillness, she was aware on some level of the filaments piercing her skin, threading her veins, flushing her body with various medicaments that made her want to move restlessly or slip back into the quiet recesses of Ei’Brai’s mind.
Her hands were limp things. She brushed them against herself absently. She felt numb and unquiet. She noted with faint surprise that her garments had been completely removed, giving the filaments greater access to her.
Ei’Brai was always there when she woke, but he was reticent. He occupied himself diligently with the incessant needs of the ship, rarely resting himself for more than moments. He was a soft reminder of life beyond the gloaming.
* * *
She aroused to find her hips bucking against the ribbons of confinement, acquisitive fingers wending their way to seek release.
She felt dizzy.
Her body was tensed with anticipation, poised at the tipping point. With only a light touch, she was riding unending waves of bliss. It multiplied and compounded in her sleep-soaked, foggy mind, her body arching, contracting
….
And choking.
Even as the last twitches of the aftershocks trembled, she fought for breath that wasn’t there. Her heart exploded in her chest. Her heels drummed against the floor of the tank. She gagged, tried to cough, tried to pull in nonexistent air, writhing against the bindings.
It was only seconds before the apparatus compensated, filling the alveoli of her lungs with a greater supply of oxygen in counte
rpoint to the pounding of her heart. But she’d had enough.
She thrashed—arms, head,
feet—against the sides of the tank in a blind rage, desperate to get to the surface.
Ei’Brai leapt to her mind to calm her, to console her, to assure her it was not much longer now.
She didn’t care. She pushed him away, forcefully. It’d been too long. She needed to see the rest of the crew, to know they were ok.
She felt cool sedatives flow into her veins and grappled with the strands, trying to pull them out, to free herself. But even with the new strength of the additional air and a surplus of adrenaline, she couldn’t stop the flow of the drugs, couldn’t remove the la
tticework of strands tethering her to the device.
Her struggles gradually slowed along with the rhythm of her heart. Her muscles went lax and the fibers ceased to contract against her exertions. She could feel them resume their minute ministrations. A wracking sob rose to her throat that she was po
werless to express. She closed her eyes on tears of frustration and drifted away, again.
* * *
She heard movement and froze, every sense acutely attuned to the sound. She couldn’t tell where she was or how she’d gotten there. She felt for Ei’Brai, but he was silent, disconnected. She tried to still her frantic breathing and search for a clue to what was happening.
“Jane?” a groggy voice uttered. “Are you awake?”
“Alan?” Her voice sounded thin, child-like, and choked from disuse. She coughed a little to make it sound stronger. “Where are we?”
She could hear rustling movement, the soft, padding steps of bare feet, and the dry sound of a hand brushing the wall. Then Alan was looming uncertainly above her, shifting from foot to foot, an intense expression on his face. He was wearing some kind of oversized tunic, which frankly was a bit ridiculous. He seemed self-conscious and worried.
“You ok?”
She realized she was lying flat on her back on a bed. She sat up. “Yeah. I think so.”
Alan’s lips twitched into a secretive-looking smile before he averted his eyes and turned toward the door.
“What happened?” she asked him.
“I’m, ah
…I’m going to get Ajaya. She told me to get her right away when you woke up.”
“Wait a minute,” she called after him. But he was already gone. She looked down and cursed. Why the hell was she always waking up naked? She pulled the filmy sheet up and wrapped it around herself, then eased herself to the edge of the platform bed. The sheet worked its way up onto her lap as she scooted, revealing her leg. It was unmarked, pristine. There was no evidence that it had ever been broken and torn. She was still puzzling over that when Ajaya strode into the room, exuding brisk efficiency. The lights came up to full-strength.
“Jane. It’s so good to see you awake. How are you feeling?” Ajaya was already taking vitals, testing reflexes. She was wearing a tunic similar to the one Alan had been wearing. It was Sectilius, Jane realized with a start.
Alan did not reenter the room. It was just the two of them.
She searched for an answer to Ajaya’s question.
Disoriented? Overwhelmed? Unnerved?
“I’m not sure what happened. What’s going on?”
Ajaya met her eyes, briefly, and nodded. “Understandable. May I?” Ajaya gestured at the uncovered leg.
Jane nodded and mentally braced herself for pain as Ajaya ran her hands over her leg, pressing and feeling the long bones under her skin.
“Feel any pain when I touch here?” Ajaya asked, peering at her quizzically.
“No.”
“How about here?”
“No. Nothing. It feels normal.”
“Good.” Ajaya held out a hand to Jane. “Let’s try putting some weight on it, shall we?”
Something was wrong. Why wasn’t anyone explaining anything?
She slid down from the bed and stood, slowly, carefully, clin
ging to Ajaya’s firm, warm grip. She expected the blood to rush to her feet, to feel weak or sick or incredible pain, but nothing happened. She just stood up.
Ajaya tilted her head to the side. “How does that leg feel now?”
“It feels completely normal. Like nothing happened.”
Ajaya nodded, looking thoughtful and pleased.
“What
did
happen Ajaya? Are we safe now? You have to tell me something!”
Ajaya smiled indulgently. “We are safe. Things are progressing quite well. We’ve accomplished a great deal. We still have plenty of concerns, issues, but things are falling into place. You need not worry, Jane.”
That was a paltry explanation. “Why is that all you’re saying?”
Ajaya sighed and settled on the edge of the bed, primly, assu
ming her most patient air. “Jane, I hesitate to say too much, because I have no idea what you experienced, what you know. I think it might be best if you tell me what you remember. Then I can fill in the blanks for you.”
She felt a surge of anger. Ajaya’s answer was infuriatingly pat. “I’m not a mental patient, Ajaya!”
Ajaya raised her brows and spoke slowly. “Of course you’re not.”
Ajaya’s methods were always cautious and considered. Jane knew that. She swallowed her anger. She was not a petulant child. “I’m sorry. I’m feeling overwhelmed.”
Ajaya nodded and waited for her to begin.
“I was heading for Tom. I
…the gravity went out, then came back on. When I fell, my leg was broken—”
“Did you see your leg? How did you know?” Ajaya interjected.
Jane ran her fingers through her hair, pushing it back in a practiced, unconscious gesture and wished she had something to tie it back with. It felt clean and silky. That was unexpected and she filed that fact away with some confusion as she continued, “I’d never felt pain like that before. It looked wrong—really, really wrong.”
“Yes, that’s what Walsh and Alan said. It was the angle.”
Jane nodded, slowly—the mental picture coming quickly to mind: that horrible, disgusting angle—and then the bone, the ragged, bleeding tissues through the gel. “Yes. Then Tom came and rescued me. Except it wasn’t Tom.”
Ajaya’s eyes narrowed, but she betrayed no other sign of em
otion.
Jane hesitated, not sure Ajaya would believe her. “It was Ei’Brai.”
Ajaya nodded curtly. “That would explain it.”
Jane stared at Ajaya hard. She’d expected disbelief. Blithe a
cceptance felt wrong. Warning bells were going off in her brain, but she couldn’t figure out for sure what they meant.
“He carried me and put me in some kind of medical device. He put Tom in one too.”
“Yes. That’s where we found you. Thomas is still submerged.”
“Oh. He—is he ok?”
“I believe so. Every indication is yes. Of course, my methods of measurement are primitive by comparison. The device is still working on him. I have the impression he’ll be in there a long time. We’ve submerged Walsh as well.”
Jane took an involuntary step back and put her hand out to the wall to steady herself, the other still clutching the sheet to her chest.
What the hell is going on here?
She looked up and noticed Alan was standing in the doorway, holding a ship-colored, plastic object in his hand, listening intently to their conversation. How long had he been there?
“Walsh? You put him in a tank? Why?”
Ajaya stood and moved briskly to a large protuberance on the wall. She touched it lightly and it slid open. She pulled out a voluminous article of clothing—greenish, just like theirs—and extended it to Jane. “We had no choice. He became catatonic, just like Tom. The rest of us appear to be fine—for now, anyway. We’re working on it, Jane. We’re going to find a solution. I’m confident of that.”
Jane looked from Ajaya to Alan, bewildered.
He surged forward. “Are you hungry, Jane? The food we’ve managed to make has a weird texture, but some of it doesn’t taste too bad. We’re still analyzing the parameters of the printer’s output. The technology is pretty fucking amazing. It’s fun to tinker with.”
Ajaya rolled her eyes. “Yes, Alan and Ronald have spent a lot of quality time with the food machine. Do you want to get dressed first or nibble on something?”
Jane swallowed hard. “How long have I been out?”
Ajaya grimaced before answering, “Seventeen days, Jane.”
She sat on the bed heavily and let all of her disbelief show on her face. It had felt like a long time, but not
that
long. “How—when—did you find me in the gel? Did you pull me out?”
Alan ducked his head. “I tried to cut you out with a knife. The tank didn’t like that. It sort of
…fought back.”
Ajaya patted Alan’s arm. “We decided it might be wise to leave you alone and just observe you for a while.”
“It healed my leg.”
“So it would seem,” Ajaya agreed. “I’d like to get back to work, if you don’t mind? I think Alan can take it from here?” Her voice was light, breezy, but she sent Alan a meaningful look as she left the room.
Jane watched her go, completely nonplussed.
Alan perched himself casually on the edge of the bed a couple of feet away.
“Back to work? What is she doing? How did you all get past the nepatrox? Food machine? What the hell, Alan? Start talking!”
“A lot’s happened, Jane. Sure you don’t want to eat?”
“Do you want me to drink the Kool-Aid, too? No, Alan—tell me what’s going on!”
He smirked and rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, the most valuable thing that’s happened is we’ve had some very primitive communications with your alien friend.”
“What? Ei’Brai? How? I thought he couldn’t communicate with us unless we could speak Mensententia?”
“Oh, he’s not speaking to us, at least not anything we can u
nderstand. He sends us mental images. It’s like playing a game of telepathic charades. We have to figure out what he’s trying to tell us to do. When we do, he, ah….” He seemed embarrassed. It was a new look for him.
“What?”
“He stimulates the part of the brain that registers pleasure.”
She raised her eyebrows.
“He does that to you too, Jane?”
