Primary Inversion (36 page)

      
Would I?

      
I didn’t have the energy to wrestle that nightmare. Although it was only midday on Diesha, I was exhausted. The flight had thrown off my internal clock.

      
I left the living room and went to what I called my memory hall. As I walked down the corridor, my footsteps activated its subtle screens and holos appeared. They showed the countryside around my father’s house: blue-capped mountains against the sky like the backbone of a giant; plains of silver-green grass under the great dome of the sky; trees with glasswood trunks that released tinted spheres into the air. Home.

      
Then I was at the end of the hall and the holos were gone, vanished after I passed. I touched a panel and the door opened onto my bedroom.

      
Within moments, I was asleep.

#

 “I’m sorry,” the nurse said. “Secondary Blackstone isn’t here.”

      
She “sat” on the dais in my holobooth with its curving screens. I sat on a much smaller dais where lasers played over my body, producing interference patterns that my system sent to hers so her booth could produce as detailed an image of me as mine did of her. I had no desire to look at her holo, detailed or otherwise. She was too damned pretty. What was Rex doing with such a beautiful nurse?

      
“Do you know when he’ll be back?” I asked.

      
“Sorry, I don’t.” She smiled. “He went to the park. Shall I tell him you called?”

      
What if he didn’t want to see me? Maybe he was right there, but had asked her not to tell me. Oh, hell. This was getting me nowhere. “Yes. Tell him Soz called and that I’m here on Diesha.”

      
“All right. I’ll do. Bye.” Her image faded from the booth.

      
Bye?
Bye?
What was it with these young people, saying such words? What was wrong with proper Skolian phrases, like “My pleasure at our discourse, ma’am”?
Bye
was an Earth word. Young people had no appreciation for their culture. Rex didn’t need a nurse like that.

      
My console beeped at me. I touched a blue light in one corner, and a familiar voice came out of the speaker. “My greetings, Soz.”

      
My pulse jumped. “Rex?”

      
“Blossom paged me about your call.”

      
“Blossom?”

      
“My nurse.”

      
It figured she had a name like Blossom. “Are you there with her?”

      
“No. I’m in the park.”

      
The park. Which one? Diesha didn’t have many. Water was too valuable to spend on nonessential plants, so each suburb was allowed only one park. But Diesha had nineteen suburbs, which meant he could be nineteen places. Maybe he didn’t want me to know.

      
“Soz?” Rex asked. “Are you still there?”

      
I flushed. “Yes.”

      
“When did you get in?”

      
“Yesterday. I came to—” To what? My cover was that I had come to see him. “I was wondering—I mean, I know I’ve been gone a long time…”

      
His voice relaxed a bit. “It does seem like more than five months.”

      
“I was wondering how you were doing.”

      
“Better.”

      
“I’m glad.” What would he say if I asked to visit him?

      
“Soz…?”

      
“Yes?”

      
“Maybe you might—I’m in park Fifteen. If you’d like to come down.” Quickly he added, “If you’re too busy, I understand.”

      
I closed my eyes, so relieved I couldn’t answer for a moment. Then I said, “Yes. I’d like to.”

#

Park fifteen was hot and glaring. Broad avenues of casecrete marked off lawns the color of autumn leaves. As I rode a speedwalk through the park, people in uniforms strode by me, their eyes protected with mirrored visors.

      
Rex was exactly where he had described, sitting in the shade of a prickly tree. I walked toward him across the lawn, my boots crunching the grass. He looked so relaxed and healthy. The only indication of anything different was a silvery mesh that molded around his body from the waist down like trousers designed from a metallic net.

      
When he saw me, he raised his hand. As I waved back, he put his hand against the tree. When he jerked it back, I felt the puncture from its needle as if it jabbed my own palm. He tried again, this time leaning his weight into the tree without mishap.

      
Then he stood.

      
I stopped and gaped. Then I set off again, striding the last few meters that separated us.

      
“Heya, Soz,” he said.

      
“You’re standing up!”

      
His face relaxed into a smile. “Seems so.”

      
“How?” No, that sounded stupid. “I mean—I thought—”

      
He turned and indicated the base of his spine. Looking closer, I saw a psiphon attached to the mesh, with its prong plugged into his spine.

      
“It goes in above the broken sections,” he said. “Links to optical threads that run to my brain.”

      
That didn’t sound safe. “The doctors said it could hurt you if they tried any more manipulations with your biomech web.”

      
“The operation had some risk, but the procedure was simple enough that they thought it would be all right. They just repaired some threads in my body and grew another socket higher in my spine.” He tapped a tiny disk woven into the web. “When this chip intercepts a signal from my brain, it shunts it to the mesh.” He took a stiff-legged step away from the tree and held out his hands. “The mesh moves and takes me with it.”

      
I grinned at him. “You’re walking!”

      
He laughed, took another jerky step—and lurched to the side. I grabbed for his arm, but he pushed me off and fell to one knee, his face knotting with—what? Anger? Frustration? Slowly, he stood up. For a moment, when he said nothing, I thought I had offended him somehow. Then he smiled ruefully. “I’m still learning to make it work.”

      
“You’ll have it obeying you in no time,” I said.

      
“I hope so.”

      
So we stood, looking at each other. I said, “How’s Diesha?” in the same instant Rex said, “How was Foreshires?”

      
We laughed, a brief explosion that quickly died away. I said, “It was good,” while he said, “Just fine.”

      
This time my laugh felt more natural. “My mother came to see me.”

      
He grinned. “I’ll bet that shook up everyone.”

      
I smiled, remembering Jarith’s reaction—and immediately blocked the memory. But it was too late. Jarith’s image had jumped into my mind.

      
Rex spoke quietly. “It’s all right, Soz.”

      
“We said goodbye. He stayed on Foreshires.”

      
“You don’t have to apologize.”

      
“Rex…” Rex, what? Why did I have to be so stupid with words?

      
“Want to go for a walk?” he asked.

      
I almost said,
Can you?
But I caught myself before it came out. “Yes.”

      
He took a step. Pause. Another step. I walked next to him, peering at the mesh. It contracted around his right leg, carrying that limb forward, then moved his left leg forward. “That looks more comfortable than mechanical legs.”

      
“Not as strong, though. I thought about getting the hardware.”

      
I tried to imagine him with his legs sheathed in exterior mechanicals. “What made you decide against it?”

      
“I’m not sure.” He took another step. “My body is already so full of biomech. The idea of putting more on the outside didn’t feel right.”

      
“A biosynthetic marvel.”

      
He glanced at me. “What?”

      
“Someone called me that once. I wished they hadn’t.”

      
“I don’t blame you.” He indicated a bench a few meters away. “Want to sit?”

      
“Sure.”

      
When we reached the bench, Rex sank onto it and exhaled. “I never knew walking could take so much energy.”

      
I smiled. “Well, you’ve got to do something with all that energy.”

      
As soon as I said it, I wanted to fold up and blow away. It was a joke we had shared a hundred times before, a reference to his many girlfriends. It came out before I thought about it. Damn, I was an idiot. It was like hitting him with a sign announcing,
Hey, look how insensitive I am!

      
Don’t be so sure, Soz.
Rex smiled.
I have more energy than you think.

      
I blinked, embarrassed by how transparent I was to him.
Are you eavesdropping?

      
It’s hard not to, when you shout like that.

      
I reddened.
I wasn’t shouting.

      
He smirked at me.
You most certainly were. At the top of your mental lungs.

      
I glared at him.
You’re as ornery as ever.

      
So my nurse tells me.

      
Pah. I refused to share my mind with his nurse. “You mean the esteemed Miss Blossom?”

      
“Miss? What does that mean?”

      
“It’s an old fashioned Earth word.” After all, Blossom was the one who liked Earth words. “It refers to a women’s marital status.” I squinted at him. “Or lack thereof.”

      
His voice gentled. “If you want to know, just ask.”

      
“I don’t mean to pry. It’s none of my business.”

      
“Would it make a difference to our friendship?”

      
Yes, damn it. No, that wasn’t fair. Why shouldn’t he have a lover? Because. Why did he want her and not me?

      
Rex watched my face. “Soz—she’s what I can deal with right now.”

      
Like Jarith. After a moment I said, “I understand.” Then I snorted. “But can’t she do something about that awful name?”

      
“I like it.”

      
“You would.”

      
He laughed good-naturedly. “Still the same Soz.”

      
Despite myself, I smiled. “I guess so.” But I wasn’t. Foreshires had changed everything.

      
We spent the afternoon walking, sitting, talking. Neither of us mentioned Jarith, Blossom, or Delos. Someday we would sort it out. Now it was enough just to have his companionship again.

      
It was late when I reached home. The living room was dark, but as soon as the door opened I knew someone was inside. My hand dropped to the belt of my jumpsuit, where I had hidden a dart thrower. “Lumos up,” I said.

      
The room brightened, revealing my visitor: Kurj. He stood in an inner doorway leaning against the frame, his arms folded, his shielded eyes directed toward me.

      
I closed the door. “My greetings.”

      
“Why did you send approval for Charissa’s marriage license?”

      
Well, that was subtle. “Because otherwise no one would have ever let that girl get married.”

      
“She could have come to me. I would have taken care of it.”

      
“Given your—former relationship with her, she probably didn’t feel she could ask.”

      
He studied my face. “What advantage did you see in helping her?”

      
Advantage? “I didn’t.”

      
He considered me. “Who is Tiller Smith?”

      
“He worked in the Delos police station. He took our report about Jaibriol Qox.”

      
“And?”

      
I didn’t see what he was looking for. “That’s all.”

      
Kurj raised his eyebrows. “Then why did your spinal node flag on a book he gave you when your squad was leaving for Tams?”

      
What was he doing, keeping notes on everything I did? “It was a book of poems. It made me think about how combat affects me.”

      
He stood silently, like machine crunching data, analyzing, filing. Then he said, “That doesn’t explain why you became his patron at the Institute.”

      
“If I hadn’t, they would have eaten him alive.”

      
“I can see the advantage to him. But not to you.”

      
“I don’t see your point.” I did, in fact, see it perfectly well. But it angered me enough that I had no intention of acknowledging it. So what if no advantage came to me in helping Tiller or Charissa?

      
Kurj went to the bookshelf and pulled out
Verses on a Windowpane.
It fell open to the page marked by the Arcade ticket. As he stood reading, I could almost hear him filing the words in his brain:
Always watching, always waiting, never satisfied.

      
He smiled dryly. “Poetry like this would inspire me to send him far away.”

      
A joke? No, it couldn’t be. But why not? Kurj could have a sense of humor buried in there. Just in case, I smiled. “Well, it’s different.”