Shockball (28 page)

The subway came to a halt, and we entered the tunnels. I watched carefully as Rico disabled the traps, memorizing their location this time. I had no intention of exchanging one kind of captivity for another. As soon as Reever had healed, we were getting out.

As soon as we emerged from the sewer system, Milass latched on to my arm.

“Chief?”

Rico looked at me.

“I’m not trying to escape. Tell him to get off me.”

“You told the old man you’d do what he wanted, didn’t you?” Rico asked me. “And then you set his house on fire and stole his medicine. Hold on to her, Milass.”

The
secondario
gave me a nasty smile and tightened his grip.

I set up a berth for my husband in the medical alcove and got him hooked up on a monitor. Renal function had been nearly completely restored, but he was still very weak. I was about to perform a second scan series when Milass grabbed me by the back of the tunic and hauled me out into the tunnel.

Rico stood waiting, arms folded. The rest of the raiding party formed a ring around us.

I looked at all of them. “Problem?”

“You were welcomed into our tribe, and yet you deceived us.”

“I’m sorry about that.” I didn’t have time for this shame-on-you stuff. “Excuse me, I have a patient to take care of.”

Milass forced me down on my knees instead. “Look at the chief, woman.”

“Okay.” I looked up at him. “And?”

“You are not to be trusted.”

“Obviously.” I thought of Wendell, and put a clamp on my temper. “I’m sorry we left without permission, and I’m grateful that you helped us escape again. You have to understand, this isn’t our home. We want to be free, the same way your tribe chose to leave the reservations and live here. We don’t belong here.”

“You belong to me,” he said.

Milass hit me, so fast and hard it sent me sprawling at his feet.

Rico moved to stand over me. “If you attempt to escape again, I will have the linguist’s life.”

I spat out some blood and pushed myself up. “I understand.”

The chief cocked his head to one side. “Do you?”

Milass drove his foot into my side, and bone cracked. The explosion of pain made my vision double, made me curl over and groan. He kicked me two more times.

“If you lie to me again,” Rico said through the haze of agony surrounding me, “I will cut out your tongue. Do you understand that?”

His little demon hauled me up, and I clutched my abdomen, trying to protect my rib cage. The dark man was waiting for an answer, I saw, and managed a nod.

Milass drew back his fist, and clipped me across the jaw. I didn’t go anywhere that time, because the
secondario
had his fist wrapped in my hair. Some of it separated from my scalp. Blood pooled in my mouth and trickled out the sides.

“You will be under guard until I feel better about you, patcher.” Rico reached out one finger, and smeared my own blood over my lips. “Remember what I have said.”

Milass let go of me, and I went down. Hitting the stone floor of the tunnel was almost as bad as taking the beating. Rico and the men left, but two stayed behind to take up positions on either side of the alcove entrance.

I stayed where I was for a while. Some time later, hands touched me.

“Don’t.” I would have shivered from the cold, but it hurt too much.

“You can’t stay like this.” It was Hawk.

“Ribs.” Hopefully he wouldn’t want a comprehensive explanation of what was wrong with them.

Hawk didn’t try to pick me up, which was a small blessing. “How can I help you?”

A brand-new rib cage would have been nice. “Syrinpress.”

He nobbled away. I turned on my back and rode new waves of torment. When I felt his touch again, I squinted at him. “Got it?”

“Yes.” He showed it to me.

“Morphinol. Ten cc’s. Hip.”

“I’ve never given an infusion before.”

Even an overdose would be better than this misery. “Try.”

He calibrated the syrinpress, then tugged down the waist of my trousers and infused me at the hip. Then he sat beside me, wiped the sweat from my face, and checked my pulse. “Is it working?”

“Yes.” I could feel the burning grip on my abdomen easing a few degrees. I knew my body would quickly absorb the effects of the painkiller, but with luck it would buy me enough time to get up and into some sort of brace.

When I could take a breath without screaming, I held out a hand. “Hold on.”

Hawk didn’t pull, but provided the anchor I needed. Even so, getting to my feet nearly did me in. As soon as I was vertical, I started moving. Scalding arrows sliced through my lungs with every breath.

Hawk held on to my hands and kept me balanced. “How bad are your ribs?”

“Broken.” I got to the exam table. Getting up on it was out of the question. Sweat seeped down the sides of my face as I rested, my hands gripping the edge. I had to pant each subsequent word.

“Hawk. Get. The. Scanner.”

Everything became dark and fuzzy, and I focused on my breathing. Short, controlled breaths cleared my head, while the morphinol blurred a little more of the pain. I heard Hawk activate the scanner, felt him moving around my back.

“Four of them are broken, patcher.”

“Bone chips? Bleeding?”

“The fractures display clean. There are no signs of internal hemorrhaging.”

That took care of my two biggest concerns. Now, how to deal with the broken ribs? I didn’t have any torso braces, and I couldn’t have him knock me out. Reever had to be monitored, and Hawk wasn’t up to that. “Get scissors. Bandage. Players’ tape.”

He brought a pair of surgical shears, a large dressing pad, and a roll of dermal adhesive to the table. “These?”

“Yes.” I panted for a minute. “Cut off tunic.” I gritted my teeth as he did that, then glanced down. The skin over my ribs was broken in a few places. Angry-looking bruises spread huge dark circles where Milass’s boot had landed. “Clean. Bandage. Wrap.”

He gently cleansed the lacerations, dried them, and taped the dressing in place. Then he began wrapping my torso with the tape. By then the morphinol was starting to back off, and it was a little like having my ribs broken all over again.

“Okay.” After he had applied four layers, I held out my hand. “That’s good. Thanks.”

He put away the supplies, then came over and studied me. “Your jaw is bruised.”

“Just sore.” I carefully walked over to Reever’s berth. “Thanks.”

“Don’t thank me. You disobeyed the chief.”

Shame on you, Cherijo. “So?”

“He might kill you if you cross him again.”

I stopped, and turned my head. “He’d better, next time.”

My ribs healed, but other things didn’t.

Disobeying the chief and escaping from the underground instantly made me persona non grata with the tribe. The players I treated remained silent and kept their visits brief. The few times I went out into the central cavern, everyone pretended not to see me, or went into their hogans so they wouldn’t have to.

A leper would have been more popular.

I don’t know why it bothered me so much—after all, Reever and I’d been kidnapped twice by these people, and Reever nearly killed—but it did. I missed seeing the warm smiles, accepting the offers to share a meal, listening to the laughter of the children. From what I knew about Indian culture, it would be a long time, if ever, before they forgave me.

I missed Hawk more than anyone. After he’d helped me with my broken ribs, he stayed away from Medical, and took care to avoid me everywhere else. Sometimes I heard him singing in one of the hogans, but I was no longer invited to share in their ceremonials.

That, combined with Joseph’s disgusting revelations, sent me spiraling down into a state of constant depression.

Reever handled everything much better than I had, but I attributed that to the fact that he was used to being treated like a leper. His recovery proved rapid and without any complications. He would have made Terran medical history, if I could have told anyone about it.

“I feel fine,” he said as I tried to bully him back onto the berth less than a week after Joe had performed the hypercell procedure. “I cannot remain on my back any longer.”

“Oh, really?” I’d been sleeping badly, so my temper was in short supply. “You had major surgery, twice, and I nearly lost you. You’ll stay on your back as long as I tell you to. Got it?”

“You’ve been having nightmares again, haven’t you?”

I turned away from the berth. “Take off your tunic. I want to inspect the incision site.”

“You did that this morning.” He didn’t touch his tunic. “Why are you avoiding my gaze?”

“I’m busy.” I prepared a syrinpress with the vitamin booster I’d been giving him while he was on dialysis, then realized he didn’t need it anymore and tossed the instrument aside. “Okay, I haven’t been sleeping very well. This place is making me claustrophobic.” And the thought of Joseph and what he’d told me had done wonders, too.

“Link with me.”

I closed my eyes and pressed my forehead against the wall. “No, I don’t feel like it.”

Why?

I was so tired I had to struggle to get my mental walls up.
It’s not polite to invade someone’s mind without their permission. I thought we’d agreed on that
.

He’d seen something; I could feel it as he withdrew.

“What happened between you and Joseph after my surgery?”

“Same old thing. He wants to get me pregnant, to produce more clones, et cetera.”

“No. More than that. You smelled of wine. You never drink.”

I could still taste that horrible merlot. “He doesn’t want to be my daddy anymore, Duncan. He never did. Just let it go.”

“I am not letting it go.” He turned me around. “What does he want?”

My temper, never a steady thing these days, blew. “A wife! Okay? He wants a wife!”

For the second time in as many weeks, I had actually shocked Duncan Reever. “He admitted this to you?”

“Sure, he told me. Why wouldn’t he? I’d just agreed to let him do anything he wanted to me. What better time to break the news that he made me to be
his
perfect woman.”

My husband seemed very troubled. “I had no idea.”

“Me either, but he figured with time, and some sedation, I’d accept it.” Which sometimes happened in my nightmares, which was why I wasn’t sleeping. “According to Joe, I’m too smart to let incest get in the way of true love.”

His hands cradled my face. “This was not your doing, Cherijo.”

“You know what really gets me the most? All those years he watched me, and the whole time he was thinking—” I wrenched away and drove my fist into the nearest solid object. I ended up with bleeding, throbbing knuckles, and a slightly dented exam table. The pain didn’t make me feel any better. “I never saw it coming. Why didn’t I see it, Duncan?”

“You don’t think the way he does.” Reever took my hand and wrapped it in a piece of linen. “There is no perversion in you.”

“You know what? I never liked him. He was a lousy father. But he was the only father I’ve ever known. He’s the reason I became a surgeon, and not just because of the genetics.”

He tied the ends of the linen and tucked them under the outer folds. “You were a child. You wanted him to be proud of you.”

“I respected him. I tried to love him. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t want to please him.” Why was this making me teary eyed? I hated the warped bastard. “He knew that. He
planned
it that way. Told me he thought acting like my dad would make everything easier.”

Reever didn’t try to touch me again, but let me wander away from him. “We cannot choose our parents. What they do to us is totally without our permission—whether we are cherished, or abused. We can only hope to learn from their actions so we may be better parents when the time comes.”

That didn’t make things better. It made me want to tear out my hair and dissolve into hysterics. “Shut up, Duncan.”

“You have never faced the loss of our child. Perhaps it is time you did. It is a tragedy we will carry with us forever, but we will have others.”

“No, we won’t.” He’d given me the perfect opportunity to tell him, and I was disgusted enough with myself to do it this time. “My immune system will destroy any baby I become pregnant with. Squilyp suspected as much, but we couldn’t confirm it until after I had the miscarriage.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because after I lost our baby, Duncan, I forced Squilyp into performing a tubal ligation on me. No more miscarriages. I’m sterile now.”

“This is what you’ve been hiding.”

As much I was going to torture him with for the moment. “Yes.” I saw his eyes change, and clamped down on the overwhelming despair inside me. “Now you know. Don’t worry, Duncan. You’ll find someone else to have those babies with.”

I ran, and the guards at the entrance silently followed me.

Reever didn’t.

I had to return to Medical eventually—my two shadows would only let me go so far, and no farther. When they marched me back, Reever was gone. I checked my hand, went over my charts, and brooded. If I’d had a couple of nurses and some jaspkerry tea, I could have closed my eyes and pretended I was back on the
Sunlace
.

Reever didn’t show up that night or the next morning, but Hawk did. He came in during one of my procedures, a small vid unit under his arm.

“Why are you here?” I was in the middle of working on Small Fox’s back, half of which I had successfully denuded by electrastim. “Strain your throat or something?”

“You will want to watch this.” He put the portable unit on the makeshift worktable where I kept my charts.

I told Small Fox I’d kill some more of his follicles later. After he dressed and left, I inspected the unit. “Where did you get this?”

“Veda Wolfkiller sent it down to us. She saw and recorded the original broadcast,” he said, and programmed it for replay.

The news recording began with their lead story— Joseph Grey Veil, walking down the steps of a familiar federal building. Drone reporters went berserk as soon as he emerged.

“Dr. Grey Veil, how have the authorities responded to the break-in at your estate?”