He was far underground, too, in a small room that was painted in earth tones with lovely pictures stirring on the walls—amazingly, the trees and flowers they showed moved in an unseen breeze. Gar sat in a padded chair, one with a back high enough to cushion even his head. The priest and priestess sat in similar chairs, the priest behind a desk with a screen inset; from time to time, he glanced at the screen to make sure the transcription of their interview was proceeding properly. It was; words rolled up across the screen in even lines.
The colonists had buried their spaceship, Alea realized, or perhaps only one of their landing craft—she suspected there were many hills like this throughout the land. The ancestors must have come in a fleet and left their descendants the machinery and chemicals of modern medicine. What had Gar said—that the colonists had cheated? He would certainly think so now!
“Good, then.” The priestess smiled, relaxing. “You see, we are your friends.”
Alea wondered how she had gone about proving that and how long Gar had pretended to remain suspicious, simply to be believable. On the other hand, perhaps he hadn’t been pretending. Somehow she doubted that they had his full confidence even now. “Friends.” Gar smiled, nodding eagerly.
“Can you remember someone striking you on the head?” the priestess asked.
Gar screwed up his face, rolling up his eyes with the effort of concentration, then shook his head. “Total amnesia, then,” the priest said.
The priestess nodded, still looking at Gar. “Can you remember going to sleep tonight?”
Gar nodded like a puppy wanting to please. “Do you remember trading with the villagers?” Again, Gar screwed up his face in concentration. After a minute, he nodded, but with much less certainty.
“Do you remember waking up yesterday morning?”
Again the screwed up face, but this time, Gar shook his head sadly.
“Quite a bit of damage indeed.” The priestess slipped the chain that held her medallion over her head and held it out, the glittering medal swinging like a pendulum. “Is not my jewelry pretty?”
“Pretty” Gar agreed, his eyes glued to the silvery object. He braced himself to resist hypnosis. “Follow it with your eyes.” The priestess moved it to her right; Gar’s eyes followed. “Now the other way.” The bauble moved to the left; still Gar’s eyes followed. “Up … down … He has no difficulty tracking.”
“We can hope it is only his recall that is impaired,” the priest said. “Given time, the brain should find a way to access the memories from another site.”
“Let us see if we can hasten the process.” The priestess twitched her fingers and the medallion began to swing like a pendulum again. “Watch the medallion, Gar … see how it swings … to the left … to the right…”
Gar followed the pendulum intently, even turning his head a little.
Alea thought he was overdoing it.
The priest yawned, and the priestess said, “How very late it is … I am so sleepy … It would be sweet to sleep … sleep … you are sleepy too, Gar … so sleepy … your eyelids are so heavy you can scarcely keep them open … sleep … sleep…” She lowered the medallion.
Gar kept his head turning from side to side.
The priestess smiled. “You may hold your head still, Gar.”
Gar gazed straight forward, letting his eyes lose focus.
“What is your name?” the priestess asked. “Gar,” he said, like a sleepwalker.
“What is your last name?”
“Last…?” Gar risked a little frown even though he was supposed to be entranced.
Alea sighed with relief. The hypnotism hadn’t worked, but he was quick to pretend it had.
“No last name,” the priest said. “Only a peasant, it would seem.”
“Who gave you your name, Gar?”
“Priest,” Gar muttered thickly.
“A priest? Good, that’s progress… Who told the priest what name to give?”
“Mama,” Gar said. “Papa…”
“What did your mother look like, Gar?”
“Big,” Gar said. “Huge; like tree. Red hair, green eyes … smile…”
“He’s seeing her as a baby would,” the priest said. “That’s very good,” the priestess said to both him and Gar. “You’re a little older now … you’re six … do you have a brother?”
Gar nodded. “What’s his name?”
“Geoffrey,” Gar said, “and the baby.”
Alea wondered if that was true or if Gar was making it up. He had never mentioned a brother. With a start, she realized he had never mentioned his family at all. She really didn’t know a great deal about him, did she?
She felt a little angry about it. That would have to be remedied!
“Geoffrey is the baby?” the priestess asked. Gar shook his head.
“What’s the baby’s name?”
“Gregory.” Gar’s voice had deepened and his words weren’t slurring as badly.
Alea still thought he was overdoing it. Would a brain-damaged man recover himself that quickly? “Very good,” said the priestess. “Did you have a sister, too?”
Gar nodded.
“That would be Alea, of course,” the priestess said. “Do you have only the one sister?”
“Only the one,” Gar’s voice was quite clear now. “I felt sorry for Mother sometimes.”
“Vocabulary improved,” the priest said, surprised. “He seems to have acquired a cultured accent.”
“Yes, but not one I have ever heard.” The priestess frowned. “Where is your home, Gar?”
“Gone from me.” Gar’s face crumpled. “Not in this world.”
“Trauma,” the priest whispered. “The bandits must have annihilated his whole village.”
Well, that was one way to look at it, Alea decided, though it might have been more accurate to say Gar had gone from his home, not the other way around.
Still, Gar hadn’t actually lied. Could he help it if they misinterpreted the strict truth?
Of course he could, she thought, but admitted that under the circumstances, misleading them was probably the wiser course.
“He seems to have accessed another area of memory,” the priest said, “and bypassed the damaged area.”
The priestess nodded. “I thought he must be capable of something like that, since his sister said his memory comes and goes.”
Ingenious improvisation, Alea, Gar thought. You’re very quick.
Alea started. How had Gar known she was listening in? But come to think of it, what else would she be doing?
“Now, Gar.” The priestess tensed, frowning. “Where did you learn medicine?”
Even with so much rock and metal between them, Alea could feel her anxiety and that of her priest-companion. Their alarm was clear: that anyone but a priest or priestess should have advanced scientific knowledge.
“Medicine…?” Gar’s face was blank.
The priestess studied him for a moment and Alea could feel her massive relief in the thought: He knows nothing about medicine, then. She tried another approach. “The operation you did for little Orgo. Where did you learn to perform a tracheotomy?”
“Surgery.” Gar’s face cleared. “I had to help a wise woman once—emergency, like Orgo’s. I held the man still with his arms to his sides and watched closely while she made the cut; I knew I might need it to save a life someday.”
“Only by watching?” the priestess pressed. “No one ever taught you to do it?”
Gar turned his head from side to side. “Only watched.” Then, anxiously, “Did I do it correctly?” Priest and priestess both relaxed. The priestess smiled as she said, “Yes, Gar, you did it well—very well indeed; you saved Orgo’s life.” Then, to the priest, “He must be very intelligent when his mind is awake.”