"Excellent, Gordy," the voice said. "Then tell me where Colleen Isaac is."
I could feel Gordy's mind fighting against the drug. "Gordy?" the voice asked again; and this time there was a hard edge to it. "Gordy, where is Colleen Isaac? Where is she?"
I could feel Gordy's mind fighting against the drug. "Gordy?" the voice asked again; and this time there was a hard edge to it. "Gordy, where is Colleen Isaac? Where is she?"
But Gordy's mind was not his alone anymore... and I had none of their poison in my body. "She's dead,"
I murmured, and heard the echo in my mind as Gordy's mouth obediently repeated the words. "She died... in Regina. In the lake. To... save me."
"She's not dead!" a new voice shouted. Barringer's voice. "She can't be dead, damn it-she can't be.
Where is she?"
"She's dead," I said again, and an involuntary sob escaped our lips. The pain was a red haze over our mind, and I felt our fingers trembling in Jean's belt. We could let go, and she would pull up and take us away from the pain. But it was still too soon. Still too soon.
Barringer was screaming something else, but we could hardly hear him. All around us was the din of two minds wrenching against each other.... "She's dead," we said once more. "She told me... she would rather die than lose her baby to... anyone."
And suddenly the screaming was gone. We tried to listen through the noise, to hear what was going on; but the noise was too loud. The noise, and the pain....
"Dale? Dale!"
I blinked; blinked again as I realized there were tears in my eyes. That voice... and the pain was almost gone. And it was only me. "Wha-?" I croaked. There was no echo.... "Jean?"
"It's okay, Dale," she said, and I could hear the almost limp relief in her voice. "God, for a while I thought we were going to lose you. To lose both of you."
Abruptly, I realized my fingers were still wedged in her belt. "Where are we? Wait a minute-we can't leave-"
"It's okay-it's okay," she soothed me. "The cops are there. Nailed Barringer and his goons red-handed.
Soon as they radioed that they'd got him, I took off." She leaned forward to frown at me, and I heard the question in her mind. "Is-I mean, did it work?"
I took a deep breath. "He should be fine," I told her, answering the question she'd wanted to ask. We were heading east, now, heading back home. Ahead, the sky over the mountains was red with the approaching sunrise.
And the long night was over.
"It's not the Hilton," Colleen said, waving a hand around the two-room cabin, "but it's home."
"For the next few months at least," I agreed, looking out the window at the snow-covered mountains and trying hard not to think of how isolated she was going to be out here. "Certainly a great spot to get away from it all."
"There's room for two," she said.
I turned to see her gazing at me, her forehead wrinkled with concern. "Thanks, but I can't," I told her. "If I disappeared for too long someone would start to wonder if you really weren't dead, after all. It would be a shame to blow a perfectly good lie like that."
I turned to see her gazing at me, her forehead wrinkled with concern. "Thanks, but I can't," I told her. "If I disappeared for too long someone would start to wonder if you really weren't dead, after all. It would be a shame to blow a perfectly good lie like that."
"Colleen." I turned to face her and took her hands in mine. "It's over. Okay? Over and done with, and both Gordy and I are fine. Really."
"But the flashbacks-"
"Will go away," I reminded her. "Remember, I've been through this once before. Nelson's attack isn't much more than a bad memory now, and he and I got much closer together than Gordy and I did."
She nodded. Squeezing my hands, she let go and stepped over to stare out one of the windows. "I just...
it's still going to weigh on my conscience, Dale. Neither of you is going to ever be quite the same again, and all because of me. I'm sorry if that sounds silly, but that's how I feel."
"Doesn't sound silly at all," I assured her. "Tell me, Colleen: who is that baby you're carrying?"
She turned to frown at me. "What do you mean?"
"Well, he's part you and part me, right? I mean, that's where he came from."
The frown was still there. "I don't understand what you're driving at."
I sighed. "We're all unique, Colleen, but at the same time most of who we are ultimately comes from other people. Not just our parents' genes-all of us, all our lives, are continually influenced by those around us. Our politics are molded by politicians and commentators, our tastes are influenced by our job or station in life... and we're forever exchanging styles and traits and interests and catch phrases with our friends." I shrugged. "It just happened that with Nelson and Gordy I got an accelerated version of the process."
She thought about that for a moment. "What about Barringer?" she asked.
Which meant the subject was closed, at least for now. Which was fine with me. I knew she'd think about it, and eventually realize I was right. "He's going to be far too busy treading legal water to bother us for awhile," I told her. "There are half a dozen charges pending, up to and including kidnapping, and when the locals are done with him Canada's waiting to take their shot."
"But if they know Gordy was taken from Regina-?" She threw me a questioning look.
I nodded, a slightly sour taste in my mouth. "There really wasn't any way to hide the existence of the shield from them any longer. The Regina police retrieved what was left of the one Gordy crushed in the garbage truck, and the simple fact that you two were together proved that you'd had some way to beat the close-approach limits."
"Then all this was for nothing.
I put my arm around her shoulders. "Not in the least. We saved you and our child from being snatched away into some form of slavery, didn't we? You call that nothing?"
I put my arm around her shoulders. "Not in the least. We saved you and our child from being snatched away into some form of slavery, didn't we? You call that nothing?"
"It would have been nice if we could have kept the shield a secret," I conceded gently. "But to be perfectly honest, Gordy and I would have had to be fools to risk our lives for a machine. It's the people in this world that are important, Colleen-don't forget that. Not that a person as caring as you are is ever likely to. Must be why I love you so much.
"And speaking of love and people," I added briskly, squeezing her shoulders and stepping away, "grab your coat. I've got a surprise for you.
She blinked at me, sniffling back some tears. "What kind of surprise?"
"A nice one," I assured her, picking my own coat off the couch. "Something I stumbled on more or less by accident on the way in. Come on-and don't forget your hat and mittens."
We bundled up, and I led the way out into the frosty mountain air. In front of the cabin the snow-packed dirt road sloped gently upward, peaking at a cut in the mountains before sloping down toward the small mountain village a few miles away. I led us along the road for a few minutes; and suddenly Colleen, huffing along a step behind me, grabbed my arm. "Wait a minute, Dale, we can't go any farther. The edge of the shield-"
"Is right there," I pointed at a pair of branches sticking up out of the snow beside the road ten yards ahead. "Just don't pass the sticks there... and say hi to Calvin for me."
She stared at me. "What are you talking about? The shield's edge isn't sharp enough for me to do that."
"Agreed," I nodded. "One shield's edge isn't that sharp. But if you put two of them in line about a foot apart-we can mark the spots on your floor when we get back-and kind of lean forward, just a little, it turns out that you can stick your head far enough out for you to have limited communication without the baby knowing a thing about it. Go ahead-I tried it on the way in, and Calvin's waiting."
She didn't say anything; just threw her arms around me and hugged me close for a minute. Then, straightening, she walked tentatively toward my markers, head and shoulders hunched slightly forward.