No robot pursued him. He walked and walked until the edge was off his jumbled emotions, and then he turned back. He stalked through the reception area and into Dr. Galen’s office.
“Did she tell you anything?”
“She was not able to offer any insight into your affliction.”
“You discussed my condition with her? But you wouldn’t tell me-”
“Correction. She was already aware of your condition.”
“What did she do, ask your advice on how to deal with me?”
“Derec, I promised Katherine that I would not discuss our conversation with you.”
Crossing his arms over his chest, Derec blew a sigh ceiling-ward. “I don’t understand why she’s being so secretive. If she knows something about me, she should just tell me.” He cast a raised-eyebrow glance in Dr. Galen’s direction. “Isn’t that right?”
“The advisability of that would vary from case to case, depending on the individual, the cause of the dysfunction, and the particular personal data concerned,” was Dr. Galen’s measured answer.
“You won’t even give me a hint, will you?” Derec said ruefully.
“I regret that I may not.”
Derec frowned. “Can I see her, at least?”
The robot turned to one of the two active displays on the wall behind him. “She is awake and her algesia has moderated. But she is the final arbiter.”
“Then I’m going to go see what she has to say.”
They found Katherine sitting up in her bed. “I was hoping someone would come to see me,” she said with a smile.
“You left me with some good reasons to,” Derec said, scanning the room fruitlessly for a chair to move beside the bed.
Her face clouded over. “Da-Derec,” she said, stumbling over his name as though she had forgotten it. “I’m afraid you’re going to be angry with me. We have a lot of ground to make up together-all the things that happened on the ship. I don’t think we should start with the little I know about you.”
The look that Derec shot at Dr. Galen was black and poisonous. “What is this? What did you tell her? I thought you were trying to help me-”
“I cannot do otherwise,” the robot said calmly.
The truth of that slowed Derec’s rush to anger. He turned back to Katherine and said, “So you’re going to keep secrets from me.”
She shook her head. “Derec-let’s say that you were President of New Liberty-”
“New Liberty has a council-manager government,” Derec interrupted.
“It doesn’t matter. Let’s say you were President of New Liberty and lost your memory. If I tell you that you’re the President, does that make you the President? Can you start acting like the person you used to be just because you know that?”
Derec avoided her eyes. “I suppose not. But hearing it could make me remember-”
“It is far more likely to cause you severe anxiety,” Dr. Galen began. “Most often-”
Derec opened his mouth to answer, but Katherine was faster. “Dr. Galen, go away,” she snapped. “Go back to your office and leave us alone. Don’t monitor me and don’t listen in. We’ll call you if we need you.”
The robot stared a moment, then lowered its head and exited.
“You didn’t have to get so personal,” Derec said, surprised at her forcefulness. “I’ll bet you put a kink in poor Dr. Galen’s self-worth integral that he’ll be an hour working out.”
“Oh, I don’t care,” Katherine said peevishly, staring at the empty doorway. “Medical robots are such busybodies. They’ve got ten thousand opinions but they don’t really know anything. And they can’t really understand what someone’s feeling when they’re sick, now, can they? Because they’re machines and they never get sick, or die.”
Is that what’s the matter with you? Derec wondered, looking at her face. Are you dying from something the doctors can’t cure? Is that what Dr. Galen wouldn’t talk about?
Before he could find the courage to ask her aloud, she looked toward him and patted the bed beside her. “Are you going to stand all the way over there? The field can hold both of us.”
After a moment’s hesitation, Derec settled on the edge of the bed by Katherine’s feet.
“There, that’s better,” she said. “Now I don’t feel so much like a prisoner being questioned.”
“I’m not sure what we have left to talk about.”
“Well-I’m sure there’s more to what happened on the asteroid than you told me on the ship. Then there’s the ship and what we went through there. And there’s me.”
“Let’s start there. Your name, for starters. The robot called you Katherine-”
“I am Katherine Ariel Burgess to my mother and the computers. Everyone else calls me Kate,” she said. “My father says that calling me Katherine is false advertising-that it doesn’t give people any warning what they’re in for. Katherine is please and thank you and dresses that cover you to the neck. Kate is-”
“Sharp-tongued and strong-willed and I-can-take-care-of-my-self-thank-you,” Derec supplied.
Katherine brightened as though she had been complimented. “Something like that. My father says that I have spice.”
“I think I’ll stick to Katherine. What were you doing on Aranimas’s ship?”
“Why, I was a prisoner just like you were. My robots and I were kidnapped off a courier ship.” She snapped her fingers. “I just remembered. Where’s the key? You didn’t let the robots have it, did you?”
“I don’t know where it is,” he said. “I don’t even know that it was ever where I thought it was.”
“Is the ship here? Have you been back in it?”
“Frost, I don’t know. I hadn’t even been out of the hospital until this morning,” Derec said, annoyed. “Will you tell me this-why is that key so important? What is it? What’s it the keyto? ”
“I don’t know,” Katherine said soberly. “I only know that Aranimas thought it was worth anything to get. Wait-I thought you said the key was your property. Don’t you know why it’s important?”
“It is my property,” Derec asserted. “Space salvage. Or a gift. Either way, I have the best claim to it.”
“But you don’t know what it is?”
“No.”
She seemed disappointed. “Maybe you do know-but it’s one of the things you’ve forgotten.”
“I guess that’s possible,” Derec acceded. “Did Aranimas come to the asteroid specifically looking for the key? Not because I was there?”
“I don’t think so-”
“You don’t think so what?”
“I think he went to the asteroid on purpose. I don’t think he knew the key was there. I’m almost positive he didn’t know you were there,” she said. “I think you were just lucky-or would it be unlucky?”
Derec considered. “Lucky, the way it fell out. I’d sure rather be here on Rockliffe Station than back on that asteroid.”
“Lucky, then.” She paused. “Look, if it is yours, maybe getting it back in your hands would help you remember something. And even if it doesn’t, we need to find out what happened to the key. Aranimas had to have some reason for wanting it.”
“Wolruf called it ‘the jewel’ when she talked to Aranimas,” Derec said thoughtfully. “But I don’t think she meant it literally.”
“Either way, it’s something valuable. Are we going to try to find it, or not?”
“We?” For a brief moment, Derec bristled defensively. Then he reminded himself what it had been like to be a loner on the raider ship. He felt at home here-but Katherine clearly didn’t. She was hurting, and she was alone, and she wanted to be his friend. And beyond that, she knew something about who he was-and wanted to help him remember.
“Sure,” he said. “Of course we are.”
Chapter 15. Oh Seven B
Despite all the good intentions, the partnership almost fell apart before it began. Derec had somehow visualized the arrangement with himself making all the decisions and Katherine gratefully following his lead. But he found out very quickly that it was Kate, not Katherine, with whom he’d made his pact.