She released my hand. I pulled it away from her and started massaging it with the other, as resentful as any child for the unwanted momentary pain. I was so groggy that I was more concerned about the pain at that moment than about anything she’d said.
She once again lowered her lips to my ear and murmured: “I’d take you with me if I could. I stayed this long, longer than was wise, just to warn you. I’d stay still longer if I didn’t think these people needed somebody to oppose them if the worst happens. But you need to get well as soon as you can. Prepare yourself. And don’t forget what the Porrinyards kept saying before they left. Remember who you are.”
But for a while the most I absorbed from that was: the Porrinyards left?
Part of me refused to believe it. I couldn’t countenance any condition where they’d ever hate me enough to abandon me to enemies. I could imagine them getting so sick of me that they sought more congenial fields elsewhere. Part of me had expected it for a long time, and remained astonished that they’d lasted this long But leave me? Helpless and injured and not at my best, among people who might want to hurt me? Why would they ever do that? What would ever make them want to do that?
I remembered every argument we’d ever had, every moment I’d betrayed my own cruelty and selfishness in their presence. None seemed bad enough to make them want to do this. None.
Remember who you are.
I remembered who I was. I was the little girl caught up in the madness of a community devouring itself in a spasm of horrific self-cannibalization, who went after the Bocaian she considered a second father and tore out his eyes. I was a war criminal considered the face of evil on Xana, a symbol of Mankind’s capacity for violence to a dozen other races, and a political liability to the Confederacy. I was a caustic bitch who had never loved anybody as an adult, not until the moment they came along, and even then not well.
Remember who you are?
I remembered who they were. And that remained, by far, the more pressing question. If it came down to life or death, they would not have abandoned anybody, not even the likes of Dina Pearlman. What could I have done, to make them hate me so much that they’d abandon me?
I slept some more, woke again in light, accepted more visitors, including a number who I’d never met but who seemed fascinated by my very existence.
I began to register the details of my room, by far the most luxurious hospital facility I had ever seen. It occurred to me, after a while, that it might not have been a hospital at all. The walls were like spun gold, the ceiling an arched vault bearing a chandelier of jeweled crystal. A portrait of some past Bettelhine patriarch, complete with ridiculous mustache and an expression that suggested he’d smelled something awful in his immediate vicinity, hung on one nearby wall, in a frame with a sufficient number of cornices and rills to support a courthouse. The freestanding wardrobe, polished to a high sheen, looked like it had cost more when new than I ever could have expected to earn in a year as representative to the Judge Advocate. The wall-length window I’d spotted off to my right was actually a wall-length sliding door, open to a vast balcony and a sky so bright and blue that it hurt my poor, suffering eyes to look upon it. I heard birdsong: not random tweets, but complex symphonies, from species accomplished for the breadth and depth of their compositions.
Every surface in sight was covered with flowers: a riotous rainbow of them, arranged in bouquets so rich in color and variety that they must have required thousands of man-hours just to cultivate, let alone arrange.
I remember thinking, This isn’t right. And then I drifted away again.
I received another visitor, Paakth-Doy, dressed in a sunny blouse that left her arms bare and revealed the recombinant tattoo of some kind of reptilian cat prowling up and down her arm in an animated simulation of ravenous hunger. She told me that I’d given everybody a tremendous scare, also that she considered me one of the bravest people she’d ever known. She said that she would always remember me and let me know that she’d brought me a message from my Dip. Corps superior Artis Bringen, which had been forwarded to the Royal Carriage and gone unnoticed until the vehicle was brought back down to Xana for inspection. She’d uploaded the data to this room’s hytex connection.
Our conversation was pleasant enough until I asked her what she was going to do.
Her eyes went dark, and she said, “We have all received a great deal of attention since the disaster. It has resulted in lucrative job offers. I myself have been given the opportunity to become a personal companion to one of the Bettelhine aunts. She likes my exotic accent, you see.”
Oh, Juje. They’d gotten to her. Somehow they’d gotten to her and made her want to give up everything she was. I seized her by the wrist. “Doy—you don’t have to do that. I’ve promised to take you away. There are always positions available in the Dip Corps…”
She pulled her hand away. When she answered me, her heavy Riirgaan accent was so pronounced it was as if she’d decided to embrace it, eschewing the part of her that identified with the species of her birth. “This is my idea, Counselor. I know what ‘personal companion’ is likely to mean. I know how the job will change who I am. I have, after all, worked with Colette Wilson. And while I make this decision I am in full command of my will.”
“Then why—”
“Because to me it will not matter. Because I am not Riirgaan nor fully human and I am tired of not knowing how to live. And because I have been assured by my new employer that when the changes take effect I will always be happy, even if made to commit acts that would revolt me now.” She wiped moisture away from her eyes, and forced another counterfeit smile. “How can anybody ever say no to happiness, Counselor? How is it less real if it is imposed?”
By the time I thought of anything I could say to that, Paakth-Doy was gone.
A nurse came in and gave me a breakfast of mashed fruit, unfamiliar to my palate but sweet in a way that reminded me of the candies I’d loved from a confectionary back on New London. It was tart enough to sting my raw tissues, but for the first time since the Royal Carriage I found myself ravenous. I ate the entire bowl and asked for a second serving.
After I ate I accessed the room’s hytex and found the message from Bringen. It was a late delivery of the answers to the questions I’d sent him before boarding the Royal Carriage. Most of what I’d asked him had either come up in the subsequent investigation or no longer mattered, but I paused when I passed a section with information about the missing debt arbitrator, Bard Daiken.
“Daiken defected to the Bettelhine Corporation during a routine arbitration, abandoning a wife and two children on New London. He’s since refused all communication, and we don’t know where he’s working on Xana or even if he’s still on-world. This should be considered low priority, but if you’ve run into him, please forward any information you have. His family might find closure a great comfort. Holo enclosed.”