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"Everyone else all right?" I asked.
"We came through in one piece," she answered. "Oh-God is in terrible shape,
but Tic has already called for a med team."
"Then we're out of the jamming field?"
"Well out."
Something about her voice made me sit up and give my surroundings a good hard
stare. The trees overhead were monstrous huge giants compared to the
snow-stunted cactus-pines near Oh-God's compound. Tallish even when compared
to the Vigil's office tree in Bona-venture. They seemed to stretch forever
into the night sky.
Trees never grew that whopping big in Great St. Caspian; our winters were too
harsh and punishing, the soil too scanty above bedrock. And I could feel a
warm breeze wisping through my hair, cozy against my skin.
We'd come a rare long way.
Off to my left, a spindly row of palm trees separated us from a white-sand
beach. Beyond that was water: the ocean (which ocean?) stretching calm to the
horizon, where an edge of sun glistened above the sea. In Great St. Caspian,
the sun had already set; after half a minute, I could tell this sun was
rising.
Oof.
In the other direction sat a clump of grass-walled houses, upscale and airy,
with wide-open windows, comfortable verandas, solar panels set into the
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red-bamboo roofs. On one porch, an ort hopped to the railing, fanned its
wings, and clucked dick-smugly at the dawn.
"Where are we?" I whispered.
"Tic got a position fix from the world-soul," Festina replied. "He says it's
the village of Mummichog."
Mummichog. More than ten thousand klicks from Great St. Caspian. South to the
equator and halfway around the world.
Why in Christ had the Peacock dropped us here? Because Oh-God mentioned the
name? Because I'd asked the world-soul for information about the place? The
Peacock had spoken straight mind-to-mind at least once. ("What are
you?"Botjolo.) Maybe it could read my mind too it saw Mummichog floating on
the surface of my consciousness and decided that's where I wanted to go.
Or maybe the Peacock had reasons of its own for wanting us here.
The door of the nearest house slapped open, startling the ort on the porch
rail. The little parrot-pterodactyl gawped off a squawk and flapped to the
roof, jabbering blistery with outrage."Mushono!" snapped a voice from the
doorway. Shut up. And a middle-aged Oolom man bustled onto the veranda, still
fumbling with the neck straps of his tote pack. He looked around, caught sight
of us, and called, "Are you the ones who need medical help?"
"Yes," Tic replied. He was kneeling over Oh-God a few paces from Festina and
me, tucked under the cover of a skyscraping palm tree. Oh-God was propped with
his back against the trunk, his mouth hanging wide-open. He was making sounds
in his throat, but had no working muscles left to turn those sounds into
words.
"What's wrong with him?" the unknown Oolom asked. Without waiting for an
answer, he launched himself off the porch and glided down to land at Oh-God's
side. "If I didn't know better, I'd say he's got plague."
"He has," Tic answered. "We've given him olive oil, but it hasn't helped. Are
you a doctor?"
"Closest thing you'll find in Mummichog," the other Oolom replied.
"Biochemist and paramedic. My name's Voostor. Let's get this fellow up to the
house."
Festina was already lifting Oh-God into her arms. "Can you help him?"
"I've got emergency heart-lung equipment," Voostor replied. "Not fancy, but
it'll keep him alive till a real med team arrives. They're scrambling an
ambulance down from Pistolet; should be here in three-quarters of an hour. In
the meantime, I'm supposed to fill in. Come on."
He led the way across his house's lawn... a lawn of jaw-dropping green.
Eye-watering. Even mouth-watering to someone who'd just spent ten months
slogging through the white/gray/black of winter. I felt guilty for noticing
something as trivial as grass when Oh-God was near to dying; but how could I
ignore the rising sun and the warmth and the head-dizzy smell of Demothian
orchids growing somewhere close by?
As I climbed the porch steps (railings twined with fat crimson blooms of
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obscenely lush face-flowers), I remembered I was still wearing my Great St.
Caspian parka. I took it off; and, freckle scars or not, I slid up my
shirtsleeves to feel the lick of sun on my arms.
I don't want to say where that ranked on the orgasm scale.
Inside, the house was a speckly mix of sun and shadow: dapples of light
shining through gaps in the grass walls, sunbeams flat horizontal in the
budding dawn. "Through here," Voostor said; and we followed him past a parlor
filled with cane furniture, into a back room where dusty medical equipment
lined the walls. "This was all donated by the oil company," he explained.
"They have workers living in town; I'm paid a stipend to be on call if someone
gets sick. Almost never happens. Apart from bandaging minor bang-ups, I've
never had to use the equipment before." His face fell. "And now suddenly I get
a case of plague."
"Plague? Plague?" A woman's voice sounded sharply in an outer room. "What's
this about plague?"
"Nothing to worry about," Voostor called back. In a lower voice, he said, "My
wife. She had a hard time during the epidemic."
"I know," I said. I only had a second to steel myself before my mother
marched into the room.
Twenty-three years since I'd seen her... except that looking at her was half
like sizing myself up in a mirror. Blond her, blond me. Blue eyes, blue eyes.
Amazonian, Amazonian. Vigil training had given me a titch better muscle
definition, but Mother had obviously kept herself active; in shorts and
sleeveless blouse, she looked fit enough to wrestle a shanshan. How old was
she now, sixty-eight? As if that mattered with YouthBoost. She could pass for
thirty. The same way I could pass for thirty. And we could pass for each
other's sister. Not twins, but not near as different as I'd been telling
myself the past two decades.
We both did our hair the same way now basic bangs'n'butch. Coincidence enough
to scare the bejeezus out of me. It was a common style these days, and
supposedly flattering to the shape of my face... which meant it suited the
shape of her face too.
But still. Christ Almighty.
When she first came into the room, she didn't notice me all her attention was
centered on the examination table and Oh-God's slackening body. Mother had
done her share of time under the Big Top; she could recognize Pteromic
Paralysis as easily as any person alive. A pitiful sound came out of her
throat: part gasp, part choke, part sob. She wheeled away from the sight of
Oh-God lying slack on the edge of death... and her eyes lit on me.
Twenty-three years since we'd seen each other. I'd changed a healthy lot more [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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