A Matter of Oaths (22 page)

“How long did it take you to reach that compromise?” she
asked them, finding Rafe still sitting up but reattached to the monitor.

“He pulled rank,” Rafe answered.

“When all else failed,” Joshim admitted, taking the bowl of
stew and handing it to Rafe. Just half an hour had eased the tension from the
Webmaster’s face, although it would take far longer to erase the lines that
fourteen days of worry had carved there.

“Is he fit enough for some answers?” Rallya asked, setting
the mugs down within reach of the bed.

“He’s fit enough,” Joshim said, less cheerfully. He slipped
a protective arm around Rafe’s shoulders. Unnecessarily protective, Rallya
decided. Rafe was too tough to break under the weight of knowing that he was
indirectly responsible for Churi’s death. He might bend slightly, but it would
be invisible and short-lasting. Nobody reached the rank of Commander without
learning to live with the consequences of their actions, direct or indirect.

Rafe listened in silence as Rallya talked, his face showing
little reaction to her words. Once he nodded sharply, urging her past the
explanation of Sajan’s death that she offered, making the connections for
himself. Once he frowned, as if testing the name Yuellin Lord Buhklir against
his memory and finding no match. But throughout, Rallya could sense his anger
uncoiling to fill the room, could see Joshim reacting to the tension in his
shoulders. The quality of the anger made her ache with sympathy, left her braced
for an explosion when she finished speaking.

“Yes.”

The word was exhaled more than spoken, and with it passed
the possibility of a violent reaction. Rallya let her own breath go, less
obviously than Joshim.

“Joshim, we talked about restoring my memory before.” Rafe
was already back in control of himself, his anger not blinding him to the
essential next step. “How soon can we try that Aruranist technique?”

Rallya glared at Joshim. He had mentioned nothing to her
about Aruranist techniques when she had been worrying aloud about restoring
Rafe’s memory. She had known it must be feasible; if his nervous tissue could
recover so quickly from the random trauma of a massive overload, surely ten
years was long enough for it to recover from the systematic damage of
identity-wipe. And if the underlying nervous tissue had already healed, all
they needed to do to release the trapped memories was to find the right key.
She had spent a large part of the last fourteen days fruitlessly trying to
identify that key.

“When did you two discuss this?” she asked, the implications
dawning on her. If it had been before she revealed to Joshim her suspicions
about Rafe, then they must have believed that they were discussing real
Oath-breaking. It was a shock to realize that Joshim might have considered it.

“Don’t ask us that, ma’am, and we won’t ask you exactly when
you worked out who I was,” Rafe said coolly. “Joshim, how soon?”

“Not for several days,” Joshim said firmly. “You nearly died
in that web. You’re still a lot weaker than you want to believe and you know
better than anybody how much remembering takes out of you.”

Rafe looked rebellious and Joshim tapped him sharply on the
point of his nose, to Rallya’s secret delight. “I want the answers as much as
either of you,” he stated. “The answers, and the people they lead to. When you’re
strong enough, we’ll try it. But not before.”

“Good enough,” Rallya conceded, eight years’ experience
giving her the edge over Rafe in realizing when Joshim was immovable. “Wouldn’t
he feel better if he was horizontal?” she added innocently. “One way or
another.”

Rafe looked as if he wanted to throw his bowl of cold stew
at her, was prevented only by Joshim taking it out of his hands.

“I think I preferred you when I was unconscious, ma’am,” he
said as Joshim lifted him bodily and laid him flat on his back.

“I’m sure you did.” Rallya paused in the doorway. “Since you’re
now an honorary Commander, there’s no need to call me ma’am anymore.”

“I’m sure there isn’t,” Rafe mimicked. “But I enjoy it, ma’am.”

…Through the core of every life runs a vital thread of
experience, or a succession of interwoven threads, around which that life was
formed. If you would remember a life, seek its centre. Find such a thread,
follow its course, explore its linkages…

…Be guided by one who undertakes to journey with you,
following at a distance, an anchor to the present. This one will remain in
control where you will surely not…

“When you’re ready, move the fingers on your left hand.”

Joshim’s voice was filtered by the layers of relaxation that
lay between Rafe and him. Rafe moved his fingers, detached from his own action
by that same depth of relaxation, and dimly sensed the change in the air that
he was breathing as Joshim fed the hallucinogen through his drug-mask.

“Remember, when you want the antidote, the signal word is
Roshanir,” Joshim reminded him.

“Roshanir,” Rafe repeated obediently, still drifting through
a haze of muted reality, waiting for the drug to bring the change that Joshim
had promised. He had no intention of signalling for the antidote; they had too
little of the arthane to waste any. There was enough for three doses, and
Joshim judged that this first dose was unlikely to bring results, would only
make Rafe familiar with its effects and the ways of controlling them. They
would have been better prepared if Rafe had not turned down Joshim’s idea the
first time, but… If only won nothing except wasted time, Rafe reproved himself.
He should be concentrating on the clues that he had to the memories which he
was seeking.

Clues. Names. Yuellin Lord Buhklir. Sajan.
Janasayan
. The last of the three would
be the best starting point, Joshim had suggested. Rafe’s previous name might be
only a label for other people to use, with less significance for him than it
had for them; it was true that the name still woke no answer in him, for all
the logic that said it had to be his. And by her own admission, Sajan had not
been important to Yuellin. Although he had been important to her in the end,
and to his web-mates aboard
Avannya
,
and to Churi… Rafe turned away resolutely from that chain of thought.
Janasayan
: that was what he should be
focusing on, the ship that he had commanded.

He had been a Commander, should still be a Commander: that
felt satisfyingly true, a piece of a puzzle slotting into place, even though
the pieces around it were still missing. And a ship’s Commander too, not one of
the primping politicians in External Liaison or the power-seekers in Central
Support. That was the major flaw in the Guild’s organisation: the best webbers
were allowed to cling to their ships and the real power fell into other hands.
Rafe could almost hear somebody else — a nameless voice — saying that, and his
own faintly guilty denial.

A ship’s Commander, then.
Janasayan
’s Commander. Rafe cast around for a reaction to that
fact, an echo to lead him on. The function of the hallucinogen was to release
his mind from its familiar channels, to free him to follow those echoes through
his dormant memories. And it had begun to take effect, he realized. There was a
subtle change in the quality of the sounds and sensations reaching him, Joshim’s
voice, the texture of the bed beneath him. Curious, he opened his eyes and
blinked at the world, the sphere around him that expanded with each indrawn
breath and contracted with each exhalation. Joshim was still talking but the
words had ceased make sense, like a reck played alternately too fast and too
slow. Rafe grinned reassuringly and Joshim smiled back, splitting his face into
two halves that stretched in opposite directions across the cabin as Rafe
watched, fascinated.

“You’re well away.”

Rafe knew that the words had to be Joshim’s, but they
bounced in a great circle around the universe before they reached him like
rain.

“Cheap drunk,” he responded, for the sake of watching his
own words bounce back.

“Don’t forget why,” Joshim cautioned him.

“I remember why.
Janasayan
.
My ship. One third my ship.” Rafe closed his eyes against the sight of the
molten walls sliding into a puddle on the floor. “One third my ship. One third
Hafessya’s ship. One third Baruchya’s ship.” He opened his eyes again smugly. “I
do remember. Why are the walls melting?”

“Close your eyes again,” Joshim advised him. “Let me worry
about the walls. You tell me about Hafessya and Baruchya.”

“Hafessya and Ruchya,” Rafe corrected him. “Ruchya’s
Captain. Hafessya’s Webmaster.” It was easy to remember now; he could not
understand why it had been so hard before. “She’s a bully too.” The walls were
not really melting; it was the curtain of fluid falling in front of them that
made them look as if they were. “Somebody should turn the tap off.”

“They will.” Joshim reached out with a hand inflated like a
brown balloon and closed Rafe’s eyes. “You concentrate on remembering. Where
did you meet Hafessya?”

“Jenadir Station, when she and Ruchya were waiting there for
a new ship. We got
Janasayan
straight
from the construction dock, the first Amsiya class patrolship in either Empire.
I spent days just going around her, stroking the bulkheads when I thought
nobody was looking. Except Hafessya was looking.” Rafe blushed at the memory
and felt his skin sing all the way out to his extremities. “She used to
threaten to tell the web-room about it when she couldn’t control me any other
way.” He opened his eyes and watched his flesh ripple like waves on water,
resonating with the lingering blush. “How does it do that?”

“Trust me. Don’t worry about it,” Joshim told him. “Carry on
telling me about
Janasayan
. When was
she commissioned?”

“Fifty-twenty-eight. Just in time for the F’sair troubles.”
There was no need to open his eyes to see; the room had seeped in through his
eyelids and was painted on the inside in colours he had never seen before. “Can’t
we talk later?” he asked Joshim. “I want to watch the colours.” He had never
realized there were so many perfect colours.

“We’ll talk now,” Joshim insisted. “Do you remember why it’s
important?”

Rafe shook his head wilfully and the colours broke up into
dancing streaks of light. He laughed and his laughter broke into shards of
glass that showered them both. He pulled Joshim towards him protectively. “Be
careful. You’ll cut yourself.”

“I’ll be careful,” Joshim promised. “Tell me about the F’sair.”

“Nice people, apart from a defective sense of property. Don’t
believe in other people’s property. Steal anything that isn’t bolted down.
Stole me once.”

“They stole you?”

“Apologized for it.” Rafe giggled. “Very formal apology.
Didn’t give me back though.” He could see the canine war-leader ritually
offering food and drink, the interior of the warship, the ranked warriors drawn
up to do him honour. And to stop him escaping. As if he could have escaped, the
only human on a F’sair warship, not even knowing where they were headed.
Scared, but that was something the F’sair must not guess. Take the food and
drink. Compliment her on her ship, her warriors. Wait. Keep waiting… He shied
away from the end of that wait, sensing the monster at the end of the tunnel. “Ugly,
but nice people. Always did what they’d contracted to do.” Joshim was
dissolving in his arms. He grasped him tighter, felt him slipping between his
fingers. “Don’t go,” he urged.

“I won’t. Tell me, if the F’sair didn’t give you back, where
did they take you?”

“Don’t know. Don’t remember.” As long as he did not move, he
was safe.

“Don’t remember, or don’t want to remember?” Joshim
prompted.

“Don’t know. Don’t want to know.”

Rafe opened his eyes, looking for something outside himself
to drive away the fear. He had shrunk in the darkness into a tiny body on a
mountainous surface that would not keep still but bucked beneath him like an
angry sea. Far above him, sounds were dropping out of an open cavern rimmed
with white slabs of stone. He twisted away to avoid being crushed, clinging
desperately to the sea that was trying to throw him off.

“Close your eyes and hold my hands. Come on. It’s too soon
to give in. Remember my name? Tell me.”

Joshim. Rafe formed the word in light and felt it smear like
warm oil across his skin, saw the cavern twist into an open mouth and a face
behind it.

“Tell me out loud.”

“Joshim.”

“Good. Now tell me your name.”

Rafe. Closest name, never rejected. All the others were
escaping, like water through sand. He clutched at the one that remained,
anchored himself to it. “Rafe.”

“Do you remember what we’re doing?”

“Remembering.” Rafe focused on that, on sorting Joshim’s
voice from the cacophony pressing in on him. “Out of control.”

“Not quite. Ready to go on?”

“Ready,” Rafe agreed. “Hold me still though. Don’t let me
move or I’ll fall.”

“I’ll hold you. Shall we talk about your family? Your
father?”

“Don’t know who he was. Mother never said. Not even what he
was, only near-human and anybody could have told that from looking at me. She
needed a father for a child. Didn’t matter who, only when. Wanted me born
before my uncle’s first child. And I was, by three days. She had me cut out of
her, to make sure I’d be first. My uncle was furious, not to have thought of it
himself. Tried to get it declared illegal. Couldn’t. Had to accept me as his
heir. Officially. Never really accepted me.”

His uncle’s face wavered in the air around them, with the
angry scowl that was permanently reserved for Rafe. Rafe made a rude gesture in
return and the old man vanished.

“He never believed I didn’t want the title. Buhklir, I mean.
All I wanted was to be a webber. Grew up on Guild ships. Never wanted to be
anything else. Mother was a diplomat. Dragged me around in her baggage. Didn’t
trust her brother to keep me safe while she was gone. Wasn’t much safer with
her. She died on Hurth when the negotiations went wrong. I would have died too
but they didn’t kill children and they reopened the negotiations before I got
old enough to be killed.”