Antagonist - Childe Cycle 11 (18 page)

CHAPTER
10

"Dahno's
going
to
be
all
right,"
Toni
said
now,
apparently
still
trying
to
give
Bleys
a
better
understanding
of
what
had
happened
during
his
blackout.
She
shifted
position
slightly
as
she
knelt
beside one
of
the
wounded
soldiers,
perhaps
trying
to
ease
the
strain
on her
knees
while
she
bent
over
to
pry
up
the
edge
of
an
adhesive bandage
and
lean
close,
peering.
Pushing
herself
back
up,
she
nodded
to
the
side
and
back,
to
indicate
another
body
Bleys
had
not seen
clearly
up
to
this
point.
Bleys
rose
and
stepped
past
her,
to kneel
beside
his
older
half-brother.

"How're
you
doing,
brother?"
Bleys
said.

"You
heard
Toni!"
Dahno
snapped
testily.
His
face
was
pale
and haggard,
tired
and
sweaty
and
dirty.
His
white
shirt
was
open
down the
front,
with
a
bandage
showing
underneath;
there
was
blood
on the
shirt.
His
brown
jacket
was
rolled
up
under
his
head.

Bleys
was
reminded
of
a
moment,
years
in
the
past,
when
he
had come
upon
his
brother,
asleep,
during
a
particularly
stressful
episode in
their
lives,
and
had
seen
the
normally
smiling,
cheerful
face
showing
deep
exhaustion
and
worry.

"Two
needles,"
Toni
said,
looking
over
her
shoulder
at
them. "One's
still
inside
his
chest,
where
I
think
it
was
stopped
by
a
rib, but
I've
controlled
the
bleeding."

"Don't
worry,"
Bleys
said
to
his
brother.
"I
had
worse
than
this on
Newton."

"Maybe,"
said
Dahno.
"That
doesn't
help."

"We
ran
out
of
pain-blocks,"
Toni
said.
After
a
pause
to
adjust whatever
she
was
working
on,
she
spoke
again:
"My
wristpad
was damaged
when
I
fell
outside,
but
if
you
can
try
again
to
get
through to
Henry,
he
can
bring
more
blocks
with
him
when
he
gets
here

with
the
Soldiers."
She
was
referring,
he
knew,
to
his
bodyguards, rather
than
any
military
forces.

He
also
knew
she
was
prompting
him
again,
still
trying
to
get him
up
to
speed.

"I'll
try
again."
He
nodded
at
her.
He
didn't
remember
trying
before,
but
her
words
told
him
he
must
have
done
so.

Bringing
his
left
arm
up
as
he
moved
across
the
room,
he
slid
back the
wide
cuff
of
his
dark
gray
jacket—now
smeared
with
drying
yellow
mud—and
looked
at
the
control
pad
on
his
wrist.
It
was
currently in
a
map-display
mode;
apparently
he
had
been
trying
to
determine their
exact
location.
He
did
not
remember
doing
that,
either.

He
reset
the
wristpad
for
communications,
but
found
the
usual channels
jammed.
He
programmed
the
pad
to
run
a
continuous scan
of
the
local
channels,
looking
for
an
open
one;
and
as
he watched
the
rapidly
shifting
displays,
he
silently
reviewed
what
he had
learned
about
their
situation.

Always,
when
he
had
emerged
from
a
blackout,
his
memory
of events
leading
up
to
it
had
been
sharp
and
clear,
right
up
to
the point
where
he
went
blank—and
while
he
had
never
recovered
a memory
of
anything
that
occurred
during
a
blackout,
he
had
always awakened
from
them
with
his
mind
once
more
sharp
and
clear.

This
time,
his
memory
seemed
sluggish,
as
if
some
part
of
his mind
was
unwilling
to
expend
the
energy
required
to
drive
the
focal
point
of
his
consciousness
through
the
murky
haze
that
obscured
events
of—of
how
long?
He
could
not
even
pin
down
where the
hazy
part
of
his
memories
began;
he
had
a
feeling
it
went
back into
a
time
before
the
actual
blackout
had
begun.

Now,
why
did
he
think
that?
More
accurately,
why
did
he
feel
as if
that
was
the
case?

Willing
his
mind
to
focus
on
the
problem,
rather
than
give
in
to its
apparent
inclination
to
blend
with
the
fog
about
it,
he
found there
was
a
hidden
part
of
himself
that
believed
this
particular blackout
had
begun
very
recently.
But
it
seemed
to
have
cast
confusion
over
a
longer
stretch
of
his
memory.

Kaj
Menowsky,
his
personal
medician,
had
told
him
that
stress could
not
only
retard
his
body's
continuing
efforts
to
heal
itself
from the
effects
of
the
Newtonians'
attack
on
his
DNA,
but
also
trigger
a
blackout.
And
Kaj
had
warned
him
that
any
such
retardation
of
his body's
healing
process
would
increase
the
period
of
time
in
which he
would
continue
to
be
subject
to
such
blackouts.

Kaj
had
also
told
him
he
could
heal
himself
faster
if
he
could
find a
way
to
harness
his
own
creative
powers,
somehow—and
in
fact
he had
done
so
once,
in
the
worst
part
of
his
bout
with
the
DNA
antagonist,
working
his
way
through
a
series
of
dreams
that
seemed
to have
somehow
taught
his
body
what
needed
to
be
done;
at
least, Kaj
had
been
pleased
with
his
progress
after
those
dreams.

Could
it
be
that
his
subconscious
mind,
unaffected
by
the
blackouts,
was
trying
to
send
messages
to
his
conscious
mind?
Was
this some
new
manifestation
of
those
same
creative
powers
Kaj
had prompted
him
to
work
with?
It
occurred
to
him,
for
the
first
time, that
the
creative
powers
he
had
used
might
have
been
simply
his subconscious
mind
at
work.

It
was
clear
he
had
been
under
a
lot
of
stress,
in
the
events— whatever
they
were—that
had
led
to
his
current
situation;
he
wondered
now
whether
that
same
stress
might
have
become
so
great
that his
subconscious
mind
could
deal
with
it
only
by
putting
his
consciousness
back
in
charge.
That
might
explain
his
unprecedented
act of
coming
out
of
the
blackout
while
awake,
for
instance.
But
if
so, there
was
likely
a
price
to
be
paid—Kaj
would
happily
tell
him
so,
if he
were
here—and
possibly
his
current
confusion
was
that
price.

In
that
case,
his
subconscious
mind
had
left
him
in
a
bad
spot.
It was
going
to
be
very
hard
for
him
to
pull
them
all
out
of
this
when his
memory
was
foggy
about
whatever
had
happened
before
his awakening.
He
needed
information
above
all.
So
far
he
seemed
unable
to
remember
the
recent
past
with
any
depth;
he
could
only
pull up
particular
memories
when
something
triggered
an
association.