Bitter Angels (26 page)

“Welcome to my world,” said Orry as he parked us near the grandly arched front door.

“Yeah.” I climbed out. “Yeah.”

Siri still had a constant headache, but the med techs had assured me six or seven times that she was in basically good shape. Even so, I ordered her into the clinic for the night, and she went without too much grumbling.

“Are you going to tell me what happened?” asked Orry as we left the clinic for the crowded lobby.

I grimaced. “Not yet. I need to stop moving for a while. I need…”
I need more than I can explain to you
. “Is there someplace I can crash?”

“This way,” he said kindly. I knew he was burning with curiosity, but he also saw the state I was in. He led me up the stairs to one of the dim rooms on the first floor and lifted aside the piece of flexible sheeting that served as a door. The chamber beyond had been stripped down to the foundations a long time ago. The floor and walls were nothing but dusty stone. Curtains made of more grimy sheeting covered the window. The outside light leaked in a little around the edges. The only furnishing was a bed in the corner
made up of a thin mattress on top of tightly tied bales of what might have been more sheeting.

It wasn’t spinning, and it had a horizontal place I could lie down. Heaven.

“Thanks,” I said. “Is there…is there a secure station you can route those messages from David through?”

“Give me your glasses.” Orry held out his hand. “I’ll cross-load them myself.”

I pulled my glasses out of my belt pocket and handed them over.

“Anything else?” he asked as he pocketed them. I shook my head.

“Get some rest.” He laid a hand on my shoulder and shook me gently, a gesture that chided me to remember I was not in this alone.

Then, to my relief, he left.

I walked over to the bed and sat down. I wrapped my arms around myself, stared at the sheeting hung in the threshold, and waited.

Slowly, set free by stillness and safety and the realization that I was not only alive but was likely to stay that way, the aftermath began. Goose pimples trembled on my arms. My skin crawled. The tremors worked their way deeper, until my muscles cramped and spasmed. Uncontrolled—and uncontrollable—shudders shook my whole body. Tears poured in rivers down my cheeks. I clamped my jaw shut with every ounce of strength I had.

Unwatched and alone, I fell apart.

I’d watched a man and a woman die. I didn’t know them. I didn’t know if they were good or bad, if they had family or were alone. I just knew they had been alive, and now they were not.

She’d saved my life and maybe she’d just almost gotten me and Siri killed. We’d made it, though, by the skin of our teeth. But it almost didn’t matter, because no amount of living could change what Bianca had done. It couldn’t erase the attack and how we’d fought for our lives. Nothing could change anything I had done or seen, and all I could do was sit and shake until my body had purged its fear and decided to let me rest.

Eventually, the trembling did ease. Slowly, I was able to breathe without sobbing between clenched teeth, and the tears dried on my face. Slowly, I was able to stretch myself out on the shifting, lumpy bed and sleep.

Dr. Gwin’s ministrations cleared up the worst of Siri’s headache and faded the purple-and-black bruise down to green and yellow, but Gwin wouldn’t do anything about the slight queasiness from the too-light gravity and too-fast spinning of the little moon.

“You’ll get used to it,” Dr. Gwin announced. “You did before.”

“So much for the healer’s oath.”

“First, do no harm,” recited Dr. Gwin placidly. “Not allowing your body to make its own adjustments would leave you dependent on chemicals. Very harmful.”

In the back of her mind, Siri knew Shawn was smiling at her. It did nothing for her temper.

The doctor was certainly a stubborn one, that much was certain. Nothing Siri could say to Gwin—or any of the three assistants who came and went during the clinic’s night shift—could get her released. Shawn spent the time alternating between sneering at her protests of “I feel fine!” and suggesting she just make the best of it and get some rest.

“It’s just another couple of hours, Siri,” Shawn replied. “It will wait.”

Even Shawn could not argue with that.

Somewhere into the second hour of trying to get some sleep on the narrow, sterile monitor bed the clinic staff had threatened to strap her into, Vijay walked in.

He was clutching his arm and swearing, and it took Siri a good three minutes to realize the thug with blood dripping down his wrist was Vijay. She sat up straight, mouth open. He perched on the edge of the one empty bed and didn’t even look at her while he held his arm out for the clinician, who swabbed and sealed and asked what he’d done to himself.

“None of your fucking business,” snarled Vijay…Edison. His cover name was Edison.

The clinician shrugged. “You’re going to want to take it easy for a few hours while that sets, or you’ll split yourself open again. The bed’s free if you want it.”

In response, Vijay/Edison kicked his boots off and dropped backward until he lay stretched out on the cot. He grinned over at her.

“Hey, lady, come here often?”

Siri rolled her eyes. “What century are you from?”

“You pick. I won’t disappoint.”

They couldn’t say anything real. She hadn’t swept the room yet.

“So, were you with that load of Guardians that got caught by the smugglers?” He folded his hands behind his head.

“How’d you hear about that?”

Vijay jerked his chin toward the door. “It’s been big news. Everybody’s got their parts in knots. There’ve been lockdowns,
searches, bunch of arrests. The whole big security-theater spectacular.”

“Yeah, well, it wasn’t all that much on our end.” Which wasn’t true, but that was not important now. “We’re all okay.”
I’m okay
. She thought toward him.
I promise. And you’re taking a hell of a risk with your cover
.

“Did you expect any less?” murmured Shawn.

Siri swallowed.
I didn’t even think about it, but this is killing me
. She wanted to reach out to him. No. She wanted to fall into his arms and hold on for a year.

“Keep it together. Just think about what Terese will do if she hears about this.”

Which effectively destroyed any urge to break cover.

“If you’re okay, what’re you doing in here?” Vijay wrinkled his forehead. If he’d had any eyebrows left on his scarred face, he would have been raising them.

“Failed to duck fast enough.” Siri shrugged, and wished she hadn’t. A wave of queasiness ran through her. “Nothing huge. But my commanding officer is paranoid and she wants me under observation.”

It was clear from his expression Vijay didn’t believe her, at least not completely, but what could he say?

“So, you hear any more about this Bianca Fayette thing over there?” he asked curiously. “Everybody’s saying that’s what your bunch is here for.”

Siri closed her eyes. Terese didn’t want to believe Bianca could break the rules, but Siri believed it, and she knew Vijay would.

But that time had been one person. This time…it was a whole world. Terese had only been doing her job. Bianca had been…Bianca had been…even now she could barely think it.

“Do you want me to send a burst to Took?” Took was Vijay’s Companion. Across short distances, for extremely short time frames, one Companion could send a data burst to another.

“Well, that can’t be good.” Vijay rolled over on his side and propped his head on his hand. “So what is it?”

“You talk too much.” Siri rolled over on her back.

“Got nothin’ else to do in here, and you’re a hell of a lot better-looking than that aide.”

“You’re a freakin’ Neanderthal.”

“And I bet you just love that in a guy.”

Siri bit her lips in an effort to frown, remembering how she’d react if Vijay was what he seemed to be. “Shut it. I want to get some sleep.”

“Oh, come on, we could be good. Guardian and gorilla.”

Siri’s gaze slipped sideways, and she tried to read Vijay’s expression. Was he actually suggesting they put on a relationship act for the cameras? It was a risky move, but it would give them an excuse for meeting, instead of just making drops…

“I’m attached,” said Siri out loud.

“How attached?”

Siri rolled over on her side and let her eyes travel up and down Vijay slowly, appraisingly. “Enough that I don’t have to take anything that comes along.”

“Good. I hate it when they’re desperate.”

“Why do I get the feeling that’s a lie?”

Vijay grinned at her, and underneath the scarring and the hard talk, she saw his relief. She’d shown him what he wanted most to see, that she was all right, truly.

“You see right through me,” Vijay whispered in a tone of overly oily seduction. “And I just love that idea.”

“Shut it,” she said. “Before you wreck your chances.” And she rolled over on her back, folded her arms, and closed her eyes.

It was a struggle, but she managed to stay that way. Somewhere, exhaustion caught up with her, and she did sleep. When she woke up in the flickering light that passed for dawn on Dazzle, he was gone.

But he’d left a folded-up scrap of sheeting beside her pillow with the name EDISON RAY scrawled on it. As she picked it up, Siri felt the slight weight of a sliver drive.

Either Dr. Gwin decided she was recovered, or Siri had finally worn the clinic staff down. It didn’t really matter. Gwin cleared her for release, and she marched out into the
lobby, bouncing awkwardly before she remembered to adjust her gait for the lighter gravity. She didn’t change her direction at all, though, she just headed straight for the door and out into the streets.

The battered, stripped-down lobby was exactly as she remembered it, as were the people who passed to and fro: the ragged Baby Ds and the bustling Solarans trying to keep their own spirits and professionalism up in the face of the poverty that they could do little about, and the constant grind of permanent servitude, which they could do nothing about at all. The air was filled with the mixed smells of dust, unwashed bodies, and, incongruously, hot fresh food. Siri’s stomach rumbled painfully.

“Breakfast,” Shawn agreed.

Siri turned her footsteps toward the cafeteria, but stopped when she saw Liang Chen coming down the stairs with a steaming mug in one hand and an ancient datapad in the other.

She and Liang had not gotten along well the last time she was here. Back then, she’d thought it was part of his general dislike of the Guardians. But she found herself wondering what he had known about Bianca and her intentions. Vijay wouldn’t have told her that the word was out that they were here about Bianca if it wasn’t true. Had Liang been talking?

“Hello, Liang,” said Siri quietly.

The director of the aid mission on Dazzle stopped in midstride and looked around, confused for a moment. When he saw her, he frowned.

“Well enough that they let me out.” She jerked her chin over her shoulder toward the clinic entrance. “Is my old room still there?”