Crossways (33 page)

Well . . . something or someone had peeled off the limpets, and when Kitty Keely had stepped through onto the
Simonides
in the Folds she'd proved that the term “solid” had little meaning in foldspace, but void dragons? Come on. She'd never seen a void dragon, but still there were navigators' tales. She'd always thought they were made up to perpetuate the myth.

Ben's voice continued:
Then I ran out of luck, and air, and warmth. I managed to get back to safety through an emergency hatch.

Ben certainly had the broken wrist. Ronan had confirmed that it was more like a crush injury than the sort of break that resulted from a fall.

She didn't know what to think. Ben himself had told her:
If I tell you what did happen to me out there, you'll tell me I'm a fantasist,
but he'd admitted:
It may have been a big hallucination, but it felt real.

She didn't know what scared her most: the fact that Ben had had a massive hallucination in foldspace, or the fact that maybe he hadn't. If he hadn't, then maybe the stories were true. There were things living in foldspace, things not only alien, but things from another dimension.

Ben lay cradled by the contour bed, semi-recumbent, eyes closed, listening to what was in his head, exploring what he could sense around him. His arms and legs felt like jelly but his thoughts were jumping all over the place.

His bed faced hubward. That one thought gave him immense satisfaction. It didn't prove he was a Psi-1 Navigator, but it did prove his skills were not completely lost.

“Feels strange, doesn't it?” a voice said.

“Jussaro?” Ben recognized the voice and ran it through his mental checklist of who he'd expected to find in his hospital room and frowned. He opened his eyes and blinked rapidly before screwing them up against the glare.

“Sheesh, Benjamin, your eyes are like drill holes, all pupil. Lights down,” Jussaro said, and the ceiling panels dimmed.

“Thanks.” Ben shaded his eyes with one hand. “Cara?”

“Exhausted. Sent her home to sleep it off. There are a couple of nurses close by if you need anything.”

“No.” Ben shook his head and winced.

“Pain?” Jussaro asked.

“Not exactly. Not now.”

“Feels weird?”

Ben grunted agreement. “It's almost the same, yet entirely unlike . . .”

Jussaro grunted. “Me, too, though I was out cold when they did my second implant. I guess yours hurt.”

“You could say that.” Pain was always difficult to recall. There was a memory of the fact that it hurt, but the feeling had gone. Truly gone. Endorphins, probably. That was the mind's own protective mechanism. If you really remembered pain you'd never risk doing anything dangerous again.

“It didn't go quite according to Jamieson's plan,” Jussaro said.

“I guessed there was a bit of a fuss.”

“Jamieson wanted to abort, but Ronan said no, and Cara made the decision to continue.”

“Should I thank her?”

“You should. She probably saved your life, or at least your mind.”

“Second time in—how long?”

“Five days.”

“Getting to be a habit,” Ben said. “How much does Crowder know about all this?”

“He knows you're alive, but in bad condition. He doesn't know about the implant, because I didn't know when I made my last report. I'm going to try not to let it slip when I make my next report.”

“What difference does it make?”

“My implant's got a kill switch. I have to play by Crowder's rules.”

“You believe what he says about a kill switch?”

“Let's put it this way, I don't want to put it to the test.”

“If mine had had a kill switch I'd be dead by now,” Ben said.

“Not necessarily. Have you ever seen what they do to remove an implant?”

“Only seen the results. It doesn't happen often.”

“Exactly.” Jussaro touched his own forehead. “They can't take it out, they kill it instead. Every implant has a kill code. To kill it they need to input the code from short range. It powers down instantly. Bang, gone. Over the next few months the remains gradually shrivel, but that hardly matters. The real damage has been done.”

“How short is short range?”

“Line of sight. Two meters, maybe three. The kill switch isn't meant to be used as a weapon,” Jussaro continued, “but it could be, if the right person had the right code.”

“I went up against Crowder on Chenon and he certainly didn't have a kill switch then.”

“He wasn't expecting you then.”

“Fair point.” Ben was silent for a moment. “He'll have Cara's code, too.”

“I think it's safe to say he'll have the codes for everyone on your team, but it's not like firing a pistol. The code has to be programmed into the machine, and it's not a device you can carry around in your pocket. It's handheld, but not small. It's about half a meter long and twenty centimeters wide and deep. The machines I've seen can maybe do one deletion per minute if the operator can program quickly enough.” Jussaro let the information sink in. “You're free of that, Benjamin. New implant, new design. No kill switch. I
checked with Professor Jamieson. I can help you make the most of what you've got, but in return I need to know how you managed to get rid of your implant so effectively.”

“If I knew I'd tell you.”

“You do know. The information's in there somewhere. Work with me and we'll find it.”

“Right now?”

“Right now. You need to work it, expand the pathways, make the most of what you've got.”

“I feel as though I've been through a mincer and reconstituted with some of the bits in the wrong place.”

“That's remarkably astute.”

“Bits in the wrong place?”

“In a way. The implant filled up all the old pathways, taking the line of least resistance, but it burrowed into new areas, too. You've almost certainly not lost anything you had before, but you might have gained a grade or two.”

“I was already a Psi-1 Navigator.”

“But not much of a Telepath, Cara told me. You might find that's changed, or maybe you'll have acquired a talent you didn't used to have. You might be a Finder or a Psi-Mech, a Healer or a little of all of them.”

“Is that likely?”

“It's rare. Thing is, there's a window of opportunity, and if you let it slip past, you might never know.”

“Window of opportunity?”

“You're buzzing now, right?”

“Buzzing, yes. Energized, perhaps, mentally anyway.”

“It won't last. You'll crash soon. Before that happens we've got work to do.”

“Work?”

“You'll thank me later.”

Ben wasn't sure that he was ever going to thank Jussaro, but by the following afternoon he realized that not only was he not as tired as he had been, but he was beginning to make noticeable improvements in his Telepathy. Maybe he wasn't ever going to be more than a Psi-4, but he'd been almost a deadhead before, able to receive but hardly able to throw a thought further than the end of his nose.

Contacting Cara for the first time was a breakthrough.

*Ben!*
She almost overwhelmed him with the strength of her answer, shot through with pure delight.

*There's nothing more they can do here, I've been discharged.*

*I'll come and get you.*

*I can manage.*

*No, I'll come and get you. Crowder's had two tries to take you out. Garrick's got enough security at Dockside Medical to start a small war, but we're all vulnerable moving around the station. I'll bring a team. Besides, Ronan says you've got to take it easy.*

He sighed. She was right, dammit, but that wasn't going to stop him.
*All right.*
He tried to sound meek, but he wasn't sure he'd fooled her.

Ben refused a float chair and walked out of the med center with a look of grim determination on his face. Cara was watching him. He fancied she was waiting for him to stumble and admit weakness.

He wasn't going to.

He knew he hadn't fooled her, but they were playing a game. One falter and she'd be on him like a tiger.

The waiting tub was at the far end of the pull-in. At a signal from Cara the guard brought it front and center. It was still almost too far. His thigh muscles trembled and he had to sit down quickly to cover his shakiness.

Cara slid in opposite. Two tubs with three guards in each flanked them in the transit lane.

“Ronan says you're nowhere near fit yet.”

“I'm getting there.”

She grunted, not an encouraging sound. “I'll go after your Nan.”

“No.”

“I'm not asking.” She hissed out a breath, angry. “This is how it all started in the first place. Why can't you accept help when it's offered?”

“Because I don't want to see anyone else injured on my behalf.”

“Especially not me.”

“I didn't say that.”

“You didn't have to.”

What could he say? She was right. Was he being overprotective? Of course he damn well was and he knew it. Not
just of Cara, but of everyone. That had always been one of his failings. She'd accused him of having White Knight Syndrome before and she was right. Getting over it wasn't going to be easy. He'd never liked sending somebody to do a job he wasn't prepared to do himself.

He took a deep breath.

“Go. I'll just hold you back.”

“Was that so difficult?”

“Hardest thing I've ever had to do in my life.”

“No it wasn't.” There was a smile hovering behind her eyes. “Besides, you're in no condition to stop me.”

“I know. Try not to get anyone killed.”

“I'll do my best.”

“Including yourself.”

“I'll do my best.”

“Take Ronan, too.”

“Why, so that he can look after me for you?” She scowled.

“No, because of Nan. You haven't been able to get through to her implant. She could be drugged up to the eyeballs on reisercaine. At her age, who knows what that might do? You need a medic and Ronan can handle himself.”

“Yes, he can. You're right.”

She reached over and squeezed his hand, briefly.

“Hilde reported back. We've got a lead.”

“When were you going to tell me this?”

“Depended on whether you were willing to see reason.”

“I've seen it, now tell me.”

“Max's old flame Lorin planted the bug in the matrix on condition they got her safe passage off Chenon before everything kicked off. She's already made a run for it with a hefty credit balance. I figured you wouldn't begrudge the cash.”

Ben shook his head.

“The bug is burrowing deep. Mother Ramona's number crunchers have found a few holes. Does Building 18 mean anything to you?”

“Building 18? Yes. You've been there yourself, or at least walked over its remains. It's an old underground facility that was closed off when the grapple arena was built on top of it.”

“There's a building under there?”

“Nine floors of it.”

“We think that's where she is.”

“It's going to be a tough extraction,” Ben said. “Crowder's heartland.”

“Yes, but we know the ground.”

“If you can cope with a direct infodump, I'll show you a full plan of the place, a Navigator's insight into the twists and turns.”

“I'll take that. Thanks.”

“I'll meet you on Chenon in four days at the farm.”

“Four days?” She gave him a disapproving look.

“Now who's getting overprotective?” he said. “I won't take any risks, but you'll never pry Rion out of the farm and off Chenon without me, and
Solar Wind
will give us a clean getaway. I may not be much use in a scrap, right now, but I can still drive the bus. And I won't be alone.”