Stewards of the Flame (48 page)

“They’re likely to watch his movements for at least a week after his release. If they tie them to mine, I’ll be taken off his case and placed under suspicion. You know what that could lead to.” Peter sighed. “I may be asking the impossible. Yet I can’t believe that after all that’s happened—all the sacrifices that have been made—we can be defeated by this one small obstacle. Not when the Group’s future is at stake, which it is.”

“I’d better get started tonight. I don’t dare log on remotely; we’ve never risked using an identifiable Net address. Yet I’ll need to stay home with Jesse while he recovers.”

“That’s another thing,” Peter said. “Since you’re my assistant, it can’t become known that he lives with you—he can’t ever go back to your apartment. I’ll arrange for him to have his own, in one of Xiang Li’s buildings, since their association is already accepted. Kira will take him there tomorrow; the Hospital knows she sometimes works as a private nurse and it’s reasonable for me, as his doctor, to engage one. You’ll have to sneak in after dark and make sure you’re not observed.”

“Always?” If they could never go to the Island and never be seen together in the city, how were they going to manage year after year?

Don’t worry about that now,
Peter advised, exhaustion once again overtaking him. Aloud he said, “I’ve ordered sedation for Jesse tonight. Go tell him that when he wakes he’ll be freed from this place—I’m not up to seeing him. Then get some rest while you can. Tomorrow will be time enough for the hacking.”

“Peter, I can’t leave you like this,” Carla said, longing to rush to Jesse, yet aware that for the first time within memory, Peter’s strength might not hold. Jesse would be all right now. Peter was obviously near collapse.

“I have to be alone for a while,” Peter declared. “You can’t help me. Stay with Jesse until he’s back to normal, and wait for a summons to the Lodge. When I get there, I’ll be fit to take on the role I’ve inherited.”

~
 
52
 
~

When Jesse came fully awake, he was in a strange bed, a wide bed he vaguely recalled having shared with Carla. She was standing near him, silhouetted against a sunlit window. Disoriented at first, he assumed for a moment he must be dreaming again. “What happened?” he asked. “How did I escape?”

“You were released,” Carla told him. “I don’t know why; Peter wouldn’t tell me. It’s official, though. You were cleared of the most serious charges.”

“But they saw me burn Zeb’s body—”

“Yes, so you’re still on probation. You can’t be seen with me except when you visit Peter’s office as an outpatient. And—you are microchipped, Jesse. The authorities will keep track of where you are; that’s why you’re here in your own apartment instead of in mine.”

“Microchipped?” he echoed in dismay. “Permanently?”

“Yes, but it’s going to happen to us all, soon, Peter says. He’s got some long-range plan for dealing with it.”

“He told me that once, too. I guess I can’t complain about being the guinea pig, after what I’ve been saved from.” He flexed his hands, savoring their release from the heavy bandaging that had been necessary to conceal their healing. “I don’t see why the Meds let me go. Did they find evidence against the real arsonist after all?”

“I just don’t know, Jesse. Peter said there was a—a terrible price for your freedom. I don’t think he meant money. If the authorities could be bought, he’d have gotten you out sooner. He said that we’re all now—obligated. And he was more upset than I’ve ever seen him, despite being happy for you.”

“Oh, God. What have I done to the Group by letting myself get caught?”

“You mustn’t think that way!” Carla declared. “You saved Kira, probably Peter and Ian, too—maybe even the rest of us. Everyone admires you for what you did.”

“Am I—normal, Carla? Was I given enough of the drug to damage my brain?”

“You’re fine now. You’ve been recovering for nearly four days—Peter said you should sleep it off, so Kira sedated you hypnotically. That’s why you have no memory of her bringing you here.”

“The last thing I remember clearly was our minds joining when we were separated. When I was locked up alone and you were somewhere else, but it didn’t matter, we came together anyway . . . was that real?”

“Yes. Kira said that by lessening your capacity for normal awareness, the drug must have put you into a state that enhanced your telepathic power. It was awesome, Jesse, though hardly a method we’d have chosen.”

“There’s a better way to enhance telepathy,” Jesse agreed, reaching out to her. Carla took off her clothes and got into bed with him. They made love in relief and gladness, sharing their bodies and minds fully. Afterward they both slept, free of the past week’s anguish.

Late in the afternoon Carla’s phone woke them. While she was talking Jesse rose and showered, feeling not merely normal but great. When he came out of the bathroom he saw right away that the respite from stress had been brief. “Are you well enough to fly?” she asked. “We’re wanted at the Lodge—now. Ian died this morning. Kira said that Peter wants everyone to come.”

Jesse felt a surge of grief. His dream of Ian was still clear in his memory; it was as if the contact with him had been as real as his telepathic contact with Carla. Knowing that he was gone hurt, just as it must hurt those who’d been privileged to be among his longtime friends.

They dressed quickly and grabbed sandwiches to eat in the plane. It had been moved from the dock near the burned house, where it might be watched; Xiang Li, as the lien holder, had arranged for it to be moored in a basin closer to the apartment. Carla could not go in the water taxi with Jesse, she explained, and she disguised her face with heavy makeup when she set out to walk, hiding her hair under a tightly-wrapped scarf. By the time she got there, he had completed the preflight check and was having the power cells recharged.

Taxiing away from the recharging station, Jesse could scarcely believe that the bad time had happened. He was totally himself in the air. It didn’t seem possible that he had, for a few days, been less than himself. Now all his senses, all his perceptions of life, were suddenly illumined, and he knew that he would never again take its wonders for granted. Despite the happiness he’d found on Undine, the old emptiness and futility had not, until now, been completely behind him. It had taken the near-loss of his mind—and the discovery of its imperishable essence—to show him that Peter was right in insisting,
we win simply by being who we are.

Carla spoke over the hum of the engine. “There’s something you have to know, Jesse. I didn’t want to spoil your joy sooner than I had to—but this is our last trip to the Island. The microchip reveals where you go, and so avoiding medical telemetry’s no longer enough to conceal your presence there. More than ever the Island’s not safe, if Ian has died. Peter owns it, now.”

He stared at her, for a moment crushed. Never to go to the Lodge again? Never to walk on the shore or swim in the places they had swum together, never to sit side by side before the fireplace where they’d first made love? It would be hard. And yet, it was a small deprivation beside the one he’d just escaped; the pain of mere exile could not touch him.

“My joy’s not spoiled,” he told her. “I have my mind back—and I have you. There are other islands, Carla—dozens of them! I saw a lot of nice ones when I was flying with Zeb. We could build a cabin of our own—”

“You’re forgetting that I can’t be known to associate with you,” she said sadly. In the plane she’d removed the grotesque makeup, but it would have to be reapplied.

“I’ve been thinking about that,” he said. “Since I’m not under suspicion anymore, knowing me won’t endanger you. If the only reason you can’t be seen with me is that you’re Peter’s assistant, maybe you should quit your job—marry me legally and pretend to hate him for what he did to me while I was hospitalized. I have plenty of assets to borrow on; you don’t need to work. We could live full time away from the city, just go in once a week when I have to report to him as an outpatient.”

“I never thought of that!” Carla exclaimed. “Oh, Jesse, we could—except I have to be on hand for the hacking, you know. Speaking of which, the only reason we can go to the meeting tonight is that I hacked the tracking system. I coded the patch to activate when we reach Maclairn’s coordinates. It will show you’re on Verge Island; that’s close enough for our flight path to seem right. But I put a timer on it, because it’s not safe to leave a routine like that running too long. It will self-destruct, so we have to leave for Verge at sunrise.”

“Carla, it doesn’t sound safe for you to have done it at all! Much as I want to see the Lodge once more, and to take part in Ian’s burial—”

“Peter said it was important. He wants you for more than the burial; this Group meeting was set up even before Ian died. I think . . . he’s going to reveal the secret he’s been keeping from you all this time.”

“You mean Ian’s dream?”

“You already know about that?”

“Not what happened in it. But in the Hospital, when I . . . wanted to die, he told me Ian had dreamed about me. That if my brain were to be damaged it couldn’t have meant what they thought, and yet Ian believed it did. That I shouldn’t lose hope of a miracle.” Awestricken by abrupt recognition of what this signified, he added, “Carla, Ian was right! There
was
a miracle, so his dream must have showed the future!”

“But what about the other one, the recurrent dream that was keeping him alive because he thought he had something important left to do in life? That didn’t come true—he’s gone now.” She frowned. “After all the weeks he lingered, I wish he hadn’t died today, of all days. I’m worried about Peter, Jesse. He was already suffering from some burden too terrible even to tell me about, on top of the ordeal he went through with you. Mourning for Ian at the same time may be more than even he can bear up under.”

“Never doubt Peter’s strength,” Jesse told her. “The worse things got in the Hospital, the more I drew on his courage—and he was always there for me, telepathically, in spite of what he was forced to do to me. I knew it was agony for him, but he wouldn’t back away. I could feel the steadiness in him, and knew I could rely unconditionally on it. He’s not going to fold, no matter what happens.”

The sun had set by the time they reached the Island. There were more planes moored than he’d ever seen there; he had to find a spot far out in the bay. A small boat approached; Bernie was shuttling arrivals to the dock. Well over two hundred people were gathered on the beach in the moonlight—just sitting, subdued and silent. “What’s everyone waiting for?” Jesse asked.

“The body, I guess,” Bernie said. “Peter must be sure we won’t be caught with it, because there’s going to be a formal funeral. I was told to watch for you and Carla and send you into the Lodge. Kira said to hurry.”

Hurrying proved difficult; people pressed around Jesse when they caught sight of him, surprised and excited to see him back among them. Evidently they’d all been grieving for him—he had not realized how many friends he had. He found himself moved nearly to tears by the welcome.

As quickly as possible, he and Carla made their way across the beach and up the steps into the Lodge. As they entered, Peter came to Jesse and embraced him warmly. Immediately Jesse sensed something new, an emotion different from Peter’s deep concern for him in the Hospital and earlier. He was no longer seeing him from the standpoint of instructor and therapist. Nor was it merely the embrace of an equal. It was almost as if Peter were looking to him for support.

There were nearly twenty people seated around the central fireplace: Kira, Hari and Reiko, plus Ian’s closest friends, some of whom he hadn’t met before. Peter turned to them and said, “Now all your questions can be answered. This is Jesse Sanders, onetime Captain of the starship
Eureka,
who sacrificed himself to protect us—and for whom Ian has now given his life.”

~
 
53
 
~

There was a stunned silence. Incredulous, Jesse and Carla stood motionless, joining the circle only when Kira motioned them to sit. “Peter has just been formally installed as head of the Council,” she said. “But he would tell us nothing about Ian’s death until you arrived.”

Peter remained standing. “I can speak of this only once,” he began, “so I’ve waited until you were all here. After this meeting we will go out to the others, to the ceremony of mourning for Ian, and I will be forced to speak again. But there I will say something briefer. They’ll hear the rest—though not the whole story—on tomorrow’s news. As Ian’s adopted heir, I managed to get a media hold for the purpose of notifying those standing in lieu of kin. It would be unthinkable for you to hear it from anyone but me, but bear with me, please, if I—” his voice broke “—if I find it hard to tell.”

The crackling of the fire was loud in the silence. Painfully Peter went on, “The burial ceremony tonight will be symbolic. As some of you may have guessed, we cannot retrieve Ian’s body. It has already gone to the Vaults.”

Carla let out a cry and Peter placed his hand on her shoulder. “Carla, this will be hard for you to hear,” he said. “I wish I could spare you, but even if it weren’t to be reported by the media, it’s essential for you to know.”

Jesse moved closer to her and put his arm around her, resolving to support her through what promised to be a difficult hour. Ian had given his life . . . for
him
? To secure his release? How could that be? They would all have mixed feelings if it was true, but especially Peter, who had loved Ian so deeply. Yet in Peter’s embrace there had been no trace of ambivalence. There was sorrow in him, but no regret.

“Five nights ago,” Peter announced, “Ian sent Kira and me away on contrived errands. While he was alone he called for an ambulance.” At the gasps of disbelief he paused briefly, then went on, “He was taken to the Hospital. When he arrived there, he confessed to the murder of Zeb Hennesy.”