Subtwo appeared sincerely regretful, but Jan did not believe he had progressed that far; Jan believed that this was another of Subtwo's careful acts. Perhaps someday his feelings would match his words. 'She would have understood what has happened,' Jan said coldly, and saw that Subtwo missed the implication: that understanding did not equal approval.
Mischa appeared drained, precariously balanced on her endurance, yet angry and despairing and grateful, all at the same time. 'You're crazy,' she said. 'You're just crazy.' Beyond them, Subone said, 'Don't let them go. Kill them now.'
'We've got to get out of here,' Mischa said. 'Before they change their mind.'
Subtwo spoke to Subone in a soothing tone almost inaudible to Jan. 'I am not armed.'
'Against a youth and a child?'
Jan knelt beside Chris, steadying himself against the sight of the terrible burn. It was as bad as anything he had feared. Its presence shut him off from the surroundings, the arguing voices, the world. Ancient words spun uselessly at the back of Jan's mind. He caught them and held on, closed his eyes for a moment, concentrated, set the phrases solidly; the nausea receded from the back of his throat. He touched the large vein at the corner of Chris's jaw. 'I can't find a pulse.'
'He's alive,' Mischa said.
'All right.' He picked Chris up. The mists flowed from the body, from Jan's arms, and swirled around Jan's feet.
'Will you let them go after what they've done to me?' Subone dug his fingers into his pseudosib's arm, as though to transmit his hatred.
'Come on, Jan.' The urgency in Mischa's voice startled him.
Subtwo spoke, purring like a cat, in a tone of hunger and expectation. 'When you are recovered, we will hunt.'
The light-curtains slipped together and fused as Jan passed through them, following Mischa, and the voices became indecipherable.
Mischa led Jan to her niche as fast as Jan, burdened as he was, could go. Mischa was afraid Subtwo would be convinced by Subone's anger, and begin to hunt them now. They were somewhat concealed by the darkness, and by the reluctance of Center people to talk to offworlders, but Mischa had no doubt that Subtwo could have the lights turned on, and that he could
frighten or bribe information out of almost anyone.
'In here,' she said, and helped Jan bring Chris through the narrow fissure, a clumsy job. She was glad Chris had not regained consciousness. A flicker of life still glowed in him, deep down.
Her cave was exactly as she had left it; no one had tried to take it over. Jan stumbled and she remembered he could not see; she pulled the cover from the lightcells, which glowed faintly, their activity suspended by starvation.
Mischa straightened her rumpled blanket quickly; Jan laid Chris on the bed, stood back, and massaged the strain from his arms and shoulders. He could not quite stand upright, even in the middle of the chamber. Mischa opened her wooden chest and found cloth to use for bandages, and a mildly anesthetic salve that she did not think would help.
She knelt beside Chris and gently pulled the charred and melted edges of his scarlet shirt away from the burn. Skin and flesh came with it, and the wound began to weep. She choked. Jan knelt near her, moved her hands away, and sealed the air from the burn himself. The muscles along the side of his face were tight and strained; Mischa did not think he had seen much death or violence. She reached for him, to touch his arm, to thank him, somehow. He finished, wrapped the blanket around Chris, pushed himself back on his heels, remained head down and motionless. He tried to speak, cleared his throat, and tried again. 'Sometimes the nerves are cauterized, and there isn't any pain.' He looked up blankly. 'I read that somewhere.' Mischa could see that he too knew Chris was going to die, and that he did not know anything to say to her.
'I'm sorry,' Mischa said. 'I'm sorry I got you into this.'
He grasped her hand, half-lowered from its hesitant gesture. 'You didn't,' he said. 'Whatever happens, believe one thing: people are responsible for their own decisions, and no one else's.'
'I wish I could believe that.'
'It's true.'
Perhaps it was, in the Utopia she thought the Sphere to be, but not in Center. 'It's my fault he's here like this,' she said. 'It's my fault you're stranded.'
'Who is he?'
'My brother.'
Jan nodded slowly. 'But you told me once that you weren't leaving anyone.'
'That's why I brought him to the Palace. I thought they might be able to
help him.'
Jan asked the question with his silence, with his expression.
She reached into her pocket and closed her hand around the yielding capsule, drew it out, and showed it to him. His pale eyebrow arched; he recognized the writhing white filaments of the drug.
'I had to leave him alone to get it. And.' Mischa doubted she would ever know if Chris had left the Palace in one last show of defiance, or if he simply had not known what he was doing.
Jan ran his hand across his tangled hair, a nervous gesture. 'There isn't any way.' But he did not finish. 'Then. what now?'
Her hands clenched like crabs. 'I don't want him to die,' she said. Broken glass, the words hurt, but they were said. 'If he dies.' She felt the shape of the phrase.
'What about you?'
Mischa shrugged. The question had to be asked, and answered, but she could not make herself think about it now. 'I don't know how close we are.'
'Is there anything to do?'
'Only wait.'
Kirillin hobbled through the sand, feeling clumsy and conspicuous, grateful for the night. There's no grace, she thought, for a cripple. The sand fell away from the path as she climbed a hill, searching. She could only look, and wait. Her leg hurt; she had no cane and saw nothing to pick up as a support. Her lower right eyelid began its tic, revealing her agitation despite her ruined and half-paralyzed face. Accelerating, time flowed past her. She had forced her angers to burn silently for so long that they were covered by an ashy gray layer of time. She limped onto a rooftop to stand among the dim voices of Center's lights. She did not understand people who left their windows unblocked and uncurtained; there was nothing to see beyond them, and the openings allowed others to peer in. She wished she had a cloak.
'Where are you, damn you?' She received no answer. Ashes flaked away. 'I need your help.' Her voice carried. Someone below shouted for her to shut up. She imagined vandalism to his house, but did nothing. Leaning down, she massaged her leg above the knee, feeling ridges of scar tissue move across muscle. She left the rooftop, and climbed.
The summits of the hills were not coveted locations, for they were difficult to reach and the view was a panorama of monotony. Alleys lay deep between buildings. Kiri's knee began to flash messages of pain that included ankle and hip. 'Please,' she whispered more calmly. 'It isn't the time to punish me.'
'My friend, the young skeptic.'
Kiri spun, wrenching her leg; it collapsed and she fell forward. On her knees, she raised her head. Perspiration slid from her forehead down her cheek, from her armpits down her sides. Above her, gazing down with careless amusement, sat the person for whom Kiri had been searching. The healer was very old, stately, distinguished; she always seemed quite mysterious, and often quite mad. 'Get off your knees,' she said. 'You look ridiculous. You could have been whole, and your weaknesses offend me.'
Flushing, Kiri pushed herself to her feet and stood awkwardly with most of her weight on her good leg. The old woman's expression softened. 'At least take something for the pain. I can give you something that would make you believe in me.'
'I earned these scars,' Kiri said. 'I deserve them all. If I didn't believe in you, would I be here now?'
'Perhaps not. You're prouder than most of the rest of them. Despair does not give you faith. You should have
