'No,' Mischa said, unwillingly. And then she tried to comprehend why she was afraid again, what there was about Val that made Mischa feel instantly antagonistic at a certain tone of voice, why a certain angle of the light across Val's features made her seem familiar, cruel, and cold. But Mischa's memory gave her nothing. Val turned, and the illusion disappeared. 'He's a good person,' Mischa said. 'He's only here by accident. You can trust him.'
'So you say.'
'Yes, I say!' She folded her arms around her knees, hunching her shoulders, and continued more quietly. 'I trust him. Crab trusts him.'
Val's expression softened, then she laughed at Mischa's graceless scowl, a pleasant laugh, not one of ridicule. 'Then your friend is safe, for now.'
This time, Simon did not break the uncomfortable silence as Mischa tried to think how she could convince Val of Jan's honor.
'Tell me how you talk to Crab,' Val said.
Mischa did not want to change the subject, even to avoid argument, but she realized an argument would be useless. Then she remembered that she herself had not trusted Jan either, for a long time, not because of him but because of herself. When he got better, he would overcome Val's deep fear, and her suspicion. When he got better.
'It isn't exactly talk,' Mischa said of Crab. 'He can't talk, even in his mind. His brain grew wrong. It garbles things. He's not stupid, he just can't put words together.'
Crab pinched Mischa's hand, gently, insistently. She looked down at him. His green eyes protruded. He made a request in swirls of blue and an amelodic cluster of sounds. 'He wants you to know.' Mischa said, 'he wants me to tell you he used to believe you were his mother. He knows better, but he still thinks of you that way sometimes. He hopes you don't mind.'
'I am his mother,' Val said. 'Or might as well be.'
'He's glad.'
'So am I.'
'He's tried to talk to you,' Mischa said. 'But the words come out wrong, and the harder he tries to understand, the more they get mixed up.'
Val stroked Crab's thick gray skin. 'Poor Crab. He must be lonely.'
That was the first time Mischa saw what was different about Val: the back of her hand was covered with a soft pelt of short scarlet hair; the fur continued as far up her arm as Mischa could see. The light glowed across the glossy hairs as Val sadly patted Crab, and Mischa could feel Val's own isolation, her clear memories of brighter places and even of outside. Val had not been in the underground all her life. 'He's better off here than back there,' Mischa said. 'However it was for you, he's happier here.'
Mischa slept for a long time, fitfully. When she awakened, she had no idea how many days they had been in the deep underground, no idea how far they had fled, or even how long it had taken her system to rid itself completely of the crystal poison. They were deeper than she had ever been, except one of the times she had tried to run away, and her memories of that trek were battered to nonsense by the force of Gemmi's calling mind.
Jan still had not awakened. Sometimes he slept like a corpse, still and pale and cold; sometimes he thrashed and burned with fever. Mischa stayed near him, watching, waiting. There were no diurnal cycles. In the underground, people worked to their own rhythms. Still regaining equilibrium in a world where Chris was dead and Crab was discovered, Mischa found herself without orientation. She could not tell how long Jan remained unconscious, and Val did not know either. If Simon knew, he did not say. Crab had no conception of time at all.
At the end of the incalculable time, Jan awoke, and then Mischa was afraid. She did not want to see what she had done to the symmetry of his spirit.
He was dazed, at first, half-dreaming, half-awake, comfortable. She did not touch him until she felt that he was about to move.
'Lie still, Jan.'
He obeyed. After a moment he opened his eyes, no longer so calm. 'I remember part of it.'
She began to feel the pain that showed only around his eyes: a readiness to flinch that had never been there before. But he steadied himself, and her perceptions of him disappeared. If she looked away she would barely know he was there. 'I'm sorry,' she said. 'I wish you could forget all this, and everything that happens till you're well.' It seemed wrong that she could not share his pain. 'I wish you hadn't got mixed up—'
He reached toward her. His hand was bandaged.
'Don't—'
Dark lines crisscrossed the golden skin on the back of his shoulder; as he moved, Mischa could almost feel the wounds breaking. She grabbed his wrist and stopped him. He winced and closed his eyes.
'Val—'
Mischa felt sick with helplessness and memory. Val appeared from maroon shadow, carrying a skin bag. She knelt beside them. Mischa envied her tranquillity, and tried to copy it, molding her mind to ease and acceptance. Then she realized that Val did not care about Jan; she did not care if he lived or died, healed whole or crippled, brave or frightened. He was not one of Val's people. Touching that spot of coldness and suspicion, Mischa pulled away. She could understand, but she could not accept it.
Val put the spout of the bag to Jan's lips. A milky fluid dribbled into his mouth and down his chin; he choked on it, coughed, pulled his breath in sharply: the movement jarred him. 'Drink it,' Val said; her voice was hard. He gulped and swallowed without gagging, and turned his face toward the floor. The muscles from his temple to the corner of his jaw stood out in lines. He rested, with his forehead against stone. Incongruous thoughts flashed through Mischa's mind and out again. Val's hands, as she tied the sack, were like scarlet and white birds in this skyless space. The sack was like the body of a spider, soft and round and venom-filled.
'What did you give him?'
'A drug to ease the pain. Only that.'
'It's better,' Jan said, very slowly. Each word was separated by a distinct pause. 'It's better. can I have some water?'
He ate a little, later on. Crab was very good at catching blind cave fish. Cleaned, they were no more than bite-size. Mischa carried some to Jan. 'It's raw,' she said. 'It's okay this way, but I could cook it.'
Jan lifted his head. His eyes seemed cloudy; he had to concentrate to focus them, but he moved without wincing, though not very far. 'Raw is fine,' he said. She did not understand his smile.
His hands were wrapped in bandages. The thumb and forefinger could not touch, so he had to pick up the pale-pink bits of fish between the first two fingers of his right hand. He ate slowly, still lying down, with his chin on his left forearm. Mischa would have fed him, but he seemed able to manage on his own.
'They didn't follow,' he said.
'Not yet.' Then she wished she had only said no.
Jan stopped before he had eaten all the fish. Even so little exertion exhausted him. He rested, cheek pillowed on his arm. Mischa thought he was asleep, but he opened his eyes again and looked toward the dim blue light, glanced into the deep shadows or rock crevices, away, and closed his eyes again. 'It's dark down here,' he said.
Mischa shuddered. Only what she had experienced in the deprivation cell allowed her to know what he must feel in real darkness, and that was terrifying. She switched on the flash, which Crab had found and retrieved from deep sand; she moved the light bowl closer, making sure nothing shadowed him. The only sound was Jan's slow breathing.
'Stay a while and talk to me,' he said.
'You should sleep.'
He glanced up. 'We have to talk sometime, Mischa. I have to know what happened.'
She hunched down in her jacket. 'I don't know what happened,' she lied. 'I was confused. He hurt so much—' She stopped, and Jan said nothing. The narrow vertical lines between his eyebrows deepened. She could lie to him; he would not chide her. But he would know.
'All right,' she said. 'He shattered like glass. When he died there was nothing left of him—he died because there was nothing left of him. There was no place for him to go.' She was sitting cross-legged; she worried the fraying hem of her pants. 'It's not a truth you want to hear.'
Jan stared at his clenched fist.
