Alastiar Reynolds

I want to know what happened to me.
They looked at her, and then at each other. She could almost feel the intense buzz of their thoughts crackling through the air like the ionisation breakdown that presaged a thunderstorm.
The first of the surgeons projected calm and reassurance. note 211
I said I want to know what happened to me.
note 212 The surgeon’s gloss of calm faltered.
In need of what?
note 213
For some reason she could not see into any of their heads. For most Con-joiners, waking to experience such isolation would have been a profoundly disturbing experience. But Skade was equipped for it. She endured it stoically, reminding herself that she had experienced degrees of isolation almost as extreme during her time in the Closed Council. Those had ended; this would end. It would only be a matter of time until…
What is wrong with my implants?
note 214
She knew that the surgeon was a man named Delmar. So why am I isolated ?
But almost before she had phrased the question she knew what the answer would be. It was because they did not want her to be able to see what she looked like through their eyes. Because they did not want her to know the immediate truth of what had happened to her.
note 215
Never mind…I know. Why did you bother waking me?
note 216
She could not move her head, only her eyes. Through the blur of peripheral vision she saw Remontoire approach the bed, or table, or couch, where they had woken her. He wore an electric-white medical tunic against a background of pure white. His head was an oddly disconnected sphere bobbing towards her. Swan-necked medical servitors moved out of his way. The surgeon folded his arms across his chest and looked on with an expression of stern disapproval. His colleagues had made a discreet exit, leaving only the three of them in the room.
Skade peered ‘down’ towards the foot of the bed but could see only an out-of-focus whiteness that might have been illusory. There was a quiet mechanical humming, but nothing that she would not have expected in a medical room.
Remontoire knelt down beside her. note 217
You tell me what happened and I’ll tell you what I remember.
Remontoire glanced back at the surgeon. He allowed Skade to hear the thought he pushed into Delmar’s head. note 218
note 219
note 220 Remontoire nodded and smiled as the man ushered his machines from the room, their swan-necks lowering elegantly to pass through the doorway. note 221
note 222
Skade tried moving her head again, but still without success. Come closer, Remontoire. I can’t see you very easily. They won’t show me what happened .
note 223
I remember.
note 224
She remembered taking Clavain to the comet but not the rest of it. And did he get away ?
note 225
It was difficult to respond, though she had known from the moment of waking that something bad had happened to her. Caught me ?
note 226
Show me, damn you.
note 227
Describe it, then. Describe it, Remontoire!
note 228
For a moment she pushed aside her own morbid curiosity. I take it he’s dead ?
note 229
As angry as she was, and despite her morbid curiosity, she had to admit that the matter of Clavain was at least as fascinating to her as her own predicament. And the two things were not unconnected, were they? She did not yet fully understand what had happened to her, but it was enough to know that it had been Clavain’s doing. It did not matter that it might not have been intentional.
There were no accidents in treason.
Where is he?
note 230
The Demarchists would crucify him.
Remontoire nodded.