Vortex

the restraints that bound him to his chair. I looked over my shoulder and said, “Does he really need to be tied down?”

More consultation with the Voxish physicians; then Oscar said in a barely audible whisper, “Yes, I’m afraid so, for his own safety. At this stage of his recovery he could easily hurt himself.”

“You mind if I stay a while longer?”

I had addressed the question to Isaac, but it was Oscar who fetched me a chair. When I sat down Isaac’s eyes veered nervously until they found me again. An expression that might have been anxiety or relief played over his pale face.

“You don’t have to say anything,” I told him. He trembled against his restraints.

“He responds positively to the sound of your voice,” one of the physicians suggested.

So I talked. I talked to Isaac for most of an hour, registering his occasional grunts as encouragement. Since I wasn’t sure how much he understood about Vox or how he’d got here, that was what I talked about. I told him how we had been taken up by the temporal Arch in the Equatorian desert and how we had come to Vox after a passage of ten thousand years. We were back on Earth now, I said—Vox had some business to attend to here—but Earth had suffered considerably in all the centuries we’d been gone.

I got the feeling Oscar didn’t like me saying any of this. Probably he had hoped to introduce Isaac to Vox in his own way and in his own words. But the doctors seemed pleased with Isaac’s physical reaction, and Oscar wasn’t willing to provoke another outburst.

It was Isaac himself who ultimately shut the session down. His eyes wandered and he began to look sleepy. I took that as a cue. “I don’t want to tire you out,” I said. “I’ll be away for a little while, but I’ll come and see you again soon, promise.”

I stood up. That was when Isaac began to shake—not a gentle tremor but a full-blown convulsion. His head whipped from side to side and his eyes bulged against their paper-thin lids. The team of doctors hurried toward him as I backed away. “Turk!” he shouted, spittle frothing on his lips.

Then he stiffened. His eyes rolled up until only the whites showed. But his lips and tongue and jaw began to move, forming precise English words: “Majestic!” he whispered. “Billions of diverse components distributed over an entire galaxy! They know we’re here! They’re coming to meet us!”

The same words Oscar had used.

I glanced at Oscar. His face was nearly as pale as Isaac’s.

“Turk!” Isaac shouted again.

One of the physicians pressed a silvery tube against Isaac’s neck. His body slumped back into the chair, his eyes closed, and the chief medic gave me a look that needed no interpretation: Leave. Now.

3.

Allison came with me to the aircraft docks the day the survey expedition was due to leave. The docks were situated on a high platform above the city, protected from the toxic air by a transparent osmotic filter. A crowd of soldiers milled around us, their gear stacked on the deck waiting to be loaded. Ocher-colored clouds swept past, somber in the raking light of the sun.

Allison hugged me and said good-bye. “Come back,” she said, and then, recklessly, she whispered into my ear: “Soon.”

Uttering even that single word was a risk. She must have hoped the Network wouldn’t hear her; or, if it did, that the word would sound like a lover’s appeal to a man who was beginning to edge out of her grasp.

But that wasn’t what she meant. What she meant was, We have to act soon or we’ll lose our best shot at escape.

She meant, We could be exposed at any time.

“I will,” I whispered back.

Meaning: I know.

Chapter Thirteen Sandra and Bose

It was past ten by the time Sandra finally managed to get hold of Bose. When she explained what had happened he told her to sit tight, he’d be there as soon as he could. Less than half an hour passed before he buzzed her from the security gate in the lobby. She let him in and listened until she heard the sound of the elevator opening in the hall. She waited for his knock before she unhooked the latch and opened the door.

He was in his off-duty gear, jeans and a white T-shirt. He apologized for not returning her calls sooner. She asked if he wanted coffee: she had put on a fresh pot. He shook his head. “Just tell me what the guy said. Best you can remember it.”

* * *

The voice had been gruff and a little nasal, an older man’s voice. It was the insinuating familiarity of it that had first made her afraid. Someone with your best interests at heart, the caller had said. No, not likely.

“Is this about Kyle? Is he okay?”

“No more or less okay than ever,” the caller said. “Brain damage, right? Which is why he’s stored in that vegetable locker for the rest of his life.”

“Tell me who you are or I’m going to hang up.”

“That’s your prerogative, Dr. Cole, but again, I’m trying to help you, so don’t be in a hurry about it. I know you were visiting your brother today, and I know a couple of other things about you. I know you work at State Care. I know you took an interest in a patient there, Orrin Mather. And I know about Jefferson Bose. You took an interest in Officer Bose, too.”

She gripped the phone but didn’t answer.

“Not that I’m saying you’re fucking him, necessarily. But you’ve been spending a lot of time with the guy, considering you only met him a couple of days ago. How well do you really know him? You might want to ask yourself that.”

Just hang up, she thought. Or maybe she ought to listen—it might be important to be able to tell Bose what the caller wanted. She felt invaded, but she tried to muster her thoughts. “If you’re trying to threaten me—”

“Pay attention! I want to help you. And you need a little help. You have no idea what you wandered into here. How much did Bose tell you about himself, Dr. Cole? Did he tell you he’s the only honest cop on the Houston payroll? Tell you he’s interested in busting a life-drug ring? Well, let me paint you another picture of Jefferson Bose. Something maybe a little less flattering. A man with a failing police career and shitty prospects for promotion. A man who’s been trying unsuccessfully to interest the Federal Bureau of Investigation in his theory about controlled chemicals coming into the country through a local importer. A man who has fuck-all evidence to support that theory, and is reduced to trying to depose a mentally retarded night watchman. Let me add, a man who’s not above seducing a female State Care worker in order to get that deposition. You’ve been taken advantage of here, and you have to start facing up to the truth.”

“Go to hell.”

“Okay, you don’t believe me. Fair enough. Why should you? We could argue all night. But I said I wanted to