fleet building at Sol Station; it had to have time. Mazian was fodder for Union guns until then. Sol itself had to be in command of the next resistance, Sol, and not the headless thing the Company Fleet had become, refusing Company orders, doing as they would.
Most of all they had to keep Pell, had to keep that one base.
Ayres walked where he was led, settled into the apartment they gave him several levels down, which was excellent in comforts, and the comfort reassured him. He forced himself to sit and appear relaxed to await his companions, that they assured him would come… and they did come finally, in a group and unnerved by their situation. Ayres thrust their escort out, closed the door, made a shifting of his eyes toward the peripheries of the compartment, silent warning against free speech. The others, Ted Marsh, Karl Bela, Ramona Dias, understood, and said nothing, as he hoped they had not spoken their minds elsewhere.
Someone on Viking Station, a freighter crew, was in great difficulty, he had no doubt. Supposedly merchanters were able to pass the battle lines, with no worse than occasional shepherding to different ports than they had planned; or sometimes, if it was one of Mazian’s ships that stopped them, confiscation of part of the cargo or a man or woman of the crew. The merchanters lived with it. And the merchanters who had brought them to Viking would survive detention until what they had seen at Pell and here ceased to be of military value. He hoped for their sakes that this was the case. He could do nothing for them.
He did not sleep well that night, and before morning of mainday, as Andilin had warned him, they were roused out of bed to take ship further into Union territory. They were promised their destination was Cyteen, the center of the rebel command. It was begun. There was no retreat
Chapter Eleven
It was a womblike safety. He grew stronger in it. Once he had lain on his cot, disinclined even to move, leaden-limbed and weary. He was much, much stronger; he could feel moved to rise and investigate this stranger. He grew brave again. For the first time he knew that he was getting well, and that made him braver still.
The man behind the pane moved, reached out his hand, matched it to his on the window, and his numbed nerves tingled with excitement, expecting touch, expecting the numb sensation of another hand. The universe existed beyond a sheet of plastic, all there to touch, unfelt, insulated, cut off. He was hypnotized by this revelation. He stared into dark eyes and a lean young face, of a man in a brown suit; and wondered was it he, himself, as he was outside the womb, that hands matched so perfectly, touching and not touched.
But he wore white, and it was no mirror.
Nor was it his face. He dimly remembered his own face, but it was a boy his memory saw, an old picture of himself: he could not recover the man. It was not a boy’s hand that he reached out; not a boy’s hand that reached back to him, independent of his willing it A great deal had happened to him and he could not put it all together. Did not want to. He remembered fear.
The face behind the window smiled at him, a faint, kindly smile. He gave it back, reached with his other hand to touch the face as well, barriered by cold plastic.
“Come out,” a voice said from the wall. He remembered that he could. He hesitated, but the stranger kept inviting him. He saw the lips move with the sound which came from elsewhere.
And cautiously he moved to the door which was always, they said, open when he wanted it.
It did open to him. Of a sudden he must face the universe without safety. He saw the man standing there, staring back at him; and if he touched, it would be cold plastic; and if the man should frown there was no hiding.
“Josh Talley,” the young man said, “I’m Damon Konstantin. Do you remember me at all?”
“How are you feeling?” Damon asked.
That was complicated. He tried to summarize and could not; it required associating his thoughts, and his strayed in all directions at once.
“Do you want anything?” Damon asked.
“Pudding,” he said. “With fruit.” That was his favorite. He had it every meal but breakfast; they gave him what he asked for.
“What about books? Would you like some books?”
He had not been offered that. “Yes,” he said, brightening with the memory that he had loved books. “Thank you.”
“Do you remember me?” Damon asked.
Josh shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said miserably. “We’ve probably met, but, you see, I don’t remember things clearly. I think we must have met after I came here.”
“It’s natural you’d forget. They tell me you’re doing very well. I’ve been here several times to see about you.”
“I remember.”
“Do you? When you get well I want you to come to my apartment for a visit sometime. My wife and I would like that.”
He considered it and the universe widened, doubling, multiplying itself so that he was not sure of his footing. “Do I know her too?”
“No. But she knows about you. I’ve talked to her about you. She says she wants you to come.”
“What’s her name?”
“Elene. Elene Quen.”
He repeated it with his lips, not to let it leave him. It was a merchanter name. He had not thought of ships. Now he did. Remembered dark, and stars. He stared fixedly at Damon’s face, not to lose contact with it, this point of reality in a shifting white world. He might blink and be alone again. He might wake in his room, in his bed, and not have any of this to hold onto. He clenched his mind about it with all his strength. “You’ll come again,” he said, “even if I forget. Please come and remind me.”
“You’ll remember,” Damon said. “But I’ll come if you don’t.”
Josh wept, which he did easily and often, the tears sliding down his face, a mere outwelling of emotion, not of grief, or joy, only profound relief. A cleansing.
“Are you all right?” Damon asked.
I’m tired,“ he said, for his legs were weak from standing, and he knew he should go hack to his bed before he became dizzy. ”Will you come in?“
“I have to stay in this area,” Damon said. “I’ll send you the books, though.”
He had forgotten the books already. He nodded, pleased and embarrassed at once.
“Go back,” Damon said, releasing him. Josh turned and walked back inside.
The door closed. He went to his bed, dizzier than he had thought. He must walk more. Enough of lying still, if he walked he would get well faster.
Damon. Elene. Damon. Elene.
There was a place outside which became real to him, to which for the first time he wanted to go, a place to reach for when he turned loose of this.
He looked to the window. It was empty. For a terrible, lonely moment he thought that he had imagined it all, that it was a part of the dream world which shaped itself in this whiteness, and that he had created it. But it had given him names; it had detail and substance independent of himself; it was real or he was going mad.
The books came, four cassettes to use in the player, and he held them close to his chest and rocked to and fro smiling to himself and laughing, cross-legged on his bed, for it
He looked about him, and it was only a room, with walls he no longer needed.
BOOK TWO
Chapter One
i
