“Oh, whatever, Michaelson, please don’t quibble-”
“And there’s just no way I could have crawled that far in that kind of shape. Hell, I don’t think I could crawl that far now, meds or not-I don’t think I could crawl that far if I were healthy-”
“It’s a silly objection, Michaelson. No one will care. After all, that ogrillo bitch practically healed you on the spot, didn’t she?”
“Not exactly healed; I mean, look at me-”
“Now, as you struggle away from the city, you’ll find a saddlebag just here-”
He clicks the control again, and a new pinpoint lights up a few hundred virtual meters from the first.
“-which you will theorize must have fallen from one of the horses during Kess Raman’s abortive attempt to flee-”
“Are you serious?”
“In that saddlebag are four canteens of water, as well as jerky and flatbread. There are also several vials of a cream which you will identify as a medicinal salve; when you rub it on your wounds, this will cover the effects of the intra-dermal time-dissolve antibiotic and steroid capsules we’ve injected along your spine. They’ll release over the next seven days, though you’ll hardly need them that long, as you shall see.”
The twist on your face becomes a full wince; nausea thickens below your throat, and it can hardly all be from the antibiotics and steroid injections, can it? “Um, Administrator-?”
Kollberg again clicks the control, and the virtual city shrinks into a vanishing perspective; a new star appears virtual kilometers away. “Roughly here-where you can easily arrive before daybreak-you’ll find two horses, which you will identify in Soliloquy as from the company’s remuda and theorize that they must have escaped from the others during the raid. Make up whatever names you like; it’s not important. One will be fully tacked and will have saddlebags of its own, also containing filled canteens and provisions, as well as some spare clothing and boots, so that you can dress yourself and bandage your wounds. Don’t worry about having to find them-we’ll transfer them in near enough your location that you’ll be able to hear their tack jingle-”
“Administrator, please.” You duck as though you would bob and weave if you weren’t strapped to the motorbed. “Isn’t that a little . . convenient? I mean, come on, sir-finding the saddlebag with exactly what I need-then a horse, with clothes and boots-not to mention that ogrilloi don’t let horses just wander off; horsemeat tastes like-”
“Michaelson, this is a fantasy.” Kollberg sighs with exaggerated patience.
“No one expects it to make sense. It’s not supposed to be realistic.”
He clicks the control again, and the wall view dissolves to a colorfully illuminated map of the eastern Boedecken. “Now. You’re only seven days’ ride from the Khryllian outpost at North Rahnding; by switching horses and sleeping on horseback, you could make it in less than five-”
“Five days? Sir, please-if you’ll only make the call to Businessman Vilo-”
“Wait, wait; you haven’t heard the best of it, Michaelson.” Kollberg’s voice heats up, and a sheen of sweat slickens his upper lip. His eyes go squirrel-bright. “We will arrange for a Khryllian reconnaissance-in-force to be moving out into the fringes of the Boedecken; though I cannot guarantee the actual makeup, there is a strong chance that you should see at least five Knights, possibly as many as ten, and up to one hundred fifty armsmen-”
“What good does that do anybody?”
“You’ll encounter them less than three days out from the vertical city. You’ll tell them that the Black Knives have a captive Knight of Khryl. .”
Kollberg leans closer. His breath smells of lavender and orange mints.“Imagine the rescue, Michaelson. Imagine. Ten Knights. One hundred fifty lancers. Falling upon the Black Knives like a steel thunderbolt. . with you as the advance scout, having received a Khryllian Healing for all your wounds. With you penetrating the camp to locate the prisoners, to prepare them for rescue. With you finally using all the skills of the Monastic assassin you are, to eliminate pickets and preserve the element of surprise. .”
“I can see why you like it.”
“And this is why you’ll like it, Michaelson. This is why I went to Businessman Vilo; this is why I risk my career on an emergency transfer for an unknown Actor. A never-was.”
Kollberg leans even closer. Under the sick-sweet pastilles, you can smell on his breath the blood-sugar problems that are bringing on his type 2 diabetes.
“Can you say: first-handers?”
And now you can’t breathe at all, and I’m sure it’s not from the smell. “Are you serious?”
“Oh, yes. Oh, I am. I’ve been showing clips of your Adventure to a few. . select connossieurs. . already. As soon as you make contact with the Khryllians, we’ll be putting you on live. For the whole rest of the Adventure. Live.”
“Live. .” you echo. Your lips hang. You can no longer feel your toes, or your fingertips.
“Because I see something in you, Michaelson. I saw it from the moment that buck stood up on the badlands. I know star power. You have it. And I saw it first.”
As you stare at him, all you see now is the sweat beginning to collect in droplets on his face. “If you only knew how long I’ve been waiting to hear somebody tell me that.”
If he only knew how what should have been the sweetest moment of your life somehow leaves your mouth full of dust and bitter ash.
“I’m going to make you, Michaelson. I’m going to make Caine the star you deserve to be. And in the process, I’m going to make myself into the top Administrator in the whole damned Studio System. It all starts right here. But you have to play, Michaelson. I can make you go back, but I can’t make you be the Caine you need to be to make this work.”
You lower your head and stare again at the spike. And I can only guess what you are thinking.
Are you remembering that the whole time you’ve been back in the Studio-the whole time you’ve been back on Earth-from the tiny Winston Transfer chamber to the emergency infirmary to the recovery room to here, you have been given not so much as a glance outside? Because this is all you say here: all you have ever said: all you will ever say:
*Not one window.*
No glimpse of the world you were born into. The universe you had left, and to which you have been returned.
It is at this moment that something within you unlocks. I feel it in your chest: as though an iron band fastened around your heart snaps open at the touch of a key in your mind. “I get it,” you say slowly. “When you rescued me, you weren’t saving my life. You were saving your career.”
Kollberg actually grins. “Michaelson, you died the day you passed your Boards. If you’d given yourself up for dead back then, you’d already be a star.”
You do not answer, for truth requires no reply.
“All right,” you say after a moment. “All right.”
Your left hand can make a fist. Your right can, too, and though the nerve-block handles the pain well enough, the slide of your wrist tendons around the nail twists you full of nausea.
That is the nausea’s source.
Isn’t it?
“All right. It is what it is.”
Kollberg offers a moist chuckle. “Most things are.”
You nod toward the screen. “Give me back the vertical city, will you?”
Kollberg clicks, and the schematic grows itself around the constellation of fourteen stars.
“Those are the surviving humans?”