“She wanted to be gone, so I helped all that I could.”
“You killed her.”
“She is gone, and she will not be missed.”
“That part is absolutely not true,” I said. “She has friends all over your boss’s ship.”
“As you can imagine, we have a high, let us say, turnover rate of employees. Our workers are used to comings and goings, many of which occur on very short notice. Consequently, they find such matters . . . uninteresting to discuss.”
“Someone will look for her.”
“And they will find, as did you, that Miss Price’s arrival and departure went by largely unnoticed,” Zett said. “I would venture to say, Mister Pennington, were you someone who also would not be missed, you would have . . . left with her.”
“But I do have a bit of an exposure issue these days,” I said, “and that might work to my advantage should I continue to make visits to the Omari-Ekon.”
“However, it would not work to the advantage of your known associates. I would be disappointed to see . . . Mister Quinn, for example, follow Miss Price away from the station. Wait, I should correct myself, if I may. I would not be disappointed at all.”
If Zett was going to push a button with me, he had just pushed it. Putting myself at risk for my job is acceptable for me—but never at the expense of someone else’s health and safety. I did not have to respond to Zett for him to recognize he had made his point. My bruised, fallen face and aching, slumped shoulders likely communicated that for me.
“I believe we have reached an understanding, then,” Zett said, “and I thank you for your time and attention.” And the door slid shut.
I stood in my silent, empty apartment that morning for I have no idea how long, wishing that Amity Price merely had been sent away so intently that I almost had myself convinced of the possibility. I imagined her walking down the boarding ramp onto the first shuttle away from Vanguard to pursue every big story she ever hoped to write during a big career elsewhere on the frontier—a place where a reporter and a story can make a difference without getting people arrested or hurt or killed.
It was a place where I had not been for a long, long time. And maybe it was time to go.
14
“You look like hell, son. I don’t mind tellin’ ya.”
“Doctor Fisher,” I said, “should I ever need a refresher course in candor, I trust you will be available to teach it.”
As the chief medical officer was leaning in so close that I thought our foreheads would touch, I more felt him laugh than heard him. When I had arrived, he happened to be milling about the reception area of Vanguard’s medical center cradling a mug of coffee in his large hands—practically in the same place that I had left him after my attempt to see T’Prynn. As soon as he spotted me, he ushered me back into an exam room personally rather than have me wait on an available medic.
I sat on an edge of the room’s only biobed as Fisher tended to my wounds while demonstrating his apparent habit of talking his way through procedures. I had to wonder whether he did this to steady himself as much as to soothe me; regardless, it seemed to work. I humored myself by trying to predict where he would choose to pause in a given sentence.
“This autosuture I’m . . . using here . . . runs a little slower than a dermal regenerator,” he said as he passed the device over my right eyebrow. The ice-blue glow of its emitter shone through my eyelid, and I could feel my skin tingle in response. “But I . . . use it on places like this because . . . it’s more precise. Newer isn’t always . . . better.”
“Not always,” I echoed.
He clicked off the autosuture. “You can open your eyes now. I know your lip is still pretty sore, but hold it down a minute while I recheck the root of that tooth I replaced.”
I complied despite the jolt of pain my action delivered, then I looked down my nose into his eyes as he peered into my mouth.
“Mm-hmm. Now, how did you lose this again?”
“I’m not able to tell you. I woke up this morning and it was gone.”
“Woke up or regained consciousness?”
“Little of both?”
Fisher raised the tip of a bone-knitting laser to my gumline, and I watched a hair-thin beam lance from the device and onto me. The sensation was different from the autosuture, but equally soothing.
“Got someone you can talk to about . . . all this?”
“Not really,” I said, still holding my lip down so he could work.
“Care to talk to me?”
“Not really.”
“Okay, then. You can let go now.” I saw the beam snap off. “I can give you something that will take the edge off your pain. This may not be what you want to hear, but for facial wounds such as yours, sometimes it’s best to let the swelling subside naturally before we rush right in and fix anything.”
“That makes sense,” I said.
“I’m glad you concur.” Fisher did not look up from putting away his surgical instruments, but that did not silence him. “Did you ever track down Doctor M’Benga?”
“Actually, no, I didn’t. I’m certainly still interested in T’Prynn’s condition. It’s just that, well, I’ve had a few matters to attend to.”
“Kind of figured,” the physician said. “Typically, I would not circumvent Doctor M’Benga in matters of his patients. But being that you are here and all, I can make an exception in this instance, if you would like to see her.”
“You would do that?” I was genuinely surprised by the offer and had not even considered asking Fisher, given our last conversation. But I was not about to turn him down now, regardless of the fact that, physically and emotionally, I was as close to being a candidate for the biobed next to T’Prynn’s as I had ever been. “Please, I’m happy to go.”
Fisher led the way out of the exam room and down a corridor to an area marked with a simple sign: Isolation Ward 4. He pushed open the door and we entered silently. Fisher did not break stride as he approached T’Prynn lying on the diagnostic bed, whereas I found myself unconsciously slowing my pace. “Come ahead, Mister Pennington,” Fisher said, “I assure you that you’re not going to wake her.”
The Vulcan’s features were stoic yet soft as she reclined motionless, while tones from the biobed indicating her heart rate, respiration, and brainwave activity combined to create a rhythmic accompaniment to her apparent restfulness. On occasion, a nurse would come by to read a monitor or check a connection or even just to pause and place a hand on T’Prynn’s. There was no way of knowing whether such gestures made a difference in her treatment or whether the unconscious woman even noticed them, but the routine seemed to comfort everyone involved in her care.
After a few moments of being in T’Prynn’s presence— moments during which my thoughts did not wander outside what was happening right there—Doctor Fisher motioned me out of the ward. I followed him, noticing as we went back into the corridor that a breeze somehow had brought a chill to my cheeks. Then the physician reached over to pass me a disposable handkerchief.
I raised it to my cheeks and wiped away rivulets of tears. Evidently, without even realizing it, I had wept while standing with T’Prynn.
I felt a hand on my shoulder, and it was Doctor Fisher’s. “Tim, let’s take a walk.”
I followed him to a small staff lounge with a door that he closed for privacy’s sake. I sat in an armless upholstered chair and he took a seat in an identical one opposite mine. “I apologize, Doctor,” I said. “I’m not really sure what came over me in there.”
“You’re not the first to have that experience, and you won’t be the last.”
“Experience? I’m not sure what you mean.”
“It’s not easy to see someone in her condition, and an emotional response isn’t uncommon. Your reaction could stem from a number of things. It’s pretty obvious you have a lot of things going on in your world. I’m certainly aware of the history you share with T’Prynn, of the personal pain and loss she brought about for you. Doctor M’Benga even has this theory that T’Prynn or any other Vulcan in severe psychotic distress might be able to project a shadow of what they are feeling while in a comatose state. Think of it as a distress beacon from one psychic to another. And he suggests that in rare instances, the signal from the beacon is strong enough to be picked up by anyone around it.”