“I’ve changed, Ella.” That was a bit of an understatement, but he had to start somewhere.
She nodded. “So have I. That’s why I think we can work it out now.”
Her face, her voice, all echoed with her need to have it be so. He recognized his own loneliness in her, his own need to fill the emptiness, to find something to cling to.
“You have changed,” he said, smiling as he backed away from treacherous ground. “You’re more beautiful than ever.” That was true, but it avoided the candor she deserved.
His deceit had been calculated, and had begun before he left the shuttle. In the time between leaving his seat and reaching the lock he had nervously checked himself over one last time. The gray-velvet gloves he wore were clean and secure. The darker gray sleeves of his jacket were snug at the wrist. The fly of his baggy black pants was shut.
Lastly, unconsciously and by habit, he had touched the gleaming silver biometal pin clipped to his red silk shirt over his heart, half-hidden by the lapels of his jacket.
It was the Bergmann Surgeons’ emblem: two arms crossed at the wrists, arms ending just below the elbows, fingers spread wide.
When he had realized what he was doing he took his hand away, clasping it with his other hand to keep it from straying there again. But his awareness of the pin—and what it meant—remained at the fore of his mind.
He had considered leaving the pin behind when he came here, or at least leaving it off, but found that he could not. Not so much out of honesty, but because it was a part of him, branding him as one part of an experiment that was both an incredible success and a dismal failure: medal and stigmata all in one.
There he sat, the silver pin barely peeking, feeling like a cheat and a liar. Sleeves and gloves might hide the path he had taken from her for a while, but she would find out in the end.
Until then all he could do was try to make the best of their time together. The wine helped.
Ella had ordered a large bottle of genuine French wine, never batting an eyelash at the price, but had taken no more than a couple polite sips from her glass.
Marchey felt no similar reticence. In the years since joining the Program, alcohol consumption had increased to the point that someday it might just become a real problem. But that was a concern for some other time. He already had the bottle down to the halfway mark, and planned to see the bottom by dessert.
Fortifying himself for the moment when he finally revealed his pride and his shame.
Each glass made it a little easier to belive she would understand, and that their love could rise up like a phoenix rather than crash and burn yet another time.
Even with things still a little strained and uncertain, Ella felt more at ease with Gory than anyone else she had ever known. She remembered pushing him away there at the end, and how it had seemed like the right thing to do at the time. Now she had to wonder how she could have been so selfish. So stupid. Had it really been that hard to make allowances for his work?
They were halfway through the main course when their waiter, a thin, smoothly courteous man with a hooked nose and a walrus mustache approached their table.
“I regret the intrusion on your meal,” he said quietly, “but there is an urgent call for you, Miz Prime.” He held the flat book shape of a communit against his chest like a stack of menus.
Ella scowled at him. “Who the hell is it?”
“The caller is Dr. Carol Chang, Director of Ixion Medical Services. She was most insistent about speaking to you, and instructed me to tell you it was a matter of life and death.” He stepped back and waited impassively for her answer.
Marchey’s eyes had narrowed at the mention of Chang’s title and office. Already suspecting what sort of a call it might be, Ella was staring at him intently. She seemed to be holding her breath. The call might be for her, but obviously the decision was up to him.
Like it or not, he really had no choice. He tried to smile. “Maybe you better take it.”
Her mouth turned down. That hadn’t been the answer she wanted. She gestured curtly. “Put her through.”
“As you wish.” The waiter placed the unit on the table facing her, keyed it on, then faded back out of sight.
The image of a diminutive, middle-aged oriental woman appeared on the screen. When she saw that she had been put through, the grim, impatient look she wore shifted to a tight smile. “Ms. Prime?”
Ella inclined her head fractionally. “Yes.”
“I am Dr. Carol Chang. I deeply regret the intrusion on your privacy, and would not have called if I’d had any other choices. I understand that Dr. Georgory Marchey is your, ah, guest here. An emergency has arisen, and it is imperative that I speak to him.”
“Well,” Ella began unhappily, an old old resentment still there inside her, as good as new. It was always an emergency, she remembered. Every damn time. How many times?
“Please,” Marchey whispered.
“He’s right beside me,” Ella said tonelessly. She turned the unit toward him, then snatched up her wineglass and drained it.
Chang’s features lit in a genuine smile when she saw him. “Dr. Marchey, this is indeed an honor. Again, I apologize for the interruption.”
Marchey glanced away, watching Ella refill her glass, her jaw set with anger. He closed his eyes a moment, then faced the screen again. “You said there’s an emergency?”
Chang nodded. “Yes. One of our young people, a girl named Shei Sinclair, somehow managed to build a toy cannon and make powder for it as a way of celebrating ShipTime. It exploded in her face the first time it was fired.”
Marchey grimaced. Ella stiffened, wineglass halfway to her lips.
“We have removed most of the fragments and stopped the worst of the bleeding, but her condition remains extremely grave. Two fragments entered her skull through her left eye socket, their flattened profiles making them follow curving paths. The damage they did is considerable. Both are lodged deep within her brain, one impinging on the medulla. There is steady intracranial hemorrhaging, and her autonomic functions are failing fast. We are already using machine assist to keep her breathing. I am afraid that cardiac function will soon fail as well. The fragments must be removed, but going in for them would be extremely risky. I am prepared to try if I must, but—”
The oriental woman paused to take a deep breath. “I was reviewing the medical records of our new arrivals when this happened,” she continued in a rush. “Yours was a surprise. I have read about Bergmann Surgeons, but never thought I would see one way out here. Now I have to look on your arrival as a gift from God. If you—”
There was suddenly a high-pitched buzzing sound in the background of Chang’s pickup. The grating buzz was quickly replaced by a metronomic beeping. She glanced off-screen, brow furrowing. When she faced Marchey again her grim expression had returned and redoubled.
“She just went ECS. Can you help?”
Had Marchey been by himself, he would have already been on his way. But for once he wasn’t alone. He turned toward Ella, a strong flash of déjà vu swallowing him up and making him feel unreal. This was so like the times before that the intervening years might as well have been the dream of a single bad night.
Ella’s face was blank. She stared past him at nothing, green eyes glazed and sightless.
“Ella?”
She scarcely heard him, remembering the too many times their lives had been interrupted by a call like this. The resentful hours spent waiting for his return…
But only if she let them be resentful. Her eyes snapped back into focus. “Go,” she said, digging her fingers into his shoulder.
Marchey’s relief was obvious. His sunken gray eyes flicked back toward Chang’s image. “You heard?”