All three had become celebrities, acclaimed by those who knew nothing about what it took to do what they did. But the engineering community had its own celebrities, based on its own standards. Every exclusive group did-those persons who had won the respect and admiration of their peers but were completely unknown outside the circle. Fastolfe ranked here, too, but March was regarded as a toy-maker and Rutan as a joke.
Yes, he needed an insider’s perspective. Someone would know Derec’s mysterious genius-
“Master Derec, if I may interrupt.”
Derec’s head jerked up. It was the medical orderly. Like Dr. Galen, the orderly had fallen victim to the supervisor’s perverse sense of humor. “Yes, Florence.”
“Dr. Galen said that you should come right away.”
Pushing back the viewer, Derec jumped to his feet. “Coming.”
When he reached the ICU, the sterilization lights were already off and Katherine was beginning to stir. She now wore an ankle-to-neck beige gown, etiquette having changed along with Dr. Galen’s changing perception of their relationship. Derec hung back as Dr. Galen bent over Katherine and spoke softly to her.
“Good morning,” he said. “Don’t try to move.”
But she lifted her head a few centimeters all the same and surveyed the room. “Hospital?” she asked hoarsely.
“Yes, Katherine. I am Dr. Galen.”
“On what station?”
“Rockliffe Station.”
She nodded and looked past Dr. Galen to Derec. “Some rescue,” she said.
Despite her hoarseness, there was a laughing note to her voice that Derec did not like. Taking a step closer, he said stiffly, “We’re both alive, aren’t we?”
“Which just goes to show that there’s no justice in the Galaxy,” she answered, closing her eyes. “I thought you’d have been smart enough to disable Aranimas’s security system before you started to poke around in his hidey-hole.”
“Look, I’m sorry it didn’t go more smoothly,” Derec said, coming to the side of the bed. “But we did get away. And there was something we were going to talk about once we did-”
Her eyes fluttered open and searched past Derec for the robot’s face. “Dr. Galen, the headaches are back,” she said. “Would you ask Derec to leave, please? I just don’t think I can deal with company now.”
“How long could it take to tell me my surname, my homeworld-”
But Dr. Galen intervened, gently pushing Derec back toward the door. “I understand your impatience, Derec. But I must consider Katherine’s health, too. Please leave. I will find out what I can. When she is stronger you can talk with her again, if she consents.”
Derec took his frustration for a walk, leaving the hospital by the main entrance. He was sure that Dr. Galen would report him or send a robot after him to bring him back, but he did not care. He simply could not calmly stay there and wait. To be so close to answers, to the promise of being whole again, was too great a test for his patience.
The section of the station where the hospital was located was a tomb. He walked dimly lit streets past ranks of closed stores and sealed residential blocks. Only the main throughway was even lit. The side streets and courtyards were black pits.
No robot pursued him. He walked and walked until the edge was off his jumbled emotions, and then he turned back. He stalked through the reception area and into Dr. Galen’s office.
“Did she tell you anything?”
“She was not able to offer any insight into your affliction.”
“You discussed my condition with her? But you wouldn’t tell me-”
“Correction. She was already aware of your condition.”
“What did she do, ask your advice on how to deal with me?”
“Derec, I promised Katherine that I would not discuss our conversation with you.”
Crossing his arms over his chest, Derec blew a sigh ceiling-ward. “I don’t understand why she’s being so secretive. If she knows something about me, she should just tell me.” He cast a raised-eyebrow glance in Dr. Galen’s direction. “Isn’t that right?”
“The advisability of that would vary from case to case, depending on the individual, the cause of the dysfunction, and the particular personal data concerned,” was Dr. Galen’s measured answer.
“You won’t even give me a hint, will you?” Derec said ruefully.
“I regret that I may not.”
Derec frowned. “Can I see her, at least?”
The robot turned to one of the two active displays on the wall behind him. “She is awake and her algesia has moderated. But she is the final arbiter.”
“Then I’m going to go see what she has to say.”
They found Katherine sitting up in her bed. “I was hoping someone would come to see me,” she said with a smile.
“You left me with some good reasons to,” Derec said, scanning the room fruitlessly for a chair to move beside the bed.
Her face clouded over. “Da-Derec,” she said, stumbling over his name as though she had forgotten it. “I’m afraid you’re going to be angry with me. We have a lot of ground to make up together-all the things that happened on the ship. I don’t think we should start with the little I know about you.”
The look that Derec shot at Dr. Galen was black and poisonous. “What is this? What did you tell her? I thought you were trying to help me-”
“I cannot do otherwise,” the robot said calmly.
The truth of that slowed Derec’s rush to anger. He turned back to Katherine and said, “So you’re going to keep secrets from me.”
She shook her head. “Derec-let’s say that you were President of New Liberty-”
“New Liberty has a council-manager government,” Derec interrupted.
“It doesn’t matter. Let’s say you were President of New Liberty and lost your memory. If I tell you that you’re the President, does that make you the President? Can you start acting like the person you used to be just because you know that?”
Derec avoided her eyes. “I suppose not. But hearing it could make me remember-”
“It is far more likely to cause you severe anxiety,” Dr. Galen began. “Most often-”
Derec opened his mouth to answer, but Katherine was faster. “Dr. Galen, go away,” she snapped. “Go back to your office and leave us alone. Don’t monitor me and don’t listen in. We’ll call you if we need you.”
The robot stared a moment, then lowered its head and exited.
“You didn’t have to get so personal,” Derec said, surprised at her forcefulness. “I’ll bet you put a kink in poor Dr. Galen’s self-worth integral that he’ll be an hour working out.”
“Oh, I don’t care,” Katherine said peevishly, staring at the empty doorway. “Medical robots are such busybodies. They’ve got ten thousand opinions but they don’t really know anything. And they can’t really understand what someone’s feeling when they’re sick, now, can they? Because they’re machines and they never get sick, or die.”
Is that what’s the matter with you? Derec wondered, looking at her face. Are you dying from something the doctors can’t cure? Is that what Dr. Galen wouldn’t talk about?
Before he could find the courage to ask her aloud, she looked toward him and patted the bed beside her. “Are you going to stand all the way over there? The field can hold both of us.”
After a moment’s hesitation, Derec settled on the edge of the bed by Katherine’s feet.
“There, that’s better,” she said. “Now I don’t feel so much like a prisoner being questioned.”
“I’m not sure what we have left to talk about.”
“Well-I’m sure there’s more to what happened on the asteroid than you told me on the ship. Then there’s the ship and what we went through there. And there’s me.”
“Let’s start there. Your name, for starters. The robot called you Katherine-”
“I am Katherine Ariel Burgess to my mother and the computers. Everyone else calls me Kate,” she said. “My father says that calling me Katherine is false advertising-that it doesn’t give people any warning what they’re in for. Katherine is please and thank you and dresses that cover you to the neck. Kate is-”