“Unusual, but quite easily explained,” said the doctor. She wanted to know his name, wanted to have some name to curse in the darkness. “See here—on this shot—the bleeds stopped short of areas regulating breathing, for instance. It’s quite likely that she will live out her normal span.”
“Without rejuvenation treatments.”
“Oh, certainly. We couldn’t recommend rejuvenation for someone in her condition. No, indeed.”
Normal span. Her mind calculated . . . at least another ten years, maybe twenty. If she didn’t get pneumonia, if she didn’t catch a virus. If whoever had done this didn’t simply kill her.
And why hadn’t they killed her? Why this? Did someone know she was still alive, aware, inside, and was that person gloating over her suffering? If Heris’s wicked admiral had been alive, she could have believed that of him.
“I thought I saw a movement, a tremor,” said the skeptical voice.
“It’s nothing,” the doctor said. “Random discharges in peripheral nerves—she’s due to be turned again, to prevent pressure sores. Even in these special beds . . . and they do have tremors sometimes. Breakdown products, perhaps, of the damage.”
“I see.” She heard the footsteps, fading away, and the sigh and thud of a door opening, shutting again.
She had heard and understood. If their damned scans were any good, they’d know she could hear and understand. Had they bothered to look lately? Or were they lying, and displaying fake scans for anyone who visited? Thirty days . . . she’d been here for thirty days? Where was Heris? What had happened to the prince?
Time had no meaning. She slept, she supposed, and woke again; it seemed like a moment of inattention rather than normal sleep. Sometimes she heard voices around her, and sometimes they talked about her; more often they talked of other things. She came to know one woman’s voice, and built from her gossipy chatter a picture of someone with bright, avid eyes and a pursed mouth. Then another, who never added to the gossip, but had a satisfied chuckle, as if she were glad to hear bad things about others. The doctor who had talked to the lawyer came infrequently, but she always knew him.
Scents merged with sounds, with pressures. She knew the smell of her own body and its output; she hated the wet warmth that turned cold too often before someone came to change her. She hated the hands that turned and moved her as if she were a slab of meat . . . she came to hate with special fervor a flowery perfume one pair of hands wore, hands colder and less deft than the others, belonging to a sharp, whining voice that complained of her incontinence.
Hate blurred thought; she fought it back. She could not afford that, any more than she could afford to go insane from the darkness and immobility. Instead, she scrabbled at her memories, struggling to rip another minute detail from the black fog. Gradually she assembled them in order, like torn scraps of a picture laid out on black velvet. That first awakening, with the terrifying talk about drugs to inhibit, to decouple. It had come after whatever happened, but before—and in another place. Then only the odd glimmer, not even clear memories, until the doctor/lawyer conference. A string of clearer memories, then another lapse, after which she no longer felt the wetness of incontinence. From what she overheard, she had had surgery to implant “controllable sphincters”—however that worked. Since then, more and clearer memories, but still no return of function. She could not move; she could not see; she could not talk.
Her mind slid inexorably sideways to the memory of riders she’d known with broken necks or head injuries. But those were injuries, trauma . . . this was something else. She was still thinking, and if she’d had her head crushed against a tree, she wouldn’t be.
Thirty days plus. How many plus? Or was it how much plus? For a moment her mind chased that grammatical hare into a thicket of forgotten rules. She yanked it back out, and slapped its nose. Only one thing mattered . . . and it certainly wasn’t a point of grammar. She had to find a way out, a way to make some connection to the world—and yet she had to be sure it was the right connection. Whoever had done this would be watching, she was sure, for any untoward behaviors, any return of speech or movement. And how could she tell who was safe, when she couldn’t communicate?
Someone had to know. Unless doctors had never known what they were doing, someone had to know she was still alive inside, still capable of thinking . . . still thinking, in fact. Either someone wanted to torment her—and she couldn’t think of a good reason, since apparently she didn’t even twitch in ways that would amuse a sadist—or someone was concealing her remaining capacity.
She liked that idea better. She had an ally, somewhere, faking brain scans and whatever other tests the medical system used to determine that her brain wasn’t working. It would have been easy to kill her, easy to do the damage that was supposed to have been done . . . easy to do that still. But—they hadn’t. She had an ally. If she could stay sane, maybe—just maybe—that someone would figure out a way to rescue her and undo the damage.
“You’re sure she’s aware?” Lorenza had to ask again; she could not hear the answer too often.
“Yes, ma’am. And like I said, the way it’s set up, there’s a blind feed on her cables; it’ll never show up on her scans now that she’s got the implants.”
Perfect. A delicious shiver fluttered inside her. Cecelia helpless, motionless, blind . . . and knowing it. The only thing that would be better would be a very personal and private way to communicate, to let her know who was responsible. Unfortunately, that wasn’t possible, and the original drug would have wiped out her memory of the reception.
“You’ll find your investment in Sultan Realty has paid unexpected dividends,” Lorenza said to her medical contact. “It will be very profitable, I think you’ll agree.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He cleared his throat. “But I just want to be sure you really understand the maintenance requirements. Because you wanted her aware, she’s going to need regular maintenance doses—”
“Are you saying it’s reversible? I told you it must not be—”
“It’s not reversible, no. Not the main brain damage. But the dose wasn’t as massive—it takes tinkering to keep her neuromuscular status where we want it, with normal maintenance at the nursing home feeding her other drugs . . . that’s all.” He sounded scared, as well he should be. If he crossed her, he knew what to expect.
“Very well.” She didn’t understand the medical details, and didn’t intend to learn. The important thing, all that mattered, was the thought of Cecelia—arrogant, athletic, triumphant Cecelia—reduced to a flaccid blind body that anyone could manipulate. She didn’t even have to visit the place herself; it was enough to know that Cecelia inhabited a dark, friendless place where she was utterly helpless, and from which there was no escape. “Your payments will arrive quarterly; that’s the normal schedule for dividend payout from Sultan Realty. When it’s time for you to invest in another company, your broker will inform you.” She cut off the call, and sat poised in her tapestry chair, looking around her exquisite sitting room. All the lovely colors Cecelia would never see again, all the sensual pleasures of silken clothing, savory food and drink, fresh flower-scented air, favorite music, sex . . .
Her brother, the Crown Minister, found her pensive in the firelight, hand pressed to her cheek, and tea cold in the cup beside her on the table.
“What’s the matter?” he asked. “Are you ill?”
“It’s that poor woman,” she said, in a voice that she let tremble a bit. It would seem like regret. “That poor, poor woman, stricken like that . . . I just can’t stop thinking about poor dear Cecelia.”