“Thank you.” Sirkin’s voice was low; her eyes clouded. Brun felt like an idiot, a cruel one. This was much harder with Meharry along. She glared at Meharry. Meharry gave her a lazy smile.
“She was damn near killed herself. Don’t suppose you rich girls ever have to worry about things like that. Always got protection.”
Brun couldn’t think what to say—was this Heris’s idea of briefing?—but Sirkin spoke up. “That’s not fair, Methlin! She was nearly killed in that mess at Sirialis—” Sirkin looked at Brun, who suddenly realized Heris had used her own trick on her. Of course they had set up this quarrel on purpose. Now, what was she supposed to say? Methlin had already given the next line, in a contemptuous drawl.
“Nonsense—it was her Dad’s place—how much danger could she be in?”
“Quite enough, thank you.” Brun put as much contempt into her own voice. “Sirkin was there; she knows.”
“An’ you call her like a servant, ‘Sir-kin.’ She has a name, you know, Miss Priss.”
“Methlin!” Was Sirkin really shocked, or was that part of the game? Brun warmed to it.
“It would be impolite of me to use her first name without her permission,” she said. “And I don’t think much of you, either.”
“Captain said I was to come; you can’t make me leave,” said Meharry, in a dangerous whine that got attention from others on the slideway.
“I’m not trying to make you leave,” Brun said. “I’m merely trying to make you observe the rudiments of polite behavior.” She hoped Meharry realized she, too, was playing the role; the woman scared her.
“Damned snob,” muttered Meharry. Brun pretended not to hear it; she smiled unctuously at Sirkin.
“I’m so sorry, truly. It must have been terrible for you. Captain Serrano always praised you so highly.”
“It was . . . she . . . she jumped in front of me.” Genuine grief and guilt; Brun felt another pang of guilt. All too clearly she remembered how she and Raffa had felt each other’s peril as well as their own. She tried to put that into words.
“When . . . when my friend and I were being shot at, we were as scared for each other . . . once she had to shoot the man who had me at gunpoint, and she was afraid she’d hit me . . .”
Sirkin blinked back tears; Brun wanted to hug her. “You do understand. But your friend lived—was that George?”
“George! No, not George, Raffa. She was the dark-haired one, like you.” It suddenly occurred to her that Sirkin might misunderstand something here, but it was not the time to clarify the order of events and feelings.
“Our stop’s next,” Meharry said loudly. Brun looked up, and led the way out into the concourse and then into the storage company’s main office. For the next couple of hours, as the bored and contemptuous storage company workers located and unpacked half a dozen boxes from Lady Cecelia’s yacht, to no avail, Meharry made sarcastic remarks about the aristocracy, and Sirkin became Brun’s natural ally. Finally, Brun agreed that she must have been mistaken. She cheerfully handed over a credit chip to cover the extra work done on her behalf and murmured to Sirkin that she’d really like to take her to lunch if Meharry would let her come.
By then it seemed natural that Meharry, with a few last caustic comments about the aristocracy, would head back to the crew quarters alone. Brun, alone with Sirkin, said, “You know, if you want to talk about it, I really am a safe person to tell. I’m not quite the fluffhead I seem . . .”
“I know,” Sirkin said. “Captain Serrano said you had to be pretty tough to survive on the island.”
“But if you don’t want to, that’s fine, too. What’s your favorite food?”
After a luxurious lunch, they spent the afternoon showing why not-so-rich girls liked to spend time with rich ones. Brun found it more fun than she expected to take Sirkin to one shop after another, buying her more gifts than she could carry. She had long quit calling her Sirkin: Brig and Brun, they were to each other. Neither mentioned Lady Cecelia that afternoon; neither needed to.
Wakening after wakening . . . time lost all meaning, in the dark, with only ears and nose to accept sensory data and offer meat for Cecelia’s thoughts. And the only smells around were artificial, soaps and perfumes and medicines, nothing evocative of her old life. She had read about such things, but never imagined herself so cut off . . . she, who had been a sensualist all her life. She tried to tell herself that at least she felt no pain . . . but she would have traded pain for that nothingness that threatened her mind.
She would not go insane. She would not give whomever had done this the satisfaction. She told herself she was lucky to be old, that the old had more memories to process, more experiences to relive. She worked her way through her own life, trying to be methodical. It was hard; she would like to have spent more time in the good years, on the winning rides, when the jumps flowed by under the flashing hooves. But even in her extraordinary life, those moments were brief compared to the whole. Instead, she tried to concentrate on the duller bits. Just how many tons of hay had she ordered that first winter in Hamley? How many tons of oats, of barley? Which horse had required flaxseed to improve its hooves? What was the name of that farrier who had been found slipping information to the Cosgroves? Had the third groom’s name been Alicia or Devra?
Not even the horses were enough. She made herself catalog her wardrobe—not only every garment she owned now, but every garment in every closet since childhood. Had that blue velvet robe been a gift for the Summerfair or Winterfest, and was it Aunt Clarisse or Aunt Jalora? When and where had she bought the raw-silk shirt with the embroidered capelet? What had finally happened to the uzik-skin boots, or the beaded belt from Tallik? She tried to remember every room she’d walked in, placing the furniture and every ornament. She considered every investment, from the first shares of bank stock she’d bought herself (with a Winterfest gift from her grandfather—he had forbidden her to spend the money on horses, or she would have bought a new Kindleflex saddle) to the most recent argument with her proxy.
Visitors came regularly, in this unnamed place. Berenice, first teary and chattery (reminded by the staff that she should not get hysterical, that she could not bring flowers or food), and her husband Gustav (stiff, ponderous, but gentle when he touched her hand), and even young Ronnie. They talked to her, in a way.
“I don’t know if you can hear me, but—”
Berenice talked of their childhood. Sometimes she mentioned things Cecelia had forgotten, things she could then use in the empty hours between visits. This birthday party, that incident at school, a long-forgotten playmate or servant. And she explained, at excruciating length, why she thought Cecelia had been a fool to waste all that time on horses instead of getting married or at least working in the family. She had accepted the idea that years of small head injuries from riding had led to a massive stroke.
Gustav talked of business and politics, but not in a way she could use. He would tell her which stocks were up or down, and who had been elected, as if he were reading a list from a fairly dimwitted periodical—with none of the meat behind the facts. What did she care if Ciskan Pharmaceuticals was up 1/8 point, and Barhyde Royal was down 3/4? Or if the Conservative Social Democrats had won two more seats in the lower house while the Liberal Royalists had gained a critical appointment in the Bureau of Education? Of course, Gustav had never been known for lively repartee, but even he might have realized that someone in a coma is hardly likely to understand the nuances of a field they never mastered while awake.
Ronnie spent the first visit saying what she had hoped to hear: he could not believe that his vital, strong, healthy aunt had been stricken like this; he was sure she was alert inside, listening to him, understanding him. He would never believe Captain Serrano had done this—how could she?—and it would all come right in the end. But she could not communicate anything to him, could not confirm his guess, and gradually he settled into what she thought of as useless small talk. He was no longer in exile, of course; the prince was offplanet somewhere; Raffaele had gone to visit her family before he had actually talked to her about marriage; the Royals seemed rather slack after his adventures on Sirialis. George was back to being odious in the regiment, but came out of it when alone with Ronnie.