He got up then, using his stick, tried to carry both the water and the med kit, but he could not manage them both and chose to keep the water. He skipped forward using the stick, eyes watering from the pain, and there was a painkiller in the kit, but he left it, too: no drugs, nothing to muddle his direction; he had no leeway for errors. He moved slowly, steadily, into the forest on the homeward track, his hand aching already from the stick; and the tangle grew thicker, making him stagger and catch his balance violently from the good leg to the injured one and back again. After he had fallen for the third time he wiped the tears from his eyes and gave up the stick entirely, leaning on the trees while he could, and when he came to places where he had to hitch his way along with his weight partially on the leg, he did it, and when the intervals grew too long and he had to crawl, he did that too. He tried not to think of the distance he had to go to the river. It did not matter. The distance had to be covered, no matter how long it took. Annecalled, back on her hourly schedule, and that was all he had.
It was afternoon when he came into the vicinity of the river, and he reached it the better part of an hour afterward. He slid down to the sandy bank and staggered across to the raft, freed its rope and managed, crawling and tugging, to get it into the river and himself into it before it drifted away. He savored the beautiful feel of it under his torn hands, the speed of its moving, which was a painless, delirious joy after the meter-by-meter torment of the hours since dawn. He got it to shore, started to leave it loose and then, half crazed and determined in his habits, crawled his way to the appointed limb and moored it fast. Then there was the bank, sandy in the first part, and then the brushy path he had broken bringing loads of equipment down. And in his hearing a blessedly familiar sound of machinery.
Annestood atop the crest, in front of the crawler, bright in the afternoon sun, her faceplate throwing back the daylight.
"Warren? Assistance?"
9
He worked the muddy remnant of his clothing off, fouling the sheets of the lab cot and the floor of the lab itself, while Annehovered and watched. She brought him bandages. Fruit juice. He drank prodigiously of it, and that settled his stomach. Water. He washed where he sat, making puddles on the floor and setting Anneto clicking distressedly.
" Anne," he said, "I'm going to have to take a real bath. I can't stand this filth. You'll have to help me down there."
"Yes, Warren." She offered her arm, helping him up, and walked with him to the bath, compensating for his uneven stride. Walked with him all the way to the mist cabinet, and stood outside while he turned on the control.
He soaked for a time, leaned on the wall and shut his eyes a time, looked down finally at a body gone thinner than he would have believed. Scratches. Bruises. The bandage was soaked and he had no disposition to change it. He had had enough of pain, and drugs were working in him now, home, in safety. So the sheets would get wet. Annecould wash everything. No more nightmares. No more presences in the depths of the ship. No more Sax. He stared bleakly at the far wall of the cabinet, trying to recall the presence in the forest, trying to make sense of things, but the drugs muddled him and he could hardly recall the feeling or the look of the light that had shone out of the dark.
Sax. Sax was real. He had talked to Anne. She knew. She had heard. Heard all of it. He turned on the drier until he was tired of waiting on it, left the cabinet still damp and let Annehelp him up to his own room, his own safe bed.
She waited there, clicking softly as he settled himself in, dimmed the lights for him, even pulled the covers up for him when he had trouble.
"That's good," he sighed. The drugs were pulling him under.
"Instructions."
Her request hit his muddled thought train oddly, brought him struggling back toward consciousness. "Instruction in what?"
"In repair of human structure."
He laughed muzzily. "We're essentially self-repairing. Let me sleep it out. Good night, Anne."
"Your time is in error."
"My body isn't. Go clean up the lab. Clean up the bath. Let me sleep."
"Yes, Warren."
Have you, he thought to ask her, understood what you read? Do you know what happened out there, to Sax? Did you pick it up? But she left. He got his eyes open and she was gone, and he thought he had not managed to ask, because she had not answered. He slept, and dreamed green lights, and slept again.
Anneclattered about outside his room. Breakfast, he decided, looking at the time. He tried to get out of bed and winced, managed to move only with extreme pain. . . the knee, the hands, the shoulders and the belly—every muscle in his body hurt. He rolled onto his belly, levered himself out of bed, held on to the counter and the wall to reach the door. He had bruises. . . massive bruises, the worst about his hip and his elbow. His face hurt on that side. He reached for the switch, opened the door.
"Assistance?" Anneasked, straightening from her table setting.
"I want a bit of pipe. A meter long. Three centimeters wide. Get it."
"Yes, Warren."
No questions. She left. He limped over painfully and sat down, ate his breakfast. His hand was so stiff he could scarcely close his fingers on the fork or keep the coffee cup in his swollen fingers. He sat staring at the far wall, seeing the clearing again. Numb. There were limits to feeling, inside and out. He thought that he might feel something—some manner of elation in his discovery when he had recovered; but there was Sax to temper it.
Annecame back. He took the pipe and used it to get up when he had done; his hand hurt abominably, even after he had hobbled down to the lab and padded the raw pipe with bandages. He kept walking, trying to loosen up.
Annefollowed him, stood about, walked, every motion that he made.
"Finished your assimilation?" he asked her, recalling that. "Does it work?"
"Processing is proceeding."
"A creature of many talents. You can walk about and rescue me and assimilate the library all at once, can you?"
"The programs are not impaired. An AI uses a pseudobiological matrix for storage. Storage is not a problem. Processing does not impair other functions."
"No headaches, either, I'll bet."
"Headache is a biological item."
"Your definitions are better than they were."
"Thank you, Warren."
She matched strides with him, exaggeratedly slow. He stopped. She stopped. He went on, and she kept with him. " Anne. Why don't you just let me alone and let me walk? I'm not going to fall over. I don't need you."
"I perceive malfunction."
"A structural malfunction under internal repair. I have all kinds of internal mechanisms working on the problem. I'll get along. It's all right, Anne."
"Assistance?"