I couldn’t help the tears as Kwame and Iokan ran on ahead of the security team, and pulled him to the floor, screaming, spitting, fighting back with a terrible strength.
He didn’t have any more words. Just wails and howls, like the animal the Soo had made of him, as the medics tranquillised him and took him away to detention.
18. Olivia
It was a wrench to leave the Refugee Service. I’d worked there most of my adult life, and I was used to all its habits and ways, the internal politics and culture, and even, I found to my surprise, the blend of tea commonly distributed throughout the service. But this was still Hub, and it was still the IU, and that was more than enough.
Even so, I needed leave, and Eremis made arrangements to let me get some time away once the group were settled at the new centre. But I no longer felt trapped in the same desperate, hopeless circumstance, trying to coax their damaged minds towards therapy and healing. Most of them were past the worst already, and the challenge was new, different, and made me want to come back to work rather than dreading the same old horrors from scarred survivors of dead worlds. Once I made it clear I was leaving my old job, the Quillian threat to remove their support for the evacuation evaporated. It was never more than a subtle hint designed to put pressure on the Refugee Service, and once the responsibility passed to the ICT, there was nothing the Quillians could do without looking petty and vindictive.
I returned to the snowbound centre with Elsbet and Liss so we could pack their belongings, and so I could speak to Olivia, who steadfastly refused to commit herself. I don’t know if it was just tetchiness, or her old reluctance to co-operate coming out again. It wasn’t the violent opposition that Pew showed. More a reluctance to commit to the therapy she so desperately needed and that we could provide now she had opened up to me.
It came, at last, to the final day. My own belongings were packed, and the office had only the fittings that would vanish when I blanked it and handed it over to the new therapists. Olivia and I watched from the window wall as everyone else went down to the bus, wrapped up in their warmest coats, stepping aside as porters pushed their belongings out on floating carts and loaded up the baggage compartments.
One other vehicle came down to make an impression on the snow: an ambulance from the Psychiatric Centre.
“Poor bastard.”
Olivia looked down as Pew, heavily sedated, was floated out to the ambulance to be taken away. The rest of the group watched as he passed by. Iokan raised a hand, despite Pew not being able to see. Kwame cast his eyes down. Elsbet tried to look somewhere else. Liss huddled her arms against the cold and wiped her eyes.
“They’ll look after him,” I said.
“No they won’t,” said Olivia. “They’ll leave him there until he rots.”
“We need to make sure he doesn’t hurt anyone else. You remember what he did to you.”
“Did you think I’d forget? Poor bastard, all the same. Therapy didn’t work on him, did it?”
“Not yet.”
“Hah! That’s a good answer. When do you give up? When he’s dead?”
“We’ll keep trying as long as there’s hope.”
She shook her head. “Is that what you want me to sign up for? That’s your idea of therapy?”
“He’s a very special case.”
“Oh, and the rest of us are normal…”
“You’re all special. And you’re all different.”
“Yeh? How?”
I thought about that for a moment. “Why don’t you tell me?”
She glared at me for a moment, but then sighed. “I’m older.”
“Go on.”
“When we first locked the gates at Tringarrick, a lot of the younger ones wanted to fight. Men mostly. Some of the women as well. Huh. Like I did, in the first outbreak. I couldn’t let them. They’d only have got themselves killed. He’s like them. It’s always the young ones that want to fight.”
“And what do you want to do, Olivia?”
She looked at me as the ambulance lifted off into the sky, and the others trooped to the bus. “You think it’ll work?”
“In your case, yes.”
She looked back outside as the ambulance powered away between the mountains, then sighed. “So what am I supposed to be doing?”
“To begin with, exposure therapy for the PTSD.”
She looked up at me for a moment, her old objection to the diagnosis coming forward. But she quashed it and nodded.
“As long as you put the effort in, we should be able to get you free of the symptoms in a few months.”
“You reckon?”
I shrugged. “Every species is different. But you’re close enough to the average that the usual methods should work.”
“What if they don’t?”
“I’ve been doing this for a while. I’ve got a lot of tricks up my sleeve.”
“Huh.” She looked out of the window at the fog-shrouded peaks. A scatter of dots resolved out of the clouds: ambulances coming in from the Lift, loaded with refugees. Survivors from the hell that was Ardëe.
“That’s not the only thing,” she said.
“I know.”
“There’s other… I mean… oh, gods, I don’t know.”
“You have survivor’s guilt as well.”
“Yeh.”
“We can help. You’re not the only one. We’ll always be there for you.”
She looked away, hiding her face. “That what it was like for you, was it?”
“I was only a child. But yes, the therapists helped me.”
“Huh.”
“Drove my foster parents nuts, but still…”
“Hah! Bet you did.” At least there was a chuckle there as she looked back at me. But it faded. Outside, the group waited in the bus, and the silhouettes of ambulances became clear against the mountains. At least twenty.
“Is there anything else you want to know?” I asked. “We really need to get going.”
“Yeh.”
“Okay. Go on.”
She looked up at me. “Let’s say you can make me better. What am I supposed to do then?”
“Whatever you want.”
“Huh. Like what?”
“Live your life.”
“What life?”
“Any life you like.”
“Doing what?”
“Well… you could get back into biology. Or medicine, if you like.”
She frowned. “Be a doctor like you, is that it?”
“Be a doctor any way you want. You already are. You could update your skills.”
She laughed, bitterly. “I’m hundreds of years out of date! Or I don’t know, maybe thousands. We didn’t even know what DNA was on my world. Everything you lot do means you have to have those bloody brain implants to be able to remember it all…”
“There’s nothing wrong with just studying.”
“It’s a waste of time if you can’t use it.”
“Olivia, you can do anything. You don’t need to have a plan straight away. You can enjoy yourself. You can retire, if you want to.”
She scowled. “I can’t do that.”
“Okay. There’s still plenty you could do. Charity work. You could raise public awareness of extinction. I’m sure people will listen to you, after what you’ve been through.”
“Huh.”
“Or you could work with the ICT. Help them investigate genocides. Or get policy changed so what happened on your world can never happen again.” She just snorted. “Or you could help them.” I nodded toward the approaching ambulances. “There’s always going to be someone who needs therapy. Or medical help. Or just someone to talk to who’s been through something as bad as they have.”