We were a long way from Hub Metro; two thousand kilometres distant and very dependent on a microwave link to a satellite for what little dataflow was available, along with regular supply runs that would become ever more important in the winter months. The buildings themselves were familiar, as they were of exactly the same design as the last centre. They were prefabricated and mass-produced so we could set up as many centres as we needed to cope with sudden influxes of survivors from dead worlds, and the common design made them very easy to work with. But this time, it was more than a little disturbing when you walked out a familiar door and were suddenly reminded of the chill you’d never felt at the old centre. All the rooms had been set up in an identical manner as before, so moving in proved to be fairly easy, though few of the group were in a fit state to do the work themselves.
I joined them. I would need to be there and on call all the time because we had no other therapists available to take Veofol’s place, what with all the chaos after the attack. So the centre would be my home for the time being. I didn’t mind; I had no real reason to stay in the city, and the only pang of discomfort came from the occasional impulse to call for Veofol to help with the group, and the sudden memory that he was gone.
6. Liss
I postponed formal therapy sessions for a while, and allowed the group some time to settle in and explore. Liss, of course, did not have quite as much luxury to wander while she was still bedridden, so I made daily visits to see how she was doing, and induce her to talk.
“How’s it going?” I asked her one day. She raised her arms to show me. Through the transparent healer, the day by day improvement was quite apparent.
“That’s good,” I said. “Is this kind of healing a common thing on your world?”
She shrugged, then winced at the pain of stretching her burns. “I’m not the only one—” she stopped, then sighed. “I keep forgetting. I am the only one.”
“That was a very brave and selfless thing you did, saving Olivia.”
“I didn’t think about it.”
“There’s not many people who’d be able to do that.”
“No. Only one.” She raised her arms again; she was being sarcastic.
“I don’t mean physically.”
“Like I said, I didn’t think about it.”
“And what if you’d had to think about it?”
She looked back at me and frowned. “Hm. Olivia. Hmm…” Then she sighed. “I suppose I’d have done it anyway.”
I nodded. “And you know what happened to Veofol wasn’t your fault?”
“You can’t save everyone.”
“I remember, when you first joined us, you said that was a saying you had on your world…”
“Yes.”
“It’s just that, when people go so far as to have a saying for something like this, it usually means they’re trying to console themselves for feeling bad about it.”
“Yeah. So?”
“Are you sure it doesn’t take a toll?”
“I stopped counting the people I couldn’t save when it went past a couple billion.”
“There’s no need to be sarcastic, Liss.”
“I’ll stop being sarcastic when you stop stating the obvious.”
She wasn’t in the mood for co-operation. But she wasn’t Olivia. I looked back at her, and said: “Okay."
“Okay what?”
“I’ll stop stating the obvious.”
“Right. And…?”
“I’ll let you do it.”
“What?”
“I want you to tell me what’s wrong.”
She laughed in exasperation. “I’m the last daughter of a dead world! You think I’m enjoying myself?”
“No. But I think your problem’s obvious.”
“So tell me then.”
“No. It’s obvious. You tell me.”
“Is this supposed to be therapy?”
“Yes.”
“Isn’t it your job to tell me what’s wrong?”
“It’s my job to help you help yourself.”
She shook her head, amazed. “I cannot believe you’re turning this into some kind of mystery!”
“Who killed your world, Liss?”
That silenced her. I went on: “Everybody else here has a pretty good idea of what happened. I’m not saying they’re always right, but they have some idea. You don’t. And you came here to find out. Didn’t you?”
She was still too surprised to answer.
“That’s what’s obvious to me, Liss. You’ve given up. I’m not saying you didn’t have a reason. But you’ve given up.”
“Oh. My. God…” she said, amazed at my effrontery. “What the hell do you think I’m supposed to do?”
“Find the culprits. That’s what it says in your protocols.”
“Oh, just like that. And then what?”
“I’d say you should cross that bridge when you come to it.”
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m no good at all this! I got caught, for god’s sake! I don’t even know where to start any more!”
“You won’t have to do it alone. Didn’t the ICT talk to you?”
“Ugh. They’re useless. They can’t even do anything…”
“That might not always be the case.”
“Oh, because that’s going to change overnight…”
“A lot of things changed overnight.”
She stopped to think about it. It was true that a great many options were being discussed at the highest levels. Activating the Interversal Criminal Tribunal was suddenly on the table.
“Do you think they’ll…?”
“I don’t know. But they’re talking about it.”
“Damn…” she looked outside again. “I can’t. I don’t even know what to do. I was just following the protocols…”
“Didn’t you say you saved the world once?”
“Once. Kind of.”
“How many people can say that?”
“It wasn’t… I didn’t really do anything, I was trying to save myself, and… and we didn’t have a plan… it was luck, that’s all.”
“So maybe you were the right person in the right place at the right time.”
“I was panicking for most of it.”
“But you did the right thing.”
“It wasn’t just me. There were thousands of others, lots of people saved the world…”
“That doesn’t mean you weren’t one of them.”
“It doesn’t make me qualified!”
“Hm. Liss. I seem to be at a bit of a disadvantage here. You know all about this, but I know nothing.”
“Just grab the files from the PRG and read the reports.”
“I would, but I don’t think we’re going to get much back for a while. To be honest, it’s not a priority at the moment.”
She sighed. “No. I guess not.”
“Can you tell me about it? It must be quite a story.”
“Aw, crap… just another disaster. The world needed saving every other week.”
“Why did it need saving this time?”
She took a deep breath. “The moon blew up.”
“…Ah.”
“Don’t ask me to explain how it happened because I don’t know, okay? It was one of those superbrain things. Somebody did some earthquake experiment on the moon and it blew up, and some bits were going away from us and some bits were going to hit us and that was going to be bad.