Mary leaned forward to kiss his forehead, then moved back as Kennedy came across.
Kennedy leaned close, whispering, "I'm proud of you, Michael. You don't know how proud. It's hurt me to see you lying there, day after day."
"Thanks. . ." Then, more hesitantly. "You don't know what it's meant. I think I'd rather have been dead than lie there any longer."
"I know. . ." Kennedy made to step back, but was held there a moment longer, the arm of the frame trapping him.
"One question, Joe."
"Go on."
"Who paid for all of this?"
Kennedy was about to answer, but Michael spoke again, quickly. "Look, I know how much in debt we were after the last campaign, even after the money I raised." He searched Kennedy's gray eyes. "So?"
Kennedy hesitated, then shook his head. "It's paid for. Let's leave it at that, huh?"
For a moment Michael considered persisting, then he nodded. "All right. I'll leave it. For now." Slowly, but less awkwardly than before, he moved his arm away. "But I want to know who to thank."
There was a strange movement in Kennedy's face, then, slowly, he '• smiled again. "I can't," he said, shaking his head. "Really, Michael. Just accept it."
"Was it my father?"
"Your father?" Kennedy laughed abruptly, as if the very idea was absurd. "No . . . Look, Michael, I'm sorry, but don't ask me. Please. I just can't say. Okay?"
"Can't?"
"Can't." There was a finality to the way he said it that made Michael frown. For some reason the subject had touched Kennedy personally, and at some deep and hidden level. Why should that be?
"Okay," he said after a moment. "I won't ask again."
"Good," said Kennedy, stepping back out of his way. "Now let's see if you can get that right leg going too."
LATER, alone with Parker, he asked again.
"Don't ask me," said Parker, sitting down at his bedside and leaning across him to take his hand. "Joe saw to all that stuff. Anyway, what does it matter? It's paid for. That's all that counts."
"Is it?" He was silent a moment, then, "You know, IVe felt helpless in more ways than one, Jack. All the while IVe been here it seems as though things have been kept from me. As if there's something you haven't told me, any of you. Is there a reason for that, Jack? Is there something you haven't told me?"
Parker looked down. "Like what?"
Michael took a deep breath, then shook his head. "I don't believe this. Look, Jack, it's me, Michael, your best friend. What can't you tell me?"
Parker met his eyes. "You want to know?"
"Of course I bloody want to know. It's driving me crazy all this not knowing. Sure I'm an invalid, but don't treat me like a mental cripple too, Jack. You know me better, surely?"
"Maybe," said Parker. It was an odd thing to say. They had known each other almost twenty years.
"So?"
"They know who planted the bomb."
Michael went cold. How often had he thought about this? A thousand times? More? And he had always assumed that they didn't know. "When did they know?" he asked. Not who, but when. At that moment it seemed more important.
"Later that day. They . . . they got him almost straightaway."
Michael shuddered and looked away. There was a slight tingling in his limbs. The frame was hanging in its bracket at the far end of the room. For a while he stared at it, conscious of how large and clumsy it looked without him in it. Then he looked back at Parker. "Who was it?"
Parker smiled wearily. "Hartmann."
"Hartmann?" He laughed disbelievingly. Then, with a suddenness that took his breath, he realized what that meant. "No . . ."
Parker was watching him, a look of deep concern in his eyes. "There was a lot about it in the media those first few days. Since then it's been embargoed. Which is . . ."
"Why I hadn't heard," Michael finished. Again there was that tingling in his limbs, as if in response to some involuntary command, a tensing of the muscles, a ghostly bunching of fists. "Who placed the embargo? I didn't think anyone had enough clout."
Parker blinked and looked away. When he spoke again it was almost in a whisper. "Wu Shih. Who else?"
"Wu Shih?" Michael was confused. "Why? I mean, why should he want to do that?" Then, "Look, Jack, what's going on here? I don't understand..."
Parker smiled bleakly. "Nor me. At least, not all of it. But between us I'd say that our friend Kennedy has been making deals."
"Deals? With Wu Shih?"
Parker shrugged. "Let's just say that things have been a lot easier these past few weeks. Too smooth. And I've been doing some thinking."
"And?"
"Look, Michael, I'm sorry. I know how it seems. Your father's man tries to have you killed. It's not a nice thought. It points the ringer where you'd rather not have it pointed. But you did ask me. As for the rest. . . I'm as much in the dark as you."
Michael closed his eyes, then nodded, but his face showed the sudden bitterness, the despair he felt. When he openecTEis eyes again, Parker was looking down. "Thanks, Jack. You're right. It's not nice. But I feel better for knowing it. I ... I feel as if I can get things straight in my mind now. Before, it was . . . confused. I felt I was losing my grip on things."
Parker smiled but didn't look up. "You won't do anything?"
"Like what? Throw punches?"
Parker met his eyes. "Who knows? You're not as helpless as you look."
"No," he answered, for the first time realizing what the operations meant. "No. Not helpless at all."
He would get better, stronger. He would spend every hour, every minute of his time getting better. And then, when he was ready . . . He closed his eyes, letting the tingling fade from his limbs and chest, calming himself. It had been a long day, a hard day.
"Michael?" Parker had felt the sudden tension in the fingers of the hand he held, then the slow relaxation of the muscles. He leaned forward, listening, then smiled, hearing the soft, regular pattern of his friend's breathing. Michael Lever was sleeping.
tolonen STARED down at the ruins of Nantes spaceport a moment longer, then turned to face Li Yuan's General, Rheinhardt. It was cramped in the cruiser's cockpit, with barely enough room for the pilot and the two big men, but no other craft had been available. All else had been destroyed.
"How did it happen?" Tolonen asked, indicating the gap in the smooth face of the City, the fallen stacks.
"We're not sure yet," Rheinhardt admitted, the somber expression on his face a perfect copy of the older man's. "There are three theories we're working on. The first is that subsidence, caused by water erosion, undermined the supports and weakened them."
"Is that likely?"
Rheinhardt shook his head. "Not really. The river's course has changed over the years, and it seems the water table has risen slightly in the last decade. Even so, most of the pillars are sunk into the rock. Besides, from what we can make out, most of them are still standing. The stacks simply broke away by the look of it."
"Or were torn away?"
"Maybe. That's another of the theories. That the sheer, unprecedented force of the storm—the tidal wave, particularly—simply ripped the stacks from the surrounding sections."
Tolonen nodded. "And the third?"
"One of our experts has come up with the idea that the constant vibration of the rockets taking off from the spaceport might have weakened the connections between the stacks over the years." Rheinhardt shrugged. "It seems highly unlikely, if you ask me, but we're following it up anyway."
Tolonen sighed deeply, looking out once more at the scene of devastation below. It was worse, far worse than he'd imagined it. The City was supposed to be safe. One hundred percent safe. For a century and more it had stood, undamaged by the elements, yet in the course of less than thirty seconds, three whole stacks had slid into the Clay, taking more than two hundred and eighty thousand people with them. If news of this got out there would be panic in the levels, rioting. . .