Dreamspy. Jacqueline Lichtenberg
Even though the grand moments he described were emotionally real to him, the rest seemed to be recited by rote from some biography or publicity release. It made her uncomfortable, and she had to keep reinforcing her barriers.
Before she found the right questions to ask, Idom called them to eat, and then she did a stint on watch in the pilot’s seat. When she went to take her turn sleeping, Idom and Elias were still up, playing Thizan with an improvised board and pieces. Idom was winning and Kyllikki couldn’t understand why. He wasn’t that good at the luren game.
Wrapping herself in her most impenetrable barriers, she fell into a deep, undisturbed sleep, and woke thinking about the enigma of Elias. She had slept straight through without waking, and she never did that when Elias was sleeping at the same time she was. No matter how much care she took with her barriers before she lay down, she would wake every few minutes to find they were full of holes and her mind was dwelling on what she should have done and said during past confrontations with Zimor.
But this time, the shield of silver bricks that guarded her mind was still in place, reflecting away every wisp of thought. If Lee had been whistling as loudly as he could, it would not have wakened her.
“Kyllikki?”
She started, then saw Idom standing over her. “Yes?”
“At last. You’ve been sleeping as if you hadn’t slept in days.”
She swung her legs over the side and sat up, tugging her coverall into place. “How long did I sleep?”
“Two shifts. Elias went to sleep a while ago.”
She peered into the adjacent bunk. Elias was curled on his side, his oxygen mask obscuring his features, one beautiful hand curved as if cradling an instrument to him. She peeled off her oxygen mask, which she always wore when sleeping now, and stretched. The air stank.
The air was so bad, and the water so slimy, that none of them had any appetite. Idom went to sleep, leaving Kyllikki on watch, waiting for the air to cycle back to breathable. She waited and waited, and for the first time began to doubt that the cycle would ever reverse. She counted the units of oxygen remaining for the masks, wondered how long the vacuum suits’ supply might stretch to, counted the hours until they might expect pickup, and worried.
She was facing the fact that they weren’t going to make it, that they’d have to risk stasis, when she was startled out of her reverie by the voice-com. “Pod Fifteen, this is Fleet Captain Iyadee’s yacht, Fine Time, Pilot First, Drimar, commanding. Stand by for orbital correction data.”
She grabbed for the transmission controls, and fumbled. The device produced a horrid squeal before she got it right. “Fine Time, this is Pod Fifteen, uh, Kyllikki Abtrel, Medical Trainee. We—” She broke off, reminding herself she was not a professional communicator. It had been just luck that she had fumbled the controls. Now she had to play it out. “Uh—we have an emergency, I think.” She described the amount of oxygen left, and read off the composition of the air. She slipped in the data on their dormant luren in stasis as casually as she could, realizing it would be foremost on a medic’s mind. Omitting it now would cause trouble later.
When Drimar wanted to talk about the orbital correction, she called Idom, who likewise took care to stumble.
Kyllikki was sweating by the time they had forced the discussion to take three times as long as it should have taken, but they won a higher place on the priority list.
CHAPTER FOUR
Kyllikki dropped heavily onto one of the bare cots and stared at the worn and blotched floor between her feet. The high-ceilinged Paitsmun barracks had been hastily converted for human prisoners of war by filling the open floor with rows of bare cots, leaving just enough room for a slender person to stand between them. Kyllikki had chosen a cot on the wide aisle that ran the length of the space, which was drafty, filled with sharp echoes and human voices aching with defeat. She kept her barriers opaque in both directions, aching herself.
As Prosperity’s passengers and crew filed in behind her, a Teleod guard stood up on a cot and used a palm-held amplifier to direct them, men to the right of the aisle and women to the left. Elias and Idom took cots across the aisle from her. The guard droned on in a Metaji dialect with a distinct Teleod accent, assuring them that a privacy curtain would soon be rigged down the center of the huge room, which seemed more like a space-yacht hangar than the luxurious accommodation it was to the Paitsmun. “Meals will commence at sundown, then you will be issued blankets. Tomorrow, you will be more thoroughly examined by our medical department.”
They had already been through triage at the landing field where the small craft had deposited Prosperity’s refugees. Medical wagons, staffed by Barkyr’s own hastily cooperative citizens, had taken away the most desperately ill passengers, but on order of the Teleod guards, had left Zuchmul’s stasis unit sitting in the cruel sun.
Kyllikki had not let go of the unit even once after she, Elias, and Idom had detached it from the pod’s bulkhead and wrestled it into the yacht that had collected them. She had clung to it while the yacht filled with survivors from other pods, and she had ridden down to the planet secured only by a makeshift safety belt attached to the massive unit. Once aground, several who had counted Zuchmul as friend carried the unit gently out onto the field. She had stayed with it until soldiers came for her. Even then, she had clung to the case with hysterical strength, repeating over and over how Zuchmul had to be revived by his own people, and they had to know, first, what had happened to him.
She had transcribed every detail in the unit’s log, every bit she knew of Zuchmul’s medical history and family affiliations, but she knew that wouldn’t be enough. She had to go with Zuchmul, wherever they were taking him. Finally they peeled her away and forced her into an overcrowded truck that floated away across the pavement, Zuchmul’s case receding into a tiny blot before she lost sight of it, abandoned out in the sun. What if the protective fields aren’t enough for a luren? What if they can’t protect him against the direct sunlight?
Somehow, in the middle of that long ride, she had found herself being held in Idom’s arms. “Kyllikki, that was wonderful! Inspired. They’d never suspect you now.”
Elias pushed up behind her, growling, “That was no act, old man. Here, let me.”
He had turned Kyllikki into his arms, stroking her hair and making soothing noises until the truck halted with a jerk and they filed through security gates. The nonhumans had been segregated and herded by armed guards toward one of the looming buildings that dotted the flat, high-fenced compound. Then the humans had been escorted by the man with the amplifier, who never stopped talking reassuringly to them. No attempt had been made to reassure the nonhumans. Kyllikki knew why. Their opinions and feelings were unimportant.
Now, she sat on her bare bunk and heard the instructions and bland apologies, all very polite but firm, assuring them they’d be provided with bedding after they were fed.
Would the nonhumans? If so, she was sure there would be no attempt made to determine what sort of bedding would be adequate for each species.
Her musings were interrupted by another male voice. “Abtrel! Officer Abtrel, step forward.”
A man with a palm amplifier paced past Kyllikki’s cot, casting his announcement over the women expectantly, then moved on, the sound fading with distance and the incessant rush of hundreds of voices echoing off the cavernous ceiling. “Abtrel. Officer Abtrel, step forward.”
“Kyllikki!” It was a penetrating whisper, and she started in surprise. Elias was squatting in the central aisle, pretending to be inspecting one leg of his cot, which was a bit shorter than the others, while over his shoulder he hissed, “Kyllikki! That’s you! Kyllikki Abtrel! You’d better answer or they’ll think you’re hiding for a reason.”
She gaped at him, then scrambled to her feet and pursued the guard who was calling her. “Sir! Sir! I’m Abtrel, Medical Trainee, Prosperity.” The man turned to her, and before he could challenge why she hadn’t answered sooner, she added, “I’m not an officer, sir.”
He