Caretaker - L. A. Graf [50]
Torres trembled with frustration under Kim's grip. "Why are you holding us here?"
The Ocampa's eyes flew wide with surprise. "You're not prisoners. In fact--" He moved carefully forward, clothes still outstretched. "--we consider you honored guests. The Caretaker has sent you to us." He looked meaningfully at Torres as he passed the new clothes across the bed between them. "As long as you're not violent, you're free to leave your quarters."
Quarters. What an interesting study in the power of language when a room can go from hospital to containment cell to quarters all in the span of a single day. Kim held out his arm to display the discolored growths littering his skin. "What's wrong with us? What are these things?"
"We really don't know," the doctor admitted, obviously uncomfortable with the question. Brightening somewhat forcibly, he continued, "You must be hungry. Would you care to join me in the courtyard for a meal?"
The very mention of food clutched at Kim's stomach with hunger.
It had been a long time since he had even smelled the holographic corn bread at the Array's family picnic. He stole a glance at Torres, and found her looking a bit wistful, too, at the suggestion. "Give us a minute to change," he told the doctor.
The Ocampa nodded agreeably, and scampered back out the door.
"I think he's lying," Torres announced the moment they were alone again.
Kim laughed wryly as he shook out a pair of loose trousers and held them in front of him for size. "Lying? About what? He hasn't even told us anything yet."
"About our being free to go." She managed to make even that simple statement sound like an epithet. Turning her back to Kim, she tore off her gown and started shrugging into a long tunic.
"About not knowing what's wrong with us." She paused to stare down at herself in dour reflection. "If they didn't do this to us, then who did?"
"Maybe nobody." Kim passed her the second pair of trousers and waited while she stepped into them. "Maybe we just picked up something."
Torres growled what was either an oath or an animal snarl. "I don't like him."
I never said I liked him, Kim thought. But he left Torres to her private steaming as he led the way out into the hall.
The doctor greeted them with a broad grin, but stopped himself just short of touching them. In a flash of pointless memory, Kim knew the Ocampa's hands would be warm, and deliciously gentle.
He shook the image off with an effort.
"I'm so happy to see you up and about," the doctor assured them.
He waved them down the dim, unadorned hallway, then fell into step beside Kim. "Treating visitors is always difficult, no matter how careful and clever we try to be."
Kim exchanged a look with Torres. She made a face, obviously remembering the same archaic treatments as he. "If we're not prisoners," Kim told the doctor in as friendly a tone as possible, "we'd like to return to our ships and our own doctors."
A sorrowful expression melted across the doctor's face. "That isn't possible. You see, there's no way to get to the surface."
Torres impaled him with a dark glare. "What do you mean, `to the surface'?" But Kim saw the answer even as the words came out of her mouth, and the doctor stayed wisely silent as they stepped from the dreary tunnel into the greater light of artificial day.
The city stretched farther than Kim could see, arching gradually downward until it disappeared beneath a horizon closer than any surface planetary horizon Kim had ever seen. Walkways and ramps and mechanized stairways glittered back and forth between the spare buildings--like webs, spun by the drifting antigrav platforms, to hold the weary place together beneath the great weight of stone and earth that formed the sky above it. Even the people dotting the scene seemed tired and worn.
They rode the sliding walkways as though not interested in finding their own ways to destinations, the uniform