Dirge - Alan Dean Foster [103]
“Other room?” Raising up slightly, he scrutinized his new surroundings, noting the reversed layout and the altered view through the large window. “I don’t remember being moved.”
“They had to knock you out. It took five orderlies.”
“Five, eh?” He seemed perversely pleased. “I imagine this is going to go on my bill.”
Putting a hand over her mouth she covered the laugh she was unable to suppress. This was supposed to be a serious moment, one in which she admonished the invalid for his unacceptable actions and discussed with him how to prevent a recurrence. Instead, she found herself giggling and grinning at the irrepressible patient’s every other comment. Furthermore, she discovered that she didn’t give a damn about the reactions of those individuals whose attention might be fixed to distant peeping monitors.
“I have a feeling the government is picking up the cost of your stay.”
“Really?” Pushing down against the mattress, he sat up. “Maybe I’ll trash this one later. Yeah, one room a week. That would fit the way I’m feeling.”
Making an effort to be serious, she wagged a warning finger at him. “I’d think twice about that. Keep it up and you’ll be spending most of your time under sedation. You won’t be any good to anyone in that condition.”
His smile evaporated and he looked away from her. “Who gives a good goddamn?”
“I do,” she replied simply.
That brought his head back around. Outside, the equatorial sun was climbing rapidly, flooding the room with diffused but still sharply defining light. The window glass darkened slightly in response, moderating the illumination and temperature level in the room.
His tone was subdued, thankful. “I’d like to be able to say it was worth everything I went through just to hear those two words.”
She put a hand on his. “I don’t expect that kind of oblique praise, Alwyn. I don’t need it.”
“Then you believe me?” Despite his outward bravado, she could sense that veiled desperation underlined his words.
“I believe you,” she replied sympathetically, “but to convince others will require more than your word. Surely you can see their side. You can’t accuse an entire species of genocide and inconceivable acts without something more to back it up than the word of one man. Or even the words of a shipful. You mustn’t feel singled out.”
“But I do feel singled out,” he told her. “I was singled out. I survived. I’m the only one who survived. Why me? Why not someone with a better nature, or great artistic talent? Why not a composer or a writer, or a mother with three kids? I’m a cynical, misanthropic, short-tempered, semiretired son of a bitch. If there was any justice in this universe I’d have been one of the first to die.”
“That would have been a pity.”
His gaze narrowed slightly. “Yeah? Why?”
Her fingers tightened around his. “Because then we couldn’t be having this conversation.”
He stared at her for a moment longer. Then he began to cry. Not silently this time, nor in great racking sobs, but normally, the way any man would cry when overwhelmed by irresistible emotion. The very ordinariness of it was a profound relief to her.
He stopped so suddenly that she was alarmed.
“Alwyn, what is it, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong.” He wiped at his eyes almost angrily, as if trying to punish them for their betrayal of his fancied indifference. “I just remembered something.”
“Is it important?”
“I think so.” He was nodding slowly. “It’s proof.”
Nadurovina was not the first into the room. Rothenburg was faster. Chimbu followed behind, accompanied by an orderly. There were others who wanted to join them, but the chief medical officer had ruled against any more being present at any one time. Given the patient’s recent deranged outburst, the doctor did not want to do anything to make him feel pressured. That included crowding his space.
On the bed, Mallory was nodding wisely to himself. “This is about as much privacy as I thought I had.”
Rothenburg would not be denied. “You said you remembered proof. I heard you. I heard you distinctly. What kind of proof?”
Mallory eyed the intelligence