Double Helix 03_ Red Sector - Diane Carey [47]
Breath stuck in his throat. He choked and wobbled. There, before him, near enough to touch, hung planetary bodies he had seen hanging in the distant night since he was a child. He had seen them as egg-sized etemalities, and today they were in his lap. Crisp sunlight and shadows like hats rode the bold sandy satellites.
“Oh!” he gasped. “Oh-moons! Too close! How did you make me come here! How did I come here! Oh… those moons are close ….”
“Beautiful, aren’t they? You were transported here with an energy beam.” “A beam… through space…”
He tried to remember, but there was only the hazy idea of being trapped in his tracks, of looking down to see his knees dissolving and his boots disappearing. He had heard of those transport beams, but thought they might be myths.
But he was here, and he had not walked or flown here. Something had flickered and brought him here. He accepted that. The buzzing mechanical voice spoke again. “Now you know you are really in space.”
Where was the buzzing voice coming from? It was speaking fluent enough Pojjana, but with an accent. Machines didn’t have accents. Somewhere, there was a person talking. Nothing familiar in the voice. No accent he’d heard before. “Who are you?”
“These are the conditions. You will not try to look at me. We will speak through this device.” “Where are you? Are you in this ship with me?”
“Nearby. Stop trying to find me. Take your hand from that latch or you die here! … Yes, back away. Remain in that chamber.”
Orsova chose silence for a moment, to think. Failing that, he asked, “Why do you come here? And why now?”
“The Federation has come here,” it went on. “Why did they come ?” “To get their man,” Orsova told it. “How did you know they called?”
“I follow the medical trail,” the voice said. ‘The old doctor came here. I kept watch.” “Why would you keep watch on doctors?”
Stepping foot by foot, toe by toe around the dim cabin, Orsova looked at every panel of the glossy interior plating.
Was the metallic surface thin? Was he seeing shadows of a living form? Just a haze? Or were these echoes of his own reflection deep in the polished surface?
As he moved around, pressing his fingers to each panel, leaving prints on the sheen, he asked, “What do you want?” “I want to help you.”
“We accept no help from aliens. How did you get past our mountain defense?”
“We are nowhere near your defenses. We have beamed you far out. You can see how far.”
The strange mechanically disguised voice reminded Orsova of the growling of awakened rezzimults in the swamps near the capitol city.
“What do you want?” he asked, abruptly nervous, as if someone had turned off the heat. “Why did you bring me to space? What do you need me for?”
“Tell no one that I spoke to you, and you will have greatness beyond your dreams. I will help you gain influence, become powerful. You will find my friendship wondrous. When I need you, you will be here.” “I don’t even know who you are.”
“You will never know me. I must not be known. You are one of many pawns throughout the galaxy. I tend many fronts, light many candles. Do as I say, and we will see what the years may bring.”
Chapter Ten
SEVENTEEN WEEKS LATER, after a blur of physical therapy, drug treatments, rebreaking and refusion of his old fractures-so they’d be somewhat recognizable as human bones to the archaeologists of the distant future-and a flurry of puzzling comments from Dr. McCoy, Eric Stiles stood in the loading area of a smelly livestock transport ship that stocked colonies with cows or sheep or something. After weeks of treatment, a trim of the beard he couldn’t quite yet bear to shave off, and fresh clothing-blessedly not a uniform-he felt as if someone had cut off his head and spliced it onto a new body. He could stand here by himself for a long time before even feeling the first shivers of weakness. He was far from rosy health yet, but a lot farther from the death he’d been passively anticipating.
He and McCoy had transferred nine times in the past seventeen weeks, in a flurry of passage notices,