Infinity Beach - Jack McDevitt [162]
Kim couldn’t remember how she had gotten here, couldn’t remember anything since attending the memorial service for Solly. She tried to concentrate on her visitor, but noticed she had no feeling in her right leg. “Broken, I’m afraid,” he said. It was a male. Tall, dark skin, deep voice. She couldn’t focus on his face. “But you’ll be up and around in a few days,” he continued.
“Is this a hospital?” she asked.
“Yes.” He had dark eyes and seemed pleased about something. “How are you feeling?”
“Not too well.” She’d ridden the train to Eagle Point. Yes, that was it: She was in Eagle Point. Looking for Sheyel.
The physician was tapping a pen against a monitor screen, nodding to himself. “You’re doing fine,” he said. “You’ll probably feel a little out of sorts for a while, but you’ve suffered no serious damage.”
“Good,” she said.
The battle at the lake shore edged its way into her consciousness.
“Kim?”
Sheyel was dead. They were all dead.
“Kim? Are you with me?”
“Yes, Doctor.”
“I’d like to ask you some questions. First, why don’t you give me your full name?”
He pulled up a chair and asked about her professional duties, how she had come to get into fund-raising, whether she was good at it. He wanted to know her birth date, what books she had read recently, where she had gone to school and what she’d studied. He asked whether she remembered how she had come to be in the hospital, and when she stumbled trying to answer he told her it was okay, don’t worry about it, it’ll all come back.
She had fled with the Valiant.
He asked her opinion on various political issues, questioned her on whether she owned a flyer, and how she enjoyed living in a seafront home. And he wanted her to explain how it could possibly be that the universe was not infinite.
The police cruiser got too close again. She tried to shake the memory off, assign it to delirium, get rid of it. But it had happened.
And then there had been the tunnel.
“By the way, there’s someone who’d like to talk to you. Asked specifically to be put through as soon as you were awake. Do you feel able?”
“Who?” she asked.
“A Mr. Woodbridge.”
Well, it didn’t take him long. “Yes,” she said. “I can talk to him.” She looked at the physician. He smiled at her, took her wrist for a moment, and told her she was going to be fine.
“What happened to the shroud?” she asked.
His brow creased. “What’s a shroud?”
“The thing. The whatever-it-was that was trying to kill me.”
“I’m sorry, Kim,” he said, “I really don’t know anything about that. But I wonder whether you should talk to anyone just now. Maybe you should rest a bit.”
She’d thrown the Valiant into the lake. My God, had she really done that? “No, it’s okay. I’m fine.” She tried to raise herself against her pillows. He helped. “Put him through,” she said.
“Okay. But five minutes. That’s all. Is there anything I can get for you?”
“Something to eat,” she said.
“I’ll have breakfast sent right up.” And he withdrew. She closed her eyes.
The projector came on, and she was staring at a virtual Woodbridge.
He was seated in an old-fashioned oak chair. Because of her awkward position in the bed, the projector was angled. Woodbridge peered down at her from a spot near the ceiling. He looked worried. “Kim,” he said, “are you all right?”
“I’ll have to do a little healing. Otherwise I’m fine.”
“What happened?”
She hesitated.
“It’s safe,” he said. “We’re on a secure circuit.”
That wasn’t why she hesitated. Tell him about the Valiant and it’s gone. Either to a government lab for research. Or back to the Tripley estate. Damn. After all she’d been through, the thing should belong to her, if it belonged to anyone. Anyway, she couldn’t see that she owed any kind of debt to anybody else.
“I got a call from Sheyel Tolliver,” she said, “asking me to meet him at Severin.” She explained that Sheyel must also have contacted Ben Tripley since