CHOSEN (26 page)

He saw a guard standing at the head of another hallway, signifying the entrance to the Royal section of the Medic Center. Maralt decided he needed a disguise to help him remain unnoticed. It would really be a lot simpler if he didn’t have to turn everyone. He wasn’t wearing his robes, but regular clothes.

He found the uniform storage room after plucking that information out of the mind of a third rank Medic. It was surprisingly easy and didn’t appear to cause the young man much more than a passing wince. The greatest difficulty was making sure he didn’t press too hard. After a brief search through the stacks of clothes, Maralt picked out a Medic uniform that fit him, consisting of a jumpsuit and a lab coat. He found a comboard of the kind that Medic’s used, and felt he’d make it through the halls without too much trouble.

“Hope so, anyway,” he said to the rack of lab coats.

Once back out in the hallway and on his way toward the Royal section, he concentrated on seeming like every other Medic in the building. He started searching the mind of the guard who would stop him, finding out that very few Medics, or anyone else, were allowed in. Dr. Eldelar Elger and his daughter Geneal were the only physicians and they were handling mostly everything themselves.

There were exceptions. The people who changed the bed linens went in twice every day.

Maralt looked down at the lab coat. He turned around, going back to the storage room where he found another coat that matched what the bed linen people wore. He left again, this time with a stack of sheets in hand. He didn’t go all the way though, finding another empty room to pause in.

Maralt had to find out if Dynan was alone or at least who might have to be turned. He didn’t want to try that with the King, guessing Ambrose Telaerin would be extremely resistant to it. Maralt would have to expend a lot of energy and effort to erase the King’s memory. The more they fought, the worse the pain, so if Ambrose suddenly started suffering from an extreme headache, others would notice. Suspicions were already high.

Maralt sat down in front of a desk – he supposed it was a physician’s office – tried to relax and concentrated.

He found a Medic out in the hall going the direction he wanted and tagged along. Maralt went into the guard next when the Medic turned away and then waited with him. The guard was thinking about a conversation he’d overheard between two physicians who seemed convinced that the King would have to make a decision soon about taking Dynan off the support system.

“What?” Maralt said without thinking about how the guard might react to a voice in his head asking him questions.

“I know. I can hardly believe it,” the guard thought, answering the question as if he was having a conversation with someone else. Maybe that’s what guards did to keep themselves occupied on the watch. “It’s the fourth time I’ve heard it in the last few hours from Medics and Docs. I saw what he looked like when they brought him in. All the blood everywhere. Some of the Docs are saying Elger and his daughter don’t want to tell the King it was already too late then. Maybe they’re right to wait after everyone he’s lost, but he has to face it some day. It’s going to break him, losing them both like this, without even knowing what’s happened to the other one. I’d like to get my hands on the men who did this.”

Maralt meant to leave the guard before his thoughts devolved into threats of retaliation, but the man’s attention shifted to a young woman walking toward him. He was well trained enough not to look at her directly. Even so, he had her undressed in a flash and as she passed him, his eyes shifted to watch after her.

The man had an imagination. An accurate one.

Maralt slipped into the mind of Geneal Elger and found her completely ignoring the guard, her thoughts only of Dynan Telaerin. She paused in mid-step though and glanced behind her. Maralt thought about Carryn’s mind, the mind of a woman, to disguise the alien presence of a man inside this woman’s being. Geneal drew in a weary breath and took him straight to Dynan’s room.

Roth Perquin sat in a chair in the far corner reading a comboard. He looked ten years older than the last time Maralt had seen him at the Oath ceremony. The First Minister glanced up at Geneal when she came in, and nodded to her briefly. His eyes shifted to Dynan for a moment before he went back to reading.

The body in the bed no longer resembled that of a young man. The change in Dynan’s physical appearance was stunning, and made Maralt acutely aware of the passage of time. They were running out of it and he thought there might not be enough left.

“Stop thinking like that,” Geneal said to herself. “He’s going to make it through this. No one is giving him enough time. It’s a small miracle he lived through it at all. His heart just needs more time to heal, and it will. I know it will.”

She told herself that a couple more times, asking herself what else she could do to make that wish a reality. She started going over the repair procedure in her head and Maralt found himself in the midst of a graphic recreation of a bloody surgery that turned his stomach.

Geneal put a hand to her temple, frowning. She’d never in her life experienced revulsion or even nausea over any medical procedure she’d ever done. That kind of thing didn’t affect her and she couldn’t understand why it was now.

“You’re just tired,” Maralt whispered, careful not to implant that thought too strongly, or she’d end up collapsing.

It was the truth anyway, since she hadn’t slept much since Dynan was brought in. “I must be,” she said, answering the idea. “Silly though. Now let’s see what we have here.”

She leaned over Dynan, pealing open one eye and then the other. She ran her fingers over his forehead and touched the back of her hand to his cheek. She started pulling back the covers to inspect the bandages and the wound.

“You should take another sample of blood,” Maralt said to her, thinking it would be handy to have her do it and bring the vial to him. Easier for certain.

“Why would I want to do that?” she said and then muttered over the way she was thinking.

“Geneal,” Roth said. “You’re talking to yourself.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said. “I do that sometimes.”

“Why wouldn’t you do it?” Maralt asked, persisting. He really needed that vial and didn't want to traipse all over City Medical to find it.

“I don’t need any more of his blood,” she said. “There are vials of it already.”

“Geneal?” Roth said, setting aside his comboard and standing. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she said quickly. “I’m just having some sort of strange internal debate that...well I don’t know. I’m just tired.”

“Where are the vials?” Maralt said even more quietly than before, daring to push her for the answers he needed.

“Where they’ve always been,” she said to herself this time, and Maralt saw a visual of a room that looked like a lab and had several storage units installed. That didn’t help him enough, so he asked for the specific location.

Geneal whirled around looking for someone standing behind her, but found only Roth looking at her in concerned confusion that was growing to something more than that. Maralt supposed it was the mention of blood that set the First Minister on edge.

Geneal pressed her hands to her head, fighting the compunction to tell Maralt what he wanted even when she didn’t know what she was fighting. He extracted the answer just before the pain in her head became the only thing she could think of.

Maralt heard someone talking right next to him then. When his eyes cleared and his mind came back to himself, a man was standing over him, shaking him.

“Are you all right?” The man was a doctor and this was his office. The tag he wore on his coat matched the nameplate on the desk.

“Yes, I’m fine, thank you. I’m sorry,” Maralt said and pushed to his feet. “I’ve been working three shifts and I felt a little unsteady so I came in and sat down. I must have fallen asleep.”

“Understandable under the circumstances,” Dr. Korin said, moving around to sit at his desk. “You should go home and get some rest. I’ll alert your superior that it’s necessary. What’s your name and section?”

“No, that’s all right,” Maralt said. “I’m fine now. I’ll just go back to work—”

“I noticed you weren’t wearing your identcard, which is grounds for dismissal. Especially right now.”

Maralt feigned to look for the thing hoping to avoid entering the man’s mind to change a few things, but he saw the doctor’s fingers resting too closely to the companel in the desk and discovered that he was about to alert the guard.

“That isn’t going to be necessary,” Maralt said in his head. “Move your hand from the controls. I’m going to leave and you’re not going to notify anyone. You never saw me. There was never anyone in your office. You’re just tired. You’re going to—”

Maralt stopped. The last conversation the man had was playing through his mind, and it was all about Dynan. The whispers he heard were alarming. Maralt forgot about being gentle and extracted the sum of the discussion.

There’d been a meeting between Eldelar Elger and a number of doctors, who accused the Chief of Palace Medicine of being too closely tied to the patient and his family to make an impartial decision. They all believed the time had come to end the young Prince’s struggle, or at least discontinue the support systems that were keeping him alive.

“Where is this coming from?” Maralt asked the doctor. “Who’s behind it?”

“Governor Alse.”

“You agreed.”

“Yes,” the doctor said. “The Governor is a family friend.”

“You’re going to change your mind,” Maralt said. “Yes, you are. You’re going to support Eldelar in any decision he makes unless it involves cutting off those systems. This isn’t about political discourse, doctor. This is about the life of a young man who’ll survive if he’s given half a chance. It was only four days ago since he had his heart cut in half. Go tell Eldelar you’ve changed your mind. Now.”

The man dithered behind his desk for a second before popping up as if on a string. He fought it for a moment, but then gave in. “He’s already on his way to speak to the King. It’s going to happen within the hour.”

“No, it isn’t. Go tell Eldelar you’ve had a change of heart.”

Dr. Korin left the office as commanded while Maralt stood uncertain what to do beside stop this catastrophe from taking place. He wasn’t sure how he’d manage it. He couldn’t imagine Ambrose Telaerin allowing it, but the risk that he might was too great. Ambrose had to be told something that would stop any consideration of it. He had to be given hope that his son would survive despite what the doctors might tell him.

Maralt moved to the door, hesitating and abruptly keyed in the lock mechanism instead. He went back to the chair in front of the desk and sat down again.

“Eminence,” he said in thought, reaching across the city to the Sacred Temple.

“Maralt,” Gradyn answered almost instantly. “Where are you?”

“At City Medical,” he said, and then gave him the explanation, but before the High Bishop could start berating him, told him the rest. “I have to talk to Ambrose Telaerin. He needs to hear the truth.”

For a moment there was nothing but silence and a curtain that cut off Gradyn’s thought process so Maralt couldn’t tell what he might say about it.

“Eminence,” Maralt said again when he thought enough time had gone by. “They’re going to speak with the King right now.”

“If you tell him, Maralt, the consequences could be larger and worse than you imagine. Will he believe you? Will he be silent? Will he allow events that must happen to occur?”

“How else can I stop them from turning the machines off?” Maralt asked. “Aside from going in there and forcing them not to do it. Is that what you want?”

“Of course not, and you know it wouldn’t work, but telling the King the truth may not work either, particularly since I only just told him that none of it was real.”

“I’ll tell him why you had to. I’ll convince him not to speak of it and I’ll make him see what has to be done.”

“And how will you do that, Maralt, with the King?”

“By talking to him. I won’t use any other method except at the outset when he’ll probably want to call the guard.”

“How many have you turned today?”

“A few,” Maralt said. “I know I shouldn’t.”

“It’s a rare drug, isn’t it?” Gradyn asked him.

“It’s just easy,” Maralt said. “I don’t have time for anything else.”

For some reason, Gradyn smiled at the answer and then he nodded. “I’ve faith that you’ll do what is necessary and what is right.”

Gradyn stepped back and there was a slight mental push that meant the conversation was over. Maralt realized he hadn’t gotten an answer. He thought for a second to talk to Carryn about it, but then changed his mind. He was afraid she’d talk him out of it and his nerves were already failing. Getting caught was only part of it. He couldn’t afford to fail. With the survival of the whole damn universe in the balance, the stakes were immense. Fear of being wrong kept him from moving for a moment.

“I think I like it better when he just says do this or do that or this other thing,” he said to himself. “Well, I can't stand here and do nothing, can I?”

At least the answer to that was easy.

He walked out of Dr. Korin’s office and almost ran into another linen carrier, which was serendipity.

“I need to borrow this,” he said, and took Medic Poole's id, and the stack of bed sheets. He made him forget about it and then made his way to the checkpoint. He wasn't stopped or even noticed.

The guard at the corner took his id number and put it into a comboard, which meant only certain bed changers were allowed into the family complex. Maralt prepared himself to alter the guard’s perception, but found himself waved through the next moment.

“Make it quick,” he was told as he started away. “The King will be back soon and he won’t want you in there. Not after the news he’s getting.”

“What news?” Maralt asked, wondering how many people knew.

“Just do your job and move on.”

Dynan wasn’t alone. While Roth and Geneal were gone, four of his friends were in. They spoke in feigned amusement, talking about the notes and cards they’d collected, joking about some of the content. The laughter was fleeting. They knew to expect bad news as well.