Halcyon Nights (Star Sojourner Book 2) (20 page)

“Hers is the first ranch along the road. You think he knew about the revolution?”

She nodded. “His father-in-law, Carlos.”

Carlos left the bed and strode naked into the bathroom. He gazed at his face in the mirror and wondered how his profile would look on a coin. Better without the beard, he decided. He peed, then walked across the bedroom, pressed a wall button, and watched the window clear to midday. In the gardens below, wrought-iron benches marked paths between carefully nurtured winter avacodo trees and plants with red chili peppers poking through broad leaves.

Beyond, an ivy-covered wall encircled a fieldstone cottage with high windows. He smiled. Above it all hung a green projection of leaves and trees. A canopy that kept the compound invisible to prying RECOIL mantas, and even rebels on horseback in this vast land. Once, a RECOIL manta had come close, but had flown by. Then again, it also kept him prisoner in this godforsaken wilderness! He studied the cottage where the telepathic child and Willa were being kept.

He will come
, Carlos thought. The child would do what all of RECOIL could not accomplish. She would guide her father to Wolf Ridge. And then she would tell Willa Carson that he was on his way. How could the stupid ranch chica know that the cottage had ears?

Carlos turned from the window. “When he comes for his daughter, I will use the daughter to make the father do my bidding.”

Juanita smiled crookedly. “And when you are finished with the father, may I have him?”

“When I am finished with the father and the daughter, you may have both their dead bones,
puta.”

Daddy? Where are you? I've been trying to talk to you!

Lisa's thoughts came through a tunnel, darkly. I tried to open my eyes, but still couldn't.
I'm here,
I sent weakly.
Are you all right?

I'm OK. I got a lot of toys and even a vis, but there's no Space Bears.

Listen to me. Do you know where you are?
There was a pause.
Lisa!

I'm…I'm in a house

Are the people…are they being nice to you, baby?

There's the lady here who gave us the horse. Remember? Her name is Willa. She gave me ice cream. It was –

The lady from the ranch?

Uh huh. She gave me ice cream.

Lisa. Can you describe the house to Daddy so I can find you?

It's got blue walls.

Can you go to a window and look outside?

I gotta climb on a chair.

OK, baby. Go there and send me an image of what you see.

Another pause.

She imaged me a white walk lined with wrought-iron benches, trees with winter avacodos, and a meandering vine-covered high wall. Above it all was a canopy of green leaves. Camouflage. Wolf Ridge, all right! The Dream Czar's compound.

OK, Lisa. Daddy's going to come for you. Be brave, Squiggles.

You going to come now?

I heard the anticipation in her thought.

Not yet. But as soon as I can, baby.

Someone turned my head, lifted my eyelid and shone a light into my eye, then quickly moved the light away.

“He's having trouble waking up, Paul,” I heard.

“No. I suspect he's in a telepathic link with someone. Possibly his daughter.”

“Well, I have to check on my patients from the battle. Two are in intensive care.”

I opened my eyes. “The slimeshit!” I muttered.

“Who, me?” a man's voice asked, “or the tag you were just talking to?”

I blinked up at a man dressed in a white smock, with a stethoscope around his neck. He was short, thickset, with a hooked nose and white sideburns. He had the sort of face you immediately liked.

“Not unless you're the dream czar,” I said. My hand trembled as I touched a gauze pad on my forehead. “He's got my daughter.”

“Yes, we know. The bruise is just a scrape.”

I laid my arm across my eyes. “The bastard's got my little girl.”

“How do you feel?” I glanced at the two windows in the hospital room. Barred. “Are you afraid your patients might commit suicide?”

He smiled. “Considering the food, we don't want to give them the opportunity.”

I looked for the door and my gaze fell on a shiny gold-colored robot guard posted beside it.

“Mister Rammis…may I call you Jules?” the doctor asked.

I rubbed my eyes. “I have to get out of here. I have to find her.”

“First you have to be able to stand up. As your physician, I advise you to put off an escape attempt until you're stronger. Anyway,” he gestured to the 'bot. “George would be hurt if you got past him.”

“What escape attempt? Am I a prisoner here?”

”Suppose we discuss that when you're feeling better? By the way, my name's Doctor Paul Hawkes. How about a hearty meal?”

“I couldn't eat anything.”

He sat on the side of the bed and sighed. “Your daughter is bait. I think you're aware of that. It's you and your telepathic powers the czar is after.” He shook his head. “He won't harm her.”

I sat up and felt light-headed. “You know that for a
fact?”

He shrugged. “The people who are fighting the czar simply will not allow you to walk into Wolf Ridge. Consider what would happen to their cause if he had your powerful telepathic skills to draw on?”

“Suppose I
sneak
in. And then sneak
out
with my daughter?”

“Suppose he's prepared for exactly that event?”

I swung my legs over the side of the bed and sat up. I had to lower my head until my vision cleared. “That bastard!”

“If swear words were weapons, Mister Rammis, the czar would be in hell's seventh level by now. May I call you Jules?”

“Not the czar! Though him too. That bastard who hit me with the stingler.”

“Oh, Commander Rache. Twice, actually. He should have never done it. It could've killed you.”

“You think he knew that?”

“Absolutely. He would rather see you dead than in the czar's hands. I'm curious. Did you use your tel power to overcome the first hit?”

“I did.”

“Impressive.” He stood up. “Consider how you could sway a battle in the czar's favor. That's why we…RECOIL cannot allow the czar to get his claws into you.”

“Neither can I!” I slammed the bed with a fist. “My daughter is a pawn in a game that can get her
killed
. There's a native silver crote who summoned us here, on threat of her death, to execute the czar. Now the czar is threatening her!” I tried to stand up and fell back to the bed. I hung my head, exhausted. “All I want to do is find my daughter and run, before I get her killed.”

Doctor Hawkes frowned at me. “A native silver crote? You need rest, Jules, and a good meal. May I call you Jules?”

“I need to find my daughter before I get
her
killed.”

“Nobody wants to see your daughter harmed. But if anything were to happen to her, it certainly wouldn't be your fault.

I thought of Ginny's face as she reached out to me from the slippery outcrop.

Sure. It's never my fault.

I glanced furtively at George. Somehow, I would bypass his metal brain and make my escape. But, as Hawkes said, not until I could stand up again. Until then, I'd play RECOIL's game and hope to lower their defenses. “Sure. Call me Jules.” I even smiled.

He smiled back. “Call me Paul.”

A short, dark young nurse with large, expressive eyes and a mop of black hair peeked into the doorway and smiled at me.

I smiled back.

She glanced at Paul and left quickly.

He chuckled. “I think the nurses are drawing straws to see who gives you a shower.”

I smiled. “Short straw?”

“Not with that smile. Even the male nurses will be lining up.”

“Tell them to wait till I'm a bit stronger and they can all join in. I guess I am hungry, Paul.” I grimaced. “But hospital food?”

“Hospital food would go against my Hippocratic oath to never cause harm.” He flipped open his call unit and placed an order. It sounded good.

“By the way, Jules,” he said and smiled again, “now that we're on a first-name basis, I feel obligated to advise you that the escape plan you just devised should include the fact that the hospital grounds are guarded.”

I smiled back. “I'll keep that in mind, Paul.”

I fell asleep waiting for the food.

The perky young delivery woman with the blonde ponytail woke me when she set the meal on my food tray. She opened the cover with a flourish. I sat up at the aroma of mock steak. Creamy hot mashed potatoes with butter cuddled next to the steak, and a salad with real dressing.

“Thanks,” I said.

“Any time.” She winked at me and left.

I wolfed down the food and followed it with a glass of iced berrybru. It was the best meal I'd had in a very long time.

“My compliments to the hospital chef,” I told a nurse who came in to take my vital signs. She was a pleasant middle-aged woman with sagging arms, brown hair pulled back under her cap and a tired look.

“Oh.” She chuckled. “That wasn't hospital food. Doctor Hawkes got you an order from the best restaurant in Laurel.”

I stared at the window. Sky, and a sapling that waved its leafy head in a breeze. “Are we in Laurel?”

“Right in the center of town.”

“How far is it to Wolf Ridge?”

She pursed her lips. “I hope you don't intend to try to go there.”

“Just curious.”

“No one knows where it is. It's camouflaged, you know.” Her brows knitted. “A terrible place,” she whispered intimately as she checked my oxygen level. “I can't talk about the things they do, especially not to my patients. Your oxygen level is fine.”

“You can tell me.”

“Well, things with electricity and acid and fire.” She checked my temperature. “That looks fine, too.” Her expression turned painful. “I've heard that the czar watches naked prisoners get squirted with acid until they go into shock and eventually die.” She glanced at the door, where George was planted. “They say that he throws people into blackroot. Alive!” She rolled the blood-pressure unit to the bed. “People are so afraid of the czar they won't even walk past his secret police headquarters.”

My stomach felt queasy. “Where is it located?”

“Right here in town! It's that's big white building shaped like a boat.” She wrapped my arm in the sleeve and pumped it up. “I took a taxi once and he had to go down Devil's Drive. There was construction on the adjoining road.”

“Devil's Drive?”

“It's really Richard's Road, but that's what people call it.”

“Oh.” I put a hand on my stomach.

“The taxi driver was so scared, his hands were shaking on the wheel. We almost had an accident right in front of the secret police station. The driver turned white as the building!”

The steak, the mashed potatoes, the salad, suddenly grew butterfly wings in my stomach.

“Oh, Mister Rammis, your blood pressure is up!”

* * *

Paul was right. It was too soon. I ate. I slept. I worried about Lisa. Not in that order. George rolled behind me on spiked threads like a faithful dog. He was programmed to be my keeper, if not my brother, and to keep me in the hospital or on its grounds.

I tried once to tip him over, since he was patterned after the human design, with a high center of gravity. He didn't tip. He just rolled.

Let's say I could devise an escape plan, find my daughter at Wolf Ridge and successfully make our escape.

Then what?
Spirit! Then what
?

You know your mission
, he deigned to answer.

That's not the same as a plan.

The plan depends on your tel abilities and your initiative. I will help you when the time comes.

That's what you say. Then I find that I'm on my own. Sometimes on my knees on my own. Did Briertrush survive the poisoned dart?

He survived. My people grow stronger now that they are close to my source. Thank you for your part in that.

Any time. Is the river your source?

It is one source.

Are all the Kubraen villages located along the river?

Near rivers, as you call them. I will grow stronger when the core mines are collapsed. My people will benefit too.

Will they have children again?

They will have continuance.

There was that word again. But now I understand the concept behind it. And my work here will be finished.

Finished.

I didn't like the sound of finality in his tone. But the sun was warm. The breeze was cool. The day was pleasant. I sprawled on a bench near a pond on the hospital grounds. A native Bole Tree, smooth-trunked and onyx, rattled glassy silver leaves from its hanging branches in a sudden gust of wind. Even the pond showed silver teeth in tiny wavelets.

I took out the remote screwdriver I'd stolen from a workbench and the knife from the closed kitchen, and tossed them under the tree's ropy branches, along with the small flashlight from the maintenance man's toolkit, and went back to sprawl on the bench.

And just in time,
I thought as Paul strolled down the walk. Or had he seen me do it?

“May I sit down, Jules?”

I swung my legs to the ground and sat up.

“It's been a long day.” He sighed and sat down.

“New cases?”

He nodded. There was weariness in the lines of his face. “The RECOIL soldiers they brought in after that battle you were involved in.” He rubbed his forehead. “Two of them didn't make it.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“If…when you and your daughter are reunited, do you really believe that together you can stop the czar?”

“That's why I'm on Halcyon. But it's not completely in my hands.”

He stared at the sky. “You know, we came to this world with such high ideals. We were going to keep a hands-off policy on the animals and plants. Our government would be a pure democracy with citizen involvement. We took oaths to dedicate ourselves to the formation of a perfect Republic.”

I lowered my head to hide a smirk. “That's been tried before, Doc.”

“With the same results. Commander Rache called.”

“Oh?”

'He intends to visit you in three days.”

“Why three?”

“He wanted to come today, but I held him off. I told him you were still too weak.”

“Am I still too weak for a visit?”

“I don't believe it's just a visit.”

I exhaled a long breath. “You figure he'll want me to accompany him to RECOIL headquarters?”

“That's a fair assumption.”

“And use me to guide him and his troops to Wolf Ridge through Lisa while she was still there. Over my dead body,” I said softly.

He nodded.

“What's this czar tag all about anyway? What does he want?”

He rubbed his eyes and exhaled a breath. “Some men are driven by greed. Some by a lust for power. Some by a craving for fame.”

“What drives him?”

He shrugged. “All three. The sad part is, when you and I are dust, he'll be remembered in the history books.”

“But not kindly.”

“No. Not kindly. I've got to make my rounds.” He stood up and studied the Bole tree. “Good luck, Jules.” He patted my shoulder. “These are not easy times.”

“Really?”

He glanced at George and shook his head as he walked away.

I returned to my room to watch some vis while I waited for night.

When it came, I strolled out of the hospital with George at my heels.

“Can't sleep?” A nurse asked as she walked by.

I shook my head. “Too much on my mind.”

“You want a pill?”

“Thanks, but I think a long walk will do the trick.”

She nodded and continued on her way. And I continued on mine. To the pond.