Lost Past (14 page)

             
“The best way to keep people from silencing me was to make sure killing me would have no impact. With the knowledge out there, there was no reason to kill me.” John realized they considered his personal fear a better defense than his desire to ensure that the important knowledge was disseminated. He refrained from mentioning that passing the knowledge for personal safety never occurred to him before he stepped into the courtroom.

             
“Why did you feel threatened?” the chief judge asked.

             
“Because of Arthur.” He turned to Hernandez. “What I don’t understand is why you had to kill so many people to get Arthur. And why didn’t you just destroy the plane?”

             
“We didn’t think the
Plicts
would approve of killing Saunders,” Hernandez said. “Besides, they wanted him here. They felt he could learn more about wormholes, but he went on to other research. He disobeyed the
Plicts
.”

             
There was a murmur at this statement. John briefly found himself siding against Arthur, but common sense prevailed. Arthur was not obligated to obey the
Plicts
.

             
One judge started questioning Hernandez, who explained Mason’s death and the interference with communications were both designed to keep John’s knowledge from getting out. John risked a brief question then: “Why?”

             
“Because the
Plict
wouldn’t like it.” That seemed to settle it.

             
“We intercepted Mason’s call,” Hernandez explained, “and thought killing him would solve it. Eric Schwartz and John Graham went to the hospital, and we weren’t sure we could find them in the building. We didn’t think they would be telling anyone else for a while, and we were busy keeping a cap on communications until we were sure. Once we realized that
John gave out information, we could bring him in. We still wanted to limit communication, because we might be able to contain it. When we found everyone in his office, we took them because they might have continued the information leak.”

             
The judges asked Hernandez for more details, which he gave reluctantly. Several times, Hernandez tried to turn the focus back to John, but the judges were clearly interested in the extent of Hernandez’ activities.

             
The bombing at the school was disclosed and all three judges were a bit unhappy about it, but not seriously concerned. The passengers on the airplane were brought up. Hernandez admitted two of his friends returned to Earth to find Schwartz, Pedro, and Jun and kill them. They bombed all of their houses, so they assumed they were dead. A wave of guilt hit John. He warned them it was dangerous, but he didn’t really believe they would die.

             
It didn’t look good for Hernandez, but clearly the judges considered this a crime akin to randomly killing animals, and not very valuable animals at that. The discussion and delay were long enough so they adjourned.

             
Hernandez came up to John before he left the courtroom. “I may be banned from Earth when this is over, but you’ll be dead,” he told John with a satisfied smile.

             
John realized Hernandez believed what he said. A glance at
Katrine
and Baldur confirmed they believed it too.

             
John was surprised when no one came to take him into custody. He realized there was little point. Where would he go?

             
Katrine
came up to him and said, “We could hav
e one last night together.” He
went to her apartment, not sure of what else he should do. He felt he would have more freedom here than anywhere else, because it wouldn’t be locked from the outside.

             
“You are calmer than I am. You know you are going to die tomorrow, and you’re barely reacting. I have a horrible headache and I am having trouble breathing through my nose. My muscles ache. I thought I would be pleased when you died. I wanted you dead. My body is telling me that I still love you. When you wouldn’t come to me on Earth, I hated you. I was in a strange place surrounded by animals and open sky. I thought it would be enjoyable. Hernandez promised me I would like it, but I could see long distances and there was no ceiling. I was frightened. I told you so, but you still didn’t come. I spent hours waiting. Finally, Hernandez came and took me home.”

             
He pulled the bed down for her and she sat on it. “I don’t really feel like sex, but I want you here.”

             
He took her hand; it was hot. He realized she was interpreting her symptoms as psychological, but they were physical. Cara must have given her something when she sneezed in her face. He gave her a cup of water and encouraged her to drink it.

             
“Just relax,” he said. She lay back and was asleep in minutes.

             
One last night to relish his freedom, or one last night to try to escape.
It wasn’t a hard choice. He left her room and headed for the only exit he knew, the stairway to outside. Hernandez was waiting for him. John could have tried to turn, but the flow of foot traffic would call attention to him. Instead, he tried boldness.

             
“Hernandez,” he said. “
Katrine
is sick, and I think
it’s
flu. With her lack of immunities, she may die. I’m lost and don’t know where to find a doctor. She’s asking for you. What should I do?”

             
A curl came up on his lip. “Nice try, but I’m still guarding the stairs.”

             
“Call her.”

             
Hernandez pulled a weapon and covered John, but went to an irregularity in the mirrored wall. There was some kind of an intercom system on the walls.

             
He called a doctor, then told John to go back to her apartment. “Walk ahead of me. I’ll be covering you.”

             
Hernandez didn’t stay very close to him, which eliminated the possibility of John trying anything fancy to disarm him, not that John knew how to do it. John understood there was no point in having a long-range weapon and lose the advantage of it by keeping close, but
Hennandez
left too much space. When an intersection came, someone slipped into the space between them. John turned a corner, going the wrong direction. Hernandez hesitated, and a second person came between them. Hernandez decided to follow John, but John wandered around until there were six people between them. John had a perfect defense if stopped and questioned. He was behavi
ng reasonably. Hernandez shouldn’
t have held a weapon on him and John had a right to avoid him.
             

             
Hernandez stuck with him. John led him past
Katrine’s
room, but didn’t stop. Hernandez entered the room.

             
John went as rapidly as he could to the stairs. He was out on the roof in a field of strawberries when he heard the door to the decontamination room open.

             
There was no place to hide outside. The sun was
near
the horizon, but it could be morning or evening. He didn’t even know how long a day was. He ran toward a random wall. He stepped on strawberries and
plowed through
tomato plants. The wall at the edge was seven feet high and opaque. Hernandez was out of the stairway, running toward him. Why didn’t he fire?

             
Range, John thought. The weapon must not be as long range as he thought. He jumped up and grabbed the edge of the wall. He pulled himself to the top and looked over, seeing only ocean. Hernandez fired and John felt a tingle on his left arm. No harm
done, but Hernandez
was
coming closer and wouldn’t miss his next shot. He had no way of knowing how deep the water was, but he pushed himself off the wall, trying to get as much distance as he could.

             
As he fell, he saw land on the horizon. How far away was it? He wasn’t sure, but more than a mile. Could he swim that far? He didn’t have a clue, although he remembered that his email said he swam regularly with Arthur.

             
The cold water shocked him when he hit, but he realized it could be worse. It was a reasonable temperature; he would have time to swim somewhere. Where?

             
He hit the bottom with a start, his shoes and legs taking part of the blow. The water was over his head, but if he had dived in, he might be dead now. He could see nothing out to sea, so he picked a random direction parallel to the shore and started swimming. He was in the shadow of the island, and probably difficult to see. He was comfortable swimming, but he couldn’t swim forever. The cliff was completely vertical for about a quarter of a mile, but a few high rocks stood out, and he headed for them.

             
There was a small pebbly beach at the base of the cliff. Looking at the wall of the city, the beach went underwater at high tide. There was a shallow cave, just two yards deep, but above the high tide mark. He saw no plants or animals, but he couldn’t see anywhere else to stay. He crawled into the cave, hoping it would block the signal of the transponder. He took his knife out of his pocket and dug the transponder out of his shoulder
, wincing as he did so
. Fortunately it was just below his skin
, and his fear
of being
caught
overcame his reluctance to hurt himself
. By t
he time he finished, the sun set,
and
it was hard to tell by the dim light
, but he thought his slight bleeding wouldn’t leave a sign he was there. He smashed the transponder between two rocks, but wasn’t certain it was broken.

             
High tide erased the beach, le
aving him a tiny spot to sleep, although he was too upset to
do so
.
He licked the dew off the wall of the cave, which was inadequate to quench his thirst, but it helped, and the salty water outside would make things worse. His shoulder was no longer bleeding. He wondered what to do with the transponder. He walked out on what had been the beach. The water was knee deep. He saw a grey, fish-like animal. Hunger made him grab it. He put it briefly on the floor of the cave. “Not edible,” came to his mind. A memory? He wasn’t sure. He fed the “fish” the transponder and released it.

             
He heard the noises of the search above him, but they never came down. Surely they knew the cave was here? He heard enough conversation to realize they were looking for his body. His jump wasn’t extraordinary. Why were they certain he drowned?

             
They don’t swim, he thought. Hernandez would know it was possible, but did he know that John swam?
Possibly not.

             
John realized he never used a defense that Hernandez gave him. If
Hernandez
didn’t
believe in the
amnesia, why would
he
do so much to keep
John
from being influenced by Arthur?
When John knew who he was, he kept his agreement.
Hernandez must have believed the
amnesia
was real
. John doubted that this would save him if he returned, but wished he tried it at the trial.

             
He
managed a few hours of sleep during the next day, but at
dusk he tried to swim again. It was clear and starlight would help. He mentally marked a large rock he thought was distinctive enough that he could find the cave again. He swam more around the wall and found two more beaches and a better cave. There was water dripping from the roof of the cave and he licked it. The morning brought enough dew to satisfy his thirst, but he knew he needed food. There was a purple mold on the side of the cliff, but he didn’t try eating it because he had no idea if it was edible. He worked his way gradually around the city until he came to a place that he thought he could climb. There were cracks in the rock wall that gave him handholds. He took it slowly, and finally made it to the top. There was an outcropping of rock that gave him a place to grab onto the fence. He climbed it and looked around. No one was there.

             
He harvested fruit. There was no protein, but the green tomatoes would give him calories and moisture. He harvested selectively, not taking too much from any location. The mechanical picker ignored him and no one was visible. He climbed back down to spend another night in a cave.

             
The next morning, he climbed up to the garden again. It was easy to cross over the city there, but he had only explored a portion of the wall. He climbed up
to
if he could spot the land he saw in the distance. He didn’t, but found a bit of land below the wall, larger than anything he found before. He climbed down as far as he could and then jumped.