Crossways (27 page)

At four hours and twenty-eight minutes one of the Psi-5s collapsed and Ronan pulled out of the gestalt to seek him out where he'd fallen.

*Enough, Cara. Ben wouldn't thank you for burning out half his Telepaths,*
Ronan said.

She was about to protest, but he was right.
*Take a break, everyone.*

As they all pulled out she wobbled and would have fallen, but she was wedged into a chair with arms. When had that happened? She didn't even remember getting here. She looked around. Wenna's office, of course. It was the heart of Blue Seven's operations. Sooner or later everyone gravitated there. She was surprised to see it empty of everyone except Wenna, Gen, and Max when just a few moments ago her head had been filled with individual Telepaths, but of course, they didn't need to be together physically to form a gestalt.

She blinked, as if emerging into the light.

“Drink.” Gen pushed a cup of water into her hand and she drained it on the spot.

“Ben . . .” Cara's voice cracked.

“Four and a half hours.”

Cara groaned. “Sixteen. The record is sixteen—that we know of.”

“It is, and Ben's good enough to beat it if anyone can, but . . .”

Gen didn't need to elaborate.

Cara allowed herself three deep breaths and opened her mind to search for him.

“Wait!” Gen cut in and yanked her attention back. “You'll kill yourself like this.”

“Sixteen hours,” Cara said. “I can give him sixteen hours before I rest. Give everyone else a break now and then divide them into three shifts to join me, one hour on, two hours off until we find him.”

“You're sure we'll find him?”

“I have to be.”

At nine hours thirty Jussaro's consciousness joined hers.
*Get some rest, Carlinni, I'll take over.*

He brought in several other minds, refreshed by the short break.

*I said I'd give him sixteen hours.*

*Suit yourself.*

At sixteen hours and five minutes she felt a slight sting on the side of her neck and lost her grip on the gestalt. “What the hell . . .”

“You'll be no good to Ben if you burn out,” Ronan said.

“What did you do to me?” She massaged the sting with her fingertips.

“Mild sedative laced with a reisercaine derivative. Don't worry, the effects are temporary. You'll be back to normal in a couple of hours. In the meantime, sleep.”

“You bastard. How can I sleep when . . .”

“When he's out there somewhere.” Cara came to with the second half of the sentence on her lips. For a moment she didn't realize she'd been out cold, then she realized she was stretched out on an airquilt on the floor of the cubicle that was Ben's temporary office.

“Ronan sends his apologies,” Gen said, seated on the floor next to her. “He's only just left. Got a call from the med center. Serafin's taking it pretty badly.”

“Taking what pretty badly? Ben? There's news?”

“Nothing. I'm sorry.” Gen's mouth was set in that particular way that said she was using all her willpower not to let her chin tremble.

“How long was I out?”

“Three hours.”

“So it's been—”

“Nineteen hours and six minutes. No one's ever come back from foldspace after that—”

“Ben will.”

“Cara . . .”

“He will. You'll see. You haven't stopped looking, have you?”

“Of course not. Three shifts, one hour on, two hours off until . . .”

“Until we find him.”

Gen didn't reply.

Cara slid straight back into the gestalt.
*I've got the focus, now,*
she told Cas.
*Take a break.*

*Follow your own orders,*
Cas said.
*One hour on, two off.*

*Right,*
Cara said, knowing perfectly well Cas could tell she was lying.

*Ronan won't hesitate to put you under again if you endanger yourself.*

*He can try.*

A memory surfaced.
I killed him with my mind!
Oh shit!

She didn't mean that. Please let her not have meant it!

*Cara!*

She could hear the alarm in Cas' mental voice.

*It's all right. Truly. Ronan won't need to do anything. I'll do two hours on and one off.*

*See that you do.*

And she did. Two hours on and one off throughout the night, accompanied by uncomplaining Telepaths.

“Cara. Cara!” Ronan's voice brought her back to reality as she handed the gestalt over to Jussaro.

She clamped her hand over the side of her neck.

“Leave me alone.”

He crouched in front of her chair, hands up to show they were empty. “It's been thirty-two hours.”

“I know.”

“Twice as long as the longest time anyone's ever stayed in foldspace.”

“I know.”

Ronan dropped his voice to a whisper. “He's my friend, Cara. I love him like a brother, but it's time to stand your Telepaths down. They're exhausted. You're exhausted.”

“I know.” She didn't realize she was crying until tears splashed from her chin onto her folded hands.

Ronan rocked back on his heels and looked up to meet someone's gaze over Cara's shoulder. His head tilted in a nod of acknowledgment.

“Come with me,” Gen said from behind her. “Time to get some proper sleep.”

She shook her head, but didn't resist when Gen's grip raised her to her feet.

“You want a shot?” Ronan asked.

She shook her head and let Gen lead her to a room with four bunks in it: the standby room.

“You need to talk?” Gen asked.

She shook her head.

Gen tweaked back the quilt. “Buddysuit.”

Obediently Cara shrugged out of the suit, top first, and, stripped down to singlet and shorts, sat on the edge of the bed.

“In.”

On Gen's command she rolled into the bed and Gen pulled up the covers.

“You want me to stay?”

Cara shook her head one more time and Gen left, leaving the light to power down.

There was a gaping hole in Cara's insides. How could she sleep?

She closed her eyes and stared at the inside of her eyelids for what seemed like hours. Then she opened her eyes and stared at the inside of the dark room. Same picture.

Ben: her first glimpse of him leaning against Gordano's bar on Mirrimar-14, tall and so sure of himself.

Ben: in his bed that first night. He'd been her ride out to freedom—a convenience fuck—she'd barely considered him. Her head had been too full of Ari van Blaiden. How could she have been so stupid?

Ben: catching her when she fell.

So stupid for so long . . . and then . . .

There had been a time when it had been so right between them, just a very short time before Ari van Blaiden and Donida McLellan's neural conditioning had turned her into something she wasn't. Or perhaps turned her into something she was, but something she didn't want to be.

Ben had saved her. They'd saved each other.

Why had she told him to take it slow?

What was her problem?

It wasn't Ben.

Except now it was. He'd left her—like everyone else she'd ever valued.

Gone.

She couldn't even cry herself to sleep.

Ben crawled up out of blackness in stages. At first he was only aware of the world behind his closed eyelids. He was awake, but not awake. Gradually he felt a pain external to his head. His left wrist throbbed in time to his beating heart.

That he had a beating heart surprised him.

He shivered and coughed.

Realspace.

Where was he?

That was a question he hadn't had to ask in many years, not since a fifth-year med student admitted that his was the first implant she'd ever carried out, but not to worry, her supervisor was watching.

“Oh, great,” his sixteen-year-old self had responded. “Do I get a refund if it doesn't take?”

Her supervisor had leaned across his field of vision. “Don't worry, Mr. Benjamin, if it doesn't take, you'll be the last to know about it. Glad you signed the consents, now, huh?”

So . . . where was he?

On the floor for starters, his left arm crushed beneath him. He pushed his right hand flat to the deck plating—deck plating, that was a clue—and raised his upper body off the floor just far enough to move his left hand.

Arrgh! Not quite a yelp, more of a groan. Broken. He rolled over and scrambled with his feet until he was sitting up, leaning against something solid, something cool against his right arm.

No buddysuit top, hence no painkillers for the break. Ah damn.

Flight deck.
Solar Wind
. The limpets. The Folds. What was all that about?

(He didn't let himself think of the void dragon.)

Had it been a particularly lucid dream? He forced his eyes open and examined his wrist. Swollen. Bruised. His wrist certainly hadn't been dreaming.

A violent tickle in his lungs brought on a percussive cough. The first cough felt good, scratching the itch. The second still satisfied. The third scraped. The fourth and the fifth stung. The sixth, seventh, eighth rattled his skull, set his eyes watering, scraped his lungs raw. He coughed and coughed again, helpless. His chest spasmed and the coughs kept on coming, wave upon wave. He tried to suck air in and hold it to break the cycle, but he was hacking so hard he could barely snatch air. Coughing so hard that his chest locked.

Then the coughing stopped, but he could neither breathe in nor out.

Relax, he told himself, trying not to panic. Relax.

His vision was tinged with black spots.

Okay, pass out if you must. Let your body take over.

He couldn't take his own advice. He fought his chest again and managed to suck in something, air of sorts. And again. He sat back against the chair, all but finished, taking one shuddering breath at a time.

He lost track of how long he sat there, concentrating on the next breath, and the next, until . . .

Warmth. He needed warmth and he wasn't going to get it here. There was an emergency blanket in the first aid kit if he could only reach it. He was suddenly grateful to the designer who had thought far enough ahead to put the emergency kit in a locker less than arms' reach above the floor. He crawled, one hand, two knees, one hand, two knees . . . The journey, barely four strides for a healthy man, seemed to take years, but he got there and hit the release catch, dragging out the contents of the kit, scattering them on the floor.

Painkiller first. He slapped a blast pack to the side of his neck. Just one shot because he needed to stay awake. Emergency blanket. He tore open the slim packet with his teeth and discarded the wrapper. One-handed, he shook out the folded foil sheet and managed to get it around his shoulders. The heater circuit kicked in and he felt warmth seeping into his upper body. Thankfully he had the bottom half of his buddysuit on.

Sentient trousers. He would have laughed if his chest had not been raw. Wouldn't want to get frostbite down there.

He crawled back to the pilot's station, but the chair seemed like a mountain. He needed to get into it to check the ship's readouts.

Where was he?

Where the hell was he?

His link with the universe was broken.

He was broken.

Hauling himself into the chair was neither easy nor quick, and the analgesics only dulled the edge of the pain in his wrist. He didn't look too closely, aware that his hand was tight as a balloon and he had a bad case of livid purple sausage-fingers.

Upright in the chair he realized the
Solar Wind
was yawing. Luckily he'd emerged from foldspace into the middle of a vast nothing. Well, the odds were always good for that.

First, stabilize the ship.

He reached for the ship's systems with his mind, but it was like clawing his way through fog.

“Activate voice,” he told the ship. “Stabilize the trajectory and do a systems check. Why can't I connect?”

“Trajectory stable, Systems functioning within normal parameters. Suggest switching on your implant.”

“It's never off . . .”

He tongued the switch on the inside of a back molar, or tried to.

“My tooth.”

The ship didn't answer him. How could it? There was no answer for this. The tooth that had been implanted on the same day the med student had successfully completed her first solo procedure was now devoid of any switches. In fact, it felt like a real tooth again. Weird.

“Awaiting instructions,” the ship said.

“Bloody wait a bit longer.” The vehemence of his words started him coughing again, but this time he managed to control it before it took hold. No implant control. He felt at his forehead. He hadn't been able to see the tiny implant scar for years, but he could still feel it, a knot smaller than a grain of wheat just under his skin. He probed with his fingers. Nothing.