Event Horizon (Hellgate) (11 page)

A thread of something very like pain wormed through Marin, but it had more to do with memory than what he actually saw of Vidal. In fact, several kilos of body weight had recently begun to flesh out the long, hard bones and Vidal’s face looked just a shade softer. When he walked, he was in full command of his limbs, and his mind was clear again. The pain Marin felt issued from his own memory, and he shied away from it like a skittish horse. He had buried any recollection of the
Argos
down deep, and did not care to be reminded of it.

He joined Travers at the viewports and frowned at Hellgate’s fractured sky. Neil’s arm went across his shoulders and they said nothing. Marin was conscious of deliberately resisting the urge to analyze the event. Vidal was right – they should be grateful for a little luck; but Travers was also right, any reliance on luck was a recipe for disaster.

“I’m envious,” Vidal said at last, making Travers turn back toward him. He gestured at the two of them and smiled faintly. “Damn, I wish I’d been there.”

“When we handfasted?” Travers guessed. “We told you, it wasn’t much. We just filed the documents and opened a bottle of ludicrously expensive champagne.”

“Which I couldn’t have drunk anyway,” Vidal said philosophically. “Still, I wish I’d been there.” He looked up into Travers’s eyes and the smile softened into a wistful expression, almost melancholy. A wealth of emotion hid behind that smile, but Vidal said nothing of it. Instead, he seemed to take himself by the scruff of the neck, give himself a shake. “And speaking of parties,” he went on, “you’re invited.”

“To what?” Travers took a swig of coffee.

With an enormous effort Vidal pushed himself up in the chair and got both elbows onto his knees. Marin thought he could almost hear the man’s spine crackling as he stretched. “The official Return from the Dead party. Jo and Ernst just got clearance from Bill. They can take a shot of booze and not keel right over. Me? Not a chance.”

“Does Bill know about the, uh, organ regeneration yet?” Travers asked delicately. “That is, if the nano can rebuild –?”

Vidal gave him a mocking look. “You mean, does he think the nano can save my liver, pancreas, spleen, kidneys?”

“That would be what I mean.” Travers considered Vidal critically for a moment. “You look like you’re starting to come around.”

“Not so green around the gills?” Vidal passed a hand over his buzzcut skull. “The last set of scans look promising. Bill tells me he’s optimistic. That’s the word he uses. The organs are repairing … I’m being a good boy, playing by house rules. So I suppose I’ll drink apple juice at the party, or maybe green tea.”

“Both of which are better for anyone’s liver than booze.” Marin was seeing the differences in Vidal, but the frailty was still shocking and he deliberately steered the conversation in the other direction. “So when’s this party of yours?”

“Tonight.” Vidal stirred via sheer willpower. “After Shapiro’s briefing, in Ernst’s quarters.”

Rabelais and Queneau had been permanently discharged from the Infirmary and assigned accommodations among the
Wastrel
’s senior staff. Vidal was still technically an Infirmary resident, but he was almost never there. Most of the time Bill Grant had to track him down, bring the next round of medication to him, since Vidal was busy.

He was either in the gym or the Ops room, taking a break here in the crew lounge, or aft and down three decks, in Hangar 5. The modest sized private hangar had been empty until he, Queneau and Rabelais commandeered it, and stores soon provided the materials they requisitioned. They had worked for a week with a squad of drones, to build the oddest flight simulator Marin had ever seen; and they had been testing it for several days now.

“I’m wasting time,” Vidal groaned, pushing himself up to his feet, where he swayed only a little.

“You’re supposed to be resting,” Travers argued. “Go lie down, before you fall down.”

“I’ve rested enough.” Vidal gave the tunic an angry tug and thrust both hands into the pockets of the silk slacks. “You have no bloody idea, Neil, have you?” He nodded at Marin. “Ask your better half.”

The challenge was barbed but not unexpected. Travers cocked his head at Marin, waiting. Marin certainly understood everything Vidal had not said, but putting it into words Travers could understand was another matter.

He puffed out his cheeks, sifted through his memories and chose his words with great care. “We take our health for granted till we lose it. I’m guessing Mick was rarely below par before Elarne.” He arched a brow at Vidal, who answered with a fatalistic nod. “Youths don’t appreciate vitality – it’s like the air they breathe, cash sluicing through the hands of a spoiled kid, say, Trick Shackleton, who wouldn’t know a budget if it punched him in the nose.

“Then … all gone. Weeks blur away, nothing to show for them. You squint at a mirror … looking older. You
hear
the clock ticking, consciously watch life wasting.” He took a deep breath, holding the past at arm’s length by force, lest it get a talon onto him. “We question the value of anything we ever did, fret about ever doing anything meaningful, try to fathom what we want.
Need
.

“The bottom line never changes. ‘Gods, give me
one
day without pain.’ Not, ‘I wanna run the hundred in nine, dance and shag all night, get rich and famous.’ Just ‘let me live without pain, move the way I used to. Walk without the stumble that makes strangers think I’m drunk.’ For a time you drift, too tired to fight … cry when no one’s looking, scorn your own self-pity. Some guys lose it – make it through the disaster, then check out on a triple-dose. Bill could tell you stories.

“Mick and me –? Survivors.” Marin frowned at Vidal. The shorn head nodded slowly, but Mick would not look up at him and Marin went on, knowing every syllable was a thorn in Vidal’s flesh. “One day we feel a lick of energy, the strength to walk across a room, open a door. The sun’s hot on your back, the wind’s in your face … now, it hits us hardest. We remember who we were,
what
we were, before. Survivors start to brawl.”

He gestured at Vidal, who stood with hands buried in pockets, glaring at the deck as if he bore it a personal grudge. “We fight with what we have. Bursts of strength come and go like sprites. Moments of hope … hours of despair, when willpower and sweat get us through before pain and exhaustion bury us again. You think you’ll never dig out of the hole. Intellectually, you know you’re recovering but you slide back, start again almost from scratch, over and over. The effort drains you till you
almost
quit. Stubbornness – or maybe masochism! – force you up one more time, knowing you’ll fall … because stopping ends any chance of digging your way out. You push while people call you crazy. Maybe it
isn’t
healthy to do what you’re doing, but there’s no half measures. We fight or we don’t. If we quit, it’s over, and if we push – well, it’ll be worse before it gets better.”

The loudest sound in the crew lounge was the soft hiss of cooling fans, a faint burble from the autochef, which was percolating a fresh batch. Travers’s face was deeply reflective and Marin knew he was examining his own memories of the weeks they had spent in rehabilitation and physiotherapy after the incident on the ruined campus just above Hydralis. But the incident was brief, the radiation poisoning was treated quickly, effectively. Recovery was rapid, sure. The event did not compare with anything Vidal had endured, and Marin was grateful when Neil did not try to weigh one against the other.

At last Travers cleared his throat and said softly, “Give yourself a little respect for what you’re doing, Mick. It’s not a race.”

Vidal looked sidelong at his reflection in the armorglass. “Do you remember, Neil? The Delta Dragons, the Omaru blockade.” His left hand covered the tattoo, which looked almost like a scar on the too-thin face.

“We all remember.” Travers hesitated. “We were all about a hundred years younger. Curtis and I also remember the wraith that hauled itself out of the antique cryotank. You’re coming back, Mick. You’re probably halfway there, you just don’t realize it yet.”

The remark won him a rare, genuine smile. “Thanks.” Vidal offered his hand, and Travers took it. Vidal held on for a long moment, studying their laced fingers before he gave Marin a brooding look. “You really have been here. Done this,” he said as he let go Travers’s hand.

In that moment the
Argos
was as real as the
Intrepid,
and Marin was sure he felt a shade of color fade out of his own face. “I really have.” He set a hand on Vidal’s shoulder. “You need something, Mick, you tell us.”

“I will.” Vidal pulled his spine straight and mocked his reflection with a glare. “Somewhere along the line, I guess I decided to live. I still have a liver that doesn’t work, and a dick that can’t remember what it’s for … and Bill isn’t so optimistic on the subject of my gonads. My days of being the playboy Velcastran CityNet loved are probably over.”

“You don’t know that,” Travers remonstrated.

But Vidal only shrugged. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It does,” Marin said, too loudly, causing Vidal to angle an almost amused look at him. “Give yourself a chance,” Curtis suggested. “You’re young. You’re going to meet somebody – it happens, Mick, and everything will be different.”

“I already met somebody,” Vidal said softly, looking once at Travers before he set the question aside. “Then everything went to hell, literally, and here I am. Oh, get the worried look off your face, Curtis! I was never going to try to get between you and Neil. You know me better.”

In fact, Marin did. He had no idea what had been on his face, but he drew a careful mask over his feelings. “It was Neil’s decision to make, unless you and I wanted to slug it out.”

“Oh, please,” Travers protested.

Vidal actually chuckled. “You never had a couple of young bucks duke it out over you?”

“Sure, it used to happen all the time,” Travers said facetiously. “The crewdeck of a super-carrier was the perfect place for young love to bloom.”

“And then you woke up,” Vidal finished. He tilted his head at them, curious, apparently fascinated by what he saw. “In fact, it
did
happen for you. You know it’s rare.”

“Very,” Marin agreed. “About as rare as the other end of the scale – Tonio Teniko.”

“And those hustlers we met in Henri Belczak’s house on Celeste.” Travers gestured vaguely over his shoulder, which might have been in the rough direction of Freespace. “None of that bullshit would have happened on any crewdeck of mine.”

“Spoken like a genuine Master Sergeant,” Vidal observed, and it was a compliment. He stretched, appearing to luxuriate in the ability to move at all. “Let it be, Neil. Right now, it’s all academic. You couldn’t seduce me if you wanted to … added to which, I’m a half hour late for my shots, and that’s probably why I’m starting to feel like hell. Bill’s going to be yelling my name in another minute. Why don’t I save him the trouble?”

He was walking better, Marin thought as they watched him make his way aft, but there was still a tremor in his limbs. His energy levels were swinging, leaving him doubting his own abilities. Travers’s eyes were dark as he regarded Marin, and Curtis waited for him to speak, but Neil remained deliberately silent, as if everything had been said.

It was Richard Vaurien’s voice which intruded, and Marin was almost grateful as he, Jazinsky and Tully Ingersol walked into the crew lounge, in mid-conference. They were reviewing the extensive damage report, which Jazinsky and Ingersol had divided between three handies, and Vaurien wore a simply resigned expression.

“Long story short,” Ingersol said disgustedly, “No way can we break the drones out of
bunkers 4 through 9. We’re blind as a freakin’ cave bat on any e-space band you care to mention, we can’t load or unload any of the holds without the forward crane, and speaking of holds – number 3 was still loaded with raw materials for the fabrication shops. I’ve got a tech gang down there right now, seeing what we can salvage, but it’s ugly.”

“It always is,” Vaurien said levelly. “As Barb said not long ago, we’re not a warship.”

“The Zunshu aren’t likely to cut us any slack on that account,” Ingersol said in sullen tones.

Jazinsky had headed directly to the ’chef and was inspecting a wide, thick cinnamon scroll. “You’re taking this personally, Tully.”