Meridian Days (15 page)

"Can I help you?" the receptionist asked.

I gave my home code and asked to have Doug call me as soon as possible. Then I cut the connection and collected Fire. Subdued, she took my hand as we hurried out.

I hailed a cab and gave our destination as the Meridian Institute of Medicine.

~

The specialist's consulting room was plush and palatial, with a thick carpet, potted ferns and a v-shaped marble desk. Its entire south-facing wall was a clear, crystal cupola, affording a spectacular view over the city. For perhaps thirty minutes I paced the length of the room, waiting for the specialist to emerge from the adjacent surgery and tell me how serious Fire's condition was.

When I walked into the oval of the cupola for perhaps the fiftieth time, I stopped and forced myself to concentrate on various aspects of the view: the vehicles in the streets, the trees lining the boulevards, the multiple windows reflecting the sun. It was as if by keeping my mind occupied I might be able to keep myself from dwelling on the events of the day. Abe's death still had about it an air of unreality, the fleeting, elusive aspect of a nightmare. I could not conceive that Abe would not be there, as large as life, when I next visited his island.

I watched a file of vehicles cross the suspension bridge to the Telemass station: juggernauts and container craft as well as smaller, private cars. I recalled that, in two days from now, the last shot was due before they were rescheduled to one a month each way. I wondered if this accounted for the rush of traffic making for the station today.

I turned at a sound from the far end of the room. The door to the surgery swung open and the specialist stepped out, a small, grey-haired woman in her mid-sixties. In the room behind her, I made out an array of medical apparatus which appeared too large to be applicable to the cure of human ills: bulky body monitors and chromium frames like implements of torture.

"Mr Benedict..." The woman smiled. "I'm sorry for keeping you waiting so long."

"How bad is she?" I asked.

"We're still running tests, Mr Benedict." She indicated a seat at the apex of the arrowhead desk, then seated herself between the arms. "There are a few questions I'd like to ask you." She consulted a computer screen embedded in the desk-top. "I know this is a formality, and I'm sure we can clear it up in no time — but were you aware that Miss Trevellion has no medical record on Meridian, even though she was born here?"

I explained that Fire had been treated privately.

The specialist frowned. "Is she dissatisfied in some way with the treatment she's been receiving?"

"Well... she did want a second opinion."

"I hope you don't mind my asking, Mr Benedict — but what is your connection with the patient?"

"I... we're friends," I said, and left it at that.

She smiled. "My services are rather expensive," she warned me. I was a normal, I was wearing my flying suit, and I cannot have presented a very convincing appearance of affluence.

I took my credit card from my wallet and passed it across the desk. The specialist accessed it, scanned the information on the screen, and returned the card without a word.

"Just one more thing. I wonder if you can tell me the name of the surgeon who was treating Miss Trevellion?"

I had heard the man's name mentioned at the party by Trevellion. "Heathway, Hathaway — something like that. Is it important?"

"I was curious, that's all. If you'll excuse me." She stood and made her way across the room.

I followed her. "Do you know exactly what's wrong with Fire?" I asked.

The woman paused by the open door.

"Mr Benedict, there is actually nothing physiologically wrong with the patient."

I smiled. "But that's impossible."

"Please, believe me. Fire Trevellion is as fit and healthy as you or I." And with this she turned and entered the surgery.

As the door swung shut, I glanced through and caught a brief glimpse of Fire. She was strapped into a padded chair, itself attached to a device which resembled a gyroscope. The frame had been rotated so that she faced the floor at an angle of forty five degrees, giving access to the back of her head. Leads and grabs hung from a swing boom overhead, and jacks were connected to Fire's occipital console. From time to time her body spasmed.

The door closed and I resumed pacing the room, considering the specialist's diagnosis and what it meant...

Thirty minutes later — though it seemed like hours to me — the specialist emerged with her patient. Fire moved like a somnambulist, her eyes glazed. I took her and assisted her into the seat beside mine. She found my hand.

"Fire?"

"I'm okay, Bob. I'm fine." She spoke slowly, her words slurred.

I looked to the specialist for an explanation.

"Miss Trevellion has no illness, tumour, or brain damage whatsoever," she said. "She told me that so far as she was aware, the occipital console was placed there by the surgeon when she became ill, to monitor her condition. Of course, as she has no condition to monitor, this is absurd. The console is nothing more than the terminal of a module wired into her neo-cortex to facilitate the administration of certain drugs."

My grip tightened on Fire's hand. "What kind of drugs?"

"Does Miss Trevellion suffer specific memory loss?" the specialist asked.

Beside me, Fire nodded wordlessly, perhaps overcome by the realisation of the extent of her mother's tyranny.

I said, "Her mother's surgeon, Hathaway...?"

"He administered chemical amnesiacs to suppress specific memories. I found out that much — what I don't yet know is the extent of Miss Trevellion's memory loss."

I just stared at her. "Is there anything you can do to help her regain those memories?"

"Ah... That's a difficult question to answer with any degree of certainty at this moment, Mr Benedict." She said this with the circumspection of her profession. "If you could bring Miss Trevellion back in two weeks—"

Fire said, "Two weeks? Can't you see me before then?"

The specialist regarded the desk-top screen. "I'm afraid that's impossible. I have a rather busy schedule. Even then," she went on, "I cannot guarantee that I would be able to restore your full memory. There will be a lot of careful exploratory work to be done before I can assess the extent of your amnesia. It might even take months."

I nodded. "I'll bring Fire back in a fortnight," I said.

She went on, "What was inflicted on Miss Trevellion was a gross breach of professional ethics, Mr Benedict. I have no option but to inform the authorities—"

At this, Fire shook her head. "You can't... You've no idea what my mother..." She stopped then, stared down at her knees. "At least, don't report them right away."

"I will have to make the report within the next few days..."

Fire made a despairing sound and grasped my hand.

I thanked the specialist, assisted Fire from the consulting room and walked her slowly from the building. We caught a cab back to the gliding club.

"What am I going to do, Bob?" Fire asked.

She sat very still, as if paralysed, next to me.

"I can't go back home," she said as we passed through the busy streets.

My mouth was suddenly dry. "Don't worry, I don't intend to take you back." I was aware that she was watching me.

"I can stay with you?" she asked.

I nodded. "For as long as you like."

We made the return flight in silence, each absorbed in our own thoughts. The archipelago passed beneath us, each knot of land identical to the last in everything but size. As Abe's island and then mine came into view, I was conscious of contrary and hypocritical emotions within me: I felt a numbed and constant ache at the loss of Abe, and at the same time a burgeoning joy that I had at last won Fire.

~

We ate on the patio overlooking the ocean. Later, we drank cheap brandy, watched the approach of the floating shield and talked. We talked of Earth and far-flung colony planets and places we would like to visit, but behind our conversation was the unspoken fact of what we had experienced today.

Fire piled a stack of magazines on her lap and leafed through them one by one. She came across a pamphlet advertising Abe's animals sanctuary. She looked up from it to the island across the sea.

"What about all the animals?" she murmured.

"The animals...?"

"Out there, on the island. How will they live without Abe?" She looked at me. "Bob, we must go over there and release them, okay? It's what Abe would have wanted. We can't let them stay there, imprisoned..." She shivered. "That would be terrible..."

I put my arm around her shoulder and watched the shield usher in another night. The twilight deepened, moved through indigo to dark blue, then black. In the distance, the snow-capped mountains of Darkside glittered beneath a field of stars. On Abe's island, a dark silhouette against the lighter sea, the halogens in the domes winked on one by one, simulating the natural daylight of Brightside. I wondered how many times I had sat here on the patio, gazed out at the same scene and made the steadfast resolve to visit Abe.

We sat in silence and watched the pterosaurs make their way to Brightside.

Later, drunk on brandy, Fire took my hand and stared at me. Tears filled her eyes. "Jade..." she whispered. "My mother wiped Jade's accident from my mind." She paused there and frowned. "And Hannah Rodriguez. I can't remember anything about her! Why would Tamara not want me to remember her, Bob?"

"Hannah too?" I felt sick inside.

Fire nodded, too choked to speak. I drew her to me, found her lips, and the kiss was like a consummation, an affirmation of loyalty after all we had gone through together. She clung to me, more in desperation than affection.

We undressed each other slowly. She parted my shirt, traced the mess of scars on my chest with her fingertips. Her eyes looked into mine. "Bob?"

"I was lucky," I whispered.

That night, I dreamed of the accident. Again I was strapped into the command nexus, again I was powerless, through a combination of negligence and panic, to prevent the crash. The ship tumbled out of control towards the surface of Mars, and in the explosion that followed I heard the accusing screams of the hundred dying passengers.

I awoke suddenly and sat up in bed. I had gone through this so often in the past, alone: the hours of remorse, the surrender to the oblivion of frost... Now I felt Fire beside me, the line of her spine illuminated in the starlight, and the terror of the accident, and my guilt, became bearable.

Only then did I realise that she was crying. I lay down beside her and drew her warm body to mine. "Fire... Fire," I said, "I miss him, too."

It was some time before the tears stopped and she could bring herself to speak. Her head turned in the darkness and she looked at me.

"I'm crying for Jade..." she said.

SEVEN///BETRAYAL

That morning, as the floating shield moved gradually from the face of Beta Hydri and sunlight cascaded into the room, I lay on my back in a state of semi-sleep and thought of Fire, recalling the intimacies we had shared last night. I stared out through the dome and considered the year which had brought me to this point, and specifically the party at which I first met Fire. On reflection, the meeting had been the consequence of so many unlikely events — Abe's invitation, my decision to go, my chance encounter with Fire on the beach — that the more natural course of events would have been for us never to have met at all, and that thought was frightening.

Fire's place in the bed beside me was empty; only her scent remained, the impression of her head on the pillow. The evidence of her recent presence made the thought of her return a luxury. The fact that she was somewhere in the dome, in the bathroom or kitchen, until now used only by myself, seemed to bond us even further in a ritual of domesticity that I found both novel and reassuring.

I relaxed in the warming rays of the sun. For the first time in three days, I was not suffering the effects of withdrawal. I felt better than I had for a long time.

Activated by the timer, the music system played a soft, alien melody through the dome: Martian tablas, water-pipes and a female soprano singing in some colonial language made mysterious and significant by the fact that I could understand not a word. I was eager to know what Fire thought of the piece, one of my favourites.

I considered the many aspects of Fire unknown to me, like this one: the fact that she was an early riser. Which, when I thought about it, was understandable. For years her mother had insisted that she retire early, for her health. It would be a while before she learnt to overcome the many habits of her conditioning.

It had occurred to me again, while lying awake in the early hours with Fire in my arms, that if Steiner's adviser connected me with Abe, then I was in danger. It had seemed, then, melodramatic to think in these terms: but the fact was that Abe was dead, murdered by Weller because he knew too much. I resolved now to take Fire to one of the smaller island-towns beyond Main, to lie low for a time, even to begin a new life...

I rose and left the lounge. Fire was not in the bathroom, so I showered and made my way to the kitchen. While the percolator brewed the coffee, I stepped out into the small garden. I imagined I might find Fire there, stretched out in the sun. I returned inside, collected a coffee, and went through into the lounge. She was not there either and, though the dome had about it a quiet and stillness that suggested I was its only occupant, I was not unduly worried. I strode out onto the patio and surveyed the path down to the bay.

"Fire...?" I heard the note of concern in my voice and censored myself. I was suddenly tortured by the notion that she had left me, but this was so outrageous that it only heightened my anticipation of the moment she would show herself: she was obviously playing a game. The sensation of imminence burned within my chest like joy or excitement.

"Fire... I know you're hiding." I rushed inside, through the lounge, to the other rooms I had not yet checked. On entering each one I expected to find her there, cowering in delight. But she was in none of the upper rooms of the dome, and the hatch to the basement was locked.

In panic now, torn between the desire to delude myself further with thoughts that I would soon find her, and the unimaginable possibility that for some reason she had indeed left the island, I returned to the patio and made my way down the winding path. There was still a large part of the island I had not yet searched. Fire might have taken it into her head to go for a morning walk.

Halfway down the path, between the dome and the cove, I came to a stop. I made out two small dark shapes on the ocean, approaching the island. As I watched, the launches parted company; one continued towards the cove, the other veered off around the island. The first launch beached itself and half a dozen guards in black uniforms — familiar from Trevellion's island — alighted and surveyed the terrain.

I turned and hurried back to the dome; the invasion of Trevellion's guards, far from causing me concern, eased my apprehension. Clearly, Fire had either foreseen the event, or had actually spotted the approach of the craft, and in panic had gone to earth. It occurred to me that she might have had time to leave some note or message detailing her plans. I chose to ignore the fact that she might just as easily have woken me and told me of the danger: I managed to convince myself that she did not want to worry me at the time. I searched the lounge, but there was no sign of a note.

At least, now, I had an explanation for her disappearance.

I returned to the patio. The guards were jogging up the path. I experienced a sudden and intense burst of fury: they were responsible for Fire's flight, and anyway had no right to trespass on my domain. I imagined Tamara Trevellion, back on her island, conducting the operation like a spider at the centre of her web of intrigue.

I calmed myself as the guards turned the last bend and climbed towards the patio. I would play the innocent party, deny all knowledge of Fire's present whereabouts, claim that I was alone and had been for hours. In other words, I would be telling the truth. My only worry was that the second group of guards, swarming over the island from the rear, would find Fire before I convinced this party that she had departed during the night.

They halted before me, led by the same squat thug who had turned me back from Trevellion's island yesterday morning.

"Where is she, Benedict?"

I feigned surprise. "Fire? She left last night. She took the evening ferry to Main." As soon as I said this, I knew I had made a mistake. The ferry made two trips a day to Main, stopping off at the islands of the archipelago when requested. All the guard had to do was contact the ferry company and check the passenger manifesto.

He nodded to his men, who brushed past me and entered the lounge. While the leader regarded me with the same negligent contempt he had exhibited yesterday, I could hear the other guards going through the dome room by room.

He strolled over to the drinks' dispenser, dialled himself a beer, then moved to the edge of the patio and lodged a boot on the low wall. He spoke briefly into his handset, then chugged the beer while awaiting a reply. It occurred to me that his studious disregard of my presence was designed to unsettle me.

His handset bleeped and the small face on his metacarpal screen spoke. The exchange lasted barely five seconds. I swallowed, aware that my lie had been found out. The guard drained the carton, tossed it into the shrubbery beyond the patio and returned to where I was standing.

"You're lying, Benedict. She wasn't on the ferry last night." He watched me, waiting.

I shrugged. "I didn't see her set off. She left me in the dome. I presumed she took the ferry." We had reached an impasse. I was amazed that I had remained so calm.

"We'll find her, Benedict, sooner or later. She can only run so far."

He looked up past the apex of the dome, smiled to himself. Over the highest peak on the island, half a kilometre away, a guard hung from a jet-pack in the air. As I watched, he methodically played a heat-seeking implement, like a shoulder camera, across the length and breadth of the island. The sight had the effect of damping my spirits; my hope that Fire was hiding out somewhere and might go undetected seemed in vain.

The guard was watching me with something like pity in his eyes. He shook his head. "I don't know why you do it, Benedict. Won't you ever learn?" Did I detect genuine concern in his tone?

I tried to stare him out. "Do what?"

He laughed. "Don't play the fool, Benedict. You know what I'm talking about. Look, there's a whole island full of women up at Main. Why don't you chase them?"

"They aren't Fire," I said, defiant.

"Too right, man." He helped himself to another beer, turned and gestured with the carton. "First Steiner with Jade, then you with Fire. What is it with you good samaritans?" He hesitated. "Benedict, take my advice. Leave Fire well alone. She's forbidden fruit. She belongs to Tamara Trevellion, and you shouldn't play with what belongs to Trevellion."

"You make her sound like property," I said.

He laughed. "And she isn't?" He stared at me. "Benedict, forget you ever saw Fire. Don't get on the wrong side of Trevellion. She can be one mean bitch if you cross her."

"You sound as if you despise the woman."

He finished his beer, watched the empty carton sail over the edge of the patio, considering. "In my line of work, Benedict, personal feelings don't enter into the matter. Trevellion's my employer. I follow her orders."

"And you have no qualms about taking Fire back to the life she leads on Trevellion's island?"

"Could be worse. She has it easy, compared to some."

"She's old enough to lead her own life, where and how she wants."

"She's ill, Benedict," he said, repeating the old lie. "She needs the treatment only Trevellion's surgeon can give."

I was on the verge of putting him right, but stopped myself. I remained silent, let him think he'd won the argument.

A dozen guards came around the dome and made their reports. I was at once relieved that they had failed to find Fire, and concerned as to her whereabouts. They were joined by the guards who had searched the dome, and they too had found nothing. The leader nodded, dismissed them; they retreated down the path to the cove.

The head guard once again consulted his handset. This time I made out the unmistakable face of Tamara Trevellion. The guard said, "Yes, yes of course." He seemed chastened.

He switched off his handset and regarded me.

"That was Trevellion. She wants me to bring you in for questioning. You know what that means? They say that her surgeon doesn't restrict himself only to the healing practises..."

My mouth went dry. I think I even smiled. "You can't do that. Trevellion has no authority—"

The guard grinned. "You're shit scared, Benedict."

I was, but I was damned if I was going to admit it. "I happen to be a friend of Inspector Foulds—" I began.

The guard laughed. "'I happen to be a friend of Inspector Foulds'," he mimicked.

I tried to sound confident. "You can't take me..."

"If you tell me where Fire is, we'll do a deal. I won't take you in. How does that sound?"

"As I said before, I don't know where she is."

The guard smiled to himself. "It sounds to me that if you did know, then you'd give her away. Where's your loyalty, Benedict?"

"I wouldn't tell you even if I did know," I said. "She left sometime last night." I realised that I was sweating — not only at the prospect of being taken in, but at the thought that I
really
did not know where Fire was, or why she had left. What one hour ago had been an idyll, was now a hell.

"You know something, Benedict? I'm tempted to believe you."

"It's the truth..."

He nodded. "I'll tell you what, I won't take you in. We'll go and search Main Island. Then, if we still haven't found her, we'll come back for you."

"You're bluffing," I managed. "Even Trevellion wouldn't do that."

"No?" He seemed amused. "Well, we'll see about that."

He took one last comprehensive look around the patio in case he'd missed some vital clue, then turned and walked quickly down the path to the bay. I watched him go, my relief increasing with his every step away from the dome. He joined his men in the first launch. The vehicle rose, turned on its axis and headed out to sea. The second launch appeared and followed the first. I watched them until they were obscured by the projecting headland, then slumped into the foam-form. My relief was short-lived: the image of Fire, lost and in need of help, came to me. I hurried into the lounge, part of me still crazily convinced, despite all logic, that she was hiding somewhere in the dome. I called her name, told her that the guards had gone and she could come out now.

The lounge was in a state of disarray. Furniture had been removed, shelves pulled from the walls — as if Fire could have been hiding behind them! — in a vindictive display of force. I assumed every room in the dome was like this one, and I experienced a burning sense of injustice. My only consolation was that they had not found what they had come for.

I paused by the wall unit on which I kept the vid-discs; it too had been pulled out. I stared at the niche in the wall behind it. Last night, as a precaution I hated myself for taking, I had removed the half-shell of frost from the coffee table and concealed it behind the unit. I had made sure that Fire was elsewhere before doing this — at least, I
thought
I had — but either she had seen me, or had searched the dome in desperation until finding my hiding place: the niche was empty. The half-shell was missing.

I hurried from the lounge, too shocked to consider the implications of what Fire had done. It was imperative now that I locate her. I tried to clear my mind and concentrate on where she might have gone. If the guards were correct in their assumption that she was no longer on the island, then she must have left by one of the two means available — by launch or by glider. As she had no experience piloting a glider, that left the launch. I ran from the patio and down the path. I came to the cove and ran along the jetty. Sure enough, the launch was missing. I just stood and stared at the vacant berth, and as I did so I recalled the brochure Fire had leafed through last night — and her request to go to Abe's island today. If she had guessed that her mother would send out the guards, then the island would provide the perfect hiding place in which to use the drug.

I sprinted to the boathouse where I stored the glider, hauled it out and set about preparing it for flight. Five minutes later I strapped myself into the harness, hit the starter and soared into the air above the bay. I turned inland, cut across the incline and the pathway so as to put the bulk of the island between myself and the direction the guards had taken, then accelerated out across the open ocean, wave-hopping.