Mindlink (17 page)

This thing she hated had saved her. And everyone else.

“What is the creature in your thoughts?” Sam asked and she
glanced at him. His eyes were open and his face stoic, but a crippling upsurge
of pain bled into her consciousness anyway.

“Octopus. It’s what I call the thing you guys welded into my
head. When they were putting it in, it felt like tentacles slithering around in
my brain.” She hadn’t consciously projected a picture of an octopus, she knew
she hadn’t. Had she?

She wanted to scream. This link was making her insane.

Natalie sank to the ground, taking Neeko with her. Good.
Natalie got the job of Neeko’s keeper. Since they mostly just seemed shaken up,
Ashley sized up the rest of the situation.

“Check on Sid, why don’t you?” she called to Dr. Glasses as he
sat up. She refocused on Sam. “How you doing?”

“I feel very strange.” He pressed a couple of fingers to his
forehead. A long streak of dried blood lay in a crevice between the tendons on
the back of his hand.

“You’ve lost a lot of blood and you need stitches. I’m amazed
you haven’t passed out yet. I waver between being glad and wishing you would.”
She smiled in an attempt to appear unfazed, but Hollywood gloss was useless
around Sam, especially when she was upset and couldn’t concentrate on blocking
her thoughts. They pretty much shot into his head the second they materialized.
As well as unconscious thoughts apparently. “But don’t. If you pass out, it
would be worse because I can’t carry you. So stay with me.”

She took his hand before thinking better of it and squeezed. He
squeezed back and closed his eyes. Spidery veins stood out in sharp relief
against his pale skin.

Now what? If this had been a movie, a helicopter’s rotors would
be beating the sky, and the pilot looking for a place to land in order to rescue
them, because surely the credits were about to roll. They’d endured as much as
they possibly could. The ordeal should be over.

Dr. Glasses cleared his throat and she glanced up. He lumbered
to his feet halfway across the clearing. “Dr. Sidelnikov is dead,” he said,
matter-of-fact.

It took her a beat to figure out who he meant. “Sid’s dead?”
She glanced at Natalie, who recoiled as if she’d been hit in the face with a
two-by-four. First Freddy and then Sid. “Are you sure? Did you check his
pulse?”

“I am an M.D. and a PhD, Miss Hollywood,” he blustered. “That
means I’m a medical doctor as well as a scholar. So I believe I’m well qualified
to determine if someone is still alive or not.”

“You’re a real doctor too? Why didn’t you say so? Come look at
Sam. I think he’s fading fast.” She motioned him over and tried not to think
about Sid, but couldn’t stop. What a horrible way to die. But...they had one
less person to keep track of. Her stomach twisted at the cold realization.

Dr. Glasses smirked at her. “A PhD is a real doctor too, by the
way.”

She glowered at him but refused to rise to the bait. Jerk.

He knelt and pulled back the uniform where Ashley pointed.
“Hmm.”

“I hate it when doctors say that.” It was the worst sort of
stall tactic. If he didn’t know how to fix Sam, he should just say so. “What
does that mean?”

“Sutures. And a blood transfusion.” Sitting back on his heels,
he wiped his forehead with a sleeve. “I don’t see how I could perform either
procedure in the middle of the forest. I need a clean hospital room. Strong
light. Trained staff to assist. A way to sterilize everything.” He ticked each
item off, and with each new finger, her heart sank. “Last but not least,
equipment. I don’t have needles or thread. Besides, he’s the reason we’re here
in the first place.”

“So that’s it? You’re not going to do it?” Ashley’s cheeks
heated. People were dying left and right and this idiot had a chance to stem the
tide. Instead, he went with excuses. “He helped us. Doesn’t that earn him
redemption?”

Yeah. Sam had earned something. Maybe not redemption, which was
too much of a loaded word, but at least their respect and trust. And definitely
a couple of stitches.

Dr. Glasses snorted and crossed his arms in response.

“Don’t you have to take a hippopotamus oath or something to get
your license to practice medicine? That means you have to help people when they
get hurt.” She glared at him as he started laughing.

“You’re priceless. I’m starting to think it’s all an act
because no one can actually be as clueless as you are. But I suppose you’re
right. He did help us escape and we might need him to survive out here, so I’ll
see what I can do.” Still chortling, he strolled to the edge of the clearing and
examined some bushes for who knew what reason. Over his shoulder, he called,
“Put some pressure on the wound. Use your jacket. You’re used to taking your
clothes off, right?”

Sam squeezed her hand, drawing her attention—mercifully—from
the rear end of Dr. Glasses. “Thank you,” he said, his voice gravelly and
shallow. “I have not done enough to deserve your trust. I truly regret bringing
you here.”

“Me too. But it can’t be undone now. Dr. Glasson is going to
fix you and then we’ll...” She trailed off. “I don’t know what we’ll do after
that. Go to the river maybe. Find a place to camp for the rest of the
night.”

She shuddered. In comparison to a night sleeping in the
elements—one ear alert for the sound of hoots—the alien prison was going to seem
like the Beverly Wilshire. No time to dwell on that. Instead of the strip-tease
Dr. Glasses likely wanted, she unfastened her jacket halfway and pressed the
balled-up hem on Sam’s wound. Too much pressure? Not enough?

The doctor bustled back into the clearing with plants and long
stems in his hands. Somewhere in the woods, he’d lost his permanently curled lip
and replaced it with serious-doctor face, complete with a glimmer of concern. As
long as it meant he’d try to fix Sam, Ashley wouldn’t razz him about it.

“Just so happens there is a bush growing near here with long
thorns. I can use those for needles and pull thread from a uniform. It won’t be
perfect and it’ll probably get infected but it’ll have to do.” He began
unraveling the hem of his uniform jacket, carefully unweaving the fabric to get
at the fibers. “Blood transfusion’s a no go. I can’t conceive of how to
accomplish that. He’ll have to pray to his gods and hope he didn’t lose too much
blood.”

“It’s just as well,” Ashley said to Sam and stroked his arm.
“You’re young and strong, so you can fight this. There’s no telling what might
have happened if we mixed human blood with yours anyway.”

“Nothing would have happened,” Dr. Glasses said absently as he
wound thread around the thorn and stabbed it through Sam’s skin unceremoniously.
“His blood’s the same as yours and mine. Human.”

* * *

Pain split through
One’s
shoulder and he almost blacked out on a ripple of dizziness. He combated it by
concentrating on the mad jumble of conversation. Everyone talked at once but
Ashley’s voice was the only one he could pick out.

“...do you mean he’s human?” she demanded. “That’s the most
ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. They’re aliens. They live on another
planet.”

The ground bit into his back and moisture from the covering of
leaves and mud soaked into his uniform forming a cold, wet second skin. He had
trouble focusing his eyes and the blur of Ashley’s images distracted him. He
tried to talk but no one noticed the hoarse croak, so he tugged on Ashley’s
hand. “What is happening?” he whispered.

“Dr. Glasson here was about to explain when, exactly, he went
crazy,” she spat. “He’s also sewing you up. Sloppily, I might add.”

“Would you like to try it, Miss Hollywood?” the doctor asked.
“I’m sure you’re a much better seamstress than I am. I’m not crazy, by the way.
Didn’t you ever wonder what in the nine blazes aliens would want with
humans?”

In the sudden silence,
One
struggled to speak. He coughed and then said, “We use them for experimentation
and to gain knowledge we have not mastered.”

Ashley had dropped his hand and he missed the solidness of
something to hold. His shoulder burned with blistering white-hot heat. He sent
her an image of sliding his fingers into hers but the responding image was
odd.

—
Ashley
taking
four
giant
steps
backward
and
a
long
pole
between
them
.
Aversion
.
Ten
feet
long
.
Dread
.
Not
going
to
touch
him
—

“See? That’s what I’m talking about. They experiment on humans
because they’re trying to learn about
themselves
.
They’ve been cut off from the cradle of civilization—”

One
sucked in breath as the doctor
jabbed the black thing into his shoulder again. His flesh was raw and bloody. He
watched the process of his skin being stitched together through Ashley’s eyes.
The colors were stark and gut-wrenching—only because Ashley sent her
interpretation along with the images. He simultaneously wished to continue
watching, yet look away.

Finally, the doctor announced the procedure complete.
One
tried to sit and floundered as his elbow refused
to hold weight. Through sheer will alone, his back lifted from the ground and he
sat in a slouch, taking stock of his faculties.

Crackles from deep in the forest floated on the air. His
hearing worked. The link hummed its invisible presence, though Ashley’s side had
gone blank. Blurry vision still plagued him but he could see well enough to know
the others were all staring at him. “Thank you, Doctor, for your medical
expertise.”

“You’re taking all this rather well,” Ashley said.

He swiveled to focus on her stunned expression. “I will
recover. I fail to see the point in complaining about my injuries.”

She pursed her lips. “I meant about Dr. Glasson and his crazy
talk. I figured you’d be first in line to deny your origins since you think so
little of humans.”

“My origins are not in question.”

The doctor shifted his bulk to lean back. “You came up with the
list. Here I am. You never thought it was strange to request a geneticist from
Earth?”

Roaring filled
One’s
head along
with flashes from Ashley, which he couldn’t separate. The doctor questioned his
professionalism. Questioned whether he’d performed his job by rote instead of
understanding the purpose. “The Telhada intended to secure certain knowledge.
The High Chairman of Research suggested we begin cloning humans instead of using
our increasingly limited fuel resources to fly the great distance to Earth. We
have our own geneticists who know the structure of our cells.”

With a shrug, the doctor said, “Well, that may be true. But I
saw the data myself, back when your people were doing the brain scan. As soon as
I said something about recognizing the genome for Homo sapien, one of you
hustled me off and voila, I ended up in prison. I didn’t put it all together
until I saw you split open. That’s human flesh.”

“Hold the phone, Doc,” Ashley broke in. “You said they dumped
you in that cell because you only knew tree frogs. Not because you used a bunch
of code words the aliens didn’t like.”

One’s
vision gradually cleared as
the doctor and Ashley argued. His shoulder burned when he moved his arm, so he
held it tight against his waist. When he determined he might stand without
pitching over, he crawled to his feet and stopped the flow of words with a
raised palm. “This is inconsequential. We must set course for the river.”

Ashley jumped up and brushed leaves from her uniform, for all
the good it did. Dirt and blood had been ground into the fabric and would never
come out without the aid of Uniform Services.

His
blood. He’d seen more blood in
the last day than in a lifetime.

“You don’t believe him,” she said.

“No. It is false. The true purpose of implants is to harvest
information and my team determined your knowledge to be substandard. We needed a
geneticist who knew human cloning. You did not,” he said to the doctor. “No
nefarious secrets led to your sentence.”

Ashley’s doubt and disbelief invaded his mind. He faltered. She
wondered if he might be wrong. Deep down, he wondered the same as he recalled
the king’s unusual attention to the list and
UBA’s
interest in these particular acquisitions.

Absurd. He pushed the idea from his head, along with her doubt.
“I consider this discussion over.”

With his vision restored, the macabre remains of the tall,
useless one turned his stomach. The sick squelch of failure churning through his
abdomen did not require the link to interpret. The sight lent enough of a reason
to leave on its own, but additionally, the darks of the forest contrasted too
little with the lights and he wished to be in the open.

Pale squares, one after the other in a line on the forest
floor, snagged his attention as he swept the clearing.

“Okay, to the river it is. I guess I don’t see anything else to
do. Anybody else coming?” Ashley picked her way to the edge of the clearing. She
intended the others to believe she’d lost interest in the subject of his genetic
heritage. He knew differently. Her mind did nothing but dwell on the question.
Alien
or
human
?

Natalie, Neeko and the doctor followed her but
One
bent to pick up one of the squares. Pellets. In
the middle of the forest, outside the city. The system allowed each citizen
three pellets a day. No more, no less. He stuck them in his pocket to share with
the others after they reached the river. Though mysterious, it was food.