Chapter 62

 

Jared

 

 

There were five tall blond people sitting on the grass outside the door to Jared's building at the Institute; whoever the sixth one was, he chose not to put in an appearance. But Dr. Maarchesin was there on the grass talking with Zarei and Chazaerte had made it; he was pacing back and forth in front of the closed door, looking uncomfortable, as well he might, Jared thought. Wherever he had been, the scratches on his face were nearly healed, and the black eye had faded; his people healed quickly, it seemed.

Maud was sitting with Carter on the curb separating the walk from the parking lot, looking as composed as if she were sitting in the reception room of a palace; this had always been one of her gifts, Jared thought. When he parked his car, she stood up, dusting herself off, diamonds flashing in the late summer sunshine, and waited until he and Cara and Gina and Dr. Frank got out; Patterson stayed in the back seat, peering warily about the parking lot.

"There is no one else around," she said impatiently. "Tell that ridiculous man to stop acting so foolish and get in here." She frowned at Dr. Frank.

"Mother," said Cara. "This is Dr. Frank. He wanted to meet all of you."

"I'm sure," said Maud repressively. "And how are you feeling? How is your head?"

"I feel fine." Which was mostly true, Jared thought, but he noticed she was holding her head carefully, as if any incautious movement would awaken the pain again.

"Carter is here," Maud continued, and Carter, looking in no way different from the man Jared had last seen heading for the space port, came forward to shake hands with Jared, looking as if he was very pleased to see him again. They had always been friends, after all.

"My wife, Cara," said Jared, and Carter shook hands with her, too.

"Yes, congratulations to both of you. I'm sure you'll be very happy. And this would be Ms McIntosh?"

"Yes, that's my daughter." Chazaerte stopped pacing and moved, with some caution, down the walk to meet Gina. She looked at him with much the same air of caution; there was a sort of likeness between them after all, Jared had to admit.

He unlocked the door of the building and gestured the group inside. "Why didn't you just go in by yourselves?" he asked. "I'm surprised you waited out here for us."

"It didn't seem quite polite," said Dr. Maarchesin, walking in beside Zarei.

"And that stopped you?" said Jared, laughing, and Dr. Maarchesin laughed back. He held the door for Patterson, who was still in the car, looking through the open back door into the shadows. "Come on," he said. "You have all of us here to protect you, you know."

"You don't know," said Patterson, "what she's like when she's mad." He edged out of the car, keeping his head down. He had put on his sweatshirt again because it had a hood; like the D'ubians in the full sunshine, he kept it pulled down over his face as he scurried from the car into the building and hid in the far reaches of the hall until Jared closed the door and made sure it was locked again.

They couldn't hear the mad scientists upstairs, but the air scooter was still in the parking lot, and the red car with the decal from last year's Zamuaon wrestling tournament was parked beside it. So it was safe to conclude they were up there somewhere. As long as they hadn't found the locked box with the lenses, Jared didn't care; he led the small army into the conference room and Patterson locked the door behind them and scrabbled for the remote, to darken the windows before he took off his sweatshirt. Dr. Frank looked with curiosity at the half a mattress stashed against the end wall, with the folded half blankets and half sheets and the half pillow in its half pillowcase.

"If that is still here Monday morning," said Jared, pointing to the pile, "Weston and Ott will have questions."

"I'll stuff them into my office," said Patterson. "I could fold them on top of the dresser."

"Does it have a mirror?" asked Gina. "Could you saw that in half?"

"I tried. It broke," Patterson said, turning on the screens. "So I let her have all the pieces."

They were all impressed with the arches as they rose up over the table; Jared passed out the lenses, told them to share, and stood back to let Dr. Frank and the five tall blonds get up on the table and look, murmuring together, at the glyphs on the faces, and on the inside curves, and the imprint of the Celtic knots. Zarei tried to touch one, and her fingers went through the projection; she made an unhappy sound and drew back. Jared knew how she felt; he had often wanted to touch them himself, to find them solid under his hands.

"You haven't seen these things?" Dr. Frank asked. "But your ancestors came through them, you said."

"No one is allowed to land on Or2," said Dr. Maarchesin, standing on tiptoes to study a glyph just out of her range. "The Azuri/zai command has entirely shut down traffic in that area."

Dr. Frank thought about that for a moment. "I don't see how that would stop you," he said. "If you can zap back and forth between here and Linden's World –"

"But it is inhabited," said Zarei. "Linden's World has Earthians and Bahtans both on it."

"Really," said Jared, surprised. "You need the planet inhabited?"

"I hate to admit it," said Maud, handing her lens to Chazaerte and coming over to the edge of the table, "but we do have limitations. We cannot go where our blood is not. Very simple."

"Why not?" asked Jared, and gave her a hand down to the floor.

"We can't find the place," said Dr. Maarchesin. "We navigate with our minds, you might say. We want to go to Saffosio, for instance; we step out of this dimension, changing vibrations with our travelers." She touched her pendant. "We locate Saffosio from between dimensions by feel, feeling the energy of the life forms there, especially feeling those forms related to us."

"Listening," said Maud, "at the closed doors in a hall, you might say, for the sounds from inside that indicate the room we want to enter. This is a crude representation, of course, but you can get an idea."

"So if you don't hear anything from inside the room, you can't go there," said Patterson, looking over the screen.

"We can't even find the room," said Dr. Maarchesin.

"We need these signals from the species we are connected with," said Carter, closely inspecting the left leg of the fifth arch. "You say that we are outside the Alliance, which is of course true in a political sense, but you must realize that we are genetically part of the Alliance species, all four of them."

"So you are genetically connected to the Zamuaons, is this right?" Cara asked Zarei.

"I am," said Zarei, "and Sofi also. Also her daughter is of this blood line."

"And the Bahtan sisters?" said Jared.

"They are connected through the father," said Zarei, "an excellent man. My father knew him well."

"So did my aunt," said Dr. Maarchesin. "And the Duri group, through several progenitors." She beamed at them all. "Isn't it interesting?" she said.

"Very," he agreed, but before he could pursue this, Carter came over the table top to the projector, where Jared stood, and sat down on the table edge. "I can't translate all of the glyphs," he said, "but I can see that some of them are related to glyphs I do know; I will need my records, but I think in a few days I can give you a general idea. May I return, say, tomorrow night?"

"Certainly," said Jared. "Just let me know, so I can run the projector for you."

"This is incredible," said Dr. Maarchesin, standing back to enjoy the view. "Have you an idea what the writing says, or just a guess?"

"I don't guess," said Carter, looking offended, and Maud laughed. She was standing beside Cara and Gina, who was watching Chazaerte as he walked across the table, and Jared had his eyes turned toward them when it hit him, a sudden dark wave of apprehension that swept through him like a fast-moving blight, and it hit Gina at the same moment. She spun around to look at him and reached out a hand for him; he reached back, trying to understand what was happening.

A phone chimed, a no-nonsense attention-drawing sound, and Dr. Frank muttered and took it out of his pocket, frowned at the indicator, turned it on. "Yes, Frank here," he said. He listened. "No," he said. "You stay right there; keep doing what you're doing, and let me talk to the nurse." He looked up at Jared; Jared saw an echo of the apprehension that gripped him in Dr. Frank's eyes. It was not what he wanted to see.

"Mimi," he said, and Dr. Frank nodded briefly.

"Yes, this is Dr. Frank," he said into the phone. "Yes, yes, Wundra told me. Now listen to me; Wundra is a certified practitioner and she is there on the instructions of the husband; assist her in anything she wants to do, and I'll be there inside half an hour. Orders! I left orders at the desk, goddamn it! Just do it!" He broke the connection and jammed the phone into his pocket.

"Stay here as long as you like," Jared told the group on the table, "and Patterson can help you. Look after him for us. I don't know when we'll be back." He already had Gina's hand, and he reached for Cara; they were out the door just ahead of Dr. Frank. Jared paused only long enough to be sure it locked behind them. Patterson probably had his ID card and, if not, Maud's people could certainly get him and themselves out of an ordinary locked room without assistance.

They piled into Jared's car in the parking lot, and he cast a single look about, saw no traffic cops, and took off for Alliance General by the most direct route, right over the rooftops. Dr. Frank was on the phone again, talking, apparently, to Evvie, who seemed to be on her way to the hospital herself. "Meet us in Mimi's room; don't let the nursing staff stop you," he said, and broke the connection. "I don't know if you've noticed," he said. "I'm probably in a better position to see it. The whole lot of you are resistant to our drugs, but you get results from what your Bahtan sisters concoct. They've tailored their medications to your needs, it seems."

"That's true," said Gina, struck. "Even their cough syrup works when your prescription stuff doesn't."

"And those blue pills for my headaches," said Cara, "and the prescription stuff just made me feel sick. So you're using some of their medications for Mimi."

"That's it," said Dr. Frank.

"What happened?" asked Jared. He was steering manually, and going pretty fast, but he risked a glance at Cara and Gina in the back seat. "It must have been sudden," he said.

"She went into convulsions," said Dr. Frank, "and stopped breathing. Wundra revived her. The problem is what to do now. Wundra is arguing about that with the resident and the head nurse."

"Do you know what happened?" asked Gina, and Dr. Frank grinned.

"At least I now understand why I don't know," he said. "I guess that's some sort of progress."

Keeping over the less traveled areas, Jared aimed for the lights of Alliance General and dropped them to street level at the end of the front parking lot, so that they drove up to the main entrance in a very law-abiding fashion. Dr. Frank got out, Cara and Gina right behind him, and they paused long enough to meet Evvie who was running across the parking lot with a bag under her arm.

There was, luckily, a parking space not too far from the door, left by someone in a green load-hauler, and Jared pulled in and ran to catch up with his people. They had just gone through the door and he reached them as they got into the express lift around the corner from the visitors' lift; they filled up the space pretty well among them.

"The stupid woman tried to throw Wundra out of the room," said Evvie indignantly.

"I left orders," said Dr. Frank. "Did you talk to your sister?"

"On the phone, in the car," said Evvie. "Mimi continues to breathe, also her heart rate is fair. But there is very bad news. Wundra says that the head nurse killed a fly. Right in her room."

"Shit," said Dr. Frank.

"We’d better think about how we can get Mimi home," said Jared. The lift door opened on Mimi's floor; there were some contentious sounds going on down the hall. "The girls will be free to treat her there. The nurse killed the damned fly, you say?" he asked Evvie, and she nodded. A visitor toting a giant box of candy frowned at them and looked around suspiciously at the ceiling for any intruding insects.

"How much harm can that do?" asked Frank, not at all rhetorically; he had been much impressed by the Its in their cages.

"I don't know," said Jared, and went around the corner of the hall and there were Zarei and Dr. Maarchesin standing just outside Mimi's door, where the head nurse and two aides seemed to be holding them at bay.

". . . emergency room up until last winter," Dr. Maarchesin said, and the head nurse folded her arms and put up her chin.

"Hospital privileges," she said, and Dr. Frank speeded up his steps.

"There you are, Dr. Maarchesin," he said, and put a hand on her shoulder and pushed her past the nurse. "Called her in for a consult," he said genially, and had her and Zarei into the room with Evvie right behind them before the nurse could resist. It was a masterful job, and appreciating it, Jared did not mind as much when the nurse and the aides closed ranks against him and Cara and Gina. He moved back against the opposite wall, making it clear they weren't leaving, but not trying to storm the room either; he and Cara and Gina leaned against the wall and looked at the head nurse and the aides, who stood against their wall and looked back.

"If you people are worried about that fly," said the head nurse, with a touch of sarcasm in her voice, "you can relax. It won't bother your friend. I swatted it myself; it's dead."

"Well, then, we'll just stay here and wait for the wasp," said Jared, and Gina stifled a giggle.

He could hear Dr. Frank talking, Wundra answering, Dr. Maarchesin asking questions. Zarei came out of the room and joined the group against the opposite wall, her tail twitching nervously, ceiling lights playing on the multiple tail rings. Zarei had more in common with Ann, Jared thought, than with Sofi.

A lesser nurse poked her head around the corner and caught the eye of the head nurse; she sighed massively and muttered something to the aides and walked off. The aides remained. Jared felt sorry for them, coping with such uncooperative patients and their visitors, but it couldn't be helped. Mimi was what mattered here.

"What?" someone said, around the corner and out of sight, and someone else said, "Hey, wait a minute!"

"We play," said Dural's voice, and around the corner came Terry with his guitar, marching just ahead of the five D'ubians, armed with instruments; Durata brought up the rear lugging a drum almost larger than herself.

"Hi," Terry greeted them, and walked, without hesitation, between the two aides and into Mimi's room, with the rest of the band following. Durata, holding the drum under one arm, turned and smiled sweetly at the people in the hall and then shut the door.

"Hey, you can't do that!" exclaimed the aide to the left of the door, and the other aide tried the door and couldn't get it open, and a new nurse appeared with another aide and a large woman in a grey uniform, with a badge that said, "Security" on her left shoulder. "The door's stuck," said the aide to the left of the door, and the nurse punched a number on a hand-held speaker and said, "Maintenance! Immediately!"

The door was opened from the inside; Dr. Frank appeared, bringing with him the soft notes of the D'ubian music. He made placating gestures at the hospital staff and crossed the hall to speak to Jared and Cara and Gina. "This is getting out of hand," he said. "Wundra and Evvie know what to do for Mimi, and Dr. Maarchesin is looking at her, says she has some ideas, and I must say the music isn't hurting her at all, but –" He nodded toward the nurses and the aides and the person from Security "We need to get her out of here," he said. "I know I said there was a risk in taking her home, but in my judgment there's now a greater risk trying to keep her here. Call Clyde; tell him we're coming. Evvie is getting Clena to bring the van. I'll authorize her release. Can we manage her among us?"

"Easily," said Jared; he could probably carry Mimi by himself. Cara pulled out her phone, and Dr. Frank went to talk with the nurses and Security and the man from Maintenance, who appeared with a tool box and a scowl. The least breath of music drifted through the hall, and Jared realized that the sense of apprehension had eased.

 

Phyllis and Ann pitched in at Clyde's house; there were fresh sheets on the bed, a small end table pressed into use for water pitchers and tissues and a small scanner and bottles of Bahtan medication. Dr. Frank had not bothered with any of the more usual drugs.

The furniture had been shifted in the living room, and they had one of the folding beds from the Seven Tree Circle house set up there for whichever Bahtan sister was on shift – Evvie right now, Wundra having been due to be relieved. But Clyde had no intention of giving up his right to share Mimi's bed; he would be, he said, the primary watchman. Dr. Frank reminded him that he, too, needed sleep, being less than a hundred percent, and Clyde said he would sure keep that in mind. Jared smiled; he knew what Clyde meant. If it were Cara, he himself would probably spend the night awake, holding her in his arms and counting her breaths.

The two doctors sat down at the breakfast bar, talking earnestly together, and the D'ubians and Terry, who had followed the van and Jared's car in their own car, without doing more than clipping a light post in a tight turn seven blocks from the hospital, settled on the front porch and resumed their serenade. "I do not understand entirely," said Wundra, "but the music seems to make Mimi breathe more easily."

"At least at home she can have the music," said Cara, "without any head nurses to interfere."

"I suppose she feels it would disturb the other patients," said Jared, and Cara and Gina looked at him as if he had spoken in D'ubian, only slightly comprehensible. "Rules," he said, spreading his hands, and Cara snorted and shook her head and, not being a rigid adherent to rules himself, he grinned and gave up.

"I wonder," said Zarei, and the door popped open for Issio and Sofi, carrying flowers and the box of dishes and tableware from Dr. Lindstrom's long invalidism. Cara had stashed it in the back of Jared's basement and, remembering it, she had called Sofi from the hospital to see if they could locate it; it might be useful, she thought.

They hadn't considered the presence of Zarei.

Sofi and Issio came to an abrupt stop, and Sofi's tail and even the body hair around her neck rose instantly; between the graceful fingers holding the bouquet of summer flowers from their yard, the claws came out, long and lethally sharp, and the fangs gleamed in her mouth. Zarei, looking horrified, took a backward step, and then another, running into the D'ubian sculpture by the front window with a little yelp. Dr. Frank and Dr. Maarchesin looked up.

"Sofi?" said Dr. Frank.

"Zarei?" said Dr. Maarchesin.

Clyde came out of the bedroom into the tension of the living room, looked around once, warily, and then took the box from Issio. "Thanks," he said. "That was good of you to go after it."

"You," snarled Sofi in the direction of the front window, "do not belong here."

"I have," said Zarei, with an attempt at dignity, "some medical training. I can be useful here also." She stepped forward, pulling her colorful skirt straight, and Sofi made a growling noise; Zarei stepped back, in haste.

"Zarei often assists me," said Dr. Maarchesin, who seemed, as usual, to be enjoying the scene. "She's very competent."

"Splendid," said Sofi through her fangs, green eyes gleaming dangerously at Zarei. "In this case, go and assist. Be useful," she snarled, and banged the flowers down on the back of the arm chair and turned on her heel and stomped out, slamming the door behind her. Cara and Gina looked at each other and then ran after her. Issio glowered at Zarei and turned his back to her.

"Can we be of any other assistance?" he asked Clyde and the doctors in general.

"At the moment, it's under control," said Dr. Maarchesin.

"Call us," said Issio to Clyde, "at any time if you need. Also we will be back tomorrow." He sighed, visibly nerving himself to face whatever awaited him at home; Jared doubted that even Gina could do much to soften Sofi's attitude.

"Stress," he murmured, unable to resist, and Issio sent him a dark look.

"Someday," he said, "it will be your turn, my friend."

He departed. His unacknowledged mother-in-law breathed a sigh of relief and sank down on the couch. Clyde took the box into the kitchen. The doctors returned to their conference. Jared, seeing that everything seemed to be quiet for the moment, took out his phone and located Patterson's number.

"God, this is so exciting!" Patterson said. "They've got into our charts and that guy with the black eye? You know? He says these portals are still open; does that mean they would let in more of those things you have in cages?"

"I hope not," said Jared, "but I don't think we know how many came through already. It must be more than three. Ask them."

"We do not know," said Zarei from the couch, toying with her bracelets. "Like you, we know of three; certainly there are more, but we do not know where."

"They say they don't know," reported Patterson from his end. "Is your friend okay? Are you coming back?"

Jared made up his mind. "Not tonight," he said. "Tell Carter to let me know about tomorrow. Can one of them get you back here when you're finished?"

"We'll see to that!" called Dr. Maarchesin from the breakfast bar, and Jared nodded and Patterson reported that Maud said she would see him safely to the Hardesty house, and Carter said he would contact Jared. This probably did not mean a phone call, Jared thought.

He was actually beginning to get used to it, he realized.