9

 

 

I SIT IN THAT ROOM for what feels like forever, but really is only about an hour. There is a bathroom next to the service area, and I’m able to use that, but I’m not able to leave the room itself. I pace. I count to ten in fifteen languages. Then in six more. And then I start over because I can’t remember all the languages I just tried.

I’ve just started counting to one hundred when Leona returns.

“Jill Bannerman is outside,” Leona says. “When she comes in here, you tell her what you told me about not being able to cope. Be dramatic. The more threatened you feel the better.”

“I won’t be lying,” I say. “I can’t do this alone.”

Those words are so inadequate. If I close my eyes, I can feel the heat, the blood drying on my skin, the bodies rolling beneath my hands. I can’t sit still with that. I have to move. And the more of it that comes back to me, the more movement I need to make.

“You tell her that,” Leona says. “Make it very clear that this is a medical issue.”

“Why?” I ask.

“Because that gives you legal protection. You’ll be considered a patient, not a criminal. If they had taken you that afternoon when you called me, you’d’ve been a criminal. Just like you would have been if you hadn’t waited for me today. This way, you’ll be able to say anything, do anything, and it won’t come out in a legal proceeding. At least not in detail. The ship’s staff can have an advocate in the room, and he can testify to what you say, but it won’t have the force of your testimony. It can only be used to start an investigation, which they’re already running.”

I stare at her. She thinks I’ve done something wrong. They all seem to think I’ve done something wrong.

Is that why I can’t remember?

“Before you decide,” she says, “this is your last chance to go back to your apartment. You can do this on your own and no one will ever have to know.”

My stomach clenches. “And then what?”

“What do you mean?”

“Will I ever be able to leave my apartment? Will I be able to return to my duties?”

She shakes her head. “You’ll be alive. Isn’t that enough?”

I think about the view from my portal. Stuck in foldspace with nothing to see. The same walls, a different view, if we’re lucky, but the same walls for the rest of my life. No more languages. No more work.

No more friends or family.

Just me. Alive. In my apartment.

Becalmed.

“Send her in,” I say, “and I’ll tell her the truth.”

 

***

 

The truth is that I am terrified of my own mind. The truth is that I’m afraid my memories will kill me. I’m afraid if I never access them, they will kill me, and I’m afraid if I do remember, I can’t live with them.

Somehow I stammer that out to Jill Bannerman and she takes some kind of notes and Leona gets her dispensation or whatever it is and I meet the senior staff’s advocate, a man named Rory Harper, whom I’ve seen before, but I can’t remember in what context.

He’s older, fifties, sixties, silvering hair and a dignity that I don’t like. I don’t want someone like him to see me go through the tests. I don’t want anyone to see me.

But I have no choice.

So I agree to everything, and end up here.