Cryptikon Far Freedom Part 2

serious enough to be dangerous. He couldn't even appear to be dangerous, but he needed to be at least possibly dangerous, thus to sound the warning.

  "I was warned to stay out of your reach," Mai said sternly but mildly, "but it's difficult to tend your needs without getting closer than that. My husband is the captain of this ship. If you wish to have business with him when we release you from the hospital, then you may continue to put your hands where they don't belong. But I don't consider that flirting with you."

  "Do they still make captains as tough as they used to?" Patrick Jenkins inquired, trying for light humor.

  "I don't know," Sugai Mai answered. "And I suspect my husband would treat you kindly. But he's the kind of person you will not want to disappoint!"

  Patrick tried to remember if violence still frightened him, but gave up. However, he really hated to disappoint people. Good. He would try to refrain from his distasteful act. It was just that touching was important right now: a test of reality. "My profound apologies, Mai. I shall try much harder to control my hands. Boy or girl?"

  "What? My baby? I don't know."

  "How can you not know?"

  "I don't want to know!"

  "Well, I want to know!"

  "If someone tells you, don't tell me, Pat!"

  She was interesting to talk with. It was sad that his own novelty would soon wear off and she would become scarce. That summed up his social essence: entertaining for a while, then, if the other person wasn't interested in exotic plants and animals, he was finished. He felt a rush of warmth. "What did you just put in me?"

  "Something to calm you."

  "Good stuff. Got any scotch?"

  "Do you know where you are?"

  Heaven! Hell? "Does it matter? Am I somewhere? I was nowhere forever. If there's no scotch I must still be in hell."

  "You're on the Freedom."

  "What's that? A ship? What type? How big?" He didn't want to know, he really did not want to know!

  "A very, very big ship."

  "How many feet for each very? Can I walk around in it?"

  "You can walk for miles, as soon as we finish repairing your age damage."

  Can I just shut my mouth and try to think of safer topics? "That big? What classification? How fast?" Apparently I can not shut my mouth, torn between the growing desire for social contact and the fear it is real!

  "This isn't my area of interest," Mai answered, "but I don't believe it has a Navy classification."

  "How fast? How quiet? That's the important thing."

  "It's the fastest ship in the galaxy."

  "Can't be faster than a barbarian jumpship!"

  "Yes, it can."

  "Can it, now?" So, I'm dreaming after all. Good. It's safer to be in a dream. Dismiss it. Don't think about ships and barbarians.

  "There is always some question about what is real and what is dream, Patrick. Even in those of us who think we know. How did you survive all those years beyond the frontier?"

  "Did I survive?"

  "Yes, you did."

  Patrick shook his head slowly. No, I didn't!

  "Here, hold my hand," Mai said. "My hand is real. I'm real. My name is Sugai Mai. I was the director of the Mnro Clinic on Earth. Doctor Mnro asked me to accompany her on this ship, and since I was also in love with its captain, I came willingly. More or less. Tell me something about what you did."

  NO! And she feels so real! "Me? I did nothing! The two heroes went out and got themselves killed and Koji retrieved them and he and I put them back together and sent them out again. I'm only a biologist, not a trauma surgeon! Go to sleep in a coffin, then wake up to nightmare. I had to give up on them. I had to rest. Had to ambush Koji. Took me years to gather the courage. Just me and him. Put all three in coffins. They scared me. Read some of their logs, the ones I could unlock. They stopped telling me of their adventures. I wept for them."

  "But it wasn't all bad, was it? You made a recording of the four of you singing."

  Yes! I remember! So few good memories. And that was when it all ended. No more hope. What a liar I need to be! "I don't want to remember."

  "You rest now, Pat. This is giving you too much stress. There's a lot of repair work for us to do. I'll see you again soon."

  Wait. I have to know if it is her. "The lass over there. You never told me her name."

  "That's Nori. You don't remember Nori?"

  Nori! "Remember? Why should I have remembered? To hurt more?"

  "Can you not imagine that you left people behind, Pat? Nori is one of them."

  = = =

  "I was expecting the pretty pregnant one. Mai." He said it almost petulantly, then recognized who had entered his hospital room. Oh, no! Please! Don't let it be Phuti!

  "I'm not pretty and I'm not pregnant, that's true, but I have my charms, Patrick. How are you doing?"

  I'm lying, lying, lying! "Are you somebody else we left behind?" He continued his act, but he was not good at acting, never had been.

  "Yes. My name is Phuti. We knew each other for decades. How are you doing?"

  I don't dare touch him. I don't want to wake up! "I'm doing grandly. How are you doing?" I'm lying grandly. Sorry, Phuti.

  "I'm well, Patrick."

  Only well? Yes, everyone is a little sad around here. "I saw Nori. Do you know Nori? She wouldn't talk to me."

  "She doesn't speak much to anyone yet."

  "Why?"

  "A period of adjustment. She also had the misfortune to awaken from rejuvenation in the midst of trouble."

  "Trouble?" Why do I keep presenting questions to which I do not want answers?

  "We were boarded by barbarians," Phuti said.

  "Barbarians? Which barbarians? Not those Fleet barbarians?"

  "Yes. Three of them. They were killed."

  "Oh, no! Where are we now? We aren't in one of their traffic lanes?"

  "No, no. Don't be alarmed. We're safe, Patrick."

  "We are?"

  "Word of honor."

  Hell and Damnation, my old friends, you are back. The dream is over. "Nori is here!" You are endangering her!

  "How do you remember Nori?" Phuti asked, frowning. "They told me you didn't seem to remember any of us."

  "They say she's Koji's daughter." Patrick didn't remember if they had told him. "Koji won't remember her. That's good, or bad, I don't know. Those three women who took me off the ship?"

  "Yes. Aylis, Zakiya, Jamie."

  "They haven't come to see me. I need to apologize, seriously."

  "You don't remember those you left behind, Patrick? No one?"

  "How can we have been so crazy to leave such beautiful creatures in our wake? What kind of idiot monsters are we?" At least that was heartfelt if too melodramatic. Patrick, my boy, you are saying things just to hear the noise and not the meaning. I want desperately to be safely insane. Why is Phuti making me speak so much? It is safer to say nothing. Lying requires too much concentration.

  But Patrick yearned for that old friendship more with each second that he stayed in the presence of this modest anthropologist. His memory was questionable after so many years, yet he would never forget Phuti.

  "I don't think you intended to stay away so long, Patrick."

  "Damned right! How many damn centuries did I beg the damn wrecking crew to turn the damn ship around? How the hell did you find us?"

  "Cryptikon, Patrick. Remember, you had two of them on your ship?"

  "I thought they were just the toys of the gods."

  "What do you think will happen," Phuti asked, "when they revive Alex and Koji and Setek?"

  When they revive them? They are going to revive the monsters? Phuti is the ultimate friend anyone could ever have. Can I scream in his face? Sorry, Phuti. I'm done lying to you but that leaves me nothing more to say.

  = = =

  "Finally! Why didn't you come sooner?" I didn't need to ask it that way! I am an old and impatient fool. And I am speaking to a lady!

  "I'm sorry, Patrick. I haven't felt
well."

  You are still as beautiful as I remember you, Zakiya! "I hope you're feeling better now." He tried to sound as sincere as he thought he was. "I apologize for how I acted when you took me off the ship. I deeply and sincerely apologize."

  "Apology accepted, Patrick."

  Why isn't she happy to see me? Was my apology unwanted? Did I make such a fool of myself in my initial panic to deny their reality, and if they were real, to try to protect them? "I hope you can spare me a few words," Patrick said. "Nobody will talk with me very long. I fear I bore them. I slip in and out of feeling I'm in a dream. I want to know that I'm safe and sane and awake." Perhaps I do want those things, if only to get unstuck. I am suffocating in denial of reality and responsibility. I am whiplashed by the restraint of joy and by the fear of impending tragedy, when murderers are brought back to life. I am tormented by the guilt for a life badly lived. I need judgment of my life and final disposition of my soul.

  "We think you're doing very well, Patrick. What do you want to talk about?"

  "That depends." That depends on courage. If it was only my own life to risk, I could do it. I found the courage once to put Koji away. That was nothing compared to this. Phuti. Aylis. Zakiya. Nori! Even the irascible Iggy. How can I save them?

  "Depends on what?" Zakiya asked.

  "On trust. And you can't trust me!"

  "I want to trust you, Patrick. Why do you think I shouldn't?"

  "I don't trust myself! I'm a liar. I'm a participant in crimes."

  "I can't judge you, Patrick. I have my own burden of guilt to bear."

  It pained him to see the truth of her statement in her eyes. A life too long lived served both of them badly. Given enough time, what poor choices could be avoided? None. He was still stuck, not between heaven and hell, but between Hell One and Hell Two. Then she took one of his hands, making him look down at her hand