I wish I could give him so much as a twitch, a tiny return of pressure to let him know I’m still in here—not a sea cucumber—but I can’t. Though the need to weep clots my throat, I can summon no tears. My eyes remain closed and dry as bone.
“With all due respect, I don’t see how you could have stopped her.”
“Doc, if I was to tell you something . . . a closely guarded secret . . .”
No. March, no. Don’t tell him. The more people who know, the greater danger that someone will come after you. Psi-Corp is still up and running. They must still have enforcers on staff, hunters they send after rogue Psi. Don’t do this. You’ve kept your secret this long; don’t do this for me.
“I don’t like the role of confidant,” Doc says. “And I don’t like being put in the position of telling people they’re being foolish when my opinion will not change their minds. Perhaps you could handle this some other way.”
He knows, I think, astonished. But he doesn’t want it confirmed. He wants to maintain plausible deniability.
March laughs, but the sound is devoid of amusement. “Give me five minutes with her, please. Alone. Then get me Evelyn Dasad.”
Heavy footsteps retreating tell me that Doc has gone. Mary, I hope March doesn’t fall upon me and weep because I don’t think I could bear it. But no, he touches his forehead to mine again, and there’s a warm prickle at the nape of my neck. Doc should’ve warned him that there was a chance he could be trapped in my body, if I wasn’t here to receive him. Despite the risk, despite the uncertainty, he’s coming in after me.
Jax?
I’m here.
His relief drowns me in a golden wave. Don’t ever do this to me again.
Amusement. You know I can’t promise that.
He’s too shaken to yell at me, and besides, I’m not out of the woods yet. Just because he can talk to me, it doesn’t mean anyone else can. Doesn’t mean anyone else ever will. At least, unlike most jumpers, I’ll get to say good-bye, after a fashion.
A horrifying thought occurs to me. Maybe Farwan knew about this. Maybe this is burnout, and all those lifeless shells actually have a person trapped inside them, unable to communicate. Did they ever bring anyone over from Psi-Corp to find out?
Even if they did, I doubt they would have told us about it. They made their fortune by spreading propaganda and half-truths to keep us trusting and compliant. There’s no point in the revelation if they don’t know how to fix it. The facts would just get us worked up, after all.
Do you know what’s wrong?
No. I just came to a few minutes ago. I’m not sure why I’m stuck like this.
I’ll keep Doc on it, he promises. I won’t let him give up on you. We’ll get you well. His arms go around me then, and I can feel his warmth, feel him holding me, but I can’t respond to it. You have no idea. Grief blazes in him. Right after we brought you back, I came inside, Jax. And you weren’t here.
Sorrow. Remorse. I’m sorry I put him through that—and since he’s part of me, he knows—but I can’t offer any explanation as to where I was. Maybe I was still roaming around outside my body, watching them, but I don’t remember anything after the cockpit, after it all went dark. Maybe locked in the recesses of my poor, damaged brain, there’s some record of what lurks beyond that door that’s not a door, far on the grimspace horizon. Maybe that’s where I’ve been.
Do me a favor, I beg of him. If you can’t fix me, if it comes down to me being stuck like this forever—
No.
I don’t have the heart to ask again. Then keep me drugged so I don’t realize I’m imprisoned. Something psychedelic would be nice.
I’ll see what I can do. I love you, Jax.
And I, you. Though in my mind I’m sobbing and begging him not to leave me, none of it manifests. He slips out, then he’s only beside me, not part of me. I hope they’ll believe him when he says I’m still salvageable. Right now, I’m not even sure I believe it.
Two sets of footsteps, one light and one heavy, come down the hall toward med bay. I know that’s where I am from joining with March. This has to be Doc and Evelyn.
“You wanted to see me, Commander?”
I imagine March nodding. “Yes, have you had a chance to look at all the data?”
“I have.”
“Your conclusions?” he asks.
“I posit that the blood loss can be attributed to Sirantha’s using her body as a conduit for the phase drive. I think the device converted her erythrocytes directly to fuel needed to complete the jump, which offers an intriguing hypothesis as to how the ancients utilized this technology. Were they a fully integrated biomechanical race?” The enthusiasm in her voice reminds me that she’s a specialist in the field.
“It’s a sound theory,” Doc offers.
Impatience colors March’s voice. “I’m less interested in the why of the damage than in how to fix it. Can your nanites do the job?”
Evelyn points out frostily, “They’ve never been tested on human beings, Commander. That would controvert the fifteenth article of the Genevra Proclamation.”
“I don’t care,” March snarls.
“If her catatonic state has been induced by some damage too minute to register on our scans, then yes, the nanites could repair the affected synapses. But I don’t know for sure that she’ll wake up. This is experimental technology, and something could go wrong.”
There’s a long silence. I can only guess he’s weighing the pros and cons. At last, he says, “She wouldn’t want to live like this. She’s a gambler, so when the tech’s ready, put her under and do it.”
“She’s already comatose,” Evelyn points out. “What need has she of anesthesia? Even were she fully conscious, the introduction of nanites to her system would cause no pain, no more than receiving a dose of any medicine. That’s how small they are.”