Cataract. Part 26

Don't move, her brain screamed. Don't s.h.i.+ft an inch.

Turn your head, she told herself. Move your feet, or die.

Slowly, carefully, deliberately, she forced her eyes to s.h.i.+ft to the left. Her optic nerves shrieked in response. She ignored them, though her body tried to sob. Blindly, she looked toward the r-con. With the sallow pit lights rippling over the gritty, inky water, the red-black box gleamed like a demon's face on the rain-black stone of the walls. Oval shadows danced with their reflections. Pale faces flickered black, then flashed yellow-white as the water shook and rippled at the meres' feet. Mina, caught standing away from the wall with one hand raised, started to lose her balance, and a hoa.r.s.e cry ripped itself from her throat. She fell, jerked her arms instinctively, and the cry became a scream. Her body, rigid as a board, struck the side of the pit. Her shoulders took her weight against the rock wall as her head barely missed striking stone. Like a ladder, her body leaned in silence while the cords on her neck and jaw stood out, and she did not dare relax.

On the other side of the pit, Tsia did not take her eyes from the box. Her knowledge of pain did not diminish the shocking burn in her muscles, nor did it protect her mind from the flashback that swept out of her memories. Nerve whips, chains, and r-cons... She had felt them all. And reality was worse again than memory had let her believe. She blinked and stifled the scream in her throat. She swallowed deliberately and whimpered. The convulsive movement made her mind tear as if her own thoughts were now made of claws. She forced herself to blink again. She knew what she had to do.

Nitpicker's body was a handspan from the surface of the rising pool. Laz, the only one near the pilot, was still folded up in his long-legged crouch. The other meres were all standing. Even Striker had gotten to her feet when she saw the r-con brought down. Striker was the only one who had braced her hand against the wall; the others leaned on their shoulders.

"Laz..." Tsia's voice was a withered hoa.r.s.eness. The fire from the r-con field seared away the sound before she even finished it. She blanked her mind and forced her tongue to move again, "Laz..." This time, she projected the sound with her guts, and the shock of the nerve burn in her torso cut her off.

"Get-her face-away-from-the-water."

Each word a shriek of torture on her lips and tongue. Each sound a searing flash of pain that licked her jaw and settled in her chest. Doetzier forced his eyes to turn toward Tsia, and he could not stifle the sound that tore from his own lips at the tiny movement.

Tsia did not look at him. She had moved her foot, and then her hand. The water pressed her thin trousers against her leg so that the chill reached her skin like ice. She ignored it like the b.u.m that lanced up her legs and lower back from the movement she dared to force. Her foot, an inch. And then one more... Deliberately, she turned her head and let the waves of pain wash through her.

"Wren," she croaked. She could not see for a moment. The red-black face of the r-con seemed to have burned its colors into her mind, and waves of light and darkness drowned her thoughts. A minute pa.s.sed, then five before her eyesight cleared. When it did, she could see Wren's face tight with horror. His jaw was white, his eyes blind. His brutal hands hung limply at his side. Against the muddy wall, his back was hunched in some inner nightmare. And the mindless fear that radiated from his body was palpable in the pit. She did not try to open her biogate to sense his biofield. The flashbacks that tore through his mind froze his thoughts even more than the r-con that locked his body in place.

A shadow appeared in the water, and Tsia felt more than saw the presence of the woman overhead. The zek looked down, nodded to herself, then moved away.

Below, Mina's breathing was shallow; Striker's was tight and controlled. Tsia forced her head to turn again in an infin-itesimaUy slow motion. The pain rubbed up in her mind. This time, she did not black out. She was beginning to remember now. The way to fight the r-con. The pain, she said, did not belong to her. Her mind was separate; her body could scream all it wanted, but it had nothing to do with her. She moved a step toward the r-con, this time inches all at once, and her ears heard someone gasp.

"Laz," she said again, and this time her voice was stronger. "Get-her face-above-the water."

She could feel him staring. She could feel his effort like a push in the air.

"I-can't-" His voice ended in a horrible, grating, cutoff cry.

"You can," she returned. She took another step. The water washed at her knees. "She'll-drown if you- don't. Look at me," she said harshly. The sounds broke from her lips, but she did not recognize her voice. It was raw and shattered, like an edge of gla.s.s torn by a metal file. Her words were almost lost in the spattering of the water streamers that fell from the rim of the pit, but her voice went on, chewing, grating at his consciousness.

"You can-do this. One muscle set at a time. Reach down- Lift her head."

He tried to move, and his arm jerked. "I-can't!" he screamed.

"You have the kind of-focus it requires. I can-feel it in your field." Her words went on, but her eyes saw only the r-con. "The fire-is nothing," she said through gritted teeth. "The b.u.m belongs to someone else..."

Her foot stubbed on a rock, and her legs tightened suddenly into a flame. For a moment, while the water insidiously crept higher, she could do nothing but stand and wait. If she screamed out, her ears did not know it, though there was some kind of keening there. Carefully, hideously slow, she lifted her foot above the cut rock and onto the tiny submerged ledge.

The pale shadows of the meres in the corners of her sight were not real against the black walls. Her world narrowed. Focused. Became a single goal: the red-black demon who hung on the rough rock wall. The past, which had taught her to fight such pain, would carry her right to her death.

Someone was sobbing with every breath, but with the claws of flame that tore at her chest, she couldn't tell who it was. She was closer now. That was the only important thing. Closer now to the r-con. Two meters away, two meters above. She could not reach it. The slick walls-the water and mud... She couldn't climb even if she could close her hands on the rock.

She couldn't swing her harness fast enough to knock the box off the ledge, but she knew what she had to do...

"Daya forgive me," she cried out.

She opened her biogate.

Ruka howled in her mind. The biogate pulsed with pain. All around her, like waves of wind that curled and pressed at her face, the snarling of the cats grew to a crus.h.i.+ng din. Even that foreign scent seemed frozen by her pain.

Something sucked out of her mind like a vacuum as the cats tried to close themselves off, but Ruka's link held the gate open. She tried to tighten the gate to a narrow channel, but the pain of her body was in the way. She could tell herself lies, she could pretend she didn't feel the burn, but she could not ignore every one of the billions of synapses that snapped and frayed in the searing field of the r-con.

Help me, she pleaded.

The catspeak surged and hissed.

Help me...

Her mind screamed, and something seemed to respond. A wave of snarling washed in. Her body faded; her thoughts crystallized. It was as if her pain were caught and absorbed by a thousand sponges that each took a flame from her body. No one feline mind took the brunt of that fire, as all had done that searing second before. And a tide of catspeak spat and hissed as they swept closer to her body.

A tawny head appeared at the rim of the pit.

The box...

An image of the red-black demon... A rock batted from above... She built the pictures and projected them as if Ruka would understand. The cub disappeared. She could feel him now, moving back to the woods and digging in the mud. He grasped a stick in his mouth and began to drag it back. Another cat shape slipped across the tarmac, carrying a broken clump of bone. And another, from the other side, slinking between the huts.

Here, she directed. The side of the rim from which they would have to bat their objects down into the pit. They couldn't just shove them over the lip: the overhang protected the box.

Another step. Another fire that swept from toe to torso. Another step, and she had to move between Wren and Bishop. Wren's gaze, covered by the darkeyes, could not hide his blind horror as he relived his time in the r-con, but Bishop stared at her as if she herself were the demon.

Ebony water swirled thigh-deep, but Tsia could not see the pool through which she waded in that eternal, slow-motion fire. She could not see the tendons that stood out from her neck like boards. The eyes that seemed slitted and sparking. The fingers curled like a cougar's claws, and the teeth that gleamed in the rain. There was only one thing in her pain-blinded sight: a red-black box on the wall.

"Laz-" She forced the word out between her teeth.

"I-have-her," he returned. His voice was little more than a rasped scream.

The relief she felt at his words was no wash of respite to her body. The fire that burned with every heartbeat ate away at her throat. She cried out through the gate, and the cats overhead seemed to surge like a pack toward the pit. Rain patterns changed. Something hit the rock wall and dropped to splash at her feet; and Tsia, her lips as rigid as her breath, felt the ripples wash against her legs. Her muscles tightened along her arm and shoulder, and she screamed in the flash of pain. Above, a watercat batted a stick under the overhang. It hit Tsia's shoulders before falling into the water, but this time, she didn't jerk. Ruka swatted a bone. The bone came closer. Another stick came closer still. The last stick hit the corner of the box and knocked it to the lip of its ledge.

Tsia moved until she stood against the wall. Slowly, infini-tesimally slowly, she stretched out her arms to the pit wall. Another stick fell against her face and neck, then splashed down to the floor. The next one hit her face and lodged between her shoulder and the rock.

Waist-high in the water, she waited and breathed. Something would knock the box off. A stick, a rain-soaked bone... She didn't care. Just that it would fall to her arms if she waited. It was the watercat that finally did it-knocked the r-con down. Grating in a tiny sound, it fell and hit her outstretched arms and stopped, tilted like the stick, between her arm and the stone.

Her mind clouded with fire, Tsia stared at it without moving. She dared not s.h.i.+ft her arm. If she dropped the box, she would have to bend and search the pool underwater, then bring it up again to turn it off. And without an enbee, she could never hold her breath long enough to move to find the box. But she had it. Here, in her arms. And she stared at it blankly.

Overhead, the watercats faded away until only Ruka was left to pace the rim and cast his shadow below. His eyes gleamed as he glared down into the pit; his fur glistened with rain. And his muscles tensed hers with his pacing, Tsia screamed at him to stop. He hissed, then crouched at the rim. Like a vulture, his head hung over.

Pain lessened with her lack of motion, until what was a searing flame became a simple fire. She regulated her breathing, and tried to calm her heart. Water pressed against her hip. She started to s.h.i.+ft her right arm, to move it toward the left, but Ruka hissed from overhead. Pulling herself further into her mind, she stretched her biogate.

Behind her, there was another presence. Wren and Bishop to the sides-it was not them. Someone else moved behind her. A biofield that felt wary and eager, as if coldness turned to heat and fear, antic.i.p.ation. A biofield she knew with a different flavor. It took her a moment, between the licks of flame, to realize that it was something missing, not changed, that made the field feel strange. She did not turn her head, but in the corner of her eye, a hand appeared that moved so slowly, it crawled like the growth of mold toward her sleeve.

Doetzier.

She could feel the strain in his muscles. Her ears registered sound. Her eyes were still locked on the r-con. As the water rose insidiously, constantly toward her waistline, her body began to sway with the currents in the pit. The box sc.r.a.ped against the wall. She tried to push herself forward so that she leaned against the rock. The fire exploded in her head. She could not even gasp.

Doetzier kept creeping forward. The water continued to rise. The lights in the pit disappeared into the murky pool. Someone must have moved again, because she could hear the strangled scream. Had it been an hour since she started across the pit? Had the fire burned that long in her nerves? She stared at the box and felt her eyes blur until she saw it like a tiny devil, crouching on her arm. Red and black, with winking eyes, now that its controls were visible. Her body s.h.i.+fted again, then trembled, and she realized that the cold had finally invaded. Each s.h.i.+ver sent a shaft of fire along her legs and back, then radiated it down her arms.

The creeping hand was at her elbow, and she could not feel relief. The fingers slid along her arm, as if they took strength or balance from her body. The weathered hand looked gray against the drab shades of her blunter. The wrinkles in the cloth forced Doetzier to lift his hand three times. But he touched the box -that red-black demon-and crept toward the winking lights.

Slow, oh, G.o.d, so slowly, as if she burned by millimeters. His fingers did not close around the edges, and she almost snarled at him to take it from her arms. She s.h.i.+vered, violently this time, and the scream she let with the motion out rang in her own ears like the squeal of metal on metal. Her eyes went blind. And then the lock of the r-con on their bodies disappeared, and her muscles, pressing so hard against the rocks to hold the box in place, smashed forward. Her cheek struck stone. Her legs gave way. She slid down into the water.

Chill fluid filled her nose and eyes as she straggled back to the surface. Her ears were deaf for a moment with the water that clogged their ca.n.a.ls. Her whole body trembled. The fire was still in her muscles, like a sunburn that fades only slowly, and she worked her jaw for a moment before any sounds came out.

Doetzier still stood near the wall, but he leaned against it now, the r-con still in his hands. Bishop grasped Tsia by her armpits and tried to drag her to her feet, but she shook him off. She tried to take a step, but fell against the bigger man. He caught her and searched her face. "Dear G.o.d," he whispered, "what are you made of?"

Her lips moved, but, like Doetzier, she could not yet speak. Her hands reached up to the lapels of Bishop's jumpsuit for support. The odor of oil and dirt in his clothes still cut through her nose, and her lips bared back from her teeth. The freepick shuddered. She tilted her head against his chest to stare up at the edge of the pit. Ruka's eyes no longer peered over the rim, The cats were gone from her gate, and she could feel only Ruka now, retreated to the forest, and that hunter presence near him.

She glanced around. Wren's eyes were still haunted with flashbacks, but he was breathing harshly to control his fear. Nitpicker leaned heavily on Laz. Mina, who stood on the other side of the pit, stared at Tsia like Bishop, while Bowdie moved toward Doetzier and studied the box in his hands. Striker watched in silence, her face an expressionless mask. Doetzier's tortured gaze met Tsia's.

Bishop stared down at Tsia, then across at Doetzier. "I had heard," he said hoa.r.s.ely, "that there were those-one in every ten thousand-who could withstand the effects of an r-con. Are you one of them?" "I have a small field warp inside my heels, pelvic bones, and sternum." Doetzier's voice cracked, and it was a moment before he could continue. "It's s.h.i.+elded-can't be detected with normal scans. The warp shunted part of the effects away from my body."

"I should work salvage more often," said Bowdie, "to get some gear like that."

"And you?" Bishop asked, looking down at Tsia's pain-blanched face. "You had a warp, too?"

"No." She pushed herself upright from his support. "But one learns."

"You can't do that your first time in the field."

"No," she agreed shortly.

He stared at her. "How much time have you spent in r-cons?"

She closed her eyes, her arms sculling in the water to keep her balance. "Three months. Solid."

"Dear G.o.d," he repeated. He stepped back from her as if she were somehow inhuman.

"Someone coming," she said flatly.

Doetzier turned his head. It was a slow movement, as if he had somehow aged in that hour-or the burn

still touched his muscles. He looked at Bowdie, then Laz. "Can you-get the r-con back up there?"

Bowdie nodded. '"Give me your foot," he directed Laz. The freepick, his own muscles trembling, took the r-con in shaking hands and looked up the wall to the ledge.

"Don't drop it," Doetzier snapped.

Laz tightened his grip on the box. He stepped up in Bow-die's linked hands, using his own to balance

himself against the rock. His tall, gangly form unfolded so that he looked like a spider climbing out Gf water. When he set the box back on the ledge, Bowdie almost dropped him back in the well. As quickly as their burning muscles could move them, Tsia and Doetzier waded-half swam-away from Bishop and back to the other side of the pit. Nitpicker eased herself down in the water, and Laz took her head in his hands.

Overhead, a face appeared like a shadow against the gray sky. It remained there for only a moment, then disappeared. Tsia could feel the satisfaction in the woman's biofield. She could smell the zek's sense of urgency as the woman walked quickly back to the hut. Tsia's voice was still hoa.r.s.e as she murmured, "She's gone."

Nitpicker cast Tsia a look. She struggled to put her legs beneath her and stand up on her own. Her face paled, and one hand went to the back of her head. "You said"-her voice was little more than a croak of her own-"you could image the node. What about the lift? Can you drop it down?"

Tsia shrugged, winced, and closed her eyes for a moment as the burn surged, then faded in her muscles. That was something else that took time to remember-the long-term effects of the r-con. "I have a single ghost line active. Nothing on a regular trace."

"How is that possible?" Laz demanded in a low voice. "The node is completely down."

"No," she returned flatly. "Kurvan wanted you to think that. He locked each trace individually. Us"-she gestured at the meres-"he blocked through our mere IDs. You, he locked out through your freepick codes. Narbon or Decker probably fed him the information to do it."

Mina snapped, and Tsia heard the tremble in her voice. "How do you know that?"

"Because I heard him explain it."

"And the ghost line you have open?" That was from Doetzier.

She shrugged slowly. "An old line. Kurvan overlooked it."

He regarded her for a moment in silence, and she could almost hear his thoughts churning inside his skull. But Mina was looking at Tsia with a frown. "If your ID dot is locked, how could any ghost be viable?"

"Later," Striker said sharply. "Let her work first-to save your life," she said with irony. "Then you can ask her questions."

Mina gave Tsia a strange look, but subsided. Beside her, Laz's energy was tight, and that focus he had used to keep the pilot's head out of the water distracted Tsia until she shut it out. It had gotten easier, she realized, to shut off the biofields. Ruka's voice was so constant now in her head-like a smell to which one became inured-that all she had to do was focus on his snarl. Or try to touch one of the other cats- that watercat still watching, or that hunter on the edge of her gate.

Slowly, she tuned out everything. Then, as the water began to chill her chest, she imaged along the old ghost line. It was still thin, but the false man still moved in Ciordan. It took a minute to catch up the full sense of the web in which he was woven. She formed and sent a command along the web, and the node responded with a surge of biochemical energy. She felt the old ID dot go active. In an instant, warnings triggered across the node. She ignored them. If the guide guild was notified that she was alive, there was little she could do about it. She could either use the web to get out of the pit, or drown with the meres in the water.

"The rocks and sticks that knocked the r-con off the wall," Laz started. "If you can call your link to help you with that..."

"The lift is locked through the node," Nitpicker interrupted. "No amount of pus.h.i.+ng from any animal will extend it over and down to us."

"What about linking our harnesses?" Striker suggested. Her voice was tight as she controlled the pain from the burn in her leg.

"There's nothing over which to hook them."

Mina said nothing, but she trembled enough that the water s.h.i.+vered around her. Bishop stroked her arm. She shoved him off. "I'm not scared," she snapped in a low voice. "I'm angry."

Bishop let her go. "All right."

Tsia ignored them. Imaging along a ghost line was like running her fingers along a single strand of an old spider's web. Extraneous images fell away like dust. There was almost no stickiness to the images she was able to find.

"Thin?" Doetzier murmured.

She barely nodded. "This web is so starved for depth that if it turned sideways, I'd lose it altogether."

She created an imaged pathway for the ghost man to walk along. Created a task he had to do that required him to link to the node. Then she walked her mind along the link until she reached the main traces. It took ten minutes to image her way to the mere node lines. Another minute to set up the codes. Thin? she snorted in her mind. She worked so fast that the ghost man's web was as bare of image as a winter tree is of leaves.

Did he wear a certain type of clothes? She didn't care. Did he stand in a certain room to image the codes to the mersat? She didn't bother to define it. Only one thing filled her mind: the link she created to hold her to him, and to pa.s.s her on the node. And then the codes clicked in, and the ghost man set a trace from the node to the freepick stake. A second later, the lift pipes extended over the rim of the pit.

"It's coming," Mina cried out. "You're doing it."