Sporting Chance

Chapter Seven

Cecelia’s first sensory impression was smell: not a pleasant scent, but a sharp, penetrating stink she associated with fear and pain. After a timeless rummage through the back shelves of memory, her mind decided it was medicinal, and that probably meant she was in a doctor’s office. Gradually, over time she could not guess, she became aware of pressure. She lay on her back; she could feel the contact between a firm surface and her shoulders and her buttocks. She was less sure of her arms and legs . . . and in trying to feel their position realized in one stab of panic that she could not move.

She did feel the leap her heart gave then, and she heard, as if from a great distance, the voices that chattered above her. Her mind rattled around the vast dark space it sensed, and reminded her of other unpleasant wakenings. The eighteenth fence at Wherrin, that bad drop that she’d misjudged in the mud. The time a new prospect had gone completely berserk under a roofed jump, and nearly killed her. She wondered what it had been this time . . . she couldn’t quite remember. An event? Training? Foxhunting? Oddly, she couldn’t even remember the horse—even any horse she’d worked recently.

The voices above gave her no clue. No one asked her name or what had happened; no one spoke to her at all. A bad sign, that: she knew it from times she’d sat waiting outside for a hurt friend. A few of the technical terms sounded familiar, BP and cardiac function and perfusion. If she didn’t know what they meant, she knew they meant something. But others . . . her mind tried to grasp the unfamiliar syllables, but they slipped away. Demyel-something and something about selective pathways and neuromuscular dis-something. The drug names she didn’t expect to know, but she knew the voices discussed things to be put in this line or that. A harder pressure against her arm—at least she knew now that her arm was up there, not down here—might be an injection.

It didn’t hurt. Nothing hurt, and that scared her. If you didn’t hurt, something really big was wrong. The longer it didn’t hurt, the worse it was. If it was really bad—her mind shied away from the idea of spinal cord injury, brain injury—you would never hurt again, but that was worst. Sometimes even regeneration tanks wouldn’t work on central nervous system injuries.

If she could move something . . . she struggled, first to decide what to move, and then to move. An eyelid. She felt no movement, and the darkness did not lift.

“A bit of excess activity there,” someone said. Had she managed a movement she did not feel? She tried again. “Another tenth cc of motor inhibition,” she heard. “And increase the primary decoupler one cc an hour.” Inhibition? Decoupler? Just as the additional drugs pushed her beneath the surface of thought again, her mind made all the connections and nearly exploded in panic. No accident at all . . . someone had done this to her. On purpose. And she had no way to summon help. Damn, she thought. I was stupid. Heris was right. Hope she figures it out . . .

She woke again, to the same medical-ward smells, the same darkness, the same inability to move or speak.

“Hopeless, I’m afraid,” she heard. She didn’t recognize the voice. “There’s been no change at all, nothing in the brain scans . . . look, here’s the first. Massive intracranial bleed, typical cerebral accident. Probably all those years of riding, with repeated small concussions, caused significant weakening in the vascular attachments here and here—”

Someone else was here, not a medical person. Someone who wanted to know if she was going to get well. Someone who cared. If she could only make a sound, a small movement, anything.

“You can see the monitors yourself,” the voice said, nearer now. “If we use a strong aversive stimulus—” Acrid fumes stung her nose; her brain screamed danger/poison/run. “—you see a very slight reaction in the brainstem, there. The fourth line. But she doesn’t move. I can open an eye—” She felt the pressure on her eyelid, felt the movement across the eye itself, but saw nothing. “No change in pupil size, no response here. Cortical blindness. There’s no evidence of auditory response, no indication of higher cortical functions.”

“Couldn’t you have operated on the bleed?” The voice was male, used to authority, but Cecelia didn’t recognize it. Certainly it wasn’t her brother-in-law. “With all your facilities—”

“Too diffuse, I’m sorry. We think branches of both cerebral arteries failed at once. As if she’d been repeatedly bludgeoned, but of course that wasn’t the cause. I still think the years of riding had something to do with it, but I can’t prove it. I’ve sent for her scans after the previous accidents.”

“Could it have been . . . a result of poisoning?” YES! Cecelia thought. Good man. Smart man. Of course it was poisoning.

“I doubt it,” the other voice said. “There are neurotoxins, of course, that mimic natural strokes. But the evidence from her scans is clear: this is bleeding.” She heard a finger tap on something—a display, perhaps.

“I didn’t mean that it wasn’t bleeding,” the skeptical voice said. “I wondered if someone had induced the bleeding with a poison, perhaps a blood thinner or something of that sort.”

“Ah.” The professional voice sounded more relaxed now. Of course it would. “According to her records, she wasn’t taking any medication of that sort . . . and I don’t know if they analyzed her blood for that in the hospital that first night. They should have, of course; I just presumed that if it were a drug it would be in the records when she was transferred here.”

So she had been somewhere else and was now who knew where? She wondered where she’d been when she first woke up. Was that the original hospital? Had it been the big downtown one, or the upper-class clinic near her sister’s house?

“The thing is,” the skeptical voice said, “the family are concerned that she might have been under . . . er . . . undue influence, as it were, of someone. Until the formal proceedings, we cannot be sure, but the date of her last testamentary revision suggests that something happened recently. If there should be an unforeseen bequest, and if that individual had exerted undue influence, then there would have been . . . er . . .”

“Motivation to cause her harm. I see, precisely.”

Damn. The fool. The utter, incompetent fool. Now whoever had done this would have a chance to blame it on the one person it couldn’t be, and this stupid lawyer—she was sure it was a lawyer—had given them all they needed.

“But that’s another problem, and what we really need from you, doctor, is your assessment of prognosis. Is Lady Cecelia going to recover competency, or not? And if so, when? We have petitions of incompetency . . .”

“As I said originally, we cannot hold out much hope of recovery. I would hate to be hasty, but . . . my professional opinion is that irreversible brain damage has occurred, and I would be willing to present the evidence to a court. Although I see no reason for haste—”

“The statutes prescribe the waiting periods, doctor. It has been thirty days—” Thirty days. Thirty days. She had to scream, but she couldn’t; she forced rage and panic down and listened. “—and petitions may be presented, although of course no final action will be taken just yet.” A pause, during which she felt someone’s gaze across her face, painful in its lack of caring. “It is curious, isn’t it, that with so much damage she requires no life support?”

“Unusual, but quite easily explained,” said the doctor. She wanted to know his name, wanted to have some name to curse in the darkness. “See here—on this shot—the bleeds stopped short of areas regulating breathing, for instance. It’s quite likely that she will live out her normal span.”

“Without rejuvenation treatments.”

“Oh, certainly. We couldn’t recommend rejuvenation for someone in her condition. No, indeed.”

Normal span. Her mind calculated . . . at least another ten years, maybe twenty. If she didn’t get pneumonia, if she didn’t catch a virus. If whoever had done this didn’t simply kill her.

And why hadn’t they killed her? Why this? Did someone know she was still alive, aware, inside, and was that person gloating over her suffering? If Heris’s wicked admiral had been alive, she could have believed that of him.

“I thought I saw a movement, a tremor,” said the skeptical voice.

“It’s nothing,” the doctor said. “Random discharges in peripheral nerves—she’s due to be turned again, to prevent pressure sores. Even in these special beds . . . and they do have tremors sometimes. Breakdown products, perhaps, of the damage.”

“I see.” She heard the footsteps, fading away, and the sigh and thud of a door opening, shutting again.

She had heard and understood. If their damned scans were any good, they’d know she could hear and understand. Had they bothered to look lately? Or were they lying, and displaying fake scans for anyone who visited? Thirty days . . . she’d been here for thirty days? Where was Heris? What had happened to the prince?

Time had no meaning. She slept, she supposed, and woke again; it seemed like a moment of inattention rather than normal sleep. Sometimes she heard voices around her, and sometimes they talked about her; more often they talked of other things. She came to know one woman’s voice, and built from her gossipy chatter a picture of someone with bright, avid eyes and a pursed mouth. Then another, who never added to the gossip, but had a satisfied chuckle, as if she were glad to hear bad things about others. The doctor who had talked to the lawyer came infrequently, but she always knew him.

Scents merged with sounds, with pressures. She knew the smell of her own body and its output; she hated the wet warmth that turned cold too often before someone came to change her. She hated the hands that turned and moved her as if she were a slab of meat . . . she came to hate with special fervor a flowery perfume one pair of hands wore, hands colder and less deft than the others, belonging to a sharp, whining voice that complained of her incontinence.

Hate blurred thought; she fought it back. She could not afford that, any more than she could afford to go insane from the darkness and immobility. Instead, she scrabbled at her memories, struggling to rip another minute detail from the black fog. Gradually she assembled them in order, like torn scraps of a picture laid out on black velvet. That first awakening, with the terrifying talk about drugs to inhibit, to decouple. It had come after whatever happened, but before—and in another place. Then only the odd glimmer, not even clear memories, until the doctor/lawyer conference. A string of clearer memories, then another lapse, after which she no longer felt the wetness of incontinence. From what she overheard, she had had surgery to implant “controllable sphincters”—however that worked. Since then, more and clearer memories, but still no return of function. She could not move; she could not see; she could not talk.

Her mind slid inexorably sideways to the memory of riders she’d known with broken necks or head injuries. But those were injuries, trauma . . . this was something else. She was still thinking, and if she’d had her head crushed against a tree, she wouldn’t be.

Thirty days plus. How many plus? Or was it how much plus? For a moment her mind chased that grammatical hare into a thicket of forgotten rules. She yanked it back out, and slapped its nose. Only one thing mattered . . . and it certainly wasn’t a point of grammar. She had to find a way out, a way to make some connection to the world—and yet she had to be sure it was the right connection. Whoever had done this would be watching, she was sure, for any untoward behaviors, any return of speech or movement. And how could she tell who was safe, when she couldn’t communicate?

Someone had to know. Unless doctors had never known what they were doing, someone had to know she was still alive inside, still capable of thinking . . . still thinking, in fact. Either someone wanted to torment her—and she couldn’t think of a good reason, since apparently she didn’t even twitch in ways that would amuse a sadist—or someone was concealing her remaining capacity.

She liked that idea better. She had an ally, somewhere, faking brain scans and whatever other tests the medical system used to determine that her brain wasn’t working. It would have been easy to kill her, easy to do the damage that was supposed to have been done . . . easy to do that still. But—they hadn’t. She had an ally. If she could stay sane, maybe—just maybe—that someone would figure out a way to rescue her and undo the damage.

“You’re sure she’s aware?” Lorenza had to ask again; she could not hear the answer too often.

“Yes, ma’am. And like I said, the way it’s set up, there’s a blind feed on her cables; it’ll never show up on her scans now that she’s got the implants.”

Perfect. A delicious shiver fluttered inside her. Cecelia helpless, motionless, blind . . . and knowing it. The only thing that would be better would be a very personal and private way to communicate, to let her know who was responsible. Unfortunately, that wasn’t possible, and the original drug would have wiped out her memory of the reception.

“You’ll find your investment in Sultan Realty has paid unexpected dividends,” Lorenza said to her medical contact. “It will be very profitable, I think you’ll agree.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He cleared his throat. “But I just want to be sure you really understand the maintenance requirements. Because you wanted her aware, she’s going to need regular maintenance doses—”

“Are you saying it’s reversible? I told you it must not be—”

“It’s not reversible, no. Not the main brain damage. But the dose wasn’t as massive—it takes tinkering to keep her neuromuscular status where we want it, with normal maintenance at the nursing home feeding her other drugs . . . that’s all.” He sounded scared, as well he should be. If he crossed her, he knew what to expect.

“Very well.” She didn’t understand the medical details, and didn’t intend to learn. The important thing, all that mattered, was the thought of Cecelia—arrogant, athletic, triumphant Cecelia—reduced to a flaccid blind body that anyone could manipulate. She didn’t even have to visit the place herself; it was enough to know that Cecelia inhabited a dark, friendless place where she was utterly helpless, and from which there was no escape. “Your payments will arrive quarterly; that’s the normal schedule for dividend payout from Sultan Realty. When it’s time for you to invest in another company, your broker will inform you.” She cut off the call, and sat poised in her tapestry chair, looking around her exquisite sitting room. All the lovely colors Cecelia would never see again, all the sensual pleasures of silken clothing, savory food and drink, fresh flower-scented air, favorite music, sex . . .

Her brother, the Crown Minister, found her pensive in the firelight, hand pressed to her cheek, and tea cold in the cup beside her on the table.

“What’s the matter?” he asked. “Are you ill?”

“It’s that poor woman,” she said, in a voice that she let tremble a bit. It would seem like regret. “That poor, poor woman, stricken like that . . . I just can’t stop thinking about poor dear Cecelia.”

Heris faced Brun over the dining table in her suite at the fanciest hotel the Station offered. One waiter hovered, serving expensive food Heris didn’t want, but had to pretend to eat. Brun, still playing the spoiled rich girl, gobbled eagerly. Finally she chose the most elaborate of the dessert pastries offered, and waved the cart and waiter away. “We’ll ring when we’re through, thanks,” she said. As they left, she picked up the pastry and bit into it, showering flakes in all directions. When the door closed, she took a small gray wand out of her pocket and handed it to Heris with a grin.

Heris picked it up, and scanned the room. Apparently clean of recorders, spyeyes, and such, and this wand, activated, made as good a privacy shield as civilian life afforded. She turned it on its side and placed it between them.

“So—you’ve taken my advice in that direction?”

“Of course. I told you I was serious.” Brun put her pastry down, wiped her mouth, and leaned forward. “Ronnie said you wanted to see me about his Aunt Cecelia; I thought I should make it easy to explain.”

“Good for you.”

“You know what they’re saying about you?”

“Ronnie told me some of it.”

“Ronnie only knows what his parents tell him. His mother’s telling all her friends that you’re the most dangerous woman since that charlatan that bilked the Kooslin sisters out of their fortune by pretending to contact their dead lovers . . . and then killed them to cover up when their nephew found out about it. She nearly killed him, too.”

“I never heard of that.”

“No, you wouldn’t have. But the thing is, Berenice is telling everyone that you must have had that kind of influence on Lady Cecelia. She even thinks that stuff on the island didn’t really happen—that you hypnotized Aunt Cecelia into thinking it happened. Dad’s not here, or he’d set her straight about that. She’s hinting that you even did something—no one will say what—to cause the stroke. Ronnie thinks his mother’s upset about the redecorating, but I know it’s more than that. I’m not sure just what.”

“I had thought of going down to see her, of course—”

Brun shook her head. “Better not. I don’t think Berenice’d let you see her; you’re not family, and she’s got a right to decide who else can visit.”

“What about you?”

“Me?” Brun looked startled, then thoughtful. “I’m not family, or one of Cecelia’s friends, but . . . I suppose . . . I could be Dad’s representative, sort of.”

“Exactly what I thought,” Heris said. She hesitated a moment, then decided to trust the girl. “Did Ronnie tell you about the will?”

“Will?”

“I presume he didn’t, then; it will come out later, if there’s a competency hearing, or if Lady Cecelia dies. Apparently, she changed her will almost as soon as she arrived, and she left me a . . . er . . . substantial legacy. The yacht.”

Brun’s eyes widened. “So that’s what—”

“That may be part of it. She didn’t tell me she was doing this, or I’d have talked her out of it, of course. But the point is, that if there’s a chance the stroke was caused by a drug or something, then I’m the obvious suspect. It’s understandable that her family would resent the bequest, and that it would make them suspicious of me and my motives. They’re not going to listen to anything I say. But I hope you will.”

“What else?”

Quickly, Heris outlined the attack on Sirkin and Yrilan, and what she had found out about its background, including the dishonesty of Cecelia’s former captain and the loot found aboard the yacht at Takomin Roads. “So you see, I worry that if her stroke was drug-induced—the guilty parties are working for the Compassionate Hand—in retaliation for having their comfortable little smuggling ring disrupted.”

“Oh my.” Brun’s face shifted from one expression to another, fluffhead to practical young woman, as she thought about this. “Is that what Ronnie meant when he said his aunt had been to see the king? Was she complaining to him about the Regular Space Service, perhaps—it wasn’t stopping smugglers, but it had dumped you and promoted that horrible admiral?”

“Perhaps,” Heris said. She didn’t want to mention the prince if it could be avoided. That was another motive for an attack, but one that she had no way of investigating. “My thought was this: it’s not unknown for the Compassionate Hand to suborn medical professionals. There was a case in the Chisholm system where doctors certified that someone was paralyzed when he was only drugged. It was meant to terrorize business associates, which it did, and of course it was also terrifying for the victim.” Who had died before he could be rescued, but the evidence had been clear enough; the R.S.S. had found the cube records of the drugging and the results. “If you can visit Lady Cecelia, without arousing suspicions—and without it seeming to be my suggestion—perhaps you can ascertain if she is really brain damaged or not. We can set up a discreet way to keep in touch.”

“I see.” Brun nibbled on the pastry again. “I suppose you don’t have any outrageously handsome young men in your crew, do you, that I could pretend to have fallen for on the voyage?”

“No . . . in fact, all those people quit. The only crew member from the voyage you were on is my navigator, Brigdis Sirkin. And she just suffered a loss herself; her lover was killed in that brawl.”

Brun’s eyes lit up. “Oh, yes. I remember you telling me about her. I think—I think I’d like to meet her. It would be in my character, even as Bubbles, to be wildly sympathetic.”

Heris felt immediately protective of Sirkin. “She’s not expendable, Brun. I don’t want her hurt.”

Brun glared back. “I won’t hurt her; I’m not that stupid. I’m sorry she lost someone she cared about—that’s true. And I will be careful. But I can call her, or meet her, even though she’s your crew, if there’s a good reason for me to be interested otherwise.”

“Just be careful. She’s a good person.” Heris forced herself to calm down. “And I’ll have to ask her.” Not even for Cecelia would she expose Sirkin’s pain without her permission. “Let’s see. Why not have her escort you to the storage company tomorrow—assuming you really should carry out that errand—and I’ll have briefed her on the situation. Then it’s up to the two of you to make it understandable that you’d keep in touch.”

“It’s always understandable when rich young people and not-so-rich young people start spending time together,” Brun said.

Brun modified her fluffhead persona just slightly the next Mainshift; she appeared at the crew hostel without the pink-tipped spiky hairstyle, opting for a swept-back pouf instead, all the pink ends hidden under an elaborate ribbon arrangement. She wore a more conservative outfit, something she might have worn a year ago in like circumstance. Her heart was pounding; she hoped that she’d find young Sirkin in the hostel lounge, and not Captain Serrano. She liked Captain Serrano, but it was a strain trying to impress her, knowing she wasn’t going to succeed, having to try anyway.

Sirkin and another crew member, a blonde woman with sleepy green eyes, waited at the desk. Brun barely remembered Sirkin; the slender dark-haired figure was only vaguely familiar. The other she didn’t know at all.

“Captain Serrano had other things to do this morning,” the blonde woman said. “I’m Methlin Meharry, and this is Brig Sirkin. Captain said we should escort you to the storage company.”

“Yes—well—” She had planned to ask Sirkin to call her Brun, but what about this Meharry? She didn’t feel like using her title, and she was getting very tired of Bubbles. The older woman’s sleepy green eyes seemed to wake, like a cat’s.

“It’s all right,” she said. “I have the paperwork.”

Brun shrugged. “Fine, then. Let’s go.” If you couldn’t figure out what else to do, you could always be rude. On the way, she said to Sirkin, “Captain Serrano told me you had been hurt in a brawl, and your friend was killed—I’m sorry.”

“Thank you.” Sirkin’s voice was low; her eyes clouded. Brun felt like an idiot, a cruel one. This was much harder with Meharry along. She glared at Meharry. Meharry gave her a lazy smile.

“She was damn near killed herself. Don’t suppose you rich girls ever have to worry about things like that. Always got protection.”

Brun couldn’t think what to say—was this Heris’s idea of briefing?—but Sirkin spoke up. “That’s not fair, Methlin! She was nearly killed in that mess at Sirialis—” Sirkin looked at Brun, who suddenly realized Heris had used her own trick on her. Of course they had set up this quarrel on purpose. Now, what was she supposed to say? Methlin had already given the next line, in a contemptuous drawl.

“Nonsense—it was her Dad’s place—how much danger could she be in?”

“Quite enough, thank you.” Brun put as much contempt into her own voice. “Sirkin was there; she knows.”

“An’ you call her like a servant, ‘Sir-kin.’ She has a name, you know, Miss Priss.”

“Methlin!” Was Sirkin really shocked, or was that part of the game? Brun warmed to it.

“It would be impolite of me to use her first name without her permission,” she said. “And I don’t think much of you, either.”

“Captain said I was to come; you can’t make me leave,” said Meharry, in a dangerous whine that got attention from others on the slideway.

“I’m not trying to make you leave,” Brun said. “I’m merely trying to make you observe the rudiments of polite behavior.” She hoped Meharry realized she, too, was playing the role; the woman scared her.

“Damned snob,” muttered Meharry. Brun pretended not to hear it; she smiled unctuously at Sirkin.

“I’m so sorry, truly. It must have been terrible for you. Captain Serrano always praised you so highly.”

“It was . . . she . . . she jumped in front of me.” Genuine grief and guilt; Brun felt another pang of guilt. All too clearly she remembered how she and Raffa had felt each other’s peril as well as their own. She tried to put that into words.

“When . . . when my friend and I were being shot at, we were as scared for each other . . . once she had to shoot the man who had me at gunpoint, and she was afraid she’d hit me . . .”

Sirkin blinked back tears; Brun wanted to hug her. “You do understand. But your friend lived—was that George?”

“George! No, not George, Raffa. She was the dark-haired one, like you.” It suddenly occurred to her that Sirkin might misunderstand something here, but it was not the time to clarify the order of events and feelings.

“Our stop’s next,” Meharry said loudly. Brun looked up, and led the way out into the concourse and then into the storage company’s main office. For the next couple of hours, as the bored and contemptuous storage company workers located and unpacked half a dozen boxes from Lady Cecelia’s yacht, to no avail, Meharry made sarcastic remarks about the aristocracy, and Sirkin became Brun’s natural ally. Finally, Brun agreed that she must have been mistaken. She cheerfully handed over a credit chip to cover the extra work done on her behalf and murmured to Sirkin that she’d really like to take her to lunch if Meharry would let her come.

By then it seemed natural that Meharry, with a few last caustic comments about the aristocracy, would head back to the crew quarters alone. Brun, alone with Sirkin, said, “You know, if you want to talk about it, I really am a safe person to tell. I’m not quite the fluffhead I seem . . .”

“I know,” Sirkin said. “Captain Serrano said you had to be pretty tough to survive on the island.”

“But if you don’t want to, that’s fine, too. What’s your favorite food?”

After a luxurious lunch, they spent the afternoon showing why not-so-rich girls liked to spend time with rich ones. Brun found it more fun than she expected to take Sirkin to one shop after another, buying her more gifts than she could carry. She had long quit calling her Sirkin: Brig and Brun, they were to each other. Neither mentioned Lady Cecelia that afternoon; neither needed to.

Wakening after wakening . . . time lost all meaning, in the dark, with only ears and nose to accept sensory data and offer meat for Cecelia’s thoughts. And the only smells around were artificial, soaps and perfumes and medicines, nothing evocative of her old life. She had read about such things, but never imagined herself so cut off . . . she, who had been a sensualist all her life. She tried to tell herself that at least she felt no pain . . . but she would have traded pain for that nothingness that threatened her mind.

She would not go insane. She would not give whomever had done this the satisfaction. She told herself she was lucky to be old, that the old had more memories to process, more experiences to relive. She worked her way through her own life, trying to be methodical. It was hard; she would like to have spent more time in the good years, on the winning rides, when the jumps flowed by under the flashing hooves. But even in her extraordinary life, those moments were brief compared to the whole. Instead, she tried to concentrate on the duller bits. Just how many tons of hay had she ordered that first winter in Hamley? How many tons of oats, of barley? Which horse had required flaxseed to improve its hooves? What was the name of that farrier who had been found slipping information to the Cosgroves? Had the third groom’s name been Alicia or Devra?

Not even the horses were enough. She made herself catalog her wardrobe—not only every garment she owned now, but every garment in every closet since childhood. Had that blue velvet robe been a gift for the Summerfair or Winterfest, and was it Aunt Clarisse or Aunt Jalora? When and where had she bought the raw-silk shirt with the embroidered capelet? What had finally happened to the uzik-skin boots, or the beaded belt from Tallik? She tried to remember every room she’d walked in, placing the furniture and every ornament. She considered every investment, from the first shares of bank stock she’d bought herself (with a Winterfest gift from her grandfather—he had forbidden her to spend the money on horses, or she would have bought a new Kindleflex saddle) to the most recent argument with her proxy.

Visitors came regularly, in this unnamed place. Berenice, first teary and chattery (reminded by the staff that she should not get hysterical, that she could not bring flowers or food), and her husband Gustav (stiff, ponderous, but gentle when he touched her hand), and even young Ronnie. They talked to her, in a way.

“I don’t know if you can hear me, but—”

Berenice talked of their childhood. Sometimes she mentioned things Cecelia had forgotten, things she could then use in the empty hours between visits. This birthday party, that incident at school, a long-forgotten playmate or servant. And she explained, at excruciating length, why she thought Cecelia had been a fool to waste all that time on horses instead of getting married or at least working in the family. She had accepted the idea that years of small head injuries from riding had led to a massive stroke.

Gustav talked of business and politics, but not in a way she could use. He would tell her which stocks were up or down, and who had been elected, as if he were reading a list from a fairly dimwitted periodical—with none of the meat behind the facts. What did she care if Ciskan Pharmaceuticals was up 1/8 point, and Barhyde Royal was down 3/4? Or if the Conservative Social Democrats had won two more seats in the lower house while the Liberal Royalists had gained a critical appointment in the Bureau of Education? Of course, Gustav had never been known for lively repartee, but even he might have realized that someone in a coma is hardly likely to understand the nuances of a field they never mastered while awake.

Ronnie spent the first visit saying what she had hoped to hear: he could not believe that his vital, strong, healthy aunt had been stricken like this; he was sure she was alert inside, listening to him, understanding him. He would never believe Captain Serrano had done this—how could she?—and it would all come right in the end. But she could not communicate anything to him, could not confirm his guess, and gradually he settled into what she thought of as useless small talk. He was no longer in exile, of course; the prince was offplanet somewhere; Raffaele had gone to visit her family before he had actually talked to her about marriage; the Royals seemed rather slack after his adventures on Sirialis. George was back to being odious in the regiment, but came out of it when alone with Ronnie.

This was better than Gustav, but it didn’t give her much to work with when he’d gone. And none of them thought to tell her the date, the weather, or even where she was, the things that might have kept her oriented.

It wasn’t enough. Still she woke into blankness, helpless and afraid, and at times could not force her mind to work through another memory. The brilliant colors of blood bay and golden chestnut, of the sunlight on a cobbled yard, or a red coat against dark woods, began to gray. She had heard of that—the deep blindness that follows blinding, when the memory of color fades. She could still think yellow and red and blue and green, but the images that came were paler, almost transparent.

Worst were the nightmares when she seemed to wake to a soft voice she could never quite recognize, a voice that whispered “I did it,” and a hand cold and smooth as porcelain laid along her cheek. Who, she wondered. Who could be so cruel?