Treasure Of The Stars

Chapter 16

Blade awoke with a pounding headache, a dry mouth, and several spots on his skin that itched uncomfortably. He awoke slowly, his thoughts sluggish and his senses blunted, but he still realized the moment he opened his eyes that he wasn't in his own room in Riyannah's apartment. This one had pale white walls, a dark green floor covering, no furniture except a bedside table, and no artwork on the walls or any place else. It looked rather like a hospital room, and Blade wondered if something had gone wrong with his language instruction.

Trying to think seemed to make his headache worse. He relaxed and tried to breathe slowly and steadily. Gradually the headache faded. Now he could see a pitcher of water and a glass on the bedside table. He drank until he had the strength to sit up and look around more carefully.

The room still looked depressingly plain. The itching spots on his skin turned out to be several minor burns, covered with a grayish ointment. There was one on each thigh, another on his right temple, and two more close together at the base of his spine. He was wearing heavy gray pajamas.

Blade climbed out of bed and paced out the dimension's of the room. It was about twenty feet on a side and all the walls were padded with something like coarse fur. As he approached the center of the wall opposite the bed, a section of it slid open. Blade passed through the doorway and down three steps into a sunken room the same size as the bedroom. This room had pale red walls and a blue floor, both well padded. It was furnished with a long couch, a padded bench, and two chairs apparently built up out of threads of spun plastic. All the furniture was fastened immovably to the floor.

Was this a hospital, or had the Kananites somehow got the idea he was dangerous or insane? The padded walls and furniture reminded Blade unpleasantly of the padded cells of Home Dimension asylums.

On one side of the living room was a grayish patch the height of a man. Blade walked over to it. As he approached the gray patch it folded itself upward. Behind it was a glowing metal box, with several dials, two faucets, a large slot, and several knobs.

Blade stepped up to the box, and suddenly the dials made sense! One of them was a temperature gauge, another a clock, a third showed pressure. A piece of plastic with printing on it lay in the slot. Blade picked it up and the printed words seemed to jump off the plastic into his brain. The metal box was a food-processing machine, and here were detailed instructions for its use.

Blade's sigh of relief nearly blew the plastic sheet across the room. Whatever else might have happened, he'd learned Kananite. He retrieved the plastic sheet and tried reading the instructions out loud. His vocal cords, tongue, and lips combined to produced the clipped, high-pitched words of the Kananite language.

It was an impressive achievement, implanting the whole language in his brain this way. The secret of the Teacher Globes would be something worth having. It would be an enormous blessing to a Home Dimension where education fought a desperate battle with rapidly-accumulating facts. It might even help Lord Leighton understand what happened to Blade's brain as he passed into Dimension X so that he could speak the local language. For the moment the most important thing was that Blade could talk freely with his hosts or captors. He wasn't sure which they were now, but at least he had some chance of finding out.

Blade made another test of his new knowledge by dialing for a menu, then ordering a meal. It came out hot and steaming, spiced exactly as he'd ordered it, complete with a bottle of wine. Blade found he was both hungry and thirsty and made a hearty meal. He obviously wasn't going to starve to death, even if he had to stay here until the Kananites made up their minds about him.

Unfortunately good food wouldn't make any difference if the Kananites took as long to reach that decision as he expected. He could sit here in comfort for months or years, knowing nothing of the outside world, nothing about Riyannah, nothing about the crisis with Targa, cut off from Lord Leighton's computer by the light-years between Targa and Kanan. He might sit here until the outside world finally penetrated in the form of a Targan H-bomb bursting over Mestar.

Blade finished his meal, put the dishes and bottle in the food machine's slot, and watched them vanish. Then he began to explore the living room, searching for other machines or a door.

He found the second door the same way he'd found the first. Something in it sensed his presence and it quietly slid open. Blade looked out into a surprisingly normal Kananite hallway. The floor was pebbled metal with inlays of pastel mosaics. The walls were plain white, but carvings of veined bluish wood hung from golden brackets every few yards. With almost universal leisure, two-thirds of Kanan's people had at least one artistic hobby. Original paintings and sculptures were displayed in the local equivalent of hot dog stands and car washes.

Blade stepped through the door and walked toward the bend in the hall about fifty feet away. He'd covered half the distance when a man and a woman came around the bend. Like most Kananites indoors, they were lightly dressed. The woman wore a short sleeveless dress, belted with a green sash, and was barefoot. The man wore a similar sash holding up bell-bottomed trousers. His chest was bare and painted in swirling abstract designs of green and purple. Both were also carrying pistol-sized hurd-rays in shoulder holsters. They were the first armed people Blade had seen on Kanan, and they confirmed his suspicions. Whether he was a guest or a prisoner, he was certainly under restraint now.

Blade smiled politely as the two guards approached. He noted that both of them came within easy striking range before stopping, instead of one standing back to cover the other.

«I'm sorry to bother you,» he said in perfect Kananite. «But the food machine gave off some smoke when it took the dishes and bottles after the meal. Should it do this?»

The woman shook her head. «No. We'll have the system checked out and send maintenance people if necessary. Is there anything else?»

«Not today, thank you.»

«Good.» The woman gave a pasted-on smile that didn't reach her eyes. «Have a good night's sleep.» The note of polite dismissal in her voice was unmistakable and Blade took the hint. The last thing he wanted to do at the moment was make the people guarding him suspicious.

Blade found a bathroom on the far side of the bedroom. He took a leisurely shower, and as he soaped himself he mentally revised his plans. He was still going to have to do something drastic to make the Kananites notice him. Obviously they had ideas about him they hadn't had before. Perhaps they'd probed his mind and revealed his true background and history, including the existence of Dimension X. That meant his situation could be acutely dangerous now, but there was nothing he could do about it-except act as quickly as possible.

Dimension X or no Dimension X, he'd have to get out of here or at least make a damned good try at it! If he got out, he'd find ways of making the Kananites know they had someone unusual on their hands, who couldn't be ignored while they played politics-as-usual. Even if he didn't get all the way out, even making the effort might send the same message.

In some ways he was worse off than he'd been. He didn't know where he was, he was watched and guarded, and there wasn't anything in his quarters to use as a weapon. On the other hand, the guards didn't look very alert. If he could surprise them he could certainly handle them with his bare hands. Then he'd have their guns and a clear road at least to the end of the hall. Finally, Riyannah was nowhere around. There wouldn't be any danger of her getting hit by a stray shot if it came to shooting. There wasn't even much danger of her being held responsible for his escape and anything that came of it. He hoped she'd realize that his motives were honest, although he doubted she'd be in a position to help him even if she wanted to.