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The chunks of ice that dot the waters bob like stars on that black expanse and
fall like meteors to the Trench below. They glow with a light of their own
because of the ice worms and glittering microorganisms that are so common on
Lestral.
Any delay on my part was out of the question, regardless of whether
I needed a warm-suit or not. The father wasn't a diver and had gone for
real-time Lestral, and he was ready to break-out at any instant.
With the coordinates in mind, I was undertime, and instead of following the
time-lines, I was crossing, vaulting, trying to minimize even the minute
crossover delay from the undertime to the "now."
For all that, lucky was the word. The father had thrown Regine into the water
near the brink, and the conditions helped me locate her even from the
undertime, because bodies glow like the ice against the black water.
She was heading over the edge by the time I located her, but from there it was
straightforward. Sounded matter-of-fact, but to break-out in water cascading
vertically, thrashing me around, while trying to grasp a small child in the
space of less than a unit and dive safely undertime as we both dropped toward
the biggest pile of sharp rocks on the planet was not an average dive, or a
typical rescue.
I lost Regine in the cold water, and it took three quick undertime slides
before I got a grip on her, and just as I touched her arm, a chunk of
something stabbed me in the shoulder. I kept hold of her nightrobe, but I had
to have a firm grip on flesh to carry her undertime.
I grabbed with my other hand. My feet somersaulted over my head, but my left
hand closed over her wrist, and I dived, wrenching her out of time.
We got back to the Tower Infirmary before Helton or the mother had left the
Domestic Affairs section, I figured.
Regine was bright blue, but breathing. The medical tech stripped her out of
the nightrobe and wrapped her into a thermal quilt. She had a small gash above
one eye, and a line of blood was dribbling down her cheek. Her damp hair was
plastered back above her ears in a blond wave.
She might have come to my waist if she stretched.
The tech turned on me, insisting on a quick check. "Hell of a bruise across
your shoulders."
"Ice, I think."
"Let's take a better look."
She pushed me into the nearest diagnostic booth. Nothing showed but the
bruise, and the tech left me to my own devices.
I wrapped myself in a quilt. I was still a light blue shade from the chill,
but I wanted to see Regine. She had seemed so somber.
As I caught sight of her from the archway, I decided against joking.
She was sitting on the edge of a bed, her color close to normal. The
Guard tech was wheeling away the diagnostic equipment.
My entry rated a glare from the tech, but she didn't try to throw me out.
"I'm Loki. How do you feel?"
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"Wet. Where's my mother?"
"She'll be here in a moment."
Regine's lips had a faint bluish tinge, but the thermal quilt had restored
most of her body heat.
Standing there made me feel awkward, but I shifted from foot to foot for
several units waiting. Regine ignored me.

Finally, I drew up the quilt around me and went back through the archway to
recover my jumpsuit. I finished wringing it out and slipped it on. The fabric
dried quickly; so it was only damp.
I was leaving the Infirmary to check back, La with Locator when the
mother arrived with Freyda and Helton.
"Loki?" asked Freyda, the Tribune.
"None other," I said with a forced smile. "Now if you will excuse me, I need
to report back to Locator."
She nodded. The mother said nothing.
As I walked toward the exit portal to cross the Square, I could hear
Freyda's voice.
" ... the only one on Quest who could have saved your daughter ... "
Probably I didn't have to, but I finished the remaining few units of the
stand-by duty before sliding back to the Aerie for a solid night's sleep.
Sleep didn't come immediately, because I'd had one of those after-
the-fact realizations, something I should have thought about earlier. I
had gone to elaborate lengths to manufacture over a thousand phony locator
tags, to get legitimate access to a locator console, gone over
Sequin Falls to save a child who wouldn't talk to me. And I'd approached the
whole question backwards, as usual.
Why not get rid of the tag?
How was I going to remove a tag embedded in my shoulder blade? Have a surgeon
cut it out, of course.
With that thought, I fell asleep, sound enough not to be troubled with dreams
or fears.
Once I got into Maintenance the next morning, I turned my concentration to
finding a surgeon who could do the job under a local anaesthetic. I wanted to
be able to watch.
Archives had some data along those lines, but I did want to show some care. I
traipsed up to the study cubes and used Giron's code to ask about medical
progress levels.
In the meantime, Terra, late early atomic, at the fringe of my fore-
time range, seemed the best place.
Before I dived fore-time to Terra, I absconded with some medical equipment
from the back rooms of the Infirmary. I also rigged a miniature laser which
would cut the tiny chunk of metal clear of my shoulder. Rather involved
technically, but as foolproof as I could make it. I added to that a simple
locator which would point directly to the tag. Redundant, but I wanted to
avoid any possible mistakes.
With the gadgets in hand, and after wheedling a language refresher out of the
duty trainee late in the afternoon, when Loragerd and the regular Linguistics
Staff had left, I departed for Terra.
I could feel the moan of the change-winds around me, not the violent shudders
and twists that ripped through the undertime when the Guard meddled, but the
little tugs, the fleeting flashes that weren't quite there

except they were.
Terra equaled change. I wondered about the source of that flowing change, and
while I couldn't have said I knew the reason, I would have bet that some of [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]