Chapter Thirty-Three: Desmond

My time on Old Earth has come in handy in an unexpected way. No one here is used to walking, especially where there are no roads, so once the trains were shut down all travel stopped. I suppose it is just as well, since so far it has made it easier to contain the rioting, but for those of us who need to travel it can be frustrating. No, that is too weak of a word. It is infuriating.

I didn't expect Caroline to come with me. She has a bruise on her cheek that she got during the worst of the fighting on campus, and every time I look at it I feel as though I put it there myself. Hadn't I known what would happen when Jaden released that feed? I had been trying to find Asha, and instead Jaden and I had plunged the planet into chaos. The feeder seemed far less worried about it than I, but then again he didn't have a personnel file that indicated he was predisposed to causing such disasters. I didn't ask, but I got the feeling that he was pleased, in a way, because if he hadn't been the most famous Kiranese feeder before this moment, he certainly would be once this riot became recent history.

After three years walking through the wilderness of Old Earth, the distance between the University and the Capital is negligible. There will be nothing to attack us, and no plants to make our skin burn and eyes sting. It's just as well, as the guards at the Capital would be unlikely to let me in with my obsidian knife. I've thought about getting rid of it for the past decade, but I can never bring myself to do it. But as I'm packing for the walk I almost strap it to my thigh out of habit. Not that I ever had to use it on Old Earth. That was Alexander's job, or the Natives who went with us and snickered at how heavily we stepped beside them. I wore it for show, so that I could pretend that I was one of them, and useful, but everyone knew better. I was just the translator, and toward the end of my tour the others had picked up enough Native to render me almost completely useless.

So the knife remains behind, on my bedside table, as I lock my door. I take my leave at dusk, one week after the riots began, slipping out during a shift change. Caroline meets me at my door, and I resist doing a double-take. This is the first time I have seen her in something other than short skirts and heels. I don't know what I thought she'd be wearing on our trek, but I'm surprised by her sensible pants, shoes, and long-sleeved shirt all the same. Her hair is tied back in a low ponytail, and she looks younger than usual. No wonder she sticks to the suits with such tenacity. Diane would never have listened to her if she'd seen Caroline like this.

No one is guarding the areas with no roads, and so the northern border of campus is open, though no one is using it. I feel guilty for a moment as I turn my back on our poor school, but remind myself that I have a good reason for entering the Capital. There is nothing more that I can do on the campus, and I'm worried that if I stay around now that the students have settled down enough to stop breaking things that Aki will find time to fire me. Granted, that can be said over a wristband, and if they reinstate them in two days like rumor says they will, I am only delaying the inevitable.

“Don't worry about it,” Jaden laughed when I told him that I was leaving. “They can't fire you. The riots would start again.” Thankfully, he was not so flippant about the dead. The University's hospital had been filled before the doctors started succumbing to the stress. I hear the one at the Capital is in just as bad of shape, though since they generally don't allow empathic doctors there, they've been managing the riot rather well. No one, no matter how blind with rage, wants to attack a hospital, it seems. Granted, that was also the first place the Fleet sent troops to protect, if what Aki says is true. Keep the sick out of it. Give the injured a place to go and regain control of themselves. Sedate the seeders, and stop the riots quickly. It was by no means altruistic.

We met with some resistance at the perimeter they'd established around the Capital, but thankfully Caroline and I ranked high enough to bully our way in. It helped that one of the guards was a recent graduate and remembered us. We weren't empaths, in any case, and so were not the ones the Fleet was attempting to restrict the movements of. Off-duty soldiers coming to help with riot control weren't unheard of, in any case. We were told where to report to for an assignment, and as soon as we were out of sight of the checkpoint, went the exact opposite way.

Neither of us had any real idea where Asha was, but I had a hunch, and so we headed into the thick of the buildings in the center of the Capital. Getting into the hospital proved much easier than I had expected. I wanted to message Aria and let her know that I was glad she'd told me where they had been keeping Seamus, but had to content myself with a mental note to do so later. The guards were so distracted by the pandemonium in the streets that a flash of mine and Caroline's credentials was enough to get us access to the patient list.

“Indrani,” Caroline sighs, spying her name. “Desmond, are you going to try to break her out?”

I shake my head. “That wouldn't do either of us any good. I just want to see her, Caroline. I haven't since she found out.”

“And you're not lying to me this time?” She raises an eyebrow at me, but the bruise on her cheek stretches along with it, and I can't chuckle like I usually would. Instead, I take her hand and we descend into the depths of the hospital. I try to ignore the thick, sterile smell of the halls and the stairs.

Her floor has a posted guard at the desk, and that's when I know for sure. This was a floor they used to treat prisoners. This was where Seamus had been held. They had been planning to try her for seeding the courtroom before the planet had turned itself inside out. I run my hands through my hair and try not to think about what would happen when everyone settled down again.

“D'you want?” The young man looks up at me nervously.

“I need to see Asha Indrani.”

“No one can see her but the doctor,” drawls the guard, glancing at the panel of screens to his left. The rooms have security feeds. My stomach knots in rage.

I show him my identification. “It is imperative that I have access to her room.” Caroline attempts to look menacing beside me. I wish she wouldn't.

He swallows. “Look, she isn't even awake. We've had her under since she came here.”

“Then summon her doctor.” Caroline elbows me gently, but I ignore her.

“Sir, I—”

“Do it.”

“Do not worry, Eli. I am already here,” comes a voice from behind me. I turn and look up at the most enormous Midbaran I have ever seen.

“Hello, Teacher Doyle.”

What was an empath doing on this floor? I smile all the same.

“Ms. Indrani has been thinking of you for days now,” he adds. “Would you like to come with me to see her? I am under orders to keep her asleep, but she will know you are in the room.”

Eli stammers that we really shouldn't, but Caroline and I are already following the doctor down the hall. “I'm glad you've come,” he murmurs when we round the corner. “The staff here have been acting strangely around her for the past few days, and I think a familiar mind will calm her.”

“You're an empath, then?” Caroline asks, and our guide nods.

“Of course. They need someone who can tell when she is stirring.” I want to ask him how he managed to avoid being seeded in the thick of the riots, but I don't get the words out before his face goes troubled. “Which she should be, right about now.”

He unlocks her door, and as it slides open I hear Caroline gasp. I turn from where I had been looking down the hall and see why she is so upset.

The room is a mess. The bed has been knocked over, and the floor is sticky with whatever they were using to keep her under, leaking from a burst pouch near the door. I shove the doctor out of the way and step into the center. Asha's crumpled form stands out starkly against the white of the room.

“She is not dead,” the doctor reassures me before I realize that I am about to panic. I force my training to take over and I assess the room as if she were any other student. Whatever happened, she must have been conscious for at least some of it, because nothing else could explain her position relative to the overturned bed.

“We have had... difficulty keeping her under as completely as we managed with Seamus,” the doctor admits, but I get the sense that he was not nearly as upset by this as his superiors would have wished him to be.

“There's blood on her knuckles. Get the desk guard in here.”

The doctor shakes his head again. “I would not trust him. It is too bad that the police are completely occupied, or I would attempt to contact them.”

I sigh. “Find me something sterile, then. Caroline, record this, won't you?” It will be useless, but thanks to my riot, we have no alternative but to try. Maybe my rank will help when the time comes, assuming that I'm still employed.

No. Deal with that later. The planet's in chaos, and there's nothing else that I can do.

Caroline hits a button on her wristband and follows me around the room as I inspect the damage and describe what I see. I can't make sense of most of it, in all honesty, but I hope that later someone more qualified than I will make use of it. All the while something is screaming at me to ignore the room and the bed and get to Asha, but I hold off until I'm reasonably sure that I won't ruin anything by doing so.

Her knuckles are covered in blood. I take a sterile sample of it with the swab and bag the doctor brought to me. We'd know who had attacked her, at least.

Her braid is pinned underneath her. I tilt her head to try to figure out why there is so much blood on the floor and am distracted by the tips of her hair sliding along her shoulders.

No.

“Oh, Desmond, her hair!” Caroline cries. The doctor swears in Midbaran and falls to his knees beside me.

I try to focus on her lip. Her lip and not the fact that what's left of her braid is still pinned on the floor beneath her even though her hair is hanging in ragged chunks around her face. There was no reason to—

“Yes, there was,” mutters the doctor. “Hate. Whoever did this wanted her to suffer. I suspect that this was done after she began to fight back.” He points at her hands, where the blood is caked thick between her knuckles.

“C-can we move her?”

He looks her over, feeling gently through the hospital's clothing. “She has a broken rib, but we can get her to another room.”

I pick her up in my arms. I can't stop staring at her face or the bruising around her right eye. Aditi had looked like that when we had first come to the village. That's why Alexander and I had decided to take her on as an “apprentice” and teach her first aid. We wanted to keep her away from Dev. Well, I did. Alexander had probably planned on bedding her from the first. He'd never been the most scrupulous man. And she knew that, and she loved him anyway. Not me. Alexander used to laugh at me because of how angry it made me.

He'd been my idol until the day I realized he'd seduced her.

“What? She needed a break!”

“Xander, we're in the middle of a village of empaths! How are the two of you going to hide this?”

He'd shrugged, and told me it was her problem. And then the angry mob of townsmen that stabbed him to death had proven that it had been his problem, too. Aditi had come to me in a panic afterward, telling me that she was pregnant and asking for my help. I'd promised to give it to her, and then made it clear that I was no different than my brother when I gave up and sent her back so easily. I should have married her, quit the Fleet the instant it was official, and then moved to Midbar with her. Granted, we'd be in trouble now, but I would have still been able to protect Aditi, and Asha wouldn't be....

Was this how she looked every day, now? Between my brother stealing her away from her husband and then being killed, and me not being strong enough to fight for her? Who was there to keep her from being hurt by Dev? Asha had never talked about her to me, but I knew that she had been found in Nanda's village and not Aditi's. Was her mother even still alive?

“Desmond, calm yourself. You are scaring her.” The doctor places a hand on my shoulder, and I blink back angry tears.

“I can't. I—” I pass her over to the him and burst into the hall. “Find me when she's settled.”

“Desmond,” Caroline calls after me. “How?”

For the first time since the blackout I am happy that the wristbands don't work. I can't.

I find an empty room and slump against the wall. The past few days have been too exhausting, and I don't have the energy to keep my guard up around an empath.



I fell asleep. I must have, because I don't remember Caroline sitting down next to me.

“What time is it?”

She shrugs. “No idea. I think it's still light out, though. It's so quiet in here.”

I rub at my eyes. “Is Asha settled?”

She nods. “Doctor Manning says she is asking for you.”

“His name is Doctor Manning?” When she giggles, I snort. “Not quite what I was expecting.”

Caroline takes my hand. “He has her patched up. Her lip is going to scar because we didn't treat it in time, but it won't be a big one. Not like her neck.”

“What about her ribs?”

“They'll be fine.” She tugs on my hand and forces me to stand up. “Come on, she really does need you.”

“...I don't know if I can right now.”

Caroline gazes at me for a few seconds, then shakes her head. “It's been a while since you've actually had a family, hasn't it? You don't have a choice.”

I grumble and follow her obediently to the new room they have her in. For some reason I wasn't expecting that she'd still be getting the medicine. When the doctor feels my unease, he shakes his head. “This time I did it for the pain. It is a much lower dose than she has been on. She will be able to feel you now.”

I walk over to the bed, suddenly feeling awkward. I'd been snarling that she was my niece, my family, for days now, and it had never occurred to me that she might not want me. I take her hand and try not to stare at her lip and imagine how she will look with the scar.

Her fingers curl around mine slightly, and her good eye opens.

“Her jaw was fractured, so she will not be able to speak for a few days. It is setting quickly, though, so we will not need the wires long,” Doctor Manning tells me, and I vow for the fiftieth time to find the idiots that did this. Once she is asleep, I will talk to Eli. I will find out why this happened and see if her room's camera caught a recording of the fight.

“Did you tell Eli that she has been moved?”

“No.”

My thumb runs along her fingers. “I'm so sorry, Asha. If you had known that we were related already, this wouldn't have happened to you. I should have told you.”

Her eye closes, and she shakes her head at me.

“She does not want you to blame yourself. She says she would rather you tell her about it.” A hint of a smile on the Doctor's face gives the words a very Asha-esque tone. Demanding, but sweet at the same time. Exactly how Aditi had first convinced us to teach her to “heal like we did.”

As places to start from, it was a good thought. I remember everything I can about Aditi, and Alexander, and Caroline silently offers me support through her fingers at my shoulders. I am almost to the memories that hurt when I realize that Asha has fallen asleep. I withdraw my hand from hers and look at the doctor.

“Will she remember?”

“You are a tidy thinker. It will help.”

He checks her over again while I watch, singing softly in Midbaran, and I find that his voice lulls me as much as it does her. I am almost asleep myself when he excuses himself, saying that he is tired and needs sleep. He is not the only one—Caroline is out cold, curled in an armchair on the other side of the room.

“Is the sun down?”

He nods and bows out of the room. I wait until his footsteps are long gone before I rise and quietly let myself out behind him.

My feet guide me back to the elevators with surprising accuracy even though all the hallways look the same, and I'm soon staring at Eli. When he looks up at me, I see flushed cheeks and clammy skin. He's more nervous than usual.

“I take it you knew, then?” I lean over and place my hands on the desk. While he thinks, I glance around for the recorder. The setup is just like Aki's desk, and I see the light that should be on isn't, even though the monitor panel is showing Eli sitting at his station. In an empty hall. No wonder no one saw anyone go in or out.

“Sir?” he says finally, but he won't meet my eyes.

“Eli,” I say, “You need to tell me everything you know about who did this to Asha.”

He swallows. “I can't, sir.”

“And why not? Money? Or did you let that poor girl get beaten until her jawbone broke because you wanted to keep this shitty job?”

He shakes his head. “No, sir. And it wasn't the money.”

“So then tell me who did it, where the tape went, and why you didn't do a thing to stop them.”

“No.”

“If you had nothing to do with the beating, you'll be fine legally, you know. Assuming you agree to testify later. You have nothing to lose.”

“Yes, I do.” He laughs wildly and buries his head in his hands. “I'm afraid.”

I take my hands off of the desk. “I don't mean to seem overly threatening, Eli, but if you do what I say things will be easier for you.”

“Not of you! I'm afraid of the ringleader, you idiot!” He sneers at me, and I realize that I've read him wrong. His foot kicks against something soft, and I recognize a travel bag. After this shift he's leaving, and with the blackout in effect he'll be able to get far, maybe even off-planet if he knows someone with a private shuttle.

“Compared to him,” he spits, “you're not frightening at all!”

“Well, then.” No one will be able to use the information, but if I find out who it was, I might be able to implicate them in another way. By the time the city is back under control, this little worm will be gone, in any case.

I pause to roll up my sleeves, and his eyes widen as I step around behind the desk toward him. “Let's see if we can't fix that, shall we?”