what they had seen at Pell and here ceased to be of military value. He hoped for
their sakes that this was the case. He could do nothing for them.
He did not sleep well that night, and before morning of mainday, as Andilin had
warned him, they were roused out of bed to take ship further into Union
territory. They were promised their destination was Cyteen, the center of the
rebel command. It was begun. There was no retreat
Chapter Eleven
« ^ »
Pell: Detention; red sector: 6/27/52
He was back. Josh Talley looked at the window of his room and met the face which
was so often there… remembered, after the vague fashion in which he remembered
anything recent, that he had known this man, and that this man was part of all
that had happened to him. He met the eyes this time and, feeling more of
definite curiosity than he was wont, moved from his cot, walking with
difficulty, for the general weakness of his limbs—advanced to the window and
confronted the young man at closer range. He put out his hand to the window,
wishing, for others kept far from him, and he lived entirely in white limbo,
where all things were suspended, where touch was not keen and tastes all bland,
where words came at distance. He drifted in this whiteness, detached and
isolated.
Come out, his doctors told him. Come out whenever you feel inclined. The world
is out here. You can come when you’re ready.
It was a womblike safety. He grew stronger in it. Once he had lain on his cot,
disinclined even to move, leaden-limbed and weary. He was much, much stronger;
he could feel moved to rise and investigate this stranger. He grew brave again.
For the first time he knew that he was getting well, and that made him braver
still.
The man behind the pane moved, reached out his hand, matched it to his on the
window, and his numbed nerves tingled with excitement, expecting touch,
expecting the numb sensation of another hand. The universe existed beyond a
sheet of plastic, all there to touch, unfelt, insulated, cut off. He was
hypnotized by this revelation. He stared into dark eyes and a lean young face,
of a man in a brown suit; and wondered was it he, himself, as he was outside the
womb, that hands matched so perfectly, touching and not touched.
But he wore white, and it was no mirror.
Nor was it his face. He dimly remembered his own face, but it was a boy his
memory saw, an old picture of himself: he could not recover the man. It was not
a boy’s hand that he reached out; not a boy’s hand that reached back to him,
independent of his willing it A great deal had happened to him and he could not
put it all together. Did not want to. He remembered fear.
The face behind the window smiled at him, a faint, kindly smile. He gave it
back, reached with his other hand to touch the face as well, barriered by cold
plastic.
“Come out,” a voice said from the wall. He remembered that he could. He
hesitated, but the stranger kept inviting him. He saw the lips move with the
sound which came from elsewhere.
And cautiously he moved to the door which was always, they said, open when he
wanted it.
It did open to him. Of a sudden he must face the universe without safety. He saw
the man standing there, staring back at him; and if he touched, it would be cold
plastic; and if the man should frown there was no hiding.
“Josh Talley,” the young man said, “I’m Damon Konstantin. Do you remember me at
all?”
Konstantin. The name was a powerful one. It meant Pell, and power. What else it
had meant would not come to him, save that once they had been enemies, and were
no longer. It was all wiped clean, all forgiven. Josh Talley. The man knew him.
He felt personally obligated to remember this Damon and could not. It
embarrassed him.
“How are you feeling?” Damon asked.
That was complicated. He tried to summarize and could not; it required