“And how has your father been while I’ve been gone?” Ellie finally asked.
“Mostly fine,” the little girl replied. “Except for the lump.”
“What lump?” Ellie said.
“On his shoulder,” Nikki said. “As big as my fist. I saw it there when he was shaving, three days ago. Heisaid it must be a spider bite or something.”
10
B;
Ienjy and I are leaving for the hospital,” Nicole announced.
The others were still finishing their breakfast. “Sit down, Nicole, please,” said Eponine. “At least finish your coffee.”
“Thanks anyway,” she replied. “But I promised Dr. Blue we would come in early today. There were a lot of casualties in yesterday’s raid.”
“But you’ve been working very hard, Mother,” Patrick said. “And not sleeping nearly enough.”
“It helps to stay busy,” Nicole said. “That way I don’t have any time to think.”
“Let’s go, Mama,” Benjy said, coming into the room and handing Nicole her coat. While he was standing beside his mother, Benjy smiled and waved at the twins, who had been uncharacteristically quiet. Galileo made a bizarre face and both Benjy and Kepler laughed.
“She hasn’t yet allowed herself to grieve over Katie’s
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death,” Nai said softly a minute later, as soon as Nicole had left. “That worries me. Sooner or later . . .”
“She’s afraid, Nai,” Eponine said. “Maybe of another heart attack. Maybe even for her sanity. Nicole is still in denial.”
“There you go, Frenchie, with that damn psychology again,” Max said. “Don’t worry about Nicole. She’s stronger than any of us. She’ll weep for Katie when she’s ready.”
“Mother hasn’t been to the viewing room since her heart attack. When Dr. Blue told her about the assassination and Katie’s suicide, I felt certain Mother would want to see some of the videos … to see Katie one last time … or at least to see how Ellie was doing.”
“Best goddamn thing your sister ever did, Patrick,” Max commented, “killing that bastard. Whatever else anybody could say about her, she had courage.”
“Katie had a lot of outstanding qualities,” Patrick said sadly. “She was brilliant, she could be charming … she just had that other side.”
There was a brief silence around the breakfast table. Eponine was about to say something when there was a glow of light at the front door. “Uh-oh,” she said, standing up. “I’m going to move Marius next door. The raids are starting again.”
Nai turned to Galileo and Kepler. “Finish up quickly, boys. We’re going back into that special house Uncle Max made for us.”
Galileo screwed up his face. “Not again,” he complained.
Nicole and Benjy had barely reached the hospital when the first bombs started falling through the tattered dome. The heavy raids had been occurring daily. More than half of the Emerald City ceiling was now gone. Bombs had fallen on almost every section of the city.
Dr. Blue greeted them and immediately sent Benjy down to the receiving area. “It’s terrible,” the octospider physician said to Nicole. “Over two hundred dead from yesterday alone.” *.
“What is happening in New Eden?” Nicole asked. “I would have thought that by now—”
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“The micro-agents are working somewhat slower than predicted,” Dr. Blue replied. “But they are finally having an impact. The Chief Optimizer says the raids should cease in another day or two, at the most. She and her staff are drawing up plans for the next phase.”
“Surely the colonists will not continue the war,” Nicole said, forcing herself not to think too much about what was occurring in New Eden, “especially not with Nakamura dead.”
“We feel we must be prepared for any contingency,” Dr. Blue said. “But I certainly hope you’re right.”
As they were moving down the corridor together, they were approached by another octospider doctor, the one that Benjy had named Penny because of the round mark, resembling a New Eden coin, just to the right of her slit. Penny described to Dr. Blue the terrible scenes she had witnessed earlier that morning out in the Alternate Domain. Nicole was able to understand most of what Penny said, not only because the octospider repeated herself several times, but also because Penny used very simple sentences in their language of color.
Penny informed Dr. Blue that medical personnel and supplies were desperately needed immediately to help with the wounded in the Alternate Domain. Dr. Blue tried to explain to Penny that there were not even enough staff members available to handle all the patients in the hospital.
“I could go with Penny for a few hours this morning,” Nicole suggested, “if that would be any help.”
Dr. Blue glanced at her human friend. “Are you certain you feel up to it, Nicole?” the octospider asked. “I understand it’s pretty gruesome out there.”
“I have been getting stronger every day,” Nicole replied. “And I want to be where I’m most needed.”
Dr. Blue told Penny that Nicole would be able to assist her in the Alternate Domain for a maximum of a tert, as long as Penny accepted the responsibility for escorting Nicole back to the hospital. Penny agreed and thanked Nicole for volunteering to help.
Soon after they boarded the transport, Penny explained to Nicole what was happening in the Alternate Domain.
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“The wounded are taken to any building that is still undamaged, where they are examined, treated with emergency medicines if necessary, and scheduled for transportation to the hospital. The situation has been getting worse each day. Many of the alternates have already given up hope.”
The rest of the transport ride was equally depressing. In the light from the few scattered fireflies, Nicole could see destruction everywhere. To open the south gate, the guards had to push aside two dozen alternates, a few of them wounded, who were clamoring to enter the city. After the transport passed the gate, the devastation around them increased. The theater where Nicole and her friends had attended the morality play was in shambles. More than half of the structures near the Arts District had been flattened. Nicole started feeling sick. Suddenly a bomb exploded on top of the transport.
Nicole was thrown out of the car onto the street. Dazed, she struggled slowly to her feet. The transport had been severed into two twisted pieces. Penny and the other octospider doctor were buried in the debris. Nicole attempted for several minutes to reach Penny, but eventually realized it was hopeless. Another bomb exploded nearby. Nicole grabbed her small medical bag, which had been thrown into the street beside her, and staggered down a side lane in search of a shelter.
A solitary octospider was lying motionless in the middle of the lane. Nicole bent down and pulled her flashlight from her bag. There was no activity in the octospider’s lens. She rolled the octo over on its side and immediately saw the wound in the back of its head. A large mass of white corrugated material had oozed out of the wound onto the street. Nicole shuddered and almost gagged. She glanced around her quickly for something to cover the dead octospider. A bomb hit a building not more than two hundred meters away. Nicole stood up and walked on.
She found a small shed on the right side of the lane, but it was already occupied by five or six of the little Polish sausage animals. They chased her away, one of them snapping at her heels for twenty or twenty-five meters. At
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length the animal was gone and Nicole stopped to catch her breath. She spent a few minutes examining herself and discovered, much to her amazement, that she had no significant injuries, only a few isolated bruises.
There was a hiatus in the bombing. The Alternate Domain was eerily quiet. In front of Nicole, about a hundred meters down the street, a firefly was hovering over a building that appeared to be undamaged. Nicole saw a pair of octospiders, one of whom was obviously wounded, enter the building. That must be one of the temporary hospitals, she said to herself. She started to walk in that direction.
A few seconds later, Nicole heard a peculiar sound, barely above the threshold of her hearing. At first the sound did not register in her mind, but the second time she heard the cry, Nicole stopped abruptly in the street. A chill ran down her spine. That was a baby’s cry, she thought, standing completely still. She heard nothing for several seconds. Could I have imagined it? Nicole asked herself.
Nicole strained her eyes and looked in the semidarkness to her right, in what she perceived had been the direction of the cry. She could make out a wire fence, lying mostly on its side, about forty meters down a crossing lane. She glanced again at the nearby building, knowing the octospiders needed her inside. The cry resounded in the night, clearer this time, rising and falling in amplitude like the typical wail of a desperate human baby.