Chains of Redemption (16 page)

"Come, RJ, I'll lead you to the shower." Poley took her arm and started to guide her through the hallways of the ship, which was good because she still couldn't see. As she started to walk she realized just how incredibly disoriented she was.

She tried to speak and found that she actually had to think about it to make it happen. "The . . . the others?"

"Fine, but I'll need your help to revive them. I thought it best we get you up first."

RJ nodded silently. He was right. If she was having this much trouble it would be much worse for Levits and even Topaz.

Poley helped her into the bathroom and over to one of the showerheads. The water smelled stale, but that was to be expected, it hadn't been used in . . . "How long?" she asked as the warm water started to beat down on her.

"Twelve years, three months, two weeks, three days, fourteen hours, three minutes, and forty two seconds. I'm so happy to have you out walking around." He hugged her, getting wet in the process.

"It's good to be out," RJ said. Her vision was coming back to her, and so were her other senses. The strength was returning to her legs. "Where are we, Poley?"

"A nice small Earth-class planet . . . actually it's a moon, but that's really splitting hairs, isn't it? There are plants and animal life and water and air with the correct mixture of oxygen to hydrocarbons . . . All right, there is a little too much oxygen, but nothing you shouldn't be able to adapt to."

He was talking very fast. She thought at first it was some malfunction, but then as he hugged her yet again she realized that the robot was just excited. She smiled and turned the water off. She looked at Poley. He was, as always, clean and well dressed, but there was something different about his face, something she couldn't quite put a finger on because it didn't make any sense. He looked as if he had aged.

He smiled broadly. "I added some wrinkles," he said proudly.

"Why?" RJ asked with a laugh.

"I really like your laugh," Poley said ignoring her question.

"Poley . . . why did you give yourself wrinkles?"

"I felt older. I wanted to look older. I missed you, I was very bored and very lonely, aren't those the sort of things that they say ages people?"

"Well, yes, but . . ."

"I felt aged, so I wanted to look aged." He led her towards a bench in the room. He pointed down at the sleeveless black coveralls and the section of chain. "I put your clothes out for you."

"Thanks, Poley." She slipped into the coveralls and then wrapped her chain around her waist, gently fingering the links. It felt like it had been twelve years. In cryo-sleep you weren't supposed to be aware of anything, much less the passage of time, but she was different from a normal human. Maybe, just maybe, she did feel the passage of time. She felt like she did. "Come on, let's go wake the others."

Poley nodded eagerly and led her into the hall. She stopped flat and just stared. All the walls, every inch of ceiling, every inch of floor, had been etched with photo-perfect life-sized precision with pictures of herself, Levits, Topaz, David, Stewart . . . in fact, most probably anyone Poley had ever had direct contact with.

"My god!" she breathed.

"Do you like them?" Poley asked excitedly.

"Like them, Poley? They are amazing! How much . . ."

"Most of the ship. I filled over seventeen thirty-two gallon plastic garbage bags with the paint chips made from the etchings."

"Twelve years," RJ said in a distant voice. Seeing what Poley had accomplished in that time, all that he had done, brought home the reality of the loss of time. She realized that she really hadn't felt the passage of time at all. Not twelve years worth.

"I told you I was bored," Poley said. "Come on, I want to show Topaz and Levits."

RJ nodded and followed him. Twelve years, and where were they now? What sort of world awaited them outside the ship? What of their own world? What was happening at home, on Beta 4? She might never know. If this planet could sustain life, their life, that didn't mean they would find a suitable fuel supply for their ship. She could be stuck on this planet for the rest of her rather long life.

The Reliance might have taken back all they had won on Earth and on Beta 4. Or perhaps the New Alliance had succeeded in driving the Reliance from Earth. There was no way of knowing.

Twelve years.

Twelve years! It seemed so surreal. All the time that had passed since the moment she had crashed into David Grant in the woods till the moment they'd dodged the Reliance fleet by driving their ship out of hyperspace and into an uncharted galaxy had come to just over eight years. What had happened in the twelve years they'd been asleep?

"RJ?" Poley prompted, and RJ realized only then that she had stopped moving, and was just staring at a picture of Mickey riding on Whitey's shoulder.

She couldn't seem to walk away. She had known Whitey for such a short period of time, yet he had changed her forever. In twelve years what might they have accomplished, what joys might they have shared, and what of Mickey? He had been alive when she left, but there was no guarantee that he still was. Twelve years on a planet that might very well be at war, without her help, without Topaz or Levits or Poley. She had left him alone to face an unknown future and had taken all the people who could help him.

Her plan had completely and utterly failed. She hadn't made it to Deakard. That being the case, what chance did Mickey and the New Alliance have of holding onto New Freedom?

"Do you . . . do you know where we are in relation to real space?" RJ asked, reaching out to trace the lines of Whitey's picture with her finger.

"This is real space, RJ."

"You know what I mean, Tin Pants, have you seen any constellations that look like our space, our galaxy?"

"Yes, but it would take us another five years to reach it and two years after that to reach the nearest jumpgate. We don't have enough fuel."

"Well, ain't that a kick in the pants. Let's keep that knowledge between you and me, all right?"

"Why?" Poley asked.

She sighed, "Because it's better to lose a race by three yards than by two inches."

"I don't understand."

RJ sighed again. "If we find a suitable power source then we'll tell them how close we are. Till then we'll just say we don't know."

"But that's a lie."

RJ laughed. "Yes, it is. But it's a good lie. I'll teach you about that later." She frowned suddenly, let her hand fall away from the picture and just stared at it for a minute.

"Does my picture make you sad, RJ?" Poley asked.

RJ looked at him and smiled. "No Poley, your picture does not make me sad. Missing them makes me sad."

"It's very hard to miss people," he said.

"Yes it is."

Topaz awoke with a start, spit the last of the blue green slime from his mouth and croaked out in an unused voice, "Bitchin'!" After he took a moment to try to find his whole voice he said, "I can't see shit, is that normal?"

His speech centers were actually coming back faster than hers had, which RJ found annoying for some reason she couldn't quite put her finger on. "It usually lasts four to six hours. Mine only lasted about fifteen minutes. I have no idea how long yours will last. Poley will take you down to the showers while I wake Levits up."

"So, Tin Pants, did you miss us?" she heard Topaz ask as they walked away.

"You have no idea," she mumbled as she worked the controls that would bring Levits back from the sleep of death.

That was what it was, too. Like being dead for twelve years and then waking up and . . . Where the hell were they? For a second she debated whether it was kinder to just let Levits sleep, and then she selfishly decided she wanted him to be with her.

The process of reviving took about thirty minutes. Levits was slowly warmed to 98.6 then the gel was sucked out of the tube he was in and then out of his airways. When this was done the electrodes attached to his chest were activated and his body was shocked back to life.

When Levits' heart started beating normally, his blood pressure stabilized and his breathing became normal, RJ opened the tube and carefully removed the tubes that ran down his nose into his lungs. Then she removed the electrodes from his chest. She took a wet towel and wiped the goo from Levits' face, and his eyes opened.

"You're all right, Levits," RJ assured him.

He tried to speak but nothing came out. He tried again.

On his third try he stammered out, "God I hate this shit."

"I know," RJ said gently. She ran her finger over his still slightly blue lips. It was taking a while for circulation to return. It was normal, because unlike her and Topaz, Levits was normal.

He had wanted to stay on Earth. He had wanted her to stay on Earth with him. Now they were . . . wherever the hell they were, because she had wanted to be anywhere but Earth. Twelve years had passed while they slept in blue-green slimy shit, and they were probably never going home.

"I'm sorry," RJ said gently.

"Why . . . sorry?"

"Because if I had done what you wanted to do you'd be safe on Earth enjoying the free country we helped create."

"No, we'd be fighting an army of Beta 4 humanoids trained to kill us. Besides, as mushy and un-me as this is going to sound, I'd rather be anywhere with you than on Earth without you."

"Remember that when you find out where we aren't and just how long we've been asleep."

Levits' vision had taken six hours to return, and after eight his legs still didn't want to hold him, so RJ helped him to the bridge where Topaz and Poley were waiting.

"I know this is going to sound stupid because we've been asleep for . . . how long again?" Levits asked, as RJ helped him to set in the pilot's chair.

"Twelve years," the other three said at once.

"Anyway, I'm tired. I've been sleeping for twelve years and I feel like I could take a nap."

"Actually, me too, believe it or not," RJ said.

Levits looked at Poley through squinted eyes. "So, etch and sketch boy, you want to tell me why I'm screaming in every single picture you've done of me?"

Poley shrugged. "It's how I best remembered you."

Levits mumbled something under his breath.

"So let's have a look at our new home." RJ pressed a button and the blast doors opened. They found themselves looking at the badly overgrown ruins of what must have once been a very large high tech city. Some small, primate-looking, fur-bearing creatures were hanging in vines looking at the ship and apparently screeching, though they couldn't hear them. RJ engaged the audio equipment and they heard the animal's cry, which she thought sounded more like bird song than monkey chatter. As if on cue, a bird of some type flew toward the port, and RJ actually ducked.

"That can't be good," Topaz said.

"It's just a freaking bird," Levits said in disbelief.

"He's talking about the ruins," RJ said. "Where are the beings that built this city? Where did they go? What happened to them?"

"I monitored this planet for years. As I got closer there were signs of life. I saw the cities, but there are no signs that civilization still exists. No sign of motor vehicles, planes or even radio waves. No satellites, nothing to imply that beings this advanced still live here. No signs of anything mechanical. No power plants. From the patterns I saw from space I suspect a meteor shower wiped out the intelligent life form. In fact, I would go so far as to say there was a mass extinction," Poley said.

"If the buildings made it, at least in part, through the holocaust, what makes you think the humanoid population didn't?" Levits asked.

"Why do you naturally assume they were humanoid?" Topaz asked, an aggravated tone to his voice.

RJ ignored him and answered Levits' question. "Buildings don't care about climate or air quality. If the population survived, then why are there no signs of the civilization they obviously once lived in? Unless they've devolved into something more primitive, or mutated."

Levits nodded.

"I found nothing toxic to humans in my examination of the air. Below Earth normal radiation levels," Poley said.

"Nothing we
know
is toxic to us," Levits corrected.

"He's right," Topaz said. "This is an alien world. Our equipment can't have knowledge of compounds that have never been encountered by humans. We don't know what substances or chemicals we might find here . . . Hey! I wonder if my brush is here?" He wandered across the bridge and out the door.

"Freaking beautiful!" Levits yelled.

"See what I mean?" Poley said to RJ.

RJ smiled a crocked smile and nodded. "Poley, go after Topaz and make sure he doesn't leave the ship."