In Heaven and Earth (15 page)

“
Vairya,” he
said, lifting his feet to shake off the last husks of his stem. “Is
that you, lad? I had the strangest dream.”

Vairya’s eyes flew open,
and he lunged forwards to throw his arms around the man. “John! It
worked. It worked!”

The man flailed a little,
holding his arms out. “Hey, that’s— kid, did you know we were both
naked, and much as I like working with you—”

“
Alive,” Vairya
sobbed and pulled away to hurl himself at the next plant, pressing
his palm to it in turn.

The first man rubbed his
forehead and then looked at Reuben and Meili. He obviously noticed
the state they were in, from his expression, but then he looked
around them.

“
I’m guessing
there’s one hell of a story here,” he said, holding out his hand.
“I’m John Ng. I usually work in the Botanical Gardens, but they
seem to have overflowed. Who are you, and what’s
happening?”

“
Reuben. This
is Meili. We’re doctors.”

“
She’s a naked
doctor.”

“
It’s all the
rage in Alpha Centauri,” Meili said and grabbed Reuben’s arm. “He
did another one.”

A middle-aged woman was
blinking at them with the horrified expression of someone who had
never expected to find herself naked in the company of her
co-workers. Silver patterns were still lacing across her skin, like
the veins in a leaf, but she seemed healed enough to say,
“John?”

“
Rupa,” John
said, covering his eyes. “I’m hoping I’m still asleep.”

“
No such luck,”
Meili said, as two more people came pushing forwards to join them.
“There’s been a bit of a situation— Cooper, where are you
going?”

“
After Vairya,”
Reuben said, rolling his eyes because that much should have been
obvious. “See if anyone knows how to turn the self-destruct off,
will you?”

“
Self-destruct?” a frightened voice said from the crowd, and
Reuben left Meili to it. Vairya was still dashing ahead, seeking
new plants, and Reuben could only follow, chasing him across the
ever-widening garden as trolls became showers of light, and roses
became men, and Vairya remembered and remembered and remembered,
until his people were free again, free and safe.

EVENTUALLY, Vairya woke
someone other than gardeners and artists, and Reuben found himself
striking out across the remaining wasteland with Caelestia’s Deputy
Chief of Police and a very shaken city councillor.

Out here, the sun blazed
off the diamond ground brightly enough to blind them. Before they
had gone more than a few steps, Reuben rethought his initial plan
to walk straight to Defence Command and reached out to the nearest
crystal spear, touching it and imagining all the things it could
become. Thin cloth was easy to pull from it and translucent visors
for their eyes, and by then he had the trick of it and could simply
will the nanites shimmering over every surface to give him
shoes.

They set out again, the
other two regarding him with fear.

At last, the Deputy Chief
of Police cleared his throat and asked hesitantly, “What will the
Fleet do to us when they arrive?”

“
I don’t know,”
Reuben said, “but if we keep heading into the sun, it won’t matter.
Let’s hope the fact you’re all alive stays their hand.”

Chapter Eleven

IT WASN’T that simple, of
course. First they had to get to Defence Command, past the last few
stumbling trolls, (“Roses,” Reuben whispered, “remake them.”), and
then they had to actually turn the self-destruct off, which should
have just taken the codes and palm locks of the two Caelestians.
Their input did turn off the sirens and flashing warnings, but
didn’t stop the thrusters from carrying them sunward.

Fixing that
involved dragging Eskil down from the
Juniper
, frantic consultations with
several newly awoken engineers, the commandeering of the
Juniper
’s shuttle, and
finally Eskil slamming his palm against the surviving diamond edge
of the windowsill and snapping, “Infect me, then, if it’s going to
take magic!”

Reuben had thought that
might be the end, that moment of sheer relief when the stars above
them, just starting to show through the dusk, started to move in
the opposite direction.

But Vairya was still
conjuring his people out of rosewood and memory, and not all of the
transitions were flawless. Reuben found himself beamed back to the
woods to treat people whose bodies had twisted or flowered in
strange ways, laying on his hands to guide the nanites in healing
them.

Hours in, so long after
it had begun that he had lost all sense of time, he looked up to
find Chanthavy beside him, silver threads shining in her hair as
she bent over a crying child.

“
Captain,” he
said. “You too?”

“
Needs must,”
she said, “but we must not forget why it was forbidden. I dread
what will become of us, Reuben.”

He nodded, sobered for a
moment, but then saw Vairya coming towards him through the trees,
and couldn’t help smiling. Vairya looked exhausted, so tired his
steps were slurred, as if he was dancing, but he was smiling, so
bright with joy that Reuben felt a burst of new energy
himself.

“
They live,”
Vairya called to him as he got closer. “Every one of them who I
saved. They’re here! They live again!”

“
I’m glad,”
Reuben said, holding out his hand to pull Vairya closer. “I’m so
glad.”

His patient, an elderly
man who had returned with thorns growing along the top of his ears,
looked up urgently. “Alive? How many? Do you know if Katya Lopez
lives? Her daughter Femi? Sasha who lived in Old Park
Lane?”

“
Katya and
Femi, yes,” Vairya said, and his smile dimmed a little. “Not
Sasha.”

“
How many
survive?” Reuben repeated.

“
Six hundred
thousand, three hundred and forty-one,” Vairya said.

The word was spreading,
murmurs and cries of amazement echoing around them. Reuben looked
out across the crowd, watching the excitement and sorrow. Someone
had put up hanging lights in the trees, and brought out sleeping
mats. Some people, he knew, had gone back to their damaged homes,
but most had stayed here, reluctant to leave, anxious for news or
reassurance or just company.

“
So many,” he
said to Vairya.

“
So many dead
too.”

Reuben lifted Vairya’s
hands, saw the grazes which covered them, the scrapes of thorns,
and smears of sap and oil and kissed them lightly, willing healing
upon them. “You performed miracles.”

“
Not I,” Vairya
said, leaning against him. “I wasn’t the one.”

The old man cleared his
throat and said, “Will thorns in my ear kill me,
Doctor?”

“
I don’t know,”
Reuben said and tried to drag his attention away from Vairya. “I
don’t think so.”

“
Then see me
tomorrow.”

Reuben blinked at him.
“It won’t take long, and there’s still a queue behind
you.”

“
Any of them
dying?”

“
No,” Chanthavy
said, and he nodded. Meili was good at triage, and they were down
to small wounds and aches now, and puzzling symptoms.

“
In the
morning, then.”

“
He’s right,”
Chanthavy said. “We should conserve our strength now the worst is
past. You, Vairya, and Meili can come back in six hours. Eskil and
I will stay here.”

“
That’s not
fair. You’ve done as much as—”

“
That’s an
order, Doctor.” She looked at Vairya. “Take him away. Or let him
take you away, if that’s easier.”

“
Aye, aye,”
Vairya muttered, slumping further into Reuben’s side. He was still
grinning, dreamy and joyous.

“
Let’s find you
a mat to sleep on,” Reuben said, amused.

“
I own a bed,
in a house, with a garden.”

“
Right now that
doesn’t narrow it down much. Take a mat.”

“
I don’t want
to sleep on a mat,” Vairya said. “I want to walk through my city,
see my people, sleep in my own bed, and wake up with you.” He
sagged against Reuben a little more, looping his arms loosely
around Reuben’s waist and murmured, “‘A Book of Verses underneath
the Bough, a Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread— and Thou.’”

“
A sip of wine
would knock you out right now,” Reuben said, grinning through his
own exhaustion. He’d forgotten how infectious happiness could be,
and Vairya’s sleepy delight filled him with a slow, warm content,
made him want to tease and flirt and kiss Vairya’s soft, sly mouth.
“Eskil, are you still by the transporter?”

“
About to head
down and join you,” Eskil said. He’d been moving the injured and
helping shift supplies for hours. “Why?”

“
Any chance you
could find out where Vairya lives and bounce us there?”

“
We’ve got most
of the city net back online now. Let me see what I can
find.”

Vairya was putting more
and more of his weight on Reuben, his breathing slowing.

“
Before he
sleeps,” Reuben prompted.

“‘
Perchance to
dream,’” Vairya sighed and brushed a loose kiss against Reuben’s
jaw.

“
A lot of that
area is still diamond,” Eskil said. “You sure?”

“
There’s no
place like home,” Vairya said solemnly.

“
I’m sure,”
Reuben said, and couldn’t keep the fondness out of his
voice.

Eskil chuckled, and the
world blurred and paled around them. They came out of the transport
into a dark room, where the only light came from an outside light
shining through the glassy walls.

“
It’s not meant
to look like this,” Vairya said and pulled away from Reuben enough
to trail his hand along the wall. “It should be how I remember
it.”

Reuben sat down on the
hard bed, watching the subtle shift in the light as the wall
transformed. “Give it time.”

“
I want to
sleep now,” Vairya said forlornly.

Reuben shuffled up the
bed and stripped off his shirt. He rolled it up enough to make a
rough pillow and held out his hand to Vairya. “Come here. It won’t
be comfortable, but I’m warm, and we’ll find better accommodations
tomorrow.”

“
I like my
house,” Vairya grumbled. “I’ve been living here for decades.” He
crawled onto the slab, though, curling up against Reuben and
pressing his head against Reuben’s shoulder. Someone had found him
more clothes, and the soft fabric of his shirt pressed comfortably
against Reuben’s side.

“
I can have us
transported up to the ship.”

“
No, stay
here.” Vairya sighed, his body going lax. “I was planning to kiss
you again.”

“
We’ve got
time.”

“
Yes.” His hand
slid over Reuben’s chest to rest over his heart. “Both alive. How
strange is that?” He tensed suddenly, his eyes reopening. “What if
it was just a dream? What if we wake and everything’s still
dead?”

“
Then we will
make it live again,” Reuben said and knew it to be true. Maybe it
was exhaustion, maybe it was relief at surviving, maybe it was
Vairya, but something had left him feeling utterly peaceful.
“Sleep.”

“‘
Knits up…’”
Vairya sighed vaguely, “‘…ravell’d sleave…’”

“
Sleep,” Reuben
whispered again, smiling against the top of Vairya’s head, and then
they were both drifting away.

HE WOKE to a soft bed,
flowering vines hanging over the window, and morning sunshine
streaming through the plants to turn the whole room
green.

Vairya wasn’t there, and
Reuben sat up, looking around for him. Someone had pulled a sheet
up to his chin, and the bedroom door was open. Distantly, he could
hear someone humming softly, and he relaxed back against the
pillows, looking around.

It was a large room, and
had probably been light and airy before the plants grew over the
window. The roof was high arched, with a slightly Gothic feel, and
he grinned in amusement. Perhaps it had been no coincidence that
Vairya built medieval gardens in his mind.

The window was deep
enough to have a cushion leaning against its side, and Reuben
imagined Vairya sitting there, reading or perhaps just accessing
the stories in his mind as he looked out at his city. It was a very
serene place, but simple and plain enough that it made him think of
scholar-monks in their cells, and he wondered what Vairya’s life
here had been like, before the disaster. Did he have friends to
share his flashing wit with or did he live apart from the world,
with his memories and his gardens?

“
You’re awake,”
Vairya himself said, coming in. He was carrying a couple of
steaming cups. “I brought you tea. No promises that it will taste
right, as I’m sure it was diamond last night.”