A Tale Of The Continuing Time - The Last Dancer Part 69

To determine my life as I would."

Denice said in a small voice, "I empathize."

"Indeed. You would."

"What did you do to him? How can I fix it?"

Mild surprise crossed Sedons features. "You don't know?" A weary smile touched him. "I thought you did. I have been sitting here impressed that you knew to invoke his Dedication, and surprised that the s.h.i.+eld Dedication should yield up a man who would fulfill that obligation even while the wire sits in his skull, pouring electricity into his pain center." The smile sat on his features, distant and dreamy. "And to think I was admiring your ruthlessness in controlling your s.h.i.+eld."

Denice's eyes widened. "You mean-"

"At its highest setting, if it is as I left it." Sedon gestured with his free hand. "Go, take it from his skull. I won't stop you."

Denice rose, turned to where Dvan sat in the front seat, facing into the onrus.h.i.+ng darkness. Her fingers probed the unruly thickness of his hair; and here. A small round plug, no larger than a thumbnail, tucked under the thick black hair; she got a grip on it with two fingers and tugged.

Dvan leaned backward in the seat, eyes staring up at the vehicle's ceiling, nothing visible in them but the whites, and sighed. Muscles she had not even realized he was holding tensed abruptly released across his body.

His eyes closed again and he went limp.

"You said something to me, in our last conversation. I've been wanting to ask you about it." Sedon nodded. "That being?"

"You said you hadchanged yourself. But I did not see it."

"Unfortunate."

"How did you mean?"

Sedon sat quietly for so long Denice did not think he intended to answer her. "There was a day when survival was not all I wished of the world. When I wanted companions.h.i.+p. Love. The respect of peers-thecompany of peers." He shook his head with a weariness so profound Denice believed it would have killed her to experience it, closed his eyes, and leaned back against the hull. "And I believed that by resurrecting the memories of the man who had wanted those things, I might find myself more able to comprehend the things that droveyou."

"I don't understand that.Why was it important for you to understand me?"

"You are a Dancer, within a day or two. I see the Consecration recently within you."

"Yes."

"But you have not Danced yet. Am I a Dancer, though I Dance no more?"

Denice sat still, looking at Gi'Suei'Obodi'Sedon.

At length Sedon opened his eyes again, looked at her over the barrel of the autoshot.

Denice took a deep breath, steadying her shaking nerves, and said, "Who do you want to be?"

Gi'Suei'Obodi'Sedon leaned forward ever so slightly. "It's too late for me to make that choice."

The words came to Denice in a rush, a tumble: "But the reality is that youdo have a choice. You are not just the description of your experiences; the one who was a Dancer once, or an exile, or who led a rebellion; with all of those things taken away,you are still here. You are a whole person, Sedon, and you must make choices as a whole person. Perhaps that part of you who was a Dancer is dead. Butyou are not dead. Some person you used to be is dead. Butyou are here, with me, right now." Sedon nodded, very slowly, and Denice said, "I've died twice already myself, and I'm only twenty-three. But it does not makeme dead."

"I do not understand your people," he said later. "You are-very different from us."

"We would be," Denice said. "I forget how Dvan put it-the descendants of his people's criminals and insane. Even with modern geriatrics we don't live all that long. We have to livenow."

Sedon nodded.

"It's the place I understand you least, Sedon. You're prepared to live tomorrow, remember having lived yesterday; but the man I'm sitting with isn't even sure he's alive, because he does not Dance."

Sedon said softly, "I wish you would Dance for me."

Denice shook her head. "There's no s.p.a.ce."

"And if there was, you wouldn't." He spoke with calm certainty.

"It wouldn't be appropriate."

"It would upset the G.o.d," Sedon said.

Denice shrugged. "It would make him happy if I were to kill you."

Sedon looked at her over the autoshot. "Do you think you could?"

"I won't."

Sedon nodded. "Be careful how you spurn him, child. His pain is vast, and if you touch upon it you will regret it."

"I'll take my chances."

"He is not used to having Dancers who will not obey."

Sometime later, Denice said, "Well never make j.a.pan in this thing. Were you planning on rendezvousing at some point?"

Sedon looked at her over the rifle. "We can't reach j.a.pan in this car?"

Denice felt her skin p.r.i.c.kle. "You didn'tknow that?" He considered it. "No. What's wrong with it?"

Denice said slowly, "There's not enough fuel in it."

"But all four of these vehicles were fueled before we took off."

"They'revans. They're designed for short trips; eight or nine hundred klicks, tops."

Sedon considered it. "I have never had occasion to operate one," he conceded. "Do we have fuel to return to California?"

"I don't know-" Denice rose and went forward, looked for the fuel display to the far left, untouched by the sole autoshot blast to the center panel. She turned back to Sedon. "We're past the halfway mark now. We're going to have to swim some no matter what we do."

Sedon nodded. "I see."

Denice came back, stood over him. "Do you want to live?"

Sedon looked up at her. "I think I would like that. Does that sound a very foolish thing to say at this point?"

Denice said softly, "Give me the gun."

Gi'Suei'Obodi'Sedon leaned forward slightly, reversed the weapon, and handed it to her.

"Awaken me when it's time," he said.

And he closed his eyes and leaned back to sleep.

She awoke William Devane, told him.

"Have you tried calling out?"

"Of course. He shot the InfoNet link."

"To be sure, what else." Devane paused, said in his ruined voice, "We should kill him now."

"We will not."

"We'll not make sh.o.r.e, I think. He's in no shape to swim. We'd be doin him a favor."

"Your brogue has gotten much stronger."

Devane shrugged, eased back in his seat. "He's a bore, Dvan is. Single-minded and with a refres.h.i.+ng lack of introspection, but I've had enough. I got rid of him."

"That's a neat trick."

"I've no need to die to see h.e.l.l. A d.a.m.n eternity of pain Sedon put us through; but Dvan took it personally. And the Speakings, he didn't take those too well either." Devane paused. "Think on it. A quick jump over the side, you and I-and our own chances that much the better."

Denice sat next to him and watched the fuel gauge. "No."

Devane nodded. "How far off sh.o.r.e will we drop?"

"A hundred klicks. Maybe a hundred and twenty."

"I am a good swimmer. But I have never swum that far."

"I have."

"Sure, and we should let him go down with the car."

"William Devane, killing is wrong."

"And I hope you're avery good swimmer, la.s.s." Devane paused. "My lady."

"Cut that out."

"Denice."

"Sedon?"

"Yes?"

"Are you awake?"

"As much as I need to be."

"Come on. We're going into the water."

He looked up at her. "Denice, I wish you'd been a boy."

Denice said nothing, then: "I think Lan was going to say the same thing to me."

A day and a half later, near morning, as false dawn lit the skies to the east with a faint grayness, the waves washed ash.o.r.e a pair of limp, motionless forms.

After a time, Denice Castanaveras rolled over onto her back, and stayed that way while the morning sun came up and made the world warm around her.

The still form beside her did not move at all.

Sometime later Denice let go of his wrist.

She opened her eyes and stared up into the pale blue sky and figured the odds.

The CityStates were not a bad bet; a quick bout of biosculpture, change the color of her eyes, pick up the Erika Muller ident.i.ty permanently; the knowledge that Denice Daimara was Denice Castanaveras, even if it got out, would not damage her much.

Join Trent.

Or she could stay on Earth, take the chance of ending up in Peaceforcer hands.

People who knew: Trent, Jimmy, Jodi Jodi, Robert, and Devane. Her brother, of course, wherever he was. Lan, and Chris Summers, Doctor Derek, and Sedon. McGee, Ring, and Ralf the Wise and Powerful.

She had no idea what had happened to Devane or Robert, but did not think either of them could be brain-drained anyway, even if the PKF caught them. Summers and Lan and Sedon were dead beyond doubt. McGee, and Ring, and Ralf the Wise and Powerful. Ralf was safe.

Trent and Jimmy were in the Belt.

It left Ring, McGee, and Jodi Jodi, Doctor Derek and her brother.

There might be others, but it was a chance she would have to take.

She sat up slowly. For the first time since she had known him, Sedons features seemed not watchful, or calculating, or enraged, or anything except peaceful.

His eyes were open and caked with salt.

She wiped the salt free and closed his eyes, watched him lying peacefully in the sand throughout the long morning, the corpse of the man who had invented rebellion fifty thousand years prior; and it came to her that it must be very hard to be a hero.

They first saw the form walking down the empty beach, at the waterline, a body slung over one shoulder.

It moved slowly down the packed wet sand, water was.h.i.+ng around its ankles.

The PKF outpost sat at the edge of Pacific Coast Highway, looking down over the beach. Eight PKF unslung laser rifles and brought them to bear on the slowly advancing figure.