Capitol

"So stay here and make the best of it? Thanks, Doctor, thanks. I might as well have a priest as you."

She turned away from him, and muttered, "And now the boy dies. Now, when it's too late. Why the bloody hell couldn't he have died a year ago?"

Linkeree patted the last of the earth over the grave he had dug for the head and skin of the child. The tears had long since dried; now the only liquid on him was sweat from the exertion in the hot sun of digging through the heavy roots of the grass. No wonder the Vaqs had dug shallowly to hide the bones. It was already afternoon, and he had only just finished.

But as he had worked, he had forced himself back, coldly reassembling his memories in his mind, burying them one by one in the child's grave. It was not Mother I killed in the street, it was Zad. Mother is still alive; she visited me yesterday. That was why I fled the hospital; that was why I wanted to die. Because if ever there was a person who deserved to live, it was Zad. And if ever one deserved to die, it was Mother.

Several times he felt himself longing to curl up and hide, to retreat into the cool shade under the standing grass, to deny that any of this had ever happened, to deny that he had ever turned five at all. But he fought off the feeling, insisted on the facts, the whole history of his life, and then hid it under the dirt.

You, child, he thought. I am you. I came out here last night to die in the grassland, to be eaten alive, to have my blood sucked out. And it happened; and the Vaqs ate my flesh and now I'm buried.

I who bury you, child, I am the you who might have been. I am without a past; I have only a future. I will start from here, without a mother, without blood on my hands, rejected by my own tribe and unacceptable to strangers. I will live among the strangers anyway, and live unencumbered. I will be you, and therefore I will be free.

He brushed the dirt off his hands, ignored the painful sunburn on his back, and stood. Around him the sucker eggs on the grassblades were already hatching, and the newborn suckers were devotedly eating each other so that only the few thousand strongest would survive, fed by the others. Link avoided obvious comparisons, merely turned and headed back toward the government compound.

He avoided the gate, instead climbing the fence and enduring the electricity that coursed through him when he gripped the top wire. And then, as the alarms went off, he walked back to the hospital.

Dr. Hort was alone in his office, eating a late lunch from a tray that Gram had brought him. Someone tapped at his door. He opened it, and Linkeree walked in.

Hort was surprised, but out of long professional habit, he didn't show it. Instead, he dispassionately watched as Linkeree walked to the chair, sat down comfortably, and leaned back with a sigh.

"Welcome back," Hort said.

"Hope I didn't cause any inconvenience," Linkeree answered.

"How was your night in the grass?"

Linkeree looked down at his scratches and scabs. "Painful. But therapeutic."

Silence for a moment. Hort took another bite of his sandwich.

"Dr. Hort, right now I'm in control. I know that my mother's alive. I know that I killed Zad. I also know that I was insane when I did it. But I understand and I accept those things."

Hort nodded.

"I believe, Doctor, that I am sane right now. I believe that I am viewing the world as accurately as most people, and can function in a capable ma

"Except?"

"Except that I'm Linkeree Danol, and as soon as it is known that I am capable of ru

"Ah."

"I don't believe my sanity would last fifteen minutes, Doctor, if I had to live with her again."

"She's changed somewhat," Dr. Hort said. "I understand her a little now."

"I have understood her completely for years, and she'll never change, Dr. Hort. More important, though, is the fact that I'll never change when I'm around her."

Hort sucked in a deep breath, leaned back in his chair. "What happened to you out on the desert?"

Linkme smiled wanly. "I died and buried myself. I can't return to that life. And if it means staying here in this institution all my life, pretending to be insane, I'll do that. But I'll never go back to Mother. If I did that, I'd have to live with all that I've hated all my life-- and with the fact that I killed the only person I ever loved. It isn't a pleasant memory. My sanity is not a pleasant thing to hold onto."

Dr. Hort nodded.

There was a knock at the door. Link straightened up. "Who is it?" Hort asked.

"Me. Mrs. Danol."

Linkeree stood up abruptly, walked around the office to a point at the far wall from the door.

"I'm consulting, Mrs. Danol."

Her voice was strident, even through the muffling door. "They told me Linkeree had come back. I heard you talking to him in there."

"Go away, Mrs. Danol," Dr. Hort said. "You will see your son in due time."

"I will see him now. I have a writ that says I can see him. I got it from the court at noon. I want to see him."

Hort turned to Link. "She thinks ahead, doesn't she?"

Link was shaking. "If she comes in, I'll kill her."

"All right, Mrs. Danol. Just a moment."

"No!" Link shouted, making spastic motions as if he wanted to claw his way through the wall backward.

Hort whispered, "Relax, Link. I won't let her near you." Hort opened a closet-- Link started to walk in it. "No, Link." And Hort took his spare suit off the hanger, and a clean shirt. The suit, in the standard one piece, was a little long for Linkeree, but the waist and shoulders were not far wrong, and Link didn't look out of place in it when he had finished dressing.

"I don't know what you hope to gain by stalling, Dr. Hort, but I will see my son," Mrs. Danot shouted. "In three minutes I'll call the police!"

Hort shouted back, "Patience, Mrs. Danol. It takes a moment to prepare your son to see you."

"Nonsense! My son wants to see me!"

Linkeree was trembling, hard. Hort put his arms around the young man, gripped him tight. "Keep control," he whispered.

"I'm trying," Link chattered back, his lower jaw out of control.

Hort reached into his hipbag, pulled out his id and his cred, and handed them to Link. "I won't report them missing until you are on a ship out of here."

"Ship?"

"Go to Capitol. You'll have little trouble there, finding a place. Even without money. There's always room for someone like you."

Link snorted "That's a damn lie and you know it."

"Right. But even if they send you back here, your mother will be dby then."

Linkeree nodded.

"Now here's the door control. When I say, open the door."

"No."

"Open the door and let her in. I'll keep her under control until you get out the door and close it from the outside. There's no way out of here, then, except Gram's masterkey, and this note should take care of that." Hort scribbled a quick note. "He'll cooperate because he hates your mother almost as much as I do. Which is a terrible thing for an impartial psychologist to say, but at this point, who the hell cares?"

Linkeree took the note and the door control and stood beside the door with his back to the wall. "Doctor," he asked, "what'll they do to you for this?"

"Raise holy hell, of course," he said. "But I can only be removed by a council of medical practitioners-- and that's the same group that can have Mrs. Danol committed."

"Committed?"

"She needs help, Link."

Linkeree smiled-- and was surprised to realize it was his first smile in months. Since. Since Zad died.