A Gift From Earth

"Wait a minute," he protested, predictably jerking back against the handcuffs.

"Man wants to ask you a few questions. Look, I'd rather carry you than do this. You want to walk?"

The threat usually quieted them down--as it did now. Matt stopped pulling. He'd expected to wake up dead; these moments of consciousness were a free bonus. Someone must have gotten curious.

"Who wants to see me?"

"A gentleman named Castro," the bigger guard tossed off. The dialogue was following its usual pattern. If Keller was an average suspect, the Head's dread name would paralyze his brain. If he kept his wits, he'd still choose to use this time in preparation for his interview, rather than risk a sonic now. Both guards had been doing this for so long that they'd come to see prisoners as faceless, interchangeable.

Castro. The name echoed between Matt's ears.

What did you think you were doing, Keller? You came in here like you had an engraved invitation. Thought you had a secret weapon, did you, Keller? What did you think you were doing, Keller? WHAT DID YOU THINK YOU--

One instant the suspect was walking between them, lost in his own fears. The next, he had jerked back like a fish hooked on two lines. The guards instantly pulled apart to string him between them, then regarded him in sheer disgust. One said, "Stupid!" The other pulled out his gun.

They stood there, one with a sonic loose in his hand, looking about them in apparent bewilderment. Matt jerked again, and the smaller guard looked in shocked surprise at his own wrist. He fumbled in his belt, got out a key, and unlocked the handcuff.

Matt threw all his weight on the other steel chain. The bigger guard yelled in anger and pulled back. Matt flew into him, inadvertently butting him in the stomach. The guard hit him across the jaw with a backhand swing of his arm. Momentarily unable to move, Matt watched the guard take a key from his pocket and unlock the remaining handcuff from his own wrist. The guard's eyes were strange.

Matt backed away with two sets of handcuffs dangling from his arms. The guards looked after him, not at him but in his general direction. Something was very wrong with their eyes. Fruitlessly, Matt tried to remember where he'd seen that look before. The gateman last night?

The guards turned and sauntered away.

Matt shook his head, more baffled than relieved, and turned back the way he had come. There was the vivari-um door. He'd had only one backward glimpse, but he was sure he'd seen Harry Kane in there.

The door was locked.

Mist Demons, here we go again. Matt raised his hand, changed his mind, changed it again, and slapped the palm three times against the door. It opened at once. A round, expressionless face looked through and suddenly acquired an expression. The door started to close. Matt pulled it open and went in.

The round guard with the round face genuinely didn't know what to do. At least he hadn't forgotten that Matt was here. Matt was grateful. He swung joyfully at the guard's double chin. When the guard didn't fold, Matt hit him again. The man finally reached for his gun, and Matt took a firm grip on the appropriate wrist, holding the gun in its holster, and swung once more. The guard slid to the floor.

Matt took the guard's sonic and put it in his pants pocket. His hand hurt. He rubbed it against his cheek, which also hurt, and ran his eyes down the row of sleepers. There was Laney! Laney, her face pale, with one thin scratch from temple to chin, her auburn hair concealing the three-pronged headset, her deep breasts hardly moving as she slept. And there was Hood, looking like a sleeping child. Something began to unwind inside Matt Keller, a warmth uncoiling to spread through his limbs. For hours he had been all alone with death. There was the tall man who'd spelled him for bartender that night. Night before last! There was Harry Kane, a cube of a man, strong even in sleep.

Polly wasn't there.

He looked again, carefully, and she still wasn't there.

Where was she? Instantly the aquarium tanks of the organ bank flashed into his mind's eye. One tank had held skins, whole human skins with barely room between them for the clear conducting nutrient fluid. The scalps had some hair, short and long, blond and black and red, hair that waved in a cold fluid breeze. Rejection classes C, 2, nr, 34. He couldn't remember seeing the space-blackness of Polly's-hair. It might or might not have been waving in the aquarium tank. He hadn't been looking for it.

Convulsively he made himself look about him. That bank of buttons? He pushed one. It popped out at the touch of a finger. Nothing else happened.

Oh, well, what the hell ... He started pushing them all, letting his forefinger run down a row of ten, down the next row, and the next. He had released sixty when he heard motion.

The sleepers were waking.

He released the rest of the buttons. The murmur of awakening grew louder: yawning, confused voices, clatterings, gasps of dismayed shock when prisoners suddenly realized where they were. A clear voice calling, "Matt? Matt!"

"Here, Laney!"

She wove her way toward him through people climbing groggily out of their contour couches. Then she was in his arms, and they clung to each other as if a tornado were trying to pluck them apart and whirl them away. Matt felt suddenly weak, as if he could afford weakness now. "So you didn't make it," he said.

"Matt, where are we? I tried to get to the void edge--"

Somebody bellowed, "We are in the Hospital vivarium!" The voice cut like an ax through the rising pandemonium. Harry Kane, Leader, assumed his proper role.

"That's right," Matt said gently.

Her eyes were two inches from his, dead level. "Oh. Then you didn't make it either."

"Yes I did. I had to get here on my own."

"What-how?"

"Good question. I don't know exactly--"

Laney began to chuckle.

Shouting from the back of the room. Somebody had noticed an Implementation uniform on one of the newly awakened. A scream of pure terror changed to a yell of agony and died abruptly. Matt saw jerking heads, heard sounds he tried to ignore. Laney wasn't laughing anymore. The disturbance subsided.

Harry Kane had mounted a chair, He cupped his hands and bellowed, "Shut up, all of you! Everyone who knows the map of the Hospital, get over here! Gather round me!" There was a shifting in the mass. Laney and Matt still clung to each other, but not desperately now. Their heads turned to watch Harry, acknowledging his leadership. "Take a look, the rest of you!" Harry shouted. "These are the people who can lead you out of here. In a minute we're going to have to make our break. Keep your eyes on ...." He named eight names. Hood's was one. "Some of us are going to get shot. As long as one of these eight is still moving, follow him! Or her. If all eight are down, and I am too"--he paused for emphasis--"scatter! Make as much trouble as you can! Sometimes the only sensible thing to do is panic!

"Now, who got us out of this? Who woke us up? Anyone?"

"Me," said Matt.

A last buzz of noise died. Suddenly everyone was looking at him. Harry said, "How?"

"I'm not sure how I got in here. I'd like to talk to Hood about it."

"Okay, stick with Jay. Keller, isn't it? We're grateful, Keller. What do those buttons do? I saw you fooling with them."

"They turn off whatever it is that makes you go to sleep."

"Is anyone still in his couch? If so, get out of it now. Now, somebody push those buttons back in so it'll look like there was a power failure. Was that it, Keller? Did you just accidentally wake up?"

"No."

Harry Kane looked puzzled, but when Matt didn't elaborate, he shrugged. "Watson, Chek, start pushing those buttons in. Jay, make sure you stick with Keller. The rest of you, are you ready to move?"