A Werewolf Among Us

EIGHTEEN: A New Life

Whirring.

Clicking.

Lights, no shapes.

Warmth, the smell of honey, cold metal fingers—

— terror, a sting, relaxation, sleep.

Different lights.

A woman's face: Angela? Tina?

No nightmares.

Sleep…

No nightmares.

Soft covers.

A hand on his forehead…

He opened his eyes and looked at Tina Alderban, smiled when she smiled, and tried to speak. His voice was not a voice, just the slide of stones down a rough plank.

"Water?" she asked.

He nodded.

She brought a glass of water, watched him drink, took it out of his trembling hands when he was finished. "How do you feel?"

"Okay." He settled back against the pillow, frowned and said, "No, not okay, pretty terrible."

She leaned into him and, her voice intense, her words clipped and strained, she said, "I want to destroy your bio-computer shell. I want your permission to grind it into little pieces."

He felt his chest and realized he was not wearing the shell.

He said, "Costs money."

"I'll buy it from you, whatever it costs."

He seemed to remember something and, working his sour mouth, he said, "What happened to the others?"

"Later," she insisted. "First, tell me if I can have the bio-computer."

"Are they dead?"

"The bio-computer," she said, setting her mouth in a tight line.

He sighed, sank back. "Take it," he said.

She leaned forward and kissed him, holding his face in her small hands, nicking her tongue along his lips.

"My breath is awful," he said.

She chuckled. "It's not bad at all."

He smiled and yawned.

"Sleepy?"

He nodded.

"Sleep, then."

He did, drifting into a peaceful darkness where there were no nightmares anymore.

The next time he woke, hours later, he was more himself than he had been the first time. Tina was sitting in a chair next to his bed, reading, and he sat up to have a better look at her.

"Whoa, easy," she said, dropping the book and urging him to lie back and rest.

"Have the police been here yet?" he asked.

"Yesterday morning," she said.

"How long have I been asleep?"

"A day and a half."

He rubbed at his eyes as if the events of those hours lay there in a colorful powder. 'The others?"

"Dane had several broken ribs and a punctured lung. He's going to be all right now. Hirschel has a skull fracture and a broken hip, but he's coming along nicely thanks to the autodoc and the speedheal potions. Jubal — Father suffered a broken arm and was otherwise only bruised and cut." She sat on the edge of the waterbed, hooked the black wealth of her hair over her ears to keep it from falling across her face. "You had a dislocated shoulder, two broken fingers, two broken ribs, a broken ankle, and too many lacerations to properly count. A few more days in bed, with speedheal, and you ought to be up and around."

He looked down at the lumpy bandages and nodded. "Dannery…?"

"He's going to be arrested on Ionus tomorrow morning, when the light-telegram from Inspector Rainy can be acted on. I opened the packet of information you got from Talmud Associates. It's pretty thorough on Dannery. His wife was seriously ill. In fact, partly because of the transfer from Darma to Ionus, she died. That unhinged him the rest of the way, I suppose."

"Has Jubal seen the information?"

"Yes," she said. "I don't know how it affected him. He turned white and was very upset when he finished the part about Dannery's wife. But I don't know if he really understands what happened and how much of it is his responsibility."

Then: silence.

"Water?" he asked a few minutes later.

She got it. When he had finished drinking, she said, "Can you tell me about Angela?" When he looked surprised, she said, "You were calling for her — and sometimes for me — just after we took you out of the autodoc." When he hesitated, she tried to help him find a place to start. She said, "Is she pretty?"

"She was. She's dead."

"I'm sorry."

He said, "Not as sorry as I am. I killed her."

"I don't believe that. You aren't a murderer."

"Not directly, perhaps." Slowly, haltingly, he told her about the honeymoon, the leisurely tour of Earth, his refusal to use a master unit to drive their car, his own incompetence on the mountain road, on the slick pavement… the spin… rails breaking… the car rolling… metal screeching, popping, twisting up like rubber… her blood running down his hands as he pulled her through the shattered window… her unseeing eyes…

When he was done, Tina said, "You must have loved her very much."

"Too much to live with the memory."

"I look like her, don't I?"

"A little."

"Is that the reason — you're interested in me?"

"Not the sole reason," he said.

"I destroyed the bio-computer shell."

"How?"

"I smashed its undersides with a hammer, then fed it down the garbage chute, where it'll be compressed into a tiny cube."

He smiled and took her hand in his unbandaged hand. "That's quite violent for a demure young lady. I'm sure it must have been satisfying, but what am I going to do for a living now?"

"You'll be my crutch," she said. "You'll make me care."

"You once thought that was impossible."

"Maybe I've changed my mind — and maybe I've already begun to care, just a little."

He patted the waterbed. "Come here, lie down."

"I don't think you're in any condition for that," she said.

"Neither do I. I just want to have you beside me, to put my arm around — if I can."

She stretched out on the mattress and turned against him, curled in the hollow under his shoulder and put her cheek against his chest. For a long while he lay like that, looking at her black hair, which starred with points of blue light from the ceiling lamp and became, in his mind, the deep and beautiful flow of space where suns and worlds and possibilities were limitless.