Chapter 39

Xen reached the rim of the hollow without seeing any sign of Charon. The tingle on her skin was more pronounced, like the feet of a thousand ants, but she felt no sickness. Maybe that just took longer. She was afraid, a little, but it sank under the dull weight that pressed her down. She walked calmly down into the hollow to look at the ship one last time.

"Are you watching now?" she asked the quiet ship. "Will you remember this?"

No one answered.

I guess I'll never know what he would have thought, Xen told herself, looking at the broken cockpit and the empty silver suit where it lay discarded. She went and sat down beside it to wait.

Nothing happened for long minutes. Xen felt as if her senses were wrapped in cotton, muting the sounds around her and the brightness of the sun. Her skin still tingled, but she felt no nausea or headache. In fact, she felt no symptoms of radiation sickness at all. This would not do. If Bell came looking too early, she might be able to successfully apply the RadAway from Xen's knapsack, and then a chance like this one would not come again soon.

She opened her inner eyelids slowly. The light was uncomfortable, that was all. Then she reached for the strap of her goggles and pulled them firmly down, hardly aware of the scuffling noise behind her.

Everything went dark.

Xen became aware, after a puzzled moment, that she was still conscious. In fact, she was still sitting upright on the ground. The sudden cessation of light probably had more to do with the leathery surface currently pressed up against her face. She was tolerably sure, now that she came to consider it, that someone's left arm was wrapped around her head. She certainly recognized the pressure of four fingers and a thumb against her right temple, with a grip as hard as a bot's. A warm body bulked large behind her.

"I'm going to pull your goggles back up," said a crisp voice in her ear. "Please do not attempt to remove them again. Charon will be upset with me if I am forced to injure you."

Xen supposed the radiation poisoning might still kick in.

Keep him talking.

"I won't try it," she said. She closed her eyes as the goggles were firmly, in fact a little roughly, dragged back up and into position. Then she blinked open her outer lids as Charon edged sideways. He looked at her as he knelt on one knee, sitting back on the other heel. It was Charon's body, anyway.

"Why did you do that?" she asked.

"You ordered Charon to prevent you from clearly suicidal actions," said the Tactician. He rested the sleeved left arm on his knee, watching her closely. "And to prevent you from removing your goggles in direct sunlight."

"But that was meant for when I wasn't in my right mind," Xen said. "Unresponsive to verbal stimuli, that was what I told him. And I'm talking to you now."

The Ghoul looked at her. He pursed his fleshless lips in a way that was almost prim.

"But he knows that," Xen guessed. The lead weight seemed to shift a little, the slab teetering across her shoulders as she tried to think. "He'd know contextually, because I gave Bell the slip on purpose. Which is why you stopped me, isn't it? He couldn't do it."

"I would rather you didn't expose him too bluntly to that reasoning," said the Tactician. "We're already experiencing some discomfort related to his early conditioning."

Because he's about a hair away from violating the contract, Xen realized, and clamped her lips shut before she said those dangerous words.

"Then why?" she asked. "Why can't you let me go?"

He evaded her again. "Why do you wish it?"

Xen looked away from him, back at the crashed recon craft. "All I've accomplished in my entire life was to get people hurt or killed." Now that the damage was done, she could say it without emotion. "I wasn't meant to live this long. I came here hoping to find a reason to keep on trying anyway. There isn't one."

"Curiosity has seemed a sufficient motivator for a large number of otherwise irrational decisions on your part," said the Tactician.

"It's not enough," Xen said. "Not when the body count keeps stacking up. And not when one of the bodies might be Charon."

"Let me offer another perspective," said the Tactician dryly. "We have gone to considerable personal trouble to prevent you, Xen, from dying. I would not care to see that effort wasted."

"It's happened before," Xen said. "You'll survive. You're not even showing a temperature change right now."

"My reactions are not always the same as Charon's," said the Tactician. "I'm afraid my colleague is more or less sitting on him at the moment. We considered that slightly more advanced communications were needed in the current situation." She heard him shift position beside her. "Xen, look at me."

It was not a voice that could be disobeyed. Xen turned her head. He sat with his knees bent and his arms folded atop them, looking at her directly. His eyes were open slightly wider than usual, the only obvious indicator that the speaker was not Charon.

"If you die, we'll suffer physically," said the Tactician. "That, as you say, will pass. But Charon will suffer in another way, and from that I am not sure he will recover. He has no mechanism for coping with grief. Neither I nor my colleague can do anything about that. We've been trying all his life."

"What about the other two employers that died?" Xen asked.

"They had not attempted to form any personal connection with him. It was not a problem."

"I didn't attempt to do that, either," Xen said.

"You used Charon to fill a relational need," said the Tactician sternly. "That incurs certain responsibilities. You cannot abdicate them simply because you are tired, and going on is hard."

Xen opened her mouth to object to this. Then she shut it.

"Don't tell yourself you can free us by doing this," said the Tactician. "We will only be bound to someone else. That's what we are."

"Damn you," said Xen helplessly. "Even if you're right, it's too late."

He looked at her sharply. "Why?"

"I didn't take a Rad-X before I came down here," Xen said. "I faked it so Bell would think I did. I've been soaking up rads for almost an hour now."

"You have no symptoms of radiation poisoning," said the Tactician.

"Should I?" Xen said. She still felt too flattened to react. Hope was not a word that suggested itself to her.

"By this time, certainly. But I think you should leave the irradiated zone." He stood up easily and offered her his hand. Xen allowed herself to be pulled upright. They walked up the hill slowly. Xen, now paying at least some attention to her surroundings, was aware of a gradual upward trend in his body temperature as they went. She was not completely surprised when he reached down and hauled her up over one shoulder.

When they reached the treeline she said to his back,

"Charon? Is that you?"

"Yeah," said Charon. Xen breathed a small sigh of relief. She hadn't been quite sure what to say to the other one. She didn't try to speak again. He was walking very quickly now and it would have been difficult.

"What happened?" asked Bell as Charon stepped into the clearing. He set Xen upright on the packed dirt. Bell stood up and looked at them with her head slightly on one side. Xen was sure Charon's body temperature had not escaped her. He was still showing a degree above normal.

He'll be sloughing any minute, I bet. My fault. She accepted the familiar refrain tiredly, without much interest.

"It looks like I might be resistant to gamma radiation," said Xen. Charon was watching her closely, but he didn't seem about to jump in.

"Really? How do you figure?" Bell asked. She folded her arms as she looked at Xen. "You're showing a gamma aura consistent with lethal exposure. How'd you pick that up with Rad-X in your system?" There was an awkward pause. "You spat out the pill, didn't you."

"Yes," Xen said.

"That was stupid," Bell said.

Xen shrugged.

"And I was stupid. I fell for it. Why would you take a risk like that?" Bell asked. "Were you trying to - " She caught Charon's eye. "Oh," Bell said quietly. "She was, wasn't she?"

Charon nodded.

"I guess that explains Charon," Bell said. "What I don't get is why you would do that. Is it because of Changeling?"

"Not really," Xen said. "You know what we talked about before we went to Old Olney? The android problem?"

"You said it was a hybrid's problem, too," Bell said. "Want to sit down?"

Xen shrugged again and went to sit on the log. Bell sat down beside her.

"What happens to an android with no primary directives?" Xen asked Bell.

"You mean if they're not reprogrammed right away?" Bell asked.

Xen nodded.

"I've only seen that happen once," Bell said. "To one of the A2's. He came down with some minor malfunction, and they tried to reprogram him, and they screwed it up. Nobody knew he'd lost it all until he started crying." Bell sighed. "They were one of the first models to do that, you know. Working tear ducts."

"What did he do?" Xen asked.

"He broke into an armory. I heard he killed about ten people before the other A units cornered him. Then he shot himself in the head."

"I don't want to hurt anyone," Xen said.

"You don't think it will hurt Charon and me if you kill yourself?" Bell asked.

Xen looked at her dully. "Worse than it will hurt me to keep going?"

"That's a question none of us can answer," Bell said. "I think I know what Charon would say, though."

"It wasn't Charon who said it," Xen said. "But yes. He said I have a responsibility."

"Well, you do," Bell said. "You chose him. You can't just leave him. The Hell with how much it hurts, it isn't right."

Xen looked at her sideways. "And now you can tell right from wrong?"

Bell smiled. "Well. As well as a human can."

"That's probably not saying much," Xen said.

"I know."

"We won't let you," Charon said. Xen looked up at him. He seemed a little cooler. Perhaps a decision had been made.

"You can't stop me," Xen said.

"I can't," Charon said. A muscle twitched in his jaw. "But we can. Dat other one t'inks he can talk you out of it. I wouldn't try."

"At least give it a couple of days, get some distance between you and this," Bell said. "What's the harm in waiting?"

"All right," said Xen. "I'm too tired to argue about it."

Charon said something under his breath. Xen thought it was still not gonna let her.