I looked back at the stranger on the table. Doc was already dust-ing Smooth over the sealed wound.
We made a good team: one attending to the soul, the other to the body. Everyone was taken care of.
Doc looked up at me, his eyes full of exhilaration and wonder. “Amazing,” he murmured. “That was
incredible.”
“Good job,” I whispered back.
“When do you think she’ll wake up?” Doc asked.
“That depends on how much chloroform she inhaled.”
“Not much.”
“And if she’s still there. We’ll have to wait and see.”
Before I could ask, Jared lifted the nameless woman tenderly from the cot, rolled her face-up, and laid
her on another, cleaner resting place. This tenderness did not move me. This tenderness was for the
human, for Melanie.…
Doc went with him, checking her pulse, peeking under her lids. He shone a flashlight into her
unconscious eyes and watched the pupils constrict. No light reflected back to blind him. He and Jared
exchanged a long glance.
“She really did it,” Jared said, his voice low.
“Yes,” Doc agreed.
I didn’t hear Jeb sidle up next to me.
“Pretty slick, kid,” he murmured.
I shrugged.
“Feeling a smidge conflicted?”
I didn’t answer.
“Yeah. Me, too, hon. Me, too.”
Aaron and Brandt were talking behind me, their voices rising with excitement, answering each other’s
thoughts before the questions were spoken.
No conflict there.
“Wait till the others hear!”
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
”
“We should go get some —”
“Right now, I’m ready —”
“Hold up,” Jeb cut Brandt off. “No soul snatching until that cryotank is safely on its way into outer
space. Right, Wanda?”
“Right,” I agreed in a firmer voice, hugging the tank tighter to my chest.
Brandt and Aaron exchanged sour glances.
I was going to need more allies. Jared and Jeb and Doc were only three, though certainly the most
influential three here. Still, they would need support.
I knew what this meant.
It meant talking to Ian.
Others, too, of course, but Ian would have to be one of them. My heart seemed to slump lower in my
chest, to curl limply in on itself. I’d done many things I had not wanted to do since joining the humans, but
I couldn’t remember any this sharply and pointedly painful. Even deciding to trade my life for the
Seeker’s—that was a huge, vast hurt, a wide field of ache, but it was almost manageable because it was
so tied up in the bigger picture. Telling Ian goodbye was a razor-sharp piercing; it made the greater vision
hard to see. I wished there was some way, any way, to save him from the same pain. There wasn’t.
The only thing worse would be telling Jared goodbye. That one would burn and fester. Because he
wouldn’t feel pain. His joy would far outweigh any small regret he might feel over me.
As for Jamie, well, I wasn’t planning on facing that goodbye at all.
“Wanda!” Doc’s voice was sharp.
I hurried to the bed Doc was hovering over. Before I got there, I could see the tiny olive hand fisting and
unfisting where it hung over the edge of the cot.
“Ah,” the Seeker’s familiar voice moaned from the human body. “Ah.”
The room went utterly silent. Everyone looked at me, as if I were the expert on humans.
I elbowed Doc, my hands still wrapped around the tank. “Talk to her,” I whispered.
“Um… Hello? Can you hear me… miss? You’re safe now. Do you understand me?”
“Ah,” she groaned. Her eyes fluttered open, focused quickly on Doc’s face. There was no discomfort in
her expression—the No Pain would be making her feel wonderful, of course. Her eyes were onyx black.
They darted around the room until she found me, and recognition was quickly followed by a scowl. She
looked away, back to Doc.
CHAPTER 53
Condemned
The Seeker’s host body was named Lacey; a dainty, soft, feminine name.Lacey. As inappropriate as the
size, in my opinion. Like naming a pit bull Fluffy.
Lacey was just as loud as the Seeker—and still a complainer.
“You’ll have to forgive me for going on and on,” she insisted, allowing us no other options. “I’ve been
shouting away in there for years and never getting to speak for myself. I’ve got a lot to say all stored up.”
How lucky for us. I could almost make myself glad that I was leaving.
In answer to my earlier question to myself, no, the face was not less repugnant with a different
awareness behind it. Because the awareness was not so very different, in the end.
“That’s why we don’t like you,” she told me that first night, making no change from the present tense or
the plural pronoun. “When she realized that you were hearing Melanie just the way she was hearing me, it
made her frightened. She thought you might guess. I was her deep, dark secret.” A grating laugh. “She
couldn’t make me shut up. That’s why she became a Seeker, because she was hoping to figure out some
way to better deal with resistant hosts. And then she requested being assigned to you, so she could
watch how you did it. She was jealous of you; isn’t that pathetic? She wanted to be strong like you. It
gave us a real kick when we thought Melanie had won. I guess that didn’t happen, though. I guess you
did. So why did you come here? Why are you helping the rebels?”
I explained, unwillingly, that Melanie and I were friends. She didn’t like that.
“Why?” she demanded.
“She’s a good person.”
“But why does she likeyou? ”
Same reason.
“She says, for the same reason.”
Lacey snorted. “Got her brainwashed, huh?”
Wow, she’s worse than the first one.
Yes,I agreed.I can see why the Seeker was so obnoxious. Can you imagine having that in your
head all the time?
I wasn’t the only thing Lacey objected to.
“Do you have anywhere better to live than these caves? It’s sodirty here. Isn’t there a house
somewhere, maybe? What do you mean we have to share rooms? Chore schedule? I don’t understand. I
Jeb had given her the usual tour the next day, trying to explain, through clenched teeth, the way we all
lived here. When they’d passed me—eating in the kitchen with Ian and Jamie—he threw me a look that
clearly asked why I hadn’t let Aaron shoot her while that was still an option.
The tour was more crowded than mine. Everyone wanted to see the miracle for themselves. It didn’t
even seem to matter to most of them that she was… difficult. She was welcome. More than welcome.
Again, I felt a little of that bitter jealousy. But that was silly. She was human. She represented hope. She
belonged here. She would be here long after I was gone.
Lucky you,Mel whispered sarcastically.
Talking to Ian and Jamie about what had happened was not as difficult and painful as I’d imagined.
This was because they were, for different reasons, entirely clueless. Neither grasped that this new
knowledge meant I would be leaving.
With Jamie, I understood why. More than anyone else, he had accepted me and Mel as the package
deal we were. He was able, with his young, open mind, to grasp the reality of our dual personalities. He
treated us like two people rather than one. Mel was so real, so present to him. The same way she was to
me. He didn’t miss her, because he had her. He didn’t see the necessity of our separation.
I wasn’t sure why Ian didn’t understand. Was he too caught up in the potential? The changes this would
mean for the human society here? They were all boggled by the idea that getting caught—the end—was
no longer a finality. There was a way to come back. It seemed natural to him that I had acted to save the
Seeker; it was consistent with his idea of my personality. Maybe that was as far as he’d considered it.
Or maybe Ian just didn’t have a chance to think it all through, to see the glaring eventuality, before he
was distracted. Distracted and enraged.
“I should have killed him years ago,” Ian ranted as we packed what we needed for our raid. My final
raid; I tried not to dwell on that. “No, our mother should have drowned him at birth!”
“He’s your brother.”
“I don’t know why you keep saying that. Are you trying to make me feel worse?”
Everyone was furious with Kyle. Jared’s lips were welded into a tight line of rage, and Jeb stroked his
gun more than usual.
Jeb had been excited, planning to join us on this landmark raid, his first since I’d come to live here. He
was particularly keen to see the shuttle field up close. But now, with Kyle putting us all in danger, he felt
he had to stay behind just in case. Not getting his way put Jeb in a foul mood.
“Stuck behind with that creature,” he muttered to himself, rubbing the rifle barrel again—he wasn’t
getting any happier about the new member of his community. “Missin’ all the fun.” He spit on the floor.
We all knew where Kyle was. As soon as he’d grasped how the Seeker-worm had magically
transformed into the Lacey-human in the night, he’d slipped out the back. I’d been expecting him to lead
the party demanding the Seeker’s death (I kept the cryotank always cradled in my arms; I slept lightly,
Jared was the one to realize the jeep was gone. And Ian had been the one to link the two absences.
“He’s gone after Jodi,” Ian had groaned. “What else?”
Hope and despair. I had given them one, Kyle the other. Would he betray them all before they could
even make use of the hope?
Jared and Jeb wanted to put off the raid until we knew if Kyle was successful—it would take him three
days under the best circumstances,if his Jodi still lived in Oregon. If he could find her there.
There was another place, another cave we could evacuate to. A much smaller place, with no water, so
we couldn’t hide there long. They’d debated whether they should move everyone now or wait.
But I was in a hurry. I’d seen the way the others eyed the silver tank in my arms. I’d heard the whispers.
The longer I kept the Seeker here, the better chance that someone would kill her. Having met Lacey, I’d
begun to pity the Seeker. She deserved a mild, pleasant new life with the Flowers.
Ironically enough, Ian was the one who took my side and helped hurry the raid along. He still didn’t see
where this would lead.
But I was grateful that he helped me convince Jared there was time to make the raid and get back
before a decision was made about Kyle. Grateful also that he was back to playing bodyguard. I knew I
could trust Ian with the shiny cryotank more than anyone else. He was the only one I would let hold it
when I needed my arms. He was the only one who could see, in the shape of that small container, a life
to be protected. He could think of that shape as a friend, something that could be loved. He was the best
ally of all. I was so grateful for Ian, and so grateful for the obliviousness that saved him, for the moment,
from pain.
We had to be fast, in case Kyle ruined everything. We went to Phoenix again, to one of the many
communities that spun out from the hub. There was a big shuttle field to the southeast, in a town called
Mesa, with several Healing facilities nearby. That was what I wanted—I would give them as much as I
could before I left. If we took a Healer, then we might be able to preserve the Healer’s memory in the
host body. Someone who understood all the medicines and their uses. Someone who knew the best
ways to get to unattended stashes. Doc would love that. I could imagine all the questions he’d be dying
to ask.
First the shuttle field.
I was sad that Jeb was missing this, but he’d have so many other chances in the future. Though it was
dark, a long line of small snub-nosed shuttles drifted in to land while others took flight in an endless
stream.
I drove the old van while the others rode in the back—Ian in charge of the tank, of course. I circled the
field, staying clear of the busy local terminal. It was easy to spot the vast, sleek white vessels that left the
planet. They did not depart with the frequency of the smaller ships. All I saw were docked, none
preparing to leave immediately.
“Everything’s labeled,” I reported to the others, invisible in the dark back. “Now, this is important.
I drove slowly, close to the crafts.
“This will be easy. They’ve got all kinds of delivery vehicles out here, and we blend in. Oh! I can see a
tank truck—it’s just like the one we saw them unloading at the hospital, Jared. There’s a man looking
over the stacks… He’s putting them onto a hover cart. He’s going to load them…” I drove even slower,
trying to get a good look. “Yes, ontothis ship. Right into the open hatch. I’ll circle back and make my
move when he’s in the ship.” I pulled past, examining the scene in my mirrors. There was a lit sign beside
the tube that connected the head of the ship to the terminal. I smiled as I read the words backward. This
ship was going to the Flowers. It was meant to be.
I made a slow turn as the man disappeared into the hull of the ship.
“Get ready,” I whispered as I pulled into the shadow made by the cylindrical wing of the next enormous
ship over. I was only three or four yards from the tank truck. There were a few technicians working near
the front of the Flower-bound vessel and others, farther away, out on the old runway. I would be just
another figure in the night.
I cut the engine and hopped down from the driver’s seat, trying to look casual, like I was only doing my
job. I went around to the back of the van and opened the door a crack. The tank was right at the edge,
the light on top glowing dull red, signifying that it was occupied. I lifted it carefully and closed the door.
I kept up an easy rolling pace as I walked to the open end of the truck. But my breathing sped up. This
felt more dangerous than the hospital, and that worried me. Could I expect my humans to risk their lives
this way?
I’ll be there. I’ll do it myself, just like you would. On the off chance you get your way, that is.
Thanks, Mel.
I had to force myself not to keep glancing over my shoulder at the open hatch where the man had
disappeared. I placed the tank gently atop the closest column in the truck. The addition, one among
hundreds, was not noticeable.
“Goodbye,” I whispered. “Better luck with your next host.”
I walked back to the van as slowly as I could stand to.
It was silent in the van as I reversed out from under the big ship. I started back the way we’d come, my
