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didn't even know anyone who had, so you bet I sat up and took notice. I took
even more notice when your Mr. Coles offered me the equivalent of a year's
salary and an appointment to the staff of a corporate medical facility on
Earth
if I dropped everything I was doing and immediately took a medevac across the
desert to some Nomad village in the high country."
"Coles did that?"
"Indeed, he did. You've got friends in high places, O'Toole. And it's a good
thing, too. You're going to need them."
"What do you mean?"
"You've got the people out here in a pretty ugly mood. There's a warrant out
for
Breck's arrest on a charge of murder. He's been accused of killing a man
named
Strang and a young woman named Jane Carmody, who worked for Cody Jarrett. You
and Higgins have been charged as accessories, along with that Nomad wife of
his.
What's more, Jarrett's disappeared and everyone knows he went out into the
desert, after you. People think you did him in, as well."
"What do you think?"
"I think I sure would like to get off this goddamned rock and back to a
well-paying appointment as a medical director back on Earth," he said. "That
thought pretty much occupies my mind right now. Beyond that, I don't think
anything."
"You've told Breck all this?"
Shulman nodded. "He didn't seem terribly concerned. He said he expected it.
He
assures me that your Mr. Coles will take care of the problem. Or should I say
our Mr. Coles?" He smiled. "I'd just about given up on ever getting out of
here.
I'll tell you something, O'Toole, for what your friend Coles is offering, I'd
help you get off planet even if you did do it."
"So then you don't believe we did it?"
"If you did, do me a favor and don't tell me. My conscience will rest a
little
easier if I continue to believe you're innocent."
"Well, in that case, Doctor, your conscience can rest easy. I can swear to
you
on a stack of Bibles and my mother's grave that we didn't kill any people on
Purgatory."
"That's good enough for me," he said. He got up and went over to a rack of
storage bins built into the bulkhead. "However, in case it's not good enough
for
the security boys . . ." He lifted the lid and reached inside. He pulled out
an
assault rifle.
"I've got four more of these in here," he said. "Never a good idea to go out
into the bush unarmed, you know. Lots of dangerous creatures out here." He
put
the rifle back inside the bin, then reached in again and took out a couple of
objects that looked like very large bright-red eggs. "And I figured I'd bring
along a few of these as well," he added.
My eyes widened. "Where the hell did you get those?" They were plasma
incendiary
grenades. "Those are supposed to be military issue only!"
Shulman shrugged. "Supply-side economics," he said.
"What?"
"I created a demand, and there arose an outlet of supply."
"What the hell kind of doctor are you?" I asked him.
Shulman raised his eyebrows. "A surgeon, of course."
Higgins came into the back. "How's he doing?" he said.
"Ask him yourself," said Shulman. "He'll be okay if he takes it easy for a
while. I'll keep him strapped in till we get to the spaceport. With any luck,
we'll be off planet before anyone even knows you're back."
Higgins looked down at me. "You okay?" he said.
I nodded. "I'll live. Listen, Grover, about Tyla . . ."
He shook his head and held up a hand to stop me. "It's all right," he said,
his
face expressionless. "You did what you had to do. I understand. If our roles
were reversed, I'd have done the same. She was dead, anyway. You just saved
her
a lot of pain." He closed his eyes briefly, squeezing them shut, and clenched
his teeth. A moment later, he had himself in hand again. He looked at me and
nodded. "It's all right," he said again. "I guess there's nothing to hold me
here now. I'm going back with you."
"How's Tali?"
"Exhausted," he said. He looked pretty bad, himself. "She kept you under
until
Doc Shulman was able to get out to us. That, plus the mindlink, has taken it
all
out of her."
"I owe her a great deal," I said. "She saved my life. And I'm making it up to
her by taking her away from her home world, away from her people and
everything
she knows."
"Don't lay that on yourself," said Higgins. "You're not taking her anywhere.
She's going because it will help her people. And also because she wants to.
You
couldn't do anything with her against her will. She's glimpsed bits and
pieces
of human society through telepathic communion with you and she wants to learn
more about it, to experience it for herself. Don't worry about Tali. She
knows
exactly what she's doing."
"I don't know, maybe you're right. But I can't help feeling as if I'm taking
a
young girl away from her home and family, like I'm robbing the cradle or
something."
"True, she is young," Higgins said. "For a Nomad."
"What does that mean?"
"It means she's not quite as young as you might think. Their lifespan is
considerably longer than ours," said Higgins. "If anyone's doing any cradle
robbing around here, it's her."
"How old is she?" I said.
"Difficult to tell," said Higgins. "Nomads aren't too concerned with things
like
counting birthdays. She's probably got at least twenty or thirty years on
you,
maybe more. By Nomad standards, O'Toole, you're just a child."
"We're approaching the terminal," Breck's voice came over the speaker. "And
it
looks as if we've been expected. They've got the shuttle hangars blocked off."
Shulman started breaking out the arms and slapping in the magazines, checking
them very professionally.
"Are you sure this guy's a doctor?" I asked Higgins.
"I served with eighteen different M.A.S.H. units in thirteen corporate
mercenary
wars," said Shulman, tossing Higgins an assault rifle. "I've seen about every
kind of wound and injury there is. If you're busted up so bad that I can't
patch
you up, believe me, no one can."
"Doc Shulman's about the best we've got out here," said Higgins. "His bedside
manner leaves something to be desired, though."
His wasn't the sort of background that would appeal to most medical
institutions, I thought, but it would impress a man like Coles, who dealt in
the
harsher realities of life. The sled settled to the ground with a diminishing
whine of engines. Shulman came over to my gurney and released the catches on
the
straps.
"Sit up slowly now," he said, helping me up with one hand and holding an
assault
rifle in the other. "Feeling any pain?"
"Some," I said, wincing as I sat up. And, abruptly, the pain all went away. I
glanced up and saw Tali standing in the companionway.
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