The Child Goddess Read online

  “What do you mean? There’s nothing for you to do.”

  She lifted her head and fixed him with a gaze full of misery. “You know what I mean, Simon. I can’t fight this. I can’t even understand it.”

  He gazed down at her, wishing he could speak some words of comfort. He wished she didn’t look so—defeated, he decided, was the word. As if she had lost a battle.

  “You don’t need to fight anything,” he said.

  She gave a bitter laugh.

  “I’m sorry about all of this, Anna. But whatever this ESC physician is up to—Adetti, his name is—it’s going to take someone with authority to take him in hand. To force ESC to an accounting.”

  “It sounds as if you’ve already decided the case, Simon. Or she has.” She spoke the pronoun as if it burned her mouth.

  He set his jaw. There was no time for an argument. “I’m trying to reserve judgment.” He bent to pick up his valise. “But they’ve been keeping Isabel—”

  Anna winced at the name, and dropped her head again. He made himself put a hand on her shoulder.

  Anna knew, of course. She had guessed, and he had admitted everything when she asked. She had listened to the recitation, her face drawn with pain and anger. She had asked a few questions. She had said nothing of her fury and resentment, but they had been plain in her clouded eyes and her tight voice. When she offered him forgiveness, he had said something, stumbled over some hollow expression of regret and shame. He had been in pain himself.

  None of this could help Anna now. “I’m sorry, Anna. ExtraSolar has kept Isabel cut off from outside communication for almost a week. I need to find out why.”

  The beep of a car horn sounded from the street, and Simon reached for the door handle.

  “You could have at least let me drive you to the airport,” Anna said, her eyes bleak.

  “It’s not necessary,” he said. “My aide is already here.”

  “You did that purposely,” she grated. “To shut me out.”

  “No,” he said firmly. “I didn’t. It was arranged for me.”

  “Simon, wait—we should talk.”

  He shook his head, and leaned to kiss her cheek. It felt cold and dry against his lips. “There’s no time now, Anna. I have to catch this flight. I’ll call you from Seattle.”

  She leaned against the doorjamb to watch him climb into the car. She didn’t say anything further. “Get some rest,” he called before he closed the door. She just shook her head, her lips compressed. When the car turned the corner, she was still there, outlined by yellow light from the foyer, an unremarkable, solitary figure.

  *

  JIN-LI HAD FINISHED a class, had a brief meal in the cafeteria, and was getting ready for bed when the room comm buzzed. “Chung here.”

  Matty Phipps’s voice sounded tinny over the speaker. “Johnnie? Not in bed, are you? Something’s on down at the infirmary—can you come down? And hurry.”

  The Seattle night was cold and damp. Shreds of gray cloud filtered the moonlight and drifting patches of fog shrouded the waters of Puget Sound. Jin-Li pulled on a Port Force jacket and followed Phipps at a trot through the complex of barracks. Phipps had said only, “Adetti’s at the quarantine room,” as they dashed through the Multiplex. It was after eleven, and the Rec Fac was dark.

  Phipps was right. A van was drawn up before the infirmary entrance, and inside, lights were on. The shuttered blinds on the external windows were closed, but the lights made silhouettes of people walking back and forth inside.

  “Moving them,” Jin-Li muttered.

  “That’s what I thought,” Phipps said. They slowed their steps as they approached the building. There was no one in the van that they could see. They strolled past the entrance, hands stuffed in their jacket pockets. “I don’t know what we can do,” Phipps said. “But I didn’t want that girl to just disappear.”

  “Right.” Jin-Li scanned the street. Nothing moved. The sounds of the city filtered through the Multiplex, an occasional siren, motor noises, faint and distant bursts of music and laughter. There was no sound from the infirmary, but they could see three people outside the quarantine bubble. As they walked by, another light went on beyond the bubble. They supposed the priest and the girl had been awakened. They reached a corner, and leaned against a wall in a pool of shadow, watching the silhouettes moving against the light inside the building.

  “What can we do, Johnnie?” Phipps asked in a low voice.

  Jin-Li straightened, and took a last look at the infirmary. “Matty, you stay here. Keep an eye out, and don’t let them see you. I’m going to get a cart.”

  *

  IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE evening meal, Isabel had felt unaccountably, irresistibly sleepy. She thought perhaps it was the excitement of speaking to Simon, after all the months of silence. He had sounded just as she remembered, his voice even, matter-of-fact, giving away none of his feelings. She had spoken as fast as she could, afraid the call would be ended at any moment. She had outlined the situation, told him of the mystery surrounding Oa, promised him copies of the medicator reports. They said good-bye without saying anything personal, but as she broke the connection, her heart hammered in her ribs. She passed three sheafs of hardcopies through the quarantine bubble to Jay Appleton, to be given to Jin-Li Chung, and she waved her thanks to the longshoreman through the window.

  The rest of the day passed unremarkably. Adetti didn’t come. Gretchen Boreson stopped by to speak to Isabel through the window, but she didn’t press her, as she usually did, to allow the doctor to conduct more medicator tests. Cole Markham had been at her elbow, and he avoided Isabel’s eyes. She and Oa had eaten dinner together, and when she saw that Oa, like herself, was yawning, she decided they might as well both be in bed.

  She helped Oa into the flannel pajamas and smoothed the covers over her. It seemed that Oa was asleep before she reached her own room. She left the door half-open, and fell into her own bed without even brushing her teeth. Sleep was a heavy hand pressing her down, blurring her thoughts. Simon, she thought. Simon will take care of it. Tomorrow.

  When she woke, her mouth was fuzzy and dry, and her head ached. She blinked against the brightness of the lights. It seemed to take a long time to wash her face, brush her teeth, and pull on her clothes. There was no sound from the outer room, and she supposed Oa, like herself, had slept long and hard.

  Isabel rolled the stool away from the wall, and took her kneeler out from beneath the bed. She was just setting the flame to the candle for her morning devotions when the thought struck her. She glanced at her reader.

  It was the Memorial of the Japanese Martyrs. And it was ten in the morning. She had slept more than twelve hours.

  A rush of adrenaline cleared her mind. She thrust herself to her feet, and threw open the door to her room.

  The covers on Oa’s bed were thrown back, the pillow askew. The teddy bear lay on its plush tummy on the floor, its stub of a tail pointing at the ceihng.

  “Oa?” Isabel cried. She ran to the central surgery, but it was empty except for the broken medicator. She took two steps to the little bathroom, and pulled that door open. Empty. She whirled, seeking someplace, anyplace, the child could be hiding, even looking under the bed, going back into her own room as if Oa might have slipped past her. Oa was not there.

  Isabel strode to the door and banged on it, calling out, “Guard! Guard! Who’s there? What’s happened?” No one answered.

  9

  JIN-LI PARKED THE cart in the alley that separated the five-story Admin building from the low-roofed infirmary. The two of them watched as a tall quarantine-suited figure emerged from the infirmary, carrying a small form wrapped in a dark blanket. Steady rain streaked the infirmary’s dimly lit windows and slicked the dark streets. A black van, with tinted windows and no insignia, was waiting in front of the infirmary. The driver jumped out, shielding his face from the rain with one hand and opening the back door with the other. The man in the quarantine suit slid into the back seat with
his burden, and the driver shut the door. No one else appeared.

  “Just the girl, then,” Phipps muttered.

  “Yeah.” Jin-Li waited until the van’s engine started, and its lights came on, before starting the cart’s light motor.

  “Bastards.”

  “No argument.” The van began to move, passing their alley, picking up speed as it moved toward the Rec Fac.

  “Better keep a good distance.”

  “I will.” When the van had passed the Rec Fac, Jin-Li let the cart roll down the sloping alley and into the street. There was no other traffic, nothing to hide behind. The cart, its headlights off, chugged through the murky streets, following the van’s amber taillights. The windshield wipers slapped left and right, spraying rainwater. The van’s taillights flashed red when the driver applied the brakes, and Jin-Li slowed the cart.

  Phipps leaned forward, peering into the darkness. “Where do you think?” she growled.

  “Don’t know.” Jin-Li swung the cart around a corner. The black van was making a right at the next intersection. “Looks like they’re leaving the Multiplex.”

  “Bastards,” Phipps repeated.

  Beyond the restricted streets of the Multiplex, other traffic appeared. The van turned west toward the Sound, and then took a sharp right up a steep entrance into a six-lane throughway. Jin-Li turned on the cart’s headlights, and tried to blend with the light nighttime traffic. Theirs was the only Port Force cart, but trucks, cars, other vans whirled past. The little motor whined, struggling to keep up speed.

  Phipps gave a short laugh. “Like riding in a can-opener.”

  “I know it. Hope the battery holds up.”

  “Got a spare?”

  “Yes. Have to stop to change it, though.”

  Phipps grunted. “Keeping my fingers crossed.”

  They cast each other a look of relief when the van took an exit from the throughway. It turned left when it reached the surface street, and drove north along the darkened waterfront, following the curve of the bay. Jin-Li doused the headlights again, and concentrated on the van’s taillights. In moments it came to a stop before a controlled-access gate.

  “Who lives there?” Phipps asked, gesturing with her long arm. Beyond the guarded gate a thicket of residential towers rose into the mist. Discreet lights set into the landscaping picked out their silhouettes and gleamed on exaggeratedly tall windows and miniature scrollwork balconies.

  “Mostly ESC executives. Nobody else could afford those apartments.” Jin-Li parked the cart at an unmarked curb that was masked by the drooping branches of a tall cedar.

  They climbed out, and stood in the rain, watching. A guard leaned from a lighted booth to talk with someone through the van’s open window, then moved to a control board. The long iron gate slid silently back on well-oiled wheels, opening just enough to admit the van. It closed again, just as silently, as the van disappeared between two of the towers, taillights winking out one by one as it turned and disappeared.

  Jin-Li and Phipps stood impotently beneath the cedar tree. Cold raindrops dripped past their caps and down their necks.

  “That’s it,” Jin-Li said glumly. “Far as we can go.”

  And Phipps growled, “Bastards.”

  *

  OA OPENED HER eyes to a dazzling brightness, and squeezed them shut again. Something had happened. She had slept hard, with no dreams. Her head ached, and the light that blazed in her eyes was too bright, not the light of her room at the infirmary, her room with Isabel.

  She heard Doctor’s voice, and someone else’s, a woman’s. She had woken to some new place. Some new power, greater than Isabel’s, had moved her while she slept.

  For a long time she lay without moving, wishing it was a mistake. Perhaps when she opened her eyes a second time, she would be back in the familiar cramped room, with the reader on the chair and the fuzzy toy. And Isabel.

  But she knew it was not a mistake. This was not the infirmary. The woman’s voice was not Isabel’s. The scratchy blanket that covered her was unfamiliar, and the brilliant light burned even through her closed eyelids.

  She waited for the dull ache in her head to recede. Her throat and mouth burned with thirst, and she was too hot under her blanket. When the voices stopped, she waited for the space of a few breaths, and then, cautiously, she lifted her eyelids.

  A more different place than the infirmary Oa could not have imagined. Sunlight poured through tall windows, glittered off a bay of gray-green water, shone on white mountains in the distance. She lay on a couch upholstered in an unlikely gold color. A white woven fabric covered the floor. There were chairs and tables everywhere, real wood chairs and tables, and a variety of large and small objects for which Oa had no name, a riot of colors and shapes.

  Slowly, she sat up, letting her bare feet touch the carpet. Its spongy softness invited her toes to sink into it. The view of water and sky and mountain also invited her, tantalized her, mocked her lack of freedom.

  Trying to make no noise, Oa stood. She took one careful step forward, and then turned to look behind her.

  It lurked in the farthest corner of the room, its black looping tubes and silver syrinxes poised as always over a white-sheeted bed, awaiting its chance. A spider machine. And this one, Oa could guess, had all its parts intact.

  She backed away, toward the tall windows, as far from the medicator as she could get. She tugged her tangled hair, wondering where she was, how she had gotten here, what was to be done with her. She turned toward the wind-ruffled water of the bay. It looked cold. She pressed her hands to the glass, and that was cold, too. She leaned her forehead against it, letting it cool her brow, and she called out to Raimu-ke, silently, desperately, for help. She supposed Raimu-ke was lost to her. And now, Isabel was lost to her, too.

  A door opened behind her, and she tensed. Her nostrils flared, hoping to detect Isabel’s clean, airy scent, but what she caught was something cloying and spicy, something not-real. Definitely not-Isabel. Someone was moving toward her. Oa’s legs felt weak, and she began a slow slide to the floor, her cheek grazing the chilly glass, her hands gripping, and then losing, the sill. She folded in on herself, her head on her knees, her arms around them, making herself as small as possible. If only she were brave, like Isabel, standing up with her shoulders straight and her eyes bright. But she was too small, and too afraid, and now, again, utterly alone.

  The voice was brittle. “Good morning!” it cried. “You’re awake! Look, I have some lovely muffins here, and milk. Children like milk. don’t they? Come now, don’t huddle there on the floor! You’ll get dirty. Come and eat something.”

  Now Oa knew who it was. She had never been in the same room with her, but she had heard her voice, and seen her face. It was the pale lady with the white hair, the one whose face twitched and quivered. She sometimes came to the infirmary with Doctor to look at Oa through the not-mirror. There had been something ravening in her face, a deep and intense hunger as if she wanted to bite Oa, taste her flesh, sip at her blood the way the spider machine did.

  Oa tightened her grip on her knees. There was nowhere to run.

  “Come now, honey. Come drink your milk. We’re going to have fun, you and I!” The pale lady’s voice grated like stones scraping together. “Come on, now,” she said more sharply. “I know you understand me. Don’t make me come and get you. You’re too old for that.”

  Oa’s head snapped up. Did she know? Had she guessed?

  Slowly, Oa released her knees. She put her trembling hands on the windowsill and stood up, still looking out at the bleak vista of cold water and icy peaks. Oh, Raimu-ke, she prayed. Help me. Help me. Slowly, slowly, she turned around, and put her back to the window.

  The pale lady was not dressed in a quarantine suit.

  She wore a dress of midnight black. Her hair, white and shining as the mountains, was pulled tightly back from her face. Her lips were a kind of vibrant pink that was lovely on the fish in Mother Ocean and somehow revolting on the pale
lady’s mouth. Her cheek jerked at irregular intervals, a spasm that distorted her pink lips and tugged at her eyelid. Her hand, hovering over a tray with glasses and plates, also twitched and trembled. She tried to smile with her jittering mouth as she sat down on the gold couch. The tray waited between her and Oa, on a low round table with a raised edge.

  “There, now,” the pale lady exclaimed. “Isn’t that better? Come now! Let’s have breakfast together, just us two girls!” She nudged a glass forward with one finger. Oa understood she was afraid to pick it up, afraid her shaking hand would spill it. “Drink it up, won’t you? Let’s be friends. You can call me Gretchen.” The ferocity of her pink-lipped smile made Oa’s stomach turn.

  But she was thirsty, so thirsty. It was making her head ache more. One of the glasses held something blue-white, unappealing. The other held some kind of fruit juice. Its fragrance drew her. It didn’t look as if the pale lady was going to come after her, or even as if she had strength for it. She was very thin, and she had bony white fingers, the hands of a skeleton.

  Warily, Oa walked across the soft carpet, keeping the low table between her and the pale lady. She bent to pick up the glass of juice.

  Gretchen watched her hungrily. Oa pulled back her hand.

  Gretchen’s trembling lips parted. “Come on, Oa,” she hissed. “The juice is fine. Drink!”

  Oa’s thirst overwhelmed her. She watched to see if the lady would get up, reach for her. She didn’t. Oa put out her hand again, picked up the glass. The juice was red and tart, tasting of sunshine and soil. She drank it all, and set the glass back on the tray.

  Gretchen snatched up the glass with her sharp white fingers. She turned it upside down, letting the drops Oa had left trickle past her vivid lips. She put a finger inside to wipe up two or three more, and then she sucked her finger clean. She put her tongue out, and licked the rim of the glass, inside and outside, all the way around. Oa stared at her, mystified.