Source: The Flight Of Hermes

The morning light wakens her, hot across her back.

Clu is exercising when the door tone sounds. She steps out of the machine and strides to the door - with a gesture she can see beyond as if the door is transparent. An older man stands in the hall, wearing a long coat and white shirt.

She transmits voice.

"Yes?"

"Marcel Tanneau."

For a moment she is confused. Then...

"Just a moment," she replies and blanks the door. She throws on a robe and lets him in.

He stands in the space just past the door for a moment, awkward, which surprises her. He is shorter than she is, and she is uncomfortable looking down on him. "Clu Sherril," she introduces herself.

"I am very glad to meet you," he replies, shyly, in Franca. Clu responds in kind, though it feels strangely awkward. "And I, you. May I take your coat?"

He sheds it and smiles at her. His face is square and younger than she expects, the muscles retaining their tone, but overlaid with a texture of age. His hair is the color of aluminum and lies severely back from his face. She wonders at what she has heard of the man.

"...He was an industrialist in the pre-war days. We pulled him out right after the revolution started. I should say, we tried. He 'switched sides', and they made him the Chairman of the Metals Board. That gave us a great wide opening into the operation of the Leadership Council, hon, but there was a high cost. There were things he had to do... Twenty years were enough."

"It is very cool this morning," he says. "How is my accent? Have I managed to keep it?" His words are Franca.

She considers. "I've been here so short a time, I'm not sure I speak so well myself any longer."

"Nonsense," he insists. "You speak with a perfect North Continent accent. Your family must have been well-educated."

"I suppose so, though they died when I was young. Or at least, I think so. Please, won't you have a seat? Can I bring you something to drink, or eat?"

"No, not now." He takes a seat on her couch and looks out across the sea. "This is very nice. You know why I wanted to spend some time talking with you?"

"Celine said you wanted some recent history and to make sure of the language."

"Yes. And, frankly, a sympathetic time with someone from the homeworld, before I must return to that hellhole and do what is needed." His eyes are bright, and their edges crinkle with his self-mocking squint. "Perhaps it will... remind me."

It is a late night in the hangar. Luminous cables snake across the floor from the silvery machines to the disk. The light has a sterile quality that comes from a very late hour and an absence of people.

The clamshell into the core of the disk is open, and inside, hidden from casual view, Clu Sherril sits in the control seat, gesturing in the depth of a simulation. Suddenly, she pauses and cocks her head, black hair a brief swirl that steadies as she listens.

Outside, a door closes. Feet pad softly across the stone floor. Clu cuts the simulation with a harsh gesture and turns the chair toward the door. She stands and steps out. "Who is it?" she asks, annoyed. She spots the white robed humanoid leaning into an access panel to her right. "Hey!" she calls. The figure straightens. Bipedal, navy-skinned, dull black eyes, a loose mouth. She doesn't recognize it. "Who are you?"

"Nimshi," it replies.

"How come you're here so late?"

It pauses, looks back at the access panel. "Just checking."

Her eyes narrow. "You mind waiting here for a moment?" Without pausing, she strides toward the inner door. Then she hears the sound of movement and whirls toward it, to see 'Nimshi' running toward the hangar exit. For some reason, she is shocked by anger, and she is racing after the flapping robe. She grabs its arm. "Hey!" Suddenly, it whirls, eyes double-pupiled molten gold, grasps her arm oddly with gaunt, hot fingers, and she is falling back toward the floor. She grabs and successfully clutches the robe, and 'Nimshi' falls away from her.

Her head strikes the floor and a shock of white flashes through her brain, followed by a stunning agony. She rolls unevenly back and forth in her blindness, clinging to the robe, dimly sensing her adversary struggling to stand. But she stumbles to her feet first. "Stay there!" she yells, trying to gesture up security. But with a rapid contortion the being flips from its back to a stand. Its hands uncoil toward her with a rapid motion, but her instability means only one hand hits her, glancing from her shoulder with a force that throws her fifteen feet across the room. She smashes into an array of equipment, stumbling against the forces of the throw and the impact.

Across the room, 'Nimshi' is opening the smaller access door and stepping through into darkness. Clu desperately gestures up the security alert, and alarms wail across the complex. She stands, hunched with pain, shaking, and stares at the door, wondering what just happened.

"OK," Marie responds. "Confine him until the marshals arrive." She waves the transmission away and returns her attention to Clu, who lies feet up on the couch.

"The marshals will be here soon. But our security chief will probably get here first. He'll want to secure your contact log and he'll probably have a few questions. How large is your log?"

Clu frowns as the doctor finishes swathing her shoulder in tape and gestures over it. The tape tightens, smooths, and blends with her skin. Clu's shoulder twitches involuntarily. The doctor, a bulky pale man with a square face, smiles reassuringly. "That's just the bandage making touch with the nerves around the joint. It'll bind the joint and allow you as much mobility as it can without sensing pain. It'll also help keep the capillaries open so the waste products from the healing can be drawn out more quickly. I imagine it'll be a day or so, it'll sense it's not needed and it'll drop off."

Her eyes widen. "It's alive? In me?"

He chuckles. "You must be an immigrant."

She purses her lips.

"Okay, no, it's not alive. It's a processor, like your contacts. It has some biologically compatible components. Don't worry. It's a lot more common than dead bandages, and we all wear them. Speeds healing up to ten times, no side effects. When it drops off, just throw it away." He smiles and squeezes her forearm. "Let me know if you have any problems."

Marie watches him leave, then turns back to Clu. "So, how large is your log?"

"I don't know."

Marie leans over, looks closely at Clu's eyes, then smiles and steps back. "BentSpace 250s, eh? I think the default is 48 hours. That'll be more than enough. Lantee will want to dump the last hour or two, but he'll sign a silence on any non-relevant material." She paces the room slowly. "They got this 'Nimshi' character, you know. From your description it sounds like he was recording what was inside that access panel. Contacts usually go flat black for full res recording."

"I don't understand." Clu tries to raise her left hand to brush her hair back, but the bandage halts the motion after only a tiny increment. She shifts to the other hand.

"It's probably industrial espionage. I told you this was competitive. It looks like someone is desperate enough to cross the line." Her lips peel back from her teeth in a feral smile. "I'll have their company as soon as I find out who they are. And if it was a freelance, Lantee will roll it up and find anyone who bid on it."

"Marie, should I have shot him? I had my gun. I didn't think of it."

Marie lays a hand on Clu's arm. "You don't shoot someone running away. What did your instructor tell you was the most important thing to remember?"

"Don't take it out unless you're prepared to kill."

Marie sighs and sits on the edge of the couch. "I've got someone to drive you home, if you want, after you talk to Lantee."

Lantee is an unprepossessing pale man, fit, but slightly bulky, red-haired, with a quick smile and odd dark eyes that Clu suddenly realizes are contacts in recording mode.

"Clu Sherril?"

"Yes." She looks away from the reading she had brought up and it slips quietly into storage.

He holds out his hand in the still unfamiliar Promethean greeting. "Hikaru Lantee. Mind if I download your logs? Here's the non-disclosure for you." He extends a paper to her. She nods. He gestures briefly, and she watches as his contacts turn metal and then dark again.

"Tough deal. You don't have unarmed combat. Should get some. You've got a natural talent, I can tell. Some pros would have had a problem in that fight."

"Should I have shot him?" She asked. "He could have done anything."

"When you know what you're doing, Clu, you'll know there are levels of solution, and a weapon isn't always the best answer. Tell you what, here's my office address. Stop by, and I'll set you up with one of our hand to hand instructors. Got to, if we're going to have you working late on this project, it seems. Let me tell you, too, some people are going to lose their jobs, letting this guy through to you."

Clu's hands are shaking slightly on the chair arms.

"Are you all right?"

She clenches, hard. Her knuckles turn white for a moment. "Not really," she replies, but at least her voice is under control.

He pulls up a chair beside her. "You're probably still reacting to how close you came - how close you came to being harmed, and how close you came to doing harm. It's not an easy thing. No matter how often. When you come to work tomorrow, I want to send you to one of our philopsych consultants. We'll help you get through this. But I also encourage you to talk this through with your friends. I know you don't have any family here, but a friend can be enough to help you bring your emotions in line with your knowledge."

The sun is hot, but elsewhere in the room. She stirs, awakens, and in a moment bands of soreness wrap around her arms and belly. She groans as she remembers.

As she walks past the main lobby reception area, the receptionist calls from the low desk. "Doctora Sherril?"

Clu pauses. "Yes?"

"Marie Field told me to remind you to go down to security training for an unarmed combat orientation."

Clu's eyebrows rise with surprise.

The thin blond human leans over the table onto his elbows. "I heard you had a dangerous time of it last night. Are you OK?"

"Oh, I'm fine, thanks."

"I heard you kicked some ass. Congratulations."

She laughs. "If I had done that, I wouldn't be going over to security. But thanks."

Outside the security center, Clu finds Ivo leaning on Clu's bright yellow Lustran. "Hi, Ivo. What are you doing here?"

"I heard about last night. How come you didn't tell me?"

Clu frowns. "I didn't see you. I wasn't home until late. Today they started teaching me how to kill people with my bare hands. You know, these bandages..." she rubs her hand across her shoulder, "these things are incredible. I couldn't do everything, but I could do a lot."

Ivo shakes her head gracefully. "You should have told me. Listen, I have good news. The fund matured yesterday, and I made your transfer."

Clu looks embarrassed. "I don't know, Ivo."

Ivo's smile is tolerant. "Clu, I'm as independent as anyone, but maybe not as independent as you. Listen, everyone on this list put their money down on the strength of their admiration for you, their sympathy for Lan and for the people like you back on Cocteau. There's nothing wrong with it." The breeze blows a few strands from her tightly wrapped hair and her eyes flick with annoyance as she tries to tuck it back.

"Did you bring your auto, or do you want a ride?" Clu lights a thin cigar.

"I sent it back. I figured I might get you to give me a ride."

"I'm have to stop at the yards," Clu grins, walking around to the other side of the auto.

"That's OK. I'm starting to like that place. Might give me some good ideas for my next ballet."

"Without the original engineering drawings, Ms. Sherril, we're going to need you almost every step of the way." Beyond the glass, the vast shapes that populate the shipyard are like skyscrapers, some of which shift slowly in the distance. Keban Strachan is a large burly man, swarthy, balding, with a giant mustache, leaning back in his huge chair. "We've used our sensors and crawlspace probes to get a pretty good look at your Zadar, and we have a reasonable function decomp based on some of the Cocteau files from the League. But you know this item right through, and that's what we need."

She smiles with relief. "I'm glad to help. You know my schedule with Field, so..."

"Good." He gestures and the office door slides back to admit a gaunt well-furred centaur with a pair of faceted eyes at the base of its neck. "Please take Ms. Sherril to the Zadar job site, make sure she meets Raskidie, and get her a download of the Zadar construct and decomp, OK?"

"I'll drive her out, then?" The voice is flute-like, with a slight whistling at the edge of the tone.

"Actually," Clu volunteers, "maybe I should drive. I have a friend waiting in the auto. That is," she looks at the centaur, "if you can fit in the back of a Lustran?" She thinks, My life has really changed, hasn't it. I'm offering an alien a ride in my own car.

It laughs. "No problem. They have excellent adjustability."

The morning sun line races down toward the vast concrete expanse, and the sky glows gently in anticipation. Clu sits on the ground outside the hangar, knees up, but unclasped, hands flat and turned out against the rough flat stone. She leans her head back and eyes the distance from under half closed lids.

Minutes pass unremarked until the door beside her creaks open and L'ihart'Imata peers out, odd pupils contracting in the newly arrived brightness.

"So here's where you're waiting."

The disk races into the sky at maximum acceleration. To those standing by the hangar, it seems as it is simply has vanished. One of the investors standing beside Marie Field, a tripodal grey creature dressed in a suit of faintly luminous bands taps her far shoulder. Her catlike contacts swivel to meet its tiny multiple eyes. "Marie," it remarks, "this is the start of an era."

To Clu Sherrill, the image of the land below diminishes in haste.

"I'm starting the demonstration profile."

She withdraws her hand from the sensitive area and briskly massages her newly freed shoulder. It feels good, but stiff. She shifts her hands back into the control zone and begins the gestures she needs as the land and the suntube wheel about her.

But during a rapid descent profile, she feels the field de-intgrate and the disk becomes unstable.

I think you're taking good care of a multi-million certificate prototype.

That might be about to change.

She reaches for familiar controls. It is a set of errors she has practiced frequently. But the inputs are unpredictable, and a simulation can only simulate. Now she has to stay alive.

The aerodynamics are intermittently penetrating the laminar flow forces. The disk is punched unpredictably and the internal fields cannot compensate fully. She tries to keep her hands out of the control area during the worst of it, but random control actions are slipping through. And she is running out of room.

The diagnostics finally come back, and she can see some of the problem. She tries some alternatives, but she can sense the situation is coming apart faster than she can put it back together. This is starting to feel like a scenario where she puts the disk into the ground, and the tension is reaching up from her stomach to seize her throat. It's panic, she knows it, and she knows she can't let it start.

But only two miles remain and she is travelling very fast.

The communication systems are calling to her, but she ignores it. Safe limit is approaching and she slowly resigns herself. She forces herself to focus on attitude maintenance, because without that...

She reaches up a hand for the abort panel. It enlarges and she grabs an affordance for the drogues. "Crap!" she snarls, and pulls her fist back through the imagery.

The upper field shuts down and the parachutes pour into the blazing air above. The G forces slip through the compensators and she feels the seat pressing harder and harder into her back. Her eyes are blurring, but she continues to maintain attitude, flicking her sight line between the floor and the speed indicator. Finally the speed drops below recovery redline and she deploys the impact ablation. She wants to let go, but she can't.

Half a mile and still above critical speed. A thousand feet, she thinks, and I'm going to have to jump.

The altimeter is clicking down.

"I've got to go," she announces to the communication system. She reaches for the blinking red ejection affordance. She hesitates, but there is no time to wait. A gesture, and she is encapsulated and out in the air. For a moment the wind screams past her and she can see the disc plummeting away beneath her as the parachutes rip past. Then her own chutes deploy and she is being torn back up into the air. The deceleration drains the consciousness from her, and the sky becomes a narrow hole down which she is falling endlessly.

She awakens for a few moments, long enough to feel the pain, and the cool spot on her arm that sends her away for a while. The view is red, then black.

She hears a voice. "Doctora Sherril, can you hear me?"

But the room is dark.

"Yes... " but her throat is clogged with mucous. She coughs. "Yes, I can hear you. Where are you? Turn on the lights."

"The lights are on, but your eyes are covered. You had some acceleration damage, and we're getting them healed. It's going to be a while."

Her voice feels thick. "I suppose I broke something, too."

"We're taking care of that. You'll be fine. Just sleep."

"But Marie... what about Marie? The investors..."

"It's OK. Rest now."

It isn't long before the darkness and boredom is too much for her. Her fingers twitch across the edge of the bed, exploring every inch. But she is too exhausted to move anything more.

Marie Field usually considers herself even-tempered and patient. Her employees usually concur. Today, they would both agree that Marie Field was not herself.

"I want you to understand that there are no acceptable excuses. And there will be no acceptable excuse if that accident report isn't on my desk, as accurate as you can make it, in under an hour. And believe me - I'm timing you." A twist of the fingers snaps away the connection.

Her office is a clear dome on the top of the building that overlooks the development complex. Her desk stands in the center of a complex figure of inlaid stone and metal that clicks under the feet of her security chief as he crosses from the elevator. His shadow pools slightly ahead of him as he stops in front of her, lenses reflective outdoors, but fading to transparency.

"They're working on it. We've got probably 90 percent of the wreckage in the hangar and the techs are starting reconstruction. Thanks to Clu, it's mostly intact, so we have that, anyway. I've got the marshals coming down with a report."

"And what are you expecting to hear?" Her eyes are coldly silver against harsh-lit ebony.

He stirs uneasily. "I've been on top of this since the incident. That guy isn't giving up his employer. But he was stupid, or maybe it was part of the mission, we don't know which. He kept logs for two hours, including the period he was near the prototype, and his fight with Clu. So the techs have it - they're looking for evidence of sabotage in anything he did while he was looking."

"All right. Stay on it. I'm heading to the emergency center." She stands. "Get in touch the second you have anything."

"We've got her on interface capillary sealants, and the internal damage has stabilized. As far as the eyes go, that's what we're working on now. About an hour ago we laser spotted the area around the optic nerve to stop the hemorraging, managed full reattachment of the retina, and we've got a tube in each eye to keep the intraocular pressure proper. That'll be normal in about another... ten minutes."

The doctor is an enormously tall and heavyset human with oddly shaped eyes, and black, lank hair tied up in a topknot that bushes out above his head. He dwarfs Marie but treats it with the casual air of a man at peace with his size.

But Marie still needs assurance. "So she'll regain her vision."

He frowns a bit and shakes his head. "More than that. She'll see better. We found a few lens flaws while we were working with her, thought it was best to take care of them as well. She'll be able to get home assisted by, oh, ten tomorrow night. Another couple of days, the eye bandages should be able to drop off. Pretty amazing, really, considering what I heard."

Marie eyes him coldly, but with a tinge of a smile. "And what did you hear?"

He shrugs. "She ejected from an aircraft and took twenty Gs in a capsule descent."

"She almost saved my vehicle. I thought she wouldn't make it."

The doctor rests a huge hand on her shoulder. "So you're grateful."

Marie starts to shake her head, but the sudden horror of that plummeting vehicle washes across her - that moment when she knew Clu wouldn't be able to pull it out. From that moment, her hand reaches up and clutches the doctor's arm. Then she is crying, and the doctor holds her against his massive chest, feeling the tiny sobs with the maturity of one who knows that these sadnesses must be endured by a stone in a river. Eventually she recovers her composure, and steps back. "I'm sorry," she says, wiping tears with the back of a delicate hand.

"No matter," he replies. "Do you want to see her?"

"Yes - "

"Over here, then."

Clu Sherril lies sleeping, sprawled as if she had fallen from a great height. Her eyes cannot be seen; they are cloaked by thick fleshy bandages and are attached to small machines by wires and tubes.

Her hand clenches the side of the bed, as if she is afraid she will fall again.

Marie leans against the wall, as far away from the bed as she can get - for the moment. She is stiff from falling asleep in the chair beside it. Walter, her husband, a rakish brown man with a sharp nose and narrow lips, steps through the doorway with two cups of steaming haston, pauses, and hands her one. He smiles gently. "Relax, love."

She sips the haston without comment, letting the sweet bitterness flow into her."The investors aren't taking this well."

He squeezes her shoulder. "They've got nowhere else to go. This is just their way of negotiating."

She smiles at him. "You're right, of course. I suppose it'd be easier to take if Lantee would get something conclusive."

"He will."

She can hear the soft strains of cello from deep within her sleep. She is dreaming of a day spent at Del's, desperately struggling with the bow.

The doctor leans on the doorframe, watching Del play in the dimness of the night cycle lighting. The music is quiet, with a variety of strains emerging to support and complement the cello.

He turns at the sound of an quick tread behind him.

A woman with steel short hair stops in a brief flow of caftan. Her brown eyes lock on his, and he smiles. "How is she?" Celine asks.

"She's fine. We'll send her home in the morning. And who are you?"

"I'm her sponsor."

"Is that right?" His eyebrows rise with the rumble. "Impressive."

She snorts. "Please." She pushes past into the room, cocks her head at the soft music. "And who's this?"

"A friend, or so he says. Like you."

"Anyone else been here?"

"Marie Field. Some of her co-workers. I gather most of them are busy finding out what happened. But then, I imagine you know that."

Celine sweeps off her outer cloak. "You'd be right, hon. Where can I put this?"

Clu awakens in her own room. Ivo leans forward and takes her hand. "Hi, Clu," she smiles, but her eyes are tired.

"Ivo," she whispers. She senses something strange about her vision. "I remember driving with Celine... where is she?"

"She had to go home and get some sleep. How are you?"

Clu considers slowly, almost feeling the thought trickle slowly through her mind. "Numb," she manages finally. "Fell out of an aircraft. Eyes feel funny."

"I don't know all the details. I just know they took care of a problem with your eyes, and some internal injuries."

"What happened? To the disk?"

"I'm sorry, Clu, I just don't know. Besides, you can't worry about that now. You need to get well."

"Making a habit of this," Clu mutters. "Sick of it."

"Just rest. Later you can eat... another couple of hours."

"Okay." Her eyelids slide shut.