Alice? Lowenthal queried, with an almost imperceptible sneer of disbelief, as he tried to get around me so that he could block my path to the doorway.
Surprisingly, Christine Caine stepped casually into his path and practically shoved him out of my way. As in Wonderland, she said. Madoc needs to rest. You can all leave him alone until he feels better, okay?
It was sheer amazement rather than politeness or caution which kept Solantha Handsel from felling Christine with a casual blow of her fist, but Lowenthal was much quicker on the diplomatic uptake. He turned on Niamh Horne as if she were the one making difficulties. Christines right, he said. Theres no hurry. Madoc needs time to recover. We can save all the questions till later. I think we ought to eat, if we can figure out how to work this antique equipment. Do you know how to do that, Christine?
Figure it out for yourself, asshole, was her reply to that ploy. She shepherded me into the cell and shut the door behind her. Are you okay? she asked, anxiously, as I climbed back into the lower bunk. You did lose a lot of blood and pills arent going to help.
Ive bled before, I told her. Thanks for that.
We freezer vets need to stick together, she told me. I hoped fervently that it was true. I understood why she was trying to forge an alliance. She was as fearful as the rest of us, although she didnt want to make her terror too obvious, and she knew only too well that she was the remotest outsider in our little company.
She came closer, and leaned over so that her head was only a few centimeters from mine. Are they listening in on us? she asked.
Of course they are, I murmured. No matter how ancient this place is, or how recently our captors moved in, theyve had plenty of opportunity to wire it for sound. Unfortunately, the pirates are probably the only ones listening in. We cant know for sure that they flushed out all our IT, or why, but they wanted to make as certain as they could be that none of us was carrying bugs capable of signaling our whereabouts to the outside world. Hornes external implants may have all kinds of talents we dont know about, but my guess is that our friendly neighborhood kidnappers are the only ones who can hear us.
She nodded. So whos our friend and whos our enemy? she wanted to know. Just give me your best guess, she added, as an afterthought.
I wish I knew, I said.
Perhaps there was something in my tone that I hadnt intended to put into it, or perhaps she wanted to do her level best to convince herself. At any rate, her eyes narrowed slightly and she said: You dont have to worry about me. Im not dangerous. Not to you.
We freezer vets need to stick together, I reminded her. If you do feel an overwhelming urge to kill someone
It wasnt a sensible move to try to make a joke out of it. I knew that it wasnt a joke, and so did she but old reflexes can be hard to control. She couldnt contrive a laugh, but she managed to keep on smiling. Are we in any worse trouble now than we were before? she wanted to know.
Thats a good question, I muttered. Probably, but possibly not. If the enemy of our enemy is our friend, we probably have a few friends somewhere but until we figure out who our enemies are, we wont know where to look for them.
Lowenthal and Horne dont seem to like us any better than they like one another, she observed. They dont even seem to like Adam Zimmerman, although they came a long way to welcome him home.
True, I said. But something happened back on Excelsior when they first came face to face. That was when Horne started talking about somebody playing somebody for a fool. They dont trust one another and they dont trust Davida. Bringing us here doesnt seem to have been part of Alices plans I got the impression that shes as much a victim in this as we are, although she and some mysterious companion are trying very hard to be players. I think the hidden players let us wake up because they want to see how Horne and Lowenthal carry their quarrel forward which is something we need to be interested in too, if were to have any chance of figuring out
what weve been caught up in. All we can be sure of is that whatever plans the sisterhood and Lowenthals bosses might have had for us have gone up in smoke. Lowenthals not going to like that bureaucrats always panic when things go awry around them, because they know theyll have to carry the can whether they were at fault or not.
Who actually gave the order to bring us out of the freezer, do you think? she asked. Shed obviously been doing some hard thinking along lines not dissimilar to the ones Id been following.
I dont know, was the only reply I could offer her. I thought at first it had to be Lowenthals people, because I thought Ahasuerus had to be in the Cabals pocket, no matter how much they might pretend to be a law unto themselves. Im not so sure now but whoever originated the order to wake Zimmerman, they didnt do it for his benefit, let alone ours. No matter what conditions he laid down when he launched the Foundation, theyd have let him rest in peace forever if their hand hadnt been forced. Now he is back though, and everyone knows it, hes valuable. He may be the has-been to end all has-beens, but hes still a potent symbol of the world that was parent to this one. If waking him up was system-wide news, the news that hes been kidnapped will generate even bigger headlines. If Alices Wonderlanders wanted attention, theyve got it but if this really is a hijack, Niamh Hornes people will stop at nothing to find out who stole their beautiful spaceship. When they do, the thieves will have hornets buzzing at them from every direction. Given that they already seem to be arguing among themselves, this business could get very messy.