Xiantha (The Ammonite Galaxy Series, Book 3)

Chapter 19

THE DOOR OF her room opened rather stealthily, and Grace lifted her head from the pillow to see who had come to visit. She rather hoped that Vion and his wife would have managed a non-virtual visit. She had heard that they might be amongst the visiting Sellite dignitaries. Grace quite liked Vion's wife, Mercy. Within the constricted Sellite social mores, she would almost pass for a radical! Mercy and Vion really did suit each other, Grace thought – in a way that she herself never could have. Vion too was a radical as far as Valhai was concerned, but he was still a Sellite, still had the Sellite genetic manipulation that he could never completely ignore. Grace was smiling to herself as the door opened. She would never, ever be able to forget those electrifying moments of intense attraction. She would always have a very soft spot in her heart for Vion, even if a long-term relationship hadn't, in the end, proved realistic. Her eyes were shining with delight as the door opened.

"Vion, I am—" But that was as far as she got, because it wasn't Vion standing there; it was Amanita. For a long moment only the sound of the vacuum pumps could be heard. Then Amanita came up to the bed, and Grace found herself flinching back against the pillow. She had never felt so defenseless as at this moment, with both hands and her feet attached to the pumps. For once, she was completely at this woman's mercy, and her heart had already anticipated this by leaping into her throat. Grace swallowed, and looked helplessly around her. There would be nobody to hear her if she called, and with the pumps fitted again after her testimony she couldn't reach the bell push to summon help.

Amanita seemed to follow all these frantic thought processes, because she smiled. "No-one need ever know," she said with a falsely pleasant voice which sent Grace's sympathetic nervous system into overdrive. Amanita looked slowly around the room, taking in all the apparatus, and then fixing her eyes on a drip with the very strong pain-killer Grace had been needing almost every night. The widow stood up and went to investigate the name on the drip.

"You should have studied house management, you know," she said conversationally, as she dragged the drip over towards Grace. "you would have learned all sorts of interesting things, like what the correct dosage of pain management should be. They teach us never, ever to go above 20 microcubits of Trenexadine per 1000 in drips, you know. Anything over that could be – most unfortunately – lethal. It is one of the first things you learn on the home first aid course."

Grace made an effort to struggle up the bed, trying to tear the vacuum pumps off her extremities by pulling, but it was to no avail. In the end, she gave up the attempt, finding the blinding pain which ensued impossible to endure. It was a solid black wall, which blocked her mind from dominating her body, leaving her gasping and unable to escape.

Amanita laughed. "I won't risk myself, you know. This is just a happy coincidence. I never expected to be able to slip away, or that I would find you unattended. The last thing I want is for them to take me away from my children. Xenon 50 and Genna will need me more than ever now. Without me the 256th house will sink for good, and your orthogel entity will get the whole block." She fixed Grace with a stony stare. "And that will be over my dead body." As she spoke she finished changing the drips going into Grace's arm, holding her own left arm across the upper part of Grace's body so that she wouldn't struggle any more.

"There! Are you more comfortable now?" The widow put the rest of her weight on Grace's chest, making it hard for her to breathe. "Won't be long. Just a few minutes, while the painkiller spreads out into the rest of the drip. Then you will soon be falling asleep. So nice for you, don't you think? I can see you are in a lot of pain. What a pity that one of the nurses made a mistake, isn't it?"

Grace felt her body fighting against the feeling of sleepiness, but it was threatening to blot out the world, and she eventually knew that she had to welcome it, welcome the lack of pain and the numbing peace that was slowly creeping over her. As she felt her unwilling body begin to relax she vaguely heard her sister-in-law continuing her discourse.