A Break in the Sunlight

10. The Cadmean Victory

There were soft voices, speaking a tongue unknown or perhaps just unintelligible. Blurred shapes moved in and out of her vision. Something warm was laid over Jaren, and she was lifted, carried gently. She was alive.

—-

A woman in a white jumpsuit leaned over her, touching her face gently with a cloth that smelled of alcohol and cloves. Beyond her a smooth-faced young man in a uniform looked on, his dark eyes were soft, concerned, perhaps forgiving. His mouth moved, but Jaren could not hear him. Her eyes rolled back in her head. Kaski. Something about Kaski.

—-

She was in a dark shining room. Lights overhead and people standing over her, looking down. There were voices, and flashes of metal. She remembered it all. Shards of red and black bombarded her. She twisted in the bonds that kept her on the table. Faces. Perrish. Kaski. She cried out. A mask descended over her broken face. She thought she might die.

—-

She was on a moving ship. Haloed light shone dimly from a lamp beside the bed. She lay enfolded in a soft quilt that felt like down. Something was in her throat and mouth. She could focus only with great effort; even her thoughts came slowly, as if out of gauze. There was something she needed to remember. What? She couldn't feel anything but a warm pulsing softness. Somewhere far away there were soft voices.

—-

She was dreaming. The room was no longer on a ship. The bed she lay in was spacious, and the darkened room about her was enfolded in rich dark green velvets and silks. Beside her, the smooth-faced young man in the uniform sat asleep in a chair. A book lay closed on his lap, wrinkling his neatly creased pants. The handsome face was half in shadow, leaned back against leather. The dark eyes were closed now, thick lashes resting on the smooth tan skin of his cheek, and the black hair brushed back from his face. His presence was reassuring, calming. She slipped back into insensibility.

—-

Jaren woke. The blockage was gone from her throat, and it was swollen and sore. She opened her eyes. She was in the velvet-draped room. The dark drapes were pulled back from the viewport now, and she could see a planet of some sort beyond it. The shape of the room and the view confirmed it as a ship. But if it was a vessel, had no resemblance to any ship Jaren had ever seen. Instead of metal bulkhead and plastics the room was draped in luxurious fabrics and organics. Tapestries and drapes on the walls, antique furniture that looked like real wood. A leather chair sat beside the enormous bed she lay in. Where was she?

She tried to rise, but her body wouldn't let her. It began the effort, but got only a few inches up before collapsing weakly back onto the pillows. Her temple began to pulse and she noticed a discrete tube coming out of her arm and disappearing over the side of the bed. She remembered her ruined face but was too weary to touch it. Her mind was clearer than it had been, she knew, but still everything felt dull and disconnected. Where was she? And how long had she been here?

A woman entered the room then. She looked familiar. She crossed a table beside the bed and picked up a PADD, pushing at a few buttons.

"Hello?" Jaren said. But no speech came forth, only a faint rasping sound from her swollen throat.

The woman, soft and dark-skinned in a white coverall, turned at the sound. She crossed to the bed, speaking gently in a language Jaren did not understand and touching Jaren's shoulder. She called toward the door in the same language, and after a moment a man entered. It was him. The man who had dozed beside her in her dream. His slim form moved through the door gracefully, and his smile for Jaren was white and friendly in his dark face. He spoke in an accent as comfortable and refined as their surroundings.