Wit pushed all thought of the Formics aside.
He exhaled deep.
He let his muscles relax.
Then he allowed himself to think of those he had lost. He opened that part of him. He pulled from his memories. He brought to mind all the ridiculous moments they had shared. The pratfalls and dumb mistakes. The pranks and slips of the tongue. The dares given and the dares performed. All the moments that only he and they would find remotely amusing.
He had thought perhaps that such memories would make him laugh all over again, that he could stir up a cheerful mourning.
But no laughter came.
And when sleep finally took him and the Formics came in his dreams, the only laughter he heard was theirs.
CHAPTER 20
Post-Op
Mazer’s eyelids slowly opened and he squinted at the light. Colors appeared in his vision, dark at first, blurred and melted together like soup—browns and blacks with speckles of white. Then the colors slowly took shape, solidified, and came into focus. They were timbers, Mazer realized, structural braces, trusses seen from below. He was lying on his back, looking up at a ceiling. Holes in the roof let in thin shafts of piercing sunlight. He heard voices. Hushed and to his right. He turned his head. The grandfather and Bingwen were ten meters away, sitting on the floor, eating rice with their fingers, using wide jungle leaves as bowls. Their bodies were turned slightly away from him. They didn’t see him. Mazer knew this building, he realized. He had been in here before. Twice. It was the farmhouse.
Mazer opened his mouth to speak, but it took a moment to find his voice. When it came, it was raspy and quiet and weak. “How did I get here?”
The old man and the boy turned, startled. Then they smiled.
The old man spoke in Chinese, “Well, look who’s returned to the land of the living.”
They came over and knelt beside him. The old man lifted a cup to Mazer’s mouth. “Drink this. Slow sips.”
Mazer drank. The water was room temperature and had a tinny taste to it.
“You’ve been asleep for four days,” said the old man, putting the cup aside. “Five, if you count the day you spent out by the crash. You’re lucky to be alive.”
Crash, Mazer thought. Yes, there had been a crash.
“My unit,” he said in Chinese.
The old man’s face became grave. “Your friends did not survive the accident. I am sorry. You would have died as well if not for Bingwen.” He put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “He brought you back here. Then he and a few others brought you back from the grave.”
There was a blanket draped across Mazer. The old man pulled it aside and revealed heavy bandages wrapped around Mazer’s midsection. The bottom layer was gauze, but the additional layers were strips of fabric of various colors. He wasn’t wearing a shirt.
“They operated on you,” said the old man. “A midwife and Bingwen here.”
“It was mostly the midwife,” Bingwen said. “I just held things open and translated. She did all the cutting and stitching.”
Mazer’s hand carefully went to the bandage. There was a dull ache in his abdomen he hadn’t noticed until now. A tightness.
“Your insides were damaged,” said the grandfather. “The machine said we had to fix it or you’d die.”
“What machine?” Mazer asked.
Bingwen reached to his side and held up the Med-Assist. “The batteries died three days ago.”
“It dictated the surgery to you?”
“In English,” said the old man. “Lucky for you Bingwen speaks good English.”
“Lucky for me,” said Mazer. “How did the surgery go?”
The old man shrugged. “It took a long time. Mingzhu, the midwife, did not want to do it. She cried and refused and said it was a waste of time. Bingwen and I and your friend made her finish.”
“My friend?”
“The doctor,” said Bingwen. “The American. Kim. She helped us.”
Mazer was confused. “You mean her voice. Her voice helped you.” But how did they know Kim’s name?
“It was her voice on the device, yes. But she was on line, too,” said Bingwen. “The device called her. She was very concerned for you.”
“You spoke to her? The actual person?”
“She took us through the surgery. She saved you. And she helped us monitor you afterwards until the batteries died. She tried to get us evacuated, to bring a ship to our position. But she was unsuccessful. There are hundreds of such requests, she was told, and no medevacs are getting through. She was ready to come herself, but no private pilot would bring her here.”
Mazer could hardly believe it. Kim. Was that possible? They had spoken with Kim. She had guided them, saved him. He looked down at the bandages around his stomach. He wanted to call her, thank her, hear her voice, not the impersonal voice of the device, but the voice that spoke to him, the voice that had feelings and promises woven into it.