Chapter Ten
Spin One
As Murphy approached the last, and private, room in the Lost Soldiers’ sickbay, he nodded for the guard—a Brit that the Ktor had scooped up during World War II—to move down the hall.
“Is he awake?” Murphy asked, returning the other’s palm-out salute as they passed.
“Yes, sahr!” the guard replied in a Yorkshire accent thicker than the pudding of the same name. “And as narsty as ever!”
Murphy lowered his hand. “Then don’t move too far away. He might bite.”
“Yes, sahr! So I’m told, sahr!”
Murphy smiled as the Tommy turned smartly and took up his post farther along the corridor. He forced his lips to remain curved as he sighed and opened the hatch.
“How’s the patient?” he asked brightly as he entered.
“I’m dying,” Vat replied in a flat, hopeless voice that was muffled by the slightly diminished wrappings around his head.
Murphy scanned the room for signs of emergency equipment and monitors but there were none. “You’re dying?”
“Yes.”
“Of what?”
“A broken heart.”
Murphy cocked an eyebrow. He couldn’t see enough of Vat’s face beneath the bandages for clues as to how much of his woe was an act versus actual. “I wasn’t aware any of your injuries were fatal.”
“Well, they’re not: not the ones you can see,” Vat almost spat. That’s what’s so cruel about it.”
Murphy managed not to roll his eyes. “Okay, I’ll bite. What are you dying of?”
“Like I said: a broken heart,” Vat lamented. His near-wail was mostly theatrics, but not entirely.
Murphy played along. “And why is your heart broken?” To his knowledge, Vat’s time on R’Bak Island had not resulted in any enduring romantic involvements or, as Vat preferred to call them, entanglements.
He answered with some genuine heat. “What’s broken my heart? My broken face, that’s what. Have you seen what these space-breathing SpinDog bastards call plastic surgery? When I come out of these bandages, I’m still going to look like the Elephant Man. But with scars.”
Murphy crossed his arms. “I’m sure that’s an exaggeration.”
“I’m glad you’re sure,” Vat grumbled in a huff. “I’ve seen some of their work.”
“You’re not impressed?
“Impressed? Hmmm . . . how do I put this? To say I’m terrified would be to understate the fact that I am totally and utterly shit-scared of what I’m going to look like for the rest of my now-cursed life.” He sighed. “I mean, I was never Adonis. But I was in the running. Well, some people thought so.”
He stole a look at Murphy. “What about you? Did you think I was handsome?”
Murphy rubbed the close-cut hair at the back of his head. “I gotta tell you, Vat: Not the sort of thing I’ve had time to think about.”
“Yes, but if you did?”
“I still wouldn’t have been thinking about it,” Murphy admitted. “To put it succinctly—”
“I know, I know,” Vat interrupted. “I’m ‘not your type.’ I get it. But work with me here a little bit, huh? I’m trying to put a good face on this. To coin a phrase.” His half-concealed head swiveled in Murphy’s direction. “Look, why the hell are you here bothering me, anyhow? It’s been, uh, weeks, I guess. Why the sudden concern?”
“I’ve been here before, Vat. You just don’t remember.”
Vat sighed. “So you came in to look at me when I was still under general anesthetic.”
“Yes.”
“Which time?”
“Both times.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet.”
“You can ask the guards.”
“Yeah, like they’ll tell me the truth. They’re on your payroll.”
“Vat, we don’t have a payroll. Although we’re working toward fixing that.”
Vat muttered something, released a long, unhappy sigh, and fell silent.
Murphy just waited. Although Vat’s injuries hadn’t been dangerous, the various facial fractures proved too severe to knit without corrective surgery. Unfortunately, wiring broken bones was not within the scope of SpinDog surgical practices. While effective, they sacrificed aesthetics and precision for reliable outcomes. He could hardly blame Vat for dreading what the mirror might show him after his second round of corrective surgery. But at least he was off the pain medications: another area in which SpinDog medicine was excessively focused on reliable outcomes. Although Vat had been conscious most of the time, he had been in no condition to think, let alone talk.
“You still haven’t told me why you’re here,” Vat grumped.
“I wanted to see if you could help me read something.”
“Read something?” Vat snarled. “You weren’t in school the day they went over ‘I before E except after C’?”
Murphy raised an eyebrow. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry you’re still in pain. I’m sorry you’re worried about how you’re going to look after the bandages come off. But I’m not so sorry that I can let that kind of insolence slide.”
Vat nodded soberly. “No, I don’t suppose you’re ever that sorry. Or can afford to be. I also wasn’t aware that you had problems reading.”
“I’m not talking about any of our languages.”
Vat sat up, flinched when he stopped; he’d moved a little too quickly for whatever sutures and pins were still holding his face together. “So this is, uh, a local language?”
“Mostly, I think. But even that’s just a guess.”
“Okay,” Vat said crossing his arms, but doing so slowly, carefully. “This is just no fair. You come in here, where I can’t get away from you. And then you start trailing bait in the water, knowing that I’m going to snap after it.” Through the peepholes in the gauze, Vat’s eyes flicked over toward Murphy. “Just do me one favor: no foreshadowing, no slow reveals, no plausibly deniable vagueness. Lay it out straight for me, okay?”
“Okay,” Murphy agreed. “So, here’s what we’ve got.” He laid out the SpinDogs’ subpar equivalent of photocopies across the overbuilt gurney that was Vat’s bed.
Vat stared at the collection. “What the hell is this and where did it come from?” He leaned over it, eyes widening.
“We don’t know what it is. That’s the problem. All I can make out is that there are at least four or five different character sets.” Murphy handed him the notes he’d made. “It came from vaults deep underneath Imsurmik. There’s more: lots more. And not everything is on paper. There’s parchment, hide, even tablets: some stone, some clay.”
“Whoa!” exclaimed Vat. “Who do you think I am? Indiana Jones?”
Murphy shrugged. “Why not?”
Vat looked up from under his mostly covered brow. “You know my ability with language is more by ear and instinct than anything else, right?”
“I’m aware of that. But I also know you’re smart as hell. And when you put your teeth into something, you hang on like a bulldog. So: will you bite?”
Vat was already looking back at the papers. “I’ve already bitten.”
Murphy nodded. “Good. Then I can give you this.” He handed out the tube that the RockHounds had brought him.
Vat stared at it. “You promised no slow reveals or surprises.”
Murphy shook his head. “I couldn’t give you this until you were committed. This doesn’t come from beneath Imsurmik.”
Vat’s eyes rolled up to find Murphy’s. “So where does it come from?”
“I’ll tell you when I find out. It was left with me, but it’s meant for you.”
“Damn, Colonel, can you just drop the mystery-theater bit?”
“Not this time. It was brought to me in confidence. For good reason, I suspect. If you look at it, you’ll see what I mean.”
Vat opened the tube, extracted and scanned the drawing and its annotations. He crumbled. “Thanks a lot. A bona fide mystery. The kind that keeps you up at night. Just what I needed: insomnia and work while I’m trying to recover.”
Murphy shrugged. “Personally, I think that’s how Indiana Jones recovered so quickly from all those beatings he took in the movies. You know, the healing quality of laboring in the service of a noble cause.”
Vat looked up and sighed. “Colonel, could you let just one more really snarky insult slide?”
Murphy smiled and shook his head. “No, I can’t. But maybe this will be a consolation.”
“Yeah, what?”
“I’ll bet if you have a scar, it’ll be on your chin, right where Indiana Jones’s is.” Murphy crossed his arms, considering. “This way, you’ll be able to add the adjective ‘rugged’ to your self-proclaimed ‘good looks.’”
Vat snickered. “Sometimes you’re almost funny, Colonel.”
Murphy nodded, exited, but after a moment, leaned back to peer around the coaming.
Vat was poring over documents, comparing them while absently rubbing his chin.
Right where Indiana Jones had the scar.