Urbis

Crispin regained consciousness by degrees. From between heavy lids he perceived a dimly lit room of curving walls and a barrel-vaulted ceiling which was somehow familiar. Memories crowded in, but the usually neat dividing line between conscious and subconscious, between reality and illusion, had been smudged in places. Had he truly encountered Tana, or had that simply been some wish fulfillment fantasy, and if so, why had he imagined himself being dragged away from her? The swim, and the shark attack, had they been real, or another phantasm, something invoked by his fevered imagination? Other things loomed also in his mind’s eye, but more indistinctly. Another room, more brightly lit than this one, with a window and a view onto benign-looking, glittering water. And faces. Two women and a man, looking at him with kindly concern. One of the women had been in white, and had ministered to him, he seemed to recall.

He was lying on a mattress. Touching his face, he realised there was a tube leading up one nostril. Another led from a drip to a cannula inserted in his arm. His right leg felt very stiff and ached dully.

He became aware that he was not alone. Josie was sitting in a large cushion on the floor beside him, fast asleep, slumped against the wall, a reader still glowing in her lap. Watching the slow, regular rise and fall of her breasts as she slept, he tried to piece together the memory of what had happened to him. He recalled the journey to Sector One, the botched raid, the encounter with Shah, and, incredibly, his rescue by Tana.

Tana! Tana was alive and well, and living in Sector One. This one vital truth he salvaged from the jumble of his thoughts. And he recalled the authoritative manner in which she had spoken to him, so very different from the woman he had known previously.

“Tell your people this attack was premature. When the time is ripe, _I_ will tell you.”

What was she doing there? Why was she so confident? Why had the guard willingly surrendered his weapon to her? Mystery upon mystery. But it did not matter. She was safe. They would be reunited, surely.

And then he looked again at Josie. He had not only made love to Josie, but had also given her his heart. He loved her still. He knew he always would. What was to be done?

The nurse gave Crispin and Josie a general immune reinforcer shot. Only the appearance of a tiny green light indicated that the contents of the ampoule had passed through Crispin’s skin and into his bloodstream.

Crispin turned to Josie. “What happened?”

“Well,” said Josie, “you were lying on a jetty, pretty much at death’s door, when an elderly couple found you. Luckily they weren’t establishment-oriented, otherwise they’d have turned you over to the filth. They figured you had something to do with a raid on sector one that had been reported on the nightly newscast. People don’t usually go swimming in the bay for the good of their health. So they patched you up as best they could, and called a doctor they knew they could trust to do the rest.”

“The woman in white,” said Crispin.

“Ah, you remember that much, do you?” said Josie. “Well, you were drifting in and out of consciousness for a while. At one point you apparently became quite lucid. You answered a few of their questions, at least, you told them where to find me. Ten days ago...”

“Ten days!”

Josie nodded. “It’s been two weeks since they picked you up. You’ve been comatose for most of that time. Anyway, ten days ago, the old chap came to my door and told me he and his wife had you safe and sound. I hugged him so I nearly knocked him off his feet. I, that is, we...” she faltered, choking, “we thought you were dead. All of you.”

Josie embraced him, nearly smothering him, her face buried in his shoulder. It was the release of something that had been eating away at her ever since that dreadful first telecast announcing that four men of the Underground had been killed during an abortive raid on sector one Security. Until the old chap had come to her and told her that the man with red hair was alive - just - she had felt like dying herself.

As he convalesced, Crispin learned about the clampdown that had come in the aftermath of the raid. The Security Minister had ordered a crackdown on Underground activities. The Underground-engineered glitch in the transit computer system had been detected and removed, severely hampering their freedom of movement. Suspected sympathisers had been rounded up for questioning, but the most important among them had received word in advance from `leaks’ within the Security Commission.

The Underground convocation had passed a censure motion against sector three for taking too many risks and bungling the raid. At the same time, it praised the four heroic freedom fighters who had taken part, and sent its condolences on the loss of three of them. It expressed its best wishes to Crispin, hopeful of a speedy and complete recovery.

“So they can send me out to do the same again,” Crispin muttered to himself.

Word had already reached the convocation from its spies in Sector One that the Security Minister’s consort was behaving quite extraordinarily for someone in her position, and had drawn a remarkable number of the sector’s uncommitted lowlives off the fence they had been perched on since time immemorial and unequivocally into the Underground camp. In many cases this new allegiance was in repayment of some debt of gratitude for some small service Tana had done them, some measure introduced by her to improve their lot in a minor way, or even the simple acknowledgement of their existence. Even so, when her message was relayed from Crispin, there was much wonder at the lady’s conviction that it would be she who would call the shots. Crispin’s revelation of who she was, and what he knew, from Greta, of how she came to be where she was, was the last piece of the puzzle to fit into place.

Tana demonstrated the extent to which she was now in control of things on the island sector by sending valuable morsels of information, sometimes simply by word of mouth, and at others on microdots. She sent in the latter form, piecemeal, plans of strategic parts of the Sector One complex, which were received by the senior members of the central committee of the convocation with exultant whoops of joy.

Information was sent in the opposite direction more sporadically, but she was notified that Crispin had survived his ordeal and was making a steady recovery.

One afternoon - though time of day became largely irrelevant to members of the Underground now almost permanently ensconced in their warren, emerging like timid rabbits during the hours of darkness - Crispin was pacing to and fro, leaning on Josie’s shoulder for occasional support, when a member of the group named Simone entered.

Thirtyish, of average height, but very slender - Crispin was inclined to say thin - Simone had a graceful oval face framed by dark brown shoulder length hair that hung in tight corkscrew curls. Her most striking features were her eyes. At first glance not outstandingly beautiful, with little puffy swellings beneath them, there was nevertheless something quite arresting about them, for she used them to great effect to rivet the attention when she spoke. She was a woman whom it had taken Crispin a long time to get used to, as she was skilled in activities which he would have considered, in the old days back in the village, to be unquestionably masculine. Particularly since the demise of Olive, she had taken on a role as general handyperson, and had proved herself to be extremely gifted in cobbling together all kinds of useful gadgets in metal, usually cannibalised from other items she `liberated’ from all kinds of unlikely sources.

“I’ve got something for you,” she said with a smile. “Come and see.”

In another room she had put together a kind of treadmill made from factory belting and a variety of pulleys and rollers.

“Perfect for physiotherapy in a confined space,” she grinned. “Hop on.”

Crispin stepped onto the contraption and gripped the tubular rails.

“Start walking,” said Simone. Crispin eyed her dubiously as he began walking. He was soon smiling broadly as the belt passed beneath his feet, and he was moving swiftly and easily. The treadmill immediately became the central feature of his rehabilitation programme.

“You’ll tell him, won’t you?”

Tana looked down at Cath, curled up on the bed beside her. “You mean, about this?”

“Yes.”

Tana sighed deeply. “It’s all so strange. It still seems strange to me, I can’t imagine how it would seem to him. But I will tell him... something. To free him.”

“To free him?” said Cath with derision. “Do you really believe he’s been celibate all the time he’s been in the city?”

“No,” said Tana slowly. “I don’t. But I know him well enough to know that if he has another woman he will be feeling terribly guilty. Especially now he knows I’m alive. I must find the words to show him he has no cause for guilt. I’m going to write a letter - and tell him everything. And then I’ll release him.”

Cath sat upright in the bed. “Did you love him?”

“He was my husband. We were young. And happy. It was in another... place.”