He, She and It by Marge Piercy

Author:Marge Piercy [Piercy, Marge]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-0-307-77522-1
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2010-11-09T16:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-SIX

I Never Knew Her

“How could they know about Yod? They were simply keeping an eye on him because he was the security,” Avram asserted, as if speaking louder than usual could make his words more powerful, more convincing—to himself or me? Shira wondered. Her wrist was in a light cast, after a set of injections of fast-mend, but she found herself still in a state of aftershock. Avram insisted she help him repair Yod, who lay barely conscious, connected to a unit that kept his brain functional while they worked on him. “Edinburgh is famous for insisting every computer student learn hardware and software. You had the equivalent of what would have been an engineering degree. It’ll come back to you. It’s only your left wrist, and you can still use your fingers.”

She was awkward, for no matter how light the cast, it was still a cast, and her wrist had been shot full of nerve-number, but Avram was right: her training came back to her fingers. They were replacing damaged chips, seared and slashed connections, dead biochips, reinfusing the lubricant and nutrient fluids that had bled, while Nili paced or glumly watched. Avram found it difficult to stand that long, and preferred monitoring Shira from a stool. She asked, “So what was Dr. Rhodes doing there at all? He wasn’t my boss. Yod was his focus.”

Yod’s eyes opened. He tried to speak but could not yet. Avram said, “That’s pure speculation.”

“They were expecting something,” Shira said adamantly. “Dr. Rhodes wasn’t there to embrace me back into the bosom of Y-S.” She wished Malkah were present, to bring her intelligence to bear on the confusion; but Malkah was making preparations for Riva’s memorial service at sunset. Nili had returned in the night to search for Riva’s body, but the charred remains had been carried off already, probably by Y-S for attempted identification. She had found only a burned fragment, probably a foot, and fused plugs, which she had brought back for burial. Malkah was disturbed by the lack of a body. It was as if she could not mourn properly, could not focus her sense of loss.

“Your Dr. Rhodes is dead now,” Nili said sourly. “Whatever he came for, he didn’t get it.”

“We did successfully block them,” Shira said hopefully.

“Don’t you think they would gladly have paid with nine soldiers for the death of Riva?” Nili paced the lab, glaring.

“Dr. Rhodes was just as well regarded as Avram or Malkah, Nili. Y-S didn’t think they were risking anything when they let him attend. They wanted him on the spot, but everything happened too quickly. It was all over in five minutes.” She was still stunned when she thought of it. Meanwhile, connection after connection knit under her hands. The tools began to feel natural. She remembered that she had enjoyed building machines in college.

Yod let out a sigh as his speech capacity returned. “You are all right?” he asked Shira at once, trying to touch her bound wrist but still unable to control his hand.

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