Chapter 49 Chapter Forty-eight

"They're gone, it's over." Anderson dropped his head back on the pillow. "Well, we've won." Emiko didn't answer.She was still looking at the square in the distance. The hot morning sun shone through the window, and Anderson was sweating profusely.Emiko put a hand to his forehead, and he was surprised that her hand was cold. In the haze caused by high fever and nausea, he looked up at her, "Has Fusheng been here?" She shook her head sadly. "Your people are not loyal at all." Hearing this, Anderson almost laughed out loud.He tried to push the quilt off his body, but in vain.Emiko helped him pull the quilt aside. "Yes, they are not loyal." He turned his face to the sun again, bathing his whole body in the sunlight, "but I understand what they do." He wanted to laugh, but he was so tired, as if his body was about to fall apart .

"Do you still want some water?" she asked. The idea is not at all attractive.He was very thirsty last night.When the doctor was forced to come here to treat him on Akarat's orders, he thought he could drink the whole ocean.But now, he wasn't thirsty at all. After the examination, the doctor left immediately, with fear in his eyes.He said he would call someone else.He said the matter had to be told to the Ministry of the Environment, and the white shirts would come and work some black magic against the disease.While the doctor was here, Emiko hid, and after the doctor left, she stayed with him day and night.

In the few waking moments he had, he remembered her.He had many dreams and hallucinations.For a while he saw Yates sitting on his bed, laughing at him, pointing out how futile his life was, and looking him in the eye, asking if he understood all this.Anderson wanted to answer, but his throat was dry and hot, and he couldn't squeeze out a word from his dry, itchy throat.Yates laughed at him loudly for it.He asked Anderson how he felt when he learned that the new plenipotentiary of the Agro-based Trading Company had taken his place.Emiko gave him a new, cool compress, which he was grateful for.He was grateful now for any attention, especially her human care... the irony of it made him faintly laugh a few times.

He watched Emiko with blurred vision, thinking about the debts he owed, and wondering if he could pay them off with the rest of his life. "We'll send you out of the city," he whispered. He started fighting again.He had felt very hot all night, and now he suddenly felt cold all over, and even shivered, as if he was back in the East and West, and let the cold wind blow in the cold winter.It was so cold that even when the Clockwork Girl touched his face, his fingers felt cold. He feebly pushed her hand away, "Has Fusheng been here?" "You have a high fever." Emiko's face was full of worry.

"Has he been here?" Anderson asked.It is extremely important for Fusheng to come here.Fusheng had to come here and be in the same room with him, but he couldn't remember why it was important. "I don't think he's coming," she said. "He's got all the letters you can give him. The letters of introduction. He's already busy doing business with your people. I mean the new one." Representative, that woman named Budri." A Cheshire cat appears on the balcony.It gave a low cry and got into the house.Emiko didn't seem to notice it, or maybe she did and ignored it.After all, she was one of its kind, a sympathetic creature made by the same flawed gods.

Anderson stared blankly as the cat ran through his bedroom and toward the door.If he wasn't so weak, he'd throw something at it.He sighed.He was too weak now to complain about a cat.He turned his gaze to the ceiling, and the slowly turning ceiling fan. He wanted to get angry, but even that was gone.At first, when he found out that he was sick, when Fusheng and the girl stepped back vigilantly, he thought they were all crazy.He does not believe he has been exposed to any substance sufficient to cause illness.But he did see the fear in their eyes.At that moment, he understood everything.

"You mean the factory?" He repeated in a low voice what the girl named Amai had said.Fusheng nodded and kept covering his nose with his hands. "The purification room, or the seaweed cultivation tank." He murmured. Anderson wanted to throw a fit, but the disease had already eaten away his strength.Not only was his anger blunted, but it was quickly consumed. "Anyone survived?" "One." The girl whispered. He just nodded and they slipped away in no time.Fusheng always hides his secrets, always has his own position and plan, and always waits patiently...

"Is he coming soon?" It took him a lot of effort to get the words out. "He won't come," Emiko murmured. "But you are here." She shrugged, "I'm a new human being, and your diseases won't scare me. That man won't come. Neither will that man named Carlisle." "At least they didn't bother you. They kept their word." "Maybe," she said, but she clearly didn't believe it. Anderson thought: Maybe she's right.Maybe he misread Fusheng and many other things, maybe all his understanding of this place was wrong.He pulled himself together and drove away the fear, "He'll keep his word, he's a businessman."

Emiko didn't answer.The Cheshire cat jumped onto his bed.She shooed it away, but it jumped up again, as if it had sensed that Anderson was going to be a good meal for it. Anderson raised a hand as best he could. "No," he said gruffly, "let it stay here."