Chapter 24 Chapter Four

The hospital ceiling is white, as are the walls and sheets.On the surface of the iceberg outside, the whole world is also white.It was snowing heavily today, and the polished and dry crystal flowers swirled and floated across the hospital windows.The past four days have been exactly the same under the blizzard; people say they don't expect the weather to clear for two or three days.He thought of troops squatting in ditches and ice caves, afraid of the curse of howling storms, because that meant there might be no battles to fight.The pilots were happy too, but pretended otherwise, cursing loudly at the blizzard for keeping them from getting into the air, after reading the weather forecast, most of them were now too drunk to pass out.

He looked at the white window.Seeing the blue sky should be good for you.That's why they built the hospital on the surface; everything else is buried under the ice.The walls of the hospital were painted bright red so they could not be attacked by enemy aircraft.He had seen too many enemy hospitals from the air, jutting out of the blindingly white ice and snow hills, clotted like the blood of some wounded soldier. A whiff of white appeared briefly in front of a window, and the snowflakes swirled in an eddy created by some strong wind and then faded.He watched the chaos drifting past the glass layer, squinting his eyes, as if through sheer focus he could pick out patterns in the storm that was supposed to form.He raised one hand to caress the white bandage around his head.

He closed his eyes, and tried - again - to remember.His hands fell on the comforter, over his chest. "How are we going today?" the young nurse asked.She appeared beside the bed, holding a small chair.She placed the chair between his bed and the empty bed on the right.The rest of the beds were empty; he was the only one in the compound.Haven't attacked for a month or so. she sits down.He smiles, glad to see her and glad she has time to stop by and talk to him. "It's fine," he said. "Still trying to remember what happened." She smoothed the white uniform over her legs. "How are your fingers today?"

He stretched out his hands, wiggled the fingers of his right hand, then looked at his left; the fingers moved only a little.He frowned. "It's still about the same," he said, sort of apologetic. "You've got to see the doctor this afternoon; he'll probably get you a therapist." "What I need is a therapist to restore my memory," he said, closing his eyes briefly. "I know there is something important that I have to remember..." the voice fell.He found that he forgot the nurse's name. "I don't think we have anything like that," she smiled. "Is there a place where you came from?"

"It happened; yesterday, didn't it?" Did he forget her name yesterday too?He smiled. "I should say I don't remember," he said, baring his teeth. "But no, I don't think they have." He forgot her name yesterday, and the day before yesterday, but he had a plan; he had to do something... "Maybe they don't need it because of your thick head." She is still smiling.He laughed, trying to remember what the plan he had conceived.It's about blowing, it's about breathing, and paper... "Maybe," he agreed.He has a thick head; that's why he's here.Thick skull, thicker or at least more solid than normal skulls; this thick skull didn't completely shatter when someone shot him in the head. (But why, when he wasn't fighting, when he was with his fellow pilots?)

The result was a broken bone; a broken bone, a broken bone, but not irreparably smashed... He looked away, and there was a locker there.A folded piece of paper lay on top. "Don't force yourself to try to remember things," the nurse said. "Maybe you don't remember at all, and that's okay. You know, your brain has to heal, too." He listened to her, took in what she said...but tried to recall what he had been told yesterday; that little piece of paper, and he had to do something with it.He blew on the paper; the folded paper lifted, allowing him to see the writing underneath.Tally Bay.The paper sank again.But he'd squinted -- he remembered now -- so she wouldn't see.

Her name is Talibe.Of course, that sounds familiar. "I'm recovering," he said. "But something I have to remember, Talibe. It's important, I know it is." She stood up and patted one of his shoulders. "Never mind. You can't wear yourself out. Why don't you get some sleep; shall I draw the curtains?" "No," he said. "Can't you stay a little longer, Talibey?" "You need to rest, Charidian," she said, placing a hand over her brow. "I'll be back soon to take your temperature and change your clothes. If you need anything else, ring the bell." She patted his hand and walked away, taking the small white chair with her; Look back at the door. "Oh, by the way; did I forget the scissors here when I changed your clothes last time?"

He looked around and shook his head. "I don't think so." Talibe shrugged. "Oh, all right." She stepped out of the room; as the door closed, he heard her place a chair on the hallway floor. He looked at the window again. Tulibe would take the chair away every time because he was freaking out the first time he woke up and saw it.Even after that, when his state of mind seemed more stable, he would wake up each morning shaking and with eyes wide open in terror, simply because the white chair was next to his bed.So they moved a few chairs in the ward out of his sight to the corner, and when Tulibe or the doctor came to visit him, they brought that chair in from the corridor.

He wished he could forget; forget the chair, forget the chairmaker, forget the Starblind.Why is that still fresh in my memory after all these years and such a long journey?But what happened just a few days ago—someone shot him, left him to die in a hangar—was as bleak and blurry as a scene in a snowstorm. He looked at the dozens of clouds outside the window, the wild snowflakes with no direction.The meaninglessness taunted him. He fell back on the bed, letting the pile of sheets overwhelm him like some kind of drift, and fell asleep with his right hand under the pillow, feeling for the side edge of the scissors he'd taken off Talibey's plate yesterday.

"How's the head, old mate?" Saz Insel tossed him a piece of fruit, but he missed it.It rolled off after hitting his chest, and he picked it up from his lap. "Much better," he said to the man. Insel sat on the nearest bed, threw his hat on the pillow, and undid the top button of his uniform.His short, bristling black hair made his pale face look even whiter, when the nothingness outside the ward window still filled the world. "What are they doing to you?" "very good." "That nurse of yours is so damn nice." "Talibe." He smiled. "Yes; she's not bad."

Incel laughed and leaned back on the bed, arms stretched back for support. "Only 'nice'? Zarqawi, she is gorgeous. Do you bathe in bed?" "No; I can walk to the bathroom by myself." "Do you need me to break your leg?" "Maybe later." He laughed. Insel smiled too, then looked at the snowstorm outside the window. "How's your memory? Has it recovered?" He poked at the double white sheet near the hat. "No," he said.Actually he thought he might have, but somehow he didn't want to tell anyone; maybe he thought it would bring bad luck. "I remember going into the dining hall, and playing cards... and then..." Then he remembered seeing the white chair next to the bed, sucking the air of the whole world into his lungs, screaming like a storm until the end of the world, or at least until the end of the world Talibe came over to comfort him (Livetta? he whispered then; Da...Livetta?).He shrugged. "...and here I am." "Hmm," Saz said, straightening the creases of his uniform jacket. "The good news is we finally got the blood off the hangar floor." "I think that will come back." "As you please, but then we won't be cleaning up." "How are the others?" Saz sighed, shaking his head, smoothing the hairs on the back of his neck. "Oh, it's the same as ever, lovely, likable bunch of good lads." He shrugged. "The rest of the squadron... wished you a speedy recovery. But you made them very upset that night." He looked mournfully at the man on the bed. "Xia Rui, old man, no one likes war, but there are other ways to say it... You just use the wrong way. I mean, we all appreciate your contribution; we know it's not really your war , but I think... I think some people... feel even worse. I hear things sometimes; you must have nightmares at night sometimes. You can look them in the eye sometimes, like they know how bad the odds are , and they can't just get used to it. They're terrified: If I talk like this in front of them, they'll probably put a bullet in my head, but they're just scared. They're going to want to find a way Leaving the war. They are brave men who want to serve their country, but they want to quit, and no one who knows the odds can blame them. Any honorable excuse is fine. They don't shoot themselves in the foot, and these days They don't want to go out in normal shoes and come back with chilblains, because too many have done that in the past; but they'd love to find a way to get out. You don't have to be here, but you stay; you choose to fight, and A lot of people blame you for doing it. That makes them feel like cowards because they know if they were in your situation, they would stay on the ground and tell girls how lucky they are to dance with such a brave pilot .” "I'm sorry I annoyed them." He touched the bandages on his head. "I didn't know they would feel so strongly." "They didn't." Insel frowned. "This is where it gets weird." He stood up and walked to the nearest window to watch the blizzard outside. "Shit, Xia Rui, half the people would be happy to send you to the hangar to find a way to make you lose a few teeth, but a gun?" He shook his head. "I trust people with a roll or a few ice cubes behind my back, but a gun..." He shook his head again. "I don't want to think about it. There's no way they could be like that." "Maybe it's all in my imagination, Saz," he said. Saz turned his head, a worried look on his face.That expression melted a little at the sight of his friend smiling. "Xia Rui; I admit I don't want to imagine that I misunderstood one of them, but the way out is...someone else. The military police don't know who." "I don't think I've been of much help to them," he admits. Saz came back and sat down on the bed next to him. "You really don't remember who you talked to after that? Where did you go?" "do not remember." "You told me you were going to the briefing room to check on the latest targets." "Yes, that's what I heard." "But then Kim went in--wanted to invite you to the hangar to say something bad about our high command and poor tactics--and you weren't there." "I don't know what happened, Saz. I'm sorry, but I just..." He felt tears welling behind his eyes.The accident surprised him.He swings the fruit back on his lap.He blows his nose forcefully, rubs his nose, coughs, and pats his chest. "I'm sorry," he repeated. Incel looked at the other for a while, and the man took a tissue from the table next to the bed. Saz shrugged and grinned broadly. "Hey; don't mind. I'll be back to see you. Maybe it's just some ground crew maniac getting upset because you stepped on his finger too many times. If you want to think back, don't think too hard." "Yeah; 'rest well,' I've heard that, Saz." He picked up the fruit from his lap and set it on the chest of drawers beside the bed. "Can I bring you something next time?" Insel asked. "Except for Talibey, if you refuse to take advantage of the moment, I may have my own agenda." "No, thanks." "liquor?" "No, I want to wait until the bar in the dining hall to enjoy it." "Where are the books?" "I mean it, Saz; it's nothing." "Zarqawi," Saz laughed. "You have no one else to talk to here, what the hell are you doing all day?" He looked at the window, then back at Saz. "Think about things, think a lot," he said. "I'm trying to remember." Saz walked over to the bed.He looks very young.He hesitated, then tapped his chest lightly.He glanced at the bandages. "Don't get lost in it, old partner." For a while he was expressionless. "Yes; don't worry. I'm a good navigator, anyway." There was something he had to tell Sazz Insel, but he couldn't remember what it was either.Something that would warn him, because he knew something he didn't know before, and something had to... warn. Frustration made him want to scream sometimes; it made him want to tear the plump white pillow in half, take the white chair and throw it out the window, and let the white roar outside pour into the room. He thought about how quickly he would freeze after the window cracked. Well, at least that fits; he was sent here frozen, so why not end up the same way?He toyed with the idea that, out of so many places, some cellular memory, some skeletal memory affinity brought him here, that great battles were fought on gigantic, colliding icebergs drawn from the vast The calving glaciers of the world, like ice cubes swirling in a planet-sized cocktail glass, a constantly moving icy island, some hundreds of kilometers long, encircling the world from the poles to the equator, with a white wasteland on its broad back , strewn with blood, corpses, and wreckage of tanks and planes. Fighting over places that would inevitably melt away and never provide food, minerals, or permanent shelter seemed almost deliberate and ludicrous to the usual folly of warfare.He loves fighting, but even the direction of the war disturbs him, and he makes enemies among other pilots, and even his superiors, by speaking his mind. But somehow he knew that Saz was right; someone was trying to kill him not because of something he said in the dining hall.At least (says something inside him) not directly... Thorne, the commanding officer of the squadron, came to see him: for the first time, no sycophants were brought. "Thank you, nurse," he said to the door, then closed it, smiled, and walked over to the bed; he was holding the white chair.He sat down and straightened himself up, which made the grin on his face smaller. "Okay, Captain Zarqawi, how are we going?" A scent of flowers, Thorne's favorite perfume, wafted from the man. "I hope to be back flying in a few weeks, sir," he said.He never liked the commanding officer, but he did his best to put on a brave smile. "Really?" Thorne said. "You are. That's not what the doctors said, Captain Zarqawi. Unless they told me differently than they told you." He frowned. "I mean, it could be... weeks, sir..." "I think we should maybe take you home, Captain Zarqawi," Thorne said, with a false smile. "...or at least to the mainland, I hear your home is quite remote, huh?" "I'm sure I can return to duty, sir. Sure, I know there's a medical check, but..." "Yes, yes," said Thorne. "Okay, we'll just wait and see. Huh. Good." He stood up. "Is there anything I can bring to—" "There's nothing you can bring—" he began, and saw Thorne's face. "I beg your pardon, sir." "As I was about to say, Captain; is there anything I can bring you?" He stared down at the white sheets. "No, sir. Thanks, sir." "I wish you a speedy recovery, Captain Zarqawi," Thorne said dryly. He saluted Thorne, who nodded, turned and left. He was left looking at the white chair. Nurse Talibe came in a moment later, her hands folded, her round, pale face very calm and gentle. "Try to sleep," she told him, and took the chair away. He wakes up at night and sees lights shining in the snow outside; falling snowflakes drawn as transparent silhouettes of shadows in the floodlight, massive softness against the harsh, sinking light.The white and night in the distance compromised into a piece of gray. He wakes up with the scent of flowers in his nostrils. He hugged his hand tightly under the pillow, feeling the sharp edge of the long-handled scissors. He remembered Thorne's face. He remembered the briefing room, and the four commanding officers; they invited him in for a drink and said they wanted to hear him speak. Being one of them in the room--he couldn't remember their names, but soon he could, and he could already recognize them--they asked what they had heard him say in the dining hall. And being slightly drunk and thinking he was very smart, he thought he might find something interesting and told them what he thought they wanted to hear instead of what he told the rest of the pilots. Turns out he discovered a conspiracy.He wants the new government to keep its populist promises and stop the war.They wanted a coup d'état and needed great pilots. Hwang-tang is hungry and bold, and he makes them think he’s joining them and goes straight to Thorn.Thorne, for all his sternness, was rewarding and punishing; Thorne, obnoxious and mean-spirited, vain Thorne, perfume-wearing Thorne, but Thorne was also a pro-government stand. (Although Sazz Insel had said that the man was pro-government with the pilot and anti-government with his superiors.) Then the look on Thorne's face... Not then; it was after.After Thorne told him not to mention anything to anyone because he thought there were traitors among the pilots too, and told him to go back to sleep like nothing happened.So he's gone, and since he's still drunk, maybe, a second late sober when they deal with him.They pressed some sort of liquid-soaked rag against his face, and struggled as they pressed him, but finally had to breathe, and the suffocating fumes overwhelmed him. He was dragged down the corridor, his socked feet rubbing against the tiles; there were people on either side of him.They came to one of the hangars, and someone went to press the elevator button, but he could only faintly see the floor in front of him, and he couldn't even lift his head.But he could smell the flowers, and it came from the man on his right. The clamshell door swung open overhead; he heard the blizzard, screaming in the dark depths.They dragged him to the elevator. He tensed, turned, grabbed Thorne by the collar, and saw the man's face; disgusted, full of fear.He felt someone on the other side grab his free arm; he struggled, pulled his hand away from Thorne, and saw the commanding officer's pistol in its holster. He grabbed the gun.He remembered people yelling, trying to back away but falling; trying to shoot guns, but it just didn't work.Light flickered at the far end of the hangar.No bullets!No bullets!Thorne yelled at the others.They looked at the other end of the hangar; there were a few planes there, but also someone, yelling about opening the hangar door when the lights were on at night. He didn't see who shot him.A heavy round hit the side of his head, and the next thing he saw was the white chair. Snow billowed wildly outside the floodlit windows. He just watched it until dawn, thinking and remembering. "Talibe; can you take a message for Captain Suzz Insell for me? Tell him I have to see him, it's urgent; please send a word to my squadron, will you?" "Okay, of course, but you have to get medical treatment first." He takes her hand. "No, Tulipe; call the squadron first." He winked at her. "Please, for me." She shook her head. "Damn it." She walked away and went out the door. "Well, is he coming or not?" "He's on vacation," she told him, checking the locker to check his medications. "Shit!" Saz didn't mention anything about the vacation. "Tut tut, Captain," she said, shaking a bottle. "Call the police, Talibey. Call the gendarme; call now. It's really urgent." "Medication first, Captain." "Okay, if I take the medicine, can you promise to take it right away?" "I promise. Open your mouth wide." "what……" Damn Saz was on vacation, and he was doubly damned for not mentioning it.And Thorne; what a daring man!Come see him and see if he remembers. What would have happened had he remembered? He fumbled under the pillow again, looking for the pair of scissors.It was there, cold and sharp.
"I told them it was urgent; they said they were on their way," Talibey said, coming in, this time without a chair.She looked out the window, the blizzard still blowing. "I'm going to give you something to keep you awake; they want you to be alive." "I'm already pissed! I'm sober!" "Quiet, eat these." He ate. He fell asleep, still clutching the scissors under the pillow, the endless whiteness outside the window continued, and finally penetrated the glass, layer after layer, some kind of separation process of penetration, and then naturally sank beside his head, slowly Swirling around him slowly, adding the white geometry of the bandages and decomposing them, letting them go, letting the debris settle in the corner of the room where the white chair was, muttering, plotting something, and then slowly resting on his head, using Harder and harder, whirling a ridiculous dance of snowflakes, faster and closer, until at last they would become bandages, cold and tight on his fevered head, and--find the healing wound--sneak His skin and his skull were cold and brittle and crystalline in his brain. Talibe unlocked the ward door and let the officers in. "Are you sure he passed out?" "I gave him twice the normal dose. If he wasn't unconscious, he would be dead by now." "He still has a pulse. You take his hand." "Okay...uh! Hey, look at this!" "Ok." "My fault. I've been wondering where this went. Sorry." "You did a good job, boy. You better go first, thank you. We won't forget." "Ok……" "What's wrong?" "That...that's going to be quick, right? Before he wakes up..." "Of course. Oh, of course; yes. He won't know at all. Feel nothing." …Then he woke up in the cold snow and was awakened by a burst of cold that leaked from his body, piercing every pore in his body, screaming to release it. He woke up and knew he was going to die.The cold wind had already numb one side of his face.One hand was stuck in the packed snow beneath him.He was still wearing standard hospital pajamas.That coldness was not cold; it was pain enough to make one faint, engulfing him from all directions. He raised his head and looked around.Nearby are several meters of flat snow, shrouded in what may have been early morning sunlight.The blizzard was quieter than usual, but still intense.The last time he heard people mention the temperature was minus ten degrees, but with the freezing wind, it was really, really bad.His head, hands, heels, and genitals all ached. It was the cold that woke him up.It must be.That must wake him up soon, or he'll be dead.They must have just dropped him here.If only he could find out which direction they were going from, and follow... He tried to move, but couldn't.He screamed inside, wrenching the most willpower he'd ever tried...and only managed to roll over, and sit up. The movement itself was too taxing; he had to put his hands behind him to steady himself.He felt his hands were freezing.He knew he would never get up. Talibe... he thought to himself, but the storm swept away his thoughts in an instant. Forget Talibe.You are dying.There are more important things. He stared into the white depths of the blizzard, which swept toward him and past him like little soft, compressed haste of stardust.His face was pierced by a million fiery needles, but was already starting to be paralyzed. Walked so long, he thought, just to die in someone else's war.How ridiculous that seemed now.Zarqawi, Elsiomo, Starblind, Livreta, Dakens.Names are swept away, blown away by the sharpness of howling winds.His face felt parched, all the way from the skin to the eyeballs, tongue, teeth and bones. He pulled one hand from the snow behind his back; the cold had numb the peeled palm.He opened the pockets of his pajama pants and ripped the buttons, exposing the small wrinkled scar on his chest above his heart to the fierce cold wind.He put his hands in the snow behind him and lifted his head up.The bones of his neck seemed to rub against each other, clicking as his head moved, as if the cold had pinched his joints. "Darkins..." he whispered to the roiling, bone-freezing storm. He saw the woman walking toward him calmly, through the blizzard. She was walking on compacted snow, wearing long black boots, a long coat with a fluffy black collar and sleeves, and a small hat. Her neck and face were exposed, as were her ungloved hands.She has a long, oval face with deep-set black eyes.She walked towards him effortlessly, and the storm behind her seemed to part, and he felt himself in some kind of shelter more than her tall frame, and everywhere facing her, there was a kind of warmth as if into his skin. He closes his eyes.He shook his head, it hurt him a little, but he did it anyway.He opened his eyes again. She is still there. She half-kneeled in front of him, with her hands folded on the knee covered by her skirt, her face parallel to his.He stared forward, and withdrew one hand from the snow (completely paralyzed, but when he drew it back, he saw the ripped skin left on the snow).He tried to touch her face, but she took his hand with her own.She is so warm.He thought he had never felt such a wonderful warmth in his life. She held his hand, and he laughed as the storm diverged behind her and her breath formed clouds in the air. "Fuck," he said.He knew his voice was weak under the influence of drugs and cold. "I've been an atheist my whole damn life, and it turns out those gullible bastards were right all along!" he gasped and coughed. "Or did you deliberately not show up to surprise them?" "You compliment me too much, Mr. Zarqawi," the woman said, her voice extremely deep and sexy. "I'm not Death or some imaginary goddess. I'm as real as you..." She stroked his torn, bleeding palm with a long, strong thumb. "It's just warmer." "Oh, I'm sure you're real," he said. "I can feel that you are really..." His voice fades; he looks behind the woman.A huge shape appeared in the swirling snowflakes.As gray as snow, but with a darker shadow floating behind the woman, thick and steady.The storm around them seemed to die away. "This is the twelve-seater cockpit package, Charidian," the woman said. "It's here to take you, if you want to be taken. You can go to the Continent if you want. Even go further afield with us, if you like." He tried blinking and shaking his head.Whatever was in his head playing this otherworldly game was willing to spend all his time entertaining himself.What it had to do with the Starblind and the chair, he couldn't see yet, but if that was the case--and what else? ──Then there is no point in fighting in this weak and dead state.Just let it happen.He has no real chance. "With you guys?" he said, trying not to laugh. "Come with us. We want to give you a job." She smiled. "But let's talk somewhere warmer first, shall we?" "Warmer?" She gestured with a head toss. "Cockpit components." "Oh, yeah," he agreed. "That." He tried to pull his hands out of the snow that was pressed against his back, but failed. He looked back at her; she drew a small bottle from her pocket.She walked around behind him and slowly poured the contents of the bottle into his hand.His hands warmed up, and he left with a slight smoke. "Are you ready?" she said, taking his hand and gently lifting him up.She pulled some sort of slippers from her pocket. "Come." "Oh." He laughed. "Yes; thank you." She slipped one arm under his arm and rested her head on his other shoulder.She has so much strength. "You seem to know my name," he said. "If it's not impolite, what's your name?" "My name," she said. "It is Rasd-Korthuresa Dessert Imbris Sma Damarihyde." "Don't be kidding me!" "But you can call me Dieter." he laughed. "Yes; well. Desert." As she walked, he stumbled into the warm orange cockpit interior.The walls appeared to be highly polished wood, the chairs seemed to be polished hides, and the floor seemed to be a fur rug.It all smells like a garden on a mountain. He tried to fill his lungs with the warm, fragrant breath.He swayed, turned and looked at the woman in shock. "It's true!" he gasped. If he had enough breath, he might scream. The woman nodded. "Welcome aboard, Sharidian Zarqawi." He passed out.