Soulminder by Timothy Zahn Read Free Book Online Page B

meaning here—he could see the end of the tunnel he was traveling through. Beyond it was a bright light; bright, yet not in any way hurtful … and it was from the Light, he suddenly understood, that the sense of peace radiated. He willed himself forward; in response, though there was no sensation of movement, the tunnel walls increased their silent speed past him.
    So gradually that he didn’t notice at first, the movement of the walls slowed. Slowed, and then stopped.
    There was no way to tell how long he waited there, hovering motionlessly in the center of the tunnel—time, like distance, seemed to have lost all of its meaning. Ahead, the Light beckoned to him; not insistently, like a siren being deprived of her victim, but like a friend, waiting with patience for him to finish the journey. Once, he tried explaining that the delay wasn’t his doing, but even as he searched for a way to make himself heard at so great a distance he could sense that the Light already understood what had happened.
    By the time the walls again began to move, Sommer understood, too … and so it was with no surprise at all that he found the walls were moving in the wrong direction. The Light faded as he moved, disappeared entirely—
    And abruptly pain flooded in on him.
    He gasped, feeling the sensation of inrushing air as something almost alien. A blinding stab of fresh pain lanced through his chest as he did so—
    “Adrian!” a familiar voice almost barked in his ear. “Take it easy, Adrian, it’s all right. You’re here. You’re safe.”
    His eyelids were heavy, but with a supreme effort of will he pried them open. Sands was leaning over him; behind her, an unfamiliar face frowned at something outside his field of view. “Heartbeat looks good,” the man said. “He’s breathing on his own.” He peered at Sommer as if at a laboratory specimen. “I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it.”
    Sands threw him an irritated glance before turning back to Sommer. “How do you feel?” she asked. “Can you talk?”
    Sommer worked saliva into his mouth. “How long?” he croaked.
    She understood. “That drunken idiot ran you down six days ago,” she told him, eyes flashing with anger. “One of Barnswell’s more brainless supporters, I gather, who didn’t much like you making a fool out of his idol on international television.”
    “How’s Danny?” The words came out easier this time.
    “Making a rapid recovery,” Sands said, and there was no mistaking the satisfaction in her voice. “Dr. Janecki says that aside from an occasional moody thoughtfulness, there don’t seem to be any aftereffects at all from his stay in Soulminder.”
    Sommer thought about his own experience, and about the Light. “Maybe he wishes he hadn’t been brought back,” he murmured.
    Sands’s forehead furrowed for a moment. “Yes, well, I’m sure that’ll pass,” she said. “Janecki also says that because of Soulminder they were able to get nearly the entire tumor out. She figures that a couple of months of chemical treatments ought to clean out any residue, and that’ll be the end of it.” Her lips twitched in a smile. “I don’t know about you, but I think that’s a pretty good memorial for your son. Wouldn’t you say?”
    Sommer closed his eyes. A fog was rolling in over his consciousness … “Yes. It’s finished now.”
    He heard Sands’s hesitation, felt her hand squeeze his carefully. “You’d better get some rest,” her voice came distantly. “We’ve still got the lab’s trap running, so there’s no danger we’ll lose you. You’re pretty lucky it was still doing that complete file scan when you got run over.”
    “Lucky,” he echoed, his own voice sounding even more distant than hers. His last thought before he fell asleep was of the tunnel … and of the Light.
    It was another two weeks before they would let him return to work.
    To work … but not to his lab.
    “Well, what do you think?” Sands