The Lord of Opium

“¡Por Dios!” cried Cienfuegos. He raced from the room and returned with a hair dryer. “Quick! Quick! Get the uniform off!” He ran the hair dryer over María’s face while Matt undid buckles and snaps. She wasn’t breathing, and Matt blew air into her lungs. She shuddered and gasped.

“She’s in shock,” said Cienfuegos. He called for help. Servants came running and carried her to a hospital room. By that time a doctor and nurse had arrived and began working to keep her warm and to feed oxygen into her lungs. A blood pressure cuff and heart rate monitor recorded life signs. Matt watched in a daze, not knowing what they meant but only that there was still something to measure.

Time passed. She began to breathe regularly. The color had come back into her skin, and the doctor said that she wouldn’t lose her fingers or toes. The biggest problem was that she’d gone without air for an unknown time. No one knew how time was measured inside a wormhole.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” the doctor said. “Astronauts undergo the temperature of outer space, but they have the right protection. This uniform was meant for Earth conditions. I didn’t know it could keep out cold.”

María had come up with the only way she could escape her mother and used the only kind of uniform she could lay her hands on. “She didn’t know either,” Matt said.

*  *  *

He briefly went to his room to fetch the altar cloth María had sent to him through the holoport, and this he pinned to the wall in front of her bed. It would be the first thing she saw. All other concerns went out of his head. He sat for hours in her room, refusing food and turning away visitors. Lack of oxygen had harmed Chacho, though he had recovered eventually. He had never lost consciousness like this. Finally, Sor Artemesia came and refused to go. “You must rest, Don Sombra. You must eat.”

“I’ll do it here,” said Matt. He had a cot brought in, but when he tried to eat, his stomach revolted and he couldn’t keep anything down. This was too much like Mirasol’s last hours. He dreaded seeing the doctor come, afraid that the man would tell him the situation was hopeless. Nurses arrived regularly to change the girl’s position in bed and to administer intravenous feeding.

And still she did not awake. One of the new doctors measured her brain activity and pronounced himself satisfied with the results. “She seems normal in all respects except one. It isn’t like a coma, Don Sombra. It’s more like a deep sleep and that gives me hope that she will recover.”

Matt said nothing. He remembered Mirasol collapsing after one of her dance sessions, only to be roused by a command. How long would she have slept if he hadn’t given that command?

When the doctor had left, Matt said, “María, wake up!” but nothing happened. He talked to her as he’d spoken to Rosa after she’d been turned into an eejit. He told her about the disastrous party he’d thrown for the boys, about Chacho and his father, about the visit to the biosphere. But he left out any reference to the Mushroom Master in case Dr. Rivas was listening.

Day turned into night. He dozed, sitting up each time the nurses came in. They flexed María’s arms and legs to stimulate her circulation. On the second day the doctor noted her eyelids fluttering. “She’s dreaming, Don Sombra. Her brain is active.” Matt wondered whether it was a nightmare or whether she was walking through flower-filled meadows like the cow. At this point he would have welcomed one of Listen’s night terrors, if only to prove that María was still there.

Matt fell into a trancelike state. The sight of food revolted him, and he was no longer sure whether he was awake or dreaming. Nurses came and went. The sound of voices echoed distantly from the hall. The window lightened and darkened as the sun moved across the sky.

Matt saw Dr. Rivas bent over María and wondered vaguely why the man hadn’t come before. The doctor held up a syringe, tapped it to dislodge air bubbles, and squirted a small amount of liquid from the tip.

“What are you doing?” asked Matt.

“Giving her a stimulant,” said Dr. Rivas.

Something was wrong—the doctor’s smile didn’t reach his eyes, and behind that smile his teeth were clenched. Matt jumped up and smashed the syringe out of the doctor’s hand.

Dr. Rivas backed away, hands in the air. “I meant no harm, Don Sombra. I exist to serve.”

“Like you served El Patrón by carving up his clones.”

“Good heavens! I’m your best hope for María’s survival. Look. She’s stirring.”