Winter Prince

One chapter 7/7/23.

*Sorry. Second chapter tomorrow. This week and next are “fun with doctors” so stuff will be a little weird -SAH*

IV

It was dark in Nick’s room.  Not full dark, but mostly dark, with only a couple of night lights shining, low to the deep carpeted floor, on either side of his bed. They were the type of lights that mothers put out for children who are afraid of full dark, but because of their positioning, they looked like the lights on either side of a coffin at a wake.

He lay on the bed, immobile. The sheet was pulled to his chest, and her first thought was that he was dead, until she saw the sheet and chest move, slowly, so slowly.

She’d seen him sleep, a few times, but what came to mind now was the time he had fallen asleep by the river side, when they’d all been out on a summer’s day. He looked almost exactly the same save that the reduced light in the room painted him very pale, and put shadows on his face that made him look as though he’d aged years in the year he’d been away.

Nick’s room was… all the excess you’d expect from the royal family, if you’d seen their portraits lining the walls of the royal gallery: red velvet, plush, a statue of Mercy on one side of the door to the balcony, a statue of Justice on the other.

The bed was a four poster one, and though the mattress was a modern, up to date bio mattress, which adjusted for temperature and softness, the frame was centuries old, dark wood, carved and fretted. The head board was ornamented with the carved scene of the landing of the first colonists ship on Olympias.  The posters on the bed were carved each in the shape of one of the mythical rockets which had first lifted humans out of Earth. On all this was hung a red velvet canopy. The bed itself had lace and ruffles just below the wood frame.  The rest of the room carried on the theme, from the big, deeply upholstered chair by the window, also in shades of red, to the little table beside it, which was carved wood in the shape of a cherub supporting a gold covered top.

On that gold-covered top rested a tablet.  It had been sitting there for all the months of Nicky’s absence, so I knew which book it held, cued into position on the last line he’d read The Duty of the Sovereign by Lazar Makrys. Lucky pushed away the thought that now Nicky would never get to finish it.

She had to, because the medtech who had sat by the bed had stood up. And she realized with a shock, that whether he was of the tech class or not, whether he was actually just a trainee, he was not likely to be bedazzled by her, or intimidated by Pete.

For one he was taller than thems by a head. For another, he looked like he spent his free time lifting weights and running endurance races. He could pose for a picture of “The heroic pioneer” and all in the palace would believe that was what the first ancestors in Olympias looked like.

Then, as Pete said, “We came to say goodbye to his highness, to have some time alone with him before his wedding, as we’re not likely to see him again,  We are his body guards, you know,” the tech opened his mouth and stammered, “It… it is an honor, sir.”

And Lucky realized that even the man looked like Adonis, he was about their age, of a lower class and probably trained from his first breath to defer to those society determined his “betters.”

She heard Pete talk to the man, but didn’t care. She was going to Nicky’s bedside, and touching the wall at the right points to turn on the lights hidden in the distant canopy.  Theye’d sometimes come in, just before bed time and all of the body guards sat on Nicky’s enormous bed, talking, debating history or philosophy, or how the world worked. Nick hated the bed – all the furniture in the room – but kept it because it had been his father’s. But he liked the soft light that poured down from his bed canopy, and he loved their late night talk-sessions, when he ordered all of us to be comfortable and not mind our manners, and speak freely. In retrospect, it was the closest he’d ever have come to normal friendship, and the normal interaction of young people. In his artificial life, his bodyguards were the closest thing Prince Nicodemus had to friends, or even siblings.

The light, as it poured down showed that Nicky was not in fact pale, though there was strain on his face, and a look of having been through hell barefoot which made Lucky’s heart clench.

But then—

Something hit her hard, one of those realizations one can’t avoid.  It was startling, all revealing, like a thunderbolt in a pitch dark night.

There were no life support machines in the room.

No, surely it couldn’t be. If Nicky was truly brain dead, he would need machines to do all of the body’s functions.

Lucky was not a medtech, but she’d passed her health units. She knew, if anyone did, that a body didn’t go on living when the brain wasn’t alive. It needed machines to do all the functions the brain would normally do.

She pulled the sheet back, completely. Somewhere in the room, the tech made a sound and Pete said something reassuring, then hastened to the bed side, “What are you doing?” he asked Lucky, in barely more than a whisper.

But Lucky turned to the tech, “What med support are you using to keep him alive?” I asked.

The man swallowed. He swallowed so hard, so loudly, I heard it.  “No-nothing. He stays alive on his own. He just won’t wake up. He won’t move. They say his upper functions are gone, but not the ones that keep the body going. They say he could go on forever.”

“Oh, hell and dishonor,” Lucky said. She managed to keep her voice even. You see, this was nothing like what Nicky had told her happened to the victims of the Alien mind erasure, whatever it was.

Nicky’s hand, resting on the bed, moved.  Lucky would swear she saw it move, of its own accord, visibly.  She grabbed at it, desperately, “Your High—Nicky, can you hear me? Squeeze once for yes.”  There was a long moment when she knew she was wrong. She sighed. No. She’d imagined the movement.

Squeeze. It was feeble, and not like Nicky’s normal grasp at all, but he squeezed. She was sure of it.