Oh, hadn’t she told him? No, that long discussion about the plague had been with Yas.
“You—or your ancestors, I suppose—were never genetically altered to grant immunity from the Great Plague.”
“That all happened about two hundred years ago, right? The Great Plague?” Rache nodded to himself. “That makes sense then.”
Kim would have fallen out of the pod if not for its protective hug. “What makes sense?”
Rache guided them toward the airlock hatch. At first, she thought he was concentrating on piloting and couldn’t answer. Eventually, she realized he didn’t intend to answer.
“Rache,” she whispered. “Why does it make sense that you weren’t altered?”
A soft clank reverberated through the shuttle as they connected to the Machu Picchu.
Rache unfastened his harness, stood, and looked down at her. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out when you’re feeling better and your mind is clear. But to add my hypothesis to the one Casmir gave you, I’ll posit that our blood is perhaps more authentically human than yours at this point in humanity’s evolution. If those gates were intended for humans, maybe the built-in security of the ship or the gate itself didn’t think the archaeologists quite qualified anymore. Or anyone else in this shuttle.”
While Kim puzzled that over, Rache strode to the passenger seats. “Everybody up and out. Scholar Sato is going to fix you up.”
The fevered fighters shuffled to the hatch without complaint.
Jess hesitated. “You’re leaving us, Captain?”
“Yes,” Rache said. “To make sure Jager doesn’t get the gate. And to find out who does have it right now.”
Kim wanted to wring his neck for a better explanation, but he wasn’t paying any attention to her. He helped Yas, who was stumbling, to the hatch. Kim knew these people didn’t have much time—they’d been down at the wreck longer than she and had received a greater dose—so her questioning of Rache would have to wait until the next time she saw him. Whenever that would be.
She went to the back of the shuttle where she’d secured the pieces of her mother’s droid body and carefully gathered them up.
“Captain,” Jess said, lingering inside, “should we meet up with you somewhere if Kim gets us healed up?”
“If you can,” Rache said. “Let me know. I’ll pick you up after I deal with the gate.”
“Yes, sir.”
Rache extended a hand for Kim to follow her out. “Do what you can, Scholar Sato.”
“Please,” Kim murmured, trailing after Jess and the others, her arms full.
“What?”
She paused in the hatchway. “I’m admittedly not one for excess social verbosity, but even I like hearing a please and getting a thank-you occasionally, instead of being ordered around by a tyrant.”
He gazed at her without comment.
Kim shook her head—it was like conversing with a wall.
“You definitely owe me a good cup of coffee if I figure out how to keep anyone else from dying,” she told him in parting as she walked out.
She didn’t expect an answer, but he gave her one.
“If you keep my men from dying, I’ll have a crate of beans, a roaster, a grinder, and an espresso maker delivered to your door.”
“Good. I’ll hold you to that.” Not that she had any intention of telling him where her door was. She would be delighted if she never saw him again.
“And I’ll owe you a favor,” he said so quietly she almost missed it.
Quality coffee would do. So long as she lived to appreciate it. She dearly missed sitting on her little patio during summer mornings, reading a recent publication, and sipping from a fresh cup of coffee while squirrels cavorted in the oak trees behind the house.
Rache’s weary troops slumped down against a wall inside the airlock bay. Men who’d come less than two days earlier to kidnap her could now barely move. She thought about trying to arrange for them to be deposited in a cell, sans their armor, but she needed to see if anyone was even left alive here. If not, then it hardly mattered if criminals had free rein of the ship.
Kim found a safe spot to deposit the droid parts, then headed straight for sickbay and the quarantined area. With luck, those people had stayed put and were alive and well.
As she walked, Rache’s words came back to her. I’ll posit that our blood is perhaps more authentically human than yours at this point in humanity’s evolution.
“Oh.” She stumbled and gripped the closest wall. “Oh.”
Kim realized what Rache had meant—she and Casmir were going to have to have a chat about the impossibility of his mother still being alive—and that… none of it mattered as far as finding a treatment. She and the others were already afflicted—had stumbled across the robotic security system and failed its scan without ever knowing one was being done. Because their mitochondria—the DNA of their mitochondria—wasn’t quite human anymore. It didn’t matter now. She had to simply focus on healing everyone.
“Hello?” came an uncertain call from the general sickbay.
“It’s Kim Sato,” she called back, thinking she’d reached the quarantined people.
But Dr. Sikou stepped into view.
“Kim!” she blurted. “I got your message. How did you escape?”
Sikou rushed forward and gripped Kim’s arms.
“It’s a long story,” Kim said, relieved to see her. “I’m pleased you’re still alive. Have you had any progress with the pseudo radiation?”
“It sounds like you decided that’s what it is too.” Sikou nodded. “Some new radiation that we don’t yet have a way to read and that doesn’t react quite the same in the human body.”
“That’s my guess. Were you, by chance, inoculated with my bacteria during the Osprey’s trials?”
“Dr. Angelico and I weren’t, but the marines were, including the ones that accompanied us to this ship.” Sikou grimaced. “They were killed in the attack, but we still have their bodies. When I got your message, I took samples and was able to isolate the bacteria. It was the proverbial needle-in-a-haystack situation, but they’re fortunately quite distinctive, and the equipment and the computers here are excellent.”
Kim nodded, disturbed that Rache’s men had killed the marines, but she was glad Sikou had thought to check their bodies. The bacteria would have been able to stay alive for days after the deaths of the hosts. “Have you had time to run any tests yet?”
Kim checked the time stamp to see how much time had passed since her message to Sikou had gone out. It had been shortly after the shuttle had flown out of the canyon. It had taken a few hours for Rache to fly it up to orbit and catch up with the Machu Picchu, but even if Sikou had started her experiments right away, she might not have had time to do much.
“A few.” Sikou hesitated. “When I introduced the bacteria to blood samples containing the damaged cells, they died rather quickly.”
Kim stepped back, pulling her arms from Sikou’s grip. “My bacteria died?”
“Apparently, they’re as susceptible to this as anything else.”
“They’re extremely hardy. Very little kills them. Not even direct exposure to cosmic radiation.”
Sikou spread her hands.
“This is definitely sounding like a weapon,” Kim muttered. “But maybe I can learn something from how they died. Do you still have everything?”
“Yes. I was hoping you would make it back and that you could learn something useful. Er.” Sikou looked down the corridor behind her. “Are Rache and his men here? After they killed our marines, I’m not eager to see them again.”
Kim shook her head. “I can imagine. Rache is obsessed with hurting King Jager, and he doesn’t seem to care who lives or dies along the way.”
Sikou reached toward her again. “Are you all right? I can’t imagine being captured—being in that monster’s grasp.”
“The illness is more of a problem. I’ve got it now, and it’ll kill me a lot faster than Rache woul
d have.”
“Angelico and I have it now too,” Sikou admitted. “The quarantined people are still safe.”
“You’ve been affected? Did you ever find a piece of the gate here?”
“The gate?” Sikou shook her head.
“We’re going to have to go over the security camera footage and try to find the day the team came back on board,” Kim said. “See if they were carrying anything. It was something I’d been on the verge of doing when Rache’s people showed up. I also want to look at my bacteria to see what exactly happened to them. Oh, and I need someone to check the cryonics lab to determine if it’s capable of reviving specimens.”
Sikou looked daunted by the list, but she nodded. “We’ll take care of that.”
“Thank you. I know it’s a lot, but we’ll split it up. We don’t have much time.”
“I know,” Sikou said. “I know that very well.”
Kim nodded and strode straight for the lab she’d been working in before.
Casmir checked his suit and oxygen tank for the third time as he stood in front of the airlock hatch, waiting for the shuttle from the mysterious enemy cargo ship to dock. When he’d left navigation, it had been coming around, matching their speed, and extending a short tube.
He had a spare oxygen tank attached to the first, and he was already on the verge of hyperventilating as he wondered if he would have enough. Viggo’s scan of the shuttle hadn’t shown any people on board—any heat signatures at all—or a breathable atmosphere. He crossed his fingers that the cargo ship had humans aboard and would have an amenable environment, but the idea of going off into the unknown with a limited supply of air made him worry. He hadn’t forgotten his experience on the refinery, almost running out of air before he’d made it back to the Dragon.
“Are you ready to keep me alive, Zee?” he whispered to his silent companion.
The crusher loomed at his shoulder, needing neither tank nor suit to survive in space or anywhere else. Casmir envied him that. He wondered if he should update his will, however unofficially, before he left the Dragon, and leave Zee to one of his friends back home. Would the Kingdom even allow that? They might simply suck him up into the crusher army they’d already made.
“I am always prepared to protect and defend Kim Sato and Casmir Dabrowski,” Zee stated.
The sad lump that hadn’t quite left his throat after reading Kim’s letter returned in full force.
“I’m glad,” he whispered. “You’ve been a wonderful ally. I wish I’d had you around when I was a little boy. I bet you would have kept me from getting stomped so much by the kids in our tenement building.” He smiled, imagining one scenario in particular where it would have been delightful to have the crusher step out into the hallway and hoist up one of the bigger kids who’d enjoyed picking on him.
“Stomping people is unacceptable behavior,” Zee said.
“I agree completely. But I still have moments where I fantasize about it a little.”
Something about being pushed around and chased and shot at these past weeks had memories of his childhood years rearing up far more often than usual. In the last decade, he’d gotten used to working with people like himself and having a modicum of respect from his peers and others at the university, a place where he’d largely fit in. Even the military research and development lab had been full of people more like him than not. It was depressing to realize that once he left those environments, he went back to being the scrawny kid who made an appealing target for the rest of the universe. Or at least some thugs with a grudge.
Metallic footfalls rang out on the cargo hold deck behind him. Asger walked up wearing his helmet and an oxygen tank strapped to his armored back, the cloak rucked up over it, making him look like a hunchback. A hunchback with a DEW-Tek rifle slung across his chest on a strap and his trademark pertundo in its holder on his belt.
Casmir had been prepared to go alone—this had been his harebrained idea—and hadn’t asked for Asger to come, but he was relieved to have a true warrior along. Even if the shuttle was all automated, he fully expected to be greeted by bullies with rifles pointed at his chest when he stepped out of it.
“Trying to leave without me, Dabrowski?” Asger asked.
“It sounded like you’d given up on me being able to help.”
“That was Ishii. I’m withholding judgment on you.” Asger glanced toward the hatch. “I’m somewhat intrigued that you got us an invitation over there, even if we’re likely walking into a trap.”
Being the true knight that he was, he didn’t sound daunted by the prospect.
Casmir didn’t mention that the invitation hadn’t included Asger.
A faint clang reverberated through the hatch—the shuttle securing its tube and clamping onto the Dragon.
“Also,” Asger added, holding something out, “I forgot to give these to you earlier.”
Casmir opened his gloved palm, and Asger dropped two bottles of pills and a jet injector into it. As he read the labels, he almost laughed. “You got my seizure medication for me? And what’s this? Ah, motion sickness pills. And epinephrine. I hope nobody else sticks me with some drug I turn out to be allergic to, but thank you.”
“The nurse brought them by while you were attempting to schmooze Ishii. It’s possible the enemy ship will be overflowing with cashews and pomegranates.”
“If that’s true, the other systems are every bit as weird as they promised us in school.”
“They are.” Asger glanced over his shoulder. “Trust me.”
Casmir hoped he wasn’t thinking of Qin. Maybe once this was all over, he could get them in the same cabin together and figure out how to make Asger be the gentleman the legends said he ought to be. To every lady, not just Kingdom-appropriate ones.
“Thank you.” Casmir held up the drugs, removed his helmet long enough to take one of the rivogabines, then found a sealed suit pocket for the rest of the medication. He had no idea how long this trip would take and didn’t want to risk leaving them behind.
He wished Asger had thought to give them to him earlier, so his seizure medication would have had time to kick in. Unfortunately, it was meant to be taken twice daily as a preventative measure, and he had a feeling it would take a few days of uninterrupted doses before his brain righted itself, but he would take what he could get. Maybe he would be lucky, and nothing stressful would happen in the next few hours.
This time, he did laugh. It sounded maniacal in his ears. Once again, he felt he was on the verge of hyperventilating.
Asger eyed him. “Should I be concerned about you, or do drugs always make you weird?”
“I’m afraid it’s not the drugs that make me weird.” Casmir ordered his helmet back over his head and checked it three times.
“I’m coming too,” Qin said from behind them. “The captain said I could. Actually, she said it was a good idea, that you’d definitely need my help, Casmir.”
She walked toward them, her big Brockinger anti-tank weapon in her arms and a pistol and dagger on her armor’s utility belt. Asger stiffened, his fingers twitching toward his halberd.
“Thank you, Qin.” Casmir rested his hand on Asger’s armored forearm and gave Zee a pointed look. “This isn’t your fight, so I really appreciate your willingness to risk yourself. And I appreciate yours, too, Sir Asger.”
Asger clenched his jaw, not giving any indication that he heard Casmir. At least he didn’t try to draw his weapon.
“You stay out of my way, knight,” Qin said, not taking her eyes off Asger, “and I’ll stay out of yours.”
She came up to stand at Casmir’s side, next to Zee and opposite Asger. Casmir chose to think of himself as the glue that would bind this team together, rather than the little guy in the middle who would get smashed if they started trading punches.
Clangs sounded in the airlock hatch, and Asger turned stiffly to face whoever—whatever—was coming to get them.
“I meant that, Qin,” Casmir said quietly. “I’m very th
ankful to you for coming and to Laser for allowing it.” He wanted her to know that he wanted her here, even if Asger was as welcoming as a black hole.
Qin nudged him with an armored elbow. “She doesn’t know what to do with that schematic, so she wants me to keep you alive.”
“Naturally.”
The hatch swung open. An unarmed android in unassuming brown overalls stood in the airlock chamber, his head bald, his face free of facial hair. One of his hands was composed of a complex toolset instead of human fingers.
“You are the mechanical engineer Casmir Dabrowski,” the android said without preamble. “You will accompany me to the Asteroid Hauler.”
“Yes,” Casmir said. “I’m ready.”
“You will come alone,” the android added as he stepped forward.
“Oh, I can’t do that. These are my assistants.” Casmir gestured to Qin, Asger, and Zee. “She holds my wrench, he holds my toolbox, and Zee records my research notes.”
“We are not unintelligent, Casmir Dabrowski,” the android said. “You will not bring combatants along. You are being invited to perform work, not to assist the Kingdom warships in defeating us.”
Perform work? Gods, did they expect him to know how to do something with the gate they’d picked up? He’d assumed that his ruse wouldn’t work and that even if it did, they wouldn’t expect him to do anything until after they’d finished their battle with the warships. That would have given him time to come up with something clever.
The android stepped aside, extending a hand for Casmir to enter the airlock tube even as he lifted the tool-filled one as a barrier to Qin and Asger. Interestingly, he didn’t object to Zee.
“Look, friend,” Casmir said. “I’m a little guy. I need assistants and bodyguards to survive in a realm of malevolent humans. Also to boost me up so I can reach things. If they don’t come, I don’t come.”
Casmir lifted his chin. He also tried to catch Qin’s and Asger’s gazes. If one of them could grab the android and keep him busy, they could charge in and take the shuttlecraft. Whether they’d be able to fool anyone on the cargo ship and gain access to it, Casmir didn’t know, but he wasn’t stepping into the lion’s den without help. All he had was a stunner, a spare oxygen tank, and his tool satchel.
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