Contagion

by David Ryker

  “We will go in by twos,” I told the candidates. “Each candidate will be followed by either General R’kk’kar, myself, or Major Li. The rest hang back. You can practice long range shooting and maneuvers in open space while you wait your turn.”

  I hoped I could get them through okay. These fighters were plenty tough, but even they couldn’t withstand some of those meteors. More personally, I hoped my heart didn’t act up. It hadn’t last time, and that had surprised me. Maybe I was recovering better than Dr. Stark let on. Maybe he exaggerated my condition to get me to go easy.

  If he was, it sure as hell wasn’t working. Within a few minutes I was fighting for my life, and for the life of the poor sap flying in front of me, as we fired and dodged our way through a nightmare of meteors.

  14

  All of our candidates lived, none of the fighters were wrecked beyond what they could repair themselves, and I didn’t have a heart attack, so all in all I considered the day a success.

  As for finding decent recruits for the Nansen’s new cadre of fighter pilots, well, that didn’t go so well.

  Iliescu’s plant failed miserably, as expected. I had to get him through it personally. He had better have retrieved some good intel after all the trouble I went through for him. The shy shuttle pilot was the second worst. Judging from his file he was damn good at his job, he just didn’t have the makings of a warrior. The other shuttle pilot passed, as did Avram and Mabaso. Qiang, of course, passed with flying colors.

  That only made five, including me. I could not in good conscience recommend any of the others to serve in combat.

  The mood was mixed in the fighter bay when we returned. Some of them knew they had flunked. The engineering spy didn’t care and the timid shuttle pilot looked like he had just been handed a surprise birthday present. The others who I had to tell to return to their posts replied with a mixture of disappointment and poorly hidden relief.

  Mabaso was over the moon. When I emerged from my fighter, he was hugging Qiang and talking a mile a minute about how awesome the fighters were, while Qiang talked a mile a minute about the same thing. R’kk’kar stood a little apart, watching the two as his translator tried to keep up with their conversation.

  After I got out, the Dri’kai general strode over to me.

  “Some of your pilots did well, my friend and comrade in arms,” he said.

  Happiness rushed through me to hear that we were back on familiar terms. I liked this guy, even if he was an exhibitionist hermaphrodite whose people had almost killed me. Hey, I’m open-minded that way.

  Besides, he was a fellow warrior and we both were about to have our backs to the wall as we faced a foe way tougher than us. That counted for a hell of a lot.

  The drinks at the bar broke any remaining ice. R’kk’kar and Mabaso got along great, each boasting of their feats in battle. R’kk’kar didn’t seem to mind Mabaso’s stories of fighting the Dri’kai. In fact, he’d heard some already thanks to some survivors. The Dri’kai thought it worthy to fight against a tough foe, regardless of whether they won or not. They always claimed to win, though. Mabaso caught on to that, but except for an amused glance in my direction, he didn’t contradict the general.

  R’kk’kar hadn’t actually been in any of the battles with us, which might have helped his attitude. He did tell us about all sorts of fights he’d had with various races I’d never heard of. I made a lot of mental notes. I could tell Qiang was doing the same. He sat there quietly sipping his drink, only participating in the conversation when addressed.

  One question was still troubling me, and I knew it was troubling everyone else in the crew.

  I decided to clear it up. If we were going to fight side by side, I needed to know.

  “We first got to fighting because we saw one of your ships dropping nuclear bombs on the Aurigan planet. Why were you wiping them out?”

  R’kk’kar looked surprised, at least I thought so. I was still trying to decode alien expressions. His face being half covered by a respirator didn’t help.

  “They were infected with the parasite, of course.”

  “Well, yes. But they were stuck on the planet. They couldn’t spread the parasite. Was it revenge for their attacking one of your shore parties?”

  “They did attack a shore party, that is true, but none of that party got infected. They gunned down the natives and withdrew to their shuttle unharmed. We sent out a warning code that the planet had been infected. That’s the code we sent you when you appeared. A pity you did not understand it.”

  I remembered the electronic code they had sent as we swooped down on them. We had figured out, too late, that that’s what they had been trying to communicate. And they had figured out, too late, that we didn’t understand them. We got the drop on them, sent out a massive first volley, and ended up winning that battle. Barely.

  “But why nuke the planet?” I asked. “You had sent out a quarantine code. You could have put up a beacon. Everyone was safe.”

  Now I could tell R’kk’kar was confused. He stared at me for a moment, asked his translator to repeat my last sentence, and then said,

  “But the Aurigans weren’t safe.”

  Mabaso, Qiang, and I glanced at each other.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “They were infected. We couldn’t just leave them like that.”

  I chose my next words carefully. “So, because they had been infected, you decided to put them out of their misery.”

  “Of course. We are warriors with honor. It is a sad thing to obliterate entire villages. But what else could we do?”

  “Well, we have a cure now. Sending out ultra low frequency waves across the entire planet will be an enormous engineering project, but we have a man aboard the Nansen who can figure it out.”

  Mabaso gave a mechanical thumbs-up. “That guy can do anything.”

  R’kk’kar stared. “You’d let them live? After being infected like that?”

  I paused. “I think it should be their choice. Once cured, they will realize what had happened and they can kill themselves if they choose to.”

  R’kk’kar took a sip of his drink and thought for a moment. “I hope they do. The Subines and the Vrimjlens and all the rest acted as if it was just some common disease, and allowed those individuals to go back to work as if nothing had happened. I’m glad the humans were more charitable. The Dri’kai don’t want to be the only honorable race in the galaxy.”

  I leaned back in my chair, feeling like I should say something but at a complete loss for words. Qiang and Mabaso busied themselves with their drinks, equally baffled.

  So the Dri’kai we saved from the parasite had been killed by their own kind. And the genocide they tried to unleash on the Aurigans had been something they thought of as an act of charity.

  I’d been fooled by appearances. The familiar tech, the physical similarities, the parallel social practices, all of this had lulled me into thinking that we were dealing with weird-looking human beings from another planet. We were not. They were fundamentally different than us, and I needed to remember that.

  Back on the Nansen, we got a whole load of additional intel.

  Iliescu had called a command meeting, and had brought along the engineer he had sent aboard the Dri’kai fighter. Ensign Macallan looked overwhelmed at seeing all of the high command sitting around the table staring at him, but at Iliescu’s urging he spoke up.

  And he didn’t mince words.

  “Those fighters aren’t Dri’kai technology.”

  I cocked my head. “Really? Then whose technology are they?”

  “I’ve had a chance to study the various ships docked at the station, and I got a close look at a lot of the tech in the space station, which we’ve been told was built communally by several races. The fighters we’ve been flying are not the product of any of those races.”

  “And how do you know that?”

  “Technology runs along certain designs, certain basic principles. Now we’ve a
ll noted that alien tech is broadly similar to our own, since it has to overcome the same basic problems. Airlocks, for example. There’s really only one good way to make those—a pair of doors and an atmospheric cycling system. That’s why when we first approached an alien space station we could immediately figure out which openings were airlocks. The same with weapons technology—dense projectiles at high velocity, or explosives. Those are the two best ways to destroy an enemy and that’s what we see, time and again with each of these races. The Centaurians, well, they seem to be a breed apart. Those curtains of energy are something we’re still trying to identify. The fighter I flew was also a breed apart. Not as different as the Centaurian technology, but certainly not something built by any of the races we’ve met.”

  “But the Dri’kai said they built it,” Dr. Stark said.

  “The Dri’kai are a race of boasters,” I replied. “They insist they defeated us in battle.”

  Foyle snorted. He’d been silent for this conversation and the long regular meeting we had held before Macallan had joined us, an uncomfortable gap in the conversation that we’d all been trying to ignore. There was a pause as we waited to see if he’d say anything. When he didn’t, the ensign went on.

  “There were some aspects of the fighter design that made me wonder. The adjustable cockpit would be doable, but why would any race bother when all the other races can make their own ships? And the Dri’kai seem like the last species in the galaxy to make fighters that can be used by anybody. Plus there was that strange material. It’s almost organic. I wish I could have taken a sample. I asked the computer what it was and it told me I was not authorized to know. I asked if General R’kk’kar or anyone else on the station was authorized, and it said no.”

  “It said the same thing to me when I asked it a question,” I said.

  Ensign Macallan looked around the table. “So the question is, who built those fighters? And how did the Dri’kai get them?”

  Commander Loftsdóttir spoke. “Thank you, Ensign Macallan. That will be all.”

  The ensign rose, saluted, and left.

  After the door closed behind him, Barakat said, “Our new allies are not being completely forthcoming with us.”

  “No they are not,” the commander agreed. “Perhaps we’ll find out more later. In the meantime, we’ll play along. Commander Ayers, train those pilots hard, and see if you can find some recruits among the colonists who we can wake up. The more of those fighters we have under our control, the better. Drs. Sanchez and Iliescu, double down on your teams and find out all you can from that encyclopedia and star map. And keep scanning the space station and any ships coming and going without being too obvious about it. We need to know as much as we can about our new allies, especially now that we know there’s some hidden hand behind all this.”

  She turned to me.

  “Commander Ayers, how is your physical condition?”

  I groaned inwardly. I hated it when they brought up my heart condition. They all knew, because Dr. Stark had told them all about it “for the good of ship’s operations.”

  “I’m fine,” I replied.

  “No problems when flying through that broken moon? That must have been stressful.”

  “None at all. It’s actually a bit surprising, but I didn’t feel any physical symptoms at all. No faintness, no arrhythmia, nothing.”

  The commander turned to Dr. Stark for confirmation.

  “His heart monitor couldn’t transmit all the way to the Nansen but I checked him out both times after his return. He’s doing well.”

  Well, that was some good news at least.

  It didn’t stay good news, though.

  15

  It got weird that very night.

  Valeria came over, and after putting my heart through its paces we settled down for my second favorite part of sex—relaxing naked and entwined together, all warm and sweaty after the act. The lights were down low and some smooth jazz was playing.

  Not on my sound system, but on the public announcement system. It was the least annoying of the many bugs the Biospherist hackers had inadvertently put in the computer system.

  “For a man with a heart condition, you certainly turned out to be fit,” she said, kissing me.

  “You and the nanites kept me going,” I said, kissing her back.

  I wondered if Dr. Stark had picked up our activity on my heart monitor. No doubt he had been taking notes, the pervert.

  I stroked her hair and stared up at the ceiling. This was a good moment. I didn’t get many of those. I had learned to appreciate them.

  “So what do you think Terra Nova will be like?” she asked.

  She’d gotten into the habit of talking about the future. Not in a way that trapped me into being part of hers, she was far too subtle for that, but just in general. I figured it was her way of coping with stress.

  Sex was another good way. I hoped her job continued to be stressful.

  “Well, you’re the scientist, you know better than me.”

  She snuggled closer. “I don’t mean the basic data—oxygen and nitrogen rich atmosphere, forty percent covered with water, 1.1 Earth gravity. I mean what’s it going to be like?”

  I thought for a minute.

  “A relief, at first, then a lot of hard work. I suppose we’ll set up a town, although some people will want to strike out on their own, build farms. Maybe those small seas the space telescopes detected will be good for fishing. We’ll scout out for minerals and fossil fuels too.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “I hope we don’t do that too much. We should stick to renewables.”

  “We will as much as we can.”

  “We have to do it right this time,” she said. “I guess I’ll be leading the exploration of the planet. Once that’s done I’d like to establish a university. And you?”

  “Nothing so lofty. I’d just like to rest.” Knowing that was a bullshit answer no matter how much I wanted it to be the truth, I added, “I guess I’ll be town marshal or something. The commander won’t let me resign for a while, not until things are settled. Then maybe I’ll open a little bar on the shore of one of those little seas and fish in my spare time.”

  “You could have anything and that’s all you want?”

  “All I want is peace,” I said with more heat than I intended.

  She gave me a pacifying kiss on the cheek. “And all I want is another drink. Go fetch me one and let me ogle you.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  I rolled out of bed and sat up. I felt Valeria’s finger touch my back, just below my left shoulder.

  “What are those?”

  “What are what?”

  “You have two little red spots right here and here. They look like hypo marks.”

  “Really?”

  “Well, they could be insect bites, but where could you have gotten them?”

  “No idea. Anyway, let me get you that drink.”

  “Hold on, let me look at these in the light.” She pulled me into the bathroom and made me turn around.

  “Yes. Definitely hypos.”

  “They can’t be. No one has injected me except the doctor, and he does that on my arm.”

  I was looking over my shoulder at my reflection in the mirror. I could see what she meant—two tiny red dots just below my shoulder blade. I couldn’t see anything more than that, but I could see her. She was still nude.

  “Beautiful,” I said.

  “Odd is more like it,” she replied. “A bit worrying too.”

  “You shouldn’t talk about yourself like that. You’ve gone far in life. You should have a better self image.”

  “What? Oh.” She smacked me lightly on the butt. “Stop fooling around. This is serious.”

  “I feel fine. I must have scraped myself or something.”

  “These are not scrapes, these are injections. We’re going to Medical.”

  Oh crap, face Dr. Spy right after he saw my heart get a sex workout? That would be kind of embarrassing.<
br />
  But Valeria wouldn’t be stopped. We washed, dressed, and headed down to Medical. Dr. Stark was still up. Everyone who was anyone on this ship kept long hours.

  He had me take my shirt off and studied the dots for a minute. Then he scanned them.

  “Yes, these are injections, made by an extremely fine hypo in a not particularly sensitive area of the body. I’m not surprised you didn’t feel them.”

  Now I was getting worried. “Who could have done that?”

  Dr. Stark looked me in the eye. “You don’t know?”

  “Of course not. Oh, you’re thinking I’m a junkie? My heart would have checked out by now. Besides, that would be an awkward way to take it.”

  “I must examine every possibility.”

  “I’m not taking anything.”

  Dr. Stark shrugged like he had never thought I was. “Then we have a mystery on our hands.”

  He ran some tests. Valeria and I waited. He came back after about an hour, more confused than before.

  “Your blood shows traces of an unknown compound.”

  “What is it?” I blurted. Dumb question, I know. He just told me it was an “unknown compound.”

  “We’ll need to run some more tests, reconstruct it and try it out in some simulations. We’ll get back to you.”

  “What do I do until then?”

  “Work as you normally have. You don’t seem to have had any ill effects. You have no recollection of getting an injection? Or any situation where someone could have done this to you?”

  “You said I might not have felt it. In that case, it could have been done at any time.”

  “Could one of the aliens have done this?” Valeria asked.

  Dr. Stark nodded, moving to a chemical synthesizer and getting to work.

  We waited. When no answer was forthcoming, we gave each other a worried glance and left.

  Early the next morning, I got called to the commander’s office. Dr. Stark was there and, to my surprise, Dr. Matteo Conti, a biologist who got caught in the crossfire during my first gunfight with the Biospherists and took some damage to the spine from a stray flechette. One of my stray flechettes. He sat in an electric wheelchair. A pang of guilt wrenched my gut like it did every time I saw him.