The Lion and the Lizard

by Brindle, Nathan C.

  "Got it, John," came his friend's voice from the intercom. Wolff watched the station move away through the hatch window.

  "Okay, Ari, can you reach the inner hatch wheel?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Go ahead and drop the dogs."

  She spun the wheel and the inner hatch dogs dropped out. Then she swung the inner hatch into the cabin. "I'll take the child?"

  "Go. Put her in a bunk." He reached down and picked up the mother, who was also terribly light for someone of her height and (he assumed) age. The hijab fell away from her head, and he saw her face clearly for the first time. She was fairly young, and beautiful . . . except for an old scar that ran diagonally across her face.

  His visage hardened. "Someone is going to pay dearly for this," he growled.

  "Dad?"

  "Nothing." He carried her out of the airlock, and found Ariela had placed Naira in the nearest lower bunk. He lifted the mother . . . Prisha, he remembered . . . into the bunk above her daughter. "What do you need?"

  "A couple of I.V. bags of potassium iodide solution. I.V. hose and needles; cannulas if you have them, by preference."

  "Look in the emergency med kit, that drawer, there, under the bottom bunk."

  She pulled the drawer open and looked in the kit. "Wow. You really planned ahead."

  "In space, you have to. Even we need potassium iodide, in some cases."

  "Oh, and that reminds me. I doubt these two have nanos?"

  "Probably not. We have some. Tell me or Chris when you're ready for them."

  "Will do." She got to work.

  Wolff grabbed another cola out of the fridge, then returned forward and slid into his seat. "I heard you growl," said von Barronov, mildly. "Who are we killing today?"

  "Some son of a bitch marked her," Wolff grated, "she's got a scar across her face you will not believe. If I had a frigate here, I'd hit them with Rods on general principle."

  "And when you cool off a little," said his friend, "you'll remember we can't do that."

  "I know we can't. It doesn't make it any easier to take."

  "Good thing Ari's along."

  "Yeah. Makes me wonder if this is part of why the Simulation said to bring her."

  Von Barronov chuckled. "It knows more about what's likely to happen in this line than we do. But this was probably coincidence. And for all we know, it happened because Ari was along, not the other way around."

  "There's a bigger picture we're missing, though," sighed Wolff. He looked aft, to see if Ariela was still working on the two refugees, and she was. "I wonder how much the mother, Prisha, knows about it."

  "I can hear you," said Ariela, still working on rigging the I.V. bag holder for Prisha. "She's awake, I can ask her."

  "No, let her rest."

  Ariela cocked her head, listening to something Prisha said. After a moment, she looked forward. "She said she has a data chip in her pocket that her husband – sorry? Oh. Her friend, did you say owner? Wow. That her owner gave her to give to whoever picked her up." She listened again, and nodded. "He was one of the engineers on the project . . . sorry, again? What? Really? He sent her and Naira away with the information because Naira is old enough to be sold on." She looked puzzled. "What does that mean?"

  "It's a euphemism for being sold away into slavery, probably into prostitution," replied Wolff, heavily. "Prisha likely would never have seen Naira again."

  "Oh," said Ariela, tonelessly.

  She went back to work on Prisha. Wolff and von Barronov exchanged glances.

  "Let her get them stabilized," advised von Barronov, "then we'll discuss what happens next."

  "Yeah. I don't know if we go on or go back first. We'll see what Ari says."

  Chapter 5

  Signs and Countersigns

  "Ari says, they need a major hospital ICU, at minimum sickbay on a frigate," was Ariela's report. "Indications are, they both received prompt radiation in excess of 5 Sieverts. That's a touch-and-go fatal dose if they don't get more attention within a few hours than I can give them here."

  "Even with nanos?"

  "Yes, even with nanos. Nanos can work only so fast." Ariela brushed her hair back, absently, thinking. "We probably need to develop smaller nanos, specialized for this sort of scrubbing and repair, with which we could actually flood the bloodstream, but that's clearly not a project for today."

  "No," agreed Wolff.

  "We could rotate directly back to Earth," noted von Barronov, "it's not like the hop to Alpha had to be part of the itinerary, we just wanted to show Ari the system. So we could rotate home, drop off the patients, and rotate right back here and pick up where we left off."

  "At the same time," mused Wolff, "I think it would be wise for a frigate to come out here and start doing some intensive survey work, just to find out what the RIFs have been up to that we're currently unaware of. But that would take every bit of four days at Warp 5, and we don't have days, we have hours."

  Wolff's comm buzzed. He sighed, pulled it out of his pocket, and looked at the screen.

  "Shit. That would work."

  "What?" asked von Barronov.

  "The Simulation just offered to contact Buford . . . and it says they never removed the rotation mods from Constellation. Fucking Buford." He looked exasperated. "I told him he had to do that if he wanted the tech to remain secret."

  He typed: Send Buford a message as follows. Request you send Constellation via fastest means to Sanddoom; rendezvous with RV Frumious Bandersnatch at the terminal station. Need sickbay prepped for two female patients, one adult, one child, each having received 5 Sv prompt radiation within past hour. 2LT DR Wolff, A.R., currently attending with minimal support. Also need technical team with latest orbital scanning suite to investigate certain below-ground issues on Sanddoom. We're not sure if the moon is out tonight. Message ends.

  OBFUSCATION IS UNNECESSARY BREAK

  Trying to make Buford comfortable.

  UNDERSTOOD BREAK MESSAGE SENT BREAK

  "Okay, I just sent Buford a message via the Simulation to get Constellation out here ASAP, with sickbay prepped for two radiation sickness patients, and a team equipped to do some deep ground scans." Wolff set the comm down on his console. "Let's see how long it takes—"

  The comm buzzed. Wolff picked it up.

  "Not sure if it's cloudy or bright," he read, "but Constellation only has eyes for you, and will be on her way, pirouetting, within the hour. Buford."

  Von Barronov chuckled. "Sent him a sign for a countersign, did you?"

  "Well," Wolff sighed, "given we've been played before, yeah, I did."

  SORRY WILL NOT DO AGAIN BREAK

  "In the meantime," said Ariela, "I can do nothing else for them, other than ensure they stay hydrated, and we need to get something in their stomachs if they can keep it down. I'd like to give them nanos, too, but I'm afraid to do that with Naira. Prisha says she is thirteen going on fourteen, so she is really not old enough, yet."

  "So tiny," said Wolff, "and yet, old enough to be sold for the pleasure of men. Some days I really want to spit on my hands and hoist the black flag."

  "Can't say I don't agree," agreed von Barronov.

  Ariela looked at them quizzically. "And then what?"

  They looked at her. "Honey, your education is sorely lacking in certain areas," Wolff told her.

  "Then we start slitting throats," von Barronov finished the quote. Ariela blanched.

  "What?"

  "H. L. Mencken, fin de siècle Baltimore journalist and editor," replied Wolff. "The full quote is 'Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.'"

  "Whoa." Ariela thought that over for a moment. "That must be why Dad has a skull and crossbones flag hanging in his office. He takes it out and flies it every year on 9/11, right underneath the American flag."

  Both men broke out in grins. "We should do that," said von Barronov.

  "Oh, hells yes," agreed Wolff.

&nbs
p; "Which does not answer my original basic and implied question," said Ariela, somewhat impatiently. "Do I give the girl nanos, or not?"

  Wolff and von Barronov traded glances. "We're technicians," said Wolff. "We can't give you a second opinion on something like that. But," he raised a finger as Ariela started to protest, "in this case, from a strictly moral and ethical standpoint, I think you have to give them to her."

  Von Barronov nodded agreement. "We can always remove them if they become a problem, but the rule that kids don't get them till they're 18 is not actually a medical rule, it's a medical guideline recommended by most pediatric medical personnel, because in most cases it makes perfect sense to wait and let the child's body develop on its own."

  "Okay," nodded Ariela, "then you will back me up when I make my report to the medical authorities."

  "Absolutely," said Wolff. "I can even give you a written order to do so, if you want one, but I don't really have the authority, even as the lawful commanding officer of this quasi-naval vessel, in space and under way, to order medical personnel around. Same problem LaForrest had when you were under medical care aboard Constellation. But I think we can argue medical exigency, if it comes to that. And before you ask, yes, Nurse Karen was transferred groundside, and Dr. Toledano was sacked clear out of the service, so neither of them will be aboard Constellation when she arrives."

  Ariela, with a relieved look on her face, spun around and dashed back to the bunking area. "Where are the nanos?" she asked as she ran.

  "There are vials in the next drawer to the left, I believe on the left side, underneath a lift-out tray of other items," von Barronov called back. "They're v3, if it makes a difference from what you're used to."

  "If Prisha weighs a hundred pounds, I'd be surprised," Wolff added. "Probably closer to ninety. The girl, Naira, she probably weighs about forty pounds. They're both about half starved, in my opinion, and if Naira really is almost 14, she's seriously underdeveloped even given she's half-Chinese."

  "Not surprising," shouted Ariela, as she rooted around in the other drawer, "since they were slaves. Got 'em!" she crowed, holding up two marked vials. "I can upgrade these to v4 from my holotab, doesn't make any difference in the dose."

  "Bottled water in the fridge."

  "Nope, gonna do these through the injection ports in their I.V. lines. Just need a big enough hypo and needle . . . ah, there . . . I've got this, you guys go on and keep making your devious and nefarious plans." She broke the seals on the equipment and started filling the hypo from the tubes.

  "When you get a minute, please bring us the data chip from Prisha's pocket."

  "Will do."

  "I wonder how many times they ran that thing," mused von Barronov.

  "The transport portal? Who knows. Hopefully only rarely, if this is the result," Wolff replied. "We've never looked at doing something like that because of the proximity of the singularities to whatever is being transported. I'm not even sure how to avoid irradiating the payload. In the drive, the singularity generator is shielded, of course, but it projects them away from the ship for motive power, and the ship itself is shielded. Not knowing how they put this thing together, we can only assume they generated singularities next to the payload platform and modulated them for the desired displacement vortex to form."

  "They could shield the payload in a hullmetal container."

  "Sure. Expensive, but maybe for some payloads, cost is no object."

  "And one assumes the container would be reusable."

  "Okay . . . so making these assumptions, is it your read that the thing isn't really safe for humans? Short of humans making transport in hullmetal coffins, or in hullmetal suits."

  "Hmm. I was about to say the only way to send a human with it would be in some sort of life-support container for shielding." Von Barronov shrugged. "Of course, a dead human could simply be shipped in a standard shipping container, again, as long as it was shielded."

  "What about a human in some sort of stasis, like a medically-induced coma or in cryosleep?"

  Von Barronov sat up straight in his seat. "Wait a minute. Are you saying they're planning an escape of some sort from the planet of no escape?"

  It was Wolff's turn to shrug. "I'm just brainstorming. I don't know what the hell they're planning to use it for. Just like I don't know how the hell they developed the technology to build it in the first place."

  Ariela returned forward. "Here is the data chip," she said, handing it to Wolff. "Prisha is about half-incoherent and babbling, but when I checked her pocket, she said something about "remember, my husband, he was Chinese."

  Wolff looked at the chip in his hand. "Wonder what that was in aid of. Or was she just babbling, like you say? It's clear Naira's father was Chinese, or some sort of East Asian nationality. Did she think we'd miss that?"

  "I don't know," said Ariela, "but I do know that frigate needs to move its ass. Even with the nanos starting to work, they're fading. Too much malnutrition, very frail to start with, and they can barely keep water down, let alone food. By the way, Prisha also had this in her other pocket." She handed Wolff a bloodied, makeshift knife. She'd wrapped the sticky handle in a piece of gauze, more to keep the blood off her own hands than to preserve it for later forensics. He examined it.

  "A shiv, used, probably on her way to the portal," he said. "If I were investigating this as a murder, I'd want to know where she got it, but we're talking about RIFs, so I don't really care. Gives me an idea of her level of determination, though. From the few words we exchanged in the airlock, she sounds educated – she's read Lewis Carroll, and has a markedly upper-class British accent, like she learned English at a high-caste school, and/or belonged to a high-caste Indian family – and I have to wonder how she ended up on Sanddoom with a Chinese husband and a half-Chinese daughter, and as a slave, amid a bunch of RIFs. Despite the hijabs, I'll bet copious coin neither she nor Naira are Muslims."

  "No bet here," said Ariela. "Prisha's wearing an Om pendant under her jumpsuit. Gold, with diamonds, which I found odd given her apparent status. I've not looked that closely at Naira yet; Prisha is really in a bad way, much worse then the girl. I have a feeling she caught most of the rads."

  "Well, Buford said the ship was on its way within the hour, so I'd expect it any time."

  His comm buzzed. He picked it up.

  FRIGATE IS PULLING AWAY FROM BERTH BREAK

  "It's nice to have instant communication," he said. "The Simulation says Constellation is flying free and getting into position to break orbit. They'll have to go hide behind Venus or something before they rotate, but that won't take long. He might kick it at Warp 1 if he's in a hurry."

  CAPTAIN IS AWARE WE ARE TALKING BREAK SAYS HE WILL BE THERE IN FIVE MINUTES BREAK

  Wolff looked at Ariela. "Five minutes, Lieutenant," he said.

  "Aye, aye, Major," she replied, saluting, then turned and hurried back to her patients.

  Wolff reached over and dropped the data chip into von Barronov's hand. "Make us a copy of that, will you?"

  "Yep. Going to give the original to Buford?"

  "Yep, well, more or less; I'll give it to LaForrest to give to him. It really needs to go to Intelligence, and Buford will get it to the right person in Intelligence. But that doesn't stop me from being curious."

  "Or me. I'll get it back to you in a few moments."

  "Okay. I'm going aft to operate the airlock."

  "I've got the conn."

  "Okay." Wolff left the shiv on the control panel for the moment, levered himself out of the chair, and walked aft, glancing idly at what Ariela was doing as he went past and opened the inner airlock hatch. He saw the Halligan tool still lying on the deck, and picked it up, securing it back into its wall clamps. "We were in a bit of a hurry," he grunted, to himself. Looking down to make sure there wasn't any more FOD lying around, he spied something twinkling brightly in the high-intensity lighting of the airlock.

  "What the fuck is that? More jewelry?"

  He knel
t down again, and tried to pick whatever it was up, but it was too small for him to get his fingers on it. Thinking quickly, he cast his gaze around the airlock, and ended up seeing a roll of duct tape hanging from the tool rack. "Perfect," he said, reaching over and grabbing the roll. He tore off a short strip, applied it to the floor, then lifted it and turned it over. "Huh," he said, and folded the tape over so as not to lose its contents, then put it in his pocket.

  He got up again, and stuck his head out into the cabin. "Ari, check the bottoms of their slippers if you would. See if you find anything interesting stuck in them."

  "Aye, aye." She looked first at Naira's slippers, since she was working on Naira at the moment, but saw nothing out of the ordinary; a little dirt and oil, possibly, but that would not be odd for someone who'd been walking through a freight terminal, even in space. She rose, and turned her attention to Prisha's feet.

  "What's this?" she murmured. She reached into the first aid kit lying open on Prisha's bunk, and picked up a set of tweezers. Using the tweezers carefully, she extracted something that looked like a piece of broken glass from the sole of the woman's slipper. Looking in the first aid kit again, she saw a small plastic tube with a stopper, and picked that up, pulled the stopper with her teeth, and dropped the little piece of debris into the tube. She then set the tweezers down and re-stoppered the tube.

  "Found what looks like a little piece of broken glass," she said.

  Wolff came out of the airlock and took the tube she handed him. "Hmm."

  "What do you think it is?"

  "Can't say for sure right now, but I'll give you a WAG and say it looks a lot like a piece of uncut diamond. As does the piece I have in my pocket wrapped in a piece of duct tape."

  "Another fucking mystery," said his daughter, with a sniff, and resumed packing things away.

  "Yes," said Wolff, absently. "It is another mystery, indeed."

  "Constellation just rotated in, same orbit, about five miles ahead of us," called von Barronov. "Communications says Captain LaForrest's compliments and he would like us to adjust orbit and rendezvous with them so we can dock, rather than sending a drop ship to meet us. He will have medical teams at the berth . . . wants us to latch on at Berth One."