by Ella Young
It took the team no time at all to unhook the aquarin from the machines. Knight and Ji could only watch as they wheeled her out of the Rock and towards the makeshift medical shuttle.
"There's two more starless sickness patients here," Ji said. "We should get them as well."
Knight nodded. She crossed into the room directly across from Toshi's and did what she was trained to do, following Ulahim's lead and unhooking every machine. They had unhooked both patients by the time Ulahim and his team returned. As the last two patients were wheeled out of the Rock, Knight wandered around the space, looking for some clue as to what type of research had taken place in this stars-forsaken lab. She found no computer, but did stumble across handwritten notes in a lab notebook not unlike her own.
Knight's brow knit together, and she flipped through the pages, reading about the experiments that had taken place within these walls.
"What's that?" Ji asked.
"Notes," Knight said.
"What do they say?"
Knight shook her head. The details brought bile to her throat, and she wanted nothing more than to rip them to shreds. But Ulahim was right; it would be good to know just what kind of research had taken place here.
"We were right. They created a less deadly strain of the virus so that infected patients didn't die before an antiviral or two could be tested on them. The virus in its natural state works too quickly to allow for much research."
Knight looked up to see a small fridge sitting on a countertop in the pod they were in. In it she saw vials and vials of what she could only assume was this new strain of virus.
"The Remnant has a research facility on Hruna. They'll likely want this," Knight said, crossing the room. A biohazard symbol was emblazoned on the fridge. Ignoring it, she carefully removed a set of vials from the fridge. They would take this back to the ship with them aboard the makeshift medical shuttle. Luminants couldn't fall sick unless the purposefully injected themselves, and the medical team was already in hazmat suits but just to be safe, she scavenged the lab for a secondary container she could seal the vials in. "Let's hope something good can come of this awful place."
Ji grabbed the lab notebook and the two of them made their way to the Rock's exit. They exited in time to see the last patient loaded up onto the shuttle.
"Knight, with us," Ulahim said.
"I'm coming too," Ji said. He looked at her and frowned.
"Medical personnel only—"
"I heal people. Doesn't that count for something?"
Ulahim frowned but ultimately nodded. “Fine." He motioned her inside the shuttle.
Ji looked at Ayla, who was standing a safe distance away.
"I'll find you on the ship," she said. Ayla nodded and gave the thumbs up sign. Then Ji boarded alongside the medical team, and shuttle was off.
The ride to the Remnant ship was tense. The makeshift medical shuttle had been surprisingly well-equipped, but none of the equipment or instrumentation could help the young aquarin or the other two patients. Ji sat on Toshi's bed, staring off into space, one hand over Toshi's. Knight hugged the sealed container holding the vials to her chest and watched the two of them, feeling helpless. Ulahim motioned to the container that she carried.
"What is that?"
Knight glanced down. "I think it's a new strain of starless sickness. We also found a lab notebook. Thought the Hruna facility might like to have it."
Ulahim nodded. "Good thinking," he commended her. Knight smiled halfheartedly. She only hoped it was enough to save Toshi.
When they arrived on the frigate, the three patients were rushed from the shuttle to the medical bay. It was an entire process that required the corridors to be cleared and the immune lamps cranked to maximum. Portable quarantine pods were erected around them. The Remnant ship was not designed with the transport of starless sickness patients in mind. Ji and Knight trailed behind.
"Knight, take the vials and the lab notebook to the ship's lab. It’s been prepared just as the sanctuary has” Ulahim instructed. Knight nodded. This time she knew her way around well enough to lead Ji where they needed to go.
"This way," she told Ji. The two walked hastily through abandoned corridors to the lab at the back of the sanctuary.
The lab was designed with infectious disease in mind. It was a small biomed glass room inside another negative pressure room, with a door leading to a decon chamber that opened up into the lab proper. It was just large enough to allow two scientists to work side-by-side at the bench, and to fit a few pieces of hulking equipment that Knight had no name for. Knight took Ji through the two doors and walked over to the lab fridge, where she stored the vials. Ji set the notebook down on the lab bench and hugged herself.
"What now?" she asked. Knight leaned against a bench, arms crossed. She stared hard at the floor.
"Now we take Toshi to Hruna and hope for a miracle.”
-~-~-~-
Knight and Ji met up with the rest of the humans in the ship's mess hall. It was a slow, silent walk there from the sanctuary. Neither girl had much to say. They had nowhere else to go, and now that Toshi was out of their hands they wandered aimlessly. Eventually they found Ayla, standing by herself at the edges of the crowd.
"How's Toshi doing?" she asked as soon as she saw them. Knight's and Ji's expressions spoke louder than words. Ayla looked down. There was nothing else to say. Ji felt utterly lost, out of place. She hadn't had time to comprehend that she was free, because she didn't feel free. She felt bogged down by emotion, and spent from the day. She didn't know what the next step was. She only knew that, more than likely, Toshi wouldn't be a part of it.
"Knight!" a voice called. Ji turned to see an equina trotting across the mess hall. Knight's face lit up despite the circumstances.
"Hey, Taz," she said. The equina, Taz, stopped beside her.
"Where's Toshi?"
Ji, Knight, and Ayla all wore matching expressions. They were not good. Taz got the message. Xe flattened xer ears against xer neck.
"I'm sorry."
"It's not completely hopeless," Ji said. "We found the notes from the Rock. They might help the researchers on Hruna."
"They might," Taz said, but it was obvious xe didn't believe it. No one in the group did.
Ji couldn't stand it. She felt so useless.
She said as much. "I just wish there was more I could do. What good is this gift if I can't help those who need it most?"
Taz looked at her. "Gift?"
Ji summoned an orb of light. Taz's eyes widened.
"A human has never been Luminant before," Taz noted, tilting xer head at the ball in Ji's hand. Ji closed her fist and the ball vanished.
"Too bad it doesn't help Toshi. I'm an impossibility, but a useless impossibility," Ji sighed. Ayla rubbed her girlfriend's arm.
"You're not useless. Luminants still have their place in the Cradle. It's a gift the Divari have given you for a reason."
A reason…Ji's head suddenly snapped up. She looked from Taz, to Knight, to Ayla. An idea was forming in her mind. What reason would the Divari have for giving a human Luminance? What could she do that other Luminants couldn't?
There had never been another human Luminant before. There had never been a chance for a human Luminant to infect themselves with starless sickness to cure the illness. What if that was her reason? What if that's why she was here?
"I have an idea," Ji said, and she was gone before anyone could stop her, pelting through the ship back to the lab in the sanctuary. The intake desk was empty when she arrived. There was no one there to stop her. Ji raced into the back, following the twists and turns Knight had shown her earlier.
It was a stupid, reckless idea, but it was Toshi's only chance. They needed a miracle, and maybe she was that miracle. That impossibility. She slid to a stop before the lab and let herself into the negative pressure space. She rummaged through the drawers, looking for a syringe. It wouldn't be long before Ayla and the rest caught up with her, and they'd certainly t
ry to stop her.
Ji finally found the syringe she'd been looking for and pulled it from its sterile packaging. Then she raced to the fridge and grabbed a vial of the modified starless sickness virus. With shaking hands, she pulled a few milliliters of the fluid into the syringe.
"Ji, what are you doing?" Ayla's voice carried through the biomed glass. Ji looked up, the syringe poised above the crook of her elbow, to see her girlfriend standing outside the containment unit. Knight and Taz were just behind her. Ayla pressed a hand to the glass, eyes wide with horror. She knew what Ji was doing. And for a moment, Ji paused.
She'd been here before. Not in this time, not in this place, not even under these circumstances. But she'd stood at this precipice many times. It was seeing the starlight glistening off the Pan Ku signumaria. It was feeling the zip shudder as it drifted closer to the Wall. It was a feeling of sureness, of do it now, of yes, recklessness. But it was also a matter of having no other options. Toshi would die without this. No Luminant had ever survived an injection with starless sickness, but then no human had ever been Luminant before. It was a feeling of rightness.
She could see Feng out there now, beside Ayla, shaking his head in bemusement. "You're a botanist, Ji.”
Ji plunged the syringe into her arm.
CHAPTER Fourteen
It didn't take long for the serum to take effect. She remembered Ayla telling her that Luminants experienced symptoms faster and with greater intensity, but she hadn't expected just how fast, or how intense. Even with this strain, manufactured to kill slower, it took only moments for the symptoms to take hold. Within the span of a few heartbeats the world was spinning around Ji, dizzying and blurry. She sagged against the bench, disoriented, suddenly weak. A shuddering cough wracked her body and when she looked down, she saw blood on the bench top. Her mind flashed back to the red-scaled avian all those months back on Arryna, the fear in his eyes. She felt that fear now. She pushed it down as deep as it would go. If she was going to survive this, it wouldn't do to be overwhelmed.
"Ji?" Ayla's voice cut through the fog. "Ji, answer me!"
Ji heard the door to the lab hiss open and she jerked her head up, afraid it was Ayla. Thankfully it was not. Knight was suddenly there by her side, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and pulling her away from the lab bench. Ayla and Taz stood on the other side of the glass, watching in horror. Ayla's face was ashen.
"Come on, this way," Knight said, leading Ji to a pile of blankets she’d spread out by the glass. Ji remembered the avian was a healer and went willingly, though she knew Knight's training wouldn't do her any good. Nothing had any effect on starless sickness. Knight helped Ji lie down on the blankets after which Ji collapsed into another coughing fit. There was blood on the blanket nearest her. Ji reached for it, suddenly cold.
"Here," Knight said, throwing a clean blanket about her shoulders and pulling the dirty one away. Ji felt like she was seven again, shivering under the covering. Knight tried to get her to lie down, but the pressure on her back reminded her too much of the cold wall of Pan Ku's outpost. She sat upright and hugged the blanket tighter.
"No, no, I'm fine," she said.
"Ji, you should lie down—”
"No," Ji said, voice weak but emphatic. It was terrifying how fast the symptoms were growing. The room swam before her. Her eyes searched for Ayla on the other side of the glass, trying to focus. There were four of her that Ji could see. She focused on the one to the far right.
Ayla had her whole body pressed against the glass, one hand reaching for Ji. "Ji, what did you do?"
Ji smiled weakly, hearing Feng in her girlfriend's voice. "Bad science," she said. "But I won't let Toshi die."
"Oh, Ji," Ayla moaned, sinking to the floor. Ji reached out for the glass. She could see her hand trembling.
"Hey, hey," she said. "If anyone is going to survive this, it's going to be me, okay?" Her last words were punctuated with another bout of coughing. She felt a hand rubbing soothing circles on her back—Knight—and leaned into the touch. It felt so good, so relaxing…and suddenly Ji could no longer hold herself upright. She fell sideways, and if Knight hadn't been kneeling there to catch her she might have toppled over to the floor.
Ayla's eyes were glistening with unshed tears when Ji was able to focus again. "You should really lie down, Ji," she said. And this time Ji didn't argue. She curled up on the blankets and allowed Knight to do her job, which consisted mostly of hooking her up to a portable bio monitor kept with the first aid kit beneath one of the lab benches. Ji’s heartbeats were weak and rapid.
"Ayla, there's something I never told you," Ji said feebly. Ayla's fingertips brushed the glass.
"What is it?"
Ji had to catch her breath before she could speak again. She lifted her head, meeting Ayla's eyes. "I should have told you earlier. I love you."
Ayla laughed through her tears. "Yeah, you should have told me earlier. We could have had our dream wedding."
It was the worst attempt at humor Ji had ever heard. She appreciated it all the same. "You're forbidden from trying to be funny," Ji said. She smiled, but it faded fast. Her body was aching now, feverish.
"Tell me a story, Ayla." Ji's voice was barely above a whisper. "You're good at telling stories."
"I don't have anymore," Ayla answered, shaking her head.
"Sure you do," Ji said. She let her eyes drift shut, too tired to keep them open. "Dig deep."
"I have one," Knight said when Ayla shook her head again. Ji’s eyes fluttered open and she looked up at the avian expectantly.
"Go ahead," she said weakly.
Knight shifted from her kneeling position to settle behind Ji and pillowed the sick human’s head on her lap. She stroked the girl’s black hair from her sweaty forehead. “Once…there was a pastoralist. She lived in a small village nestled in the valley between two ancient peaks, and her livestock provided the townspeople with food to eat and clothes to wear. She labored day in and day out for the good of her people. All was well, for a time.
"Unbeknownst to the pastoralist, there lived a beast up in the mountains. He spent his days huddled in a damp cave, envious of the prosperity of the villagers and, more specifically, their caretaker. He coveted the livestock and the warm hearth she sat before. He spent his days plotting, wondering how he could take all she had. And one day, he had an idea.
"He killed a mountain pela and put on its pelt, disguising himself. Then he slunk down the mountainside to the village below. There, he crept into the homes of the townspeople and whispered in their ears as they slept.
"He told them lies about the pastoralist. She was leaving, taking her livestock with her as the cold months came upon them. She was going to let them starve. She cared nothing for their lives. He planted in their minds a fear that their caretaker cared only for herself. And when the sun began to peek over the distant mountains, he returned to his cave.
"When the townspeople awoke, all were paranoid that the pastoralist would disappear one day. They approached her homestead and confronted her. Alarmed, the pastoralist denied that she would be leaving. It was a rumor, a lie. Her explanation did little to ease the fears of the townspeople.
"That very same night the beast returned in his disguise, and once more whispered untruths in their ears. She was lying, she was protecting herself. Once more the townspeople approached the pastoralist, and once more she denied she was leaving.
"On the third night the beast came with a call to action. "Kill her," he said. "Take what is hers and then you will never have to fear again." And for a final time, he returned to his cave. The villagers came together and agreed that, for the sake of their lives and the lives of their children, they had to seize the pastoralist's livestock. The easiest way to do that, they decided, was to kill her.
"The fourth night the villagers did not sleep. They gathered fire and spears and stormed the pastoralist's homestead. The pastoralist heard the noise and roused just in time to see the mob of people descending on her
home. The disguised beast marched with them, unnoticed in his pela skin.
"At first the pastoralist pleaded with them to listen—this was unnecessary, she claimed. She was not a threat. It was then that she saw the beast among them as he truly was, and pointed him out to the villagers. But the riled mob did not listen. They chased her from her home, and she fled up into the mountains, taking shelter in the very cave where the beast had plotted her demise.
"Satisfied that she would not return, the townspeople returned to their village. They sheathed their spears and dimmed their fires, and it was then, as their guard was down, that the beast made himself known. He threw the pela fur from his shoulders and devoured them all, free at last to take the livestock he had coveted for so long.
"The pastoralist watched all this from the cave, and her heart grew heavy. Her life as she knew it had ended. She found herself wishing she had been down in the village, so that her life might have ended with those of her people. But Fate was cruel, and the pastoralist lived on. She wandered the mountains for the rest of her days," Knight finished.
"And?" Ji asked in a hoarse whisper.
Knight tilted her head. "And what?"
"What's the happy ending?"
"There isn't one," Knight said.