Honor Bound

by Rachel Caine

  Now I just had to kick some Phage ass.

  I walked up to the thin membrane and pressed on it. A slit formed, and I squeezed through. It snapped shut behind me.

  As I pushed through into the second chamber, though, there was no way to mistake it. The suit’s warnings went off, lights in my vision blinking, tones sounding, and I could smell whatever was in here. Filtered down enough, I assumed, that it wouldn’t melt me inside the suit, but it burned my nose and mouth, and made my eyes water. Not good. I needed all my alertness on my surroundings right now. I blinked the pain away, shoved it aside, and took stock of what I was seeing.

  Bioluminescence shimmered in the walls, providing me with a dim half-light; I wanted to turn it up, but every lumen of it was costing Nadim core energy. I let it stay as it was. The chamber was a big vaulting place, with organic, arching ribbing veining the walls and jutting out like the supports of old cathedrals back home. It was filled with a thick, yellow haze. It drifted down in lazy curtains, and I couldn’t see far.

  I used the bond to avoid opening my mouth. Nadim. Where? I saw the overlay of where I stood with where he had detected the movement and moved right, around a thick column that spread out thinner filaments like branches, anchored up toward the dim ceiling. He guided me with a pulse of light along the wall.

  Ahead, I saw a red pulse flash. I couldn’t see what was there. The yellow mist hid it.

  I readied my gun. Can you clear the mist? Just for a second?

  Something like a breeze stirred through the room. The mist lessened, and . . . I saw it.

  The Phage lay on its side, leaking fluids onto the floor. Its chitinous limbs moved slowly. It looked like a repulsive, deadly monster, but at least it was dying.

  Not slow enough. I got braced to shoot, looking for a good target.

  A voice, processed and weird through my translators, said, “No.”

  I froze. “Bea? Bea, did you say that?”

  Bea, on comms, said, “Say what? Zara? Are you all right? What’s happening?”

  “Hold,” I said. “Nadim. Did you hear it?”

  “Yes,” he said. “But I don’t know what it is.”

  I could end this with one easy pull of the trigger. Drill a shot right through that ugly, horror-show head. All my instincts told me to do it, now, before it hurt Nadim or worse.

  “No,” it said again. “Please.”

  It was the please that made me shudder. No could have been a glitch, the translator accidentally interpreting random noise wrong. But not please.

  Please had meaning. Awareness of individual danger.

  Please was a plea for mercy.

  Most of me wanted to kill this thing. About 90 percent, maybe 95.

  I didn’t shoot. Didn’t put the gun away, though. “Give me a reason not to.”

  “Can help,” the Phage said. The words came through strangely accented, but they were words. Had meaning. “Please not kill me.”

  I felt sick and short of breath suddenly and drew in a burning breath that made me sicker. The warning light in my suit was blinking faster. Tones sounded louder. Shit. I was losing suit integrity in here.

  “Dying,” the Phage said. “Can help you. Want to.”

  It was bad enough that the monsters I’d thought were as smart as hammers could talk. Now it was begging for its life.

  And offering me something of value.

  “How many others made it in here?” I asked. My throat felt like I’d gargled burning lighter fluid. I swallowed. Tasted a trace of blood.

  “None,” it said. “Please. Help.”

  I chose mercy.

  Chao-Xing had said, Find us a weakness. And here it was. Where the other Phage had no regard for their own existence, this one cared enough about its own life to beg for it. I pulled it out of the toxic gas, past the organic airlock, where Bea and Starcurrent were waiting with weapons.

  “Stay back,” I said.

  They both started to bombard me with questions, but there was no time. The Phage cell felt oddly light and fragile as I hauled it, leaving a green-gray blood trail. If I didn’t act fast, this thing wouldn’t survive long enough to fulfill its offer of help. Starcurrent lent me some tentacles and we got the creature to medical quickly after that.

  EMITU rolled out of its docking station and leaned toward the Phage. “I’m a med unit, but this is not a patient, Honor Cole. Do you want to put it out of its misery?”

  “I brought you your biggest challenge yet. Scan it. And save it.”

  Starcurrent and I plopped the patient in the treatment bed, though the Phage cell didn’t quite fit. I backed off and gave EMITU some room; the autodoc did some stuff that looked inventively dangerous, but the intruder did stop bleeding. From where I was standing, EMITU seemed to be using chemicals instead of medicine—at least in human terms—but then again, I didn’t even know if the Phage was a carbon-based life-form.

  Don’t care if it dies, I told myself. Better if it does.

  “Zara, be careful.” Bea was still near the doorway, weapon cocked and locked. Girl was tense. Didn’t blame her. This had been a hell of a day. “I don’t like this.”

  “Look, the thing spoke. You ever talked to the Phage before?” It was a rhetorical question, and when they didn’t answer, I went on, “This thing’s an anomaly. It claims it can help us, and at this point, we need to take any advantage we can get.”

  “But . . .” Bea swallowed her protest. “I can see that you’re dead set on this. Let’s set up containment.”

  That was a damn clever idea. I hadn’t thought about what would come next, but I should have. I was tired, scraped raw, exhausted . . . and so were we all. Nadim most of all. I needed to consider his safety first.

  Maybe Bea and Starcurrent were right. Maybe this was a trick. We knew jack shit about the Phage, so maybe they were evolving, and this one was trying to work a con. Like, if we accepted it as an ally, it would split into two and then four, and soon we’d be overrun and infested from the inside. I couldn’t take my eyes off this thing for a minute.

  “Nadim,” I started. “Ask Typhon if he’s ever heard of—”

  The Phage in the treatment chair started shuddering as EMITU did something to it. Shit, it might die anyway. Somehow, failing to save something felt completely different from choosing to kill it. White froth bubbled from the Phage’s mandible, and then EMITU said, “Well, that’s not a good sign.”

  “That’s not what we want to hear!”

  “I’m working on it, Honor Cole. These things don’t come with a manual.”

  A few moments later, the seizure and foaming had stopped. For a few long seconds, I thought it was dead . . . but the readouts showed life in it yet. EMITU said, “Huh. That shouldn’t have worked.” I let out a sigh. I still couldn’t stand looking directly at the thing, but it was hard to call it a monster when it had enough self to beg for mercy. Seeing someone, anyone at their most desperate gave them a reality that was hard to shake.

  The Phage was unconscious for a while. Bea and Starcurrent eventually left to consult with the others, leaving me on watch. The medbay was probably the best for containment, so I stayed, conscious of the needles of Nadim’s discomfort. I’d tried to open a channel to talk about my decision to spare this creature, but now Nadim was quiet. Resting, and still resisting.

  “It’ll be okay,” I said then. “If it’s dangerous or it betrays us, I can always kill it.”

  “Do you know of the Trojan horse, Zara?” Nadim finally spoke. “It’s a human story I learned a long time ago.”

  And yeah, I did. I froze when I processed the implications. “You think this Phage is carrying something? Like a virus that’ll make us sick?”

  I didn’t know if it was good that we’d rubbed off on each other like this. Once, being cynical and suspicious had been my full-time job, but now Nadim was talking like me, and I was erring on the side of kindness. That was some fully mixed-up shit right there.

  And he was right. Completely right. I h
ad taken the Trojan horse into the city walls because it had asked nicely. The old Zara, running the streets in New Detroit—she never would have fallen for it.

  My fingers flexed on my weapon. It would be so easy to kill the Phage while it was out, recovering from whatever experimental medical shit EMITU had just done. I turned to the autodoc. “Can you run some tests while it’s out, see if it has a viral payload to deliver?”

  “I’m not a wizard, Honor Cole. My ability to extrapolate and interpret data from a unique specimen is limited. If you bring me others to study and compare—”

  “Never mind,” I said. “Guess that only leaves one option.”

  EMITU rolled over to block my way. “I must warn you that I am medically obligated to fuck you up if you attempt harm to a being in my care.”

  “I wasn’t going to . . .”

  “I’m also not a lie detector, but I can read acceleration of respiration, heartbeat, and an intent to do harm. Cheer up. If I do have to grievously wound you, I can immediately slap a pressure bandage on the wound.”

  Funny as the bot could be, I didn’t doubt its sincerity. I might be able to shoot the autodoc into scrap, but I couldn’t otherwise get around it. Wrecking our medic in the middle of a war would be stupidly disastrous.

  Chao-Xing arrived with Yusuf and Marko while I was thinking that over. Damn, the situation was dire if they’d all bailed on Typhon to come over here. C-X was already striding toward the unconscious Phage, weapon out, when I grabbed her arm and wheeled her around.

  “Are you insane?” she demanded. EMITU started his speech again, and came to a quick stop when she pointed the gun at its mechanical face. “Shut up.”

  “Yes, good plan,” EMITU agreed, though it didn’t move out of her path, either.

  “We thought Beatriz was joking when she first told us,” Yusuf said. He had his hand on his weapon as well. Lots of aggression in him too. “Move your medical unit if you don’t want to lose it.”

  “No! Dammit, I saved the Phage for a reason!” Even if I didn’t know for sure that I’d made a good call. I glanced at Marko, thinking he might be a likely ally . . . but I didn’t see any sympathy. Only wary doubt. “You understand why I took the risk, right?”

  “My instinct is to kill it,” Marko said. “But I also know that I’m full of Typhon’s unbounded hate, and so are these two. I’m trying to control that, but I can’t vouch for Typhon. He’s . . . not handling this well. He sees no option but to kill every Phage we find.”

  “Then one of you should go back to console him. This is one creature and it’s injured. I’m not killing it until I hear what deal it’s offering.”

  Surprisingly, Chao-Xing seemed most keyed in to Typhon’s rage, and she tried to shove past me, determined to blast the Phage cell to atomic dust. “Let me go!” she snarled at Yusuf when he held her back.

  I put my body between her and the target, half unable to believe I was protecting the enemy. “Get her out of here. I’m taking responsibility for this. Me. Nobody else. And Typhon’s not at risk unless you start something. Go home. Now!”

  “Can’t do that either,” Yusuf said. “Chao-Xing’s right. That thing has to die, for all our sakes.” His gaze was hard and pitiless. “It would kill our Leviathan without mercy. We can’t take the risk.”

  I took in a deep breath. “Chao-Xing. Are you listening to me?” She wasn’t. Her gaze went right over my shoulder, fixed on the unconscious Phage. “Warbitch!” That snapped her right out of it, and onto me with the same furious intensity. “You said I had a gift, remember? Well, my instincts are telling me that this Phage cell is a weakness for them. It can help us. It might even win us the damn war. So back off.”

  The shell of her rage fractured, even if it didn’t break completely; somewhere inside, Chao-Xing struggled to process my words and understand what I meant, pushing back against Typhon’s heavy influence. She finally nodded once, sharply. She knew what I was talking about. She’d trust me.

  God help us all, she trusted me.

  Nadim said, just for my ears, Zara. Is this worth it?

  It has to be.

  Yusuf never did come around, and it didn’t look like he trusted my judgment, either. When he hustled Chao-Xing out of the medbay, he carried a shadow with him, but I could only deal with one crisis at a time. Marko stared at the Phage cell with a conflicted expression. “Are you sure this is wise, Zara?”

  I laughed bitterly. “Hell no. I live expecting shit to go sideways. Maybe this thing will give us some fatal disease, just like Nadim fears, and if it does, gut up and take whatever measures you have to, to save Nadim and Typhon. But . . . I can’t kill it, because that means giving up on hope. Right now, this is the only possible advantage we have against the Phage. I can feel that.”

  He nodded. “Then I’ll wait with you.” He looked faintly sick, though. Too pale, even for white-boy complexions. I pulled over a stool, and he gratefully sat down. “Sorry. Typhon is . . . not pleased with us just now.”

  “Tell him to shut up and wait,” I said.

  “That might work on Nadim, but . . .”

  “Yeah, I know.” I looked at EMITU, who was still rolling indecisively between the two of us and the bed of its patient. “Don’t suppose you’ve got any booze.”

  “I have germicidal alcohol,” it said. “And olives.” It paused. “I am lying about the olives. Also, I suggest that removing all soft, vulnerable bodies from this area might be an excellent idea, as I believe my patient is beginning to come around.”

  “We’ll stay,” I said. “Bring on the hooch.”

  “I was also lying about the alcohol.”

  We sealed the medbay door behind us. Containment was key. If this shit soured on us, each ship would still have enough Honors. He didn’t say that was a factor in his decision to stay with me, but I could read it in his somber expression. Seemed like some Honors were ready to become heroic sacrifices at the drop of a hat. I’d been in that headspace in the temple of doom, but I’d hurt Nadim a lot then too. This time, I wouldn’t make that mistake. I’d do everything I could to survive.

  Nadim’s relief surged through me, like he could sense my state of mind. I touched the wall lightly in reassurance, got a color pop back.

  And at last, the Phage stirred. Barbed limbs thrashed against restraints, then stilled, though I guessed it probably could have cut through those like a hot wire through butter. The shape of the thing still revolted me; it was something out of collective human nightmares, like we’d always known something like this existed out in the dark, and known how dangerous it would be. Could the universe itself have a collective unconscious? I’d have to ask Nadim.

  “I live,” the Phage said. I expected that without the flattening effect of the translators, it might have seemed surprised. Now, I could hear the Phage’s language. It was as unsettling as its appearance; thin whistles and clicks and rattles. Reminded me of dead deserts and living poison.

  “You do for now,” I said. “And you will if you’re honest, and you’re useful to us. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “You said you could help us.”

  “I can.”

  “How?”

  To my amazement, it told us.

  EYES ONLY COMM—HONORS SELECTION COMMITTEE MEMBERS

  ***Urgent*** from HSC Sub-Administrator Olinski

  Honored members of the committee:

  I have upon several occasions registered my most strenuous objection to the unprecedented breaks of protocol this year, including the unscheduled arrival of a Leviathan Elder, the astonishing decision to hold a hasty Honors selection to replace Honors Teixeira and Cole in the program, the equally astonishing (and unjustified) decision to strip said Honors of their rank and privileges for abandonment of duties, and revert them to private citizen status in their absence. I have said, many times, that this is a hasty and unwise decision made in advance of facts, as the Elder has provided little information to us of the circumstances of their absence
from the Tour.

  But what causes me to tender my resignation from the program is more serious. There is evidence that the selection of one Derry McKinnon as one of the two replacement Honors has been engineered by external forces, in a violation of everything our program holds sacred. I have sounded warnings of this undue influence on two prior occasions. Nevertheless, the committee achieved a majority of votes to pass this candidate and affirm the selection, though his history is clearly unsuitable, as is his psychological profile.

  I can no longer serve honorably in a program that has abandoned the honor it confers on others. I can no longer be assured that our cause is just or that our process is pure, and that raises disturbing questions of exactly what we do here.

  It has been my privilege to serve the young people we send to the Tour, and the Journey. I will not stain that memory by cooperating in this appointment.

  [DNA signature]

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Binding Offer

  “CAN HEAR SWARM,” it said, which was a stunning statement, and one I immediately doubted. A glance at Marko told me the same. “No kill now?”

  “Why?” I wasn’t sure it would—or could, for that matter—answer the question, but I wanted to see if it understood the concept. I couldn’t read body language, facial expressions—not that this thing had a face, exactly; it had a maw—and all I had right now was the words it spoke. Truth or lie, at least it was talking.

  The Phage took its damn time replying, and I stood watching it, rocking back and forth on my heels. I was exhausted. I stank of the poisonous gas that had seeped through my suit, and my eyes felt raw. So did my throat. I’d ask EMITU to check me out, but we were all a little preoccupied. Still, I was aware of all these annoyances, and aware that they might be prejudicing me, or impairing my ability to judge things right. I thought about bonding with Nadim, but that wasn’t fair, either; he had a visceral horror of these creatures, and besides, he had his own weariness to handle.

  Right now, it was me and Marko and the Phage stuck in a bottle. Either we’d all come out, or none of us would.