No!
The door to sickbay slammed open and Ivanova rushed in. Her face went slack with horror, and then a pair of spikes struck her in the stomach and she collapsed. Seppo tried to run, and a spike impaled him from behind, pinning him to the wall, like a butterfly.
No!
Kira blacked out. When she came to, Alan was kneeling next to her, his forehead pressed against hers and his hands heavy upon her shoulders. His eyes were blank and empty, and a line of blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.
It took her a moment to realize that a dozen or more spikes stitched her body to his, joining them with obscene intimacy.
Her heart fluttered and stopped, and the floor seemed to drop away into an abyss. Alan. Her teammates. Dead. Because of her. The knowledge was unbearable.
Pain. She was dying, and she didn’t care. She just wanted the suffering to end—wanted the swift arrival of oblivion and the release it would bring.
Then darkness clouded her sight and the alarms faded to silence, and what once was, was no more.
CHAPTER V
MADNESS
1.
Kira’s eyes shot open.
There was no slow rise to consciousness. No gradual return to awareness. Not this time. One moment nothing; the next, a burst of sensory information, bright and sharp and overwhelming in its intensity.
She was lying at the bottom of a tall, circular chamber—a tube with a ceiling five meters above her, far too high to reach. It reminded her of the grain silo their neighbors, the Roshans, had built when she was thirteen. Halfway up the side of the tube was a two-way mirror: a large, silvery rectangle filled with the grey ghost of a reflection. A narrow lightstrip along the edge of the ceiling was the only source of illumination.
Not just one but two robot arms moved about her with silent grace, a cluster of diagnostic instruments protruding from the end of each one. As she looked at them, they paused and then retracted toward the ceiling, where they hung in readiness.
Embedded within one side of the tube was an airlock with a built-in hatch for passing small objects in and out. Opposite the airlock was a pressure door that presumably led deeper into … into wherever. It too had a hatch, similar in size and for the same purpose. Glorified jailer’s slots. There was no bed. No blanket. No sink. And no toilet. Just cold, bare metal.
She had to be on a ship. Not the Fidanza. The Extenuating Circumstances.
Which meant …
A jolt of adrenaline caused Kira to gasp and sit upright. The pain; the spikes; Neghar, Fizel, Yugo, Ivanova … Alan! The memories returned in a deluge. They returned, but Kira wished they hadn’t. Her gut clenched, and a long, deep groan escaped her as she fell to her hands, knees, and forehead. The ridges of the deck cut into her skin, but she didn’t care.
When she could breathe, she howled, pouring all of her grief and anguish into a single wailing cry.
It was all her fault. If she hadn’t found that damned room, Alan and the others would still be alive and she wouldn’t have ended up infected by some sort of xeno.
The spikes.
Where were the spikes and tendrils that had torn through her skin? Kira looked down, and her heart skipped a beat.
Her hands were black when they shouldn’t have been. So too were her arms and her chest and everything else she could see of her body. A layer of glossy, fibrous material clung to her, tight as any skinsuit.
Horror welled up inside Kira.
She clawed at her forearms in a desperate attempt to rip off the alien organism. Even with their hard new veneer, her nails couldn’t cut or break the fibers. Frustrated, she brought her wrist to her mouth and bit.
The taste of stone and metal filled her mouth. She could feel the pressure from her teeth, but no matter how hard she bit down, it didn’t hurt.
Kira scrambled to her feet, heart pounding so fast it skipped beats, the edges of her vision going dark. “Get it off!” she shouted. “Get this fucking thing off me!” Through her panic, she wondered where everyone was, her one coherent thought amid the madness.
One of the robotic arms descended toward her. The manipulator at the end of the arm was holding a syringe. Before Kira could move, the machine reached around her head and injected her behind the ear, on a patch of still-bare skin.
Within seconds a heavy blanket seemed to press down upon her. Kira stumbled sideways, reaching out an arm to catch herself as she fell—
2.
The panic returned the moment Kira regained consciousness.
There was an alien creature bonded with her. She was contaminated, possibly infectious. It was the sort of situation every xenobiologist dreaded: a containment breach leading to fatalities.
Alan …
Kira shuddered and buried her face in the crook of her arm. Below her neck, her skin prickled with a million tiny fears. She wanted to look again, but she didn’t have the courage. Not yet.
Tears leaked from under her eyelids. She could feel Alan’s absence like a hole in her chest. It didn’t seem possible that he was dead. They’d had so many plans, so many hopes and dreams, and now none of them would come to fruition. She’d never get to see him build the house he’d talked about, nor go skiing with him in mountains in the far south of Adra, nor watch him become a father, nor any of the other things she’d imagined.
The knowledge hurt more than any physical pain.
She felt her finger. The band of polished iron set with tesserite was gone, and with it her only tangible reminder of him.
A memory came to her then, from years past: her father kneeling next to her in a greenhouse and bandaging a cut on her arm while saying, “The pain is of our own making, Kira.” He pressed a finger against her forehead. “It only hurts as much as we let it.”
Maybe so, but Kira still felt terrible. Pain was pain, and it insisted on making itself known.
How long had she been unconscious? Minutes? Hours?… No, not hours. She was lying where she’d fallen, feeling neither hungry nor thirsty. Only drained from the torment of misery. Her whole body ached as if bruised.
Behind her shuttered lids, Kira noticed that none of her overlays were displaying. “Petra, on,” she said. Her system didn’t respond, not even with a flicker. “Petra, force restart.” The darkness remained unchanged.
Of course. The UMC would shut down her implants.
She growled into her arm. How could the military techs have overlooked the organism in her and Neghar? The xeno was large. Even a basic examination ought to have spotted it. If the UMC had done their job properly, no one would have died.
“Goddamn you,” she muttered. Her anger fought back the grief and panic enough for her to open her eyes.
Again she saw the bare metal. Lightstrips. Mirrored window. Why had they brought her onto the Extenuating Circumstances? Why risk the additional exposure? None of their choices made sense to her.
She’d avoided the inevitable long enough. Steeling herself, Kira looked down.
Her body was still covered in the layer of inky black. That and nothing more. The material resembled bands of overlapping muscles; she could see the individual strands stretch and flex as she moved. Her alarm strengthened, and a shimmer seemed to pass across the fibers. Was it sentient? No way to know for sure at the moment.
Tentative, Kira touched a spot on her arm.
She hissed, baring her teeth. She could feel her fingers on her arm, as if the intervening fibers didn’t exist. The parasite—machine or organism, she didn’t know which—had worked itself into her nervous system. The motions of the circulating air were noticeable against her skin, as was every square centimeter of decking that pressed into her flesh. She might as well have been totally naked.
And yet … she wasn’t cold. Not as she ought to be.
She examined the soles of her feet. Covered, same as her palms. Feeling upward, she discovered that—in the front—the suit stopped near the top of her neck. There was a small ridge: a drop-off between fibers and skin that curved arou
nd her ears. In the back, the fibers continued up and over the back of her head and—
Her hair was gone. Nothing but the smooth contours of her skull met her exploring fingers.
Kira set her teeth. What else had the xeno stolen from her?
As she concentrated on the different sensations of her body, Kira realized that the xeno wasn’t just bonded to her outside; it was inside her as well, filling her, penetrating her, if however unobtrusively.
Her gorge rose, and claustrophobia closed in around her, choking her. She was trapped, embedded in the alien substance with no way of escaping.…
She bent over and retched. Nothing came out, but bile coated her tongue and her stomach continued to heave.
Kira shivered. How the hell could the UMC decontaminate her when the suit was wound up all inside? She was going to be stuck in quarantine for months, maybe years. Stuck with it.
She spat into the corner and, without thinking, wiped her mouth on her forearm. The smear of spit soaked into the fibers, like water into cloth.
Disgusting.
A faint hiss—as of speakers turning on—broke the silence, and a new source of light struck Kira’s face.
3.
A hologram covered half the wall. The image was several meters high and showed a small, empty desk—painted battleship grey—in the middle of an equally small, equally stark room. A single chair, straight-backed and armless, sat behind the desk.
A woman walked in. She was of medium height, with a pair of eyes like chips of black ice and a cast-iron hairdo shot through with strands of white. A Reform Hutterite, then, or something similar. There were only a few Hutterites on Weyland: a handful of families Kira had seen on occasion during the settlement’s monthly gathering. The older adults always stood out with their sagging skin and receding hairlines and other obvious signs of aging. The sight had scared her when she was little and fascinated her when she was in her teens.
What she focused on, though, weren’t the woman’s features but her clothes. She was wearing a grey uniform—grey like the desk—that had been starched and ironed until each crease looked as if it could slice through hardened tool steel. Kira didn’t recognize the color of the uniform. Blue was the Navy/Spacecorps. Green was the Army. Grey was…?
The woman seated herself, placed a tablet on the desk, centered it with the tips of her forefingers. “Ms. Navárez. Do you know where you are?” She had a thin, flat mouth, like that of a guppy, and when she spoke, her bottom row of teeth was visible.
“The Extenuating Circumstances.” Kira’s throat hurt; it felt raw and swollen.
“Very good. Ms. Navárez, this is a formal deposition in accordance with article fifty-two of the Stellar Security Act. You will answer all of my questions, willingly and to the best of your knowledge. This isn’t a court, but if you fail to cooperate, you can and will be charged with obstruction, and if your statement is later found to be false, perjury. Now, tell me everything that you remember after you woke up from cryo.”
Kira blinked, feeling lost and confused. Grinding out each word, she said, “My team … what about my team?”
Guppy Face pressed her lips together into a pale line. “If you’re asking who survived, four of them did. Mendoza, Neghar, Marie-Élise, and Jenan.”
At least Marie-Élise was still alive. Fresh tears threatened to spill down Kira’s cheeks. She scowled, not wanting to cry in front of the other woman. “Neghar? How…”
“Video footage shows that the organism she expelled melded with the one currently attached to your body after the … hostilities. As far as we can tell, the two are indistinguishable. Our current theory is that Neghar’s organism was drawn to yours as yours was larger and more fully developed—a lesser part of a hive-swarm rejoining the greater, if you will. Aside from some internal bleeding, Neghar seems unharmed and free of infection, although at the moment, it’s impossible for us to be sure.”
Kira’s hands knotted into fists as her anger swelled. “Why didn’t you spot the xeno before? If you had—”
The woman made a cutting motion with her hand. “We don’t have time for this, Navárez. I understand you’ve had a shock, but—”
“You couldn’t possibly understand.”
Guppy Face eyed Kira with something close to disdain. “You’re not the first person to be infected by an alien life-form, and you’re certainly not the first person to lose some friends.”
Guilt caused Kira to look down and squeeze her eyes shut for a moment. Hot tears peppered the backs of her fists. “He was my fiancé,” she mumbled.
“What was that?”
“Alan, he was my fiancé,” Kira said, louder. She gave the woman a defiant look.
Guppy Face never blinked. “You mean Alan J. Barnes?”
“Yes.”
“I see. In that case, you have the condolences of the UMC. Now, I need you to pull yourself together. The only thing you can do is accept God’s will and move forward. Sink or swim, Navárez.”
“It’s not that easy.”
“I didn’t say it would be easy. Grow a pair and start acting like a professional. I know you can. I read your file.”
The words stung Kira’s pride, although she would never admit it. “Yeah? Well who the hell are you?”
“Excuse me?”
“Your name? You haven’t told me.”
The woman’s face tightened, as if she hated to share any personal information with Kira. “Major Tschetter. Now, tell me—”
“And what are you?”
Tschetter raised an eyebrow. “Human, last I checked.”
“No, I meant…” Kira gestured at the woman’s grey uniform.
“Special attaché to Captain Henriksen, if you must know. This is beside the—”
Frustrated, Kira let her voice rise. “Is it too much to ask what branch of the armed forces, Major? Or is that classified?”
Tschetter assumed a flat, affectless expression, a professional blankness that told Kira nothing of what she was thinking or feeling. “UMCI. Fleet Intelligence.”
A spy then, or worse, a political officer. Kira snorted. “Where are they?”
“Who, Ms. Navárez?”
“My friends. The … the ones you rescued.”
“In cryo, on the Fidanza, being evacuated from the system. There. Satisfied?”
Kira released a bark of laughter. “Satisfied? Satisfied?! I want this damn thing off me.” She plucked at the black coating on her arm. “Cut it off if you have to, but get it off.”
“Yes, you made your desire abundantly clear,” said Tschetter. “If we can remove the xeno, we will. But first, you’re going to tell me what happened, Ms. Navárez, and you’re going to tell me right now.”
Kira bit back another curse. She wanted to rant and rage; she wanted to lash out and make Tschetter feel even a small measure of her hurt. But she knew it wouldn’t help. So she did as she was ordered. She told the major everything she remembered. It didn’t take long, and Kira found no relief in confession.
The major had numerous questions, most of them focused on the hours before the parasite burst forth: Had Kira noticed anything unusual? An upset stomach, elevated temperature, intrusive thoughts? Had she smelled anything unfamiliar? Had her skin been itchy? Rashes? Inexplicable thirst or cravings?
Aside from the itching, the answer to most of the questions was no, which Kira could see didn’t please the major. Especially when Kira explained that—to the best of her knowledge—Neghar hadn’t experienced the same symptoms.
Afterward, Kira said, “Why didn’t you stick me in cryo? Why am I on the Extenuating Circumstances?” She didn’t understand it. Maintaining quarantine was the most important task in xenobiology. The thought of breaking it was enough to give anyone in her profession the cold sweats.
Tschetter smoothed an invisible wrinkle out of her jacket. “We tried to freeze you, Navárez.” Her gaze met Kira’s. “We tried and failed.”
Kira’s mouth went dry. “Failed.”
&nb
sp; A short nod from Tschetter. “The organism purged the cryonic injections from your body. We couldn’t keep you under.”
A new fear struck Kira. Freezing the xeno was the easiest way to stop it. Without that, they had no quick way to keep it from spreading. Also, without cryo, it was going to be a hell of a lot harder for her to get back to the League.
Tschetter was still speaking: “After we released you and Neghar from quarantine, our medical team was in close contact with the both of you. They touched your skin. They breathed the same air. They handled the same equipment. And then”—Tschetter leaned forward, intense—“they came back here, to the Extenuating Circumstances. Now do you understand, Navárez?”
Kira’s mind started to race. “You think you’ve been exposed.”
Tschetter inclined her head. “The xeno took two and a half days to emerge after Neghar was removed from cryo. Less so in your case. Being frozen may or may not have slowed the development of the organism. Either way, we have to assume the worst. Minus the time since your release, that means we have somewhere between twelve and forty-eight hours to figure out how to detect and treat asymptomatic hosts.”
“That’s not enough time.”
The corners of Tschetter’s eyes tightened. “We have to try. Captain Henriksen has already ordered all nonessential crew into cryo. If we don’t find a solution by end of tomorrow, he’ll have the rest of us frozen.”
Kira licked her lips. No wonder they’d been willing to bring her onto the Extenuating Circumstances. They were desperate. “What happens to me then?”
Tschetter steepled her fingers. “Our ship mind, Bishop, will continue your examination as he sees fit.”
Kira could see the logic in that. Ship minds were kept isolated from the rest of the life-support system. By all rights, Bishop ought to be perfectly safe from infection.
There was just one problem. Whatever she was carrying wasn’t just a threat on the micro level. She lifted her chin. “And what if … what if the xeno acts out the way it did on Adra? It could rip a hole right through the hull. You should have set up a pressure dome on the surface, studied the xeno there.”
To Sleep in a Sea of Stars Page 7