Valence (Confluence Book 4)

by Jennifer Foehner Wells

  Carlo agreed. “I wish Dr. Holloway were here to help us understand. She must have so much insight.”

  Bonham sighed and nodded. He spoke, seemingly to himself. “It’s never easy.” He gestured to Sakey. “Let’s see this report you’ve got.”

  24

  WITHIN HOURS of their departure from Pliga, they’d arrived in Teracian space. They opened single wormholes and both ships went through. Both Gubernaviti moved the ships with ease. Every jump was precise, painless, and uneventful. Replacing Brai’s nanites seemed to have solved that problem.

  They set a sublight course for the primary planet, but they didn’t get far.

  Brai announced, “There is a Teracian vessel on an approach vector. A larger force is forming 0.873 vastuumet ahead.”

  Seconds later, a communique came in. Pledor was managing that console. He triggered it to play over the bridge’s speaker system. It was a high, squeaky voice. “Sectilian vessels, reverse course immediately. Your system is under quarantine. You will return to sectilian space or face dire consequences.”

  Alan muttered, “Oh, blah blah, dire consequences.”

  Jane stared at him with eyebrows raised for a moment before glancing at Pledor. She squared her shoulders. “Open communications. On-screen. Brai, Pio, cut engines. We’ll move under momentum only. We don’t want to seem aggressive.”

  Pledor’s hands hovered over his console before finding the right place to tap. The display changed from a starscape with a distant sun and a single tiny planet in view to a bald, grayish individual with a deeply sloping forehead and enormous black glittering eyes.

  Jane opened her mouth to speak, but the gray person interrupted her with the same squeaky voice they’d heard before. “Do you know how many statutes, bylaws, and ordinances you’re breaking? So many. So many. We could incarcerate you for standard years. But we won’t. We’ll spank you hard and give you back to the stars.”

  That… didn’t seem to translate well.

  The Gray leaned forward, peering at them. “Did you think you could disguise your ship and we wouldn’t know it was sectilian? You forgot about—or didn’t know about—the beacons that transmit identification codes! Heh. Heh. Stupid.”

  The Gray waved at the screen as though shooing them away, then wrinkled up a nearly nonexistent nose, effectively pinching the nostrils closed. “Did you surgically alter yourselves so you wouldn’t look sectilian? If you don’t stop moving on a course toward Terac, we’ll be forced to dust space with your remains.”

  “Have you finished? May I speak?” Jane asked as soon as she could get a word in, with as much affability as she could muster.

  “Have I…?” The gray individual’s eyes went almost comically wide. There were no whites around them. “Have I finished?”

  It hadn’t landed well. But Jane took advantage of the Gray’s shock to speak. “I am Jane Augusta Holloway, a terran. This ship and its companion are sectilian. If you’ll check your records you will discover that this is the Speroancora, a ship sent by the USR to find Terra seventy-three standard years ago. Our Gubernaviti survived the sectilian plague. My people recently found the ship in our solar system. I command it now. Both ships have been thoroughly decontaminated. The new hull plating is not a disguise, but repairs made on Pliga. I have important information about the Swarm and a criminal named Kai’Memna that must be disseminated on Terac to the entire USR, immediately.”

  “Oh, immediately. Immediately, she says.” The Gray waved around boneless-looking handlike appendages. “Pliga… Pliga… Who ever heard of Pliga?”

  “Jazz hands? Really? They sent Jazz Hands to talk to us,” Alan said in English, sotto voce.

  “This is an important mission. Many lives may be at stake,” Jane said.

  “Do you know how many illegals I put the boot to in this system every day? Do you know how many of them tell the same stories? They’re always terran, or Yoosilhuot pups, or descendants of the Cunabula, or Recalinari elders, or bringing in the last Drudii alive in the entire universe. And many lives are always at stake. You’ll have to do better than that to get by me. Turn around and go back to Sectilius before I turn my cannons on you. I. Will. Smoke. You.”

  Alan drawled, “It’s like the DMV meets High Noon in space out here.”

  Jane stared at the Gray. She moved her jaw back and forth because it was getting tight from clenching it so hard. “I would like to speak with your supervisor.”

  Alan looked incredulous. “Jane, this isn’t Burger King—”

  The Gray’s lipless mouth opened, shut, then said pleasantly, “Why certainly. Just a moment.” The Gray moved out of the camera frame.

  The Gray came back, looking smug. “No. Move off, Born-To-Be-Dust. No one wants nanites let loose in the galaxy that make you crazy before they finish you off. Quarantine. You. Now.”

  Jane inhaled slowly. She was going to have to bluster her way through this. “I know my rights. I’m a documented USR citizen by sectilian medical standards. I demand verification of my DNA signature per the Friba Compact: Section 1687, Article 923.” Jane held up a small tablet computer. “I can read it to you.”

  The Gray seemed ready to make another contemptuous remark until she started quoting regulations. Then he wiggled, made a strange burbling sound, and left the camera frame again.

  Minutes passed.

  The gray returned, looking distressed. “We cannot board your vessel to verify your DNA signature. You are under quarantine.”

  “Have you scanned our ships?”

  “No. Why should I?”

  “Because you would see that there are very few active nanites on either ship. We destroyed them all at once with an electromagnetic pulse and are in the process of repopulation.”

  “And how would I know what a defective nanite looks like, compared to a normal one?”

  Jane closed her eyes, then opened them again. “I have prepared documentation that is legally binding from the ships’ logs that shows every procedure we used in order to be certain the plague nanites were eradicated. You know the logs can’t be tampered with. May I send the proper documents over?”

  The Gray stared at her for a full minute, wiggled, burbled, and left the camera frame again.

  Jane told Pledor to send the files.

  The Gray was gone for nearly an hour.

  “You are still quarantined. Therefore, I’m blocking all access to the galactic communications network, and I’d advise you to maintain your orbit exactly where you are if you know what’s good for you. However, I’m sending an intern in full medical protective gear to take samples. If anything happens to her, you will be space dust. So much space dust.”

  Jane smiled. “Thank you.”

  The Gray’s eyes bulged, then the transmission was cut.

  “Welcome to Terac,” Alan announced.

  25

  WHEN THE AIRLOCK OPENED, Jane had to school her expression so she didn’t appear surprised. A petite and diminutive individual strolled through in very familiar obsidian armor, holding out some kind of scanning device. He or she was the size of a seven- or eight-year-old child.

  The intern didn’t waste any time with a greeting, moving forward to scan Jane and the rest of her crew immediately. After a few moments Jane said, “I am Jane Augusta Holloway.”

  The helmet swiveled in her direction. “Yes, I saw you on-screen. I am Murrrsi, Hamloc’s intern. I detect nanites on all of you, though it’s certainly a very minute population. I’m downloading the code and forwarding it to Hamloc’s science team for analysis.” Murrrsi’s voice was soft and low, and she rolled her r’s in such a way that they sounded a little like growls.

  “That’s sectilian power armor,” Pledor said accusingly as Murrrsi scanned him.

  Murrrsi’s head tilted forward as though looking down at the armor. “Of course it is. Sectilius was the best at producing armor that fits all body types. It’s impossible to find anything else to fit someone my size. I’ve only had to make small modifications. It�
��s very old but still in excellent condition—testament to how well it was built. The fact that it’s outfitted with all kinds of scientific equipment is an added bonus. In many circles the sectilian manufacturing sector is sorely missed.”

  That mollified Pledor. He said nothing more.

  Murrrsi stood stock still for a moment, then tapped her chest. “Acknowledged.” She returned to scanning. “I was just told the code is significantly changed from the documented plague-nanite code. Our first assessment is that it has been defused. I’ll need to proceed, of course. You understand.” She continued to scan the room until she reached the door. “May I go through?”

  “Of course,” Jane said.

  They all followed her.

  Alan jogged ahead of Murrrsi to face her. “If that’s true, why isn’t there more pressure to lift the quarantine?”

  Murrrsi turned to him briefly. “No one wants to die? I have two choices when I’m done with my analysis here. I can get back in that shuttle, go through decontamination protocols, then be quarantined for two standard years in isolation—or stay with you until we prove you’re safe. They aren’t good options, for me, anyway. My career is probably over.” She sounded resigned.

  “It’s not over,” Alan said. “We don’t want to die either. I personally rewrote the code. And I’ve swept the ship multiple times myself, concentrating heavily on areas that may have been shielded from the EMP where any remaining bad nanites could have hidden. I’ve never found a single one. You know, I’ve modified a device to differentiate between the plague code and my rewritten code, if you want to use it.”

  Murrrsi seemed to nod. “I’ll look at it.” She stopped and turned to gaze at the whole group. “You’re a yiviti bunch—using a sectilian ship to get around. Ten standard years ago you would have been blown up before you got this far, no questions asked. But people are softening on the Sectilius now. Their products and other contributions are missed, at least by those who remember them. Attitudes are starting to change. People are forgetting the impact of the plague.”

  “Yiviti?” Alan whispered to Jane. “That…what does that mean?”

  Jane cleared her throat and whispered back, “Sort of like…ballsy, but not gendered. It’s hard to explain. I’ll try later.” Then she raised her voice to address Murrrsi again. “We actually don’t know what the impact of the plague was, aside from Sectilius. Would you tell us?”

  Murrrsi turned bodily toward Jane, though Jane could not see her face through the darkened visor. “How can you not know?”

  “We’re terran,” was all she could say in answer.

  Murrrsi set the instrument she held on a console and pulled another one out of her suit’s thigh-compartment. She scanned Jane with it at close range, from her feet to as high as she could reach. Then she repeated the procedure on Alan. “Definitely not sectilian morphology. These things can be fooled, though. Guess that’s why I’m here instead of sending in a drone.” She sighed.

  She put the second instrument back in her suit’s compartment and went back to the first one, waving it around as she walked deeper into the ship. “Everyone knows. Either you’re pretending or you’re legitimately ignorant. Either way, it doesn’t hurt me to tell you. Six thousand seven hundred and eighty-two cities or settlements were impacted by the sectilian nanite plague. Billions upon billions of people died all over the galaxy, wherever sectilian ships happened to be.”

  Jane took in a startled breath. “That many. We had no idea.”

  “A few are still quarantined to this day because it’s difficult to prove that the nanites are gone. Outbreaks occasionally happen on some worlds despite efforts at containment, while on other worlds the plague seemed to fizzle out on its own from replication failures. Every species of anthropoid origin was affected. Not my species, though. That’s why they sent me. It won’t kill me, but I could become a carrier.”

  Replication failures. That explained why the plague hadn’t killed more than a few dozen people on Earth after the Roswell accident. Of course, the humans there at the time had never known it was caused by nanites.

  When Murrrsi paused, Jane asked, “Does the USR know who started it?”

  “What do you mean, ‘who’? The sectilians had to be the ones to do it. It’s pretty incontrovertible. Clearly they made a mistake because they nearly took themselves out too.”

  Jane felt all of the sectilians in the anipraxic network reel with shock at that pronouncement. That was quickly followed up with outrage. Jane reminded them silently to hold their tongues, but was quick to respond to Murrrsi’s statement. “No. They didn’t. We know who did, though.”

  The helmet seemed to stare at her for a long time. “You know that sounds insane, right? It’s common knowledge the sectilians did it.”

  Jane held up a hand because Pledor looked like he was about to explode. Tinor just looked uneasy. Mentally, every sectilian was seriously aggrieved. “That doesn’t make any sense, Murrrsi, especially given their unique history with nanite technology. You just said yourself that Sectilius was known for producing superior products. My guess is they were not known for making mistakes.”

  Murrrsi abruptly returned to scanning. “Well, I didn’t write history. Who do you think did it?”

  “A kuboderan named Kai’Memna did it. He admitted it to me, personally.”

  “You have this confession on the ship’s logs?”

  “No, he was using anipraxia. But every member of both ships’ crews, except for Huna, heard it.”

  Murrrsi paused. “Well, if that’s true, it might be admissible. I’m no legal expert, mind. I’m just training to be a transportation access officer.” She put the instrument away in a suit compartment. “I’ve just been told they’re analyzing the initial data and want me to move on to the DNA collection. Shall we visit the medical section? Also, are there people claiming to be terran on both ships? Eventually I’ll need to scan the other ship as well, but for now we need to concentrate on the DNA. Can they be summoned here, or do I need to go there?”

  Jane stood on the diagnostic platform. The computer announced her name and vital statistics. Murrrsi scanned all around the platform. “Doesn’t seem to be tampered with. Okay. We’re getting somewhere. Computer, does the terran female Jane Augusta Holloway have any chimeric DNA or foreign-tissue grafts?”

  “Does Jane Augusta Holloway agree to release these details to the parties present?”

  “I do,” Jane said.

  “Terran female Jane Augusta Holloway does not possess any chimeric DNA or foreign-tissue grafts. All DNA is consistent with terran DNA profiles.”

  Murrrsi said, “We’ve verified this ship was the one sent to the location thought to be Terra at the time, so it makes sense that those profiles were downloaded from what is left of the Cunabula database. That makes my job a little easier. You’re one step closer to verification of your planetary origin. However, I still need to take samples. They want to look at your DNA down to the base pairs to make sure nothing strange is going on. You’re getting a lot of attention in the news cycle. The Teracian Assembly is involved now, and they’ve decided to send the data I collect out to independent labs. I know this isn’t fun, but I have to do every step properly. A lot is at stake.”

  Jane nodded. “Go ahead. But don’t you think you’d be more comfortable out of the suit? I’ve worn them for extended periods of time, myself. It’s as comfortable as something like it can be, but it does get tiresome. You’re safe here. We’re not going to hurt you.”

  “They don’t want me to, but they aren’t going to be in quarantine for two years.” She subsided into low growls, and then, abruptly, the helmet retracted and the suit split open down the chest. Murrrsi was covered in dark crimson fur with high, erect ears and a stubby, muzzlelike mouth.

  Jane glanced at Alan, a little worried about what he might say. His eyebrows were raised and he mouthed a single word at her: Foxy. She had to press her lips together to keep from smiling at his absurdity.

  �
�You can stare all you want. I’ll never be anthropoid,” Murrrsi said with a sigh as she stepped out of the suit’s legs. When she turned, Jane saw that a short tail with long draping fur nearly touching the floor hugged close to her body.

  Jane shook her head. “I’m sorry. It must be hard to understand, but we’ve never—”

  “Anyway…” Murrrsi turned back to the armor, rubbing a hand over her head to smooth down her head fur, rumpled from the helmet, and reached for another tool. “They tell me this won’t hurt. I have to take forty samples from you. If it does hurt, I’m sorry they lied to me. But we have to do this to every person claiming to be terran.”

  The device was deceptively small, about the size of a fat marker. Murrrsi applied it to Jane’s bare skin in thirty-five places over her arms, legs, neck and face. Each time she felt nothing more than a quick pinch and it was over. Only a tiny red mark was left behind, smaller than an insect bite.

  The last five extractions were a bit different.

  “Your abdomen, please. The device will insert a filament to retrieve a sample from one of your internal organs, to confirm that your interior and exterior match. It won’t hurt you. It’s only taking a few cells.”

  “Whoa! That’s pretty invasive,” Alan exclaimed.

  Murrrsi flicked a glance at him. “You have three choices. Submit to the testing. Leave now and never come back. Or be blown up. I’d really rather not get caught in the middle of the third thing myself.”

  “Christ,” Alan muttered. “You’re expecting us to put a lot of trust in you people.”

  “Trust?” Murrrsi said bluntly. “Trust is not putting you through a fiery burial in space. Trust is coming over here, by myself, and taking off my power armor. Don’t tell me about trust.”

  Jane loosened the knots on her garment and lifted one edge. Murrrsi palpated Jane’s stomach for a second then applied the device. Jane gasped at the familiar sensation of the filament burrowing deep. It was just like being in the sanalabrium. A second of sharp pain and weirdness, then it was over. “Let me guess, sectilian technology too?”