“Reading fifty Humans,” the ship-brain replied a few minutes later. Lin relayed the information to Dr. Anyon and his team.
“Can he tell what condition they're in?” Dr. Anyon asked.
“Body temperature is within normal parameters. Respiration and pulse rate are elevated, but that can be attributed to fear or excitement,” Ganfer said after another five minutes of scanning.
“They're not sick,” the man mused, his voice raspy and soft over the bridge speakers. “Unless this variant of the plague affects the mind without any other physical signs."
“What are our chances of that?” Devon asked.
“Anything is possible with the Mashrami,” his sister said. She stepped away from the shadow of the ship and came into view of the outside security cameras. “I think we should test the air and soil in direct proximity to the landing field, and then decide what to do after that."
The tests came up clean; no plague; no signs of any other problems that could be affecting the colonists. No physical reasons for them to hide from Sunsinger and the medical team.
Lin continued to send messages to the colony's communications center, and tried different frequencies, hoping to connect with an individual home or settlement's radio receiver. She talked herself into a sore throat, explaining what Sunsinger was doing on their world, how important it was for the colonists to bring their ill to the ship for examination, and for everyone to get their inoculations.
That did no good either.
After six hours of exploring the immediate area surrounding the landing field—storage sheds filled with cargo for the next supply ship to take away, a few administration buildings, everything pre-fabricated boards, the clearings raw enough to show the colony was only a generation old—Dr. Anyon and his team had to admit defeat.
“We have to convince them we're friendly, that we're not trying to trick them,” the doctor said.
“If you go outside without those suits of yours, that should do a lot toward convincing them,” Lin pointed out.
The five were back on the bridge, eating a late lunch. Bain had made it, just so he could contribute to solving the current problem. There was little else for him to do until someone here communicated with them. Until then, Bain was stuck on the bridge, studying. He wondered if Lin would let him go into the observation dome and run some Knaught Point simulations.
“It's safe enough,” Dena agreed. “Even if we did run into someone who was sick, we're up to date on the vaccine. We could run back here and scrub down immediately."
“There's something going on here ... I don't want to say dangerous, but what other word can we use?” Dr. Anyon shook his head and toyed with his sandwich, tearing the crust off a bit at a time. “Something more dangerous than just sick and frightened people. Ganfer read fifty healthy bodies within his scanner range. There ought to be at least six hundred colonists here. Why is everyone hiding from us? What kind of threat can a Free Trader ship be? Especially one as small as Sunsinger?"
“We're not that close to the border.... “Lin frowned, staring down into her tea. “What if the Conclave has decided to take advantage of the war with the Mashrami, and they're sneaking into endangered territory to run raids?"
“New colonization equipment, the ores and alloys this colony produces ... slaves for the more backward planets in the Conclave.” Dena nodded agreement. “Gil hasn't said anything to me about that. Either he doesn't know, or he didn't think we'd be in any danger."
“Maybe he just didn't want you to worry,” Bain offered.
“Gil is a master worrier,” Lin said, grinning crookedly. “If he thought we would come anywhere near a pirate raiding team, he wouldn't have asked us to come out here, and he wouldn't have let Dena come with us. It has to be something else. Why don't they trust us?"
“Maybe pirates did hit, but they haven't come back?” He looked at the three medics. Bain thought he finally understood the full extent of the frustration they felt.
Then he remembered another time when Sunsinger had landed to help people and they wouldn't come out. Pirates had been involved there, too.
“Lin, maybe if they saw me they wouldn't be afraid. I'm not as little as I was, but people can still tell I'm a kid,” Bain hurried to add, when Lin just looked at him. Her hand tightened around her cup of tea, until her knuckles turned white.
“He'll be perfectly safe,” Devon said. “He's up to date with all his inoculations and I'll be within arm's reach the whole time, armed and ready."
“People who hide often have something to hide. What if we've landed in the middle of a pirate's nest, disguised as a new colony?” Lin said so quietly, Bain almost couldn't hear her.
“We have to take that chance. The last report said there were nearly eighty children in this colony.” Dr. Anyon stood up and took his empty cup over to the lidded pitcher, and poured himself another cup of tea. He studied the steaming green liquid for a few moments in silence, then turned back to look at the other four, who watched him. “What good are we going to do anyone if we don't take chances?"
“I know.” Lin sighed. She put her cup down on the table and sat back, resting her head on the cushion. “It's a good thing I never had children of my own, because I'd be a lousy mother, smothering them with protection."
“No you wouldn't.” Bain touched her shoulder, like she sometimes did when impressing a point on him. “We took bigger chances when we tested those shields, remember?"
“But with the Mashrami, at least I could do something. I could trust my piloting and Sunsinger to get us out of danger. Diseases ... they're too small to fight.” She forced her lips into a crooked smile. “I know you have to do this, and I know I have to let you, and I know you're growing up awfully fast, Bain. Doesn't mean I have to like any of it.” She pointed a finger at Devon. “You'd better take good care of him. He's the best apprentice I've ever had. I don't want him to even be wrinkled when this is over, got me?"
“Got you,” Devon said, nodding. He stared at Lin's finger as if it were a gun about to explode in his face.
“Best apprentice?” Bain muttered. He twisted his mouth into a disgusted frown, like Lin did. “I'm the only apprentice she's ever had."
Dr. Anyon laughed first, then Dena and Devon, and finally Lin.
* * * *
Bain held his breath until the cargo hatch opened, the ramp swung down and fresh air flooded the cargo hold/sickbay. He knew there was no chance of infection remaining in the air to make him sick. Every time Sunsinger brought a load of patients to the hospital ship, Mercy, the hold was steam decontaminated and flooded with disinfectant and deodorizers. That didn't mean the deodorizers didn't have their own particular unpleasant, sickly sweet smell. Bain didn't like it.
His face was turning red and he had a tight, ready-to-burst feeling in his chest as the ramp hit the ground. Bain waited until he felt the cool, dry air touch his face. He tried not to let out his breath in a gust, but he couldn't help it.
“You never get used to it,” Devon muttered. He nudged Bain in the small of his back and stepped aside to let the boy go down the ramp first.
Bain gave the medic one quick, searching glance. The young man smiled at him and gave him a thumbs-up gesture. Bain nodded, but he couldn't quite smile.
It never occurred to him until that moment that Devon wasn't that much older than him. Maybe he really was growing up, finally, when trained medics only seemed five or ten years older than him.
He wore Devon's spare jacket, with a special insulating layer that could deflect lower level energy bursts and beam burners, and protect him from electrical jolts if they weren't too severe or long-lasting. The inner pockets had extra capsules of vaccine and a spray injector, plus a small first aid kit and emergency rations. Rangers, Devon had explained as he showed Bain all the features of the seemingly ordinary fatigues jacket, were always prepared.
Black jacket with green stripes for the Medic Corps; new dark green pants; calf-high black boots with the hidden sheaths
for short, sharp knives, a present from Lin on his last birthday. Bain thought he at least looked ready for action. He hoped the people hiding and watching the ship thought he was still young enough not to be a threat.
Bain walked down the ramp and crossed the dust-streaked therma-crete of the landing field. He went first to the administration building on the edge of the field, just beyond the heat-scarred blast wall. Devon walked a short distance behind him. No one called to him, no one stepped from hiding.
“Ganfer, is anybody coming closer?” Bain whispered, and touched his collar link to open communications with the ship-brain.
“No one is moving.” Ganfer paused. “Sensors show no change in energy readings. They aren't activating weapons.” The ship-brain kept the volume so low, no one even three meters away could have heard what he said.
“Thanks.” Bain grinned, all nerves, and muscles so tense they ached.
The administration building was one long room inside, with windows in a long strip down the side facing away from the landing field. Bain looked in through the windows and saw desks, computer terminals and chairs, but no signs of people. Lights flashed in a bank of monitors and control panels at one end of the room, and Bain guessed they were the communication center. Those flashing lights probably meant Lin's messages were waiting to be played back.
The door was locked. Bain tugged on the handle a few times, hoping to discover it was just stuck.
“You won't make a very good impression, trying to break into their headquarters,” Devon said from his place at the corner of the building. He glanced over his shoulder, back toward the ship, then past Bain down the path leading into the colony proper.
“Why would they lock it?” Bain tugged once more, then gave up and stepped back. “Who would steal anything in a place this small?"
“Visitors."
“Oh.” His face got warm. Bain wished he would stop blushing when he made a mistake. Was that part of growing up, learning not to feel so utterly stupid whenever he did or said something wrong, or forgot, or didn't see something that should have been common sense? He hoped so.
Scraggly, thin trees lined the dusty gravel path from the administration building, down a shallow slope, into the center of the colony. In the middle of the square, someone had created a park amid the dryness and stone. Grass grew lush, emerald and cool in the square, with narrow pink gravel paths and bushes and a peaked shelter with tables and chairs and no walls. Tall trees with pink flowers hung over a pond where four scarlet water birds paddled in silence. That was the first sign of life Bain had seen since landing.
Houses lined two sides of the square, larger buildings, either storehouses or school or clinic, lined the third side. The fourth side was open, looking out over the river plateau. The water glistened silver in the afternoon sunshine. Brown-red mud lined the river on both sides, and then shallow streaks of grass and moss broke the severity of stretches of silver-gray and glossy brown-red, flat rock.
Bain looked over his shoulder at Devon, who stayed in the shadows of the nearest home. The Ranger medic nodded and gestured for him to go ahead.
Swallowing hard, Bain put one foot on the nearest pink gravel path. He paused, waiting for something to happen. Nothing did. It was stupid to be this nervous, he told himself, but he couldn't stop the sweaty certainty that something was going to jump out of the shadows and grab him. This was worse than his nightmares when he was back in the dormitory, waking up to unfamiliar shadows and bullies.
He stifled a snort of nervous laughter when he suddenly realized he would have welcomed Toly Gaber jumping out at him right now. Bain could handle Toly now, after all the growing he did and the self-defense training Jax, Sister Marnya's bodyguard had given him.
Ten steps took him to the edge of the pond. Bain squatted for a few seconds and watched the water birds swimming in meaningless figures. That wasn't getting him anywhere, though.
“Movement,” Ganfer said.
“Where?” Bain touched his collar link, as if that could bring him in closer contact with the ship.
“Straight in front of you, the center of the buildings. Sensors show eight Humans. They appeared too quickly."
“What do you mean, too quickly?” He swallowed hard, fighting a shriek and squeak in his voice. This was not the right time for his voice to break again.
“My sensors are not set to penetrate rock. The mineral content underneath the colony is unusually dense and metallic, making sensors less reliable. Lin and Dr. Anyon speculate the colonists have underground chambers."
“Oh.” Bain grinned at a sudden mental image of tunnels underneath the park, connecting the various buildings on all sides of the square, like burrowing insects, but Human-sized.
“Bain, someone is going to wonder what you're doing out there if you don't get moving,” Lin said through his collar link. “Don't go straight toward those people, but try to give them as good a look at you as you can."
“Okay.” He set off across the park again, following another path. Bain hoped he looked like he was only wandering around, not heading for a specific place.
What would he think, if he was one of those people in hiding and saw a stranger walking through the square? Bain couldn't figure out the answer, though he knew it was important. The problem, he decided, was that his image of himself wasn't the same image people had when they looked at him. When he first came to live on Sunsinger, strangers usually treated him like a little boy. When they learned he was Lin's apprentice and crew they treated him like he had a brain and could understand them. Bain had grown since then, and strangers didn't make that mistake anymore. He wished he was a little smaller right at that moment, though. The less dangerous he looked, the sooner those people watching him would come out of hiding.
Bain reached the end of the path and stepped out of the park, back onto the dusty stone paving the colony central square. He looked up and down the long stretch of houses, built so close together there was barely room for two people to walk side by side between them. He shrugged, jammed his hands in his pockets, and ambled to the right. Somewhere, in one of those houses he approached, people watched him.
“Who are you, boy?” a man called, his voice creaky and rough.
The sudden shout startled Bain, so he stumbled and his hands came out of his pockets. He looked in all directions, even back over his shoulder at Devon. The medic had walked the long way down the length of buildings. He was nearly twenty meters away. That scared Bain for about three long seconds.
“Over here, son,” another man said. The touch of laughter in his voice made Bain's face flare hot for a moment.
Bain turned around and saw four men and two women come out of the house only three doors away from him. They all wore light, dust-colored clothing like Bain had worn when he lived on Lenga. He supposed that made sense, with all the rock and dust and heat to contend with.
As he approached them, Bain saw they were all tanned, with wrinkle lines around their eyes and mouths like people who had to look into hot, bright distances all day long. Their hair was cut short, even the women, and streaked with gray and white. He didn't know if their hair was pale with age, or exposure to the hot sun. Bain couldn't even start to guess their ages.
Besides, Lin had told him never to judge by someone's outward appearance. Dangerous people often tried to look harmless and friendly, to lure careless travelers into traps. Bain couldn't assume these people were old and weak, any more than he could assume the smiles on four faces meant friendliness.
“That's close enough,” the first man who had spoken said now. His voice was just as cracked and rough when he used a normal tone of voice as when he shouted. He was the tallest member of the group, and he scowled at Bain, peering at him down a nose like the beak of a bird of prey.
“My name is Chobainian Kern, from the Free Trader ship Sunsinger,” Bain said. He let his hands hang at his sides when he wanted to shove them into his pockets for safety.
“We figured that part out,” the dark
-haired woman said with a smile. “Your captain certainly is persistent."
“If you got our messages, why didn't you come out until now? We're here to help you."
“You expect us to believe that muscle-man is a medic?” another man said. He gestured over Bain's shoulder, in Devon's direction.
“He's a Ranger. He has to be strong, to protect his patients.” Bain fought the urge to turn around and see how much closer Devon had come.
“Why are you here, Chobainian Kern?” the third man said. He was the one who had spoken second. He smiled, creating more creases and wrinkles in his weather-beaten face. He had only a few strands of snowy hair across his domed, sweating head and he hunched his shoulders and leaned toward Bain when he spoke.
“My captain figured if you knew there was a boy on the ship, then you'd trust us. Nobody would be here to hurt you if they had children on board.” He tried to smile. “Right?"
“Maybe,” the woman said. She glanced at the other five adults. “You say you're here with vaccines for us? Why?"
“The Mashrami are sending plague bombs to every planet they can reach, not just the ones they want to attack. We're here to inoculate everybody, and take the sick to hospital ships."
“Why should we believe you?” the first man asked. His voice cracked three times as he spoke.
Suddenly, Bain knew these people were in trouble. He didn't know how he knew it; a gut reaction, as Lin called it. Maybe it was the fear he could suddenly smell in their sweat. Maybe the cracking in their voices. Maybe a suspicion that the wrinkles and strain and wear on their faces wasn't from the heat and dust and constant intense sunlight, but from fear and worry.
“You have a lot of sick people, don't you? They all got sick a little while ago and you can't figure out what it is, can you? I bet nothing you try to do for them works very long, or it doesn't work at all, does it?” Bain took two steps closer to them. He felt a shiver of delighted shock when all six adults backed away from him one step.
“Don't get any closer, boy,” the fourth man warned in a shaking voice. “We could be carriers. You don't want to get sick."
Fever [Sunsinger Chronicles Book 5] Page 3