by Maren Smith
“What the hell just happened?” Brinley asked, her voice sounding startled and strange to her own ears. “He’s dead!”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“He’s not dead,” Rowth said for he’d lost track of how many times and, when Rog’s weak coughing turned back into heaving again, he both lifted and angled the ailing Mekron further over the sink.
“What did you give him?” Brinley accused.
“Nothing that should have caused this.” He kept his voice low, but were his arms not full of vomiting Mekron, he would have marched back to the dining table just to rap his knuckles on her head. It was the stress of the situation. Normally he wasn’t this quick to temper or to lash out. Normally, he was calm. He was in control. The whole of Rog’s compact body convulsed as he fought to both suck in air and wretch out whatever his already empty stomach had determined must be rejected. Right now, the last thing Rowth felt was calm or in control. Helpless, that came closer to describing it. Useless, that was another good adjective. And how this could be, he just did not understand. He could list the number of people on the whole of this planet more powerful than he was on a single sheet of pristine white paper and he could do it by name, rank and case file, because he had one on all of them. Just in case.
He was a firm believer in ‘just in case’. He was a firm believer in preparing for all eventualities, especially the ones he did not want to face. So why did this feel different? Why did it feel… desperate? Life was all about death. It was the drumbeat to which all things—people, flora, fauna, even the world beneath his feet and the light of the sun overhead—all things marched. Both his parents were dead. His father had passed on the job; all he knew of that circumstance was what the notification letter had stated:
We regret to inform you that Dolgan Lashat was shot during the performance of his duty. An asset to both his profession and his country, he shall be sorely missed.
And that had been that. Two lines on official-looking letterhead and signed by Amshal, who had been General Magistrate at the time. Rowth still had that letter, framed like a work of art and displayed on the back of his office door where he could not help but see it each and every day as he worked. It was the only form of decoration he’d indulged in either his office or his home, because he did not like to be distracted. Apart from a genealogical tablet filled with photos of vacations he didn’t remember and videos he barely watched anymore, that letter was the only tangible thing he had in which to remember the man who’d sired him.
His mother, however… Oh now, he remembered her. Her face, her voice, and the antiseptic medical smell that had filled her hospital room the day they summoned him out of his classes because it ‘wouldn’t be much longer now’. He’d been in the middle of his third set of qualifiers and it had irritated him to be called home that close to achieving that next highly-selective step on the road to becoming a judge himself. Not any judge. Not some lower court dignitary presiding over family matters, battery cases, thefts and burglaries, or minor corporate and union violations. His father had been a commander in the military police. He had given his life protecting, defending and arresting a populace the majority of which would never know either his face or his name, and all his death had warranted was two thin lines on a Notice 21B notification form letter. When Rowth died, he wanted the whole world to be rocked by the loss of him. He wanted his face and name and funeral procession to be splashed across every newsfeed, all day, every day for a week. He wanted an ultra-stern portrait of himself displayed in the Halls of Volk Umsha Law Academy and two to four plaque detailing the highlights of his judicial career hanging next to it in those hallowed halls.
He wanted to be remembered. All his life, he had worked toward this goal. All his life. Ticking off each mental achievement, before plotting out the most effective path to completing the next item on the list. He’d been first in every class he’d ever taken. He’d studied harder, worked longer, scored higher and advanced farther than anyone he’d ever worked with. And now—not quite eighty years of age—he was the youngest man to ever achieve the rank of General Magistrate on all of Pra’kir.
And what was he doing? He was standing in his kitchen, helplessly holding onto the only person in his life he had ever truly, albeit unexpectedly, called his friend and there wasn’t one damned thing he could do to stop the ravages of the disease slowly eating him alive.
“You’re all right,” Rowth said, shuffling Rog’s limp body to one arm long enough for him to brush at the patches of white skin flaking off his head and back. “Slow your breathing.”
The whole of Rog’s squat body shook with deep hacking coughs. Rowth rubbed his back and shoulders, then tapped the water on. There was little beyond frothy spit and a few regurgitated swallows of tollo juice. As it washed down the drain, he spooned up small handfuls and gently wiped the flecking white and drool from Rog’s mouth and chin.
Leaning heavily on the table, Brinley limped with every step around to Rog’s side of it. She checked his bowl. “I don’t think he ate any of this, or if he did, it certainly wasn’t enough to cause that kind of reaction. I ate some; so did you. I feel fine.”
“It wasn’t the fo—Don’t!” Rowth suddenly shouted.
No longer concerned with either calm or quiet, when he saw her pass two fingers through the film of whiteness that powdered Rog’s side of the table, Rowth vaulted away from the sink. He didn’t shut the water off first and barely managed to get the no-longer vomiting Mekron shifted to his shoulder. If he retched down Rowth’s back, so be it. Rushing to the table, Rowth ignored Brinley’s gasp when he hooked his arm around her tiny waist, hauling her roughly up against him and hurried back to the sink.
“What’s the problem?” she demanded.
“Wash your hands.” He forced her down directly in front of it. “Wash!” he all but bellowed, when at first she only looked at him.
Jumping, Brinley stuck both hands under the flow of the faucet. She shot him several sideways glances, but accepted the liquid soap he dumped across her fingers.
“Scrub,” he ordered and forcibly shoved her hands under the water.
Brinley obeyed, scrubbing and rinsing, and then again when he drizzled on more soap. Her fingers were red by the time he was satisfied enough to hand her a towel. “Shouldn’t we call a doctor?”
Rowth didn’t answer. Instead, cradling Rog’s still form against his shoulder, he picked her up with one arm and carried her back to her side of the table. “Sit,” he told her. “Stay.”
“Woof,” she replied, a hint of her customary irritability creeping back into her tone, although her expression held only notes of concern.
He’d find out what ‘woof’ meant later. Leaving her there, he carried Rog back down the outer staircase to the second level. His footsteps echoed off the floor tiles as he passed Brinley’s room and the two extra guest rooms, and entered Rog’s. The overhead lights came on automatically, lighting the spiderweb of ropes, ladders and swings that once had kept the Mekron comfortably active until the progression of the illness robbed him of his mobility. At one time, they had talked about painting trees on the walls to bring a little outdoor décor into what was otherwise a rather dull interior. Rog liked trees. He used to love to climb the ones in Rowth’s front yard, back when he had the energy for it. Rowth wasn’t an artist. He hadn’t the skill or, frankly, the interest to paint the walls himself, but he sorely regretted not having made the time to hire someone to do it for him.
Laying Rog gently into bed, Rowth covered him with the sheet, noting the pallor and clamminess of his skin. Between the paleness and the unusual shine, the white flaky patches stood out even worse than normal. Rowth took stock of them now, noting with sinking dismay the spread growing not just on his face and chest, but also the new patch under his left arm and behind both knees. More of him was ‘flaking’ now than not. It was even under his claws.
“I thought I had more time,” Rowth told him softly, letting his hand rest a moment on the—was he sleeping
or unconscious—Mekron. Even more softly, he whispered his defeat, “I am so sorry.”
“Is he dying?”
Rowth stiffened, removing his hand from Rog’s forehead. In retrospect, it should not have surprised him that Brinley would not obey his staying command. It did, however, surprise him that he hadn’t heard her limping along behind him. It surprised him even more that she’d managed to keep up, but when he looked at her, he saw the toll it had taken. “I told you to stay put.”
“But is he?” she returned, leaning heavily in the doorway, her face now every bit as flushed as Rog was pale. Sweat beaded her forehead. Both her hands were braced upon her thighs, helping steady her knees as they shook. Following him must have been agonizing; she was such a stubborn and tiny being. It was a personal failing that, in this moment, he found that more endearing than he did annoying. When he failed to answer fast enough, her tone turned demanding. “Is he dying, Rowth?”
“Yes,” he snapped back.
She ventured half a limping step into the room. “What’s killing him?”
“I don’t know. Nobody knows.” Again, his defeat overwhelmed him.
“Why haven’t you called the doctor?”
He refused to let his inner aggravation show but it wasn’t in any mood to obey him, and he couldn’t quite stop himself from snapping, “Because they have no interest in treating him.”
Brinley blinked twice. “Why not?”
Rowth blew out an exasperated breath. “Because.” It was a rotten answer, and he knew it. Rubbing his face, he stood to face her. “Because no one sees a point in spending valuable resources to diagnose, much less treat, a disease that only affects a people we did not invite to our world. In particular, they do not see a point in prolonging their lives when there is no hope of reproduction. The Mekron are merely counting the days until they pass into history, much as you and your friends will do. Wherein lies the point of healing a race already doomed to extinction? On this world, anyway; the gods only know how many other ships they have drifting through space.”
“Make them treat him,” Brinley half shrugged. “You’re the General Magistrate. You can—”
“Lose everything I’ve worked to achieve by making that demand,” he countered. “And then what?”
“What does that matter? He’s your friend and he’d be alive.”
“He wouldn’t be alive!” Rowth lost his grip on his temper. For the first time in a long time, he felt it slip from his iron grasp as if it were a physical thread being ripped from him. “Neither would you! I have power only for as long as I behave as expected. The second I do not, hundreds of lesser court magistrates will flood from the legal shadows to make issue of the fact that my interests have waivered from the social good, and for what? A creature not even born to this world? My judgment would be forever compromised. I would be relieved of my duties, my ranking stripped away. I would be judged and found guilty of failing the promises I made when I swore oath to my office, and both of you will be taken from me. He will go to a quiet little hospital room where he will be kept comfortable, as comfortable as we—good hosts that we are—are capable of making him. You will go back to prison until another fostering home can be arranged. Think you I have been harsh? Wait. Wait until you are placed under the care of another and you feel firsthand the deviance of his desires and demands, because he’ll have them. I promise you. And I will be powerless to do anything, not even to visit and make sure you are well.”
Brinley stared at him and for the first time, he found it difficult to read her expression.
“What?” he demanded, more tired now than angry or even curious.
“You don’t want me to get a job,” she said, a glimmer of realization taking root in her eyes. “You want me to figure out what’s wrong with him. That’s why you brought me here. Why you chose to foster me.”
All that arousing defiance and she was intelligent too. Small wonder he found her so appealing, and yet as he stood there, he knew what he was going to say next would kill the fragile attraction budding up between them. He should lie, but he didn’t. “Yes.”
Her expression never changed. He took a half-step toward her, but she immediately limped a half-step back, bumping against the threshold before ducking out of the room.
“You should have told me from the beginning.” There was accusation in the words, if not her tone.
He returned the barb without thinking. “Would you have cared?”
She withdrew another half step, her shock becoming regret an instant before her expression hardened against him in that familiar angry way. “I like Rog!” she shouted up at him. “It’s you with all your… your high-handed—” Her voice dropped into a very deep, very poor approximation of his. “‘obey me, earth-woman’ ways who drives me fucking nuts!”
She turned, her broken steps stumbling her into the threshold before she found her balance again. Clutching her legs, she limped away. For his part, Rowth wanted to stop her but he had nothing in his arsenal of things to say that felt potent enough to matter. He turned away too, lowering himself to sit at Rog’s bedside. He covered the Mekron’s small, unmoving hand with his. It felt cool, the unnatural stillness already reminding him of the permanence of death.
“And another thing, goddammit: I’m not a doctor!” Brinley snapped, limping back into the open doorway. “I push fucking buttons for a living, Rowth!” Angry now, her green eyes flashing fire. That same aggressive fire that he remembered the first time he’d met her. Lying broken, bruised and incapacitated in her hospital bed, she had dared to challenge him like no other had. Not in decades. “Your medical knowledge is head and shoulders beyond anything available on Earth. What exactly do you think I can do?”
“Perhaps nothing,” he admitted. “But at least someone would have tried.”
Again, that flicker of shock warred through her angry expression before, mouth flattening tighter, she staggered back out of the doorway and out of his sight.
She returned again a few seconds later, her mouth even flatter, her eyes still flashing, and anger coloring her cheeks much the way her erotic flush had earlier. “Get up,” she ordered as she came towards him, a hand braced against each thigh, each step accompanied by a wince she probably wasn’t even aware she was making.
When he stood, she pushed him aside, collapsing with a wince and groan in his place. She touched Rog’s still hand too, then his chest. She looked at the white flecks that came away on her fingertips. “If I give you a list of things, are you still powerful enough to get them?”
He took exception to her surly tone, but it was likely the very least that he deserved. “What sort of things?”
“A microscope, to start.” Her brows beetled as she rubbed her thumb across the whiteness. “If any tests have been run on this stuff, any medical reports, I’ll need those too. And don’t hold your breath,” she repeated. “I’m a glorified button pusher. My biological education certifies me to figure out how to make seeds from Earth germinate on Zeta-12. That’s what I know how to do. Jesus, I’ve got to be out of my mind.” Her shoulders heaved under the heaviness of her sigh, but when she looked up at him, most of the angry light had already left her eyes. “But you’re right. Someone at least ought to try.”
And that right there, was worth everything.
* * * * *
“This is the weirdest shit I’ve ever seen in my life.” Brinley pushed away from the microscope and the table he’d set up for her in a corner of Rog’s room, making room for him to take her place. “Take a look.”
As if he had any idea what he was looking at.
Edging in beside her, Rowth peered through the magnifying lenses and a 3D image immediately sprang up before his eyes. Of all the skin and flake samples Brinley had taken, this was the slide she kept returning to. Obediently, Rowth studied the crystal-like granules turning before his eyes. “All right,” he said. “What am I looking at?”
She snorted. “Damned if I know.” Rubbing her face with both hands, sh
e stretched, first her back and then her legs. She rubbed her left shin. “All the reports say it’s a kind of fungus, right? Something this doctor… what was his name again?”
“Borl.”
“Right, Doctor Borl says was brought here by the Mekron. Within six months of arrival, all of them were showing signs of the disease, though none were sick when first taken from the ship, right?”
“Correct.” Rowth leaned away from the microscope. “So, what does that tell you?”
She shrugged. “What if it he’s wrong? They only got sick after they arrived here, so to me that suggests this is a disease born of this planet.”
“A disease born here but which no native Pra’kirian is susceptible to?” Rowth countered.
“Uh uh.” Brinley wagged a staying finger at him. “There could be reasons for that. Either the disease hasn’t mutated into a form that can jump species or perhaps it’s a combination effect. Something they carry in their genes, but which didn’t spark into this illness until they caught the biological catalyst from one of you.”
“Nothing in our history has seen anything like that,” Rowth pointed at the microscope, “until they arrived. There is nothing anywhere on this world with that kind of cell growth or symptoms.”
Brinley frowned, her eyes narrowing, but Rowth was starting to learn her emotional tells. That was a look of deep thought, not of argument or challenge. She peered into the microscope to study the slide again, adjusting the magnification and bringing it into focus again. She wrinkled her nose, eyes narrowing further. “It’s like a… I don’t know… spiky pollen, almost. Except more like a crystalizing fluid being exuded out of his pores. I’d say it was a reaction to the drink, but he’s been flaking like this for…”
“Six of the ten years that he has been in my care.”
“How often do you feed him tollo juice?”