allies and enemies 02 - rogues

by Amy J. Murphy

21

  The raw energy of the girl’s Sight thundered into Neesa. She barely raised her defenses in time.

  “You are ruin.” She snatched her hand away.

  The connection was broken. Yet parts of the girl’s memory-emotions continued to unfold, straining against the walls of the block. Even peeking at the deluge was like trying to sip from a powerful waterfall.

  Hazardous and stupid. A stupid mistake. I should be more careful.

  The girl flopped to the floor, eyes rolling up into her head. Her entire body quivered.

  “Neesa! Do not touch her! None of you!” This from Lucien. His paranoia of disease and contagion was constant. The girl appeared to be no more threatening than a common flea. But he was not too far off the mark this time. Touching her was bad, but for entirely different reasons.

  That was how the thing in her head fed, through touch.

  She examined her hand. Her own colors there marbling, turning the dismal blue and purple of the girl’s fears. Neesa forced her mind to be still, focusing on pushing the colors away until her own pattern of yellow remained.

  Ix grabbed her by the upper arm and steered her away. Fascinated, she watched the girl writhe like a swatted insect. Her queer green eyes had rolled back into her head as her thin body shook, limbs stiff. Neesa’s jealousy was forgotten. This was far more entertaining. It was a fascinating show.

  Victorious smile at the ready, Neesa turned to Asher. Her satisfaction iced over. The colors that rose in him were a confusing mix: fear, helplessness. And guilt. She balled her fists, fingernails chewing the palms.

  Did he mean the girl as a trap for her, to somehow harm her? What was his play? Incredibly, Asher tried to edge closer to the girl before Mal stopped him.

  No. There was something more here.

  “Darling, perhaps we should put her out of her misery.” Neesa kept her gaze on Asher. “Mr. Ott, would you—”

  “She’d warned that it might be contagious.” Asher drowned her out. “The Fleet ship was a quarantine vessel.”

  “Contagious?” Lucien repeated. His voice was farther away. Neesa turned. He’d made it to the other end of the dais with impressive speed.

  Ott volunteered, “It means something you can catch.”

  “I know what contagious means, you imbecile,” Lucien shot back, frantic. His thinning hair slipped into his forehead.

  Neesa clenched her teeth as she glared at the girl’s continued throes. “Then shove this pitiful thing out of an airlock.”

  “And lose any chance of knowing what disease she might have already given to you…all of us?” This time Asher met Neesa’s stare. That familiar challenging smirk showed just below his surface. One she knew too well. He had a knack for playing people, something she’d discovered far too late. He could be almost as good as she. Almost.

  “Disease? You mean like blackmouth or some such?” This came from an unseen member of the throng. Neesa saw their colors gaining the bright blues of fear. It was jamming every signal, making it hard to pick out the individuals.

  “Maybe worse,” chimed Liet.

  “Boss, want us to get ‘er to the healer? Have her suss it out?” Mal volunteered.

  “Honestly—” Neesa felt a hand seize her upper arm and she was jerked back to what Lucien judged a safe distance from the girl. She had lost sway. This was Asher’s doing. He’d sown this chaos.

  “Mr. Ott,” Lucien barked. “Get this creature to the med suite. Have the healer examine it. I want to know the moment she learns what disease the girl carries.”

  Ott shifted his considerable frame from foot to foot, uncertain. The paranoia Asher had flung into the room now clung to even the least imaginative of them.

  “Ott!” Lucien’s voice drove up an octave.

  “You heard him!” Ott shoved Liet toward the girl.

  The fit had stopped, her breathing coming in short gulps like a landed fish. A thin trickle of red spilled from one nostril. Her eyes were shut, body curled into a frozen crescent of torment.

  Liet cautiously gathered the girl up under the arms and dragged her boneless form out of the room. The crowd parted, all staring.

  Only Neesa watched Asher. His face was purposefully blank, but under that she saw the flutter of relief tempered with streaks of fear. It was not fear for himself; it was fear for the girl. Nowhere did she sense surprise in him.

  This was what he wanted. It was somehow his plan. The girl was a trap for her.

  “And stay in the medical suite until Northway says you are not infected as well,” Ix instructed.

  Liet’s shoulders sagged.

  Lucien snapped the front of his jacket into a straight line and faced the room. “Now…back to me.”

  22

  The universe had collapsed to simple things: the agony wrapping her muscles, firm hands holding her down, the cold metal table pressing against her back.

  She drew in an aching gasp.

  “Good girl! Come on…breathe!”

  Another breath. In. Out. A simple act, performed a trillion times in one’s existence, now demanded such absolute concentration.

  Thumbs parted her eyelids. The light stabbed down, framing a dark-skinned woman. She peered down at Erelah, elegant features etched with concern.

  Perhaps she is Miri, come to take me home.

  “I need another ‘jector.” The lilt in her voice made Commonspeak sound nearly exotic.

  “You got everythin’ there, Northway,” a reply came from further away.

  In sips, Erelah glimpsed the world beyond the agonizing light. The room was a different one, no longer the big ornate den where she’d first collapsed.

  Where that horrid Binait woman…Neesa…had touched her. When…

  The muscles in Erelah’s chest spasmed. Her neck and back snapped into a painful, impossible bow.

  “She’s seizing again! Liet, get over here and help me!”

  “Ain’t touchin’ her no more.”

  “So help me I’ll inject you with the Lacerta plague if you don’t bring me that tray!” There was an unkind jostling of the table followed by a crash of metal.

  “Bring me the machine. No. The other one.”

  A clatter of metal.

  “You’re not even looking where I’m pointing.”

  Something solid clunked to the table near her head.

  “Damn you. You’re worthless.”

  Erelah’s jaw clenched. Blood welled between her teeth. Her tongue throbbed as though she’d bitten it. The light overhead was relentless burning agony against her eyes. She shut her eyelids and returned to red shadows. All that remained were sounds and touch.

  No. This is not the Bright Realm.

  A mix of relief and disappointment accompanied that thought.

  There was a painful pinch at her bicep and warmth spread over her limbs. Her spine unfolded. The horrid cramping in her lungs dissolved. For the first time in eternity, she drew in a truly deep breath.

  “That’s it. You got it. Breathe.”

  Cool soft hands pressed against her forehead. Erelah tensed, steeling against the Sight’s hungry searching. A flicker of images came: all nonsense.

  “Hey. It’s okay, hon,” the woman crooned between nonsense noises. “No one gonna hurt you here.”

  Erelah swallowed several times. She was desperate to speak, but unarmed with words to form the myriad of questions. The piteous noise that did escape her throat went unnoticed.

  There was the clacking of glass against glass, the sounds of rummaging. The woman’s voice was tense, urgent, but set on a bedrock of firm control. “She’s burning up. I need an anti-pyretic.”

  “Anti-what?”

  “Something to bring the fever down. Is there anything left of that green stuff we got off that Trelgin?”

  “Here…this.”

  Hands wound beneath Erelah’s neck, holding her head up. Something pressed against her mouth. A bitter liquid. Immediately she began to gag against the strong taste.

  “No. No.�
�� A firm hand held Erelah’s jaw. “You keep that down.”

  Dutifully she choked it down. She thought of the Temple of the Miseries. A lifetime ago. A different damaged girl.

  “Please,” Erelah rasped through a burning throat, uncertain of her next words.

  “No. Hush now.”

  Half-blinded by the dazzling light, Erelah pushed up on one elbow, fighting the hands that sought to force her back down to the table. She relented.

  Fingers encircled her wrist. No images came with the touch this time. The sogginess of the pharms seemed to make the Sight weak.

  There was a long, counting silence. “Just rest. Take it easy.”

  Erelah forced heavy eyelids open. The dark-skinned woman gave her a slim smile; her warm brown eyes kept private fears.

  “Please.” It came out in a winded whisper, barely audible. The strength was leaving her voice. Dimness threatened at her edges and she fought desperately against it. Erelah shut her eyes as the warmth of the pharms spread through every pore. Something more deeply wedged than sleep beckoned and it was too hard to resist.

  23

  “Well?”

  Doctor Rachel Northway did not bother to look at the Zenti henchman. Her thoughts ran through a myriad of avenues as she chewed the pad of her thumb.

  Liet had resumed his place near the entrance to the enormous medical bay. He’d practically one foot out the door the whole time and had proven useless as a helper. Little surprise there. Other than looking tough and showing dogged loyalty to his older brother, Ott, the guy was worthless.

  Rachel got the sense he was not very highly regarded in the hierarchy of Ix’s little pirate enclave and was therefore the one that often got designated as her guard. It suited her just fine. The rest of them were heinous pricks. At least Liet was manageable.

  “Well what?” She counted the steady rise and fall of the girl’s chest. Her respiratory rate was back to normal. In her post-ictal state—

  “She contagious or what? Lucien will be wantin’ to know.”

  The lie slipped out. “Too soon to tell.”

  “Tell what?”

  Rachel shook her head. She had chosen poor wording in Commonspeak. It’d taken her the better part of six months to get even a working understanding of it and even then she could not always be sure she was using the crunchy syllables of the language correctly. Idioms and metaphor didn’t translate well either.

  She picked present tense. It was easier. “The diagnostic is still running.”

  Liet seemed temporarily satisfied with this, but she sensed more questions. He was a gossip. Granted, as her unofficial “guard” (even though she still had no idea where she’d actually escape to), he probably felt obligated to report back on everything she did or said. He was also slow to connect the dots, something Rachel used to her advantage. Given the staggering differences in their roles, he had no clue what she was doing.

  Of course, if her lie got found out, this could be bad. She wanted more time to talk to her mysterious new guest without Liet present. She could say it was part of her examination to determine what contagion she possessed. It was plausible.

  Rachel drew in breath and strode over to the patient’s cot, purposefully kicking over the heavy metal lockbox full of medicines in the process.

  She stopped, glaring at him. “Goddamnit, Liet. You gonna pick this crap up or what?”

  Incredibly, he flinched. He was jumpy, no doubt fixated on the possibility that his skin was about to slough off or that he’d start bleeding out of the eyes. Ix tended to make everyone around him just as neurotic about disease. “Me? You asked for those things.”

  “What if I’d have broken some of the bottles?”

  He regarded the lockbox, then the girl. Rachel could practically hear the tired little hamster in his head spinning the wheels.

  “You know I can’t leave the medical bay without an escort. And I’ve got to watch her,” she huffed. “Bring it all back to the lockup so his majesty doesn’t pitch a fit over his precious drugs…er…pharms.”

  Ix would require a precise inventory of the medicines that she used. He was a tight-ass about that.

  “But, Lucien…” Liet pointed at the girl who was still asleep; remarkable, considering the racket they were making.

  “Got it. Wants to know when she’s awake.” Rachel arched an eyebrow. “Does it look like she’s going anywhere right now?”

  Liet muttered something about errands being grot work as she dumped the box in his arms.

  “I think I can handle one scrawny little white girl.” She herded him to the doorway. “Here. I’ll shut the hatch. That way you know that I won’t run off.”

  “Sure. Sure,” Liet grumbled. She shut the heavy door.

  When she turned around, the girl was standing four feet away.

  And there was a scalpel in her hand.

  Well shit.

  24

  I am losing control.

  Erelah gaped at the slim metal knife in her hand.

  Before her was the same dark-skinned woman, back braced against the door. Her eyes widened with surprise, hands outstretched as if she were confronting a dangerous animal. Northway, the man had called her.

  “Oh. Whoa. Just relax.” She looked over her shoulder, as if she were considering calling back the guard.

  Erelah stepped closer. “Who are you? What are you doing?”

  “Just take a deep breath.” It was a strange command to make of someone essentially threatening you with a weapon.

  The scalpel trembled in her hand. Erelah side-stepped to the door. Northway moved away. There was no window or vids to see what lay outside.

  “I wouldn’t do that.” The woman made a pleading gesture. “They’ll be on you like white on rice.”

  The warning was plain, regardless of the nonsense words. “Explain.”

  Northway shifted her weight, lowering her hands to her sides slowly. “Ix sent you to me. You had a seizure. He wanted me to—”

  “Seizure.” Erelah tested out the strange word.

  “A convulsion…like a fit.”

  “That woman…the Binait. She did this.”

  “Neesa? I honestly don’t know.”

  Erelah took in the room. Judging from the gilded scrollwork along the ceilings and threadbare carpets underfoot, it might have once been a salon or an opulent parlor. The room was orderly, clean, but had not the same antiseptic austerity that Erelah usually assigned to the other places like it. All of the devices were of mismatched designs. Some she recognized: medical equipment.

  She noticed a tidy square of gauze taped to her arm. “You’re a meditech.”

  “Sure. Close enough.” The woman nodded ardently. She tapped the chest of her dingy blue shipsuit. “I’m a doctor. My name is Rachel Northway.”

  “You work for Ix?”

  “Not much choice there.” She gave a half-shrug. “My ship…the Agamemnon…was attacked by these big reptile things. Sceeloid, you call them. Ix bought me off them.”

  “I know what Sceeloid are.” Erelah nodded, distracted. Her head buzzed. Her tongue swollen and dry.

  “Can we just put the scalpel down?” Northway pleaded. She stepped closer. “I swear I’m not going to hurt you. Why would I have bothered to help you, right?”

  Erelah lowered the scalpel. Her palm felt slick against the metal.

  Northway heaved a relieved breath. “Thank you. I—”

  A bleating shattered the air. Erelah jerked the scalpel up. The sound came from one of the devices lining the wall.

  Northway lunged at a machine, prodding at the interface until the noise silenced. “It’s okay. It’s just a diagnostic. I was testing your blood—”

  Erelah instantly filled with fright. “Why?”

  “I needed to know if you were sick with anything that could spread. And, I admit, I was curious about your genetic makeup. That’s why my people sent me out here…I’m a geneticist.”

  “A splicer?” Heavy dread surged in her. The
meditechs in Tristic’s lab had been splicers, genetics engineers. They seemed so proud of the torturous things they did. Was this Northway a creature like they?

  “That sounds like a bad thing. I don’t know what...” Northway trailed off.

  “Tristic used them.” Her voiced sounded small.

  “Tristic? Is that the guy they brought you in with? Big guy with the shaved head and the tats?”

  “No.” Erelah’s response was far more vehement than intended. Then, “Korbyn…where is he?”

  “I don’t know. Locked up, I guess. Ix really had a hard-on for him, sounds like.”

  Erelah’s anxiety shot up another notch. Perhaps they’d made good on their promise to kill him.

  She pushed out just the slightest in Northway’s direction.

  Quiet hum of strength beneath a head heavy with knowledge and tempered by incredible compassion. Undeniable curiosity being directed to her. And beneath it all, such a forlorn sense of loss, isolation. Someone that cared too much and often ended up in wars of the conscience.

  Northway did not flinch, did not seem to notice. Erelah drew a vague comfort from that. Being seen by that creature, Neesa, was devastating. It was feeling yourself unravel, your insides turned to goo. She hated the idea of what it might do to someone that meant to help her.

  “You sent the guard away. Why?”

  “Liet? He’s a pain in my ass. And really, he’s a crap guard.” Northway edged over to a stool and sat. “I’d love to play twenty questions like this, but not with the scalpel. So, can we…”

  There was a similar chair near her cot a few feet away. Erelah sidled over and sat. It was a relief. Her knees still shook. Her muscles were frayed and weak.

  She placed the blade on the bench beside her, grateful to be rid of it.

  Erelah regarded Northway in measuring silence. Her broad nose and sculpted cheekbones created an elegant symmetry. Warm brown eyes regarded her. Her finely curled black hair was clipped very closely to her scalp. She exuded a keen intelligence, regardless of her awkward use of Common.

  “You got a name?”

  Erelah hesitated. This stranger may have helped. But she remembered Korbyn’s warning. “Tilley.”