Song of Scarabaeus

by Sara Creasy

  “No. This time I trusted you. I didn’t help because Haller deserved what he got.”

  No one deserved that. But she wasn’t in the mood to argue the point. Right now, what mattered was getting off this rock.

  “He thinks Rackham betrayed us. If that’s true, the Hoi probably left orbit hours ago.”

  Finn didn’t look surprised. This was, after all, a confirmation of what they’d already suspected.

  “Let’s get back to the skiff.” He started up the slope. “It can accelerate faster than the ship. We might stand a chance of catching up before he reaches the jump node.”

  And then what? They still had to convince Rackham to let them board, which would be a tough task since he apparently wanted them dead.

  “Maybe we can count on the engies.” Edie didn’t even remember their names.

  CHAPTER 30

  “They’ve gone! The Hoi’s not in orbit.”

  Dwarfed by the landing foot of the skiff, Cat yelled across the scrub. She must have seen them approaching and left the airlock. Finn jogged the last fifty meters across the plateau, a natural ledge cut into the foothills. Too tired to run, Edie trudged after him. To her right lay a desolate view over the valley, and the megabiosis they had escaped stood out clearly—a tight button on the landscape hiding its deadly secrets within.

  She heard Cat’s exclamation as the navpilot saw their shields were off, and Finn jerked his thumb in Edie’s direction, as if that explained everything. Cat stared at Edie accusingly.

  “You’re supposed to be…Where’s Haller and Zeke?”

  “Dead.”

  “No…Zeke…?” Cat looked out over the megabiosis as if she might catch a last glimpse of him. The aura from her e-shield glinted.

  “I’m sorry, Cat. The flash bomb killed Zeke and the rest of the team. It triggered a defensive reaction in the jungle, and it looks like that spooked the serfs on Haller’s team. I don’t know exactly what happened, but Haller lost his shield and the cyphviruses got to him. He didn’t get very far inside.”

  Cat shook her head. “I dropped him off about an hour after nightfall. Lost contact a couple of hours later, but he’d told me not to leave the skiff under any circumstances. In any case, I still had repairs to do.”

  “There was nothing you could have done, once his shield failed. Even if you’d retrieved him.”

  Finn climbed the ladder to the exterior hatch. “Is the skiff ready to fly?”

  Cat looked taken aback by his take-charge attitude, and Edie anticipated an argument. But Cat seemed to think better of it. She surrendered her position at the top of the chain of command and spoke to him as an equal.

  “Yes, it’s prepped. But the Hoi’s gone. Last I heard from them was ten hours ago. Corky was supposed to come down on the other skiff but he never did. I thought at first there might be a rad ship in the system, or that patrol vessel, and that they were maintaining comm silence.”

  “No,” Edie said. “Rackham is responsible for the bomb.”

  Cat’s jaw dropped. “Are you sure?”

  “That’s what Haller thought. And it makes sense. It had to be someone who knew the shield frequency of the BRAT, and knew our landing site.”

  “I suspected…” Cat looked devastated, like she couldn’t quite get her head around it all despite the plain evidence. “The skiff was sabotaged, I’m pretty sure of it. Somebody…Rackham didn’t want us to leave this planet.”

  “Then let’s surprise him,” Finn said. “Can we trust those engies?”

  “Yes, absolutely. They wouldn’t have abandoned us without a fight.”

  “Then let’s hope they succeeded in stalling him for a few hours.”

  Finn snapped the hatch and Cat cried out in horror. “Hey! You can’t come on board stuffed full of retroviruses from the planet. Isn’t that contagious?” She turned to Edie. “You said there was no cure.”

  Edie moved past her, climbed the ladder, and joined Finn at the airlock. “It’s okay. I reprogrammed the BRAT

  when our shields failed so it wouldn’t make retroviruses to infect us. And since you haven’t been exposed to the cyphviruses at all, the planet doesn’t even know you’re here.”

  Below them, Cat wavered, one foot on the step.

  “You can’t leave us here, right?” Edie said. “You have to trust me. I fixed everything.”

  Not quite everything. She couldn’t fix Scarabaeus.

  Their only option was to chase after Rackham and trick, bribe, or beg their way on board the Hoi Polloi. Edie strapped herself into the seat next to Cat, who was running through a quick syscheck.

  “Haller seemed to think Rackham had a gripe against the client,” Edie said. “Do you know anything about that?”

  “I never heard him speak a word against Stichting Corp. I mean, no more than the usual crap we all bitch about.” Cat still looked stunned. “What about the last mission? Oh god, did he have Jasna killed? I don’t believe it.” She sounded like she believed it all too well—she was just having trouble digesting it.

  She slapped the holoviz controls and the skiff powered up, its steadfast vibrations sending a surge of relief through Edie.

  “And Zeke…” Cat’s voice cracked.

  “I’m sorry.” Edie briefly touched her hand. “I know you could have left the planet hours ago. I know you stayed here for Zeke, not for me.”

  Cat was staring at something on Edie’s jacket. “What is that?”

  Edie followed her gaze. Her breath caught as she saw the faint glow emanating from her pocket. Sensing her distress, Finn jumped up. Edie took the neuroxin implant out and wiped off the blood and dirt. The reservoir that comprised one half of the device was glowing electric-blue.

  “My implant. I used it to kill Haller.” Edie stared at it, her heart thudding.

  “You killed Haller?” Cat said. “Poisoned him?”

  “I did him a favor, believe me.”

  Finn grasped her wrist to steady it and stared at the implant. “Why is it glowing?”

  “It glows when it’s empty.”

  She felt the shock wave of his reaction, mirroring her own.

  “Why the hell did you do that?”

  Edie glared at him. Because you wouldn’t! “I didn’t know this would happen. I thought it would just pump in enough to kill him.”

  She should have thought before she acted, but her desire to help Haller had been instinctive. His flesh and blood had merged with the ecosystem—she hadn’t just dosed him, she’d dosed the entire megabiosis. The implant’s pump had drained itself dry trying to keep up.

  “I should’ve just shot him,” Finn said.

  “Yes, you should have.”

  His expression hardened at her blunt reply, but he said nothing. She knew he regretted his action, or at least understood hers, and wasn’t going to defend himself.

  He pushed up her sleeve to examine the small wound inside her elbow. “How long can you survive without neuroxin?”

  “I don’t know. It breaks down fast. When it’s gone, my body will start breaking down neurotransmitters instead.”

  “We have to get you to a medfac,” Cat said.

  “No.” Edie tipped back her head against the seat as her world closed in. “Neuroxin can’t be synthesized. I have to go home.”

  Home to Talas. Home to Natesa’s clutches.

  Her eyes met Finn’s and she saw him in chains again, or worse.

  “Let’s deal with our problems one at a time.” Cat pulled back on the control stick. “Let’s catch that evil bugger.”

  The skiff lifted off smoothly from the scrub, raising whorls of dust in front of the screen. Edie closed her eyes, not even wanting a last look at Scarabaeus.

  She opened them minutes later to the safe emptiness of space.

  As soon as they set a course toward the jump node, the Hoi Polloi appeared on their scopes. Finn leaned over the copilot’s chair as they all examined the holoviz.

  “At least he’s still in-system,” Cat said
, “but he must have left orbit hours ago. He’s only twenty minutes from jumping.”

  Edie pointed at the comm switch. “Can you contact the engineers? Assuming they’re on our side.”

  “Of course they’re on our side. And no, not without Rackham knowing about it. All external comms go through the bridge.”

  “Then you have to persuade Rackham. Beg him to take pity on you. Tell him you picked up something valuable from Scarabaeus to add to his collection.” Edie exchanged a glance with Finn. They had picked up something valuable, but trading it to a rover would be a last resort. And a cryptoglyph was not pretty enough to add to Rackham’s museum. It wasn’t enough to tempt him.

  Cat’s hand lingered over the comm. Her hesitation made no sense. Why would she want to be stranded out here?

  Finn ran out of patience. He leaned over to hammer the switch. “Call the damn captain.”

  “Wait.” Cat blocked his fist before it made contact. “There’s another ship coming. I don’t mean CIP. I made…arrangements.” She looked from one to the other, gauging their mood. “I made a deal with the infojack, Achaiah.”

  “What kind of deal?” Edie kept her voice level but her blood ran cold.

  “He’s giving me a new ident, passage to the Fringe—freedom.”

  “What does he get in return?” Finn said.

  Edie’s knew the answer. “Me.” She glared at Cat, recalling the liaison between the navpilot and the infojack at the medfac. “He’s going to double-cross Stichting Corp, sell me again, get paid twice.”

  In Cat’s guilty silence, Edie’s mind raced. She glanced at Finn, knowing he was thinking the same thing as she was. Achaiah had created the leash and he might be the only one who could deactivate it. Could they make a deal with him in exchange for the cryptoglyph from Scarabaeus? The idea of handing over something so precious to an infojack curdled Edie’s blood. He might simply sell it to the Crib, and the Crib would destroy it, thus preventing it from ever reaching the people it was supposed to help.

  But she’d promised Finn they’d cut the leash, no matter what. Perhaps Achaiah would accept something else in payment. With Cat’s help, perhaps they could persuade him to do the right thing.

  Then again, why count on Cat’s help? She’d planned this from the start. Her change of heart three days ago suddenly seemed less impressive.

  The silent conversation passing between Edie and Finn had gone over Cat’s head. Perhaps she thought they were about to turn on her, because she panicked. She jumped up to explain herself.

  “You think you’re the only unwilling crew members on the Hoi?”

  Finn stepped between her and Edie, grabbing Cat’s arm to jerk her away. Cat shook him loose but her temper flared.

  “We’re all prisoners of the client. We’re all forced to serve—one way or another.” Cat jutted her chin, defying them to question her explanation. “Even imbeciles like Kristos, who thought he chose this life of adventure and crime. Even Haller, who convinced himself he was happy being bribed to serve a noble cause. We knew we could never leave. This is my ticket out.”

  “At our expense,” Finn said.

  Cat ignored him. “He’ll save your life, Edie! He won’t let you die—he’ll get your meds, somehow. What difference does it make anyway? Rovers are rovers—your situation won’t change.”

  Edie found her callousness hard to swallow. “What about Finn? What if the next rover crew decides they don’t need an unwilling serf hanging around?”

  With visible effort, Cat calmed down and dropped back into the pilot’s seat. Despite the ache of betrayal by a woman she’d finally convinced herself was on their side, Edie felt sorry for her. There was something good in Cat, something that had made her try and do the right thing a few days earlier. Something that could be reached.

  Edie tried to reach it. “With your help maybe this can work out. We need Achaiah to cut the leash. At least that protects Finn’s life. So change the deal. We can pay him with what we have—the skiff, the equipment down below.”

  “You really don’t have any idea how much you’re worth, do you. We have nothing to give him to match the price he’d get for a Crib-trained cypherteck. In any case, infojacks deal in information and skills, not things.”

  Cat looked at them, pleading for understanding. “I never wished any harm on either of you. I mean that.”

  “Act like you mean it.”

  Cat closed her eyes for a moment, her expression troubled as she came to a decision. “Okay, I’ll do what I can. We just need to sit tight for a few days—”

  Edie’s hopes faded. “A few days?”

  “We’re three days early for the rendezvous.”

  “Three days plus however long it takes to procure neuroxin from Talas…It could take weeks. I don’t have that long.” Perhaps it was only Edie’s imagination, but the muscles in her limbs already felt weak—the first sign of neuroshock.

  “I have contacts,” Cat said. “We’ll get your drug somehow. We just need a good thief.”

  That didn’t convince Finn. “There must be some medication that can help. What exactly is happening to you?”

  “Neuroshock,” Edie said. “It’s a catastrophic failure of several key biochemical pathways. An amino acid cocktail might help for a while, but I need neuroxin. There’s none on the Hoi.” As she said the words, she remembered…there was neuroxin on the Hoi. “Rackham’s talphi cocoon—it’s full of neuroxin. If I can figure out how to extract it, it should keep me alive a few days.”

  Finn turned to Cat. “Talk to Rackham and get us back on the Hoi.”

  “I thought you wanted to cut that leash?” Cat said.

  “Finn’s right,” Edie said. “I—we could be dead in three days. We’re back where we started—we need that cocoon on the Hoi.”

  “You sure that’s what you want to do?”

  “It’s our only option.”

  “Okay.” Cat gave a lopsided grin. “Zeke always boasted he had contacts at every port. I know some people, too. I’ll find someone near Talas and persuade them to buy or steal what you need.”

  “How was Achaiah going to board the Hoi?” Finn asked Cat. “By sweet-talking his way through the airlock?”

  “He gave me a worm that I planted in the system. When the time came I was going to activate it, and it would give him access to the ship’s main systems—weapons, engines, nav control. He could effectively shut down the ship for a few hours. Then he was going to board and…well, with my help, grab Edie.”

  “Can the worm be triggered remotely?” Finn asked.

  “Edie could do it.” Cat looked expectantly at her.

  “Uh, I don’t see how.”

  “That link you set up between internal and external comms when Haller briefly gave you security access—”

  “You found that?”

  “Sure, but I couldn’t figure out how to disable it. It would never have worked, by the way. You simply can’t send a message out that doesn’t go via the bridge. But we can use it now in the other direction.”

  Edie saw where she was going. “If you can get Rackham to answer a hail, I can sneak in via the link and access the internal systems. You just need to keep him on the line long enough.”

  “If the topic of conversation is himself, it’s not that hard to keep him talking.” Cat turned to the console and sent out a hail. “The worm is hidden in the navcharts. It’s programmed to migrate randomly, so you’ll have to hunt it down.”

  “How were you supposed to find it?”

  “It’s timed to make an appearance in three days for easy access, and then disintegrate after a few hours.” She grimaced. “Things aren’t really working out the way they were supposed to.”

  “No shit,” Finn growled, hovering over them.

  “When you find it, the activation code is Cameo.” As the Hoi answered the hail, Cat hit the comm switch.

  “Charme to Hoi Polloi. Captain Rackham, please respond.”

  “Hoi Polloi here. Cat Lancer.
How delightful to hear your voice again,” came the sardonic reply.

  Edie pressed her fingers to the access port and piggybacked along the comm line, quickly finding the link she’d made to the internal systems. The higher levels were impossible to breach remotely, but that was what the worm was for—if she could locate it. She shot a seeker, primed to track anomalous code, down the line. It would find a worm faster than if she trawled through the navcharts on her own, even if it turned up a few false positives in its eagerness.