The silence in the shuttle gave Pala time to think about her conversation with Denten earlier. Who exactly was the ‘us’ Cabot had always been talking about? Pala didn’t believe for a second that it was just Earth he was protecting. Someone in the IPC had fixed the maps and reports to show no sentient life.
Since Stastny was involved, that meant the Miners’ Union was neck deep in it, as well. She had to look at this from the corporate point of view. What would the Union want here? Rock, minerals. On Firone, it was the fungus they wanted. But they couldn’t want any vegetation or animals here, because they were killing it all off. Or were they? She glanced at the lichen again and slowly, things began to click into place.
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Trgyl periodically glanced at the dark female as they flew back to the newcomer’s barrio. The Ancients had shown her in his vision. She would die. As Dymlr, Tylg, Kryn and Rym died. As everyone in his barrio died.
The male with her, the one with hair the color of the pale plants in the river, was dying already. He moved and breathed like Kryn had before Trgyl had gone into the Ancients’ cavern.
It was odd, Trgyl thought, that the female would want food in her last hours. Odd also, that the Ancients would leave him alone to witness all these deaths. Then he was sure he would die also.
The path had been muddied as those in his barrio feared. The Ancients were very angry and they were killing everyone.
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Pala navigated the shuttle to the ground, watching Denten. If anything, his face had grown even more pale during the trip. As they disembarked, she motioned to Laramie. “Help him to an exam table. I have another errand I have to run.”
Denten shuffled beside Laramie, gripping his colleague's shoulder to steady himself. Together they made their way toward the science tables.
Trk-ill began to follow, but stopped when Pala didn’t join them. He took one last glance up at the scientists with a depressed moan, and then returned to Pala’s side. He uttered a string of chirps and clicks. This time, though, her visor had been subjected to enough of his language and was able to translate a word for her, “sick.”
Turning to look down on her new friend, she said, “Sick.” The visor spoke out the same word to him in his own language. He flung out a long, excited series of syllables and sounds, but the visor was only able to translate the same word again, “sick.” She squatted beside him and placed her hand on his leathered forehead. “Trk-ill.”
This time, when he said his name, it came through the visor unmistakably clear, “Trgyl.” She’d been close. Pala repeated it back to him.
Again, she was assailed with a series of sounds. The visor now was able to analyze and translate, “river, sick, green” and “body.” The words themselves didn’t make much sense, but she could guess that he’d been through much the same sickness and death with his people. Though, she was at a loss as to what the allusion to green meant, except that it had something to do with the dying of the surrounding forest.
Pala turned to check on Denten and saw that he’d reached his work table. He looked up then, as if knowing she was watching, smiled and gave a half-wave. She lifted her hand in return. Would this be the last time she saw him? Another shuttle landed. Two pale rangers with fevered eyes deployed and unloaded a body. Pala strode over and pulled the bag open. Roccio’s tortured face greeted her.
She closed the bag and glanced at the nearest cadet, knowing it was the virus that killed Roccio, but needing confirmation anyway. The ranger gave a short affirmative jerk to his head. The two carted Roccio’s corpse to the body processing station. Grimly, Pala hopped into her shuttle, jammed it into gear and lifted into the night sky. Trgyl sailed around her like a military escort jet.
The image of Cabot’s stare skimmed through her mind and stuck. The last time she’d seen him alive was in the midst of those tuber plants that reminded her so much of Firone’s whiskey-making fungus. That fungus was too similar to be indigenous here, yet this was supposed to be the maiden manned exploration for this planet. Someone had to have planted it long before this mission. And there was no record of it anywhere. If she was right, it probably happened when the Miners’ Union was researching other options for producing whiskey. They’d discovered Trgyl’s people then, too, but only in the north. That was why Stastny and his buddies had been assigned to that location.
Pala had no doubt now that they would all die. That whatever cure they found, if any, would be too late. She just wanted the satisfaction of knowing why this had all happened. Maybe figure out how to prevent it from spreading to the rest of the planet and beyond.
Settling the shuttle to the ground near the dark char in the middle of the field, a shiver of creepiness scratched through her. With a worried whistle-hum, Trgyl dropped to the ground in a crouch beside her. He didn’t like it here any better than she did.
She was grateful that the gravity-bound heat and humidity was slowly dissipating from this side of the planet. Cooler, almost frosty air was creeping into the inky night. Even a couple days later, the acrid stench of smoke and blackened vegetation was stronger smelling than the rot surrounding it. She couldn’t imagine how this would stink in the full sun of midday.
Walking to a large patch of unburned vegetation, she scanned the resonance image of the plants through her visor. Trgyl trudge-hopped beside her. “Sick,” he said.
The greens that had been so vibrant just a few days earlier were shriveled brown and oozing here, just as everywhere else the virus had touched. Nothing looked alive. She might be wrong in her hypothesis. Maybe this wasn’t transplanted Firone fungus that the Miners’ Union was protecting. Maybe it wasn’t a cover-up at all. Nothing was making sense and there was no evidence anywhere. She shook her head tiredly. Her joints ached. She should go back.
Sweeping her arm to encompass the whole field, she said, “Look for green.” Her visor, though only translated the one word, “green.” Trgyl seemed to understand and he immediately began searching.
It was almost a full circuit of the field when she spotted a tiny shoot of green nestled in the center of an oozing patch of mush. She called Trgyl and carefully burrowed her fingers in the thick loam beneath the vine’s roots. Lifting the whole plant out of the ground, she returned to the shuttle, Trgyl at her side. This time, he rode with her on the way back to the base, his head thrown back and eyes closed against the push of the wind. Occasionally, he lifted one arm or the other, letting the wind fill one of the immense skin flaps there.
The return trip seemed to take a longer time than going, but they finally arrived. As soon as the ship settled, a runner met her. “Denten collapsed. He’s in the hospital.” Pala flung her visor onto the seat of the shuttle and ran, Trgyl beside her. She found Denten, not beneath the bright lights strung around the hospital tables, but back at the crowded science tables, on a tall stool, again hunched over his microscope. The sound of his labored breathing reached her as she came up behind him. The hand he used to enter notes into his com was chalk white. It seized with a spasm and the com skated across the table and fell to the ground.
Pala bent and picked it up. She took his hand.
He looked up at her and wiped the sweat off his forehead. “I need to stay with the experiments I’ve started. Let me work. I’m so close to figuring it out.”
She shook her head. “I’ll send someone over for you to brief.” Pulling away from him, she felt as if her heart was breaking. She wanted to stop breathing herself.
He snatched at her hand, not letting her leave. “Pala, please. Let me work. You need every man you can get studying that lichen from the riverside. If we don’t find an anti-virus soon, we’re all dead anyway. You know that. Please.”
Her throat swelled and she hesitated. Then she said with a soft voice, “I’m not going to stop you.”
“Thank you.” He paused with a wry smile, as if he wanted to say something. Then, seeming to change his mind, he gave a small shake of his head,
more to himself than anyone else, and turned away. Noticing the plant Trgyl held, he paused. “What’s that?”
“It could be what you and I were discussing, that resource the Miners’ Union has been trying to protect.”
“Give it to me. I want to know what killed me.” Denten reached for the plant, but a coughing bout shook him. He motioned for Trgyl to place the plant on the table. When his hacking cough quieted, he looked back at Pala. “You shouldn’t be here. You’ll get sick quicker.”
“As you said, it makes no difference now.”
Abruptly, he ducked his head, blinking rapidly, the tops of his ears flaming red, matching the flush along the back of his neck, more pronounced against the milk-pale of his skin. While he focused on the sample in his microscope, Pala held the com and waited. His voice was soft and burred when he spoke again, not looking up. “Well, this has been infected, but like our lizard friend and the lichen, it’s making use of the virus to create a stronger super-cell.”
“How similar is it in composition to the fungus on Firone?”
“Firone?” He raised his eyebrows. Reaching for the com, he tapped in a code. When he spoke, his words were decidedly slower and more breathy. “It’s not identical, but it’s definitely from the same genus. This one contains a multi-stranded peptide chain that the original doesn’t. Probably a causality from being planted here.”
“And what exactly does that peptide chain do to the plant? Can it produce whiskey that tastes like Firone’s?”
Denten hesitantly shook his head, his face reddening with each breath. “I don’t think so. I think it would be much more flat and uncomplex. But, it’ll make the drinker severely addicted.”
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“Addicted?” The rest of the puzzle laid itself neatly out for Pala. “Suppose the Miners’ Union finds out about the addictive qualities of this transplanted fungus? They decide to finance the IPC’s little virus, provided key members of the Union are allowed to go along on the proving trip here. They want to make sure they hold sole title to any fields found. The IPC members who are in on this don’t care; they have their bio-weapon. Now suppose the Miners’ Union slips these addictive vines in with those from Firone while the whiskey is being made. No one would notice the subtle differences. And now, they’ve signed an exclusive contract with Firone to mine the fungus. We’ll die with the indigenous population of this planet and no one will know about the added tubers for decades. The demand for the Firone Whiskey will keep increasing as more people become addicted and the Miners’ Union will become one of the leading powers.”
Denten said, "There's a secondary issue here, also. Some of those peptide bonds are the same as those banned by the Interplanetary Drug Agency, but in much smaller doses. They cause birth defects in children when taken in large quantities. If people became addicted to the drink, there would be an accumulation in their system. And, because it's added to an already approved substance on the sly, no one would know until women start giving birth to disabled children in epidemic proportions." Denten started to continue, but a series of fierce quakes coursed through his body. Trgyl rocked himself. He said, “Sick,” and one other word Pala didn’t know, but judging by his reaction, she could guess that the word must have something to do with dying.
The scientist’s deepest tremors subsided, but minor ones still rolled across his frame. Pala held a canteen while he took small sips. He choked on the last swallow and sputtered it out. “You need to make sure Makel is the one who gets my notes. He’ll know what steps will be needed next. Okay?”
“Yes.”
“And this is very important.” His face looked like Bardef’s had just before he’d died: suddenly gray-white with the red, almost burgundy, rims around his eyes. “We breathed canned air for weeks, and the virus still mutated. The lichen and this tuber plant prove this virus is extremely resilient. It’ll mutate again once it hits a new atmosphere.” Another coughing spasm hit him. He slowly collapsed on his stool, falling against her.
Time seemed to stop and catch in Pala’s throat. She grabbed him under his arms and gently lowered him the rest of the way to the ground. Looking up for Laramie, she saw that he was already running toward them. He dropped to the ground and loosened Denten’s shirt.
“Pala,” Denten’s breathing was shallow, his voice raspy. He pushed weakly at Laramie’s hands, peering around him to see her. “You can’t let anyone go back.”
She nodded, her heart squeezing the breath out of her. Her friend was dying before she even had a chance to save him.
Laramie shifted to give her room. Denten’s hand found her head and it shook across her braided hair. A violent wracking spasm gripped him. His hand dropped and he lay still with eyes vacant. Trgyl’s mournful complaint turned into a full keening.
Pala crushed Denten’s body against her. The bud of anger that always seethed under the surface built within her now. Anger at Cabot. Anger at Stastny, Makel, Harlen and Riyst. Anger at General Grollier and the IPC. And anger at the Miners’ Union. She lowered her friend to the ground and closed his eyes. Standing, she spied the com on the table. She snatched it up and strode toward the freed Makel. Seeing her approach, his eyes opened wide and he hobbled backward as fast as he could in the opposite direction.
Slamming the com down on his table, she forced out two words: “Finish it.” She waited until he nodded and then pivoted and started toward her shuttle.
Stastny called from his cage, “Pala, we need to talk.”
“I neither have the time nor the inclination to speak to a prisoner.” Pala continued to the shuttle where she found Trgyl inspecting her visor. He leaned into the visor, whistle-humming. The visor spoke, “Speaks.” He looked up at her, pleased.
Smiling, she said, “Yes. This speaks.” The visor translated into a string of monotone syllables and the same whistle-hum Trgyl had used.
Pala sat in the pilot’s seat but didn’t start up the craft. Denten's death and his final words brought her a sense of dread. She and everyone else on the planet could die just like that. If she let it escape to other worlds, they could also die. Furthermore, if the Miners' Union, which was primarily non-human, was allowed to mine the altered species of fungus here, the human race was in big trouble. She couldn't allow any of that to happen. But, she may not survive to stop it.
She still needed to appoint a Mission Second, someone to take control when, or if, she couldn't. As it stood now, if anything happened to Pala, Khamasa would be in charge and that could be a very bad thing. The Korean was the ranking IPC marshal other than herself, but Pala still wasn’t sure about Khamasa's loyalties. So far, she'd divulged no promised reports on hidden activities or alliances, and all the top players were already caged.
Mind made up, she took her visor from Trgyl and connected with Khamasa, who bowed upon answering the call.
“Khamasa, in my absences, you and Quade will share all responsibilities in a joint command.”
“Understood.” Khamasa hesitated.
Pala spoke before Khamasa could head her off. “Quade has received a field promotion to the rank of Major.”
Khamasa bowed her agreement and Pala cut the connection.
Searching out Quade’s image at the top of the screen, she turned the recorder in her visor on. When his face appeared, she spoke formally. “Captain Quade Justiss, because of meritorious service and selfless dedication to duty, you are being promoted to the rank of Major effective two days ago. Congratulations, it’s an honor well earned. You are also being assigned the duty of Co-Mission Commander, concurrent with Cadet Marshal Kong Khamasa, to be carried out during my absences. I expect you will show the same conscientiousness and attention to detail that you have always given in every other aspect of your military service. It would further be my recommendation that you promote Master Sergeant Physe to the rank of Second Lieutenant. That is only a suggestion, however, and totally at your discretion. Congratulations on your promotion. God speed to you.”
She flipped the recorder off, speaking informally now. “Denten is dead.” Her words sounded clear, controlled. “Due to the nature of this virus, I feel we’ll need a command type person at the base at all times. This burn, however, takes a higher priority at the moment. Khamasa has the power and authority to remove you from office unless you work in yoke with her. Hence the promotion. Besides, you deserve it. I will be sending a signature copy of your promotion via courier to ensure no interference.”
He nodded, his eyes never leaving her face. Then his image tipped its forehead toward her.
He was asking her if she was okay. No, she wasn’t, but she gave a sharp single nod of her head. “Hang on a minute. I want the courier to get a fix on you.” She scribbled out her promotion order, signed and folded it, and tucked inside another note: Denten’s warning:
Denten says virus extremely dangerous and resilient. Will mutate upon reaching any new atmosphere. Nobody returns to Earth.
She sealed it and lifted her visor and carefully slid it onto Trgyl’s head so he could memorize Quade’s face. Then, putting the visor back on her head, she said, “His name is Trgyl and yes, he’s sentient.” She explained everything she’d found out about their attack and her hypothesis. About the qualities and consequences of the Firone fungus additive. She finished, "I'm amazed at the audacity of the Miners' Union."
Quade's image scowled in her visor. "They don't care about destroying babies; they were willing to kill us all to keep that secret safe. It's the bottom dollar that matters to them. Always has, always will. All that smoke that Makel and Cabot spouted about protecting Earth doesn't mean a thing to the Miners' Union. They used the IPC for their own agenda, plain and simple. I'll get a couple of teams to start scouting for more fungus fields. It'll be hard for them to show a profit if it's all burned up."
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