by Scott Rhine
Through every ansible in the system, the Bankers agreed.
Stripped down to his thermal underwear in the team’s stasis room, Kesh said, “If it helps, I don’t think they’re after us.”
“Yet,” Max said.
27. Tellers
Deep 7 jumped hubward ten parsecs to a refueling station. Inside an hour, the fuel crew was pumping ammonia into the converters. Then Roz woke the crew. “We made the first leg an easy one for a couple reasons. The test results tell us we can increase our jump length to twenty parsecs. In one instance, that’ll mean skipping a stop. We also dropped a copy of the subbasement instructions for the science outpost in this system. They weren’t in the academy’s master plan, so any units they construct, they can send ahead to meet us.”
Kesh nodded. “If I might make a small suggestion?”
“Shoot.”
“Have the fuel outpost send their message torpedo back to Adamantine. We can send our hopper ahead to the next place.”
“Why?”
“So the next hopper can be assembled by the time we arrive. If we keep this up, we can show a profit of nine hoppers on the way. We can use those any way we like.”
Roz chewed her lip. “At the cost of delaying the report by a month.”
“Not if we thaw the ansible,” said Kesh. “They tell everyone we arrived safely. Only the detailed experimental data would be late.”
Max latched onto the idea. “Why not forget sending back torpedoes at all after this hop? Then we’d collect seventeen.”
“On shorter jumps, not everyone will finish their models in time. Besides, we may not have the room to store that many torpedoes.”
“Even if we take the resonance rings off?” suggested Reuben.
“Fine. We’ll try it out for one stop, but we can’t let anything slow us down. The sooner we locate the fleet, the more likely we are to catch them asleep.”
Kesh frowned. He drank from a juice bulb to balance his electrolytes.
She didn’t seem to notice. “Now onto our unwelcome passengers. I say we wake the female first for Max to interrogate.”
Raising an eyebrow, Reuben said, “That’s an un-Magi-like attitude.”
“I meant about the state of her fellow Teller. Doctors always do interviews like that first. Right?”
“Those are confidential,” Max said. “I couldn’t tell. Minder also knows not to record them.”
“Grr. Work with me. Have Daisy be your nurse.”
Clearing his throat, Reuben said, “Maybe if she’s gay. Otherwise, I might be better able to charm the new woman.”
Roz rubbed her temples. “She’s just been through a traumatic experience. We want someone innocuous to hide in the background and listen. She can channel Posy if she has to do anything medical. Your idea of vaccination might send her screaming from the room.”
Kesh laughed so hard juice came out his nose. “Ow. It burns. Ha! Stop. Please.”
“Neither of you qualify,” Max said. “Not if I’m taking patient information in sick bay.”
Pointing to Kesh, Roz said, “He could be a patient. He’s always got something wrong. I think he has a bad case of tropical fever or something.”
“If he were a legitimate patient—”
Reuben pulled out his wall-knife at the same time Menelaus drew his samurai blade.
“Hells no!” Kesh grabbed his tail and hugged it to his chest. “Back off.”
“Come on. It grows back,” the Bat said.
With a smirk, Max asked, “Mr. Kesh, do you feel safe at home?”
“No. I do believe I may be a victim of elder abuse. Seriously, though, I have a bit of indigestion from that last rodent.” What had it been in the vet clinic for? The possibilities made him queasy. “It may be giardia. Filthy vermin are always eating their own droppings and whatnot. I wouldn’t want to miss the fight because of the runs.”
Max sighed. “Meet me in sick bay. I can take a few samples, but I’ll have to handle more urgent cases first. You may be waiting a while for the test results.”
“Of course.” Grinning, Kesh grabbed his computer pad. “I’ll catch up on my reading while Frick and Frack help you haul the female Teller up where you have the equipment for a proper revival. We wouldn’t want the Bankers accusing us of mistreating their pets.”
The mammal males sheathed their weapons and pushed the bulky suspended-animation pod down the hall.
When the others were out of earshot, Kesh video-conferenced the one person on the team with no moral compunctions—Daisy. “Record this call. I’m going to hide my pad under one of the cots and make it look like an accident.” They’d be able to eavesdrop on the whole interview. He strapped the pad onto a wall behind a crash harness, giving the camera a clear view of the exam room.
A heartbeat later, Max arrived. “What makes you think this is something serious and not run-of-the-mill gastric reflux for a Saurian your age?”
Not wanting Daisy to react audibly, he made up a reason. “The shady Goat I bought my food from. I found a collar on one of the mammals.”
His friend shook his head in disbelief. “You’re a billionaire, and you cheap out on the smallest things. I’ll run a complete panel for common pet ailments. Tell me none of them were monkeys.”
“No. Nothing that can use sign language. What kind of monster do you take me for?”
The stool swab was the worst, recorded for posterity. When the indignity was over, Max opened the door. The stasis pod had arrived. The gnomelike woman was even smaller than the beings he commonly saw in banks. With her dusky color, she could have been a pygmy from Eden.
Kesh motioned the others to follow him to the mess hall to listen in.
Daisy whispered, “Roz is keeping Echo busy.” Her microphone had been muted.
They heard Max press some buttons, and the air seal on the stasis tube hissed open. “Welcome. I’m Dr. Ellison. I’ll examine you for acceleration sickness and malnutrition.”
“Forget about me,” she begged. “Save Ulang. I’m supposed to be his caregiver, and he saved me.”
“One person at a time. What’s your name?”
“Ulang-dra,” which translated servant of Ulang.
“I’m sure an important person like the High Loan Officer has several servants. How does he differentiate you? A personal name?”
“Honey.”
“Honey. You can’t give care if you’re not well yourself. With stasis, no time will pass for him.” He checked her over. As he took blood, he said, “Tell me what you do for him other than pilot.”
She blushed. “Anything he needs. When he is filled with holiness, he forgets even the most basic needs. I bring food. If he faints, I splash him with water. During penetration by the gods, sometimes vessels lose muscle control.” The female Teller hesitated.
“You change his diapers.”
She nodded. “While possessed, he feels no pain. Ulang sacrificed three toes to the glory of the Great Ones due to frostbite.”
“You love him,” Max concluded.
She stared at her hands. “It’s a great honor. Many women wish to serve him. I was chosen from among many.”
He examined the blood screen. “I’m not an expert on your species, but from baselines, you’re short on a dozen vitamins and iron. With your permission, I’ll inject you with a booster to fix that. If you want, I can bring you a hairbrush you can use before I wake HiLo.”
“I would appreciate that very much.” Her Banker was so melodious, she could have done commercials. As she brushed, he pumped her for other medical information. She chatted happily. “Channeling the holiness for long periods damages him, but this is his sacred duty.”
She painted a picture of an agrarian society like the Aztecs. A young man is picked from the crowd. He is given everything he wants for a year, and then his heart is sacrificed to the gods. In exchange, the crops were bountiful. “Each time our people need wisdom, the gods speak through him.”
“But you wish you had
more time with him.”
She pressed her lips together. “Such wishes are forbidden.”
He whispered, “It’s okay. My wife is the Enlightened One. I rarely see her, and when I do, she’s exhausted. Society has so many needs.”
Honey nodded.
“Does he experience any side effects?”
“Migraines. Sometimes, he shouts strange words because they’ve been etched there by the gods.”
More likely, they’ve damaged his synapses and short-circuited him.
Max scribbled notes on his pad. “Mmm hmm. What else?”
“He often has a low-grade fever. It makes him forgetful.”
“Does he have an infection?”
“No.”
“Clearly, he loves you in return, or he wouldn’t have given you his acceleration meds. How did he cope with the pain?”
“He took more of the holy mushrooms that make the communion easier. They also open him wider so there’s less damage from the infilling.”
Does she know she’s describing a rape victim? Kesh wondered. He pictured a long tentacle entering through the anus and emerging from the mouth.
“It also makes him easier control for longer periods,” Max muttered. “The fever could be frying his brain and his personality.”
She gasped.
“It’s okay. I’ll do my best to cure him.” Lowering his voice, Max said, “Maybe hearing more about your people could help me design the best treatment.”
“This is a crime against the gods.”
He looked both ways. “I don’t see any gods here right now. We’re beyond their realm. My people have the power in this region of space. We’re about to do a huge favor for the Bankers, and we can ask anything we want in return. Maybe you’d like HiLo to retire while he’s not drooling?”
She hugged herself. “Heal my Ulang, and I’ll violate any oath you like.”
Way to recruit an asset, Kesh thought.
When the doctor walked her out, the gang in the mess hall muted the pad and pretended to deal a game of tiles. Reuben and Menelaus had to move the male Teller’s pod as well. The female showed interest in the tile game. Kesh faced a quandary. If he played along, he could gather more information from her, but he wouldn’t be able listen to the second interview in real-time. If Max discovered the pad, he’d wipe any trace.
Kesh compromised. “Sure. Daisy hates the game, though. While we teach you the basics, she can go do inventory.”
Daisy didn’t catch on immediately. “Inventory?”
“On your pad,” Reuben stressed.
“Yeah. Inventory. Then, I’ll bring a round of drink and food like we submissive womenfolk do around here.”
Twenty minutes later, Daisy called Kesh into the kitchen to help. She whispered, “His confessions about incontinence aside, the conversation was pretty dull. Ulang is a company man, as loyal as they come. He won’t give up information even under torture. The only clue Max pried out of him was that the Bankers had already done an updated valuation of all Goat properties and resources.”
“Our delaying tactics were anticipated.”
“Or someone in the accountability office talked.”
28. Old Time Religion
When they arrived at the next refilling station, Max and Kesh were the first two thawed The doctor escorted the Saurian to his office to discuss test results. The computers had analyzed a great deal while they slept.
“The last pet you ate turned up negative for diseases, but you seem to have developed a sensitivity to red meat.”
“The Magi must have done it to me. They want me to conform to their ‘evolved’ model.”
“That’s way too aggressive. They’re more subtle.”
Kesh heard the clank of something being loaded into the cargo bay. “Did we get a new torpedo?”
“Two,” Max admitted, squinting at the print on the screen of the sick bay computer. “The people in this system built three and were more than happy to help the Enlightened One. I swear they treat her like an evangelist. Everyone at the station gathered just to see her. Kids were climbing light poles. Her new solution to the Enigma puzzle is a revelation to these people. The wave front is traveling ahead of us in every direction.”
Chuckling, Kesh remembered the tent meetings on the primitive colony. “Are they going to ask for faith healings next?”
Max took the question seriously. “I hope not. Her talent might be able to change a diagnosis that hasn’t been proven yet, but I’m afraid of what it would do to her.”
“Can you cure the High Loan Officer?”
“None of your business.”
“Preventing a frilling war makes it my business. After playing tiles with his mate, I know about the nerve damage.” The statement was technically true, though misleading.
Max sighed. “Nothing I have can completely fix nerve damage in mammals. You know that already.”
“The best you could offer would be treatments like the ones you get to avoid dropping things. Though for the treatments to do any good, he has to stop being a meat puppet. Good luck with that.”
“Did you have any unusual illnesses on Eden?” Max deliberately changed the subject.
Kesh made a show of discovering his pad in the harness. “There it is. I’ve been looking all over. Hmm.” He closed the conference app and opened his medical records. Then he handed the pad to the doctor. “I never learned all those Latin terns.”
Max took an inordinate amount of time scanning the files. “You were bitten by tick?”
“Yeah. One of the wild possums had them and fleas. It happens. A little antibiotic fixes me right up.”
“Not entirely. The bacteria in Lyme’s disease can hide deep inside. It was your right arm, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah. How?”
Max tapped the forearm that the cast had just come off. “The break probably stirred things up. The bacteria may have penetrated the marrow?”
“Who cares? Fix it.”
“It’s not that simple. My guess is that one of the pets you ate was in for a tick infestation. The combination of strains from different worlds have formed a new organism. One-of-a-kind. On the bright side, the only affect seems to be releasing gastrin in the presence of mammal meat.”
Never eating red meat again? “Get it out!”
“I don’t know if I can. The only human treatments involve weeks of radiation, and those would leave you debilitated. Your teeth would likely fall out. No. You just have to gut it out until we can get you to a Saurian hospital.”
The treatment for ailments like this usually involved starvation. An old warrior who couldn’t overcome simple bacteria was likely to be thinned from society. Kesh wrestled with the diagnosis. Moments later, he decided this was fate’s way of forcing his hand. He was determined to go out in a blaze of glory during the coming combat. He envisioned holding the wall-knife as he charged screaming into a sea of thirty Phibs. His family name would be honored and feared.
Drawing a shaky breath, Kesh said, “Wake the female. While you begin the promised treatments for Ulang, I’ll be teaching her to play tiles.” He mixed a pitcher of his strongest Grasshoppers.
****
Honey didn’t want to chat while they played, but she loved the delightful green drink. “The mint is for health?”
“Precisely,” Kesh agreed. “It takes the edge off my freezer sickness and dulls my aches and pains.”
“You should bottle this.”
It was a mark of his diplomatic skill that he showed no sign of amusement.
The entire first hand, she kept glancing down the hall toward sick bay. As he shuffled the tiles, Kesh informed her, “Max will do everything he can, but nothing can reverse that brain damage now. He can, however, keep it from getting worse.”
“I’m grateful for your honesty, but my deal was for a cure.”
“Maybe you’d be willing to trade little bits of information. We’re allies after all.”
Eyeing the tiles she’d chos
en, Honey asked, “Why do the gods want to kill Shiraz? Everyone says she’s a nice lady. She gave me her hairbrush.”
“She’s very smart. She solved some puzzle left behind by the Forerunner race. It led to the Magi building the ship we’re in.”
Honey waved a hand dismissively. “That’s no motive. We have similar puzzles in the southern Vault of Sculptures.”
Puzzles, plural. “From the Forerunners?” he barely held his tone steady. It could be a lie. “Old and crumbly?”
“No. Compressed stone. Sharp edges. Not very pretty, but the Great Ones collect all things of worth in their storehouses. All wealth shall be gathered unto them.”
The Magi had spent millennia on one incomplete puzzle. What would they do for several intact Enigmas? Are they different? What sort of religious crusade would that start? Would the Magi let the Phibs destroy the Bankers in exchange? No. They wouldn’t risk war scratching the surface of such a treasure. He’d keep this tidbit to himself, but first, he needed confirmation. “How do you know so much about what’s on Nivaar?”
She snorted. “I don’t, but the transitories are kept on our world to retain their value. Moving water on the masters’ world would damage them. Only the permanents go to the Great Ones for their consumption. I was a transport pilot for the sorting depot. My father is a curator for stone art. It’s how I met an important person like the High Loan Officer. Ulang came to see a new exhibit.”
Kesh tuned out from her romance. The Bankers stole the minerals from a thousand worlds and used them for coral frameworks, vitamins, and minerals. He marveled at the waste until Honey interrupted. “You were telling me how Ms. Ellison offended the Great Ones.”
“She can see their true forms in the air.”
Honey paled. “They will gouge out her eyes.”
He pointed to his forehead. “She sees with her mind.”
“Ah. These things are hidden from the lesser races for a reason. The masters will be merciful when they remove this burden.” She made a weak opening play on the table.