by Karen Healey
“Yes,” Marie replied after my translation. “As a child, before she could be vaccinated. Ask him if he thinks it’s a—” she said something incomprehensible. I wasn’t even sure if it was English.
“I don’t understand that term,” I said. All I could do was translate, and I couldn’t even do that right.
The lines on Marie’s forehead were so deep they looked as if they’d been engraved. “Sorry, medical jargon. Ask Eduardo if it’s a, um… time-delayed reaction between the remnants of the measles and the boosters.”
Eduardo nodded. “This happened to my cousin. He had measles, then many years later, a cut on his leg. The cut would have healed, but his wife made him take the immunoboosters the firster doctor recommended.” His eyes were sad. “The measles virus interacted with the boosters. It looked like this.”
I translated, numb. “Can you fix it?” I asked.
“I can try. Ask what they did for his cousin,” Marie said quietly. I think she knew as well as I did that Eduardo’s story had no happy ending.
“We prayed,” Eduardo replied. “You can pray, too. Perhaps God will listen to you.”
Joph was silent, her face almost as white as Tegan’s.
Marie was loading a hypospray with something from a clear bottle.
“This will make her more comfortable,” she explained in response to my look.
I felt my face stiffen. “That’s what you say about people who are going to die. Tegan won’t die.”
Marie’s face was serious, professional, only hints of the pain she must be feeling around her eyes. “Abdi, I’ll do the best I can for her, but you need to be aware that she’s in serious danger. This is an unusual reaction, and I need specialist drugs that we don’t have with us.”
“We could give ourselves up to the authorities,” Bethari said.
Hanad looked up at that. “Not you,” he said, pointing in my direction. “You come with me.”
“Well, maybe just Tegan, then,” Bethari said, thinking out loud. “We could drop her off at a hospital. I mean… they’ll have to heal her.”
I shook my head. “SADU would take her back. She said she’d rather die than go back.”
“That’s just a phrase,” Bethari said. “Abdi, come on.”
“Not for us,” I told her. I was so calm. Why was I so calm? “Hanad, I need to hire your crew. You do retrieval operations. We’ll retrieve the drugs Dr. Carmen needs. My family will pay.”
Hanad shook his head. “I’m sorry for your friend, Abdi, but I don’t take these risks for nothing. And your parents cannot pay more. They had to sell their house to fund your own retrieval.”
I tasted metal in my mouth. The house. No, the terra-cotta-colored house on Siesta Road couldn’t be gone. It all had to be there, waiting for me: the flat, sun-baked roof; the white balcony, with its wide, graceful arches; my father’s courtyard garden; the little fountain my sister Ifrah had given my mother for her fiftieth birthday; the row of shoes outside the back door. I’d been dreaming of that house for over a year.
“I have money,” Joph said. There was color coming back into her face.
“A girl’s dress allowance isn’t going to cover—”
“I have forty-six million Australian dollars,” Joph said, as if Hanad hadn’t interrupted. “Get us those medicines, and you can have it all.”
Hanad was very efficient. In less than three hours, I was sitting in an ambulance parked in an alley behind a Melbourne medical clinic, watching Tegan fade.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to pry too much into how Thulani had managed to acquire an ambulance with no notice and no alarm. But Marie had insisted on a sterile environment for the actual operation, and the ambulance’s air-scrubbers provided that. After the rough trip here, it seemed better for Tegan to have the comfort of a float-bed. I knew it couldn’t mean much to her, but it made me feel better.
It was hot in the ambulance, and the little whirry blood chiller that kept Tegan’s temperature below brain-melting was going fast. Even with the fever under control, the infection was still raging through her body. Marie had a few less popular immunoboosters with her in Joph’s red bag, but she was reluctant to use them until the last resort. I thought we were nearing that now, but I wasn’t the doctor.
In the meantime, it was the blood chiller and IV bags to replace the fluid she was sweating out.
I was feeling very friendless, with Tegan unconscious and Joph left behind, guarded by Eduardo. Bethari had insisted upon coming, which Hanad had agreed to with surprising ease—at least until I saw Joph’s worried glance and realized that Bethari was functioning as a hostage for Joph’s continued goodwill, even if the operation went wrong and Marie and I were hurt or killed. I wondered if Bethari had figured out that was the only reason they’d brought her along.
At first I’d been happy they’d stuck Bethari with Thulani in the getaway car we’d transfer to after the theft. On the one hand, she couldn’t bother me anymore with her “just take Tegan to the authorities” argument. But on the other, even Bethari might have been some comfort, under the circumstances.
Hanad and Zaneisha were going over the plan again, while Ashenafi set up the surveillance equipment and slid into the clinic’s security feeds as smoothly as Bethari would have, making sure they wouldn’t record anything that could identify the thieves. I’d envisaged a quick smash-and-grab, but Hanad had advised subterfuge. “No need to let your pursuers know you are in Melbourne,” he’d said. “Not when they are looking much farther away. Better that they not know anything has been taken until it is too late.”
Now he squinted at maps. “In the front door, to the dispensary. You are positive there is no pharmacist there, Dr. Carmen?”
“Not at 2 a.m., not unless they’ve changed procedures a great deal in the past two years. Doctors have to get their own medication at night. Or send nurses for it.”
“So, we take what we need and proceed out the back door. An invisible theft. Very simple. If there is a pharmacist, or we are discovered by security personnel, we can take care of them.”
“Non-lethally,” Zaneisha said, checking her sonic pistol before concealing it under her stolen medical uniform. She looked as comfortable in those clothes as she did in her ordinary long robes.
“Of course. I have no desire to kill anyone on Australian soil. Your justice system is notoriously harsh toward outsiders.”
“Didn’t you shoot the SADU agent at the swap station?” I asked.
“That was me,” Zaneisha said.
“Oh.”
“If it helps, the agent was definitely trying to shoot me, too.” She looked at Hanad, a little curious. “You did order your men to kill me, you know.”
Hanad’s lips quirked. “I had a feeling we were being watched. I thought threatening you might flush these little mousebirds out of the bushes.”
“So you wouldn’t have done it if we hadn’t come out?” I asked.
“Oh, I probably would. Isolated location, an obviously trained yet suspiciously alone soldier not in uniform; a quick grave would have removed a knotty problem. I am a practical man, Abdi. That is why your mother came to me.”
I felt something burn under my ribs. “She’d never have done it if she didn’t have to.”
“She didn’t have to. She could have let you rot. She chose me instead.” He shrugged. “People will do many things to protect their children.”
“They certainly will,” Marie said. She was sitting up on the other float-bed. Getting her out of the tunnel had been just as difficult as getting her in, especially with Tegan to be carried as well. But as Marie had pointed out, she was the only one who could swiftly identify the drugs she needed and then get them into Tegan as quickly and safely as possible. “Abdi, you’ll be fine. Just remember, if the blood-chiller dial goes to red—”
“Push to green. Yes, ma’am.”
“We won’t be long,” Zaneisha promised.
Hanad handed me a small device that looked like a very strippe
d-down computer. “Two-way coms, you understand? Hold it and talk, release it and hear us. We normally have Eduardo as a watchman, but this will take all of us on the ground. You’ll be our eyes. We go in the front door and out the back.”
He pointed at one of the screens. “This has the best view of our exit point. If anyone seems to be blocking that point, tell me. Understood?”
I thought he was humoring me. It was almost kind, trying to give me something to do that wasn’t staring at Tegan and wondering how much time she had left. “Yes.”
“And as soon as we go through the back door, start the engine. We will be fifteen minutes—perhaps twenty, if we meet opposition.”
“I understand.”
“Good. Let’s go,” Hanad told Ashenafi, in Somali. I began to translate for Zaneisha and Marie, but there was no need—Marie lay down, Ashenafi and Hanad stood at either end of the float-bed to direct it, and Zaneisha marched in front. They all had bio masks, with the “medical personnel” wearing conspicuous and entirely fake IDs that should get them past the front desk.
And I was alone with Tegan, limp and sweaty in the back of the ambulance.
We’d been like this once before, when we’d been tranquilized and kidnapped by the Inheritors of the Earth. Tegan had been unconscious far longer than I was on our sea journey. I’d sat there in the bottom of that boat, wondering if she might never wake up, and feeling as helpless as I did now.
She had woken, that time. I held her shoulders while she threw up what seemed like every meal she’d ever eaten and then sang to her while we drifted into the real, undrugged sleep we so sorely needed. It had been easier, somehow, with just the two of us, united against a known enemy. We’d had a clear mission, too: to escape and broadcast the proof of military conspiracy.
Well, we’d succeeded. And what had changed? The government had claimed it was only trying to protect the cryofacilities and starship against terrorist attack, the military had blamed unethical practices on rogue elements, and the Ark Project had continued under government control, with civilian funding. There were probably more people willing to protest and speak up, more people who had been driven from complacency by what Tegan and I had done—the Save Tegan campaign. But we hadn’t reached the people in power. We hadn’t changed anything in Australia’s horrendous refugee policies. At the most, we’d won a few hearts and minds. And that was something.
But it wasn’t enough.
I could see why Lat and Hurfest had wanted to take decisive action to force change. I almost wanted them to go through with it. But I’d studied history. Violent revolt and military coups might remove corrupt aristocrats and politicians—and replace them with corrupt rebels and soldiers. Some of those takeovers resulted in positive, long-lasting change for the people they were allegedly fighting for. But most of them didn’t. Civil war was horrible, and adding more displaced people to the world wouldn’t help the refugees who saw Australia as a possible source of safety.
What I wanted was for Australians to take care of their own house. I wanted them to remove their government or embarrass them into resigning, to demand and receive full investigation into the Ark Project, to refuse to vote for anyone who didn’t support immediately suspending the No Migrant policy.
In my part of the world, we didn’t need firsters coming over to save us; we had plenty of our own people who could do that. We needed firsters to get out of our way.
Tegan gasped, rolled her head, and murmured in her fevered sleep.
“Okay,” I said softly. “No Beatles.” I put the two-way coms down on the bed beside her and thought about it.
In the end, I sang to Tegan something I’d sung her that time on the boat, when she’d been sick and confused and we didn’t know what the future might bring. It was an old Somali lullaby my older sister had used to soothe me when I was little. Ifrah was so smart, so caring. She’d been thinking about getting married when I left. I wondered if she’d found a man worthy of her.
The last soft syllables echoed in the ambulance, and I smoothed back Tegan’s hair from her sweaty forehead.
“I liked that,” Lat said, as he came through the back door, sonic pistol trained on me. I jumped to my feet, placing myself between Tegan’s bed and the door.
Then, and only then, I remembered and reached for the coms.
But Lat was much faster than I was, and my stupid first instinct had put me out of position. If only I’d grabbed the coms first, instead of that useless gesture of protecting Tegan. He saw my movement, took one swift step, and knocked me across the narrow aisle onto the other bed. The coms he picked up with a gloved hand.
My ear throbbed from the blow, but I scrambled to my feet.
Lat was barely looking at me. Face anguished, he was staring at Tegan. “My god,” he said. “What have you done?”
I felt so incredibly stupid. Zaneisha must have betrayed us after all.
“She has an infection,” I said, while Lat reached out to brush at Tegan’s hair, a disquieting echo of my own earlier gesture. “Don’t touch her!” I snapped, and he turned to face me.
Lat looked unwell himself—his skin was greasy and his hair in lank strands around his face. Wherever he’d been hiding evidently hadn’t included a shower. His shark eyes were narrow and dead, and he looked very, very dangerous. “We’re taking her inside,” he said.
“She doesn’t want that,” I said.
“She’s not conscious. She doesn’t get to decide.”
My temper snarled again. “She decided before she became unconscious. You don’t get to change her mind for her.”
He ignored that, of course. “What happened?”
“It’s an infection,” I repeated. “From the implant. But we’re getting the medicine. She’ll be fine.”
He groaned. “Abdi, I don’t know how you talked Sergeant Washington into this, but you’d better call her back now.”
Talked her into it?
He offered me the coms device, and I took it, my mind working furiously.
“Lat, you don’t understand,” I began.
“Lat’s there?” Zaneisha’s voice said, clear and calm in the ambulance. I could have wept.
“As if you didn’t know,” I snarled. “I can’t believe you. He wants to take Tegan into the hospital! How could you do that to her, Zaneisha?”
“What?” Lat said.
“I didn’t tell him anything,” Zaneisha said sharply. “Lat, listen. Dr. Carmen is with me. She’s confident she can heal Tegan with the right drugs and equipment.”
“Washington, she’s dying! We’ve got no options here. I’ll leave Abdi outside—you can pick him up and take him wherever you’re going next.”
Zaneisha didn’t say anything. I had to keep him talking, give them enough time to come back and overpower him.
“How did you find us?” I asked.
“Tracker in Joph’s medicine bag. We had to get back to the others to activate it, but once we did—Hurfest decided it was too dangerous to retrieve you from the middle of Melbourne. I came anyway.” He was tapping his sonic pistol against his thigh, apparently unconscious of the motion. Then he squared his shoulders and stepped forward.
Toward Tegan.
“Wait!” I said.
Zaneisha’s voice cut in again. “Give us five more minutes, Lat. We warned you about the president’s visit being canceled so you wouldn’t get caught. You owe me one, soldier.”
“Sorry,” Lat said. “Priorities.”
I dropped the coms and threw myself at him. He wasn’t expecting it, and so I got one good strike at his neck before his arms came up and he easily blocked the next blow. I found myself twisting through the air, my striking arm turned against me as he used it as a pivot to smash me against the wall. “I do not have time for this,” he growled, while my head swam and I wondered if I was going to throw up. “Stay down, or I will put you down, do you hear me?”
“This is familiar,” I said. My face was crushed against the wall and the metallic ta
ste of my own blood was sharp in my mouth. “I knew you hadn’t changed.”
He let me go as if I were poison.
“I have to save her,” he said. “All the things I’ve done, Abdi—I’ve done some terrible things. I have to do something to balance that out. I have to save Tegan.”
“That’s not how it works,” I said, so frustrated my skin itched. I couldn’t hit him. I couldn’t shoot him. I couldn’t stop him. All I could do was talk, and talk was getting me nowhere. “There’s no balance, Lat! There are the good things you do and the bad things you do, and they exist at the same time. They don’t cancel each other out. You can’t buy forgiveness!”
But he’d gone somewhere I couldn’t reach, a nightmare place inside his head, where whatever demons he’d summoned with his own misdeeds clawed at his memories. It wasn’t enough that Marie was on her way; it wasn’t enough that she could probably fix Tegan herself. Driven by his demons, Lat needed to be the one who saved her. “Even if she dies,” he said slowly. “She died once before, after all. If she’s in the hospital, they can freeze her.”
My blood went cold.
“You can’t put her under again,” I said. “She hated it. You can’t…”
“This world’s not good enough for Tegan. Later, maybe, it’ll be better.”
“This world isn’t good enough for any of us,” I snapped back. “I don’t know what you think Tegan is, Lat, but she’s not perfect! She’s not some ideal. She’s a real person who’s brave and reckless and funny and stubborn, and she doesn’t want this!”
“She doesn’t know what she wants,” he said.
Appealing to Tegan’s ability to make her own choices clearly wasn’t going to help. Maybe an appeal to self-preservation would work.
“You betrayed SADU. They’ll kill you.”
“I know.”
All right, that was no good, either. “How do you know they can even bring her back again?”
He wasn’t listening. I wasn’t sure if I was there for him. His world seemed narrowed down to his awful grief, and his even more horrifying hope, and the dying girl on the bed. I braced myself, ready to attack again, knowing that I’d be as effective as a grouper taking a nibble at a shark.