Nearspace Trilogy

by Sherry D. Ramsey

  “They’re all open, Mamma.” I knew I sounded cranky and short with her, but I couldn’t help it. Every window in the cramped apartment had been thrown open to the cool night air, and I was freezing. I’d already layered on an extra long-sleeved shirt and a sweater, and slipped on my shoes. And still my mother complained.

  She turned a flushed face to me, wide eyes black and dilated beneath a furrowed brow. “And you, with that sweater! I feel too hot just looking at you!”

  “Then don’t look at me!”

  “Such disrespect! I raised you better than that, Lia!”

  I pressed my lips together, smothering more angry words. “Would you like some cold water?” I reached to pick up the half-empty glass on the scratched wooden table at my mother’s elbow.

  Mamma grabbed for it. “Don’t take that! You’re always taking my things!” In her haste, she knocked the glass out of my hand. It crashed to the floor and shattered, spattering shards and water all over the floor.

  “Now see what you’ve done!” Mamma jumped from the chair, heedless of the broken glass under her bare feet. Then she screamed in pain as the shards bit into her flesh. She took one step toward me and crumpled to the floor, unconscious. One outflung arm sprawled into the puddle of water and sparkling fragments.

  I stood staring down at her for a long moment, pulling deep, quick breaths as I fought for the strength to control my own anger. That worried me. Were my own nanos failing? Was that the explanation for the fleeting urge, quickly suppressed, to kick the senseless woman on the floor? No, I told myself, blowing out a long breath. I’m frustrated. Tired. Sad. Anyone would feel this way. There’s nothing wrong with me except stress.

  I went to the tiny kitchen for cloths to mop up the mess and returned, kneeling beside my mother. With a guilty start, I thought to check Mamma’s pulse and breathing. Both fine. Just another fit from which she would awake in half an hour or so, feeling much better and utterly bewildered by the cuts on her feet.

  Where would it end? I wondered as I mopped up the spilled water and carefully gathered the bits of broken glass. I had to roll her over to get it all cleaned up, but even that didn’t rouse her. It had seemed like the move to Jertenda would turn things around for us. Dad had sworn to quit gambling, and had managed, with a false name and forged credentials, to gain a position working for Nicadico Corp on their new anti-aging treatment, Longate. He seemed happier than he’d been in a long time, working in a lab again. The money wasn’t great yet, but if the treatment worked, the researchers had been promised a healthy share of the profits.

  I finished with the broken glass and fetched the first aid kit from the washroom. Trying to be gentle even if she couldn’t feel it, I teased bits of glass from Mamma’s feet, applied ointment, and bandaged them. I briefly wished Dad would get home in time to help struggle Mamma into bed. He claimed to be working long hours at the lab, but I suspected he was gambling again. I couldn’t imagine where the money was coming from; at least he continued to turn over his pay to me so I could cover the rent and buy food. Maybe he was taking bribes at the lab. It wouldn’t be the first time.

  “What do you think is happening out there?” Pita asked, breaking me out of my reverie. I felt as though I needed to physically shake myself to dislodge the anger and helplessness the memory had brought with it.

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “But I think Luta Paixon is in trouble. Probably deeper than any of them realize.”

  Chapter 20 – Luta

  Collateral Damage

  I OPENED MY eyes in my own quarters to see Hirin bending over me, concern written large on his face.

  “This is happening way too often lately,” I muttered, struggling to maintain my focus. The words sounded garbled and unclear, even to me. Hirin’s face blurred, sharpened, blurred again. I closed my eyes tight and reopened them.

  Hirin blew out a long sigh. “She’s awake.”

  In a fraction of a second Yuskeya was there, too. “How do you feel, Captain?”

  I blinked experimentally a few times. “I think my head is okay,” I said, “and I’m not burning up anymore. So that’s an improvement.”

  “And you’re coherent. That’s a big improvement,” Hirin said with a grin.

  “What—oh,” I said, as memory trickled back in fragments. Much of it wasn’t clear and didn’t make sense, but what did—wasn’t pleasant. “Oh. Hirin, I—yelled at you, didn’t I? At everyone. And Yuskeya . . . I called you a bitch?”

  She grinned lopsidedly. “Something like that. Seems you had a little side dish of paranoia to go along with your headache and fever.”

  “You had me pretty confused,” Hirin admitted. “I didn’t know what was wrong with you.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said simply. “To both of you. I don’t know what else to say.”

  “Apology accepted,” she said. “And I don’t think you can blame yourself too much.”

  “What’s . . . what’s wrong with me?” I’d never had to ask that question before, and it sounded strange coming from my lips. Strange, and scary. Nerves stirred my stomach into an unpleasant nausea that had nothing to do with actually being sick; I felt like a wormhole explorer getting ready to skip into the terrors of the unknown. I struggled to sit up, and Hirin helped me, after glancing at Yuskeya to see if she approved.

  She hovered briefly to see if I would be okay upright, then sat down at my desk, resting her elbows on it. “I could simply say I’m not sure, which would be true,” she said, “but I do have a guess. A guess that’s somewhat supported by some information I got with the datamed. I scanned you and took some blood samples through your implant while you were out. Hirin gave his okay,” she added.

  I nodded. I was hardly worried about treatment protocols and consent.

  “Since you’ve got some unusual additions hanging out in your bloodstream,” she continued, referring to my mother’s nanobioscavengers, “I wasn’t sure how I’d identify anything else out of the ordinary. But your mother gave me some special software for the datamed that can actually identify your bioscavs now.” She smiled. “All very hush-hush. Do not tell Baden I’ve got tech that he doesn’t.”

  “Cross my heart,” I promised.

  “She asked me if you’d had an infusion of new bioscavs from your Mother when we were on Kiando,” Hirin said, “when I got mine. But I told her I didn’t think so. Was that right?”

  I nodded. “She wanted to make some tweaks before she updated mine—the ones she gave you were different, since you hadn’t had them as long as I had,” I said with a shrug. “It didn’t seem like a big deal since we were planning on seeing her again in a few months’ time.”

  “Okay, that makes sense. But what really interested me came from something Maja said, when she was helping us get you down here. She said, ‘It’s just like Dad was when he first got the virus, years ago.”

  I cast my thoughts back, sifting through memories. I nodded. “She’s right, it does seem similar, although I don’t remember any anger issues,” I said wryly. I turned to Hirin. “But you did find it so hot all the time, and you complained of headaches that never went away.”

  He nodded, grim-faced at the memory, and turned to Yuskeya. “So what’s the connection?”

  Yuskeya ran a hand over her dark hair. “You have to remember, Luta, I’m not a doctor. And this is complicated stuff. But it does seem like there’s a virus in your system, and your bioscavengers aren’t getting rid of it.”

  “Chen keeps spiking a fever, too,” I said. “Could he have the same thing?”

  She chewed her lower lip, thinking. “I don’t get any readings from the datamed that suggest that. I think his symptoms stem from something that happened to him inside the moon. Exposure to something, maybe.”

  “And the datamed is telling you that I do have a virus?”

  She nodded. “Yes, one your bioscavs can’t deal with. So either it’s not the same virus Hirin had, because your transfused bioscavs did help him with that—or else something’
s gone wrong with your bioscavs.”

  “That doesn’t sound good. Do you think that’s it?”

  Yuskeya took a deep breath and released it slowly. “I’m afraid it might be. There could be virions—virus particles—in your system that your bioscavs have kept at bay—in a kind of quarantine—for years. But in the scan I did, some of your bioscavs seem to be breaking down, disassembling themselves.”

  “So the virus is essentially getting free again.”

  She sighed. “Something like that. This is mostly guesswork. I’m just trying to make sense of what I’m seeing.”

  “Only some of them?” I was grasping for any good news here, I knew.

  “Yes. But—” she glanced at Hirin, then to me, “there are others that are behaving differently again. They’re breaking down, too, but these are—I’m not sure how to explain it—rebuilding themselves before the breakdown is complete. And they’re incorporating some of the virus cells into the new version of themselves.”

  “Kristos,” I breathed. “That really doesn’t sound good.”

  Yuskeya shrugged. “It might be the best thing ever, I don’t know. Your mother would be the person to ask. But my instinct is the same as yours. It doesn’t sound good.”

  Hirin spoke, for the first time since Yuskeya and I had started this part of the conversation. “Well, what can you do about it? And shouldn’t it be happening to me?”

  “I’m sorry, Hirin. I simply don’t know.”

  “Wait, wait. We just said it,” I said slowly. “You have newer bioscavs. You got the newest ones from Mother on Kiando.”

  He paled. “But you waited.”

  Yuskeya frowned and crossed her arms. “Luta, when did you first feel . . . not right?”

  I considered. “After everything happened at the wormhole.”

  “When we got caught in—whatever it was—that the Chron ship shot at the artifact moon?”

  I nodded slowly. “It affected a lot of things on the ship. Drives, boards—”

  She pointed to my hand. “Your datapad.”

  Instinctively I rubbed my thumb over the still-rippled flesh where my fingers had been burned. In the past, there would have been no trace of that burn damage now. “You think whatever that was affected my bioscavs.”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. You were the last one of us to regain consciousness, which seemed odd to me at the time. I honestly don’t know, but it’s a theory, and the only one we have.”

  “What can you do?” Hirin asked. I already knew the answer to that question. There was only one person who could do much, and she was currently beyond reach. I only hoped she was still safe.

  Yuskeya confirmed it. “Unfortunately, not much. I’ve got the datamed working on something that might let me block the virus chemically, but I don’t know how effective it will be. For all I know, the bioscavs will break it down, too. Aside from that, I can try to alleviate symptoms as they arise. We need your mother,” she said simply.

  I’d been sitting upright without feeling lightheaded, so I took a chance, swung my legs over the side of the bed, and stood up. Nothing bad seemed to happen.

  “Well, she’s not here, and I feel all right now.” Not normal—I felt far from normal—but I thought I could function.

  “I gave you a dose of something to block the symptoms, but I don’t know how long it will last. I gave Chen something similar, and it seemed to help with the fever and the pain. But we’ve got to get you to Nearspace and get in touch with Emmage. She’s the only one I’d trust with this.”

  “Like we needed another reason to get back to Nearspace,” I said, patting her arm. As an afterthought, I added, “How is Chen now?”

  I caught the look that passed between her and Hirin.

  “Not very well, I’m afraid,” she said. “That fever he spiked when we transited the wormhole was a bad one. He was sleeping the last time I checked in on him. It seems to be an awfully deep sleep, and his brain activity has dropped off some.”

  “So you’re saying he’s slipped into a coma,” I said.

  She pressed her lips together, obviously uncomfortable with the word. “Maybe. He could come out of it.”

  “Keep me posted.” There was little else to say about it. “Well, I guess if you think it’s all right, I’ll get to the bridge. I have another round of apologies to make.”

  “If you feel up to it,” Yuskeya said. “That’s all we have to judge by.”

  “Are you certain?” Hirin asked. “If you’re still tired—”

  “I’m okay. And it’s not because I think you’re trying to take over the ship,” I said with a smile, and patted his cheek.

  “Okay then. Let’s see what’s happening—”

  He didn’t get to finish, because Baden’s voice came over the ship’s comm.

  “Hirin, Yuskeya? Hate to bother you, but three ships just came through one of those other wormholes. Ran the asteroids like they knew the way and coming fast. You’d better get in here.”

  The three of us ran for the door, and I wasn’t so sick that I didn’t get there first.

  MAJA, WHO’D PROGRESSED enough in her navigation studies that she could take over the nav board in a pinch, jumped up to make way for Yuskeya as we entered the bridge. “I have a fix on them,” she said breathlessly. “I think they’re Chron ships.”

  I slid into the big chair. “Rei, we’re probably going to need that burst drive.”

  “Nice to see you, Captain. It’s online and ready to go. Gerazan went down to engineering with Viss.”

  “Good idea. Viss? What about weapons?”

  “Online, Captain. Ready when needed.”

  “Bona. Maja, where are they headed? Us, or the station?”

  She shrugged. “Hard to say. This general direction, that’s all. They’re still too far out.”

  “Any chance we can hide?”

  “Not if they’re hunting for us,” Baden said. “We’ve been sitting here in plain sight—”

  “Since my little meltdown, right. Sorry about that, folks. I’ll explain—as much as I can—later. Rei, engage the burst drive.”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  “Let’s try to keep the station between us and them. If we can do that, maybe we can get even further away, but I don’t want to attract their attention.”

  “Got it,” she said, her hands already moving over the pilot’s board. The Tane Ikai shuddered and lurched as the burst drive kicked in, and then we moved away from the station at an appreciable speed. I glanced up at the screen showing the spiky, alien shape of the station. Nothing about it had changed, no indication that there was anyone on it or that they’d noticed our presence, beyond that one scan.

  Until several hatchways irised open on the near side of the central torus, and four of the spidery ships burst out, one after the other.

  “Mother!” Maja had seen them, too.

  “I see them. Rei, prepare to take evasive action.”

  But they didn’t move in our direction. They flew toward the ships that had only moments ago made their incursion through the wormhole.

  Now we had a new dilemma. Get as far away as possible while no-one paid much attention to us, or stick around and see what happened. Prudence versus curiosity.

  Curiosity won.

  “Rei, I’m changing my mind again.”

  “Captain’s prerogative,” she said, and I heard the grin in her voice.

  “It might be useful to know what’s going to happen here. Try to stay within visual range, but keep the station between us and the action, whatever it turns out to be.”

  “Hola, Captain, that’s not much trouble,” she said. “Anything else you’d like me to do? Clean out the intakes? Bake you some pano?”

  “When I want sarcasm from you I’ll ask for it, thanks,” I retorted. “Baden, did we ever send a comm to the station?”

  “We did, before you . . . er . . . got sick,” he said delicately. “No response.”

  “Forget them for now, then. If t
hey want us, they know we’re here.”

  “Incoming ships are in visual range,” Yuskeya reported. “I’m putting them on the screen.”

  Cerevare’s sharp intake of breath confirmed what Maja had already suggested. More Chron ships. The configuration was very similar to the one that had activated the operant moon.

  “Where are they headed? Can you tell?” The Lobor historian’s ears had swivelled forward, signalling her excitement as it must have done for her ancestors millennia before. Her golden earrings tinkled together.

  “It’s not clear. They seem to be mostly trying to avoid the ships from the station,” Yuskeya said.

  The Chron ships were indeed running evasively. They had changed course as soon as the dark ships emerged from the station; so quickly, in fact, that they must have been expecting the response. Now they made for one of the other asteroid fields.

  “They must have something like our burst drive,” Viss said from engineering. “The signature is similar enough. That’s technology that didn’t exist at the time of the Chron War, so they’ve advanced since then.”

  Cerevare shook her head, then must have realized that Viss couldn’t see her. “No, Viss. Even during the Chron War, they had a very fast in-system drive. For a while it seemed that was the secret to their seeming ability to appear out of nowhere, but someone realized there had to be more to it than that.”

  “Huh,” Viss said, sounding surprised. “I didn’t know that. If they were this fast in-system, the ships we had then wouldn’t have had much of a chance.”

  “That’s one reason we were losing the war,” Cerevare said.

  “I didn’t realize that either,” Yuskeya said.

  “Back to business, folks,” Rei interjected. “We can debate the failings of the historical record later. Here comes trouble.”

  The Chron ships changed course again, coming up behind one of the wormholes and dipping low under the tumbling asteroid field. Their spidery pursuers didn’t seem fooled by the maneuver, following as smoothly as they seemed to do everything.