Page 23 of Stellar Drift
“Because you couldn’t consent.”Blowing out a noisy breath, she added, “Any more than that dying boy or his family, or those three other people in Axolotl Bend could.”
“Based on my research, the fever very likely could have killed me.”Intuition struck him.“And it’s not exactly untested, is it?You’ve used it in Irakat and the other river towns for the past three years.They went from dozens of deaths a year to none.How did you do it?”
“Every time they had an outbreak, I volunteered to help care for the sick.If they noticed an extra slap patch, no one said anything.”She shoved her hands under her armpits and dropped her head.“Like you, I couldn’t let kids just die.”
Another intuition spark flared.“You caught the fever and developed the treatment for yourself.”He knew she had an eclectic background, including medic experience.
She looked up at him in surprise, then nodded.“Elkano insisted.I think he was terrified I was going to die.I was never as sick as you were.I just felt like crap for weeks.We had the right equipment and training.And incredible luck.That would have been the end of it, but then we realized the ship’s lab had leaked during our atmosphere entry.We left pieces of ablated incalloy shielding scattered across the rainforest during our landing.”A bleak look crossed her face.“I thought we were the source of the infinity fever, so I’ve been collecting them.”
“And now you know you weren’t.”
“That’s why I agreed to come on this expedition.I wanted you to have the proof you’ve worked so hard to find.I was hoping the CPS would bring in their pharma partners to fully test my treatment and distribute it.”She glanced toward the red-and-black logo on the wall.“But considering your boss…” She trailed off, then shook her head.“I’ve always been naïve like that.”
While she was in a revelatory mood, he asked another question.“Why does your military ship have a research lab?”
“It’s not a warship, it’s an experimental exploration starship.It has everything the CPS designers could think of to make it self-reliant for at least a decade.”
“It’s still intact?”Everything he learned about her kept surprising him.“I thought you crashed.”
“We did.We lost some armor and sensors, but we’re still spaceworthy.”She shoved her hands in her pockets.“I was still delusional from cryosleep restoration at the time, so Elkano found a cave big enough to hide us.”The corner of her mouth twitched with humor.“The jungle plants kept invading, so I made a naturalized garden with them to disguise the entrance.”
“I think I remember seeing that.”
“Probably.Your fever was going supernova, and you kept trying to get up to fix the ship’s hydroponics nutrient flow.I had to put you in the autodoc to get you to settle down.”
“Yeah, I think I remember that, too.I dreamed I was an all-white emergency escape capsule, floating in transit space.”Fever fluctuations would explain his bizarre trips to the arctic, too.
“I’ve seen spheres like these.”She patted her vest pocket.“My ship has a hold full of them, but they’re just solid incalloy.No exterior circuits.As far as I knew, they were supplies for the hull repair-bots.Now I’m just confused.”
He snorted.“Welcome to the club.”
She twitched, then pointed to her left ear.“Elkano.”She sidestepped away from the vault door, putting her close to the still beeping, still lit-up access control panel.
To give her some privacy, he pulled out a large sample bag and tweezers to collect wuzzy bug carcasses.He chose a variety of sizes and what he hoped might be stages of development.He’d always been secretly grateful not to have an affinity talent for insects, but now he wished he’d at least studied them a little more.
Since he was there, he took the opportunity to expand his talent to get a feel for the plant life in the vault and above it.The roots came from a wider variety of trees than he would have guessed.But the vault itself was a hotbed of millions of tiny sparks, the kind he associated with seedlings.That made sense if enough of the frozen contents survived the thaw—
Sairy’s words broke his focus.“Houyen, meet Elkano.”She tapped the percomp on her wrist.“Elkano, repeat what you just told me so Houyen can hear.”
“Hello, Ranger Albasrey.As I told Sairy, a previously undetected instruction set in our systems has been triggered by a comm from your location.We are on a countdown to liftoff, and I am unable to stop it.”
Sairy pointed toward the blinking access panel.“I think when I spoke the character string out loud, opened the vault door, and triggered a coded message to my ship.I think it used my comms implant without me knowing.Which tanks, because who knows what other little secret bypasses are in my experimental systems.Elkano, tell him the rest,” said Sairy.
“Please confirm disclosure of confidential information.”Elkano’s pleasant mid-range voice sounded suddenly formal and by-the-book.
“Confirmed, code AF24PNSM.He deserves to know what’s happening.”
“Our previously incomplete mission instructions now have five new entries.We have already completed the tasks of exiting transit in the Qal Corona system and landing as close as possible to specific coordinates within the south continent’s nature reserve.We also completed the task that directed ship pilot Subcommander Sahira Sarvand Madoz to go to the cryogenex vivo-vault with a specific serial number on the unit and open it.Her next task is to secure a one-meter by half-meter crate marked with the same serial number and the Drift project logo.She must bring it to the ship within two hours and place it in a specific cold-storage box in the laboratory.The ship will leave the planet surface in eleven hours and forty minutes.We are then to orbit the planet and wait for further instructions.”
Kyala, who had been sitting and watching Sairy closely, rose to her feet and crowded against Sairy’s thigh with a low whine.
Sairy petted her with a little humming sound.“Sorry, darling, didn’t mean to broadcast my feelings.I would never leave you.”
Elkano continued.“There is also a new section that appears to have overwritten the original content.The author is tagged as Adastra Fel 14.It is encrypted and will require time to process.”
Houyen didn’t know why Elkano’s voice sounded so familiar until he remembered that he’d first heard it when he was delirious on the ship.Sairy’s life partner, he reminded himself.He wished he had a face to go along with the voice.It would help him stop wishing for a relationship he couldn’t have.
Sairy squinted in concentration.“What happens if I don’t bring the crate within the two-hour countdown?Or it’s the wrong crate?And how long are we supposed to hang around in orbit waiting for further instructions?”
