“Clothes. Now,” she mouthed, keeping a hand on Hawk’s arm as he keened.
Danny rooted through the clothes on the floor. They looked small, but when he pulled on the pants, they stretched easily over his frame, although they showed every bulge. The tunic was tight on his shoulders, but loose past his hips. The material looked the same as the white travel clothes Sky always wore—the kind that never got dirty. He took one of the tunics and laid it over Hawk’s hips.
“I apologize. Kyan should have tested you for sensitivity to the Shenna lotion. It was on her list,” the doctor said, speaking only to Sky. “They are not greeters. Their emergency medical kit isn’t designed for that.”
The doctor caressed Hawk’s cheek with her gloved hand, studying his lidless eyes, which had nearly swollen shut. Her hands moved over his neck, avoiding the device she’d attached. The swelling had gone down in other areas, but the place the device was attached seemed to be getting larger and redder. Sky didn’t let go of Hawk, but she leaned forward, and the doctor mirrored her. They greeted each other with a kiss on either cheek.
“Jack Fisher, this is Douglas Hwan, or Hawk,” Sky said. “And Captain Danny Matthews.”
“You’re Jack Fisher?” Danny said, laughing incredulously. He knew Sky had had female lovers before, but he hadn’t expected to encounter one here. He blamed his own limited imagination but caught the hint of a smirk on Sky’s face.
“Dr. Fisher, it’s a pleasure to meet you. Thank you in advance for any help you can offer us,” Danny said.
“I’m sure there’s much we can learn from each other.” Fisher smiled, appraising him with her eyes, but not in the way Sky did. Whatever she wanted, he hoped it was easy to give.
8
Saskia tapped the console, checking to make sure they were still getting a signal from the Bobsled. It had taken over an hour for her and Chase to get the glider out of the mud and back to Oriana, and Chase managed to grip the yoke the entire way home. Of course, now he was lying on the floor of the ward room, stewing over his twitching fingers.
Catching a shadow in the corner of her eye, Saskia whipped around, her weapon drawn. Corin and Tray made noise when they walked, and Amanda only used stealth when she meant to attack. Saskia was surprised to see Morrigan glide in. Her sharp, ivory pantsuit gleamed with class, but her pupils were still partially dilated.
“How was your drug trip?” Saskia asked.
“You can’t make me feel guilty,” Morrigan said, her voice steady and strong. “She stabbed me in the face. I just brought myself to functional.”
“Mmhmm,” Saskia said. Morrigan had mixed meds that Saskia didn’t even know were safe to combine, and Saskia figured the doctor couldn’t feel anything now. As long as her heart was beating, Saskia wasn’t going to Detox her. “Did you hear we found Cordova? They agreed to help Hawk.”
“That’s good. Amanda, too, I hope. I can’t help her. I was just fooling myself to believe I could.” Morrigan sat on the floor next to Chase and gave his hand a cursory scan with her medical Virp. “You overworked it again.”
“Someone had to fly the glider,” Chase grumbled. Chase had helped Hawk install the controls in the glider; Saskia had no idea how to fly it.
“Tray can catch you up, but I’m pretty sure they only discussed Hawk’s issue,” Saskia said.
“Get them on the Vring. The sooner we start the conversation, the better,” Morrigan said, pressing hard enough on Chase’s palm to make him cry out. Rolling away from her, Chase crawled into the nearest chair.
“The Captain’s in the city—”
“He needs me. I’m the one who knows Amanda’s medical history,” Morrigan said, standing and tapping the Vring. “Captain?”
Saskia seethed at Morrigan’s self-righteous attitude. Chase pushed his chair and glided around the room, putting Saskia between himself and Morrigan.
“There’s no signal,” Morrigan said, frowning at the console. “What’s going on?”
“They have a shield,” Saskia said, crossing her arms. “We lost contact as soon as they entered the city. We should hear from them again in about six and a half hours.”
“That long?” Morrigan asked. “That’s an awful lot of time for things to go wrong.”
“I agree with you,” Saskia said. “If you hadn’t drugged yourself, you might’ve gotten to go into the city with them.”
“Why didn’t you go?” Morrigan asked. “The last time we trusted the ethics of a foreign doctor, Tray wound up nearly bleeding to death in a grav-chamber.” It was the first smart thing she’d said since she’d arrived.
An alert sounded before Saskia could answer, but it wasn’t a message on the Vring.
“Corin?” Morrigan asked.
“Amanda. Nightly meds,” Saskia said.
“I’ll help you find her,” Chase volunteered, hustling out of the ward room.
Saskia hesitated, not sure she should leave Morrigan up here alone.
“What’s the point? They don’t help,” Morrigan said, gingerly touching her face. She hadn’t lived on the ship in the days when Amanda was barely cogent and attempted to stab the Captain nightly. When they had no meds to give her, things were much worse.
“They do help. They really do,” Saskia said.
Hawk scraped at the medical device attached to his shoulder. It sucked the fire from his skin, but all the heat seemed to pool into his shoulder, and it leeched at his hybrid power, too. He sensed some kind of Confluence in it—some kind of power that tapped into the other realm.
“It shouldn’t be uncomfortable,” Dr. Fisher said, removing it for him, then trying something else. This one felt like it was injecting millions of tiny bugs into his skin.
“Don’t put that tech under my skin,” Hawk grunted, brushing it off.
Fisher raised her eyebrow and didn’t try a different therapeutic. Once she’d satisfied herself that he was sufficiently non-contagious, she’d removed her protective suit, revealing gray-streaked, dark, wavy hair, and olive skin not quite as golden as his. She’d wrapped Hawk in soft, moist fabric that alternated between hot and cold every few minutes. Danny and Sky sat next to his bed like worried parents, talking to Fisher while she reviewed Kyan’s notes about Rocan’s Malady, and Hawk zoned out again.
“Can we get some air? See the city?” Danny asked, restless and rattled.
“Yes, Sky can show you around,” Fisher said with a dismissive wave.
“No, Jack, you should take us around,” Sky said, her fingers moving delicately through Hawk’s velvet smooth hair.
“Hmm,” Fisher frowned disapprovingly. She tilted her head so that she could look Hawk in the eye. “I would rather not leave your friend. Do you think you can sit up, Douglas?”
Hawk nodded. He was glad that she acknowledged him more easily than Avery had. Fisher left and Hawk levered himself to sitting. The heat wraps fell from his torso, exposing his red and puffy skin. The hives still felt tender, but they didn’t itch. Once he was upright, the others helped him into a tunic and pants, which felt smooth like a latex glove.
The door opened, and Lula skipped in, pushing a comfortable-looking chair on small wheels. “Look! Look! I made this one. Maybe we can combine the idea with your Bobsled and make it float. What do you think?”
“I think it’s brilliant,” Danny said, not mentioning that they already had grav-chairs like that in Quin.
“Oh, wow. You look really bad,” Lula said, as Hawk shifted from the bed to the chair. “Maybe I should add a harness, so you don’t fall out. Can you still talk?”
Hawk nodded, but pushing air past his lips took energy, and he didn’t have much.
“He’ll recover,” Fisher said, coming in behind the girl. “Let’s test out your motor-chair.”
“I made it for people who need joint replacements. You can live forever if you get good replacements,” Lula prattled. “As long as some other plague doesn’t get you first.”
“How long do your people live?” Danny asked
.
Lula shrugged and looked at Fisher.
“Hundred to a hundred-thirty, same as most humans,” Fisher said. “We just don’t look our age until the bitter end.”
They rolled through three more rooms until they passed a door that led outside. The ceiling of the dome was bluer than the natural sky. They ambled down the sidewalk, and Hawk reclined in the chair, letting it support his heavy head as he concentrated on breathing. While the buildings appeared to be made of wood, they were coated with some kind of white plastic that softened the dome light and gave it an artificial glow. No one wore visible devices like a Virp, but most had a glow in their palm or forearm indicating an implanted device, and they each had a medical implant that glowed at the base of the neck. They didn’t appear to be cyborgs, but there was something odd about them. Unlike Quin where the sidewalks held a diverse cross-section of people from all social and economic classes, here everyone seemed to be right around the middle.
The crowded, thriving city was filled with the same twenty faces repeated over and over at every age, making Hawk worry that they were even less genetically diverse than Rocan. Brown-haired mothers walked with their brown-haired daughters. Blonde librarians carted books, distributing them to bookish, blonde children, who seemed more interested in the literature than the pastry cart.
“They’re all the same,” Hawk realized. “In Rocan, the doctors are always worried about genetic diversity, but here… there isn’t any. They’re all the same.”
“We’re not the same age,” Fisher said. “But yes, we do come from a limited number of templates.”
“Holy Zive. You’re clones?” Danny whispered, looking at Sky.
Sky laughed at him. “Took you long enough.”
“You think that’s the solution for Rocan? Stop breeding and start… cloning?” Hawk asked. His greatest hope had always been that his children wouldn’t inherit his golden features. The goldens were an ever-shrinking minority in Rocan, and he couldn’t imagine clones of himself filling a workshop. “But clone babies have to be born just the same. Will that work? Did Granger take my DNA to clone me?”
“Oh, I would never advocate wide-spread cloning as a solution,” Fisher assured. “The goal will be to continue creating healthy originals and repair any defective gene that may be causing this Malady.”
“All our originals died from outside disease,” Lula added. “We have statues of them at the monument park. You don’t see faces like that around anymore. Want to see?”
“Sure. We’d love to see your monuments,” Danny said, and he genuinely meant it.
“You didn’t answer my question. You’re not cloning me, are you?” Hawk asked.
“That would be my lab’s first test,” Fisher said. “I will make a note not to grow beyond a few clusters to test for viability.”
“Jack, listen to him. He does not want a child,” Sky said firmly. “Not even stray parts of a child.”
“Fine,” Fisher muttered. Hawk didn’t trust her concession, but it was too late now.
The park wasn’t more than two blocks away. The buildings parted, and between them there was a wide, green space filled with stone monuments. It was the only material in the city that didn’t glow.
“The originals were really powerful. Some of them talked to spirits,” Lula said, a hint of reverence in her voice. She stopped in front of a stone statue that looked very similar to her.
“It was one of our highest goals to attain ascension to the spirit plane,” Fisher added, sounding wistful. “But the spirits are gone now, and all that’s left is the religion.”
“And the tech,” Lula said.
“Do a lot of people follow religion here?” Danny asked. “Is it polytheistic or monotheistic?”
“More spiritualism and meditation. But some people like to invoke images of the spirits,” Fisher said. “They think it makes the healing tech work better.”
“So your tech does run on spirit power?” Hawk asked.
“No. Our technology is not powered by prayer,” Lula huffed, rolling her eyes.
“That’s not what he means,” Fisher chuckled, nudging Lula.
They approached the next statue, and this one looked like a male version of a Granger.
“Are you going to make more male templates now that you know how they’re supposed to look?” Lula blurted out.
“Lula!” Fisher exclaimed.
“You don’t have men here?” Hawk asked, his jaw dropping. He hadn’t noticed any men, but it hadn’t occurred to him they were entirely absent.
“I am trying to reintroduce them,” Fisher said. “There hasn’t been much need for balance since we reproduce as we do.”
“Is Sky the only female you know?” Lula asked Hawk.
“No. We have several female crew members on the ship,” Danny said. “Maybe you’ll get to meet them.”
“In fact, Jack, I wanted to ask a favor,” Sky said tentatively. “A few more people on the crew could use a doctor.”
9
Six hours into their eight-hour venture, Danny was realizing this expedition would not be a quick one. His hopes had diminished some now that he knew the city was full of clones, but he tried not to judge. He’d built this place up as a legend, and it still had a lot to offer.
They retired to Fisher’s office, which was in a four-story building adjacent to the hospital and across a courtyard from the gate receiving area. There were pillows and sheets laid out on the floor, and Danny wondered how often Fisher slept there. Hawk tipped forward out of the motor-chair and crawled into the makeshift bed, but he couldn’t seem to get comfortable until Sky sat on the floor with him and he laid his head on her lap.
“You called it schizophrenia?” Fisher asked, sitting at her desk and tapping a tablet to start a search.
“If you don’t know what it is, you probably can’t help much,” Danny said, taking the seat across from her. The cushion on the chair was well worn and had ink smudges on it.
“If I don’t know what it is, it’s possible we’ve cured it,” she said, one eyebrow lifting. She skimmed and scrolled so fast that Danny wasn’t sure how she saw the words. “There is a surgical cure in the early stages.”
“Yes, we have that in Quin. Amanda… didn’t have access,” Danny said, sucking in his cheeks.
“I know that feeling,” Fisher muttered, her eyes clouding for a moment. “You are using medications?”
“Yeah. If we can contact my ship, I’ll get you her chart,” Danny offered.
“Or I could visit your ship,” Fisher said, lighting up. “Could I?”
“That’s what I was thinking,” Sky spoke up. “For Chase and Corin’s sake. And Morrigan could use some help, too.”
“We may have a non-medical treatment as well,” Fisher said. “A surgery alternative called Neuroleptic Remapping. We’ve been using it to treat behavioral disorders. That may free your friend from medication.”
“Sounds promising. What kind of risk is involved?” Danny asked.
“The greatest risk is that Ian Cooper will reject Amanda as a candidate. She’s been temperamental since the loss of her cousin, and is in need of treatment herself,” Fisher said, scrolling through the information. “Let’s talk to Ian.”
“We’re moving again?” Hawk groaned, lifting his head from Sky’s lap.
“You stay here. The NR lab is in this building. We won’t be long,” Fisher promised. Danny smiled, daring to feel hope for Amanda.
They passed through the genetic lab first, so Fisher could personally relay the information that Hawk should not be cloned in full or in parts. The lab was made for growing replacement organs. There were animals with human parts growing on them—extra limbs or ears. Then there were gel solutions with pulsating tissues. One chamber had a fully formed heart.
“Is this how you grow babies, too?” Danny asked. “No one gets pregnant?”
“Not for several generations. Restoring natural fertility has become a priority to us. Many think creatin
g originals is the key to achieving ascension in the next generation,” Fisher said, striding down a hall and turning into a stairwell.
“Were you originally trying to clone hybrids to make more powerful ones?”
Fisher shook her head. “We did not enter this cloning paradigm lightly, or even willingly. We were only beginning to experiment with clone populations when we lost our originals to a plague. We’ve eradicated the parasite in the dome, which is why the decontamination is as thorough as it is.”
“There’s a plague on Terrana called Moon Pox. Not pleasant, occasionally fatal,” Danny said, thinking back to when his brother had contracted the disease. It must have been just after he’d learned about Hero, before he’d told Danny he had a son. He’d been stuck alone in their ship’s tiny quarantine unit, practically ignored because of the snowballing crises. “Outside Cordova, is whatever carried that plague still around? Do I need to warn my crew?”
“We’ve sent many expeditions and not seen the beetle that carries it, but I can give you the information you need to identify it,” Fisher said. “I’ve read that the disease is quite frightening.”
Fisher pushed open the door to a control room, above which was a bright, yellow warning sign, but it was unlocked. A haggard, brown-haired woman, whose features were even plainer than Fisher’s, sat at a console, half-heartedly nudging controls and watching a brain on the screen. There was a window looking into a neighboring room where a redhead lay on a table bathed in silver light.
Pressure vibrated against Danny’s ears and a white noise dulled the sound in the room. Then the machine beeped, and the young woman on the table sat with a bright smile.
“You may go, Angela,” the tech said, burying her face in her hands.
“I like the quiet,” Angela replied, a dreamy look in her eyes. “I thought I’d feel different.”
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