by Джо Шрайбер
"Shut up," Kale hissed, springing off his bunk now and joining Trig at the bars, shoving one hand out and groping blindly in the direction of the voice as if there were some way he could swing out and hit Myss.
"Kale, don't," Trig asked, and by the time Kale seemed to realize what he was doing and tried to jerk his arm back, it was too late. Myss latched on to him now from the adjacent cell, yanking his face up against the bars. Trig could hear him giggling and grunting at the same time, holding on to Kale. In the cell opposite them, one of the torpid Rodians had actually sat up to watch with a vague expression of dazed interest.
"Just can't wait for it?" the voice asked. "You want it now? Is that it? You want me to…"
There was a sharp whack and the voice broke off with a surprised grunt.
"Get your meat hooks back inside," Wembly said outside the cell. He was wearing an orange suit and mask, the BLX standing behind him, and when he turned to the brothers' cell, Trig could see his own expression reflected back at him in Wembly's face-shield. "You still got all five?"
"Yeah," Kale said, holding his fingers and flexing them. "I think so. He was just messing with me."
"What's with the suit?" Trig asked.
For the first time, the guard appeared uncomfortable. The BLX droid standing behind him said, "There's been a…"
"Just a precaution," Wembly cut in. "Nothing to worry about."
"Is it bad?"
"Nobody knows anything. Dr. Cody's trying to figure it out." Wembly glanced at the Rodians, who were now back on their bunks again, coughing and making the quiet whining noise that Trig had heard before. "Looks like your neighbors aren't faring too well, either. Two less that you'll have to worry about, I guess."
"Wembly…"
Up the hall, somebody shrieked. Wembly spun around with remarkable agility for a man of his size and saw something he didn't like. Without another word, he burst into a shambling run in the opposite direction from whatever he'd seen.
Trig didn't have to wait long to learn what it was. The other guard charging down the hall wore a torn orange suit and no mask. He was still screaming when he slammed face-first into the bars of their cell, spraying a glut of blood through. It hit Trig's face, shockingly warm and wet on his cheeks and nose.
The sick guard stopped screaming and stood there, eyes wide and totally disoriented. His hands gripped the bars as if forcibly keeping himself upright. Fever blazed from his skin in palpable waves. His breathing was hoarse and raspy and when Trig saw the man's chest and shoulders rising to force out a cough, he had the presence of mind to stand back. Only after the guard coughed for what seemed like forever, making no effort to cover his mouth, did he finally seem to realize where he'd landed.
"You can't stop it," the guard said, in a queer, flat voice-the voice of a man talking in his sleep. "You just can't."
"What?" Trig asked.
"There's no way." The guard shook his head, his lower lip trembling a bit. Then he turned and started walking crookedly up the hallway in the direction where Wembly had gone.
Trig felt his throat go tight. He was suddenly miserably sure he was going to cry. He was scared, that was part of it, but he was also thinking about his father. Somehow the fact that he didn't know what time it was-it could be midnight down here for all he knew-made it all the worse. A few months earlier they had been safe at home, the three of them eating breakfast together. How had things gotten so horrible so fast?
"Hey," Kale said, placing one hand on Trig's shoulder. "Come here." He lifted the hem of his shirt and wiped his brother's face off, the first tears mixing with the guard's blood. "It's all right."
"This is bad," Trig said.
"We've been through worse."
Trig couldn't answer. He put his face against his brother's chest, and hugged him fiercely. Kale hugged him back. "Shh," he said. " 'S okay."
In the next cell, Myss was making noises of his own. He was imitating Trig's sobs and giggling. In the Rodians' cell, one of them had started coughing a steady, listless cough that didn't stop; it just paused long enough for the thing to suck in a breath and keep going.
"Kale?" Trig asked.
"Yeah?"
"Do you feel sick?"
"Me? No, I feel fine." His brother shook his head right away. "You?"
"No." Trig drew back and looked Kale in the eye. "If you do, though, you have to tell me, right away, all right?"
"Sure."
"I mean it."
"I will," Kale said. "But that ain't gonna happen."
"You don't know that."
"Trust me, okay?"
Trig nodded. But he knew he was right. He sat back down on his bunk with his chin in his hands and stared out into the hall at the coughing Rodians.
In the next cell, there was the noise of something taking a breath, rearranging itself into position, and letting out a quiet, patient sigh.
"I'm gonna get you, kid," Aur Myss whispered. "When the time comes, I'll be waiting."
Chapter 13.
Molecules
Zahara was adjusting the air inflow on her isolation mask when she sensed the 2-1B approaching behind her. "Dr. Cody?"
"Not now."
"It's important."
She hardly heard him. The afternoon had been a dark and bloody blur. All around her, the normally sedate infirmary was packed with sick inmates and guards, every bed occupied and more lying on the floor. The room was filled with the sounds of their coughing, rasping breaths, beeping monitors, and constant cries for help.
Whatever the boarding party had brought back with them from the Destroyer had spread so quickly throughout the Purge that she and Waste had already lost track of the new admits. Captain Sartoris had arrived in the custody of his own guards, and the surgical droid had ushered him directly into the quarantine bubble. Knowing that Sartoris was sitting in there waiting for her to examine him was the extra dose of stress she didn't need right now.
The warden had been calling her constantly from his office for updates. He didn't understand why she couldn't at least diagnose what was wrong, if not cure it. Up till now she'd been too busy just trying to take care of the inmates, triaging them and treating their symptoms, which, depending on the species, varied from upper respiratory complaints to fever and GI symptoms to seizures, hallucinations, hemorrhage, and coma. And now the 2-1B was still standing next to her, awaiting her frill attention.
"Look," Zahara said, "whatever it is, it's just going to have to…"
"It's Gat," the droid said. "He's dead."
Zahara turned around and frowned. "What?"
"He just had a seizure and went into respiratory arrest. I'm sorry for interrupting. I just thought you'd want to know."
Zahara took in a slow breath, held it for a beat, and nodded before letting it out. She followed the droid across the infirmary to Gat's bed. The Devish was lying on his side, pale-skinned, eyes open, already glazed. She looked at the vacant face, the broken horn and slackened jaw. Whatever had been good inside him-the rare element of decency and humor that had made him unique among her patients-was totally gone. She bent down and closed his eyes.
"And the warden is waiting to talk to you again," Waste said, actually managing to sound regretful.
Zahara knew what Kloth was going to ask. "How bad is it?" she asked the droid.
"Twelve fatalities so far."
"Including the entire boarding party?"
"With the exception of Captain Sartoris and ICO Vesek," the surgical droid answered, "yes."
"And they're both still in the bubble?"
"That's correct. Otherwise, the pathogen has already spread throughout the Purge. I'm following several reports of symptoms from all over General Population-inmates, guards, support staff. Rate of infection is nearly one hundred percent. Our medication and supplies will hold out for another week if nothing changes. However. " The droid paused, its voice modulating into a more confiding tone. "I have been unable to isolate the molecular makeup of this particular
strain. Dr. Cody?"
"Yes?"
"As you know, my programming regarding infectious disease is quite wide in scope, and yet this current contagion is like nothing I've ever seen." The droid's voice lowered further, the synthesized equivalent of a whisper. "It seems as though the individual organisms are using quorum sensing to communicate with one another inside the host."
"Meaning what?"
"Individual cells don't activate to full virulence until they've reproduced to such numbers that the host can't combat them."
"In other words," Zahara said, "when it's too late?"
"That's correct. At this point I'm not even convinced that our isolation gear is an effective barrier."
Zahara looked down self-consciously at the orange suit that she'd put on immediately after placing the boarding party into quarantine. She didn't like wearing it, didn't like the message that it sent to the inmates who had already been exposed, but there wasn't any choice. She couldn't help anyone if she was sick or dead. And the droid was right, of course. As of now, it was impossible to say whether the suits and masks were helping-guards who had suited up immediately were already coming in sick, but she herself showed no sign of infection.
Not yet, anyway, a grim voice inside her amended.
From across the infirmary, an alarm went off, a steady high-pitched whine indicating that one of her patients had gone into full arrest. Zahara started to respond to it, and another alarm went off, and then a third. There's got to be some kind of equipment malfunction, she thought dazedly, but she could see from here that wasn't the case. Her patients were dying faster now, dying all around her, and the only thing she could do was sign the appropriate paperwork afterward.
"I'll take care of this," Waste said. "You need to talk to the warden."
"The warden can wait."
By the time she got to the bedside, though, it was already too late. The inmate had collapsed, the monitors feeding back a steady helpless whine. It seemed to be coming from everywhere at once. The patient to her right was having a seizure, and his alarm went off, too. For the hundredth time that day, Zahara wondered what Captain Sartoris's party had run across up inside the Destroyer.
She knew only one person she could ask.
Chapter 14.
Bubble
The alarm was going off in the negative airspace of the quarantine bubble just before she slipped inside. Looking in, she saw Sartoris standing over Vesek's bed while Vesek gaped up at him. The younger guard's face had gone so white that Zahara could see the fine blue veins tracing beneath his jaw and chin, rising up his cheeks. She ran the rest of the way, letting the flap seal shut behind her with a barely audible thwap.
"What happened?"
"You're the doctor," Sartoris snapped. "You tell me."
"He was stable just a few minutes ago." She checked the monitors. Vesek's pulse was gone, his oxygen saturation plunging and blood pressure crashing hard. "Did you do something to him?"
Sartoris glared at her. "Me?"
"Hand me that foil blister pack-the other one." She tore it open, withdrew the breathing tube, and smeared it with lubricant. "Tilt his head back."
Sartoris moved stiffly, watching as she eased the tube down Vesek's throat, going in blind. It hit an obstruction somewhere and when she tried to advance it, his chest heaved, and he made a gagging sound in the pit of his chest. It was a sound she'd come to know well over the last few hours.
"Watch yourself," she said, as dense red fluid started to spout up the tube, pouring out of his mouth. She reached for suction but couldn't see far enough to run the tube where it needed to go. All the while she could feel Sartoris hovering over her shoulder, literally breathing down her neck, and had to make a deliberate effort to ignore him. Working almost entirely by feel, she repositioned the tube and heard the first rasping noises of Vesek hungrily slurping up oxygen, then swabbed his face and taped the tube into place to keep it from slipping. She took a step back and made herself take a series of deep breaths, holding each one for a five-count until she began to feel steady again.
"Is he going to make it?" Sartoris asked.
"Not for much longer. Not like this." She turned to face him. "I need to speak to you."
"I was just leaving."
Zahara gave him an incredulous look. "Excuse me?"
"I came to talk with Vesek." Sartoris shot a glance at the tube taped into place around the guard's mouth. "Not much chance of that now."
"You can't leave."
"Who's going to stop me?" His eyebrow hiked up. "You?"
"You're in quarantine because you're one of the primary carriers of this infection," Zahara said. "You need to stay here."
Sartoris eyed her levelly, taking her measure. The cold indifference in his face was unlike anything she'd ever encountered before, as if it were permanently etched beneath the features, across the very bones of his face.
"I'm going to make this very clear," he said. "You have no authority over me. And there's nothing you can do for me or my men or any of these inmates. You're useless, Dr. Cody, and you know it. If you were one of my guards, you'd be gone by now. if you were lucky. Otherwise you'd be dead."
"Look…" she started.
"Save it for your precious inmates," he said, standing up and starting to walk toward the sealed hatch. "I've already heard enough."
"Jareth, wait."
At the sound of his first name, he stopped in his tracks, and when he turned around and saw her expression, a grin twisted like barbed wire across his face. "You're scared stiff, aren't you?"
"That's got nothing to do with this."
"You ought to be. They're going to remember you for this."
"What?"
"You might think you're through with the Empire, but they're not through with you." He glanced outside the bubble, where the 2-1B was hurrying from bed to bed as the alarms switched on, each one signaling cardiac and respiratory arrest. "Every exposed inmate and guard on this barge is going to die in the next few hours, while you stand there in your isolation suit with your tools and your droids. I hope you enjoy answering questions, because there's going to be plenty of them waiting for you." He reached out with one finger and very gently placed it against her sternum. "You'll spend the rest of your life living this down."
"What did you and your men see up in that Star Destroyer?" she asked.
"What did I see?" Sartoris shook his head. "Nothing-not a thing."
Sighing, she glanced at the monitor screens alongside the bubble's inner membrane. "Your blood work is coming back clean. The infection doesn't seem to be affecting you whatsoever."
"Benefits of clean living," he said, and shoved past her. "If you think you can detain me, you're welcome to try. Otherwise I'll be up in the warden's office. I'm sure he'll be interested in hearing about how you and your staff are bearing up in this crisis."
Before she could move to stop him, he'd already walked out of the bubble and through the medbay. Something about his motives bothered her. There was no way he was going waste time talking to Kloth just to report on her inefficacy here. How much more trouble could she really get in now anyway?
Zahara started to follow him and paused, reeling momentarily lightheaded. She stopped short, scrutinizing herself for any of the symptoms she'd seen in her patients. Her breathing was fine, she felt no pain or lethargy-was she just feeling the accumulated tension of the whole situation?
"Waste?"
"Yes, Dr. Cody." The droid didn't look up from the inmate whose bunk it was squatting over, administering some sort of IV injection.
"I need you to run some blood and cultures."
"On what patient?"
"Me," she said, and held out her arm.
The 2-1B looked at her. "But that would require me to violate the isolation barrier of your suit."
"The suits don't work anyway," she said. "You said so yourself."
"I was speculating…"
"Enough." She peeled off the mask and tossed it aside, ya
nking off the gloves and pulling her sleeve up to expose her bare arm. From the nearby beds, the inmates gazed at her blankly.
"Dr. Cody, please…" Waste's synthesized voice was edging perilously close to panic."…my theories regarding the efficacy of the barge's isolation gear are hardly conclusive, and in any case, the prime directive of my programming plainly states that I am to protect life and promote wellness whenever possible."
"Just do it," she said, and locked her eyes on the droid's visual sensors, wailing for the needle.
Chapter 15.
VHB
Sartoris walked back up the corridor toward the warden's office with a pair of E-11 blaster rifles, their stocks collapsed so he could hold one in each hand. He'd taken them off two of the stormtroopers in the hallway-one of them, right outside the infirmary, had attempted to shoot him with it. The guard in question, a man that Sartoris had known for years, had staggered toward him with his helmet in his hand and blood in his eyes, coughing and ranting at the top of his lungs. He didn't seem to have any idea where he was but kept insisting he get medical care. He said his lungs were filling up with fluid and he couldn't breathe, he was drowning from the inside but they wouldn't let him into the medbay. Sartoris tried to shove past the man, and the guard pulled the blaster and pointed it at him. When he finally realized who he was about to shoot, the trooper stopped and swayed sideways against the wall.
"Cap, I'm sorry, I didn't realize…"
Sartoris grabbed the E-11 from him, switched it to stun, and shot him point-blank. Twenty meters later, another stormtrooper came at him, and Sartoris had been faster this time, dropping him on sight. It had been like that the rest of the way up. Guards and troopers in ineffective infection-control gear stumbled up and down the hallway, coughing and puking blood into their masks, reaching out to him for help and begging him for answers to what was going on. Many of them had already collapsed and lay facedown on the floor. The farther he went, the more bodies lay in his path. Sartoris stepped over them when he could; other times he stepped on top of them. With every passing meter, the musty fug of bile and stale sweat hanging in the air grew more oppressive. He had never smelled anything like it. If things were this bad up here in the administration level, he couldn't imagine how bad it was down in Gen Pop-it would be a nightmare down there. He wondered if the warden had already pulled all the remaining guards up from the detainment levels entirely, sealed the whole thing off, and was waiting for the inmates to die.
