Starrise at Corrivale h-1

by Diane Duane

  Slowly he pulled the body closer and flicked one thumb to open the lift access, then he pushed the body carefully into it and closed the access again. Gabriel put on light gravity in the lift and instructed it to come up to ship level while filling with parasitic air siphoned out of the main cabin. The lift clunked into place. Gabriel watched the lift's pressure gauge in the tank until it matched exactly with that of the cabin. Finally he was satisfied of a perfect match and touched the control to open the lift door. Enda was already up out of her seat, heading aft. He went after her.

  They stood and looked down at the body on the floor of the lift. Despite its short time out in space, it seemed already well frozen, the arms flung out forwards, one of the legs oddly bent. There was the large glossy headpiece, cracked but otherwise intact, glazed inside with a silvery metallic compound. The e- suit covering the body, though, was most peculiar. It looked like greenish plastic-but the green of the plastic was not even. It looked lighter in some areas, darker in others. Enda knelt down beside it, reached out a hand toward one of the slits that the explosion had apparently torn in the e-suit, then took the hand back again, glancing up at Gabriel.

  He put one booted toe out and nudged the body slightly. Over the greenish e-suit were shoulder pads and shin coverings and a breastplate of what might have been some kind of dark armor. It was faintly ribbed and looked less metallic than chitinous, as if it had been wrought from the wing casing of some large beetle. The armor was by no means complete, though, and much of the body was left uncovered. It appeared to have been partially blown away from the lower left leg, and splintered bone was visible. There was little blood, even clotted blood, but from underneath the plastic material of the e-suit where it had been torn, something pallidly green was oozing.

  "The suit's filled with something," Gabriel said. "Not air, either." He too put a hand out as if to touch that strange e-suit, then thought better of it and withdrew it.

  "I confess to having been eager to see who pursued us," Enda said, pursing her lips, "but now I am less eager. I do not like the thought of investigating this being much further without specialized protective gear, which, alas, we do not have."

  Gabriel thought about that for a moment. "I bet I know who does have some, though," he said. "Oh?"

  "Doctor Delde Sota."

  Enda blinked at that. "You are considering taking this body back to her for autopsy?" Gabriel shrugged. "Spacefarers going about their lawful occasions are supposed to assist the authorities in investigating unusual occurrences, especially in system space, where the occurrences could cause danger to life or limb." He glanced back toward the cargo bay. "Our limbs were pretty well endangered, if you ask me. Legally, Doctor Sota would have to assist us. This is a 'public health' matter. And anyway, what is this creature, Enda? A new alien species of some kind? If it is, people should know about it, and that it's fairly aggressive when it gets you alone out in the dark."

  "I would find it hard to argue with that." Enda stood up. "Well, we should wrap it up and keep it as intact as we can." She stood up, thinking for a moment-then turned to the nearby cabinet that contained the phymech and stroked its front panel. The panel lit up and displayed available settings. "I thought so," Enda said. "Here. 'Corpse wrapping.' "

  "That's going to use up all the disinfectant film," Gabriel said, looking up past her as the machine displayed its materials requirements.

  "Yes, well," Enda said, "what would you recommend we use instead?"

  Gabriel sniffed the air. It was already becoming sharply rank with the scent of the green gel that was dripping out of various punctures and rips in the creature's protective suit as the air warmed it and the once-frozen liquids began to melt.

  "Never mind," he said hurriedly, "I think you're right; we'd better just do it."

  Enda told the phymech to put down its handling arms. It extruded them, wrapped them around the strange body and lifted it, preparatory to wrapping.

  "When it's finished," Gabriel said, "I think we'd better put it in the cargo bay and vent the hold." Enda made a little sniff of laughter. "If the hold is not already well enough vented. But, yes, that should successfully stabilize it. At least, we will hope so."

  The phymech got on with its wrapping. Soon there was nothing left but an opaque, silvery-sheened, ungainly, and not very human-looking bundle, for neither Gabriel or Enda wanted the body forced into an unnatural shape that might destroy some useful piece of equipment or other evidence. The shape was awkward. They had some difficulty getting it into the airlock between the forward area and the cargo bay, but it fitted at last after some tugging and pushing. When the airlock was closed again, Gabriel activated the secondary grapples mounted inside the cargo bay, the ones used for handling rocks inside the bay, and carefully opened the other airlock door.

  "There remains the problem of exactly how we handle this body when we get to Iphus," Enda said. Gabriel finished up with the grapples and closed the airlock door again, pausing to look at the inert lump lying there in the light gravity he had left turned on. "Probably," he said, "it wouldn't be a great idea to haul it through the corridors."

  "No. I would think we might be able to get the doctor to make a house call, though, especially if there was an illness aboard ship."

  "Oh?"

  "Yes. I was just thinking how unwell you look, Gabriel." "What?"

  "Oh, most unwell. I think you have eaten something bad. Contaminated stores, perhaps." Gabriel blinked at her, then made a few experimental retching noises. "Maybe there was something wrong with that last batch of meat rolls?" he suggested.

  "Certainly there was," Enda said. "I cannot believe the amount of hot spice with which you ordered them made. They are nearly inedible, but perhaps there was some bacterial contamination as well." "Something that the phymech can't handle."

  "Well, it has never been as strong on nontraumatic problems or simple systemic infections as it is on trauma. Perhaps there might be something wrong with the phymech as well. Yes, some kind of error in installation-or better still, another software problem that the installer missed even though it caught the other one."

  Gabriel shook his head and turned to make his way back up to the pilot's seat. "I begin to see why fraal are such a long-lived species," he said.

  Enda looked after him with some concern. "Why would that be?"

  "Sneakiness," Gabriel said. "Come on. I'm going to go sound sick on the comm back to Iphus." Smiling very slightly, Enda came after him.

  Chapter Thirteen

  ABOUT FIVE HOURS later they were docking once again in the main ring on the Iphus Collective. Gabriel had been in no hurry to get there quickly, partly because he was "sick," partly because he wanted to give some of those big VoidCorp ships time to go away. Indeed when Sunshine arrived, they were all gone, which also made Gabriel wonder slightly. What other part of the system have they gone off to intimidate, and why?

  Doctor Delde Sola was there at the docking ring to meet them. She came up in the lift, stepped into Sunshine, and held quite still while she glanced around her. It was slightly amazing to Gabriel how her height made the ship around her look smaller than it really was. Equally surprising was the look she trained on him as she stood there, holding what appeared to be a brushed-metal version of the standard doctor's bag.

  "Conjecture: faked illness," the mechalus said with an expression that for the moment was decidedly cool. "Etiology: uncertain. Observation: atypical odors for human/fraal habitation. Query: nature of callout?"

  "We were attacked in system space by ships, one of which was piloted by an alien we cannot identify," Gabriel said. "We managed to save the body. It's ... pretty abnormal."

  "Query:" said Doctor Sota, "recording of attack and response?"

  "The computer has saved it," said Enda and brought up the JustWadeln software.

  Delde Sota stepped up to the pilot's seat and paused there for a moment, looking at the smear that still lay across the cockpit window from the first object that had hit them.
"Query: provenance?"

  "The residue from an impact," Enda said. "You will see it in the playthrough."

  Delde Sola's braid reached up over her shoulder and brushed across the cockpit controls, the hair-tendrils finding one preferred spot and infiltrating itself through it into the computer circuitry behind. The tank flickered with images, dark and bright, too quickly for Gabriel to get a clear sense of any individual one. Delde Sola turned to them then and said, "Observation: lucky to be alive. Query: repeat occurrence?" "It happened once before, yes," Gabriel replied, "but there weren't any remains we could find." "Proposal: autopsy," said Delde Sota, moving aft and taking her bag with her while looking around for a place to put it. "Requirements: suitable surface, disinfectant solution-" She smiled briefly. "Body." "We have a table," Enda said and led Delde Sota down into the "sitting room" area, where she unfolded the table from the wall.

  Wait a minute, we eat off that table! Gabriel thought, but he didn't bother to say it out loud, for Enda was already making her way down toward the cargo bay with the doctor in tow. Gabriel sighed and turned to the computer, telling the cargo bay to pressurize itself with air from inside the docking ring access. He then followed the others.

  Enda and Delde Sota were standing there in the chill, looking down at the unwieldily wrapped body. "Observation: some haste in preparation, programming in phymech insufficient," said Delde Sota. "Observation: odor immediately noticeable, some haste suggested. Query: computer interface in this area?"

  "There against the wall," said Gabriel, "over by the spee-gee apparatus."

  Delde Sola's braid started lo lengthen itself, wavering out and along to where the computer interface was embedded by the specific gravity and metallurgic assay equipment. "Observation: table too small. Conjecture: even if right size, not much good for dinner afterwards," Delde Sola said, going over to kneel by the corpse and putting her bag down while her braid insinuated itself into the ship's computer, "even after scrubbing by marine." Gabriel blinked at that. "Suggestion: pathology and food a bad mixture in close quarters. Query: assistance?"

  "I'll help," said Gabriel, utterly horrified a second later that such a suggestion had come out of his mouth. Doctor Sota gave him a look. "Observation: educational. Also: finder's right." She opened her doctor's bag.

  -and it opened, and opened, and opened, and kept on opening so that Gabriel had to just stare at it. The bag flattened itself out across the floor into an incredibly complex set of dividers and clearfoam-wrapped instruments and objects that Gabriel couldn't identify. There seemed to be many times more room in it for things than the original volume would have suggested. Finally it stopped opening, and Gabriel was almost disappointed.

  "I wonder if anyone does a version of that for maintenance tools?" Enda asked, looking down at the "bag" with what looked to Gabriel like mild envy.

  Delde Sota looked from Enda to Gabriel with that slightly wicked look. "Information: special order," she said. "Offer: will assist you in obtaining discount. Suggestion: put ship in escrow." "Thankyouno" Gabriel said hurriedly.

  Delde Sota raised her eyebrows, looked over the contents of the "bag," and selected an object wrapped in clearfoam. The foam dissolved away as she lifted the object, a long, slender, extremely keen-looking knife.

  "Invocation: here death rejoices to teach the living," Delde Sota said and began slicing delicately at the bodywrap film that covered the corpse. It fell away, crinkling dryly, and Delde Sota looked at that with some bemusement. "Observation: already atypical response in wrapping," she said. "Begin recording. Computer, copy to coroner's records, Iphus Collective Medicolegal Authority, Delde Sota recording, this recording under Coroner's Seal, Concord Medicolegal / Concord Pathology and Forensics SR7269563355209782673."

  The last of the wrapping fell away. "Note dehydration or denaturization reaction in standard bodywrap," said Delde Sola, looking the body over. "Report concerns bodily remains resulting from as yet unreported event in Corrivale system space. See attached file recording for details. Initial examination shows bipedal overtly humanoid figure, gender details not specific at this stage, height one hundred ninety centimeters, mass-" she paused to lift the body-"fifty-eight point nine kilograms, atypically low for most humanoid species even without clothing or covering, the subject still being clothed." She went on for a few moments to describe the strange e-suit verbally. Gabriel noticed that Delde Sola's idiom was growing more human, probably for the sake of the autopsy report. She paused at one point, putting the blade aside-it hovered steady in the air where she left it-and reached for another instrument that she used to sample the slimy substance inside the suit. Her face darkened somewhat as she said, "Interstitial area between e-suit and skin surface is filled with mucus-like substance, colonized to high liter levels by what appears to be mutated bacteria of geni Orgontha, Salmonella, Escherichia, numerous others. Purposes of mutation uncertain. Mucus is acidic, already moving through pH 4.2 and increasing. Exposure to air or damage to outer e-suit may be implicated. Sample retained in airtight capsule for later analysis. Images saved for later analysis. See attached files. Now removing e-suit." The mechalus doctor reached first into her kit and came up with an object that looked like four small spheres welded together. She took hold of two of them and pulled. A thin silvery thread spun out between them until it was about a meter long. She left the first two spheres handing in the air, grasped the other two, and pulled. The thread started to stretch out into a shimmering sheet of thin-membrane polymer, probably no more than a molecule thick, but (Gabriel guessed) probably nearly unbreakable. This surface hovered in the air, and Delde Sola recovered her first tool, the straight-bladed dissecting knife. A clear skinfilm applied itself around her hands and up her arms, and she went to work. Slice by slice she removed the e-suit, cutting away the softer portions around the armored parts and piling them up with some care on the membrane "sheet" that grew to accommodate them as she accumulated them. The head piece was the last to come off. Delde Sola lifted the dissecting knife, made a small adjustment to a control in its butt, then stroked it up the side of the headpiece, around and over the top, and down the other side. The headpiece fell apart in two neat pieces, the back half first. Delde Sota let the head rest on the floor, removing the back half of the headpiece first. It was full of the mucus- gel substance, and the inside of the headpiece was patterned with neurocircuitry. She put the half-helmet aside, lifted the front portion away. The head was human, and it looked very dead indeed.

  "Body inside the e-suit appears to be that of a human male," Delde Sota said calmly enough while Gabriel did his best to keep his stomach under control-as much from the look of the body as from the ever-stronger acid smell that was filling the air.

  He glanced over at Enda. She was still, looking at the body, and her face was more completely "shut down" than he could ever remember having seen it, even when she would fall asleep in the pilot chair. Gabriel glanced back at the body, forcing himself to it. The face was sunken, shrunken, the eyes fallen in, the bones of the skull all too clearly visible under the pallid, green-streaked flesh, as if this body had not been moving and shooting at them just half a day before. It looked rather as if it had been lying in some dry place for a long time, dessicating in the darkness. Though wet, the flesh still looked leathery, papery, too thin to stay on the bones. The expression was anguished, almost a rictus of paimn ... and also rage? Gabriel thought, for he had seen men's faces locked that way after dying on the battlefield. The skull was corded with something like tendons that ran down the back and sides of the skull, down the neck to the chest, from the chest over to the shoulders and arms. The tendons looked like cords of greenish-white material, striated the long way like bundles of twisted fibers. The corpse's muscles were wasted almost to nothing, to cords and strings themselves. The middle of the body was sunken in as if its owner had been long starved. In one spot, Gabriel half thought he could see the contours of the spinal bones showing through the sagging papery skin of the abdomen.

 
; "Age of subject indeterminate because of extreme fragility and denatured status of tissue," Delde Sola was saying calmly, but her eyes were dark with something that was beginning to look like anger. "No adipocere, massive tissue wasting in all extremities, atypical cordlike growth or bioengineered network, apparently sourced in the dural layer of the spine and the dura mater, radiating to all extremities and bone/muscle insertions. Exterior appearance suggests all major organs have experienced pathological wasting." She lifted her knife again. "Paused," she said and looked over at Gabriel. "Observation: some entities find this portion of the examination disturbing."

  Enda got up and went hurriedly away. "I will listen-" she said as she went out the cargo bay door and shut it behind her.

  The mechalus raised her eyebrows at Gabriel. "Go ahead," he said.

  "Resuming," Delde Sola said and made the first Y-shaped cut that laid the main body cavity and abdomen open.

  Gabriel watched her, trying hard not to take what he saw too personally. "That's the problem with doing a lot of attack work," his weapons instructor had said once. "You start taking all the physical consequences personally, and pretty soon you're no good at the job any more. While you have to do this work, just remember: you do not have to accept delivery on the emotions and reactions that occur to you. Let them roll over you. Let them pass by. Later when you're retired, if you want to, I guarantee you that you'll be able to take them out and look at them in detail, but for the meantime they'll just impair your function."

  So Gabriel watched Delde Sola take out the shrunken organs, a liver that was hardly there, a pair of lungs that were shriveled to nothing, removing them from a body cavity full of more of the pus-like slime, and Gabriel did not take it personally. He watched her dissect one of the tendonlike structures away from one of the arms, watched the tendon seem to try to hang on tighter as it was removed, then watched it "give up" and melt away into more green slime. Gabriel worked very hard not to take that personally.