Augment

by C R MacFarlane

  Hoepe frowned, his eyes narrowing as he studied Kieran.

  Sarrin studied Kieran too, her mind momentarily forgetting to run as it pulled apart and analyzed each of his words: ‘Just a girl.’

  Sighing, Hoepe rubbed the spot between his eyebrows, releasing the crinkle that had set in. “I assure you there is no ill intent.” He turned to Sarrin. “Come on. I know you don’t like to be touched, but we have to do it. I’m sending you onto a UEC ship at some point in the next few days. You were in that prison for four years, I need to know that you’re in good health.”

  “P-prison?” Rayne’s voice squealed an octave higher than usual.

  Sarrin cringed. She felt Kieran’s gaze search her, calculating. He thought she was just a girl. A nice, normal, non-monster girl.

  “Sarrin,” Hoepe pressed.

  Her heart hammered. He could say too much. Halud had kept her secret, but she had no idea if Hoepe would, or if he even knew it was a secret. Besides, normal people wanted to be healthy. Normal people probably liked to go to the doctor. She pressed her lips tight together, mimicking a smile. “Okay.”

  “Really?” He raised a single eyebrow. “That was uncharacteristically easy.”

  She nodded and stepped forward, encouraging him to follow so they would be away from the others as quickly as possible.

  Hoepe caught up and took the lead as they descended the ship’s cargo ramp into the large, open warehouse. Barren grey concrete with harsh fluorescent lighting. Cargo containers of every size lined the walls, and two men boxed in an area set aside for sparring, their comrades cheering them on. Escape routes: thirty-seven. Weapons: twenty-eight. Objects that could be used as deadly weapons: one-hundred-sixteen.

  “Be careful with the engineer,” Hoepe said quietly.

  Surprised, she faltered in her step.

  “He thinks you’re something you’re not.”

  “They all do. That’s the point.”

  “Agreed.” He paused, turning to her. “I have been observing my crew for the last several years. Some of them attempt to protect each other from perceived threats, the same as the engineer did for you today. This is what they call ‘friendship’. I’m afraid I have no reference to understand it. But they spend time together, frequently discussing personal history. This would be an unwise discussion for someone like us.” He spun on his heel, walking away without waiting for her to answer.

  She followed him, uncertain what she would have said if he had given her the chance to speak.

  A small room off the main warehouse held his makeshift lab. Several medical devices were crammed neatly in the space, lining every wall. In the centre stood a steel table, the only light in the room the overhead procedure lamp.

  Her breath caught in her throat, and her hands slammed on the outside edge of the door frame, keeping her from going in. Blackness clouded in the edges of her vision while the remembered sound of an operating drill buzzed in her ears.

  Hoepe glanced back from turning on his machines. “You’re here now, might as well do it the easy way.”

  She had no doubt she could outrun him and seriously considered the option, but there were no escape routes unless she ran back into the warehouse. The men would see. And then there would be questions.

  She placed one trepidatious foot inside the lab, reminding herself this was nothing like Selousa. Hoepe was nothing like Guitteriez. She slipped lightly onto the cold table, tucking her hands tightly against her torso.

  Hoepe stepped behind her, his hands hovering over her back and arms. “It’s good to see you again.”

  She nodded. It had been four years since she had seen a friendly face. Now both Halud and Hoepe were with her — there was hope after all, despite the haunting familiarity of the current medical. This moment, the exam, was short term, a few minutes maybe, she just had to remember to breathe. She wiggled her toes, bare feet swinging in the air, concentrating her mind on the action, pushing out the remembrance of steady beeping and the drip-drip of drugs pushing into her system.

  “I’m going to scan your bio-electric field.” He stepped away, and she sighed with relief.

  The machine clicked as it took the picture, and she froze, careful not to move for the full fifteen seconds it took to scan her.

  “Standard physical palpation next.” Hoepe stepped back, stretching his fingers. He stood in front, pressing into her.

  She shut her eyes with each jab, his gentle touch on the exposed skin of her neck burning with the electrical energy from his fingertips.

  “Breathe, Sarrin. I’m not going to hurt you. I’ve done this thousands of times.”

  Forcing her lungs to move, she nodded. Better to hold it all down, to keep everything as still as possible when the doctor came this close. Lest the monster rear its ugly head.

  He traced down her arms, pressing through the fabric of her oversize coveralls.

  “You’ve lost too much weight,” he said.

  She nodded.

  “The boys are on rations, but I want you to take double. Even if you’re not hungry.”

  She nodded again, although so far her stomach hadn’t taken well to the change in diet.

  He continued down to her elbows, tugging gently to pull her hands free from her sides, but she held them firmly out of view. He tried again, but she refused. “In all the years, you’ve never once let me look at your hands. Why not?”

  She shook her head.

  “I’m not blind. I know there are scars there. Do you have pain? Maybe I can help.”

  Pain was not the problem. Bile rose in her throat.

  He sighed. “Fine.” He stepped away, coming around to her spine. He pressed down each of the vertebrae, looking for reactivity, satisfied there wasn’t. “Your axial skeleton and muscling are in excellent condition. Let me run some labs, but I’d say you’re in fighting condition. Not that there was any doubt.”

  She pressed her lips together, debating silently with herself while he stepped away to retrieve a set of blood vials. “I don’t want to hurt anyone,” she said she he returned, voice small and quiet.

  “I know.” He frowned. “You won’t. It’s a simple mission. Data retrieval. I need you to help Halud; I need his access codes, but I don’t know if he can handle himself.”

  She lifted her foot, gritting her teeth as he held the sensitive arch and centred the vein to draw his sample, bare skin sparking on bare skin.

  “It’ll be fine. I recall you and our old friend Grant going on similar missions all time. It’ll be the same, just no hot head leaping into fights.”

  A quick smile, a real one, relaxed her features.

  “You won’t hurt anyone. There’s no fighting. Get in, get the data, get out. Avoid fighting.” He patted her on the leg.

  She took a deep breath. It sounded simple, her brain wanted to believe it would be, but a feeling of dread had already settled deep into her core.

  “Is there anything else I should know?”

  “No.”

  * * *

  Kieran swung across the hull of the ship, dangling from a suspended harness, his toes skimming lightly over the surface. Tools jangled on his harness while he found and confirmed the spot Hoepe indicated to install the drive.

  Sutherland came much slower behind him, carrying the heavy and fragile solenoid.

  Kieran took a minute to shut his eyes, centring himself. He hadn’t felt confident to send a message to his parents, not certain if the warehouse might have a way to track and interpret the unique signals. Also, there hadn’t been time. He’d been ordered to install the cloaking device, and a dozen other implements, ASAP. And if the altercation in the cargo bay was any indicator, Hoepe would not tolerate a delay for any reason.

  “You okay, Sutherland?” He shouted over, as the shorter, muscly man rounded a corner of the ship into view. The solenoid dangled from his harness, and light gleamed off his bald head.

  Sutherland grunted, working one foot over the other, carefully moving sideways.

&n
bsp; While he waited, Kieran scuffed the hull with his boot. Engineers rarely got to work on their ship from the outside — not without a spacewalk anyway, and Lord knew he had no interest in that. The ship’s outer layer was scuffed and burnt from hundreds of laz-bolts. They buffed out easily, but still — he frowned — they didn’t have to mark it up. A ship was a thing of beauty, a thing of pride. He doubted Hoepe would allow the time to clean the old girl up.

  Sutherland bumped into him. “Sorry, mate. Over judged it with all this extra weight.”

  Kieran grinned. “No worries.” He helped the shorter, stockier man still the swinging contraption leashed to his belt. “Hey, do you think Hoepe will let me take a day to buff the hull?”

  Sutherland barked out a single laugh. “Not a chance.”

  “What about check out that banged up thruster array?”

  “Doubtful. Besides, it flew straight when I moved it from the landing platform, so that’s good enough.”

  “Well at least the algorithms are holding.” He pulled out his data-tablet, checking the installation schematics, confirming his position on the hull, and double-checking they were at the right access point. “Right here, then?”

  “Looks like.”

  Kieran pulled up his pneumatic drill from where it dangled below him, gritting his teeth. “God, I hate drilling into the side of a ship.”

  “We have heat sealant.”

  “I know, I know. Just feels wrong.”

  Sutherland cracked a smile, and Kieran worked the drill up to speed before pressing it to the hull. “You been doing this long?”

  “Long enough,” Kieran answered.

  Sutherland peered at him, while he moved the drill to make the next hole. “How old are you? You barely look like you could be in the academy, let alone graduated.”

  “Fast tracked.”

  “You seem to know a lot about ship’s engineering.”

  “Guess so.” He pressed in, making two more holes in the hull. “I learned it from my dad.”

  One of Sutherland’s eyebrows rose. “Not the Academy?”

  Kieran bit his tongue — he’d nearly said too much. Kids learned from their parents all the time, but ship’s engineering had to be learned on a ship, and no one but Central Army engineers were allowed in the engineering bays.

  “Well, Hoepe told me you could be trusted,” Sutherland said with a smile. “I’m glad because those diagrams look complicated for me.”

  “Not too bad, really. The wiring for the power will be a bit tricky, but definitely doable.” Kieran paused. “How does he know — Hoepe, I mean — that I’m a good engineer?”

  “Said he had it on good authority.”

  “Oh really?”

  Kieran finishing drilling the last of the hole, and checked the schematic one more time.

  “Ready?”

  “Yep.”

  Sutherland held up the mounting frame, aligning it to the pre-drilled holes.

  “Tell me about Hoepe,” said Kieran, starting to connect the frame to the hull, “he seems intense.”

  Sutherland laughed, free and easy, and for a minute, Kieran felt like he was home, working on his family’s ship with his dad and brother.

  “Nah, he’s a big softie. Keeps to himself mostly, but always does whatever he needs to keep us safe, you know. And the folk here.”

  “Oh really?” Surprising for the very intimidating man.

  “He was looking for a crew after the war and the loss of Earth, I didn’t have many other prospects, so I joined up.”

  “What do you do?”

  “Pilot. Almost-pilot technically; got kicked out of the Academy, or was pretty sure I was going to be so I disappeared. Now I do odd jobs, whatever we need.”

  “Ah.” It was nearly impossible to get kicked out, but Sutherland kept going so Kieran kept the question to himself.

  “The crew was in the Capital City on Etar for a little while — Boss kept looking for something — but it got a little too close even for him, so we moved out here.”

  “How long ago?”

  “A standard year, maybe. It’s tough to tell, there’s no seasons on Contyna. Kind of a dull death-trap if you ask me.”

  “It wasn’t terra-formed that long ago, right?”

  “They started ten years ago. First couple colonies a few years ago didn’t make it. Then they started mining the iron and there was a little more support. We’ve been working hard to build-it up. Hoepe says it’s important to build up the people around you.”

  “Who is Hoepe? How did he get here?”

  Sutherland shrugged. “He used to be a doctor — good thing, we get beat up from time to time, you know. And he treats the miners when they need something.”

  “But if he’s a doctor, why not stay on Etar, or one of the central planets? Surely the conditions would be nicer, easier.”

  “Dunno. Same reason as the rest of us, I suppose.”

  “What reason is that?”

  Sutherland went silent, squinting at Kieran. Eventually, he said, “Come on, let’s get this big box up. The harness is digging into my ‘nads.”

  Kieran helped Sutherland pull up the heavy drive and lift it into place, grunting with effort. It slipped against the smooth hull. “This is harder than it looks,” he puffed.

  “I’ll say.”

  “I don’t know if I can hold it and put the bolts in. We need another hand.” Kieran instantly thought of Sarrin, but she was with the doctor. He fumbled to hold the drive on his knee and fish around in his coveralls, pulling out a long bolt, but the drive slipped before he could get the mallet.

  They hefted it back into place, sweating and panting.

  “There,” Sutherland said, “what about him?”

  Below, the Poet strode across the hangar. It was no Sarrin, thought Kieran, but it was her brother—close enough, right? “Hey, Poet?” Kieran shouted.

  He stopped short, momentarily confused before he looked up.

  Kieran puffed again, the heavy drive shifting. “We could really use a hand.”

  The Poet’s mouth dropped open. “No, I’m afraid I cannot.”

  “Please. It’ll just take a sec.”

  Halud’s hands twitched open and closed, face pale. “Have you seen Sarrin?” he asked after a minute.

  “She went with Hoepe.” He pointed towards the tiny corridor they had disappeared into.

  The Poet started to walk away.

  “Hey, wait!”

  “Send some of the boys over,” said Sutherland, pointing with his chin to the far side of the hangar where some of the men sparred in a circle with Rayne.

  Halud bit his lip, following Sutherland’s gaze. Without a word, he turned and walked away.

  “Cracked useless Poet,” Sutherland muttered.

  The drive slipped.

  “Jesus,” gasped Kieran, catching the weight of it.

  Sutherland helped him pick it back up. “Who?”

  * * *

  Halud picked his way down the narrow corridor, past the storage closet-cell, to last door that lead to Hoepe’s — the doctor’s — infirmary.

  He grimaced at the dark corridor, the walls warped and the floor dirty — nothing like the hospitals in the Capital City on Etar. He told himself this was the new normal, and tried not to compare it to the life he had led. Besides, his sister was with him now, and for that there was no comparison.

  He pushed the door open. “Sarrin?”

  She sat on a steel table in the centre of the dim room, head jerking up, and he immediately felt ashamed for intruding. The light from the overhead surgical light cast dark shadows over her features: sharp cheekbones and hollowed out bags under the eyes, she looked part corpse and only part girl. A gasp escaped before he could stop himself.

  Of course, it was only a trick of the light. She was obviously alive. Sitting in front of him. He chuckled at himself, smiling as he strode into the room to stand beside Sarrin.

  Hoepe’s back was turned as he worked at a machine, b
ut he acknowledged Halud with a quick glance. His machine made a soft ding, and he turned his attention back to it. “The labs are finalizing now.”

  Halud pressed his lips tight, burying his concern. It didn’t matter, Sarrin’s gaze stayed firmly rooted to the floor. He swayed unsteadily on his feet as his mind started to run through a dozen different scenarios, and he became increasingly certain the doctor would tell him she was dying. She looked like she was dying, acted like she was dying. Had he come too late? Had he come all this way only to lose her again?

  “Everything looks good, Sarrin,” Hoepe announced.

  Surprised, Halud turned. “She’s fine?”

  The doctor’s mouth quirked. “Yes. Perfect health.”

  “Well that’s good news!” He reached out, wrapping his sister in a hug, nearly jumping up and down.

  She coiled into a tight, rigid board in his arms. Perhaps she hadn’t heard. Pulling back, he patted her on the leg. “Sarrin, you’re going to be fine.”

  She jumped, pulling back as far as she could while still seated. She flung her hands behind her back, and he remembered the soup bowl and the blisters that seared across her palms.

  He turned to Hoepe. “What about the burns?”

  The doctor tilted his head curiously. “Burns?”

  “On her hands. A few days ago, I don’t know what happened.” Halud turned back to Sarrin, but she had somehow slipped off the table without his noticing. She stood on the floor, shifting her weight from bare foot to bare foot, her gaze still cast down and to the side.

  The doctor became serious. “Do you need me to examine an injury, Sarrin?”

  She shook her head.

  “They were quite bad,” Halud reminded her gently. “It would be good to have him take a look.” He turned to Hoepe. “Did you see the burns?”

  Hoepe’s eyebrows furrowed, and he shook his head cautiously.

  He turned to Sarrin. “Please, for me. I need to know you’re okay.”

  She hesitated, glanced at the doctor, and then Halud. Slowly she stretched her hands out, flashing them open rapidly. Pale, perfectly smooth skin shone back, only a shadow where the worst of the burn had been in the centre of the palm.