“Seeing daylight through someone’s head isn’t ever good,” Daniel whispered in assent.
Gene came out from behind the divider, wiping his hands on a towel. He went to Yllera. All eyes focused on him. “Yllera, it appears your grandmother will pull through, as long as we can keep the infection at bay. Right now, it is very important we run a few scans of you.”
“Grams is alright?”
“Yes, there will definitely be some memory loss. She may remain in a vegetative state and there is a good possibility that she may still die. For now, she is alive, and we did manage to repair the damage and restore some cognitive function. What’s important is that we check you out,” Gene said gently.
“I’m okay, I wasn’t hit,” Yllera answered, “Can I see her?”
“Tina’s moving her to the ICU,” Gene answered.
“Moved, stabilized, resting comfortably,” Tina said returning from behind the barrier, carrying a large scanner, “now, it’s time to check you out.”
Ben took another longer look at Tina. She had changed physically, but the internal changes, the ones that changed the way she carried herself were clearly more dramatic. She was clearly confident, in her competence as a doctor and in herself as a person.
Tina helped Yllera to her feet. “You ready?” Tina wagged the hand holding the scanner.
“I don’t see why. . .” Yllera began.
“It’s routine, to make certain you aren’t carrying any contagious diseases or parasites,” Ben reassured the girl, despite both experience and a gut reaction to the contrary. Something other than the unfamiliarity with the scanner told him that both Gene and, strangely still unreadable, Tina were worried about the girl.
Yllera looked at Ben, vulnerably, trustingly. “Okay.”
Tina ran the scanner slowly over the girl, then she smiled, “Okay that’s it, Daniel why don’t you find her a room near her grandmother, so she can check on her whenever she likes.” Ben sensed Tina sending Daniel more specific instructions, but couldn’t tell what they were.
No one moved until Daniel and the priest had led Yllera from the room. Then Tina tossed the scanner over her shoulder to hang in mid-air while a large pop-pad flew over the divider into her hands. She tapped at the pad, glancing at the various results, then nodded and handed the pad to Gene. Gene read the results more slowly, shaking his head in disbelief.
“Well?” Everyone asked at once.
“I think we have at least half the answer to the 20 million credit question,” Tina hinted smugly.
“What question?”
“Oh, you know, the one about why the dark is so interested in Yllera and her family,” Tina answered.
“And?” Angela asked peevishly.
“Yllera is Agurian.” Tina answered simply.
“Yeah so? We knew that,” Angela frowned.
“No, really Agurian, her morphic gland is functional, almost certainly fully functional. Her grandmother’s gland is at least partially functional, a fact which both nearly killed her and saved her,” Gene elaborated, partially to stop Tina’s intentional taunting.
“Okay,” Ben said slowly, “still not clear to me.”
“The morphic gland is fundamental to the Agurian shape shifting abilities,” Gene explained, then glanced down at the pop-pad to finish reading the results, “Now for the bad news, she’s got the plague. They both do.”
“How did it get through the shields,” Angela asked. Ben wondered the same thing. Gene’s words having revived the idea that despite Daniel’s assurances to the contrary the filters had been responsible for the difficult transport.
Tina smirked and nodded to herself, “Easy, it’s integrated itself into their genes. All Agurians have it. Somehow it’s what’s been suppressing their morphic gland. But apparently in some families, Yllera’s at least, the Agurian tendencies are shining through. I suspect that the more the gland is utilized the greater risk the individual will succumb to the plague. That’s what happened to Lleana, Yllera’s mother. Finding an Agurian with a functional gland was probably the purpose behind the whole rape thing. Under circumstances, easily simulated with drugs, a pre-plague Agurian female would instinctively attempt to genetically adapt to a mate. If an entity were otherwise genetically incompatible with the female, then any child produced would indicate the gland was active. Repeated matings with different partners would lead to repeated activity in the gland and that ends in what happened to Lleana. The good news is we can stop kicking ourselves, the shields are fine. They just couldn’t filter out the plague without slapping away all Agurians trying to enter.”
“Okay, if you’re right, explain Erica,” Angela challenged, despite clearly following and agreeing with Tina’s intuitive assessment.
“Simple, the dark is lazy; they just grabbed girls showing strong telepathic tendencies. That’s really the only clue for separating post-plague Agurians from the human populations they’ve nearly blended into. Erica had tendencies and was geographically located in or near a small Agurian population. They grabbed her by mistake. Go take DNA samples from the other victims, it’ll confirm or disprove my theory. My guess is they’ll be primarily Agurian.”
“Okay, accepted, but the real question remains, what does the dark want functional Agurians that effectively self destruct after too much shape shifting- I can’t believe I even asked a dumb question like that!” Angela slapped her forehead, “What wouldn’t the dark want them for?”
Ben felt a door open in Miranda’s mind. Instinct made him glance her way. She was trembling, close to tears, and she seemed distant, lost in a fog. He reached an arm out and wrapped it around her waist. Gently he reached out to her telepathically, “Are you okay?”
She looked him in the eyes, not quite seeing him, and for Ben the rest of the room dropped away. He saw only her. “He wants to destroy Sanctuary,” was her soft telepathic reply.
“Who?” Ben asked her.
“The Darkone, he hoped to use them, to breed them, with me,” Miranda’s telepathic answer was soft, her trembling increased. Telepathically she seemed to be answering him from the depths of a deep swirling hole.
“How do you know?” Ben thought back, pulling at her trying to pull her back to him, to protect her from her cold dark fear.
“Before you rescued me, but after the sensory deprivation tank, I looked into his eyes.” Her eyes dropped away from his, she shuddered, and tears began to pour from her beautiful blue eyes.
Ben wrapped both arms around her and held her tightly. She opened up her mind and gave the confused swirling mass of memory to him. Slowly, Ben processed it, from the death of his double, Kindy, to waking up in Ben’s arms. In between there were disjointed images, of Ellen, of earthquakes, of some dark plan and of black, empty, evil eyes.
Ben felt weak in the knees, in awe that she had the strength to survive what she had. He felt her worry over his response to her feelings for Kindy. He brushed it off, of course he wasn’t angry or jealous how could he be jealous of himself. He poured all his love at her, all his concern, all of his desire to keep her safe from ever having to face such darkness again. At first she started to recoil from him, denying she was so weak as to need a protector. Abruptly She went limp in his arms, conceding the point, finally seeming to accept his offer of protection. Carefully he lifted her off her feet, supporting her like a sleeping child. He let her tears moisten his shoulder, and held her tightly as her tears put her to sleep.
Ben looked around the room, suddenly seeing the others staring. He felt the press of their mind’s wanting to know what happened. Part of him wanted to tell them the horrors he had seen in the memory of Miranda’s brief contact with the Darkone, but most of him was just wanted to take Miranda back to her apartment and protect her while she slept. He had to say something, “She needs some time, some rest. We’ll talk about it in the morning.” Ben nodded to himself, reminding himself that there would be a morning, despite dark intentions to the contrary.
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Eyes Love & Water Page 42
