by Neal Jones
Ritano nodded to his team, and one of them broke away to escort the alien crew.
( 6 )
Mariah glanced up as her son entered the school's front office. She smiled as she stood, hoping that her expression didn't appear too forced.
"Mom? What's going on? I was in the middle of a test."
"I know, and I'm sorry. This is important, though." She resisted the urge to put an arm around his shoulder as they left the office. "I'm taking you home, and then I need to get back to op-con. While I'm gone, I want you to activate the security lock, and don't answer the door for anyone. Is that clear?"
Josh looked at her, bewildered and frightened. "What? What the hell is going on? Are we under attack or something?"
"No, we're not being attacked, but there is an emergency situation that requires all civilians to be confined to their quarters. Commodore Gabriel is going to make station-wide announcement in a couple hours, and I need to know that you're safe during all this. Lock the door after I'm gone, and don't answer for anyone. If it's station security, just tell them that I told you to stay put. Is that clear?"
"Yes."
She looked down, smiling at him, as they entered the PTL. But then her gaze fell further, and her smile disappeared. "What the hell is that?"
Josh looked down at his shirt, his face reddening. "Uh…nothing. Tjase let me borrow this."
"Change it. Now."
"Yeah, yeah," he muttered, pressing the hem. The nano-fibers rearranged themselves, and the vulgar slogan disappeared.
( 7 )
"All the ships are evacuated." Saveck handed the compad to Gabriel. "Several protests are being lodged with the docking master and central security, but it appears that no physical force was necessary. She also states that her teams are in position and awaiting your announcement."
"Thank the gods for small miracles," the commodore muttered as he perused the report. Around them, the murmured babble of the many officers at their respective stations played in harmony with the tense atmosphere that had been charged as soon as Gabriel gave the order for a silent yellow alert.
A female DrayH'M appeared at his elbow, compad in hand. "Changes to the duty schedule, sir."
Gabriel looked it over, placed his thumbprint, and then handed the pad back. From the corner of his eye he saw Mariah exit the PTL, and he turned to catch her gaze. She nodded, smiling thinly, and he nodded back.
"Doctor Rosenberg's staff have completed their setup of all triage stations," Saveck reported, yanking Gabriel's attention back to the ops console.
The commodore glanced over the data feed on his holo-screen, and then swiped away the reports that no longer needed his attention. "Good. Looks like we're ready." His fingers tap-danced over the console's surface, and, moments later, a soft chime indicated that he was now being broadcast live to every terminal and public viewscreen throughout the station.
( 8 )
Navarr stood at the entrance to her office, her presence preventing the door from closing. Lieutenant Scarvo was at her elbow, and both women were looking up at the large holo-screen that hovered in mid-air above their section of the promenade. Gabriel's face appeared, his expression calm, as he addressed the general populations of Exxar-One.
"Attention all hands. This message is meant not only for the officers and crew under my command, but also the civilian populations as well. Exxar-One is currently suffering a viral outbreak of unknown origin. As of sixteen hundred hours, I have declared a red level quarantine of this starbase. It is important that all of you remain calm. Do not panic. I repeat, do not panic. Simply follow the instructions of the military personnel in your sections, and you will be fine. I am requesting that civilians please return to your quarters at this time, and refer any questions to the security officers assigned to your section. I am declaring this quarantine for your safety, so please remain calm as you follow the instructions of my officers. At this time, the station's medical personnel are working to find a cause for this outbreak, and I don't have anything more to report at this time. My staff and I will keep you updated as these events develop. Once more, I repeat, please remain calm. Thank you for your cooperation. Gabriel out."
The holo-screen vanished, and Navarr turned to Scarvo. "Masks on. Let's do this!"
Around them, on all levels of the promenade, the shoppers and tourists looked at one another with bewilderment and surprise. The normally subdued babble of thousands of voices rose as the implication and the meaning of the commodore's message began to finally sink in. Security officers emerged from their stand-by positions, but not everyone was willing to listen to instruction.
Navarr had already linked her bio-net to the local intercom, and she pressed her commlink to activate the command that would amplify her voice so that anyone within thirty meters would hear her loud and clear.
"Ladies, gentlemen, and transgendered species! You heard the commodore. Let's go! Lines are already forming at the PTL. Follow Lieutenant Scarvo there, that's right, keep it moving. Let's go, ladies, you heard me, the shops are closing. Everyone needs to get to your quarters and remain there until me or one of my officers tells you otherwise, is that clear? Sir, did you hear me? I know that my voice is automatically being translated into whatever language you speak, so don't give me that look! I said move! Let's go! We haven't got all day!"
( 9 )
"Mommy?"
Jennifer started, surprised by Emalie's voice, and then looked down at her daughter.
"Mommy, what's the matter?"
"Nothing, sweetheart." Jennifer lifted the girl onto her lap and then pointed her finger at the wall screen to shut it off. She forced a smile as Emalie looked up at her.
"Who was that?"
"It was Commodore Gabriel. He's the commanding officer of this station. He was just delivering an important message." Her voice faltered, and Jennifer coughed, clearing her throat. She was sweating again, and she wiped her forehead.
"Mommy, are you all right?"
"I'm fine, Em. Why don't you go play in your room for awhile. I'm going to give Jeremy his bottle."
As she walked into her son's room, she felt a wave of dizziness, but she made it to the crib in time to keep from falling. Jeremy looked up at his mother, grinning and babbling in soft, alien words. After a moment or two, the spell passed, and Jennifer shook her head.
"I'm just tired," she muttered to herself. "I just need more rest, that's all." She looked down at Jeremy as she carried back into the living room. "Isn't that right?" She tickled him, relishing his burbling laughter. "That's right. Dinner, and then a bath, and then an early bedtime for mommy."
( 10 )
"C'mon, c'mon," Ben muttered, watching the rotating comm logo in the middle of the wall screen in the doctor's lounge. After a few moments, the logo disappeared and Jennifer's face appeared. Ben broke into a smile. "Hey!"
She gave him a tired smile as she shifted Jeremy from one arm to the other. "Hey. Where are you?"
"The ER. How are you?"
"I'm good. Emalie's in her room. You want to say hi?"
"No, I can't right now. I've got to get back out there. I just wanted to make sure you were home safe."
"Thanks." Jeremy started crying and squirming, and Jennifer shifted him once more. "I gotta go. Please be careful."
"I will." He kissed his fingers and pressed them to the screen, but Jennifer had already turned away, struggling to keep Jeremy from slipping out of her arms.
PO Varela poked her head in the door. "Doctor, I need you! Code blue!"
Rosenberg followed at her heels, both of them deftly sidestepping patients, gurneys, and other staff on their route to the treatment bay. The patient was a DrayH'M officer. As Rosenberg charged into the treatment bay, Nurse Holcomb quickly stepped to one side. A dissonant chorus of alarms sang from the bio-monitor, and Rosenberg swept his gaze over the screen with its multiple readouts.
"Cordrazine!" he snapped, holding out his hand. Varela slapped a hypo into his palm, and he pressed it t
o the DrayH'M's neck.
All eyes turned to the monitor screen, but there was no change in the flat line.
"Stimulators!" Rosenberg barked. Varela passed them over, and the doctor attached the small pair of defibrillators to the bare skin of the patient's chest. He pressed the appropriate command on the bio-monitor, and the man's entire body jerked. But the line remained flat and unyielding. Ben upped the electrical output and tried again. Still no response. He increased the output once more, but there was still no change in the patient's status.
The CMO removed the stimulators and shut off the bio-monitor. The sudden silence was jarring, and no one immediately spoke. "Time of death," Ben said finally, glancing at his commlink, "sixteen-thirty-three."
PO Varela handed him a compad, and he took a minute to peruse the patient's chart before placing his thumbprint at the bottom. As he left the treatment bay, he tapped his commlink. "Rosenberg to Gabriel."
"Go ahead, doctor."
"We just had our first fatality, Marc. A DrayH'M science officer. He arrived in the ER five days ago. Cause of death was cardiac arrest. But what led to that condition is still unknown."
There was a pause, and then the commodore replied somberly, "Understood. Keep me apprised of your efforts. Gabriel out."
( 11 )
"Look!" Negara pointed at the stars, half-hidden by the mountain mists. "There was another one!"
"You're making it up," Kiran laughed. "I didn't see anything."
"That's because you're not paying attention." She lifted her head, following his gaze. "What are you looking at?"
"I thought I saw one of those what-did-you-call-them? Makfay?"
"Makfrey," she corrected him, "and how can you see anything that far away in the dark?"
"You said they have reflective wingtips, right? There was a flash of silver right over there." He pointed to the treetops.
Negara sat up, wrapping her arms around herself. "I'll believe that if you believe I just saw another shooting star."
"Are you cold?"
"Aren't you?"
He sat up, pulling his knees to his chest. "A little. But I don't want to go inside yet."
Negara looked at him, bemused. "Aren't you exhausted?"
"Yes, but…" Kiran shrugged.
For several moments, they shared the dark and the silence.
"Is this what homeworld looks like?" Kiran asked.
Negara shook her head. "They don't have mountains like this; well, not many anyway. I've only been there a few times, but never on the surface, just the orbital docking stations. But I viewed a lot of holo-sims in school when I was a kid, when we studied geography. The gravity is denser there, about three times what it is here. The atmosphere is also charged with berikon particles, which makes it a little more volatile than normal. Until we developed the technology to enable planetary weather control, our ancestors could only live in certain geographical regions. Berikon storms are pretty nasty, worse than hurricanes or tornadoes. I'm sorry, that's probably more than what you wanted to know. And now I'm rambling."
"No…no, it's all right." He looked away, blinking, thankful for the darkness.
"C'mon, let's go inside. I'll show you the holo-sims, if you want."
"No, not yet. Just a few more minutes, okay?"
Negara nodded, sitting back down. "I'm sorry," she said after a bit.
"For what?"
"For the…kidnapping, and everything." She paused, and then continued, "That probably doesn't mean much right now, but I wanted to say it anyway."
Kiran looked over his shoulder at the other rooftops of the village. Most of the houses had porch lights that gleamed in the darkness like a thousand golden eyes. The call of a makfrey echoed from the peaks far above, and Kiran took a deep breath of the cool, crisp air. "It's beautiful here," he said at last. "If I didn't know better, I'd never guess that you lived under a police state."
"Oh, believe me, you'd realize it if you saw what the monthly inspections are like. The shuttles drop right out of the atmosphere, like bombs, and when they hit the ground the soldiers pour out like laca bugs." Negara turned, pointing to the end of the street. "See that house there? The one on the corner that doesn't have a porch light? The couple who used to live there had a son three years younger than me. Two months ago, the soldiers arrested all three of them for treason. They told Neeka that if he signed a testimony against his parents he would be allowed to stay here and keep living in that house. He refused, so all three of them disappeared."
"Does that happen every time?"
Negara shrugged. "Only every two or three months. It depends on the mood of the operations commander."
"I'm sorry." Kiran hesitated, and then continued, "I still don't understand, though. You said earlier there was no visual surveillance in the house, that your family doesn't have to worry about hiding me. Your house can't be the only one here that's not being monitored, can it?"
"No, it's not. Living up here, in a small village like this, is different than if we were in Kirndun, or on homeworld." She paused, wrapping her arms around herself once more as a sudden breeze stirred around them. "It also depends on whether or not you and your family have declared your oath to the Dakr'o," she continued bitterly. "As long as his symbol is displayed on the front door, and as long as you pass the monthly inspections, then you're allowed some privacy." She looked up at Kiran, wincing. "Neeka's family was the only one in this village that wasn't allowed the privilege of privacy."
"So how do you know that there won't be another inspection while I'm here? If the Ulno'n found traitors here, wouldn't they increased the frequency of their inspections?"
"I don't know," Negara sighed, shrugging. "It's possible. Bringing you here was a huge risk, not just for me and my family, but for everyone in this village. That's why it's better if you don't leave the house at all. But, just in case, I'm going to show you tomorrow where you can hide in the forest. The bark of those trees has an element that interferes with comm signals as well as sensor scans. It's why the Ulno'n have to do their inspections in person. It's also why we thought this would be the safest place to bring you."
"Okay," Kiran replied, nodding.
"That thing you have – you called it a bio-net?"
He nodded.
"The Ulno'n have something like that as well. It's reserved for any citizens suspected of treachery or any other crime against the state. They're monitored at all times, and they have no privacy from the Ulno'n." She shivered, glancing away from him, into the dark. "It's been rumored for many years now that almost every citizen on homeworld is forced to have a bio-net implanted at the time of birth."
"I'm sorry," Kiran replied after a few moments. He glanced over his shoulder again at the peaceful and silent landscape of the village.
"It's not so bad here," Negara continued quietly. "Most of the time it's easy to pretend that we live normal lives in a normal place. We celebrate birthdays, weddings and holidays like everyone else. And, in between, we pray that the Ulno'n inspections go well, and, when they're gone, we breathe a sigh of relief."
Kiran shivered. She was right. It was getting colder as the night wore on, and the wind had begun to pick up. It sighed in the boughs of the trees, a sound that almost seemed a melody, a soft wail of mourning and loss.
"Come on," Negara said, rising. "It's getting late."
Kiran reluctantly stood and followed her down the ladder and into the house. The front rooms were dark, her parents and brother having gone to bed long ago. He followed her up the stairs, and they paused in front of his room.
"Well…goodnight," Negara said in an awkward tone.
"Goodnight," Kiran replied. He paused, feeling awkward as well, but then she turned and disappeared into the room at the end of the hall. He sat on the edge of his bed, feeling strangely excited, scared, and not at all tired. He walked to the window, searching the darkness at the shadows of the trees beyond the house. The mists his the moonlight, and Negara's words about the Ulno'n haunted him
. He wondered again if they could detect his bio-net even though it was offline. Kravis had insisted that he keep taking regular injections of the chemical that would render the nano-technology completely inert, but Kiran refused. He'd been pumped with too many unknown sedatives and other medications over the last week, and he'd had enough. This was another risk they were all simply going to have to accept, like it or not.
He took off his shirt and shoes, and then stretched out on the bed. A sudden feeling of deep loneliness crept over him, and he tried not to think about tomorrow or the day after that. Exxar-One had never seemed so distant as it did now, and he wondered in the back of his exhausted mind if he would ever see the starbase again. His eyes closed, and, eventually, he drifted into a troubled sleep.
( 12 )
"Kiran!"
The voice shocked him awake, and, for several disorienting seconds, he couldn't remember where he was or who was standing over him. The room was dark, and there was still darkness beyond the window as well.
"Kravis?"
"Yes. I'm sorry to wake you. Come downstairs."
Kiran pulled on his shirt as he followed his uncle into the hall and down the stairs. The light in the kitchen was on, and Negara was sitting at the table with her parents and brother. Jisaad was with them as well, and they all appeared as disheveled and confused as Kiran felt.
"What time is it?" he asked.
"It's been about two hours since you and I came down from the roof," Negara replied, yawning. "Keltor, what's the news?"
"I just received a coded communiqué from one of our contacts on homeworld. It was not sent through the usual channels, which speaks to its urgency. A battle fleet was dispatched from the Vern-kon base a few hours ago. They're headed here, and their orders are to quarantine Dakthar."
"You mean Kirndun City?" Kravis said.
"No," Jisaad said, shaking his head. "The entire planet."
Kiran looked at his uncle, and then Negara. Her parents embraced one another, and, for several moments, no one spoke.
