by Vann, Gregg
She was dressed in the same green skirt and matching blouse that she’d been wearing when kidnapped days ago; the otherwise elegant effect tempered by the blood covered lab shoes and tangled, matted hair. But despite the hardships of the past few days, she remained remarkably beautiful.
“Are you certain that you’re okay?” I asked her, removing my headgear.
“I…I’m fine. My head just hurts a little where they hit me…But never mind all that. How is that young girl? Is she going to be alright? I’m a doctor, maybe I can help.” Evans sounded weak and distraught. And she looked tired, very, very tired.
“She is in stasis,” I said. “It doesn’t look good.” No reason to lie. I’m sure my face would betray me anyway.
“I feel so responsible. If it wasn’t for me she wouldn’t have been hurt.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” I assured her. “The Sentients kidnapped you. They caused this.”
“No, Commander,” she shook her head then grimaced in pain. “It wasn’t them. It was a religious group called The Pure Way—a small cell of misguided Sentients from what I could gather. Small but dangerous I’ve recently learned. ” She rubbed the back of her head where she’d been struck as evidence.
Everyone in the room was paying close attention to the exchange between us. Out of everyone present, human and Sentient alike; Val Evans probably had the most answers to what was going on.
“Why don’t you start at the beginning, Miss Evans?” I said. “What can you tell me about the cure you were working on for the Sentients?”
“I had it!” she exclaimed, then turned to Del, “I really had it this time, Ambassador; I finally solved the mystery of how the virus was killing Sentients.”
Del returned her look, its metal pupils widening in hope.
“Go on,” I coaxed.
“As we are all aware, Commander, Sentients have biological and mechanical aspects of their physiology. What we didn’t know, and never expected, is that they are life forms based on both carbon and silicon. I don’t pretend to know how it all works. Quite frankly…it shouldn’t.”
She looked at Del and Sa as if to apologize before continuing. “The component systems, derived from individual carbon and silicon evolutionary processes, act as two independent organisms—working together in a symbiotic relationship that creates…well…a Sentient.”
So they were actually two organisms working together? But how…
“When Woz and Ambassador Del came to speak with me—wait…where is Woz?”
I took a moment to explain Woz’s role in her disappearance—how it was responsible for sabotaging her ship, and probably orchestrated her abduction as well. I left out the part where Del separated Woz’s head from its body and jettisoned it into space. Del could tell her about that later if it so wished.
Val seemed pretty shaken by the news. “I can’t believe Woz would…hurt me like that.” Her voice was small, almost childlike. She took a moment to let it all sink in, then pulled herself together to go on; her enthusiasm for the research overriding the shock and disappointment of Woz’s treachery.
“After Ambassador Del told me about the virus, I offered to help of course. Sentient scientists had had little luck in devising a cure, and the ambassador thought an outside perspective might help.”
“And you didn’t think to notify Sector Security that the Sentients had made contact with you?” I asked.
She was instantly defensive, just as her sister had been, “They insisted I didn’t, Commander! If they had been threatening in any way, I would have informed Sector authorities immediately. I knew the danger.”
I held up my hands. “It’s okay, “I said calmly, “please…continue.”
“Once I understood their unique biology, I started collecting a large assortment of biological samples—to help me better understand how silicon based life forms function. It’s common knowledge that they exist throughout the galaxy, but the Sentients are the only ones we’d ever encountered that were highly evolved, and…well…sentient.”
And our unimaginative yet accurate description of them was born. If we discover other sentient beings, I wonder how we’ll adjust the taxonomy. Out of curiosity, I made a mental note to ask Del how the Sentients refer to themselves.
“Some samples were more difficult to procure than others, but I found a source on Harrakan Station that could track down almost anything.”
“A dangerous approach,” I noted.
“I’m not naïve, Commander. I know what that place is all about, but this was a true emergency, making the black market a necessary evil.”
“Anyway,” she continued, “after several months of studying the diseased tissue provided by Del and Woz, along with examining my own collection of samples; I discovered that the virus targeted the bond between the two biological systems found in Sentient physiology. It made them violently reject each other—ultimately leading to death.”
She paused for a moment to catch her breath. I got the impression that she was reviewing the past in her mind, evaluating her actions, and their eventual consequences. I could tell that she was in pain, and I realized that it bothered me more than it should have, but she had to go on. We had to know what happened.
“Try as I might, I couldn’t translate this finding into a cure—there was a piece of the puzzle missing that I desperately needed. But then I got a break; my supplier on Harrakan sent an urgent message saying he’d obtained another sample, but that this one was special. He said it was an umbilical cord having Sentient DNA markings on the placental end, but terminating in an odd, completely silicon based structure—containing no discernible DNA at all.”
She looked around the room for understanding, but Doctor Sa was the only one with an inkling of what she was trying to say.
“Don’t you see?” she asked. “The parent was a normal Sentient, but the tissue indicated that the child was completely silicon based. There were no traces of carbon based DNA. None. The preliminary scans my contact sent were unbelievable; I quickly realized that this sample could help me unravel the silicon-carbon connection, and potentially develop something to keep the bonds from dissolving.”
Using both hands, she pushed her fingers back through her hair; I couldn’t help but notice how her face lit up when she was excited. Together with her considerable beauty, the effect was intoxicating. I managed to focus long enough to ask, “A purely silicon Sentient…how is that possible?”
“That’s what I wondered,” she said. “But I confirmed the scans myself, as soon as I got to the station; it was genuine alright.”
“It was also a trap,” I said.
“You see it too?” Stinson said, more of a statement than a question.
“Oh yeah. Lure her to the station with the samples—sabotage her ship—then trigger the embedded device and kidnap her when they were ready.”
Well thought out, if poorly implemented, I thought to myself.
“Why not just take me from the station, or anywhere else for that matter? And why now? I’ve been working on this for months.”
“The station is far too public,” I said. “There would have been a much greater chance of being noticed during the abduction. And it would have been difficult, if not impossible, to hide Sentient involvement. As for why now…you said yourself, you were close to finding a cure—either someone wants it for themselves, or they don’t want it to be found at all.”
“But how could they know I was close?” Val asked, “Only Del, myself and Woz…oh…”
“If the black-out unit had properly self-destructed, we may never have tracked the sabotage back to Harrakan, or inadvertently drawn Woz out,” I said.
“Your moon is remote, and close to Sentient space,” Stinson added. “What better place to kidnap you? This Pure Way simply disabled your ship and shot across the border. Who would be stupid enough to cross The Verge looking for you?”
“We would,” I chuckled.
“Indeed,” Stinson agreed.
De
l walked to the doorway, “I am going to the bridge,” it said. “I will attempt to breach the communications net on one of the fleet ships gathering at Seveq. Perhaps we can find out what they are doing.”
“I would like to know that myself,” I said.
Looking back at Val I asked, “What I need to know now is what the Pure Way wanted with you and your research? And what were you doing on Seveq?”
“I think I can explain that,” Doctor Sa offered, “I’ve been working on this virus since the first case presented itself.”
Despite my own doubts about Sa, I noticed that Val seemed to trust him, and there was every possibility that the guards on Seveq weren’t keeping him safe, but instead were keeping him from running off. I also realized that Val was smart enough to see through any subterfuge on the Sentient’s part and alert me, so I decided to give the doctor a chance.
“The virus started almost a year ago,” it began. “At first, the symptoms were merely weakness and the sporadic failure of biomechanical implants.”
“Ahhh, so the electronic aspects of your physiology are accomplished surgically?” I interrupted.
“Yes,” Val answered for the Sentient. “Silicon based structures…organs really… allow their bodies to create and channel electrical energy; this powers the implants. The modifications are done according to a Sentient’s role in society. Some focus on sensory enhancement or scientific analysis, and unfortunately, some amplify and project the electricity, functioning as weapons.”
“Del mentioned that Sentient soldiers wore bracers,” I said.
“Exactly.” Sa motioned his head in agreement. “So you can imagine the concern when body enhancements began to fail inexplicably. I was on my home world of Alosh, when the first reports came in—it was very disturbing.”
Sa gestured at Val. “I am not being immodest when I say I hold the same level of respect in the Sentient science community as Doctor Evans has in your own, Commander. It was only natural that I be brought in to work on the problem by our government. I just wasn’t expecting to be kidnapped into it a month ago by the Pure Way. I’d never even heard of them until now, and I have no idea what they believe in or what they want. They were forcing us to study the corpses—to determine why they had died—but they seemed more concerned about finding the cause than the cure. I can’t explain it really.”
Sa was increasingly uncomfortable, and it gazed around the room before looking back at me. “Commander, we don’t experiment on the dead. Ever. What we did to those people on the planet…I saw Ambassador Del’s plea to The Consensus for emergency aid for Seveq; its speech was inspired. If Del hadn’t been away on a diplomatic posting, its body would be down there as well—the outbreak did begin on the ambassador’s planet after all.”
“Del’s planet?” I asked.
Sa looked puzzled. “Del is Seveq’s ambassador to The Consensus, Commander. I thought you knew that. Isn’t that what brought you to the planet in the first place?”
“Actually, no. We were following a tracking device implanted in Miss Evans.”
Now it was her turn to look confused. “I turned that off once I realized it had been compromised. My pilot noticed a few errant readings on our trips to Harrakan, strange broadlink pings he said. Bev was convinced that we were being tracked. I thought he was just being paranoid, especially knowing the level of encryption employed, but I turned the tracker off anyway—just in case. How did you reactivate it?”
“I believe you know Captain Stinson,” I said. He removed his headset and Kamo hood and she gasped.
“Marie…” she said, understanding settling over her face.
“Marie,” Stinson repeated.
“Is she well?” Val asked.
“Oh yes. She just settled in on Narel two months ago. She got a new job.”
“Excellent,” Val replied. “She is a smart girl…woman now I suppose.”
“She’s always been bright,” Stinson confirmed. “Jennifer and I are really happy for her, but my posting has made it difficult to visit. I’ve requested a transfer, but you know how impossible that is.”
I was beginning to feel like an intruder in someone else’s personal conversation—then Sa interrupted them to continue its explanation of the virus and its effects.
“Yes well…where was I? Oh, yes, it became apparent rather quickly that something was seriously wrong,” Sa said. “Many people started dying. Seveq was quarantined, but it was too late; the virus began to pop up everywhere, and it was merciless.”
I thought about the planet rapidly falling away behind us, already receding into just another pinpoint of light in the ship’s wake. Billions of dead beings strewn across an entire world. Merciless indeed—but why? Where had this plague come from?
“What were you able to find out about it?” I asked Sa.
“The most important thing I discovered is that it’s not a naturally occurring outbreak. This was an engineered virus, released into the environment intentionally. It is completely synthetic.”
“Murder? No…genocide,” I said incredulously. It was hard to fathom, but why would Sa lie about it?
“Who could do such a thing?” I asked.
“We don’t know,” Val shrugged. “The Pure Way kidnapped us both to work on the problem so I don’t think it was them. In fact, they seemed desperate for progress.” She rubbed her hands on her arms, trying to warm herself. I hopped up and took off my Kamo jacket, draping it over her shoulders.
“Thank you, Commander,” she said, pulling her legs up to her chest and huddling underneath the jacket.
“Please, call me Ben,” She gave me a smile before continuing.
“As Doctor Sa said, it was abducted first, then they came after me. They said they needed my research background to complement Sa’s expertise on Sentient biology. They were right actually, because we’ve made some remarkable progress.”
I started to ask why they’d been taken to Saveq, but stopped myself when it all started to come together in my head. No one would look for either one of them there, and they would have a ready supply of victims to examine while trying to find a cure. It would have worked too—if we hadn’t been able to locate Val.
“Where are you with the cure now?” I asked them both.
“We know exactly why the breakdown occurs,” Sa said, “thanks to our research on Seveq. And Doctor Evans has even constructed a treatment therapy that should destroy the virus.”
“Then why aren’t you two happy?” I asked, noticing the dour faces on both the scientists.
“Because we need access to live tissue from the silicon child to correctly synthesize and test the drug,” Val said. “Without it, we can’t create the treatment. We now know what the virus is, and how to cure it, but we need that child.”
I saw the spark in Evan’s eyes, and I knew where this was heading. “How do you even know this ‘Silicon Sentient’ is still a child, or even alive for that matter. And even if it is, how would we find it?”
“I dated the tissue at a little over a year old,” Val said. “It is definitely a child, Ben—a remarkable child that could save an entire civilization.”
No hyperbole there. But that only answered part of the question.
After an uneasy silence, Val confessed, “I have no idea if it’s still alive, or how to find it.”
And there was the other part, just as I had suspected.
“Then how would you recommend we proceed?” I asked.
I looked at them each in turn, giving them both ample opportunity to speak, but they remained silent.
“Very well,” I said. “I should let you both know that this entire mission is…ah…let’s just say unauthorized. Sector Security didn’t want us crossing The Verge—they feared it might start a war—so we came on our own instead. No back up, limited intelligence sources and absolutely no chance of rescue if anything goes wrong.” I let that sink in for a moment.
“Del tells me that it is also operating independently, and is likewise witho
ut any resources. We are in no position to mount a search for this child.”
Val seemed to understand our predicament, but Sa reacted strongly, “I will call my people, Commander, and we will have all the help we need.”
“You’re welcome to try, Doctor, and I hope you’re right, but consult with Del first. The ambassador has been monitoring the information channels, and is more up to date with the state of affairs since your capture. The situation seems pretty volatile, so find out what’s going on—and who we can trust—before contacting anyone. Understood?”
“Of course. I will go speak with the ambassador immediately,” Sa said, then promptly left the hangar.
“I think I’ll grab my pad and try to access the news from Sector space as well,” Stinson said, “Unofficially of course, and with much discretion.” He grinned then stood up to leave.
“That’s probably a good idea,” I agreed. “Things were already getting a little tense, even before we crossed The Verge.”
Stinson’s departure left me alone with Val, and with only two of us in the room, the hangar suddenly seemed larger, and much quieter. I could see her relax with everyone else gone, becoming more vulnerable, sad even. The events of the past few days seemed to be catching up with her.
“My driver…Beval. He’s dead isn’t he?” she asked.
“Yes. I’m sorry.”
“I…I saw him get shot. I just hoped that somehow he made it. But they opened the canopy...” Her eyes were misty, and I could tell that she was choking back a lot of emotion. It had probably been building up since she was kidnapped.
I tried to change the subject. “Your sister was very worried about you—so was everyone else in the dome. They will be thrilled when I let them know you’re okay.”
“Thank you for coming for me,” Val whispered. She looked down at her clothing, dirty and smeared with Sentient blood, and started crying. “I knew they were going to kill me…I knew. I was going to die. They killed Bev, and I was…”She fought to get the words out through choked sobs; her chest heaving as she struggled to breath.
