Amid the Crowd of Stars
Page 28
With that, Dr. Huang went back toward the air locks to the quarantine section where Chava lay. Through the glass, she watched Dr. Huang activate her bio-shield, enter the quarantine area, and break the seal of the biohazard container. She lifted a wooden box from the container, showing it to Ichiko. “Pretty grain on the wood,” she said, her voice sounding thin through the speakers. “That yellow-and-red striping . . . Doesn’t look like any wood I’ve ever seen from Earth. Lovely. Wish I could touch it or smell it.” She lifted the lid and looked inside, holding up a vial containing a cloudy, pale gold liquid and handing it to a medtech. “There’s a paper in here, too. Handwritten note in a shaky hand. Let’s see: Inject 1.6 ml intravenously 3x daily for one day. If it’s going to work, you should see indications within the first day. If so, continue for a second day. James Mullin. That’s clear enough, I suppose. Here—go ahead and prepare that.”
She handed the vial to the medtech, who went to a stand next to the bed, connected to Chava by clear tubes. She placed the vial inside the stand. “1.6 ml injection, 3x a day for two days,” the tech said aloud. The stand beeped, and a window opened in the air before both the tech and Dr. Huang; Ichiko could see the instructions glowing there.
Dr. Huang nodded to the tech. “Begin program,” the tech told the machine. A moment later, Ichiko saw the cloudy liquid of the initial dose moving through the tubing toward Chava. A door opened on the side of the stand, and the tech reached in to retrieve the vial, now half empty.
“Send the remainder to Dr. Nagasi for his staff to examine,” Dr. Huang told the tech. Ichiko remained pressed up to the glass watching Chava in her bed, surrounded by readouts and machinery. “Ichiko,” Dr. Huang said to her, “I don’t expect this to be a miracle cure. She’s not going to be instantly better, and you standing there staring at the lieutenant isn’t going to make the Inisher potion work any faster.”
“I know. It’s just . . .”
“Go and do something constructive. I’ll call your AMI if there’s any change at all.”
Ichiko hesitated, then finally gave Dr. Huang a half-hearted nod. “Tell me if there’s any response, no matter how small.”
The lines of Dr. Huang’s face lifted into a quick smile. “I promise. Now go on. You’re not accomplishing anything here except making my techs nervous.”
Ichiko touched the glass again as if trying to put her hand on Chava’s shoulder before she turned to leave, wondering where she was going to go.
* * *
Ichiko wandered through the ship’s corridors. She went down to Nagasi’s deck to see what his people were doing with Seann James’ serum, but after half an hour of standing there watching people hunched over machines and peering into murky com-unit windows, she could bear it no more. She went to the nearest mess and ate a tasteless lunch alone. She thought of sending Luciano a message to see if he was available, decided against it, and also decided against calling Dr. Huang for an update. She wandered some more, went to her own office, desultorily cleaned up the area, and finally told AMI to open a window on her desk and contact Saoirse’s com-unit.
The window hovered above her desk, then shimmered with Saoirse’s face. “Hello? Ichiko?”
“Yes, it’s me. I just . . .” I just wanted to talk to you. Ichiko pressed her lips together. “I just want you to know that no matter what happens, I really appreciate what you and Seann James did.” Ichiko leaned forward toward the window hovering above her desk, where she could see Saoirse sitting on her bed on Great Inish. Saoirse was nodding belatedly at what Ichiko had said—the time lag transmitting from orbit to downworld—then spoke a few seconds after Ichiko finished.
“It was our pleasure, and I hope it helps.” Saoirse looked down at her hands in her lap, then up again. “But Seann James didn’t sound all that hopeful after yeh talked to him, to be honest. He said it’s at best a one in four chance or worse, given that yer lieutenant hasn’t had any time to adjust to our environment here.”
“I understand that, and so does everyone up here. Nothing we had was touching the Gray Threads at all, so . . .” Ichiko bit at her bottom lip, sniffing back tears and turning away from the com-unit’s camera.
“Yeh should thank Kekeki, too,” she heard Saoirse say. “I had to talk to her after yeh said yeh were going to send a flitter over to get the Seann’s potion. I was afraid the arracht would do to that flitter what they did to yers that first time or what they did to yer drones. She agreed to leave the flitter alone.”
“Then please give her my thanks and appreciation.”
“It’d be better if yeh told her yerself.” Saoirse was watching her intently, as if wanting to see Ichiko’s face when she heard the comment. Saoirse wants more than you can possibly give her, especially now. Ichiko forced a smile to her face.
“I hope I can do that, Saoirse. I want to, really, I do. But I just don’t know right now, not with what’s happened and our impending departure.”
“Kekeki told me something else. She said yeh’d be sending back our people that yeh took up to the ship. Is that right?”
“Hold on; she told you that?”
“Aye. So is it true?”
“Yeh don’t have to. What yeh just said is answer enough, isn’t it? Kekeki also knew yeh’d be sending a flitter to get the Seann’s potion before I ever told her.”
Ichiko was shaking her head before Saoirse had finished. “Saoirse, how is any of that possible? You’re saying that Kekeki knew we were sending a flitter and that we’re sending the volunteers back? I don’t see how.”
“She also said they knew about the attack on yer people before I told her. She said it’s the plotch. The plotch is why they know.”
“The plotch? That still doesn’t make any sense.”
“I’m just telling yeh what she said. It doesn’t make any sense to me either. So is it possible?”
“I can’t see how . . .” The Inish with the plotch . . . they were up here, at least briefly. Could the plotch have somehow infected the ship, or left some of itself behind? “How could the plotch . . . ?”
Ichiko stopped in mid-phrase, hearing AMI’s voice loud in her head.
Ichiko’s stomach tightened as sudden reflux burned in her esophagus.
The window above her desk dissolved into thousands of bright sparks of color and vanished. Ichiko pushed herself away and hurried out toward the nearest lift.
* * *
Dr. Huang was still in the isolation room with Chava, but there were three other medtechs there and more equipment around the bed, as well as Nagasi who was also now in an isolation suit. Dr. Huang motioned Ichiko over to the mic embedded in the glass wall.
“Doctor?” Ichiko said. It was all she could manage. She could see the machine maintaining Chava’s breathing pulse and Chava’s chest rising in response. The medtechs were looking worriedly at a virtual display they’d opened above Chava’s bed, displaying a readout of pulse and heartbeats. The spikes and troughs there were colored an ominous orange.
Dr. Huang shook her head slightly, and Ichiko felt her own breath catch. “I wish I had better news, Dr. Aguilar. But I’m not hopeful. Despite the injection, Lieutenant Bishara’s condition is still deteriorating. However, Dr. Tinubu has just given her a highly purified version of the Inish serum.”
Hearing his name, Nagasi came over to stand next to Dr. Huang. The lines of his dusky face looked as if they’d been engraved in his skin, deep and permanent. “Ichiko, we’re doing all we can. But . . .” He stopped, took a long breath as he looked back
at Chava on the bed. “I won’t sugarcoat things. I’m worried. It may be that everything we’ve done will turn things around, but at the moment the signs aren’t good. We’re crossing our fingers that the lieutenant will rally with the purified version of the potion. Beyond that . . .” Ichiko saw his head shake behind the plexiglass shield of the isolation suit. “I don’t know that there’s any more we can do.”
“You can’t give up on her, Nagasi.”
He gave her a wide, sympathetic smile, his white teeth flashing. “I haven’t and I won’t. And I know Dr. Huang has the same attitude.”
Huang nodded silently in agreement, but the look on the older woman’s face and the way she glanced back at Chava made Ichiko press her fingers harder on the glass as if she could reach through and touch Chava. “I’d like to come in and sit with her.”
“Not yet,” Dr. Huang said. “We’re still working around her too much. Right now, why not do something else?—write up the reports I’m sure Commander Mercado wants, or just rest in your quarters. Pray, if that’s something you do. We’ll call you.” Ichiko saw Nagasi nod in agreement.
“Don’t wait too long,” she told them. “I want to be there if . . . if . . .” Her voice broke; she couldn’t finish the sentence.
“We won’t,” Nagasi answered.
Ichiko looked again at Chava’s prone form, then dropped her splayed hands from the glass and left as Huang and Nagasi returned to Chava’s bedside, conferring with the medtechs. She stopped at one of the virtual portholes in the hull, looking out at Canis Lupus swaddled in clouds as she asked her AMI,
She wanted to do that. She wanted someone to tell her everything would be all right even if it was a lie. She wanted someone to comfort her and reassure her that none of this was her fault. Most of all, she wanted to be able to do something, to feel like she could make Chava better. But she couldn’t. Not here. She stared out toward Canis Lupus. Maybe down there she could do something: talk to Saoirse, to Kekeki, to Seann James or some other local healer in hope of finding something . . .
But the captain wouldn’t allow that. Luciano wouldn’t allow that.
* * *
She lifted her head from the pillow, realizing she’d fallen asleep even though she hadn’t thought she could manage that.
Her exhaustion vanished as if it had never been there. “Is there news?” Ichiko asked aloud, rubbing her eyes.
“Tell him I’ll be right there.”
When she arrived, Nagasi was waiting for her in the corridor outside the lift, his dark face serious. He shook his head at the question unspoken on Ichiko’s face. “Let’s get you into a biohazard suit so that you can sit with her.”
“Is she awake?”
Another shake of his head. “No, and it’s not likely she will be before—” He didn’t finish the sentence. He ushered her into the dressing chamber of the isolation ward.
Being in the medical biohazard suit was worse than wearing the protective gear she’d worn on the planet. The stronger resistance field around her made all the sounds muffled as if she were wearing poor earplugs, and there was a strong antiseptic smell to the air the suit belt—both heaver and wider than the bio-shields she’d worn before—was feeding her. There was the additional weight of the gloves, the sterile coveralls, and the plastic shield over her face. Nagasi cautioned her that while she could “touch” Chava, she wouldn’t be able to feel Chava’s hand or face, and if she pressed too hard, the suit would forcibly push her hand away. Once they were both wearing their suits, Nagasi knocked on the glass wall separating them; one of the medtechs glanced at them. He lifted his arm and pressed a touchwrap around his wrist. Ichiko heard a loud hissing as the air in their compartment was evacuated and the field around her seemed to tighten against her skin. The inner door swung open and Nagasi led her through.
“You can sit there,” Nagasi said, pointing to a chair placed alongside Chava’s bed. Ichiko stared at Chava as she approached. Chava’s face was pale and leached of color, her short hair dull and matted. Her eyes were shut, sunken into her skull with dark circles underneath, and her lips were chapped and dry; a breathing tube was taped to an incision in her throat. Ichiko could hear the chuff of the machinery as air was forced into Chava’s lungs and pulled out again. Dr. Huang came over as Ichiko sat, bringing another chair with her so that she sat facing Ichiko while Nagasi remained standing at Ichiko’s side.
Ichiko glanced over to Chava, then to Dr. Huang and Nagasi. “I take it the purified Inish potion hasn’t worked.”
“Not as yet,” Dr. Huang answered. She looked exhausted, her own eyes half-hidden under sagging epicanthic folds. “As long as she’s alive and continues to fight, there’s still hope.”
“But . . . ?” Ichiko prodded.
“We’re suctioning threads from her throat every five minutes or so to keep her airway clear, but they’re growing faster, and we can’t get them all. At some point soon, we’re going to lose the battle unless something changes.”
“And you don’t think that likely.”
This time it was Nagasi who answered. “No.” Just that one simple word. She felt the weight of his hand on her shoulder for a moment. “I’m sorry, Ichiko.”
She reached across to place her hand on top of his, though neither of them could feel the other through their suits’ field. “It’s not your fault. I know you’ve both done everything you can possibly do.” Tears threatened, but there was no way to brush them away with the biohazard suit.
She left her hand on Nagasi’s and let the tears run untouched down her cheeks. “May I . . . May I stay here with her until . . . ?”
“If that’s what you want to do, of course,” Nagasi said. “Talk to her if you like; chances are she can hear you even if she can’t respond. Dr. Huang, why don’t we leave Ichiko alone for a few minutes . . .”
Ichiko heard rather than saw them go. She reached over and searched under the covers of the bed for Chava’s hand. When she found it, she pressed down and pretended she could feel Chava’s fingers on her own.
“This isn’t fair,” she told Chava. “You didn’t deserve this. If anyone, it should have been me. I wish it had been me.”
Knowing The Dancer From The Dance
CHAVA’S GONE.”
The anguish audible in Ichiko’s voice and painted on her face made Saoirse want to sob in sympathy. Saoirse moved the com-unit so that the window floating above it was easier to see. “Ichiko, I’m so sorry. I was praying to Spiorad Mór that Seann James’ potion would work, but I guess . . . Shite.” She sniffed and brushed the back of her hand across her eyes, taking a deep breath. “I wish you were here or that I were there, even though we still couldn’t really hug each other.” You don’t know how much I wish that. And now I’m afraid we’ll never be in the same place ever again. “Are you going to be okay?”
Ichiko nodded. “Eventually. I mean, the truth is that I didn’t really know Chava for all that long, but she made me feel welcome at First Base and I appreciated that. I thought of her as a friend.”
‘“I didn’t really know Chava all that well . . .” Hearing those words lifted an unnoticed weight from Saoirse, which immediately made her feel guilty for the response. “It’s never easy, losing someone you know,” Ichiko continued.
Saoirse nodded toward the screen. The faces of the relatives and friends she’d lost on the archipelago passed quickly before her: lost to old age, to illness, to the whims of the sea and storms. “No, it�
��s not. Do you think it’s terrible of me to be glad that your bio-shield wasn’t broken in the attack?”
Ichiko managed a fleeting smile at that. “No. And I’ve felt guilty for feeling the same seeing what happened to poor Chava. It could have just as easily been me, or both of us. In many ways, it should have been me, not her.”
“What will happen now?” Saoirse asked her.
She saw Ichiko’s shoulders lift under her uniform top. “I don’t know, Saoirse. I’ve told Commander Mercado and Captain Keshmiri that I’d like to come to the archipelago at least one more time to learn more about the Inish and the arracht for our records, but I don’t know if they’ll allow it. And now that Chava’s passed, what happened to her was murder, plain and simple, and that complicates things as well. We don’t know if Minister Plunkett will even try to punish those who were responsible.”
“Is there anything I can do?”
Ichiko paused. She seemed to be listening to that voice in her head, her gaze briefly distant. “Captain Keshmiri would love to have a firsthand account of what’s happening in Dulcia, but I don’t think it’s safe for you to go there right now, so I won’t ask you to do that. Who knows if Minister Plunkett would be willing to attack the Inish as he did Chava and me?”
“Clan Plunkett isn’t the only clan in Dulcia, and not all the mainland clans hate the Inish,” Saoirse answered. “The Fitzpatricks, the Murphys, or clans like the Taggarts where they’ve had intermarriage with the Inish—none of them are any danger to us and would protect us against the Plunketts or the Lewis clan if they tried anythin’ stupid. For that matter, Uncle Angus and Hugh Plunkett have come to blows before, and that’s never stopped us from continuing to come to Dulcia. It won’t stop us now. As soon as Angus and Liam have another large catch, they’ll be heading over again to sell ’em, Plunketts or neh. The people there will buy ’em, and they’ll be willing enough to take our money when we come into their shops, even if they don’t like us much.”