Revolution's Shore (31 page)

Worst, when they did at last cast off from Tollgate system in their designated groups—the
Forlorn Hope
receiving her assignment far from the
Boukephalos
's projected field of action—the first window they departed through brought her such a vivid, disquieting image of Kyosti that she could almost believe he had actually been with her.

And within the hour, she was ill. Quite ill. So bad that they admitted her to Medical and even let Bach stay with her, day and night.

She lapsed into delirium—could not gauge time—forgot the name of
Boukephalos
's physician and the others who attended her sporadically; now and then surfaced enough to hear the physician telling a presence she thought must be Jehane, because his being there brought her at least partway back to consciousness, that it was either psychological strain or else some disease she had not seen before.

Lily was moved to a white, enclosed space. Only Bach's singing remained constant.

Bach's singing, the occasional glowing memory of a visit from Jehane, and the windows.

In every window she went through she saw Kyosti. For that instant, with piercing clarity, she felt his pale hands and recalled the coarse curling blue of his hair. Then the ship would come out of the window and for a few hours the delirium would fade and she would recover enough to understand that she was sick.

This occurred with such regularity that the physician once told the visiting Jehane, not aware that Lily was aware enough to listen, that she could only speculate that some unknown property of the windows was curing comrade Heredes, and that if they had not been traveling so far and so fast along the highroad, they would have lost her.

Finally, the delirium faded and disappeared all together. Lily found herself lying on a stasis couch in a white isolation chamber in one corner of Medical. Bach floated at the foot of the couch, linked by one of his attachments to a terminal built into the wall. He seemed to be doing calculations. Lily lay quietly and did not bother him.

Almost immediately, the isolation unit door popped aside and the physician came in. She was outfitted entirely in quarantine gear, but Lily could still make out deep brown eyes in a broad, dark face beneath the clear mask. She stopped beside the couch and stared first at Lily and then at the readings on the couch's monitor.

Her lips pursed tight, she took a blood sample from Lily and left as abruptly as she had come. An assistant came by, also outfitted in quarantine gear, and gave Lily a clear liquid to drink, seeming pleased by Lily's hunger. By this time Bach had detached himself from the terminal and drifted up to wink lights happily about an arm's length from Lily's head.

Bach
Lily whistled as soon as the assistant left.
How long have I been sick?

Patroness, thou has been ill indeed. Even I have despaired of thy recovery. A full eighteen days, in the day periods designated by this fleet's systems, have passed since thou didst fall ill.

She lifted a hand. It looked no different. Swinging her legs over the side of the couch, she sat up carefully. Her head seemed light, but sound. She stood up. Reeled and grabbed at the couch until she could balance herself. Then she waited a few moments.

“Eighteen days,” she muttered. “No wonder I feel weak.”

The door popped open behind her. She felt it prudent not to attempt to turn, yet.

“Comrade Heredes.” The physician's voice had that vigorous cheeriness that is so often annoying to convalescent patients. “You ought to be lying down.”

Lily began to reply, but felt a hand on her arm before she could speak. It exerted the slightest pressure, to ease her to sit, and she began to resist as she glanced to that side.

And did sit.

Jehane smiled and released her arm. His hand, all of him, was encased in the thin sheath of quarantine gear, like the doctor. “Thank you, comrade. We have been concerned about you.”

The very intensity of his concern as he stood next to her made her doubly dizzy. “What happened?” she asked, pulling the back of her hand across her forehead. Her fingers strayed in the loose ends of her hair; to her relief, she could feel that it was clean.

Jehane turned his expectant gaze to the physician. “Comrade Doctor Prachenduriyang? Have you any more clues?”

The doctor's shrug was eloquent of ambivalence. “Oh, yes,” she said tartly, “I have clues, comrade, but they don't lead me anywhere.” She examined the vital signs on the monitor again and shook her head. “Have you any idea, comrade Heredes?” she asked. “Were you exposed to any disease? Some kind of poisoning?”

“Not that I know of.”

“There. I'm not sure I would even call it a disease in the medical sense, but perhaps rather a reaction. You are in quarantine because I have come to the only conclusion I can: that this is some sort of mutated plague that you picked up from the abandoned ship that you commandeered. We have sent messages to the—” She paused.

“The
Forlorn Hope
?” Lily asked abruptly, pathetically eager to hear news of the ship and its crew.

“Yes, the
Forlorn Hope
, to see if any other outbreaks have occurred similar to yours. Until we get such news, I fear we will have to leave you in quarantine, comrade. Your readings here”—she pointed to the monitor—“indicate that you have recovered, so I'm afraid that your convalescence may feel confined.”

Lily made a slight shrug with her shoulders. “I don't suppose it can be helped. Can a—a plague of such kind linger on a ship so long?”

“Presumably,” replied the doctor, but she frowned.

“I feel,” said Jehane slowly, “that there is something still disturbing you, comrade. Some piece to the puzzle that does not yet fit.”

For an instant, Doctor Prachenduriyang's gaze at Jehane betrayed the depth of feeling with which she regarded him. “Of course, comrade,” she answered, the three words conveying how strongly she believed in his powers of perception. “As a matter of course we take blood samples of any person admitted with an unidentified illness, and do a detailed analysis. I won't go into detail, but in any case we can if necessary break down the sample to the genetic level in some areas. In the course of your illness, comrade Heredes, according to our analysis, a very small segment of your genetic material has altered.”

Bach winked a single blue light, but otherwise remained motionless and silent. Jehane studied Lily with a gaze whose thoroughness, even wrapped beneath the quarantine sheath, seemed capable to Lily of piercing through to that altered segment that so disturbed the doctor.

“But what does that mean?” Lily asked.

The doctor's lips were pursed tight again. “I don't know. That you now harbor this plague in a form that is impervious to vaccines. That in an unspecified number of months or years, or in your children, you will manifest a further sequence of events, or illness—one can only speculate—that has come about because of this alteration. We can't be sure. It might be a harmless, if virulent, physical reaction. It might be—more serious. I can't give you reassurances, comrade, because I don't know.”

“Hoy,” said Lily, feeling very tired.

Jehane put a hand, slick in plastine, on her shoulder. It was a deeply comforting gesture. “Would you like me to remain with you a while, comrade?” he asked.

She looked up at him. He appeared utterly sincere, and concerned, and yet she was reminded of Jenny's face—indeed, her entire expression—as she waited outside Jehane's office while he spoke with his son Gregori.

“No,” said Lily, and looked away. “I'll just rest a bit now.”

He nodded, removed his hand, and left.

The doctor lingered. “I'm sorry. But I hate to lie to my patients. I wish I knew more.”

“You looked after me well enough. I can see you have a problem, doctor—” She hesitated.

“Call me Duri. I never insist on the full syllabary, unless I'm being formal. I understand you are capable of drink and food.”

“I'm starving,” replied Lily with some force. “I feel weak, but perfectly fine otherwise.”

“Yes.” Duri sighed. “Your signs are completely normal. Your color, your blood—everything is fine. Except …”

“Except.”

Duri waited a moment, but Lily did not continue. At last she reached out to pat Lily on the shoulder, a pale echo of Jehane's gesture, and retreated to the door. “I have other duties, but I'll send one of my assistants with a meal. You might make a list of anything you want. You have a terminal built in, of course.”

“Thank you,” said Lily. When the door sealed shut behind the doctor, she turned immediately to Bach, who still winked blue.

Bach?
she whistled, interrogative.

Patroness.
He prefaced his remarks with a little prelude, as if, like a child, he had been asked to memorize lines to recite.
Comrade Hawk instructed me
—

“Oh, he did, did he?” Lily muttered under her breath.

—
to engage thy attention as soon as your vital signs had returned to normal.

“But how could he know—” She broke off.
Go on.

Bach waited a moment before he continued, as if her interruption of his carefully crafted melodies distressed, or insulted, him.
Comrade Hawk instructed me to let it be known to thee that he has inoculated thee with the Hierakis Formula, and that once thou hast recovered from the initial reaction, that there will be no recurring symptoms.

“The Hierakis Formula?”

The Hierakis Formula.
Bach winked through a sudden, brilliant pattern of lights, as if showing off.
A term I had not the fortune to be conversant with previously, so I must assume that advances in human life extensatory research have progressed since I was first commissioned.

“Hoy.” She lifted a hand again and stared at it: fingers, skin, the same lines at her knuckles. It looked no different. “I don't believe it.”

Patroness.
His song was slightly dissonant now.
Surely thou dost not suggest that I would practice to deceive thee?

“No, Bach. Of course not.” She amended the words with a reassuring whistle. “But—” She shook her head.

A brief chime signaled the entrance of the assistant with her food.

“Are you all right?” he asked, checking the monitor as he levered out the tray for her to eat on.

“I'm fine. That food smells delicious. Thank you.”

The assistant smiled and left.

Patroness.

“Yes?” she asked between bites.

Comrade Hawk also instructed me to request that thou dost not yet reveal this information to anyone else.

“That's all he said?”

Affirmative.

She speared a strip of protein and considered Bach's gleaming surface thoughtfully while she chewed. “Leaving me stuck here for the present, of course,” she muttered as she hunted for the next strip. “All right. I'll play his game a little longer.”

Patroness?

I mean, Bach, that I trust that comrade Hawk has good reason to say what he did.

Affirmative, patroness. Indeed, it is my belief that he has devised a larger plan which he would have confided to thee had he not been sundered from thee so abruptly.

“Let's hope so,” murmured Lily, and got back to her meal.

Over the next seven days Duri visited her assiduously every five hours. Nothing changed, except that Lily began to recover her strength by moving the couch to one wall and doing kata slowly to break herself in. She discovered that she was weaker than she expected to be, and was grateful that she was allowed this respite to convalesce.

Jehane did not visit again. Lily had no more dreams of Kyosti, or at least none inside windows.

On ship's morning, eighth day, Duri sighed and shook her head over her screen. Lily watched her attentively.

“Under any other circumstances I would proclaim you well and let you return to duty,” Duri said. The plastine quarantine sheath gave a sheen to her dark skin and silver-flecked black hair. “But we've gotten news from the
Forlorn Hope
. I'll let you review the records on your own, but unfortunately there's been an outbreak of this ‘plague' on the ship. So far it's confined to the people who found the ship—the people you were with—but there's no knowing how long an incubation period there might be.”

“Have they
all
been quarantined?”

“No. They're understaffed as it is—you'll see why—and in any case the rest of the crew had already been exposed. At least there have been no fatalities. That gives me hope.” She checked her wrist-com and clicked her lips in dismay. “Void bless, I've got to go. All the reports are accessible through the medical folders, program three lest eight. I'm sure you have the clearance.”

“Yes,” said Lily, glancing at Bach. “I'm sure I'll have no trouble getting access to them.”

As soon as Duri was gone, Lily plugged Bach in to the terminal and sat next to him, watching the screen. He quickly accessed the files detailing the most recently known movements of the fleet.

It took a while, scrolling, indexing, and trying to make sense of schedules and route maps, but eventually a pattern emerged: the
Forlorn Hope
had been sent into a string of obscure systems whose allegiance was still heavily to Central and had engaged in a far higher percentage of battles and running actions than any other single ship in Jehane's fleet. It had lost two companion vessels, and had taken, so far, eleven casualties out of a crew of forty-seven.

“Too high,” said Lily, tense as Bach found the lists of reported dead. She let out her held breath when she found no familiar names among them.

The plague on the
Forlorn Hope
was also recorded, as well as a complaint from Captain Machiko about the difficulties he was experiencing integrating the old crew with the new people who had come on board with him. His final suggestion was to transfer, as a body, the old crew to some new assignment, or else break them up. His report did not mention the ship's doctor except in the most general terms, referring to his work in dealing with the plague, and what injuries the crew had sustained during fighting.