The Catalyst (Targon Tales) (7 page)

Like many Air Command bases, it was drab and utilitarian but it also offered an academy and flight school where personnel attended lectures and upgraded their skills. Many also came to enjoy a play or perhaps a new artist or to meet friends stationed in other parts of Trans-Targon.

Nova had visited here once or twice before but never for long. It had always seemed to her like the most exciting place in the entire sector. She hoped to be stationed here some day. Today, however, she wanted only to see and be seen by the doctors of the base's well-equipped hospital. It had taken three days to make the journey from Aikhor to Targon through two jumpsites and endless hours travel between the gates.

The additional oxygen had returned some strength and energy to her and, although the debilitating fatigue remained, she was awake enough to join Seth at the helm or laze about the cabin while the autopilot did its job. They spent the time talking of nothing that lay ahead and certainly nothing that lay behind them, carefully skirting the issue of rebels and his part in her misfortunes. She was reminded again of the time they had spent just like this, when he would share with her his thoughts about the worlds and their inhabitants that held endless fascination for him. Information that was, to her, just figures and facts on a page came alive for him through stories and histories and what appeared to be real people and not just names on a screen.

Of course, back then they would spend these hours between long bouts of lovemaking, sprawled entwined in some hideaway until it was time to get back into uniform and into their planes. Now she did not dare to touch him even accidentally - his presence across the cabin was beginning to chafe her in ways both pleasant and entirely unwelcome.

"You better clear us," Seth said as they approached UCB Targon. "I don't think they'll let me land."

"Should security be anything but tight here?" she replied. "They know this ship, I'm sure. By now it'll be identified and traced to you. These boats are rare, especially privately owned ones. You better come up with a few explanations."

Seth nodded, looking at ease with the situation. She wondered if anything ever really worried him.

She contacted the base to request permission to land. Understandably, Targon's reply was delayed while somebody checked with someone to get permission from somebody else. She knew that the matter of clearance would be shuffled about until someone or somebody kicked it upstairs to the base commander.

Eventually, she was given landing instructions. Nova was surprised to hear that they were to move the Dutchman directly into the underground hangars instead of the public aboveground airfield.

"You want to shackle my hands and feet or something?" Seth said when they prepared to drop the cargo bay gate.

She looked up at him, suddenly unsure. Now that they were here, she no longer wanted to see him arrested, perhaps hurt, surely incarcerated for some time if her charges against him could be proven. "Seth..." she began.

He looked amused. "Don't worry, Red. I wouldn't be here if I didn't want to be."

Before she could reply the door fell open and they were surrounded by a cluster of white-clad base personnel. They pushed their way into the cramped cargo area and Nova was manhandled onto a stretcher.

 "Hey! It's only–"

"Please allow us, Lieutenant," one of the medics whispered. "By order of Colonel Carras." He leaned forward to let her see the identification tab on his collar beneath the hospital garb.

Nova dropped onto the stretcher and allowed herself to be covered up to her chin. She closed her eyes and was whisked out of the hangar and toward the base hospital.

Seth had watched it all with amazement. What was the Colonel up to?

"Sethran Kada," a sharp voice rang out.

Still musing, Seth turned to see a half dozen guns pointed at him.

"Step away from the plane."

Seth obeyed, raising his hands slightly. He was searched roughly and thoroughly. "Carras' orders, right?"

"Search the ship," the guard barked and Seth was led away, out of the hangar.

A five-man security team ushered him along UCB Targon's maze of hallways. As they moved deeper underground, the slick, impressive design of the upper levels gave way to meaner, more utilitarian accommodations. There seemed to be no need for stylish wall treatments here and the installation's superstructure, at times even the cave walls, were exposed. They used a cage-like elevator and then a trolley to reach a sector which Seth had had occasion to view before.

"Kada!" he was greeted once they had arrived at the nearly deserted cellblock. The walls here were covered in peeling plastic panels but at least the place seemed less like an underground bunker than the passages they had just travelled.

Seth smiled. "Spenser, my favorite turnkey. How's the hemorrhoids? Business good?"

The Centauri sneered. "Not as good as yours." He perused a monitor in front of him. "A hatch full of guns, I see. Arrested for piracy, it says. Don't look to good to me, son."

Seth shrugged. "Got my old room for me?"

"Sure. All I've got's a couple of discipline cases here. Another body or so'll keep the place from echoing. Maybe you'll stay a while this time. Like a couple of decades or so." Spenser heaved himself onto his feet and led the way along a corridor to an empty cell. Once there, he gestured Seth inside with a grand flourish. "Just like you left it. Better rest up. You know how excited the boys can get when they think they're interrogating a real criminal. They’re especially fond of Shri-Lan."

"Yeah. I remember. You got any food here?"

Spenser glanced at the guards behind him, then back at Seth. The question regarding food was a signal of the highest priority. DO NOT INTERFERE, it meant. Seth did not need Spenser's help to escape or to contact spies; he had reason to be on Targon.

"Wait yer turn," he said. "I'll be bringing my Points-board, if you think you can beat me."

"With my hands tied." Seth raised his bound wrists. "Not that I've got a choice."

Spenser applied a gadget to Seth's restraints to release his hands. "Just so you'll be forever grateful."

Seth stretched out on the cell's narrow bunk and watched the transparent door slide into place.  Then he waited. Sooner or later Carras, Targon’s military lead under the Chief Of Staff, would send someone to demand a few answers. He wondered what he would tell them.

He dozed uncomfortably. Mild claustrophobia nagged him relentlessly although he was well accustomed to the confines of his ship. A small enclosure never bothered him as long as he was able to steer it where he wanted to go. This stationary trap was something entirely different. He sat up again, feeling the walls close in. He hoped that the Dutchman would not be searched too thoroughly. It wasn't necessary for them to see everything his ship had to offer.

He was kept waiting for hours before voices near the guard station travelled down the echoing cellblock hallway. Footsteps, some of them the brisk pace of well-trained soldiers, approached and Seth came to his feet to await whatever was heading his way. His last visit here had cost him a tooth and he was uneager to repeat the experience.

Colonel Carras appeared on the other side of the door, accompanied by two guards and the jailer. The elder Centauri regarded his prisoner wordlessly before nodding to Spenser whose handprint opened the door. Carras stepped inside the cell. One of the guards handed him a box. "Leave us," he said to them.

The stone-faced soldiers complied. Seth threw a flirtatious glance at one of them and winked. She appeared not to have noticed.

Alone, Carras and Seth regarded each other warily.

"Long time, Colonel," Seth said.

Carras sat down on the other bench in the cell and tossed the box to Seth. "It has been. Can't say I'm happy to see you here."

Seth shrugged. "Nice of you to visit me down here, then." He sifted through the box containing various confiscated effects. He returned his gun to a holster beneath his jacket, another into the shaft of his boot. The wide metal bracelet that communicated with his ship once again rode on his arm just above the elbow and his wrist array was returned to its accustomed place. A hefty amount of Commonwealth currency and an electronic lock pick went into his pocket.

"Was feeling naked without this." He tapped the Dutchman's control unit. "I brought you a present from Aikhor. You like it?"

"The guns? A present? I'd imagine that under other circumstances you would have looked for a buyer for them."

"Only among your people, of course."

"Of course," Carras said. "I have to say you're doing well for yourself. I couldn't help but admire your ship."

Seth smiled. "Not an Eagle, but she's got a lot of guts."

"Not exactly government issue. Tharron pays that well?"

"I have a few side ventures."

"What brought you to the
Dyona
?"

"Distress signal. I was in the neighborhood."

"And the guns?"

"Stole them. On Aikhor."

"From?"

"You know I’m not going to tell you that, Colonel."

"Why was Lieutenant Whiteside with you?"

"Seems like a nice girl."

"That nice girl is an Air Command officer whose so-far excellent future prospects aren't improved by your presence. Show a little respect."

Seth grinned. "I didn't touch her, I swear."

Carras looked half amused and half exasperated. "I have no doubt in my mind that Lieutenant Whiteside has more sense than to let that happen." He stood up. "Get off my planet, Kada. I want you gone by tomorrow."

* * *

Nova sat moodily on her bed by the window, legs folded under her, and looked out over Targon's barren landscape. Her eyes followed the flight paths of the planes above the base with longing. Passenger ships, cruisers, freighters, even one or two of the powerful Eagles kept the landing bays humming. She counted the sleek Kite class fighter planes as they came from patrols and exercises and mentally waved after the departing ones. If only she could get out of this place and back into her own Kite where she belonged!

But here she was, stuck in this unnervingly silent hospital wing where, for some inexplicable reason, everything was white. Walls, floor, furniture, bedding, even the cozy two-piece lounging suit she had been given - everything white! She wondered if she should run up and down the hallway outside to see if she could at least get her paper slippers dirty. Then again, she thought, dirt was likely not allowed in the hospital, either, for lack of being white.

A nurse in whites entered her room with the sort of smile that was a requirement for working among the soon-to-be dead of squid bite. "We're about done with today's tests," he said brightly. "I'm sure that's good news. How do you feel?"

"Top shape for someone who’s had a robot crawl through her veins," Nova said. "In fact, I think I'll go down to the mess hall for dinner."

"Not so fast," he said, his smile unwavering. "Doctors are on their way. I don't think you're going anywhere for a while." He poked around some of the monitors surrounding her bed. "Nice try, though."

She shrugged.

He turned when the door to the hall opened and then snapped to attention when both of them saw two uniforms enter the room along with the doctors that had been hovering around Nova since she had arrived yesterday. Nova moved to get up, stopping only when the nurse held his hand out to keep her seated.

"I'm fine, really," she protested but he shook his head.

"Lieutenant Whiteside," Doctor Darshan greeted her. "We're certainly glad you are feeling better. You’ll be staying that way a while longer."

"So I'm not in any danger?" She directed a puzzled glance at the Colonel and the Major, both Centauri, who had accompanied the doctors. What had brought those two to her room?

Colonel Carras nodded at Darshan.

"Well, no and yes," the doctor said. “You were definitely infected by something when that creature stung you. An agent was introduced into your bloodstream."

"What sort of agent?" Nova touched the small bandage on her neck.

"We’re not sure, quite honestly. It binds with your hemoglobin, which is why you were, essentially, being suffocated. We attempted several transfusions but the substance is being replaced as fast as we can remove it."

She raised both eyebrows. "A parasite?"

"Hmm, nothing that lively. The substance becomes inert as soon as it leaves your blood and comes in contact with air. Its components are not complex but we don't understand how it lives, or even why. It is not a natural product of the creature that infected you."

"We suspect that the Myrid was a carrier," the Colonel interjected. His voice carried the pleasant drawl common among his people. Like all Centauri, he had a thick shock of black hair and the violet eyes but in most other ways looked much like the people found on Terra or Feyd or Magra. Unlike most Centauri, however, he was portly and his heavy jowls and chins resembled those of a Human. "It was used to move, perhaps smuggle, this material from Pelion to its destination. We suppose it requires a living host to remain viable. "

"So that means that the xeno, this Myrid, did this on purpose? It wanted to preserve this... whatever it is?”

"Myrids are intelligent sentients, even if we cannot interact with them on any meaningful level. It likely realized that it was dying when the tank broke."

"So how are you going to get this out of me?"

"We are working on a solution, I assure you," Darshan said. "We will need some time. We have requested additional experts from Feyd and Delphi. Meanwhile, we can keep your blood stable to prevent further trouble with your oxygen exchange. I’ve ordered a supply of boosters from the dispensary that you can administer yourself." He placed a packet of single-dose ampoules on the tray by her bed. "Are you familiar with these?"

She nodded. A short needle would be affixed to the capsule to deliver the drug directly into a vein. "Yes, we used them on Bellac."

"One of those once a day and you're fine. We will run more tests in the morning but I'll try to get you back into civvies as an outpatient. How does that sound?"