The Plague Forge [ARC] (5 page)

“How’s she doing, really?” he asked.

“Tania? She’s fine, but you don’t need to tell her that. I’ve only kept her here so she can get some rest.”

“She looks exhausted.”

“You should have seen her a few days ago. She slept twelve hours last night, which is as much as she’s been getting in an entire week lately. Now if she’d just eat.”

“So she’s okay?”

Dr. Brooks nodded. “We’re always concerned about possible brain damage due to oxygen deprivation, and she was certainly in the danger zone in terms of time. But the tests are all negative. She’ll be fine with a little more rest and a decent meal.”

“When can she leave?”

The doctor shrugged, then nodded past Skyler. “Now, from the look of things.”

He turned to see Tania emerge from the curtained area in one of her jumpsuits, a white one with blue stripes that ran from the neckline down the arms. She tied her hair back into a loose knot and gestured for Skyler to rejoin her.

“Thanks, Doctor,” he said, and went back.

Before he could get a word out, Tania held up a hand. “We won’t speak of it.”

“Never happened,” he agreed.

Her gaze went back to the container. “I guess we’d better decide what to do with this.”

An hour later the alien object sat on a table in the cafeteria, a crowd of people around it. Someone had even brought a special microscope, the images it produced enlarged on a few slates that were passed around, eliciting excited commentary from those who studied them.

Skyler kept to the periphery of the group. He held his tongue for the most part, except occasionally when they asked him questions. Apparently Tania had been chastised for not allowing such an opportunity with the first object that was brought up. Somewhat hypocritically she’d also been criticized for allowing these alien objects aboard without careful decontamination measures. Tania defended herself, and Skyler, by explaining that in the excitement to explore the Builder ship she’d simply forgot.

There’d been a time when such carelessness could not be explained away, or overlooked, so easily. But here, now, with everything at stake, her excuse earned scattered grumbles and more than a few sympathetic nods.

Food was brought in—a mix of fresh fruit and cut vegetables, some hummus, and nutrition bars likely brought up from the growing mountain of scavenged supplies in Camp Exodus. Someone even produced a bottle of cider, which lightened the mood in the room slightly.

Ana came in at one point, a sheen of sweat on her skin. She ate some food, said a few polite hellos, then begged off from the gathering of scientists to find a place to shower after her low-gravity antics. She didn’t like being around the colonists much, especially the scientists. “They treat me like some kind of circus curiosity,” she’d once said to him. He couldn’t blame her.

When she’d gone, Skyler turned back to the group and caught Tania looking at him. She glanced away when their eyes met.

By late evening the people in the room had dwindled to what Skyler assumed were the most senior scientists on station. Zane Platz came by, and Tim was there, too, hovering about Tania like a manservant. His affection for her was so obvious, Skyler found it amusing if a little boyish. To his surprise, Tania didn’t seem too bothered by it. She even squeezed Tim’s arm at one point, giving Skyler an unexpected twinge of jealousy.

A natural pause in the conversation gave him the chance to ask the question.

“Well, what do we do with it?”

They’d been debating just that all evening, but never with enough seriousness to call their conclusions a decision. Skyler asking the question served to crystallize it, and to his surprise they all turned to Tania.

“I think we should take it over there and install it,” she said.

A few of the people present shook their heads. “Hold on,” one woman said. “This thing has the ability to coat subhumans with some kind of weaponized armor. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’d like to understand how that works.”

Others voiced similar ideas, concerns, worries. For his part, Skyler held Tania’s gaze. He saw an apology there, and her eyes darted to the door and then back to him. “Outside,” she mouthed.

He met her in the curved hallway, the sound of the animated crowd vanishing as the door clicked shut behind them. They stood an arm’s length apart, dense red carpet at their feet. A few curious onlookers were milling about, probably hoping for a glance at the object. At the sight of them Tania moved off a few paces.

Skyler followed. He took in the bystanders and felt a sudden, surprising tingle on his neck.

“What is it?” Tania asked, sensing his sudden worry.

“Nothing. Well, just a … after what that woman Jenny did, I think we should post guards here. And anywhere people might gain access to a vehicle that could make it to the Key Ship.”

“Guards?”

“Yes,” he said under his breath. “That’s a chunk of alien technology on the other side of that door, Tania. Jenny might not be the only closet Jacobite around here who can’t resist the temptation to snatch it. Or destroy it.”

“I really don’t think—”

He pulled her farther from the people hovering in the hall. “Let’s assume for a second that what we’re supposed to do here is find these five objects and install them, okay?”

“Seems a fair assumption.”

“Good. Can you imagine if we had to stop at four because someone walked off with the fifth and hid it somewhere? Or that we lost it? Maybe some experiment caused it to crack and fall apart?”

Tania glanced at the handful of people in the hallway with palpable suspicion now in her face. Then she turned her gaze to the doorway.

“I don’t mean to make you jump at every shadow,” Skyler said. “Paranoia won’t help us right now, either. All I’m saying is that I don’t think we should take chances with this. If we agree the task before us is to find and install these … keys, or whatever … then we should do that and
nothing more.
”

She engaged in some silent deliberation, then took a deep breath. “You’re right, of course. Okay, I’ll give them until morning to study the object, but restrict their efforts to passive methods only. And I’ll find some guards.”

“Two outside, two inside.”

She winced at the implication but nodded anyway.

“What about the ship?” Skyler asked. “We can’t have any unauthorized visits to that room.”

“Ah, well, we don’t have to worry about that.”

“No?”

“The outer door closed when Tim picked us up. A few of the scientists tried to go back and document the place, but apparently it won’t open unless a ‘key’ is present. Well, a key or an immune, we’re not sure which. Both, maybe.”

“Interesting.”

“We’ll find out soon enough what the requirements are. I’ll have a team, trusted people, take it over in”—she glanced at her watch—“twelve hours. You can observe from ops if you wish.”

Skyler shook his head. “I think I’ll get some sleep and head back to Belém. There’s too much to do.”

Tania nodded. “Well, if the door won’t open, we’ll need you or one of your comrades to assist.”

He rubbed at the stubble on his jaw. “One of the others, maybe. It’d be good if I wasn’t the only one with experience. Vanessa can come up, I think.”

If the suggestion disappointed her, she hid it well. “Thank you, Skyler. For finding this, and bringing it in.”

“Thank me when we’ve got all five.” He turned to go. A few paces away, he stopped and turned toward her. “That reminds me.”

“Yes?”

“There was a vibration that ran up the cord when we picked up that object.”

“We felt it,” Tania said. “Rattled the station. Even went as high as some of the farms. The same thing happened when you picked up the object in Ireland.”

“It happened once before that, too,” he said, and waited.

Realization dawned on her face a few seconds later. “I’d forgotten. Of course, yes. But that means—”

“One of the other keys has already been picked up.”

Tania’s gaze fell to the floor, as the possible implications percolated through her mind. Her mouth opened, then closed.

“Get some rest,” Skyler said. “We’ll talk again tomorrow.”

Chapter Three

Darwin, Australia

23.MAR.2285

Despite the hour, and the citywide mandate against such things, a lively crowd filled the Chō-Han joint. Men for the most part, though Samantha could see a few painted women in the mix, arms draped around some of the players seated at the long dice table. The gathered audience for the game spilled out into the street in a rough half circle around the tiny gambling club.

A sake bottle passed between the onlookers. From her shadowed vantage point across the street, Sam couldn’t see the contents but guessed it would be cider, being much easier to acquire or produce.

“Some balls these blokes have,” Skadz whispered at Sam’s shoulder. “Look at them, they’re flaunting it.”

“They better. I paid them to,” Prumble said. He stood in the darkness on the opposite side of the alley.

Sam could barely see him, just a splash of wan yellow light on his round face. The cloak-and-dagger activity in the dead of night seemed to add a hardness to his features that she’d never seen before.

“Ah,” the big man said. “Entering stage right, our pious and predictable Jacobite enforcers. Drawn from their station like moths to a flame.”

“I’d rather be elsewhere,” Skadz said. “As in now.”

“Patience, patience. Let the kindling catch.”

Whether the crowd pretended not to notice the approaching patrol, or genuinely didn’t, Sam couldn’t be sure. Their excitement at the game within the tiny storefront was realistic enough. Bets were placed. The shirtless dealer waved down the murmur and silence fell.

Sam could barely see the dealer through the crowd, but she heard him call out the result when the cups were flipped over. “Han!”

Roughly half the crowd roared in delight, loud enough to wake those in the cramped apartments above the street. Sam could already see a few candlelit windows above, shadows of worried faces looking down on the gathering in disbelief. Gambling and drinking in the open like this just wasn’t done in Darwin anymore.

There was a flurry of activity as the bets were settled, and then the enforcer’s whistle blew. The crowd turned almost in unison to face the approaching patrol. Sam held her breath in the brief silence that followed. Instinctively she appraised the Jacobites. A few held riot clubs; one had a wooden table leg studded with nails at the top. The leader, the one with the whistle, had a pair of pistols.

“Get ready,” Prumble whispered.

Sam glanced at their destination. An alcove, diagonally across the street, where a steel-plated door that was rarely unlocked would now be having its dead bolt turned by Prumble’s contact.

When the violence came it came quickly. A shove, one Jacobite fell. The swing of that nasty table leg and a spray of blood. Then chaos as someone in the gambling room killed the lights. Concealed weapons came out; the crowd fanned. The Jacobites were taken off guard, unused to anyone standing up to them as the consequences were well established.

“Go,” Prumble said.

Sam did. She ignored the melee, ignored the cries of pain coming from both sides despite her natural instinct to step in and crack a skull or two. Instead she jogged across to the steel door at a half crouch, aware of Prumble behind her and Skadz bringing up the rear. Three paces from the door she saw it open and she kept moving straight inside.

And just like that they were in. The door closed without a sound, cutting off the light coming in from the street. A second later fluttering candlelight bathed the entryway. The glow revealed the face of an Asian boy, no more than ten years old, Sam guessed. He looked bored. “This way,” he said with a heavy Malay accent.

Per some unspoken agreement, Prumble fell in behind him. The boy led them up a few flights of stairs, then down a long hall that ended at an open window. Without even a glance back, the kid stepped out the window and clambered across a ramshackle bridge erected between this building and another just a few meters away. The bridge creaked and swayed when Prumble stepped onto it. Sam decided to wait until he was across before stepping out herself.

She’d seen thousands of such bridges in the city, but never traversed one. They allowed buildings to join forces, or simply for commerce to occur, eliminating the need to risk the streets below. They also frequently collapsed, a tragedy made worse by the fact that children were usually the runners who made use of them. This one, mercifully, seemed sturdy, if Prumble’s successful crossing proved anything.

More stairs followed. A lot more. The big man was barely breathing hard as he kept pace with the boy.

“Didn’t you used to walk with a cane?” Skadz asked him, sucking wind.

Prumble shrugged. “Used to need one.”

“What, healed did you? Some kind of fucking miracle?”

The big man laughed. “Cured of the need to cultivate that particular myth, is all. Give credit to Blackfield for that.”

Sam’s thighs were on fire by the time the kid finally turned and went to a door. He stepped aside and used one foot to prop it open, holding out his hand eagerly. Prumble fished a candy bar out of his pocket and slapped it into the boy’s tiny palm.

The woman in the room beyond looked like a brothel’s couch.

She was enormous, larger even than Prumble, and draped in a gaudy mix of red velvets and patterned silks. Her puffy face hid under a veneer of white-powder makeup and purple eyeliner.

Two effeminate boys in garish makeup stood to either side of the madam, fanning her with broad, colorful antique fans like she was some kind of queen or goddess. The whole display was so absurd that Samantha glanced in instinct to the corners of the room on either side of the entry, anticipating a trap. She saw an armed man in each, hard-faced and well muscled. They showed no sign of taking any action, though.

“Oh, pooh pooh,” the gigantic woman said. “I thought we had customers.” She spoke slowly, in a gravelly voice that implied a lifetime of smoking.