Traitor Page 23

  Cordelia kept up a constant stream of chatter, pointing out the different tree species, different from anything Sarrin had seen on Earth. “You’ll find a fully stocked medical bay in the compound,” Cordelia said to Hoepe, gesturing to Rayne and her bandaged shoulder.

  Hoepe turned to his brother, communicating something quickly. He turned to Cordelia, “is it possible you have a three-dimensional neural scan?”

  Cordelia smiled knowingly. “Why, yes, of course.”

  “We will need to transport someone from our infirmary.”

  She nodded. “I can assist you.”

  “Thank you,” said Leove.

  “My pleasure. My aim is to please, it is so rare I get visitors.”

  Thomas beside them frowned. “Are you by yourself here, Cordelia?”

  A stricken look crossed her face. She glanced back at Gal. “Yes. I am alone.”

  Gal looked up at his name, his expression seemed more like a warning.

  “I don’t understand,” said one of the Augments. “What are you doing out here?”

  She sighed, shrugging. “Exploring. Research.”

  “By yourself? Without a team?”

  She nodded. “Do not be so concerned. I have been here for many years. I find the environment quite fascinating. Although I do wish I had more visitors.”

  “Understandable,” said Hoepe.

  “You are planning to stay a while?”

  “Yes,” said Hoepe. “If we are welcome, I think this will be a positive opportunity. Our ship is in grave need of repair.”

  “And you need somewhere safe to hide,” agreed Cordelia.

  Gal glared at Cordelia.

  Something was amiss, prodding the monster inside, but the warmth of the sun soothed it away.

  “Not to worry,” Cordelia continued smoothly, “the captain has told me about your troubles. It will be no problem. The Central Army doesn’t bother me out here.”

  Hoepe smiled. “Thank you. That is kind.”

  She clapped her hands and smiled brightly. “We must see to your injured crewman, but first the rest of you looked half-staved, surviving on UEC rations.” She led them into the complex, the first room a large hall with rows of tables.

  “I thought you were here by yourself,” said Hoepe.

  She sighed again. “It was meant for many more people.” She glanced at Gal. “There is food in the kitchen, and fresh vegetables in the gardens out back. Please, the rest of you, help yourselves, while we take care of Grant.”

  Sarrin frowned. She hadn’t heard anyone say Grant’s name.

  “Don’t be silly, dear, your tall doctor friend mentioned it.” The woman, Cordelia, reached her hand out to touch Sarrin on the shoulder. She smiled politely as Sarrin flinched back. “Relax, dear, you’re safe here.”

  Sarrin stared as Cordelia left with the doctors. Gal’s demons must still be in her head, and it was worse than she thought — she didn’t even remember speaking her concern aloud.

  The others dispersed, some running, some laughing, as they swarmed into the dining hall. They pushed into the kitchen, returning with breads and cakes. Others headed through the back door, returning with armfuls of vegetables.

  Sarrin glanced around quickly, scanning and cataloguing the room. Kieran was missing. He would be in the engine room making repairs. A table laden with apples sat against the wall, the fruits not dissimilar to the ones her parents had grown in their orchards, in the trees where she and Halud had played. Her hand reached out, immediately taking two — one for her and one for Kieran.

  EIGHTEEN

  AFTER A TOO LONG SLEEP, Grant sat up, rubbing his eyes. A firm hand pushed him back down. The steady monotony of beeping made his head throb in a matching rhythm.

  Slowly, his eyes started to focus, lumpy silhouettes starting to condense into something recognizable. Hoepe’s grim face greeted him. “How do you feel?”

  Grant open his mouth to ask how the procedure went, but he coughed uncontrollably. Each cough slammed his brain into his skull. He reached a hand up reflexively, meeting a massive line of sutures across his entire scalp.

  Not well, it seemed. It should have only been a small chip.

  “Don’t try to speak,” said Hoepe. He turned, gesturing to someone behind him.

  As his vision cleared, Grant realized he was not in the same place he had fallen asleep. This room was large, almost cavernous. Grey walls were replaced by a warm white and gentle blue. On the far end of the suite was a full wall of monitors, images and 3D displays of a skull and spine.

  “There was an incident when we removed your tracking chip,” Hoepe said.

  Grant frowned, opening his mouth only to fall into another fit of coughing. Hoepe’s identical twin brother lurked into view, holding a cup of water, and Grant took it readily, tossing it into his mouth. The cool liquid burned the back of his throat.

  Immediately, his stomach turned and it came right back up into the dish Hoepe had somehow procured. He’d never had an anaesthetic reaction this bad.

  “Take it easy,” said Hoepe. “You’ve been in a coma for six days.”

  “Six?” The voice that came from him didn’t sound like him at all.

  “When I went to remove your tracking device, it triggered your limpet suit,” Hoepe explained. “Any attempt we made to deactivate it or remove it, the suit dug into deeper. It nearly killed you.” Hoepe looked away, a break in his otherwise unflappably-professional manner. “We were lucky to find a research base, one of the captain’s friends. They have an advanced medical suite where we could image your central nervous system and the equipment we needed to remove the chip and release the suit. But, Grant,” — he took a breath and shuffled in his chair uncomfortably. Grant’s heart started to pound, this was how Hoepe delivered bad news, and he wanted to tell him to just get on with it, rubbing at his sore throat instead. “The suit is ingrained too deeply. It’s connected directly to your amygdala, to the fear centre of your brain. I can’t remove it. Not without killing you.”

  A wave of violent coughing caught him by surprise, and Grant doubled over, clenching his fist. The UECs had sunk their claws into him permanently.

  “We did manage to remove the tracking chip, if its any consolation. They can’t communicate with you or follow your actions any more. It was quite a tricky procedure, necessitating a full craniotomy and nearly fourteen hours of surgery time. Electrodes were wired directly from the chip into several areas of the brain and into the base of the limpet suit. The suit itself appears biological in nature, extending hyphae like a fungus deep into the recesses of the dura matter. We had to stabilize….”

  But Grant stopped listening. He had this suit, this ugly thing that they put there. It was a part of him. Forever.

  The UEC scar on him, forever.

  There was no way to remove it. No way for him to be free. The suit dug its tentacles into him the same as the UECs had, into every single facet of his being, every facet of life. It would never be his again, not ever.

  “Grant.” Hoepe put a hand on his shoulder. Grant took a double take, not Hoepe after all, but Leove. Leove put a hand on his brother, who was still rambling, pointing at various scans to illustrate his point, and told him to stop.

  Now it was Leove’s turn to try to explain, and he started the same way: “Grant,” Leove sat next to him on the bed. “I know this is hard to process. It’s not the outcome you anticipated when you hopped onto the table a week ago”

  “No,” he croaked. “It’s not.”

  “I’m sure if anyone anticipated this as the outcome, you would have held off. You need to rest and eat a little bit when you can. After six days without supportive care, your body is low in nutrients, most of your systems shutting down to preserve strength. It will be a few days, but you will recover.”

  Grant nodded, his head throbbed and spun.

  Hoepe stood with his arms folded over his chest. “We chose the best action at the time.”

  Leove sighed. “I’m not a
rguing with you, brother.”

  “But you are.”

  Slowly, Leove stood from the bed, running a hand over his brow. “Fine, Hoepe, you’re right, I am arguing. It was foolish to try to remove the chip by yourself, without any scans or information. Against our oath to Safety, the healer.”

  Hoepe’s fists clenched. “The chip needed to be removed.”

  “Yes, because you thought Rami was going to destroy the ship and Grant was the only way to stop him,” Leove shouted. “He nearly died.”

  “Are you telling me we should have just let Rami take over? You saw the way he was acting, he would have gotten rid of Kieran. And there would we be?”

  “You were so focussed on that engineer, you assumed the worst. But everything turned out, didn’t it? Rami’s not even the alpha.”

  Grant’s ears perked up.

  “No,” Hoepe said, casting a grim glance in his direction, “Sarrin is.”

  Another fit of coughing doubled Grant over on the bed, his heart pounding to keep up with the effort. His head felt like it was going to burst.

  Hoepe flopped down in the chair by the bed, pulling on a tuft of hair as the muscles in his jaw clenched. “We’re supposed to be brothers. Why are we fighting?”

  Leove huffed. “We share a genetic code, Hoepe. We are brothers, but we can’t expect to be the same. Not with what Evangecore did.” His long legs strode quickly from the room, his arm catching briefly on the doorframe as he called out, “Let me know if you need help.”

  Hoepe sat motionless, head sunken in his hands.

  Grant blinked twice, reaching a tentative hand to his friend. “Hoepe, are you okay?”

  He pushed angrily out of the chair. “Do you require anything?” Hoepe asked, his medical monotone firmly in place.

  He shook his head. He was starving and his chest and lungs hurt from being too dry and he desperately wanted water, but for all his problems, Hoepe looked far rougher. The doctor retreated to the far end of the room, his shoulders tight as he angrily swiped through several 3D scan projections.

  Another thing Evangecore had taken from them.

  * * *

  Sarrin stood in the dark engineering bay, cataloguing each damaged and torn and burnt component. She nodded, only half listening as Kieran detailed the repair list. He was talking mostly for himself, organizing his thoughts.

  She’d had a dream in the night, one she hadn’t had in a very long time: there was a vast forest and strange ungulate creatures that ran alongside her. It was as though in that place each knew her and she knew them, a place she belonged. Even the thought of it now made her heart swell.

  Kieran’s hands moved fluidly through the air as he talked, making shapes and figures appear in front of him. It was mesmerizing. He paused in his stride, turning back to look at her.

  She gasped as his green eyes met hers. She’d had her hands half-way to touching him, she realized. And her mind had gone blank, completely ignoring the repairs. Her hands snapped down to her sides. Gal’s demons still screamed around inside of her, adding to her own. It wasn’t safe. She wouldn’t risk it, never risk it. Despite how he had helped her. It didn’t make sense, that he had touched her for so long and survived. No one else had — but then no one else was like Kieran.

  He smiled, reaching for her. Now it seemed he thought it was safe. She would have to be extra vigilant.

  She side stepped out of reach.

  He sighed and continued. “I don’t understand why Gal is in such a hurry to leave,” he said. “Do you have any idea?”

  She shrugged when he turned back to look at her. The captain had been acting strange — but then what was normal? He was acting more like a regular person than he had since she first met him, but he still lived in passive glances and tight lipped worry.

  “I just hope he doesn’t hang around the engine room all day like he did last night,” said Kieran. Gal had constantly run between the ship and the compound, his mind constantly worried about what was happening where he wasn’t. “Do you think we have time to go get some food, like some real food? I’m starving.”

  Sarrin nodded. Besides the fruit and a couple of reheated rations, they hadn’t eaten since the afternoon before when they had arrived on the planet. The silence was easy as she led him through the cargo bay and across the lawns. Everything with Kieran seemed easy.

  Kieran followed her to the compound. His eyes grew wide as they entered the dining hall. “Oh wow,” he said. “Now that’s somethin’.”

  The hall had been laid out with a massive feast, fruits and vegetables carved into ornate structures, piles of food running the length of each of the tables. People sat in huge groups, talking loudly, even laughing.

  Sarrin, too, couldn’t help but feel the cheer. It piled on top of her growing sense of anxiety, the two emotions warring with each other uncomfortably.

  But then Kieran laughed, his bright eyes dancing as he smiled at her. “I’ll go find us some grub.”

  She frowned, reluctant to eat insect larva and curious as to why he would be so excited, but he was gone before she could stop him. Leove sat at a nearby table, waving at her — if the doctor was here, that meant Grant’s procedure was complete. The doctor’s mood appeared to be good, so she made her way to the table where he sat with Isuma, eager for news.

  “Sarrin!” he cried. A space was cleared, and she sat carefully — there were too many people too close, but their mood was good. The doctor smiled intently at her, the expression odd when compared to the normally dour face of Hoepe. “We were just talking about you.”

  She paused.

  Another Augment leaned forward, a face whose name she did not know. “We were talking about when the warship attacked.”

  “How did you stop it?” another called out.

  She inhaled sharply. Her heart rate quickened, thumping so loud the others must be able to hear it as well.

  “Was it your weapon?”

  “We heard you collapsed and were screaming.”

  “Thomas thinks you tore apart the warship with your mind.”

  Flashes of the warship came to her mind: the display of the ruined Ishash’tor, the militant XO. Most prominent was screams of Amy, trapped on the ship, fighting both fronts. The dining hall disappeared behind a wall of black.

  Pushing away from the table hard enough to shake it, she stood, extracting herself. Her vision was marred by dark and cloudy patches. Kieran was no where to be seen, no matter how far she looked. Someone called her name, but she ignored it.

  She had to find Kieran.

  A woman appeared in front of her, her own bright green eyes cutting through the fog. Her hand was nearly on Sarrin, before she realized it and moved away. Cordelia. “Calm, child,” she whispered sweetly. “Let’s go outside. There is a lot of commotion in here.”

  Wide-eyed, Sarrin followed, finding herself swept along into the gardens. The breathing was a little easier out here.

  Cordelia stood beside her, hands clasped serenely in front, while Sarrin panted. “I find exercise is the best way to calm the mind,” said the woman.

  Sarrin stared at her, the monster still on high alert.

  “There are trails that extend for miles in these woods. I use them myself often.” Cordelia smiled. “Go ahead, dear. There’s nothing to be afraid of out there, just trees and rocks. Go for a run, you’ll feel better.”

  Sarrin’s eyes snapped to the opening in the tree line. She had told Kieran she would help him again today. But he would understand, surely. A run was what she needed, and a chance to run in the outdoors, in the woods was too tempting to pass up.

  She turned to thank the woman, but Cordelia was already gone. Sighing, and pushing through the clogged edges of her vision, Sarrin let her legs move, speeding through the garden and across the field and into the trees.

  * * *

  Gal sat at a quiet end of one of the long tables, Rayne opposite him.

  Her arm was in its sling, but the new painkillers provided by Cordel
ia let her move it enough to cut through the stack of flapjacks and cured meat in front of her. She said the doctors were able to help a lot with the equipment in the infirmary, speeding the healing almost ten times.

  He didn’t like it at all, but seeing Rayne smile and laugh in front of him, her arm nearly healed, he had to admit he was a little grateful to Cordelia.

  “What are you looking for?” Rayne asked him.

  Startled, he turned to look at her again.

  “You’ve been looking around constantly, watching for some monster to leap out. You haven’t even touched your — I don’t know what that is.”

  He forced a smile. He had told Cordelia not to show off, but she insisted the feast was nothing. The oblong grey and orange fruit sat untouched in front of him. “Gammot fruit, from Etar 3.” They were his favourite.

  Rayne smiled. “Cordelia has crops from everywhere under the stars.”

  Gal nodded.

  “Amazing she can tend all these gardens by herself.”

  He nodded again, turning his head for another scan.

  “But really, what are you looking for? We should take this opportunity to relax, you said so yourself, Cordelia is an old friend.”

  He pressed his lips. He did say that, but Cordelia was exactly who he was watching for.

  “Hello, Captain. Commander.”

  The voice made him jump, soft and smooth and far too accommodating. “Hello, Cordelia,” he sighed. The woman had appeared at the end of the table, pouring fresh juice for them both.

  “This is simply amazing,” Rayne said around a full mouth. “How do you manage it all?”

  Cordelia simply smiled in return. “This place was meant for a large contingent, there is a large industrial kitchen, most of it automated.” She glanced darkly at Gal.

  Rayne didn’t seem to notice. “A large contingent — what happened? It’s so beautiful here, why haven’t they colonized it? It’s not even marked.”

  Cordelia stared at Gal for a long time, a cheery smile still painted her face but her eyes were dark and hard. In them, he could see a reflection of the planet exploding. “It’s a long story,” she said, finally turning to Rayne. “Politics and whatnot. Perhaps Gal would like to fill you in.”