She watched physicians and logistical advisors begin flowing out from underneath the zeppelin and leaned out over the railing for a better view as people organized, talked and pointed toward the streets.
“We almost forgot you,” Dr. Baufent said sharply. “I think you’re the only one who hasn’t been poked.” Wrapped around her fingers, a hypodermic loaded with pale blue fluid glittered in the sun.
“Vaccine?”
The doctor gave her the southern sign.
Taelin dutifully rolled up her sleeve. She felt the steel pierce the meat of her shoulder and winced. Dr. Baufent pulled out, swabbed and smiled. “Want a candy?”
A small fracas had been building from below and it now drew their attention over the rail. There was a shout and Taelin saw one of the men in black standing with his feet apart, one hand out, pointing. His other hand rested on the handle of a truncheon that was still holstered against his hip.
For a few moments he seemed to be hallucinating. Nothing happened and the branches at the edge of the platform tossed slowly, rolling with the wind. They hid Taelin’s view of the ground. Another man came to stand beside him and it was then that Taelin realized the physicians and advisors were gone. She heard the elevator coming back up. Maybe they had fled back to the ship?
Clearly the two men below could see something that she could not.
After another moment, both men pulled their truncheons. Three more men ran into sight. These, however, were coming from the edge of the platform, out from beneath the tossing trees, back toward the cargo elevator. Those who had been standing on the platform watching, moved their feet nervously, as if the slab were tilting, as if they couldn’t quite get their balance.
“What’s going on?” asked Baufent. It was a useless question.
Pouring from under the trees, springing and leaping and hopping madly, a crowd of naked forms tumbled onto the platform and lunged for the men. The men swung hard, bringing their ghastly assailants down.
Taelin stared in horror.
After twenty seconds of brutality, what creatures were still standing retreated. She watched them lope back into the trees, slip down retaining walls and scurry off into shadow-clogged alleyways. Some dragged themselves through busted windows, heedless of the shards.
The men had won but Taelin could see them panting, hands on knees. They glanced in every direction like scared children and backed quickly toward the cargo elevator, which now sounded to be coming back down. They kept their truncheons out.
Nearby, the Odalisque was in the middle of mooring. Taelin twisted at her necklace while men from Caliph’s ship secured the ropes and then jogged across the platform to consult with those who had just repelled the attack. The discussion was brief and too distant to hear.
“It’s the same thing,” said Baufent. Taelin had forgotten the physician was there.
“What is?”
“The disease.” Dr. Baufent’s short gray hair rumpled in a faintly latrine-scented wind that drew through the urban desolation to the west. “It drives them mad at first. We’ll take samples. We’ll run tests, but I think it’s the same.”
Taelin’s heart was pounding. “But the vaccine works?”
“Yes, dear. You’ll be fine … by the end of day two. We just need to keep you quarantined until then.”
“Quarantined? Why bother bringing me up if I’m … how am I supposed to help if…”
“Shh—” Baufent’s gunmetal eyes were analyzing the talking men. “We have plenty of doctors up here. This was about you posing for litho-slides, remember? It’s political.”
Taelin felt insulted, but Baufent’s brutal candor acted like a strange ointment. It smoothed things over in an abrupt and unexpected way. “What about them?” asked Taelin. She pointed to the men.
“They got theirs a year ago.” Baufent spoke softly. “All physicians and government employees were required to be vaccinated after the court was cleaned. The rest of Isca got theirs soon after.”
“The court?”
“I’m sure you read the papers, dear. Ghoul Court is what we call the borough in Isca where it started.”
Taelin had read the papers but now she was talking to one of the physicians that had actually been there. “What does the disease do? That was information they never published.”
“It turns them into fish,” said Baufent. “Not really, of course. But it’s a genetic modifier. Some people thought there was cross-breeding going on. Complete nonsense. What’s strange is that the mutation shuts down at different stages for different people. We don’t know why. Some people’s transformation is nearly unnoticeable. Only their brain is affected. Others die. And still others … Well. I guess you’ve seen them.”
“Is it airborne?”
“No. It’s carried in the blood and mucus membranes. And it’s sensitive to race. Pplarians for instance react differently.”
Word came back from the ground crew that the High King had decided not to abort. “We’re going to set up shop,” one of the men in blue goggles said curtly as he strode past Baufent. He had just come up the lift and seemed to have been tasked with disseminating information.
Taelin and the doctor left the deck and went down to the cargo hold where people were gathering. One of the men in black was barking out instructions.
He told them that erecting pavilions for a field hospital at the current spot would be futile. The wind in the Ghalla Peaks was irregular and violent. So, the decision had been made to locate the hospital’s hub on the palace grounds, some eight hundred yards to the east, which would also be safer in case of another attack.
The master sergeant also made it clear that they wouldn’t be taking up residence in the palace proper for political reasons, a decision that irked most of the physicians.
Taelin got a personal escort to the palace grounds where she was assigned to oversee the medical supplies being ferried from the airship. Despite her knee she was able to organize and verify inventory counts and help the other iatromathematiques unpack. She unrolled yards of white cloth and opened boxes of antiseptic, surgery tools and ampoules ready for the needle. There were less conventional supplies as well, living creatures encased in holomorphic glass harvested from the Memnaw: a dozen scarlet horrors with special equipment to turn their voracious hunger on the plague.
Toward nightfall the hospital, fully erected and open for business, sat waiting for patients.
No one came.
* * *
BORED, Taelin sat down on a little crop of rock just outside the tent hospital. It was dark here and relatively quiet, the perfect place to think. She unfolded Speck’s drawing and smiled.
Sena was up to something. She was sure of it. And poor Caliph Howl might be along for the ride. But what could she do? How did Nenuln intend for her to overcome the High King’s witch?
Taelin flinched from a noise in the darkness. A soft twittering.
It was a bird that had come up and was dancing on the crop of rock. Strange that it was still flying after dark. Then she noticed the subtle glow in its eyes.
It seemed to gasp as it hopped back and forth, twisting its head, looking at her finger like a grub.
There was clockwork in its brain. Taelin reached out and grabbed it. The lodestone that had drawn it to her was in a ring on the third finger of her right hand. A contingency, her father had said. I want to be able to find my daughter—
Well he had found her.
Again.
Strapped to the bird’s leg was a note and a little bottle of liquid. She read the note with a sense of horror. All it said was, A toast to the High King.