Hsaefyrr’s age-thready voice was aimed down at W’th’vaathi, but was canted for Mriif’vaal’s benefit as well. “However, the request for this cure is not so simple as it sounds. It involves matters of ancient and grave consequence.”
W’th’vaathi’s neck oscillated once. “I do not understand.”
“At this point, that is as it should be.” Hsaefyrr settled back, buzzing faintly. Then, more quietly to Mriif’vaal. “We must, I think, compare our thoughts on this matter.”
Mriif’vaal let his tendrils interlace slowly, carefully. “I think you are correct, old friend. For I fear we have a more difficult conversation before us.”
Hsaefyrr’s respiration slits widened in surprise for a moment. “I am ever your friend and mentor, Mriif’vaal, but if you refer to a conversation involving the First Silver Tower—”
“—I do—”
“Then that is one conversation I am not eager to undertake with you. Or in your stead.”
“Of course not.” Mriif’vaal sent a light dusting of affinity and amusement at his old friend. “You are too sane to wish such a thing upon yourself, Hsaefyrr.”
* * *
Outside the room that seemed part ICU and part laboratory, Bannor Rulaine sat with folded hands, staring at the living membrane which covered Caine’s body. With the setting of the sun, the membrane had phased from transparent to dimly translucent. He hadn’t heard Pandora Veriden approach, started when she sat next to him.
After a full minute, she muttered. “You can’t stay here forever, you know.”
“Just watch me.”
Her sigh was an audial monument to exasperation. “Jeez, what is it with you military guys? You don’t have to stand watch over him, and being here isn’t going to determine whether Riordan lives or— Look; you weren’t even supposed to make it down to the planet. That was an insane stunt. Saved all our asses, yes, but insane nonetheless. You did everything you could. Now give it, and yourself, a rest.”
Rulaine was not angry when he turned toward her, hoped that lack of animus was clear in his voice and his eyes, because he wasn’t sure how she’d hear his words. “Ms. Veriden, you just don’t get it. Despite all your training, you were never military — or raised around that ethos — so you’ll allow my conjecture that you just don’t understand what makes us tick.”
“Sure I do; duty and honor. Responsibility. In another minute, you’re going to be telling me that it doesn’t matter that the corvette was stuck in orbit; that Riordan’s safety was your assignment and that you failed. End of story.”
“And it pretty much does come to that, Ms. Veriden. But it doesn’t stop there. In fact, that doesn’t even begin to touch the surface. That’s the recruiting slogan, the ad jingle; that’s not our life. And that’s the part a civilian, even a civilian combat veteran, is not likely to understand because the only way you get to know it is to live it.
“Look: I like Caine. A lot. But that’s not why I’m here. I’d be here even if I hated his guts. I’ve sat this kind of, well, vigil, I guess you’d call it, more than a few times before. There’s always one of the team there. So your brother or sister doesn’t wake up alone. Or face the dark alone. They might not know you’re there, but you know. That’s what matters. And when everyone in a unit is committed that way, then, when the shit starts hitting the fan and you look around the hole or the hooch or the bunker and you see the fear of death in everyone else’s eyes, you can still hold on to something: each other. It’s the knowledge that we will not break. That our bond is stronger than the death facing us. It has to be, otherwise all hope is lost.”
Rulaine leaned back against the smooth, metallic wall of the Third Silver Tower. “You see, Ms. Veriden, it’s not just about honor and fellowship and brotherhood. It’s about survival, too. You tend the bonds that keep you strong, and not just for yourself or your fallen friend, but for the morale, the sense of unity, that binds the whole unit.” He folded his hands, leaned forward, stared at the oval fusion of machine and plant that held Riordan. “And you tend them most, well, punctiliously, at times like this.”
Veriden physically started when Rulaine used the word “punctiliously.” “You’re not just a grunt, are you, Major?”
Bannor shook his head. “Ms. Veriden, that question is wrong in so many ways, including the mere asking of it, that I don’t know where to begin.”
She frowned. “Yeah. I guess that was pretty shitty. Sorry. Didn’t mean it that way.”
Rulaine resisted the urge to ask, “Then just how did you mean it?” and instead speculated that Dora Veriden probably had a long history of putting her foot in her mouth. She did not have a winning way with people and seemed uninterested in improving the related skill sets. Of course, she was a solo operator, so maybe that lack of reliance upon, or even toleration of, other people was a professional advantage. She wouldn’t have been the first field agent whose specialization had been driven by inborn predispositions and personality traits. He turned toward her. “So did you come to keep me company?” As if.
She actually seemed a bit abashed. “No. I’ve got some news.”
“Oh?”
“Thanks to our forensics fan Peter Wu, Ben Hwang found some weird critter in a hermetic cell sealed inside Macmillan’s right boot. Turned to goo the moment he breached the little chamber.”
Bannor nodded. “Like the one you found on Danysh’s body, after the shuttle crashed?”
“Just like that one. Hwang tried to get it into a sealed container, evacuate the air. Didn’t do it in time; after an hour, it was paste. Just like the other one.”
“What else?”
“We found one live clone. We’re delaying the debrief until you give input.”
“No more wounded? Just one alive and the rest dead? That’s pretty peculiar.”
Veriden shook her head. “Not so peculiar when they kill their own. Seven or eight were maimed or incapacitated by the rockets; a few by gunfire. All stabbed in the heart. Real professional, too.”
Bannor nodded. Professionals, indeed. He would have liked to tell Veriden that the moment O’Garran saw the corpses of the two enemy leaders — one by the shuttle, the other in the clearing — he’d identified them as Ktor. But Veriden wasn’t cleared to know that the Ktor were humans, yet. And might never have that clearance. But the charade of Ktor being subzero, ammonia-based worms was beginning to wear perilously thin. “Debriefing that clone should be very revealing,” Bannor observed.
“Should be,” Veriden observed with a nod, “as well as tracking down all the serial numbers on all the equipment. But we already know what ship he, and that armored shuttle, were from: the Arbitrage.”
Rulaine frowned. “Isn’t the Arbitrage a CoDevCo shift-carrier? Their newest?”
Veriden nodded. “It is. Which is going to make questioning the clone all that much more interesting.”
A long silence passed. The distant hum of the medical monitors at Riordan’s bedside — or would that be podside? — was the only sound.
Veriden sighed, leaned forward so her head was parallel with Rulaine’s. “That’s all the news I’ve got to report.”