"For sterilization procedures, of course," Seg murmured approvingly.
"And Seg, take everything you can think of. Once you're sealed in I don't want to keep opening that outer hatch any more than necessary."
!T'sel nodded solemnly.
"I understand and approve, Captain."
"I will accompany you," Joseph said.
Didn't ask my permission, this time. He'd always been careful of such courtesies before.
"You will also wear a suit, Joe."
He glanced at her in mild surprise and then nodded once. Meaning, it's still my ship.
"Yes, Captain," he said and followed Seg.
"Rand? Give me a multiple close-up on the pod."
"Yes, Joat."
Rand flashed four different views of the Kolnari escape pod. Then he brought each view to maximum magnification. The surface was some pebbled synthetic.
"Good," Joat said. "Polarized?"
"Most probably, from the composition-single-molecule silicon and carbon composite," Rand said.
"So far, we're in the clear," Alvec said, watching the Kolnari fleet on his screen. "No one's following, no weapons firing. Looks like we're safe." His voice had a flat, low-affect deadness to it.
"We're not leaving him there," Joat said. "We got Amos out, we'll get Sperin out."
He turned his chair around, his face like a lugubrious hound's.
"Boss, they wanted us to take Amos," he said gently.
"I know that." It was moments like this that you realized Alvec was a very dangerous man.
Joat turned to watch the pod. Behind her, Alvec smiled slowly as he studied the set of her face and the way she held her shoulders. He could almost feel sorry for the Kolnari fleet.
Bros was escorted down long, narrow corridors smelling of dry, recycled air and the metallic-spicy Kolnari body scent. The light was harsh enough to make him squint and the gravity was tangibly heavier than Earth standard. The temperature varied wildly, from chilly to a more common dry baking heat. He was uneasily aware that things he couldn't sense might well be killing him slowly; heavy-metal salts, strong UV, radiation… the Kolnari's ancestors had adapted to them, on their hell-planet. But that had taken generations, and they were still a short-lived race.
By the time they locked him into a spartan cell he was panting slightly and a fine sheen of sweat slicked his brow. He turned to take in his surroundings. Two bunks that folded down from the wall, a sink, and a toilet. The light was recessed into the ceiling, well out of his reach, even if he tried for it from the upper bunk. Clever. He assumed it would never go out.
Bros examined the bare walls, looking for the surveillance equipment. It was there, he knew, but it certainly wasn't obvious.
"Clever," he murmured to himself, running his fingers over the slick metal-fiber composite. Not quite state-of-the-art, but they're good engineers in their way. Probably spy-eyes and holo-projectors combined. He went to the tap and drank deeply, ignoring the unpleasant chemical smell and taste of the water, and the high salt content. The latter at least would be beneficial; he could feel the dry heat wicking moisture out of his skin.
Hands on his hips, he turned and looked at the closed hatch. Then, with a wry twist of his lips, he went over and tried it. Locked. Ah, well, it was too much to hope for, he thought. The Kolnari are big, but they're not dumb.
Not that he could easily escape anyway. They'd made him strip down to his underwear, even taking his socks. Weirdly enough, though, they'd let him keep his boots.
He went over and pulled down the lower bunk, sat and leaned his bare back against the cool white wall.
With a harsh sssnnnaaapp!, a jolt of electricity sent him leaping from the bunk.
As he reached for the burn on his back a woman's voice said calmly: "Sitting or lying on the bunk is forbidden until lights out."
"Yyyouu bitch!" Bros muttered, gently touching a rising blister.
There would be no lights out. Of that he was absolutely certain. Clearly Belazir had long-term plans for him.
He wondered if he dared to sit on the floor. Then he sighed. No, I'll wait until I'm tired. No sense in getting a burnt butt before I have to. He glanced at the commode. Oh no, not unless I'm desperate. There was no reason to start that phase of his torment before he absolutely had to.
Bros stood in the center of his cell, breathing deeply, his eyes closed, attempting to put himself into a trance state to make the time pass more quickly.
A little corner of himself wondered how long it would take for him to want to die.
Seg leaned closer to the life pod and read the bio-display on the capsule's external screen. It showed that the being within was alive, conscious and in good health. Naturally the computer couldn't show if Amos, assuming it was Amos, was infected with an unknown disease. But, encouragingly, the brain scan showed no anomalies.
Joseph swore softly, unused to reading through the restricted view of an EVA helmet and not certain he fully understood what he was reading anyway.
"It looks good," Seg told him. "His brain scan appears normal."
"Let us open the capsule then," Joseph insisted. "I must know that it is the Benisur Amos."
"Joe," Joat's voice halted him, "check the capsule for booby traps first. They might have rigged it with explosives. Perhaps that's how they intended to spread the disease."
"And what harm to us could that be in this chamber, in these suits?"
"Amos might get hurt," she said reasonably.
He cooled down instantly. Joat was right. He must not let his emotions destroy his caution. He would proceed slowly, Amos's life was in the balance.
Joseph examined every inch of the outside of the capsule; Seg worked with him, using a sonic scan and circuit-tracer. A cable snaked out of the wall and put Rand in control of the internal circuits.
"Nonstandard design," the AI said. "But simple and straightforward. The controls are exactly what they seem to be."
Unless they contain a trap so subtle… Joseph thought, then forced his mind away from the infinite-reduction series.
Seg was having better luck with the bio-readouts than Joseph was with his devices. Life-pods were constructed to be impervious to virtually everything an unfriendly universe could throw at them, including probes, some of which could be deadly to living tissue.
By connecting his own diagnostic devices to those contained in the pod Seg was able to determine that Amos was in very good health. Whatever indignities he'd suffered at Belazir's hands, gross physical torture hadn't been among them.
"No damage to the myelin sheaths," Seg said. "His nervous system has not been overloaded."
"I have done all that I can," Joseph announced at last. "I can find no evidence of trickery here." He ran his hand over the top of his helmet in a nervous gesture, as though stroking his blond mane. "Surely it would make no sense for them to do something violent. If they had planned for the disease to spread by stealth they would want people to rush in to see Amos, to touch him… and each other." His lips thinned. "Let us open this and see what they have done."
"I agree," Joat said, smiling wryly as Joseph gave a little start at the sound of her voice. Poor Joe, she thought, he's freaked. This is so hard for him.
Seg nodded and stepped aside, allowing Joseph to open the pod.
The seals released with a hiss of air and the unit snapped open along its length.