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CHAPTER IX

Red Rash



Ages lost in time.

Located far below the Undercity, the Down Deep included passages older than the history of humanity on Raylicon. Whatever had created this vast labyrinth had vanished like the sea above, its memory lost in the misty passage of time.

The air felt icy on Bhaaj’s face. Silence reigned; even the distant sound of dripping water had faded. Blue swirls glowed everywhere, feathering along the walls, the ground and the stalactites that hung far above like giant icicles. Sparkling crystals encrusted every surface, especially the columns that supported the high ceilings. Despite their age, the engravings that graced those pillars remained clear, never eroded by wind or scoured by sand. Great winged lizards curled around them like the mythical dragons of Earth.

Singing drifted into the silence.

Max, Bhaaj thought. Can you amp up my ears?

Done, Max answered.

The music became clearer. Somewhere far away, a chorus was singing The Lost Sky. Even with no words other than “ah,” the haunting melody evoked a dying world where the seas had dried up and the air had too little oxygen. It mourned the loss of the sky for those long-dead empaths who had retreated under the ground to protect their vulnerable minds from a cruel twist of genetics. The song echoed along the aqueducts, magnified by the extraordinary acoustics. And therein lay the other reason Imperial Space Command, or ISC, coveted the Undercity. Something about the unique design of the aqueducts nurtured those who lived here, those Kyle operators who could help them protect the vast numbers of humanity spread across space.

Bhaaj didn’t understand. Well, sure, they all knew that whatever alien beings had brought humans to this world had vanished six thousand years ago. They’d left nothing behind but their ruined starships—until that day when the EI called Oblivion awoke in those ancient vessels.

Oblivion.

Humans had learned almost nothing about the massive EI, only that Oblivion destroyed the race that kidnapped their ancestors from Earth. Why did Oblivion stay dormant for so long? One fact became clear: whoever had built the ancient starships had managed to knock out the EI even as it killed them. They protected their human cargo at the cost of their own existence. So humanity survived, stranded on the alien, hostile world of Raylicon.

Six millennia later, the ever-increasing digital signals produced by humanity prodded the EI awake. Oblivion did not like competition. It went the EI equivalent of bat-crazy and tried to obliterate what created those signals—by jumping into the Kyle network. From there, it could have spread its tentacles of digital malevolence across settled space and ended every one of its rivals, from the great star-spanning meshes to the tiniest picowebs. In the process, it would’ve erased almost everything created by the human race—including humanity. It damn near succeeded. In the end, they managed to delete Oblivion before it went on its EI rampage, but just barely. And what gave them that tiny but telling edge?

The Undercity, it seemed.

During their battle against Oblivion, something ancient stirred in the aqueducts. Not a thing, a—a what? The people sang, almost every adult and child, their voices rising together. That chorus reverberated throughout the aqueducts, amplified until its haunting music flooded the Undercity, the Maze, the Down Deep. It poured through the forever network of spaces beneath the desert until it reached the ancient starships—where it crashed like a gigantic tsunami of sound into Oblivion.

The flood of sound weakened Oblivion enough that the mesh experts managed to erase it just slightly faster than it could recover. Maybe the effect came from the wave properties of the song, the unique waveforms it created in that vast network of aqueducts. Except it wasn’t just sound. It blended with the minds of the people creating it, all those Kyle operators, their neural signatures subtly different from normal humans. Individually their brain waves remained weak, but together their influence became something new, a power humanity needed to understand. On that day, Bhaaj realized the truth, as did the few people within ISC who witnessed the battle. The aqueducts helped protect humanity in ways they had just begun to understand. They couldn’t risk destroying this buried civilization that might hold secrets to the survival of interstellar civilization.

Unfortunately, when Oblivion vanished, so did any record of its origins. They had no idea if only one such EI existed or if others slumbered throughout the stars. Its existence became the best-kept secret of ISC. They couldn’t risk the interstellar meshes coming alive with speculation or panic, or even worse, that people would search for another such EI. No one knew what might rouse such a sleeping mammoth. They might not be lucky enough to survive the next time.

Today the song drifting in the distance offered nothing so dramatic, just music made by the people for themselves, a creation of beauty simply for the joy of the experience.

“You hear?” Bhaaj asked, speaking to no one in particular.

Paul Franco answered. “Yah. Many voices.”

“Maybe.” Tower paused. “Pretty.”

“I don’t hear anything,” Captain Morah said.

“I can hear it with my audio implants activated,” Lavinda said. “It’s gorgeous.”

“Yah. Called ‘Lost Sky,’” Byte-2 commented. “Ruzik sing. Sounds good.”

Bhaaj smiled. “Ruzik sang it for slicks.”

“Eh.” Ruzik waved his hand in dismissal.

Bhaaj wondered if he realized the importance of what he’d done. He’d only sung it for the woman checking in teams at the Selei City marathon, so the race officials could record an anthem for the Undercity. “The Lost Sky” had played while Angel received her gold medal. Although the Selei City Open wasn’t a top marathon, it made the local news and a few offworld sportscasts, which meant now anyone could listen to the song in recordings of the ceremony.

Bhaaj was no expert on the music business, but she’d had enough sense to protect the song. She’d registered “The Lost Sky” with herself as the publishing liaison. That way, no one could claim that spectacular piece of music as their own and make millions on it, giving nothing to the aqueducts. If they wanted to license the piece, they had to arrange it with her. Not that anyone had ever expressed interest, but you never knew.

“Oh!” Captain Morah said. “Yes, I hear it now. Goddess, that’s beautiful.”

“Lovely,” Lieutenant Warrick said. “It’s so sad, though. Like weeping.”

“The City of Cries,” Lavinda murmured.

Bhaaj glanced at her. “Some people think that name originated in the aqueducts.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised.” Lavinda spoke dryly. “The Cries tourism bureau wants to change it. They think it discourages people from visiting.”

“A city that weeps,” Bhaaj mused. Or it could mean a city full of people crying out. That didn’t seem any better for enticing tourists to come and spend their money, though.

Abruptly the music cut off. Silence descended like a weight.

“Why’d they stop?” Lieutenant Warrick asked.

“Know we come,” Paul told her.

They continued on, following a tunnel lit by swirls of living light. The passage ended at a room shaped like a perfect octagon, about forty paces across. Each of the eight walls had an archway in its center, offering exits to eight tunnels that stretched away into the darkness.

A man stood in the archway across from them. Barefoot and wearing only a tunic and trousers with their cuffs gathered at his ankles, he looked as if he should be freezing. Yet he seemed unaffected by the cold. His face glowed with the same blue luminance as Bhaaj’s skin.

The man nodded to Karal Rajindia with respect. “Welcome, Healer.” His gesture took in all of them. “Come with.”

So they went with him, increasing their ever-growing troupe to eleven people. The tunnel he followed resembled the one they’d just left, enough that Bhaaj suspected she’d get lost without Max’s flair for mapmaking. Good thing they wouldn’t be here long; eventually the algae would muck up even his ability to track their route.

The new tunnel ended at an opening that formed a circle in the ground, the entrance to a spiral stairwell descending into shadows. The glyphs engraved around the circle displayed ancient Iotic symbols for the god Azu Bullom.

Jaguar, Bhaaj thought. After Earth’s lost children had found the world of humanity’s origins, they’d tried to figure out where they’d come from. Even knowing Azu Bullom looked like a jaguar, or maybe another large cat, they had no luck. Six thousand years ago, no known language on Earth resembled Iotic. The planet wasn’t even in the right position in the galaxy to match the patchy records in the starship ruins. Maybe the records were wrong. Maybe they’d never know the truth.

They filed down the stairwell one at a time, around and around. The silence seemed heavy with the masses of land above them. Mercifully, they soon stepped into a large open area at the bottom of the well. No dust covered the stony ground; either the Deepers swept it clean or the dust that appeared everywhere in the Undercity didn’t drift into levels this deep.

A large cavern stretched before them. Light swirls glowed everywhere in pastel colors, not only blue, but also rose, gold, lavender and pale green. Stone columns supported the ceiling, some built by architects and others created from stalagmites that rose from the floor and stalactites that hung from the ceiling until the formations joined into pillars. High above them, the ceiling formed a mesh of stone lace. All these spectacular formations had to date from a time before humanity came to this dying world; it would take eons for the mineral-laden liquid to create this cathedral-like cavern. Here and there, water still trickled from the ceiling, enough to create a sparkling mist when drops hit the rocks and sprayed into the air.

People were everywhere, talking in groups, walking among the glimmering columns, doing upkeep on the cavern, or coaxing algae into artwork on the stone. Not only did their skin glow, but their clothes also glistened with sparks of light, probably algae picked up from the air. The cavern went on a long way, until the distant people resembled ghostly spirits floating among the pillars. The singing had begun again, and it drifted through the cavern like harmonies from a chorus of angels.

Their group stood together, staring in silence. Lavinda’s reaction was so intense that Bhaaj felt her shock even through her mental barriers. She’d never imagined a miracle like this cavern.

It seemed impossible to Bhaaj that any of her own DNA descended from this ethereal world. She was all dust, jagged edges, and fists. Nothing of this grace could exist within her war-torn heart.

Paul Franco motioned to them. “Come. Must hurry.”

As they crossed the cavern, people turned to look, watching their group with unusually large eyes, another trait Bhaaj shared with them. Also like them, her pupils could expand until they seemed to fill her irises, gifting her with exceptional nighttime vision. They easily contracted in sunlight, though, letting her see fine then as well. Pure Deepers couldn’t adjust to brighter light; they needed shades to protect their vision.

When they reached the far side of the cavern, Paul led them around a stone curtain. Beyond it, they entered the closest equivalent to a hospital in the Deep. The eight beds in the large room consisted of tooled stone slabs softened by rugs and woven blankets, and a wide ledge along one wall that provided room for two more beds. No dust showed anywhere; whoever tended the hospital kept it meticulously clean. Tapestries hung on the walls, rich with abstract designs in blue and lavender, many surrounded with bioluminescent swirls, providing what little light the Deepers needed. The song from the chorus swirled through the room, richer here, as if it laid a soothing balm on any patients who sought help in this lost, buried place.

People occupied every bed. One man seemed all right, sitting up as he drank from a stone mug. Only traces of a rash showed on his skin. The other nine patients, however, looked terrible. The red rash covered their arms, faces, and other exposed skin. Some lay without moving, staring at the ceiling, but most seemed asleep or in a coma.

Karal turned to Paul. “I thought only three were sick.”

His face had gone pale. “Yah. One day ago. Only three.”

A woman was approaching them from the room. Tendrils of her curly hair straggled around her face and exhaustion darkened her eyes. Walking with a slow tread, she seemed like she hadn’t seen a good sleep in days. Her blue tunic and trousers were the same color as those worn by Undercity healers, including Karal Rajindia.

Paul nodded as the healer came up to them, then motioned at the room. “What happen?”

“Bad.” The woman’s voice cracked. “Two more die.”

“Bad water?” Karal asked.

The woman glanced at her with a start. “Must be. Not know where.”

Bhaaj pushed her hand through her hair. The last thing this healer needed was a crowd of people hulking around her infirmary. Although the woman wouldn’t accept charity from them, a bargain should work here.

“Got prop,” Bhaaj said, using the more common word for proposal. It wasn’t a bargain until the other party agreed the terms.

The healer turned toward her, then jerked and straightened up. “Eh. The Bhaaj.”

The three-word greeting didn’t surprise Bhaaj. Although most everyone in the aqueducts knew her name, people never used it without permission. Instead, they put “The” in front of it, making it a title.

“Prop what?” the healer asked.

“We help.” Bhaaj indicated Lavinda. “In return, let her watch.” She had no intention of asking Lavinda to do anything except go home as soon as possible. However, the healer here only had to accept the bargain, not observe it happening.

“Yah. Help good. Queen can watch.” The woman didn’t even try to negotiate. Nor did she seem to care that Lavinda and her three guards were above-city intruders. That more than anything told Bhaaj just how serious the situation had become.

“Come.” With no more ado, the healer turned toward the infirmary, motioning for them to follow. Karal and Paul joined her, bringing their packs with medical supplies.

Lavinda spoke in a low voice to Bhaaj. “What’s going on? I didn’t get all of that.”

“They have a contaminated water source somewhere. It caused an outbreak of the rash.” Bhaaj was furious at herself. It shouldn’t have taken a crisis like this to convince the Deepers to seek help. She should have tried harder to reach them. Every time it seemed like she’d made progress, something happened to show how far she had yet to go. No one could fix generations of poverty in a few years, but sometimes it felt like she was slogging in quicksand, slowly sinking into its depths.

So how do I go on from here? Bhaaj thought.

Are you talking to me? Max asked.

What? Oh, no. Actually, yes. Any ideas for our next move?

Make sure the army doesn’t decide they need to come rescue Colonel Majda.

No kidding. Although most of the brass in ISC had no wish to destroy what made this world unique, a few of them wanted to remove Undercity Kyle operators from the aqueducts, breed them, and raise their kids as government wards. Given a reason, like a life-threatening disease, they might gain support.

I doubt most ISC brass want to kidnap babies, Max told her.

They might think of it as something else. Could they “rescue” psions from here and force them to work for ISC?

It doesn’t seem likely, Max answered. It takes years of study and mental discipline to train a telop. They know an unwilling Kyle can simply refuse to “think.” Trying to coerce them can also damage their ability to manage the neurologically intensive demands of the work.

“Bhaaj?” Lavinda was watching her face. “What is it?”

She focused on the colonel. “We should go back to the Undercity.”

“These people need our help.”

“Lavinda, listen,” Bhaaj said. “This is more serious than I realized. We’ve gone beyond what your sister approved for this visit. I’ll feel a lot better when we get you somewhere safer.” In her side vision, she saw Paul approaching them.

“I can help here.” Lavinda sounded frustrated. “Let me.”

Paul came up to them. “Need new mech to filter water,” he told Bhaaj. “I get.”

No surprise there. If people were drinking contaminated water, their filtration equipment was probably damaged. “We go with you.”

“Wait,” Lavinda told her. “At least let me look around. You have my word I won’t intrude. Any offers of help I come up with, I’ll suggest to you first. We’ll figure out if we can make it work.” She motioned with her hand, her gesture taking in all the infirmary. “How can we convince your people that I represent anything they’d want to join if I run any time the situation gets a little tricky?”

Well, damn. Lavinda was offering exactly what Bhaaj had hoped this visit would bring, a willingness to meet and understand the people of the aqueducts on their own terms. She spoke carefully. “I greatly appreciate your offer. It’s just—I can’t guarantee your safety, especially this far below the surface. If something happens, I’m the one who will answer to General Majda.”

“Not you,” Lavinda said. “Vaj may hate my choices, but she knows they are my choices, not yours. And hell, I’m not the heir or even the spare now that my sisters have their own daughters. I’m seventh in line to the throne. If something happens to me, it won’t affect the Majda succession. Vaj may not want me in danger, but for her, family plays a close second to duty. If my visit helps convince your people to work for ISC, she won’t insist I leave.” Wryly she added, “Most of the time she actually trusts my judgment.”

“She’s a, uh, daunting presence.” Bhaaj could think of many other words to describe the general, but daunting seemed the most diplomatic.

Lavinda smiled slightly. “This is true.”

“You stay, then?” Paul asked them.

“For now,” Bhaaj said. “You go. But leave trail through Maze, yah?” Although both Max and Raja had created maps of their route, it wouldn’t hurt to have a backup. The Deepers were even better at hiding from the Undercity than the Undercity was at hiding from Cries. “Make marks with blue swirls. Show path.”

Paul nodded, a keen intelligence in his dark eyes. “Is good.”

Karal had come up to them, listening. Now she said, “As soon as I finish treating patients who already have the rash, I’m going to vaccinate as many of the other Deepers who will let me.” She glanced at Ruzik’s gang and the Majda guards who all stood, listening and waiting. “Do any of you have vaccinations?”

“I do,” Ruzik said in the Cries dialect. “I got a lot of them when I went offworld.”

“I have for red rash,” Byte-2 said.

Tower scowled at Karal. “Not got. Not want.”

“Need,” Bhaaj told the looming Knight. The vaccine wouldn’t instantly protect her; it would take a while to become effective. But it could help.

Tower crossed her muscled arms, presenting a formidable appearance.

Bhaaj met her gaze and said nothing.

After a moment, Tower threw up her hands. “Fine,” she growled. “I take meds.”

Bhaaj nodded. Enough said.

With no fanfare, Karal took a disk off her belt. One by one, she scanned them all, even Paul, though she’d probably checked him plenty of times. She must have already set her equipment to deliver the vaccine, because after she checked Tower, she unhooked a med-syringe on her belt and gave the dust ganger an air-shot in her neck.

“Fuck!” Tower stepped back fast, raising her fists.

Karal froze, but she didn’t give ground, just met her angry stare.

“Eh.” Ruzik frowned at Tower. “Not hit healer.”

Tower glowered, but after a moment she lowered her fists and grunted at them all.

Karal turned to Lieutenant Warrick. “Your vaccine is old. I can update your meds.”

Warrick looked startled. “Thanks. I’d forgotten to get it checked.”

The doctor tapped a code into her air syringe, then gave Warrick a shot. Tower stopped scowling and looked satisfied to see the loud guard undergo the same treatment, which apparently Tower considered insulting.

Karal turned to Ruzik and his gang. “You all have the vaccine now, but none of you have a full set of health nanomeds. You should get them. I can do it in my clinic after we finish here.”

They all just looked at her. Bhaaj held back her sigh. She’d been working on them for over a year now. Ruzik had agreed to the meds he needed to travel offworld, but it only provided the minimum of what most Imperialate citizens took for granted. Tower and Byte-2 had nothing beyond the vaccine.

After waiting a moment, Karal said, “You’re all good for now. Just don’t drink any water here unless you’re sure it’s filtered.”

“We ken,” Bhaaj said. “Our thanks.”

With that, Karal took off, back to her patients, and Paul headed for the Undercity.

Lavinda motioned toward the cavern beyond the infirmary. “I saw a lot of people out there.” She hesitated. “Some seemed to have, well . . . I guess you could call them congenital abnormalities.”

Bhaaj’s pulse surged. You think?

Don’t get angry, Max thought. The lack of medical care here isn’t her fault.

Bhaaj waited a moment, then answered in an even voice. “The Deeper population is the most inbred on this world, maybe the most in the Imperialate. The rate of birth defects caused by that is high. Hell, it’s astronomical.” She lifted her hand, motioning Lavinda toward the cavern. “Karal can help, but she’s had trouble connecting with the people here.”

Lavinda nodded, her expression thoughtful. Or not thoughtful, exactly. What?

Remorse, Bhaaj realized. Rather than condemning the people who lived below the desert, as did most above-city types, the queen regretted the pain she saw here and felt responsible. Her reaction was like a cool breeze in the desert. Bhaaj ushered her out of the infirmary, accompanied by their gang of guards.

Bhaaj had hoped they’d blend in as they walked through the cavern, but no such luck. They towered over the Deepers. In the Undercity, people didn’t grow as tall as in Cries, an effect that became even more pronounced here, driven by malnutrition. Although aqueduct farmers altered plants to survive in the darkness, their crops never flourished. For all that Bhaaj had resented the orphanage, they’d kept her from starving in her first three years of life. Then came Dig. As much as Dig had hated it when her mother pressured her to do cartel jobs, she’d agreed in return for food and water for her circle, more than Bhaaj had realized back then. The spoils of her mother’s corrupted wealth had helped feed the circle Dig led, including her dust gang.

Another difference hit Bhaaj. Few of the Deepers carried weapons; the knives on their belts looked more like tools. No guns showed anywhere. In contrast, Bhaaj openly wore her shoulder holster with its pulse gun, and she also had her spy drones, both Red and Blue. Every person in her group came armed. Even with the eight of them bristling with weapons, though, none of the Deepers paid them any heed.

A group of teens had gathered around a rocky stump, resting their bottles of filtered water on its flat top. They laughed, gossiped, and flirted like any other kids. Their voices had a musical lilt, one that matched the distant singing drifting through the cavern, accenting their delicate beauty. One of the girls had only one leg from the knee down and leaned on a makeshift cane. A boy had veins visible on his arms, his appearance as fragile as an aging senior. Another girl had only three fingers on one hand. Yet they didn’t seem to notice. They sounded so vibrant, so full of life, that Bhaaj wanted to weep.

“Goddess,” Lavinda said in a low voice.

“Yah.” Bhaaj couldn’t hide the bitterness in her voice.

“How do your people survive?” Lavinda asked. “After a few generations, wouldn’t inbreeding kill off the population?”

Bhaaj spoke stiffly. “Changelings. Like me.”

The colonel glanced at her. “What?”

“Changeling. It means one parent comes from the Deep and the other from the Undercity.”

“And that widens the gene pool?” Lavinda asked. “Less inbreeding?”

Bhaaj did not want to have this conversation. She spoke curtly. “That’s right.”

“Your mother came from here, didn’t she?”

“Possibly.” Bhaaj steered the topic away from herself. “If a mother comes from the Undercity, she often goes back there to raise her child. It’s easier to survive. A Deeper father might go with her, but often not. Sometimes Deeper mothers go with an Undercity father, but they usually stay here. It’s hard for Deepers to live in the Undercity.”

“The Undercity doesn’t seem as inbred, though.”

Bhaaj wished she’d let it go. What she wanted didn’t matter, though. She’d proposed this trip to help the army better understand her people. If Lavinda’s questions bothered her, well, tough. “In the Undercity, we sometimes have children with people from Cries. It happens more often than with Deepers and the Undercity.”

“And your father?” Lavinda asked. “Where did he come from?”

Bhaaj’s reaction came out before she could stop it. “I’ve no fucking idea.”

“My apology,” Lavinda said. “I shouldn’t have pushed.”

Bhaaj walked in silence until her pulse settled, then said, “My apology. I’m just not used to talking about my ancestry.” Or lack thereof. It bothered her more than she ever wanted to admit, that sense of loss that came from having no blood family.

“Do you mind if I ask about your genetic tests?” Lavinda asked.

“You mean the genetic searches the army did when I joined up?” Bhaaj shrugged. “They didn’t find anyone who shared my DNA.”

“Nothing at all?” Lavinda stared at her. “How could that be? We have access to almost every Skolian alive.”

She wondered if the colonel realized the privacy violations she’d just implied. Then again, Bhaaj had no illusions about how thoroughly ISC could infiltrate the lives of their own citizens. She spoke in a casual voice, pretending she didn’t care. “It just means my parents came from the aqueducts. Before Doctor Rajindia opened her clinic here, we were off the grid. Even now, almost no genetic data exists on our populations.” Before Lavinda could follow up with the obvious question, Bhaaj added, “And no, I’ve never found any other relatives here, either.”

“I’m sorry.” Mercifully, Lavinda let it go at that.

As they continued to walk, Bhaaj watched other people passing through the cavern, headed to where they worked, lived, or relaxed. A few groups had gathered in this communal area, socializing among the glimmering rock formations. Could anyone here offer a hint about her parents? Until recently, she’d been too busy repressing her knowledge of her birth to look. In her youth, a few rumors had floated around that her mother came from the Deep, but she’d never heard squat about her father. It was as if he appeared out of nowhere, got her mother pregnant, and then vanished.

Lavinda motioned to several women working on a translucent wall. They were coaxing the algae on its rippled surface into artwork, the colors blending like waves along the stone.

“That’s lovely,” Lavinda said.

“Yah.” The artistry of her people never stopped amazing Bhaaj, given her zero talent. Ask her to solve an engineering puzzle and yah, she could conquer it, no problem. That seemed less, though, than the creations of these painters. What inspiration allowed them to see how those swirls fit together, blending, ending, reforming, drawing your gaze along their lines with such a grace? It was like another language, one she’d never learn to speak.

“Do you think the painters would talk to us?” Lavinda asked.

“Maybe.” Bhaaj led her toward the artists with all their guards in tow. None of the Deepers reacted to their abrupt change in path. In the Undercity, dust gangs would’ve already made quick work of the intruders, mugging them, and then sending them running for the surface. The Deepers didn’t even notice.

I think they notice, Max thought. They just communicate with moods.

Bhaaj rubbed her aching temple. I do feel a pressure on my mind. It gives me a headache.

They may be trying to reach you. You’re the only one among your group who looks like them, at least in part, with the way your skin glows.

Bhaaj just shook her head. Even if she’d known how to respond when an empath tried to reach her, she had no desire to open herself up that way.

They stopped a few steps away from the artists. One painter looked up, a woman with the rare green eyes that occurred only among the Deepers. To Bhaaj, she said, “Eh?”

Bhaaj nodded to her artwork. “Good draw.”

The woman returned her nod, accepting the high praise, then went back to work. Bhaaj glanced at Lavinda and tilted her head. When Lavinda started to speak, Bhaaj gave the barest shake of her head. They headed onward in silence.

After a while, Lavinda said, “I take it she didn’t want to speak with us.”

“Actually, she did.” With a wry smile, Bhaaj added, “What you heard qualifies as a conversation.”

“Oh.” Lavinda squinted at her. “Sometimes down here I feel like a bull stumbling around a museum full of porcelain vases.”

Bhaaj thought of ISC. At least Lavinda cared. “You’re fine. No problems.”

They spent several hours exploring the cavern. None of the Deepers spoke with Lavinda, but many “chatted” briefly with Bhaaj. They weren’t hostile, just wary of their visitors.

Bhaaj watched a father limping toward the hospital with his small daughter. Both showed signs of the rash. “We should go back to the infirmary. See if Karal is ready to make use of us.”

“Yes, let’s go see.” Lavinda sounded subdued.

The hospital was even more crowded than when they’d left. Patients and equipment packed the room, including the mini-clinic Karal had set up, a square of four consoles and other medical equipment. Karal was leaning over a patient on a bed. Even from so far away, Bhaaj could tell the doctor was upset.

Heartbroken.

As Karal pulled a sheet over her patient’s head, Bhaaj’s comm hummed.

“Not now,” Bhaaj muttered. She stabbed her finger at her gauntlet comm. “What?”

Karal looked up at them from across the room, her gaze going to Bhaaj.

Paul’s voice came out of the comm. “Found good filter mech.”

Huh. Why call her instead of Karal? The doctor was coming toward them, so Bhaaj said, “Talk to Kar, yah?”

“Can’t reach,” Paul said. “Not answer talky.”

“She here.” As the doctor joined them, Bhaaj extended her comm to the healer.

“Paul?” Karal asked.

He answered in a warmer voice. “Eh, Kar. Got good filter mech. I come back.”

“Nahya!” Karal’s voice shook, and her left fist clenched the cloth of her trousers. “Not come back! Stay away. Stay alone.”

Bhaaj stared at her. In the same moment that she said, “What the blazes?” Lavinda said, “Why not?” and Paul said, “Not make sense.”

Karal spoke urgently to him. “I check you. When you leave. Not sick. Good. Stay alone now. You feel sick, let me know.”

“You not answer talky.” Paul sounded baffled.

“Will answer,” Karal promised. “Was—caught up in stuff.”

“What stuff?” Paul asked.

Good question. Bhaaj said, “Karal, what’s going on?”

The doctor glanced at her, but then she turned and spoke to Lavinda. “I’m sorry,” she told the Majda queen. “I had no idea.”

“About what?” Lavinda asked. “Are you saying this isn’t an outbreak of carnelian rash?”

“It’s the rash.” Karal made no attempt to hide the fear in her voice. “It’s a mutation, a strain I’ve never seen. This version doesn’t just spread through water. It can infect people with airborne particles. It’s highly contagious.” She took a shaky breath. “You’ve all been exposed.”

Bhaaj felt as if the doctor had socked her in the stomach. “How bad is it?”

Karal spoke grimly. “Since we’ve arrived, five more people have come in and we just had another death. Already we have a twenty percent fatality rate, and we’re at the start of the outbreak.” Her voice had a ragged edge. “More of these people are going to die, maybe a lot of them.”

Lavinda stared at her. “Can’t you treat them? Carnelian rash is easy to cure.”

“I’m trying!” Karal practically shouted the word, a reaction all the more frightening because in all the years Bhaaj had known her, she’d never seen the doctor lose her calm.

Karal inhaled deeply, then spoke in a quieter voice. “My treatments don’t work on this variant. I can slow the progress of the disease, but not cure it. For some people, it barely helps.” She watched them with a hollowed gaze. “If we can’t stop this, it could wipe out the entire Deeper population.”


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Framed