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CHAPTER XII

Passing to the Light



“You sure?” Karal asked. “Not rash? Fever? Cough?”

Paul spoke patiently, his voice coming from the comm on Karal’s med-bracelet. “Am fine. Not have red rash.”

Karal closed her eyes, her gratitude almost palpable. She’d sat at one of the four consoles that formed the border of her mini-clinic, but right now she had no interest in her equipment, only Paul. Bhaaj stood with Ruzik outside the clinic, knowing they should go away to give Karal privacy, but too tired to move. They’d treated people for so many hours, they’d run out of supplies. Lavinda was still helping patients, offering water to a woman in a nearby bed. Byte-2 and Lieutenant Caranda both stood by the wall, staring at nothing, as if the simple act of remaining on their feet took what little remained of their energy.

“Is good,” Karal told Paul, her voice warming far more than people were supposed to show, but right now who the hell cared. Paul lived. He’d so far escaped the rash. They’d earned the right to show their relief.

“You stay in Undercity clinic,” Karal said. “Not go out. Not see anyone.”

“Yah,” Paul said. “Got food here. Water.”

“Good.” Karal thought for a moment. “Send me bot, yah? With supplies. I say what need.”

“Can do,” Paul said. “Tam say she come down. Bring stuff.”

“Tam!” Bhaaj smacked her palm against her forehead, finally remembering the runner they’d arranged to carry messages in case their comms stopped working. “I forgot to tell her not to come!”

“I tell,” Ruzik said. “She knows.” He switched into Skolian Flag. “I also told the Knights about the thieves who tried buzz us. They found all three and have them quarantined.” Dryly he added, “With themselves.”

Bhaaj let out a breath, relieved at least one of them still had a working brain. “Those thieves probably don’t have the rash. Neither you nor Tower ever went near Paul, and we hadn’t reached the Deep. You probably hadn’t yet been exposed.”

Paul spoke over Karal’s comm. “Tam say she never get red rash.”

“All can get rash,” Karal said.

“Tam say that not true,” Paul persisted. “Drank water with rash. Long time ago. Others in circle did too. Sister die. Circle boys die. Hoshma die. Tam not get sick.”

Karal glanced at Bhaaj. “Have you ever heard of someone being immune to carnelian rash?”

“I don’t know.” Bhaaj paused. “We’ve had outbreaks in the Undercity, though I don’t recall any this bad. When I was a kid, I never asked anyone who didn’t get sick if they drank unfiltered water. It didn’t occur to me.”

“Even now, not everyone in the aqueducts realizes that’s where it comes from.” Karal spoke into her comm. “Paul, do scan on Tam, yah? I tell how. Send scan with supplies.”

“Why?” he asked.

“I find out why she not get rash.”

“Better I send Tam,” he said, as patient as always.

“Nahya! Not send person! Just robot.”

“I ken.” His voice softened. “Stay good, eh?”

“You too,” Karal murmured.

After Karal signed off, she glanced at Bhaaj. “Paul knows how to program the bot that the cyber-riders built for me. He can code it to follow the path he marked in the Maze.” She sounded like she was trying to convince herself more than anyone else. “We’ll have more supplies soon.”

“Good.” Bhaaj glanced around the infirmary. It was eerily quiet despite the many patients. Mercifully, a few had recovered enough to go home.

Far more had passed away.


Temple.

A few healthy Deepers who’d brought their ailing kin to the infirmary offered to help carry the dead to the temple for cremation. Bhaaj did as well when they needed more muscle. The temple felt otherworldly to her, a fitting place to lay those who’d left this world. The hexagonal room had an airy, domed ceiling. Over the ages, the Deepers had engraved the walls with winged spirits. Luminous artwork swirled across the carvings, abstract and otherworldly, as if angels had brushed their wings over the stone and left a glimmering film of light.

Incense wafted from glazed vases in the corners. The smoke drifted to the ceiling and vanished, leaving only a faint scent, similar to sage and rosemary. A maze of conduits networked the stone above the temple all the way to the surface, weaving through tons of rock. That held true all over the Down Deep, indeed everywhere in the aqueducts. It bore witness to the brilliance of those long-vanished geniuses who’d built these ruins, not only that they could coax fresh air from the desert down to a place this deep, but also that their ventilation networks had survived for thousands of years.

The mourning Deepers released their dead here, giving them into the care of the few temple servers who hadn’t yet fallen to the rash, gentle monks in drifting robes, pale rose or blue. Afterward, Bhaaj walked to the infirmary in an aching silence, wondering if she should stop giving vaccines and start carrying more of the dead. With her large size and muscular build compared to the Deepers, she could better lift the bodies. It hurt, not physically but on a much deeper level.

As Bhaaj entered the infirmary, she saw Byte-2 leaning against a nearby wall. Even as she approached, he slowly let himself slide to the ground until he was sitting in a slumped posture. She quickened her pace and reached him in the same moment that Ruzik joined his brother.

“Byte?” Ruzik knelt next to him. “What wrong?”

“Tired.” Byte-2 closed his eyes. “So tired. . . .”

Ruzik pushed up his brother’s sleeves, revealing a full-blown rash. “Nahya!” His voice cracked. “I lead, brother. You do what I say. And I say nahya. Not get rash!”

Byte-2 answered in a voice they could barely hear. “Sorry . . .”

One word, and it felt like a punch in the gut to Bhaaj. They only apologized when it no longer mattered if you showed weakness. As with death. She knelt on his other side, across from Ruzik. Smoothing back the hair on Byte-2’s forehead, she said, “We get you better. Soon.”

“We treat.” Ruzik looked up at Bhaaj. “When new supplies come.”

“Yah.” Bhaaj clung to that hope. Except they’d already treated everyone in their party twice. She knew it and Ruzik knew it. “You?” she asked Ruzik.

He showed her his arms, revealing smooth skin. “Not got rash.”

“I have it,” a woman said behind them.

Bhaaj jumped to her feet even as she turned to face the speaker. Caranda stood there, her sleeves already rolled back. The rash had advanced all the way up her arms and was sending tendrils along her neck.

“Damn!” Lavinda came over to them. “How do you feel?”

Caranda let out a strained breath. “Tired.”

“You had full vaccinations, right?” Lavinda asked. “You were up to date on all of them?”

“Everything.” With that said, Caranda seemed to sag into herself. She didn’t try to continue, she just went to the nearest empty bed. As she lay down, Lavinda stepped over and helped her stretch out in as comfortable a position as you could manage when a painful rash covered parts of your body.

“The new supplies will be here soon.” Lavinda sounded desperate. “We’ll be treating you in no time.”

Caranda said nothing.

Bhaaj joined her and spoke in a low voice. “Do you have any signs of it?”

Lavinda met her gaze. “Nothing.”

“You have to let me know if you show symptoms,” Bhaaj said. “Don’t try to be strong and ignore it. We need to treat you again if they start.”

Lavinda pushed back her sleeves, showing the smooth skin of her arms. “Really. Nothing.”

Ruzik stood up, staying with his brother. “What about you?” he asked Bhaaj. “And not say ‘I’m fine.’ You always say. Never true.”

“I really am fine,” Bhaaj said.

“You look like you’ve run a marathon,” Lavinda said.

“Yah, I’m worn out. Who wouldn’t be?” Bhaaj showed them her arms, then tapped her neck and face. “No rash. No fever. No nothing.”

“Good.” Lavinda still sounded worried. She tilted her head toward Karal, who’d gone back to the holobooths and was again deep in conference with the Cries doctors. “Look at her hands.”

Bhaaj looked. The rash covered Karal’s fingers, showing beneath the cuffs of her shirt.

“Damn,” Ruzik said. He didn’t even try to hide the agony in his gaze.

Bhaaj struggled to make her exhausted brain think. The Down Deep healer had already passed. If they lost Karal, too, what would they do?

Lavinda was watching her closely. “We can get guidance from the doctors in Cries.”

“Not for long.” Bhaaj gestured at the mini-clinic. The images of the doctors sputtered continually in their booths now, sometimes phasing out altogether.

Lavinda’s comm hummed. She stabbed her finger at the panel. “Colonel Majda, here.”

“Lavinda, this is Vaj.” Her sister’s voice snapped out of the comm. She used her I’m not taking any nonsense voice. Static overlay her words, but they came through enough to distinguish. “We’re going to drill down . . . make a well . . . extract you. Get doctors . . . to these people.”

Lavinda stared at the comm as if it had sprouted horns. “Vaj, no! That could collapse this entire place, killing the very people you want to save.”

“Not as many as will die from this illness.”

“You could kill everyone,” Lavinda said. “Vaj, think about this. You wouldn’t drill a tunnel under towers in the city, right? They might fall. This is no different. Even if you make a small well, you risk destabilizing the spaces around it. Except if they fall, you could start a massive cave-in.”

“Those ruins have survived for six thousand years,” Vaj said through the static. “One well won’t bring them down.”

“You don’t know that,” Lavinda said. “The cartel war collapsed two of the largest canals and they were a lot closer to the surface.”

“We’ll be careful,” Vaj said. “We’ll find somewhere with less danger of falling.”

“How?” Lavinda demanded. “These people hide with stealth tech-mech that rivals anything the army uses.”

“Don’t be absurd,” Vaj said. “We have better sensors than a bunch of people in a slum.”

“Seriously?” Lavinda asked. “We can’t even find Bhaaj down here when she goes off grid.”

“Damn right,” Bhaaj muttered.

“Karal Rajindia still has an open line to the university,” Vaj said. “She’s on it right now. That’s how I knew to contact you. We need to use what remains of her signal to locate you before we lose that link altogether. It can guide us where to drill.”

“Vaj, NO!” Lavinda said in the same instant that Bhaaj said, “No! Don’t do it.

“You can’t come here,” Lavinda told her sister. “We’re in an infirmary and a cavern packed with patients. Only rock pillars hold up this place. Yes, it’s brilliantly designed, yes, it’s survived for thousands of years. That’s because the people who live here take care of it. That all ends if you start forcing new passages. You drill down through that much rock and the whole place might fall. You could bury hundreds of people and our only medical equipment. We’re at least half a kilometer below the surface. If that much rock comes down, you’ll never get us out.”

Vaj swore with a slew of creative oaths. “Then tell everyone in these aqueducts to turn off their blasted tech so we can find a safer access. Damn it, don’t they know we can help?”

Bhaaj spoke into Lavinda’s comm. “General, it isn’t one thing you can turn off. People use black market tech throughout the aqueducts. Even if every person who operates any form of it agreed to turn it off, which is unlikely, it could still take hours to reach enough of them to raise the tech-mech cloak that hides these spaces.”

“Major Bhaajan, is that you?” Vaj asked.

“Yah, it’s me.” Bhaaj kept her tone respectful, instead of cursing the way she wanted.

“Vaj, listen,” Lavinda said. “It isn’t just a fluke of neuroscience that makes the population here different. Everything about the way they live, their environment, even the algae and lack of light, it all goes into what makes them miracles. If you destroy that, you’ll destroy them. Why do you think they’ve hidden for thousands of years? They’re protecting themselves. We need them. We need the aqueducts the way they were designed, to do whatever they were designed to do with the people they were built for. You can’t endanger all that just to extract your sister.”

“You’re more than my sister,” Vaj said. “You’re important to the Imperialate.”

“Not really,” Lavinda said. “The army has plenty of colonels. I’m no financial genius like our sister Corejida. And I’m seventh in the line of succession. The most important person in our group isn’t me, it’s the one who serves as our liaison to the people we want to reach. Major Bhaajan.”

“Goddamn it,” Vaj said.

Yah, well, I don’t like you much either, Bhaaj thought. Although she didn’t agree with Lavinda about her supposed importance, they all knew the aqueducts needed a liaison, and right now Bhaaj was the only experienced candidate.

“Be reasonable,” Vaj told her sister. “If the doctors don’t find a cure, everyone will die.”

“It isn’t one hundred percent fatal,” Lavinda said. “People are recovering.”

Hope sparked in Vaj’s voice. “What percentage?”

“We don’t know yet,” Lavinda admitted. “At least ten percent.”

“Ten bloody percent?” Vaj said. “Are you saying the death rate is ninety percent?”

“No!” Lavinda took a breath. “So far, we’ve lost thirty to forty percent of the people who contracted the disease. But that’s only the people who’ve come here for help. How high it goes depends on how many other people either don’t get it or who recover.” She spoke unevenly. “Yes, it’s still a lot. But if you blast in down here, you could kill everyone, and not just from collapsing the place. Taking these people away from their world might kill them just like taking fish out of the water.”

“Lavinda—”

“Promise you won’t extract me,” Lavinda said.

It was a long moment before Vaj spoke. When she finally answered, she sounded drained. “Very well. You stay.”

“I do think you should contact the Ruby Pharaoh,” Lavinda added. “She needs to know what’s going on.”

“She knows,” Vaj said. “She’s in constant communication with us about it.”

“She might be able to help. Her DNA—”

“Enough.” Vaj didn’t seem angry, just worn out. “Yes, I understand what you want. But what good is any similarity in her DNA to the Deepers? We can’t risk testing the treatments on her.” She sounded oddly defeated, and Bhaaj didn’t think it had anything to do with the pharaoh. Vaj could protect an interstellar empire, commanding one of the most powerful armies in the history of the human race, yet she remained helpless to save her sister’s life.

“However,” Vaj added. “You and Doctor Rajindia have permission to talk to the research teams at the university about the pharaoh if it helps.”

Lavinda’s tensed posture eased. “Thank you.”

“Keep me updated.” That static had grown so loud, Vaj’s words barely came through.

“I will.” Lavinda spoke awkwardly. “Vaj, if I don’t see you again—” She took a breath. “Know that I love you.”

The general went silent. Then she spoke with a gentleness Bhaaj had never heard from her, never even known she could express. “And I you, my sister.”

With that, they signed off.

As Lavinda lowered her arm, Bhaaj tried to look anywhere else, pretending she hadn’t just heard their conversation. Ruzik had been standing back, far enough to give Lavinda privacy. When he saw she had finished, he came over to them. “Angel wants talk with you.”

Bhaaj tried to focus. “Angel?”

“Yah.” He lifted his arm, extending his gauntlet comm toward her.

“Eh, Angel.” It was all Bhaaj could manage.

“Eh, Bhaaj.” Angel’s voice came out of the comm. “Got idea.”

“Idea?”

“Am at Kyle job.” Static crackled over her voice. “This place, they are big on Kyle learning. Cries doctors talk to us about rash. About Kyle genes. These genes, they kill.”

“Yah. Some.” Bhaaj shrugged. She already knew the mutated DNA that gave rise to the Kyle traits could also cause problems. “Why look at this?”

Angel switched into the Cries dialect. “Not all the mutations have a negative effect.” Static interrupted her, then faded. “The medical EIs searched . . . one found a study . . . it shows a better immune response . . . a few of the Kyle mutations work against certain types of disease.”

“I didn’t get all that,” Bhaaj told her. “Do you mean Kyle operators don’t get carnelian rash?” That made no sense. The empaths were dying just like everyone else.

“Wait . . . try make better signal.” Angel’s voice became clearer. “The scientists who did the studies looked at other viruses, not carnelian rash. But they did find that some Kyle genes stop those other viruses. It’s one reason this Kyle biz survives in humans; sometimes it helps keep people alive. If it’s true for other types of sick, maybe it’s true for red rash.”

Karal had come over as they talked. She spoke into Ruzik’s comm. “Angel, Karal here. We’re looking at the entire human genome, including the Kyle mutations, to see if we can find a correlation between people with an increased resistance and anything in their DNA. We’ve found nothing so far.” Her voice wavered and she sagged against the console behind her.

“Are you all right?” Bhaaj asked. It was a stupid question; the doctor looked ready to pass out.

Karal managed a wan smile. “I’m still going.” She spoke into the comm. “Angel, a lot of the people who have the rash are Kyle operators.”

“Yah . . .” Static obscured Angel’s voice. “. . . but many Kyle alleles exist. It’s not just a few, it’s a whole gang of them. The stronger the psion, the more of these Kyle things they carry. You need to check all of the genes.”

“We can’t,” Karal said. “We don’t . . . don’t have the full set to use as a comparison.” With that said, she took a faltering step around the console and slid down into its seat. She crossed her arms on the top of the console and laid her forehead on them.

“Ah, damn.” Lavinda leaned over to touch the doctor’s shoulder. “Karal?”

“Need to rest,” Karal mumbled.

“Angel, I’ve got to go,” Bhaaj said. “We’ll keep checking the Kyle idea. You, too. Keep us updated, yah?”

“Yah. Talk later.” With that, Angel cut the link.

Straightening up, Lavinda met Bhaaj’s gaze. “Karal needs a cure. Now.”

“We can check the DNA of the people who’ve come in but aren’t sick,” Bhaaj said. “See if something in their Kyle alleles correlates. We need a template with every Kyle allele that exists to compare with theirs.” They both knew someone with Deeper DNA who also carried the full set of Kyle alleles. “Vaj gave her okay for us to talk about it with doctors.”

“That assumes the doctors are willing to ask the pharaoh for help.” Anger edged Lavinda’s voice. “Some people would rather let everyone here die than admit Pharaoh Dyhianna traces any heritage to the aqueducts.”

“We still need to try.”

“Raja, can you still hear me?” Lavinda asked.

Her EI answered. “Yes, of course.”

“How much longer will you be able to contact anyone as far away as the surface?”

“Not long,” Raja said. “A few minutes, maybe.”

Lavinda swore under her breath. “I need to comm Paolo and my children.”

Max spoke. “I’m having similar problems. Bhaaj, you should comm Jak.”

Bhaaj watched Karal, who hadn’t moved. “One of us needs to talk to the research team at the university. Doing a comparison of the Dyhianna Selei’s DNA with the patients who’ve shown the most resistance wouldn’t put the pharaoh at risk.”

“Go talk to your husband,” Lavinda said. “I’ll comm the university.”

“Jak understands.” Bhaaj wanted to comm him so much it hurt, but this took precedence. “You should talk to Paolo.” Although Lavinda’s family had arranged her marriage, forcing her to comply with customs that the rest of humanity considered extinct, she and her husband had formed a deep friendship. It would never be love in the traditional sense; given the choice, Lavinda would have rather married a woman. She and Paolo made it work, though, and they had several children.

“I wish I could talk to him.” Lavinda spoke with regret. “But I need to be the one who contacts the research teams. The request for Pharaoh Dyhianna’s DNA analysis won’t work unless it comes from me or Vaj.”

Well, yah, there was that. Bhaaj withdrew then, leaving Lavinda to work her Majda magic. She checked on Tower, on Warrick, on the other Majda guard. None of them responded or even opened their eyes, but all three still breathed with a steady rhythm.

Bhaaj watched Ruzik helping his brother to a cleared bed. Please, she thought. Let them be all right. For all her experience, all her expertise as a PI, a fighter, and a liaison for the Undercity, she couldn’t fix this. If she lost the people she loved, she’d lose a part of what made her whole.

Stop it, Bhaaj told herself. Your wallowing helps no one. Seeking privacy behind the stalagmites by the far wall, she tried not to think about how Healer Sarzana had also come here. After she sat on the floor with her back propped against the wall, she tapped a code into her comm.

Jak answered with no delay. “You good?” Static blurred his voice.

“Yah. Fine. Not have rash.”

“Say again?” He still sounded urgent. “Not get that.”

“Am good,” Bhaaj said. “Not got rash.”

“Ah.” Relief suffused his voice. “I come down there.”

“Nahya!” Her fingers spasmed as she gripped the ground. “Stay away! Not safe here.”

“Not care.”

“Not come. Swear it, Jak.” Goddess, what if he caught the rash and died? No, she couldn’t think of that. “You come, you get sick, I can’t help anyone. Jak, swear. Not come.”

After a long silence, he let go with one of the most creative streams of curses she’d ever heard, better even than Vaj’s outburst. When he stopped, she said, “That mean you not come?”

“Damn it, Bhaaj.”

“Swear.”

“I already swear plenty,” he growled.

She smiled wanly. “Give me oath. Not come.”

Another long silence. Then: “Fine. I swear. Not come.”

“Good.”

Static came from the comm, covering his voice.

“Jak?” Bhaaj asked. “Not hear you.”

“Now you swear.”

“Swear what?”

His voice cracked, and she didn’t think it had anything to do with static. “Be careful.”

“Always. I swear.”

“Not get sick.”

“Do my best.” She meant it.

More static came from the comm.

“Jak?” Bhaaj asked.

No response.

“I’m sorry,” Max said. “I’ve lost the line. I can’t get it back.”

“I ken.” Bhaaj laid her head against the wall, too spent to hold it up. She could almost feel how much Jak wanted to come here. He’d given her his oath, though, and his word was good. She let her eyes close. Maybe she could rest for just a few moments.

“No,” Bhaaj muttered. She had to get back to the infirmary and help treat the sick. She tried to get up, then sagged to the floor.

“You need to rest,” Max said. “You’ve missed the last two sleep periods. I’m surprised you’re still moving.”

Bhaaj tensed. “Are you sure that’s all?”

“That’s all?” Her supposedly emotionless EI sounded incredulous. “You’ve hardly slept for fifty hours. You’re going to kill yourself.” Before she could respond, he added, “And yes, I’ve been monitoring the health nanomeds in your body. They’ve found no symptoms of the disease.”

Bhaaj let her head rest against the wall. “Good.” Just a few moments of rest . . . 


“Wake up!” Ruzik’s panicked voice intruded into her drowsy blankness. Why so upset—

It came back to Bhaaj in a rush. She jerked upright, knocking Ruzik over.

“Damn it, Bhaaj.” He fell against the wall. “Guess you alive,” he muttered.

She looked around, disoriented. “I sleep?”

“Yah. Like rock. Two hours.” Ruzik shifted his weight, moving to sit against the wall. He bent his long legs and rested his elbows on his knees. “Thought you dead.”

“Not dead,” Bhaaj informed him.

“Yah. Figured.”

“Feel fine.” Even just a couple hours of sleep had recharged her. “Byte? Tower?”

“Same.” His voice sounded shadowed. “Byte maybe worse.”

“Ah, goddess,” Bhaaj murmured. “I go help.”

“Already did. Robot came.” Ruzik was speaking too slowly. “Brought supplies. Told me how to use. I treat Tower. Treat Byte. Treat Majda guards.”

Bhaaj looked him over, really looked now. He had rested his head against the wall and closed his eyes. A horrible feeling started within her, threatening to grow until it consumed her. She spoke in a low voice. “Ruzik, look at me.”

He opened his and regarded her with a bleary gaze.

Bhaaj swallowed. “You too?”

“Gave myself more meds,” he said. “Just need—sleep.”

“Ruzik, no.” Tears threatened Bhaaj, making her eyes hot. She kept reliving that day when she’d cradled the dying Sparks in her arms. They should never have drunk that unfiltered water. But goddess, they’d been so miserably, horribly thirsty. Sparks had died for that mistake. Now Ruzik, too? No. No. She couldn’t bear to keep outliving the people she loved.

“I get help.” Bhaaj pushed to her feet and looked past the stalagmites. The holos of the doctors in Cries no longer played in any of the booths. Someone was sitting at one console, tapping various panels. Every now and then one of the booths flickered, but nothing else happened.

She turned to Ruzik. “You rest now, yah?”

“Is good,” he murmured, his eyes still closed.

Bhaaj strode out to the mini-clinic. Ah. Lavinda was the one typing at the console. As Bhaaj came over, the colonel glanced at her. “You’re awake.”

“Yah. I’m good.” Mercifully, Bhaaj saw no rash anywhere on Lavinda’s skin. “You?”

“I’m not good,” Lavinda grumbled. “I can’t get these damn booths to work.” She motioned at the consoles. “The robot brought supplies to repair the mini-clinic, but I don’t know how.”

“What?” Squinting at the console, Bhaaj realized the edge of a robot stuck out from behind it. Moving closer, she found a tray-bot stacked with new supplies. “Hah! This I can do.” Engineering problems she could solve. As she knelt by the robot, studying its wealth, she said, “Can you give me a hand here? I need to move all these parts to the consoles.”

“I can try,” Lavinda said.

Eh? The Lavinda she knew would have said, Of course. We’ll make it work.

She stood up, regarding the Majda queen. “Are you all right?”

The colonel wouldn’t meet her gaze. “Yes. Fine.”

“Lavinda, look at me.” Bhaaj felt as if the roaring started in her ears again.

Looking up, Lavinda spoke quietly. “Raja, tell Major Bhaajan what you told me.”

Raja answered in a neutral voice. “Colonel Majda’s nanomeds have detected the illness in her body. Although she does not yet show symptoms, it won’t be long. She has the two-three variant of carnelian rash.”

No, Bhaaj thought. “Two-three?” she asked, as if that could somehow change the truth, that Raja would say it meant something else, not the fatal outbreak sweeping the Deep.

“It’s the variant we are trying to treat here,” Raja said. “The twenty-third version of carnelian rash ever detected.”

Bhaaj came back and sat in a chair by Lavinda. “How do you feel?”

“I’m all right.” Lavinda gave her a wan smile. “A slight fever. I can still help.”

From what Bhaaj had seen of the variant, it wouldn’t be long until Lavinda needed to lie down and let her body fight the disease. Bhaaj wanted to rage against whatever cursed pantheon of deities had wreaked this suffering on the human race. Instead, she spoke in the gentlest voice as she could manage. “I’ll bring the supplies closer. As long as you can work, I can show you how to help with the installations. When you need to rest, tell me.”

“That sounds good.” She watched with Bhaaj with undisguised concern. “And you? How long do you have?”

“Max has been monitoring my meds. He says I’m fine.”

“No trace of the illness at all?” Lavinda asked.

Max spoke. “Major Bhaajan is carrying the virus, as you all are. She’s contagious. She just hasn’t contracted the disease.”

“Goddess,” Lavinda muttered. “What’s your secret?”

“I’ve no idea.” Bhaaj forced herself to continue. “When I was young, a small girl in my circle and I were dying of thirst. We drank unfiltered water from a stream.” With difficulty, she said, “Sparks, my circle-sister, died. I—I tried to save her. I couldn’t.”

“I’m sorry,” Lavinda said. “And you?”

“I had no idea then why Sparks caught the red rash. I didn’t realize it came from the water.” Her voice cracked. “Afterward, I couldn’t think about it. I pushed down the memory. But it’s coming back to me now. I drank the water that day, too. I didn’t die. I didn’t just survive the disease. I never showed any symptoms.”

Lavinda sat up straighter. “That’s the same thing this runner of yours, Tam Wiens, says. And Paul Franco should have developed the rash by now, given how much he was exposed. The last time we checked, he still showed no signs.”

“Tam and Paul aren’t here, but I am. Maybe we can use me to figure out a treatment.”

Lavinda leaned over the comm. “Mini-clinic, if someone is immune to the virus, can we use their antibodies to form a vaccine?”

“That’s a more complicated question than you may think,” the console answered. It had an androgynous voice, one soothing to hear. “The EI called Max has shared medical data from Major Bhaajan’s nanomed system with me. The Major isn’t immune. She isn’t making antibodies for the current variant of carnelian rash.”

“Then why am I not sick?” Bhaaj asked.

“I don’t know,” the Med EI said.

“Surely other people must have resistance to the virus,” Bhaaj said. “Why am I the only healthy person here?”

“You’re in an infirmary purposed to treat people with carnelian rash,” the EI said. “Healthy people aren’t patients.”

“Oh. Yah. Of course.” Duh. She needed to think better. “Okay. Step one: I get the comms working. Step two: I find more healthy people and send our scans to the team in Cries.” She paused. “Did the robot bring medical data for Paul Franco and Tam Wiens? We can send their info, too.”

“I don’t know if Paul is still without symptoms,” Lavinda said. “I can’t reach him. I think the robot brought the scans for both him and Tam Wiens, though.”

“All right.” Bhaaj looked around. “Where is Karal?”

Lavinda motioned to a bed across the infirmary. “Sleeping. She wore herself out.” Her voice sounded scratchy. “I don’t know how much longer she has.”

Another wave of fear hit Bhaaj. She had to get help, somehow, but she couldn’t leave all these people to die, including some she cared about more than almost anyone else alive.

“I’ll get started on the booths and comm,” she muttered.

“Wait.” Lavinda caught her arm. “You need to prioritize.”

“No!” Bhaaj yanked her arm away. “No one gets special treatment.” She wanted to use the remaining supplies on Ruzik, Byte-2, and Tower so badly, it was killing her. And Lavinda, too, not because she was a Majda but because, well, she was Lavinda. But she couldn’t choose favorites.

“I don’t mean people.” Lavinda paused to gather strength. “I mean actions. You have supplies that will help you reconnect with the doctors in Cries, that will help treat people here, and that will prolong lives. But as soon as you remove those supplies from their protective covering, the algae will start to corrode them.” She raised her arm, showing Bhaaj a medical scanner she still held. Then she let it drop into her lap. “These scanners are the most resilient tech we have against the algae, probably because they’re the simplest. And even they’re showing signs of damage.”

“Oh. Yah. Of course.” Bhaaj tried to organize her plodding thoughts. “First, I should get scans from people who haven’t come down with the rash, so I have them ready to send the doctors. Then I’ll repair the holobooths and send the doctors everything I can before the system starts to degrade. Next, I’ll contact Paul at the clinic. Have him send another robot with more supplies.”

“I thought the clinic only had one robot,” Lavinda said.

Damn. She was right. “The cyber-riders can build him another.” It wouldn’t take them long if they knew the urgency. “Then I can start treating more people—” Her voice cut off as she thought of the many patients outside the infirmary, throughout the cavern. How many others lay elsewhere in the Deep, dying, unable to make it this far? She couldn’t reach everyone, not in time to stop the toll exacted by a disease spreading this fast with such a high fatality rate. “I’ll just—I’ll do what I can.”

“I help,” a man said.

Bhaaj looked up with a start. The man stood on the other side of the mini-clinic console. She didn’t recognize him, neither as a patient nor anyone else she’d seen. He had the classic features and coloring of the Down Deepers, with one huge difference.

His hair was white.

Ho! Bhaaj had seen no other Deeper who looked older than fifty. This man was probably into his seventies, a rarity anywhere in the aqueducts, but especially here. Like the other Deepers, he didn’t seem to feel the cold. He wore a shirt with short sleeves and a pair of old but well-tended trousers. No trace of rash showed anywhere on his exposed skin.

He waited a moment more, then said, “You are The Bhaaj, yah?”

Stop gawking like an idiot, she told herself. “Yah. Call me Bhaaj.” He deserved her name for so many reasons, she couldn’t count them, but certainly for surviving so long in a world where the bruising fatality rate left many children without even parents, let alone great-grandparents.

“Not sick?” Bhaaj asked.

“Not sick,” he said. “Not this time. Not last time.”

Bhaaj felt as if her stomach dropped. “Last time?”

“Last time a big sick came.” He spoke simply, as if he related a normal occurrence. “Young man then. Sick took many. Not me.” He motioned at the infirmary. “I help. Hear what you say. Need not-sick Deepers.” He lifted his hands out from his body as if to show himself to her. “Here.”

“My thanks.” Just how many plagues had decimated the Deep, killing entire generations? Bhaaj felt ill, and it had nothing to do with carnelian rash. “I scan, yah?”

“Yah.” He indicated the scanner Lavinda held. “Use that?”

“This one is a mess,” Lavinda said. “Better to use a new one.”

“Yah, of course.” Bhaaj stepped past the consoles and knelt by the tray-bot. It formed a tiered affair, like a rolling set of stacked trays controlled by an AI brain. Supplies crammed its every surface, not only the trays, but every hook, nook, and cranny. Its robot arms held even more, like a child who’d crammed their hands full of candy in a sweet shop. Bhaaj found a scanner and ripped off the protective covering. Standing up, she stared at the small circle in her hand. It blinked, telling her something, though she had no idea what.

“This is different from the other scanners.” She turned to Lavinda. “I’m not sure how to use it.”

The colonel spoke slowly. “When I sat down here, I knew I wasn’t getting up again. So I’ve explored the mini-clinic. Trying to learn. I can show you.”

Bhaaj went over and stood while Lavinda fooled with the edge of the disk. “Let’s see—yes, one tap on this arrow turns it on. And this—wait, no this—two taps here sets it to scan a human body. One more tap and it will record as much medical data as it can get from your subject and store it in a file.” She handed Bhaaj the disk. “That’s why it doesn’t have even a simple AI brain. It leaves more memory to store data.”

Squinting at the scanner, Bhaaj saw a green arrow pointing toward its center. She stepped over to the man and held out the disk the way she’d seen Karal do. Another green light blinked on its surface, and it gave the familiar hum of a working medical monitor. As Bhaaj scanned it over his body, it lit up with more green lights.

File compl . . . , Max thought. Na . . . ?

Bhaaj stopped scanning. “What?” Max? What’s wrong?

“My apology,” Max said. “I’m having trouble with the exterior sockets where the bio-threads in your body link to your gauntlets. The algae has damaged them. The medical monitor sent me a wireless signal. It finished its scan. It wants to know what to call the file with the data.”

“Uh, how about ‘Healthy Man One’?”

“Can use name,” the man said. “Callin.”

Bhaaj nodded to him, acknowledging the honor he’d offered. “Max, call the file Callin, Healthy Subject One.”

“Scan done?” Callin motioned to the infirmary crammed with patients, some awake, most sleeping or in comas. “I go back to work.”

“You help treat?” Bhaaj asked.

He spoke gently. “I pass to the lights.”

Pass to the lights. Ah, goddess, he was moving the dead to the crematorium. No one else in the infirmary remained healthy enough to do it. “My thanks,” she managed. “Any others who can help? Those not sick?”

“Most stay with circle. Not leave loved to die alone.”

“Yah. Of course.” She hesitated. Where was his circle of loved ones?

Watching her face, Callin said, “I outlive.” Moisture showed in the corners of his eyes.

“My sorry,” Bhaaj murmured. She didn’t give a damn right now about the pressure never to apologize. This incredible human being—who had outlived his loved ones by decades—responded to the nightmare of another plague by coming here to help the dying. He deserved every honor she could offer.

Callin gave her a slight bow, then went back to work. Too drained to move, Bhaaj watched him walk across the infirmary. He stopped often to talk to patients. He wasn’t only taking away the dead, he was also doing his best to gentle what time remained for the living, offering sips of water from the dwindling supply of snap bottles, finding them blankets if they shivered, or rolling up clothes to make pillows.

“This is a nightmare,” Bhaaj said.

Lavinda gave a grunt. “Then wake me the hell up.”

Bhaaj turned to see the colonel slumped to one side, practically falling out of her chair.

“Here.” Bhaaj helped her sit back up. “I’ll get you a bed.”

“Damn it.” Lavinda pulled away from her. “Prioritize, Major!” She spoke with a snap of military authority that Bhaaj instinctively responded to. “Get your duties done in proper sequence.”

Bhaaj answered wryly. “I’m retired, Colonel.” In a softer tone, she added, “I’ll come back when I get a chance, Lavinda. I promise.”

With that, Bhaaj headed out to the cavern, to see who she could find with that elusive resistance to the carnelian rash.

If anyone still lived out there.


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Framed