“That’s a pretty intense sales pitch if people have nowhere else to go,” Noemi says as the music swells over images of brawny miners who look far too clean, then military recruits running up a black-earthed mountain.
“I don’t think it’s a sales pitch,” Abel says. “I think it’s a warning that some people will be turned away.”
Nowhere in the prerecorded greeting does Noemi glimpse any elderly people or children. No one using walking or visual assistance. Maybe that’s just the glossy sheen of propaganda, but maybe not.
A world with no place for mercy and kindness, a world where there’s only one rigid, narrow way to be—is that really the only choice people from Earth have left?
The anti-fever drug Abel gave her buys Noemi almost half an hour of lucidity. She uses it to take a sonic shower and change into a simple olive-green jumpsuit. The pajamas are all sweaty; the thought of putting them against her body again grosses her out.
The ship shudders around them as the tractor beam tows them into the planetary atmosphere, toward Stronghold’s stark, rocky surface. As they’re pulled in an arc toward the landing base, Noemi sees more and more ships clustered nearby, coming in for landing as well.
“These people are going to check our info pretty closely,” Noemi warns as she sinks into one of the sick bay chairs. She’ll be back in a hospital bed soon enough. “This doesn’t look like a place where they let things slide.”
“Our ship ID has held up so far.” Abel tries not to look too proud of his forgery skills, and fails.
“Who are we this time?”
“The Apollo. For the Greek god of healing, among other things.”
He named the ship after a deity with the power to make her well. Noemi suddenly feels as though she might cry—
—but that’s the fever coming back. She gets emotional when she’s sick. Uncomfortable with her own reaction, she says, “We should’ve told them that I have Cobweb. Before we landed. They’ll be angry when they realize we lied. I can’t walk out there and expose everyone else—”
“It’s all right.” Abel speaks as gently as he might to a frightened child. Why does her voice have to shake? Noemi hates appearing weak nearly as much as she hates feeling weak. “I reported your condition. We’ll be met at the landing pad by a medical team.”
“They know? Then why are they letting us land?” Stronghold doesn’t come across as an oasis of mercy.
“Stronghold wants young people.” Abel pauses. “I listed myself as nineteen, since that is closest to the age I currently appear to be. They give preferential treatment to those who come here under their own power, with their own independent resources. And, ah, they very much want couples who seem likely to bear children.”
“Wait. What?”
No denying it: Abel looks sheepish. “When I determined the criteria most likely to win us landing clearance, I listed us as a young husband and wife. Did I do the wrong thing?”
“But if the doctors figure out I can’t—”
“What you described is unlikely to show up on regular scans. And you’ll be in the hospital. They’ll be helping you. Nothing else matters.”
Noemi imagines these enemy doctors prodding at her—judging her, weighing the value of her life—but knows there’s nowhere else to turn.
The Daedalus settles onto the ground with a soft thump. She stands up—or tries to, because the floor seems to tilt beneath her. When she wavers, Abel steps closer, catching her in his arms. Noemi remembers his offer after Casablanca—the hopeful, gentle look in his eyes as he asked her to come to bed—and feels awkward about being this close to him.…
No. That’s not right. She feels like it should be awkward, but it isn’t. Leaning on Abel feels completely natural.
“Lie down,” he says, easing her back onto the biobed. “The medical team will board our ship. It’s safest that way.”
“I need to see it. Stronghold. I have to see what’s happening.” She’s not sure why. She only knows that she’s confused and afraid, and she can’t stand not knowing exactly where they are.
Abel doesn’t point out that she’s being irrational. Instead he goes to the small wall screen. The grayness flickers back into light and motion, showing what surrounds them.
If Stronghold looked terrifying from space, its surface is even worse.
The sky seems to hang low and cloudless, the same color as the stony ground. Passengers alight from other vessels, but there are no shouted greetings, no music, like with the Vagabonds. They aren’t being welcomed; they’re being herded along the tarmac toward the large granite building from the planetary welcome greeting, or one very like it. Most people are dressed in somber colors like Noemi and Abel, and their expressions are fixed and brittle. She sees some children, at least. But none are very small, and none are being carried or comforted by their parents. They’ve clearly been coached to be on their best behavior, and to stand up straight. One little boy in a putty-colored smock even puffs out his chest, so he’ll look as big and strong as he can. It would be funny at home. Here, the fear behind that gesture pierces Noemi’s heart like an arrow. Once again, she thinks she might cry.
“Noemi?” Abel brushes her hair back from her forehead. “The medical team’s here. I need to let them in.”
“The ship’s plaque,” she whispers. “Don’t let them see it. They can’t know who we really are.”
“It’s all right. I’ll hide it. Shhh. Rest.”
She tries to, closing her eyes. But she’s vividly aware of when Abel leaves sick bay. Everything feels so empty, so scary, so cold.
But within only a minute or two, she hears footsteps thumping in the corridor.
The strangers walk in—a doctor, she thinks, and a George mech, Abel right behind them.
A man in his mid-twenties, wearing a medical coat, comes up to her. He has dark brown skin and eyes, and his voice is gentle as he says, “I’m going to touch your neck to feel your pulse, all right?” She manages to nod, and she feels his fingers press down on the jugular vein. His expression goes from worried to deeply troubled. He turns to the George and says, “This one has to go to Medstation Central. Get us an emergency hovercraft, right away.”
The George pauses. “Single cases can often be treated aboard their own vessels.”
“This one can’t. You tell them Dr. Ephraim Dunaway ordered a hover, now.” As the George scurries off, Dunaway turns back and speaks to Abel, not to her. “Don’t worry. I’m going to take good care of your wife.”
Wife? I’m a wife? Oh, right. Noemi recognizes the disorder in her mind, but wonders how much longer she’ll be able to. If her fever spikes higher, she’ll probably start seeing things. Hallucinating. Losing all control.
Abel’s voice seems to come from very far away. “You seem to be deviating from standard medical procedure.”
Ephraim Dunaway is even more distant. “Yeah, because we’re dealing with an emergency situation here. Are you worried about the money? Don’t be—it’s not like Earth here, you get the treatment you need.”
“It merely strikes me as unusual that you would take a step more likely to expose others to Cobweb.”
“We know what we’re doing here, all right?” Dunaway’s a shadow by her side, no more. He turns his attention back to her as he murmurs, “Relax. We’re going to check you both out, top to bottom.”
Noemi tugs at Abel’s shirt, as close as she can come to protesting without saying a word. This won’t be a cursory once-over like they had on Wayland Station; the kinds of tests they’re about to run will surely reveal Abel to be a mech. And then they’ll be captured—
The emergency vehicle he called for might not take them to a hospital—but to prison.
Or is that paranoia, born of her fever? She can’t tell.
When Abel scoops her up in his arms, Noemi doesn’t struggle. Nor does she resist it when Dunaway slides a paper mask over her nose and mouth. The winding trip down the corridor feels like one long, slow spin until they walk o
ut onto Stronghold’s surface for the first time. She’s caught off guard by the thinness in the air, which leaves her gasping as if she had climbed a mountain. Or is that Cobweb stealing her breath? Abel pulls her a little closer, and she lets her heavy, aching head droop onto his shoulder.
Don’t think about it, she tells herself, as if not dwelling on the potentially fatal illness will make the symptoms go away. Think about something else. Anything.
But there’s no escaping the terrible knowledge of her body’s weakness. “I feel like I can’t move,” she whispers.
“That may only be Stronghold’s gravity. It’s slightly stronger than on Earth or Genesis.”
“I don’t think so.”
Abel doesn’t waste time trying to reassure her. Instead he effortlessly settles her onto the waiting gurney.
If he were human, Noemi would feel guilty about the weight. But she can let go now. She doesn’t have to feel bad about causing problems, for needing too much. Abel could hold her forever.
The fever closes around her again, like the spine-toothed petals of a Venus flytrap. But it’s stronger now, as though angry the drugs cheated it of one wretched hour.
She feels as if she might lose consciousness any moment—and if she falls asleep now, she might never wake again.
28
DURING THE SWIFT RIDE ACROSS STRONGHOLD’S BAR-ren gray terrain, distant cities of metal and stone no more than shadows on the horizon, Abel had calculated that the probability Dr. Ephraim Dunaway was acting purely out of medical necessity was no higher than 32.4 percent.
Now they’re at the medical center, an isolated dome of concrete. Noemi is being wheeled into an examination room, with Abel at her side. A Tare model waits for them both, medscanner in hand.
Abel has readjusted his estimate. He now believes there is only a 27.1 percent chance that Dr. Dunaway is acting out of pure necessity.
He’s attentive, yes—but too attentive, as though he had to get every reading or measurement he could while they were still inside the medtram hovering just above the rocky surface. Also, Abel notices, Dunaway inputs every piece of data twice: once in what looks like the standard equipment, once into a personal handheld device. There is no rational explanation for this that does not ascribe another, unknown agenda to Dunaway’s behavior.
For the time being, however, Noemi is being adequately seen to, and that must be enough.
Once she’s lying in her clinical bed, she’s wrapped in silvery blankets and temperature monitors are stuck to the insides of her wrists. The Tare model goes to her, then frowns. “I would have run the first in-depth scan, Dr. Dunaway. Your readings on the medtram could have been compromised.”
“But they weren’t.” Ephraim Dunaway remains beside Noemi’s bed, carefully checking the thin white lacy marks spreading across her shoulder and throat. “This patient’s seriously ill. I didn’t want to waste time.”
“Following established procedures is not a waste of time,” the Tare says, but there’s no emotion behind the words. She walks across the sterile white cube of the examination room toward Abel. “You report no ill health at this time, but Cobweb becomes contagious hours or days before symptoms are apparent. You will require a full exam.”
From her bed, Noemi groans. “No—Abel, don’t—”
“It’s all right,” Abel says. But she’s supposed to be his wife. He should use an endearment. So he chooses one of Humphrey Bogart’s favorites: “Honey.”
With a gesture, the Tare model urges Abel to sit down on the room’s other medical bed. “We should begin,” she says. He takes his place, and when the Tare brings out her light he obediently holds his eyes open wide, like any other patient.
Unlike any other patient, he configures the components in his eyes to project back to the Tare model exactly what she’d expect to see in a healthy human. He has a pulse, though it’s normally undetectable by touch, so a quick increase in his blood pressure is called for as she holds her fingers to his neck. When she goes to measure the blood pressure itself, however, he takes it down to roughly what she’d be expecting. For diagnostic ease, mech veins line the inner arm, just where draws are always taken. His blood will look normal and test negative for viruses; his skin is stronger, but not so much that it draws the Tare’s attention as she takes his sample.
He doesn’t have to do anything with the ears. Those look just like a human’s.
If she were running high-level diagnostic tests, Abel’s masquerade would break down within seconds. But Tare models, intelligent as they are, have all been programmed for efficiency and triage. She won’t waste time performing in-depth tests on what appears to be a completely healthy human male.
“Open your mouth,” the Tare says as she approaches with a swab. Abel does so, although this is the only one of her tests he’ll fail. His DNA is partially artificial, which means it won’t culture at all—though that on its own is most likely to be written off as a storage error. Genetic anomalies will show up, but the single-minded Tare will probably write those off as irrelevant and fail to investigate more deeply.
Noemi stares at him, wide-eyed, so astonished it’s funny. Later he’ll tell her how he accomplished all this. Maybe it will make her laugh. For now she sinks down onto her pillow with a deep sigh of relief. Abel realizes she had been frightened for him—well, for them both, since his exposure would also have threatened her. Nevertheless, it’s pleasant to see her being concerned. No one has been concerned about him in a very long time.
Not since Mansfield… who put considerable energy into making sure Abel couldn’t be detected as a mech if he didn’t so choose. It’s an odd utility to have; no other mechs can do it. Maybe Mansfield was only curious to see if it could be done.
“You’ll have to remain here, under observation,” the Tare says to Abel as she turns back to prepping Noemi’s tests, to see that they’re already laid out for her. She frowns at young Dr. Dunaway, who seems to have violated procedures again. “In twenty-five hours, if your culture is negative and you’ve showed no symptoms, you’ll be sent into T and E.”
“What’s that?” Noemi’s voice has become hoarse.
“Training and evaluation.” Ephraim Dunaway moves a step backward as the Tare finally takes over Noemi’s examination. “Everybody goes through it when they first get to Stronghold. They figure out what you’re good at, let you know what kind of work you’re eligible to do here.”
“What about the children we saw on the tarmac?” Noemi says. “What about them?”
Surprisingly, the Tare answers this one. “If they’re physically fit to live on Stronghold, they may remain. They’re given simpler and lighter work assignments until they’re ready for adult labor.”
Abel doubts many assignments on Stronghold count as simple or light.
Dunaway adds, “Once we’ve cleared him, Abel can go on ahead in a day, and you can follow as soon as you’re well.”
Is Dunaway’s confidence based on Noemi’s condition, or is he faking it to provide comfort to the patient? Probably the latter, Abel thinks.
The Tare concludes her examination with a firm nod. “Cobweb, tertiary stage, not irreversible but serious. Standard antiviral treatments are the only measure available.”
Ephraim Dunaway nods as he pulls out vials of what must be antiviral drugs. Abel takes some comfort in the fact that finally Noemi is receiving meaningful help.
“I should lock this room down for quarantine for both the patient and the exposed individual,” the Tare says.
But Dunaway interjects, “There are other patients you should see to. I’ll take care of locking down the room.” The Tare frowns, obviously confused by another change from standard procedure.
Abel decides that a human husband would ask more questions. “You haven’t told me how long Noemi will take to recover. What is her prognosis?”
“Recovery from Cobweb is not guaranteed,” the Tare reports, as easily as she might recite someone’s blood type.
Ephraim int
erjects, “Hey. We’ve got a strong young woman here, nowhere near as sick as some Cobweb cases we’ve seen. No need to worry about the worst-case scenario, okay?” He smiles at Noemi and Abel in turn. “I’m going to look after her personally. I promise.”
Abel believes him, but again he senses that Dunaway has… uncertain priorities.
The Tare tilts her head. Abel notes the slight tug-of-war between mech and human. Maybe he should be on the mech’s side, but Ephraim Dunaway—regardless of what other intentions he may have—remains the one who cares whether Noemi lives or dies.
If Abel ever gets the chance to speak with Burton Mansfield again, he’ll ask whether the Tare models couldn’t use a compassion upgrade. A tact upgrade would also be advisable.
Noemi holds out her hand to Abel. She’s acting the part of a loving wife, even as she lies there racked with fever, her skin pale and her gaze unfocused. “You’re staying here?”
“Yes. Right here,” Abel promises. “Right by your side.”
He doesn’t want to be anywhere else. After spending three decades utterly alone, he’s been with Noemi during virtually all her waking moments the past several days. Even when they had disliked each other, even when she had treated him as a hostile, he has feasted on the experience of being with a person once more, someone who spoke words he’d never heard, did things he’d never witnessed. That, by itself, had been a luxury he would never take for granted again. She set him free.
But she isn’t just a human who happened along to open the pod bay doors. Noemi is the only person he’s truly been close to besides Mansfield. Abel never expected to feel so attached to anyone else. He knows it’s partly a trick of his programming, seeking a source for all the devotion he can’t give to his creator.
But only partly.