Problem was, he was starting to want. And this place had more privacy than the pilot seats. Kyle huffed. "Get your instruments, doctor." He sat up again and removed his boots by himself, a laborious process that saved a fragment of his dignity. "I'll need to take the prosthetics off for this."
"Then do it. I can give them a clean, too."
It made sense, but there was that damn helplessness. He was putting himself completely in the man's hands. Kyle reached back, found the lock of the module, and tapped it active. It opened with a whirr, and the prosthetics disengaged. He reached down and opened them, then allowed Grimm to slide them off his legs.
Now his whole lower body was lifeless meat. He slid his legs off the bed, supporting himself with both hands, then wriggled out of the coveralls. He tried to get out of them when they'd dropped past his knees, but his useless feet were tangled. Grimm knelt down and freed him.
"Thanks."
Grimm looked up, clearly pretending he didn't see Kyle's nakedness. "I'll check the prostheses too, once you're asleep."
"I'm not planning to sleep here."
"Or when we're back on the bridge. Lie down." Kyle pulled his body back onto the table and lay on his stomach; without any help from his legs, that was a major undertaking, but he appreciated Grimm not stepping in. He breathed against the metal, waited for a touch he could feel, or one he couldn't, but the first thing he felt was weight and warmth of a blanket that Grimm had pulled from a sterile pouch.
"It might take a while."
Kyle heard the muted swishing of opening and closing metal drawers as Grimm made his preparations. He arranged a handful of instruments and scanners on a table next to Kyle's head.
"It looks very good. Very nice installation." Damn, had Grimm touched him? He felt nothing.
"I used to get told I had nice eyes."
Grimm chuckled. "Many nice things on your body. I'd appreciate them all. I'm gonna touch you below the module now."
"Go for it. I won't notice."
Grimm stepped close, his shadow falling over Kyle, then something scraped against the metal disk embedded in his spine. "Nice job. And nice ass."
Kyle laughed. "Thanks. I can tell you where to get one, if you want it."
Grimm reached for a tissue scanner and placed the cool sensor high up on Kyle's spine, then slid it down. Kyle felt it circle the metal disk and the implant it sealed, before Grimm lifted it away to check the monitor. "Yeah, what I thought. You have a bit of inflammation going on. Wouldn't be surprised if the swelling were pressing on something important without you noticing. Fixing it might improve your ability to feel something."
"So?"
"I'm going to inject an anti-inflammatory." Grimm put the scanner down and let his hand hover over a syringe on the table. Old-fashioned needle, but the place he'd need to get to was beyond a more sophisticated hypo-injector's reach.
"Shit, that looks like it'll go deep."
"Yeah." Grimm looked around, then walked to a cabinet in the far corner that opened with a pneumatic hiss when he dialed in the access code. Kyle closed his eyes and forced himself to relax. Yes, if some kind of swelling was pressing down on his nerves, that was bad news, and he kind of trusted Grimm. He was so competent with everything else—it was difficult not to. Plus, a guy who'd tried so hard to get into his pants wouldn't hurt him. Even more importantly, a warrior wouldn't harm a man who couldn't defend himself. Unless it was a mercy-kill. He shook that idea from his head. He hardly qualified as that, even by warrior standards.
Grimm came back and placed a hand flat on the module. "This might hurt."
"That's never a good message." Kyle hissed when he felt the invasion from the needle as a sharp pressure. "Ow. Careful, there's spinal cord and stuff in the way."
"Roger that." Grimm ran a gentle hand from between Kyle's shoulder blades down the curve of his back. "I hope this will help," he said calmly.
The pressure got worse, and Kyle assumed it was Grimm pushing the plunger. Why had he agreed to this again? Grimm fixed machines, not people. And he was not enough machine by a long shot to qualify as one.
"Just a bit more. Half done. It's going to tingle."
"Tingle?" Kyle asked, when a sudden wave of heat raced through his whole body. "Shit. Shit!"
"What's wrong?"
Every cell in his back flared, as though the metal disk was starting to sear his flesh. But his nerves had it backward. The metal couldn't possibly heat up like that. It had to be the meat. He was panting, like his body was burning way more oxygen than he could breathe. "What the fuck was that?"
"Broad-spectrum anti-inflammatory."
"Feels like I'm allergic." Kyle stared at his trembling hand and balled it into a fist, but the tremors were everywhere in his body, shaking him like he was freezing to death.
"Fuck. This isn't good, this isn't good." He curled up, his hands pulling his legs as close as they would go—felt like he was starting to shake apart. "Do something!"
Grimm touched his temple, and Kyle felt sweat dripping from his face to his neck. Mother of Light, what was happening?
"You'll be fine. I've never seen anybody respond like this."
"You're seeing me respond like this, asshole!" Kyle felt the sweat puddle around him, and imagined smoke rising from his skin. It didn't hurt as much as it felt surreal and eerie. "Getting . . . too hot. Shit. Help me."
Grimm took him under the arms and hoisted him up. Kyle hated dripping his sweat all over the warrior, but he hated the state he was in even more. This was not supposed to happen, and he struggled to not freak out completely. Think, Kyle. What was happening?
Grimm maneuvered him to the one active cryo-unit. "I'll put you on life support."
"I can't stand in that thing," Kyle protested, but then felt himself being pushed against the back wall of the unit. Grimm was so close he served as his only support, holding him upright, naked, in the tight space. The life-support system fanned pure oxygen over their bodies. The sensors had already responded to their presence. The enclosure sealed around them and the temperature dropped gently, which brought some relief. Would Grimm hook him up to the system and cryo him?
"I'm here," Grimm said, as he supported him up with one arm and shoulder, and opened the front of his own coverall. Kyle couldn't believe it. Here he was, going into allergic shock, sweating bullets, and this fallen sacred warrior had pushed him into an ice coffin to fuck him? Or what was this?
Kyle couldn't do anything but put his arms around Grimm's neck, just to stay upright, their chests pressed together. "What's going on?"
Grimm gave him an odd, crooked smile. "I'd say you're a very lucky man, Kyle."
"That doesn't make any fucking sense."
Grimm closed his eyes, and Kyle felt himself relax. Sweat or not, a huge calm suddenly squashed his panic and discomfort. His eyes slipped closed, lids fluttering unpleasantly, like a nervous tick. Something deep down kept insisting this wasn't right, wasn't what he'd wanted to do, but Grimm's chest expanded and contracted close to him, forcing a breathing rhythm that his body obeyed without question. Some weird warrior trick? "What are you doing?"
"Calming you."
Kyle slumped against Grimm's chest. "Damn. 's working."
He fell asleep.
And woke up. His dreams had been weird. He'd dreamed of the Sector Commissar, remembered the whole damn thing, and now felt listless and at the same time oddly refreshed. He tried to get up, thought he felt his leg twitch, before he remembered he couldn't move his legs. He groaned with disappointment and felt so raw inside that his eyes blurred with tears. He forced his body up to a sitting position.
"Here, these are clean." Grimm turned around with his prosthetics in both hands.
"How did you—"
"I helped you take them off yesterday."
Kyle stared at the door. "Where were we?"
"What do you mean, where were we?" Grimm came closer. "In here. We're flying this ship, you know."
"Not in the oper
ating theater?"
Grimm frowned. "You all right? Have you eaten anything wrong?"
It was either Spacer madness, or he'd been dreaming. "I dreamed you took me there, checked out the bridge module."
"And?"
"Injected something into it."
"Why would I do that?"
"You offered, and I let you. To fight an inflammation."
Grimm lifted an eyebrow. "I injected something into your lower back and you let me. Kyle, I'm flattered, but that's a case of psychological projection right here. I mean, you can guess I'd be more than happy to inject something into your lower back . . ." The grin was all teeth and swagger.
"Yeah, I walked into that one." Kyle rubbed his face.
"Hey, I would inject you. Just say the word." Grimm smiled and handed him the prostheses. "I can definitely hook you up to them again."
"Fine." Kyle allowed Grimm to kneel and fiddle his legs into the metal cages and fasten them around his legs, but he connected them to the bridge module himself. The click-lock-hiss came like a relief. At least now he could move again. "Thanks."
Grimm wiped his hands on his trousers. "I liked you," he said.
Kyle frowned. "What?"
"I said I like you."
Space madness. Kyle swallowed against a lump in his throat. "The trauma might be worse than I thought." Hallucinations. Dreams so vivid they were more real than reality. Mishearing things. He was beginning to lose it.
And there's a morph on the ship. He's not hiding. He's out there, somewhere.
Kyle shuddered. "Do you know anything about Glyrinny?"
Grimm stood and smiled. "More myth than hard facts, I'm afraid."
Two possibilities. Kshar hadn't boarded the Scorpion at all, and he was chasing shadows. Or Kshar had found the time to change shape. Then he could be anybody.
Even Grimm.
Or maybe he was losing his mind regardless. He looked up at Grimm, tried to see that very average-looking human face in the warrior's. But nothing about Grimm rang any alarm bells. He was helpful, kind even, and had tried to get into Kyle's pants. Wouldn't that be weird for a Glyrinny, sleeping with a human?
He hasn't yet.
That was true. Kyle swallowed hard and stood. "I need to stretch my legs."
Above all, he needed to think. And eat something.
"Sure, take a break." Grimm threw himself back in his pilot seat, and Kyle breathed a little easier when the door whooshed shut behind him.
I might be fuzzy on the details of what happened, but Kshar is onboard. He trudged down the corridor to the general mess, where, thankfully, only Winter sat, mixing some powder into reddish sludge. The smell was enough to turn anybody's stomach, which probably explained why Winter was alone.
Kyle sat down on the bench opposite her, and noticed that her cement-grey skin was peppered with little dark dots just below the surface. "Winter, you all right?"
"Yes." She kept stirring. "How are you? Haven't seen you around for a while."
"I was learning to fly the ship." He kept to shallow breaths near that stench. "How many cryo-units do you have in the operating theater?"
"Five, why? You planning to put more than five of us into a coma with the next launch?"
"No, just wondering." Maybe he had been there. Or caught that fact elsewhere. "And what in all gods' names is that?"
Winter glanced at the red pulp in her bowl, then began to spoon it up. All hope that the stuff wasn't really food dissipated. She actually ate it. Kyle pressed a hand to his stomach to keep it from roiling; not that it helped. Maybe she was the morph—only an alien could smell that and not retch.
"Just trying to kick-start my culture." She gestured at her face with the red-slime-dripping spoon. That the stuff looked like pureed frozen tissue didn't help. "The culture." Like that meant anything. "I'm from Janus."
"Not quite my area."
"What she's saying," said Petros, who had just walked into the room, "is that she's a hybrid. Genetically engineered."
Winter shrugged. "Luck of the draw. My ancestors were deep-core miners on Janus. It's a giant, poisonous rock, so nothing grows there, and all food has to be imported, which is too expensive, so there's some gengineering going on."
Kyle stared at her skin. "What is the augmentation?"
"Parasitic algae. See the dark spots? That's a new season of algae bloom under her skin. Feeds her, though. Which means we'll call her Spring soon." Petros laughed.
Kyle blew out a breath. This was almost weirder than a morph, but he wouldn't show them what he thought of that. "Do you ever get used to that smell?"
Winter covered the bowl with her hand. "You can give me some privacy, you know. Go play with Petros."
"Yeah, come play with us," Petros said, baring all his teeth.
"I actually wanted to talk to you. Er, Winter."
Winter looked up at Petros and made a shooing motion. "Seal the door, would ya?"
Kyle let his shoulders slump when the door hissed shut.
"Had a falling out with Grimm?" Winter asked, dipping her spoon into the bowl. "Sorry about that, but I really need to eat."
"That's, uh, fine," Kyle said. "No, we didn't have a falling out. I mean, maybe. I don't know."
"From the start, then." Winter blew on the sludge like it was hot soup, then put the full spoon between her lips.
"Did you get any new crew members recently?"
"You. And you don't count," Winter said between spoonfuls. "Unless you want to."
Kyle backtracked after having readied his next question. "Is that a recruitment offer? Why?"
"Unattached pilot. You're valuable, legs or no legs." Another sip of sludge.
"Maybe." Kyle leaned his elbows on the table. "One question. Feel free to ignore me. You don't have to answer." Winter waved an affirmative with her spoon, so he continued. "Is there, uh, anybody in the crew who's been behaving weird since the last stop? Anything out of character? Some misstep or other? Anything at all?"
Winter nodded, as if to herself. "Not a question a criminal on the run would ask."
Damn, Algae-Bloom-Girl was good at poker. If he admitted as much, he was blowing his cover. But he did need help at this point; he was out of options. If Kshar was impersonating anybody in this mercenary crew, he needed insider information. "Agreed."
Winter sat silently for a few moments, as if considering the implications. "Who are you looking for?"
"A morph."
Winter let the spoon dangle from her fingers. "I could be the morph. Why trust me?"
"I don't. But if you've got to fight with your back to the wall, you gotta choose one wall and hope you're right."
"You here to kill it?"
"No. I just have to find him. It." Kyle shrugged. "There's a reward on its head. It's trying to get back to morph space. I need to catch it before it gets there."
Winter glanced up and met his gaze. "It can't switch bodies, you know. You can't hide a dead body on a ship this size."
"No. I'm hoping I'll get it in whatever body it's wearing."
"Mimicking." Winter stared into her bowl. "You ever fought morphs, Kyle?"
"No."
"It's scary." Winter put the spoon down. "Once fought one who took my face."
"What did you do?"
"Bashed her motherfucking skull in. Felt like I was killing myself."
"Shit."
Winter blew out a breath. "Regardless. It can't kill anybody on the ship. That means you cannot act without proof. Do whatever you like on Ganesh or anywhere else, but accusing the wrong man might mean you cripple this unit."
Cripple it. Now, who couldn't be replaced?
Grimm.
Was Kshar able to mimic a pilot's hard-won skills? If it was Grimm, Kyle was indeed the only real pilot on board.
And you can't kill him, or trap him, because he might injure you even if you do win, and then things get really funny for your passengers.
It made sense. It made so much sense. The sudden, violent
launch. Kshar not used to his piloting skills. The attempt of the authorities to prevent their launch—maybe they'd found the real Grimm's body in the spaceport. He, too, had been alone on the ship, which made the switch easy.
Mother of Light. Yesterday. He'd been skin-to-skin with Grimm. With a morph. Not a dream; Kshar must have drugged him under the pretense of checking him for inflammation. Did they need skin contact to mimic a shape?
His skin crawled.
"You look like you've stared into a leviathan's maw."
Kyle swallowed dryly. "I think I know who it is."
"Don't do anything on this ship," Winter warned. "Or you will not be able to collect the bounty."
Kyle clenched his fists, but pushed the memory of the intimacy and disorientation away. "I'll try."
"Two days until Ganesh. Be a good boy, or be a dead boy, it's your choice." Winter gave him an even look without malice or aggression. "Do we have a deal?"
"Deal." I'll try at least.
But it was selfish and crazy to attack the pilot of the ship. He'd have to lure Grimm away. And, fuck it, but he knew exactly how.
"Code confirmed," flashed across the screen after an endless five minutes. "Please proceed through Corridor Theta."
Grimm hammered a quick confirmation, and the ship moved forward to the start of the queue for the slingshot gate. Being accelerated by that massive force always made Kyle nervous. With a war frigate's own reactors, at least he had the illusion that he'd be safe, but with something tiny like a Morning Star, he felt fragile. In the force field of a slingshot drive, they could all be accelerated to pulp, and no force field they could generate would prevent that.
"Ready for corridor entry," Kyle announced, flicking the light to red.
Grimm buckled down. "How do you like this part?"
I was trained to do it in a liquipod. Like this? Not at all. "Ask me on the other side." Kyle pulled a strap tighter, mostly to give his fingers something to do.
"All systems go," said the console. "Slingshot in progress."
"I half expected your codes were fake," Grimm said.
"Seems they aren't." Kyle breathed deeply, and hit the intercom. "Hope you guys are ready, we're about to enter the corridor." He noticed Grimm's ironic glance. Fuck it, Grimm made a good co-pilot. Even if he was Kshar, even if all he'd done was use his natural technological aptitude to learn incredibly fast. But Kyle pushed those thoughts away, because he couldn't afford to let Grimm, er, Kshar know what he was thinking.