"Hey, pal, take it easy," Han said, reaching over to him. "Chewie, it's just…"
Chewbacca rounded on him with a full-throated howl, and Han jerked backward, frowned, and stared at Zahara.
"What did you do to him?"
"Nothing. He got the same thing you got."
"Maybe it works differently for his species, did you ever think about that?" He looked back at Chewbacca but the Wookiee's expression was completely alien now, unfriendly, no trace of recognition in his eyes. He seemed confused, frightened, and ready to attack whatever threat he perceived was nearby. The ripe, feral stink that Zahara had caught a whiff of earlier was back, stronger now, almost overwhelming, as if some aggression gland inside his metabolism had started spurting violent hormones through his brain. He was growling steadily now.
Then Zahara noticed the swelling. It was already affecting his throat, causing it to balloon up, and what she'd thought were growls had actually become a series of suffocated breaths.
"What is that?" Han asked. "What's happening to his neck?"
Zahara didn't answer. She couldn't make coherent sense of her own thoughts, except that somehow she'd managed to find some of the last survivors aboard the barge, only to help the disease do its job even more efficiently.
She pulled herself together, flashing through options: Somehow the anti-virus had either weakened the Wookiee's immunity to the pathogen, or the sickness itself had become more aggressive in the past few hours, shortening its incubation time from hours to minutes. Either way-
Chewbacca fell to his knees with a crash, clasping his arms over his head, and rocked back and forth with a diminishing series of horrible, gargling groans. When he lifted his head again, it was with monumental effort, and Zahara saw that the rage was draining away from his face. But this was only a side effect of oxygen debt, his gaze fogging over even as his enormous shoulders sagged forward, giving way to gravity until the entirety of his body slumped facedown to the floor.
Zahara squatted down. "Help me roll him over."
"What? Why?"
"Just do it."
Han grabbed Chewbacca's shoulder and Zahara lifted his hips, tilting the massive bulk of the Wookiee's body and tumbling him onto his back. She put her hand behind his furry head, down beneath his neck, and lifted upward.
"Find the syringe."
"Uh-uh, no way." Han shook his head. "You're not giving him another drop of that stuff."
"You want your friend to live? Find the karking syringe."
Han took a second to digest this and then went back into the far corner of the cell, muttering under his breath. Zahara understood that, right now, a huge part of saving the Wookiee's life was just a matter of making Han believe her. If he didn't, if he tried to interfere, there was nothing she could do except to make Chewbacca comfortable until he died.
Han came back a moment later with the syringe in his hand. "I hope you…"
Zahara grabbed it from him, squirted out the last of the anti-virus, and tilted Chewbacca's head back, palpating the clogged airway. Carefully avoiding the arterial passageways, she slid the empty needle in, felt the pop as it found the pocket of fluid, and pulled the plunger back. Droids still can't do this, she thought. There's not a droid in the world that would try this.
And probably for good reason.
Pinkish gray liquid began to fill the barrel of the syringe. Han didn't say anything, but she could hear the dry click as he swallowed hard. She emptied the syringe, put it back in, and tapped the fluid again.
After three full syringes, the swelling began to go down.
The screaming in Chewie's head got louder.
What are the true songs of lifeday?
I am inside you, the sickness whispered, and you will sing the songs as I teach them and those songs are to kill and to eat. And you will sing them while I am still inside you. While I am still hungry and I am always hungry and you will sing my songs.
Yes, Chewbacca told it, his thoughts moving in the oddly formal way they sometimes did when he was thinking of things very seriously, yes, you are inside of me. I breathed you in when the prison door was opened just like Han breathed you in and you made him cough and start choking. But then the doctor gave us the medicine.
The sickness screamed at him and raged. But he didn't hear it anymore.
He felt the pressure loosening from his chest. He was breathing again, the stricture in his throat abating, allowing for the first tentative passage of air. Vision was clearing, too, becoming stable, allowing him to see Han and the doctor standing over him, their faces worried.
— those are the true songs of lifeday -
The strength coming back through him now was the strength of his family and homeworld. He sat up but did not try his voice. He didn't trust it yet. He looked down at his hands. They were clean. Relief sagged through him and it was like coming home to faces that recognized him and welcomed him in. There was no more screaming now. Inside the house where he had been born, someone was playing music.
"Easy." Zahara broke open a packet of bandages and adhesive and tried as best she could to dress the tiny pinhole incision she'd left on his throat. She couldn't see through all the fur, but her fingers knew instinctively where it was. "We'll have to clean that up as soon as we can. How do you feel?"
He gave a hoarse cry, then a louder one.
"You okay, pal?" Han asked, and when Chewie gave a quick bark of acknowledgment, he turned to Zahara. "Lady, you just got really lucky."
"Hopefully we all did," she said. "If that anti-virus works, you should both be protected."
They helped Chewbacca to his feet, a process that fully required both of their strengths. Han watched him closely, preparing for a relapse, but the Wookiee seemed steady enough once he was standing up.
"Think you can travel, buddy?" Han asked.
Chewie barked out another growl.
"Okay, all right," Han said. "Forget I asked."
"The turbolift's back this way," Zahara said, pointing around the corner. "We can go back through, just be careful you don't trip over the.»
They all stopped.
"What happened to the bodies?" Han asked. "The dead guards?"
Zahara blinked down at the floor where the corpses of the prison guards had been sprawled out. They'd all seen them.
But now they were gone.
"Maybe they weren't dead," Han said doubtfully.
"I examined them."
"So somebody came and moved them. I dunno, maintenance droids or something." He looked at her. "Is there a reason we're still standing here discussing this?"
Zahara thought about it. She wondered if maybe the 2-1B had come down to meet her and moved the corpses. But that just didn't make sense. The blasters were gone, too, she realized-including the one she'd just kicked out of the room.
Somewhere in the semidarkness she thought she heard something creak, some random self-activating servo coming to life inside the walls, and she jumped, startled. Suddenly she realized that Han was right. They had to get out of here, not soon but now.
"The turbolift's over this way," she said.
Han and Chewie followed her in, the doors closing as they glided upward. "Where are we going?"
"Medbay. I've got to talk to Waste."
"Who's Waste?"
"My surgical droid."
"And you call him Waste? Like waste of space?"
"Waste of space, waste of programming. " She shrugged, relaxing a little now that they were out of that damp, shadow-crawling lower corridor. "I started it as a joke and it just kind of stuck."
"He doesn't mind?"
"He thinks it's a term of endearment," she said, and upon saying so, realized it was true.