She said, “Do not underestimate me.”
His smile was weak but genuine. “Zoe, I never underestimate you.”
ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-ONE
ORLI COVITZ
Orli didn’t want to get her hopes up. Depending too much on unrealistic hope was what had made her hesitate while Tom Rom was pursuing her.
But the green priest said he had a way to cure her. On screen, Aelin wore an expression not of arrogance, but of unwavering confidence that he knew everything, even though he could only share the tiniest fraction of it.
“What have you got to lose?” asked Garrison Reeves, who looked earnest on the screen as he talked with her from the admin module.
And Orli realized that she did not in fact have anything to lose.
Though they had never spoken before, she felt a connection with Garrison. He and his son were both familiar with her compy work. And she knew something about Garrison too, having watched the sad last messages of clan Reeves, including the farewells spoken by Olaf, Dale, Sendra.
He seemed different from the Retroamers, though, an independent man who had not wanted to isolate himself from the rest of the Confederation. From his obvious compassion, she could tell he was not at all like Matthew. Orli wished she could have had a chance to know him better. It was a cruel irony to meet someone like that when she was in the last stages of a terminal disease…
DD contributed his opinion about the green priest’s offer. “I encourage you to pursue any option of a cure, Orli. I would find it difficult to force you if you decided to resist—but I would still make the attempt.”
Orli looked at the Friendly compy, struggled to focus her eyes. Her head pounded, every part of her felt indescribably awful. She doubted she had the energy to fight off even little DD. “Why would you force me?”
“My programming requires me to save you. I cannot allow you to come to harm through inaction—mine or yours. If you refuse to try the only possible cure, then I would not allow your inaction.”
She responded with a weak, rattling laugh. “That’s an interesting contortion of logic. I’d like to stay alive, even if just to study that further.” She turned back to the concerned audience that watched her from Iswander’s admin module. “All right, so what exactly am I supposed to do?”
The green priest said in a calm voice, “Do what I did. Go to one of the bloater nodules and pass through the membrane. Inside is the universe’s primordial sea—life itself, and everything. Immerse yourself.”
“I thought the bloaters were filled with ekti. Won’t I just drown in stardrive fuel?”
“You will bathe in the blood of the cosmos,” said the green priest. “You are not like me. You don’t have telink, so the effect will not be as pronounced, but I am confident you will find the cleansing you need.”
“I’m glad somebody’s confident,” Orli muttered.
Without being told, DD operated the piloting controls and eased the Proud Mary toward the bloater cluster. Far below, the system’s bright white sun looked intense and alone. Nodules drifted toward the star, followed by the extraction ships and equipment.
Iswander Security flanked her, as if to make sure Orli didn’t try to escape, but that was the farthest thing from her mind. With blurred vision, she looked at the industrial operations, the cargo ships flying about, the dark and deflated husks that drifted loose in space—and the remaining bloaters, spherical, silent, except for an occasional flash that sparkled from a nucleus.
Orli indicated a bloater that drifted outside the main mass of nodules. “Fly me to that one, DD. Get as close as you can.” She still didn’t really believe the green priest had a solution, but—as Garrison said—what did she have to lose?
It took her three tries to push herself out of the pilot chair. DD decreased the artificial gravity aboard so she had an easier time moving. She would need an environment suit, at least until she was submerged inside the bloater. She dreaded the effort that donning the suit would require, but she knew she had to do it.
Orli tugged on the slick fabric. She hadn’t had many occasions to use a spacesuit in recent years, but the safety systems were helpful. The fastenings sealed themselves. Her left foot was maddeningly uncooperative, and she couldn’t seem to get it seated properly in the integrated boot.
When DD came to offer his assistance, Orli almost wept with gratitude. Like a prim butler, he adjusted her fingers in the gloves, sealed the remaining components, repositioned her foot in the boot, then activated the suit’s life-support systems.
“I have piloted the Proud Mary up against the bloater membrane,” he said.
She sank down onto a bench so she was low enough for the compy to fasten her helmet. “Thank you, DD.” Then it was time to go.
With weaving steps, she moved to the airlock. Through the windowports, she could see the bloater’s mottled membrane so close. The thing was both intimidating and majestic. Standing at the airlock hatch, she turned back to the little compy. “Even if this works, I can’t come back aboard the ship. The Proud Mary is contaminated. Nobody else can come aboard. Ever.”
“I already have my instructions, Orli. I have prepared the ship’s self-destruct systems.” He paused and added, “BO and the other clan Reeves compies provided an example that I intend to emulate.”
Orli stepped into the airlock, then turned back. “I’m modifying your instructions, DD. Once I’m inside the bloater, take the Proud Mary a safe distance from the Iswander operations and set the destruct timer. Transmit your coordinates, and then exit through the airlock into open space. You’ll be adrift in hard vacuum, but someone will retrieve you soon enough.”
“So, to clarify—you do not wish for me to be aboard during the self-destruct sequence?”
“No, DD, I don’t wish that at all. The plague organism won’t survive exposure to open space. It can’t.”
DD hesitated. “Are you certain?”
“Dead certain. Once they retrieve you, the industrial crew will keep you isolated and put you through every possible decontamination routine they can think of just to be sure.”
“Just to be sure,” DD echoed.
If nothing else, she imagined that DD could become the companion of young Seth Reeves. She was sure the boy and the Friendly compy would get along well together.
Before DD could argue with her, she closed the airlock hatch, sealed her helmet faceplate. After the air was purged and the outer airlock door opened, Orli faced the oddly gelatinous membrane of the bloater. She extended her gloved hand, touched the surface, and patted it. It felt as if the bloater were made of a kind of stiff jelly.
With a shove, she inserted her arm all the way up to the elbow. The density and texture inside eluded her, but the pain in her body did not. If she died, the plague would die with her. DD would destroy the Proud Mary as planned. But if she didn’t die…
“What have I got to lose?”
Orli ducked her head and plunged into the bloater, where she found herself drifting in an invisible, intangible embrace. Baptized in the blood of the cosmos. Orli didn’t know what to do with the green priest’s mysticism, but all she had left was trust and hope.
Pushing aside any vestiges of hesitation, she opened the faceplate of her helmet.
Bloater protoplasm flooded her helmet, her suit; it poured into her eyes and ears and nose. Instinctively, she drew a last breath and sucked the impossible substance into her lungs. It raced everywhere, saturating her cells.