The woman's arm blurred up as if tossing something away. Anderssen tried to jerk herself back, but a cupped hand smashed her head to one side. Gretchen flew into the bulkhead with a crash, and then fell heavily to the deck. Russovsky stood abruptly, her face in shadow as she stepped out of the light over the table. "I'll top up," she said in a conversational voice, turning toward the door. "And be on my way."
"Stop!" Bandao was in the doorway, the flat metallic shape of his automatic gleaming in the dim light. "No farther."
Russovsky stared at him, puzzled, hands hanging limply at her side again.
Gretchen blinked, stunned, then tested her jaw. Not broken! "Maggie, what is it?"
There was a long moan of a hrrrwwwt from the Hesht. Magdalena looked up from the display surface of the nurse's station, ears napped against her skull, the short hairs on her shoulders and back raised in a stiff triangular ruff. "Not human," she growled, shaking her head in confusion. "Something else…like a…living crystal."
Bandao took two steps back, his thumb flipping some kind of switch on the side of his gun. There was an answering beep! "The thing in the sand Sinclair was talking about?"
"The microfauna?" Gretchen stood uneasily, swaying slightly. Her medband hissed cold at her wrist. The woman, or the thing which looked so much like a woman, did not react, remaining as still as a statue. "But why…and how? Maggie, does she have bones, blood vessels, internal organs?"
"Yess…" Magdalena hissed, her claws skittering across the unfamiliar medical display. "The shapes of things are there – but body temperature is even throughout – there are no fluids – no movement. It's nothing more than a cold copy."
Gretchen's lips parted, her entire attention focused on the marvelous creature poised on the far side of the table. "But she can walk, speak – she remembers bits and pieces of her life… The duplication must be at almost a cellular level!"
"They ate her," Bandao said, his voice tight with fear. The automatic in his hands was steady as a stone itself, but the gunner's face had grown paler by degrees. "They caught her somewhere – maybe she was sleeping and they came at night – and they ate her up, cell by cell. Like she was fossilized all at once."
"Mister Bandao," Gretchen's voice echoed his fear with a harsh tone. Sweat beaded her face. "Lower the gun and get out of the doorway. Maggie, cycle the isolation door closed."
"Sister, you're still in there!" Despite her outcry, a single claw stabbed the emergency isolation glyph and Bandao had to skip back to avoid being caught in the swift rush of the glass-and-steel door. A dull thump signaled the room sealing. "What are you doing?"
"I was out at night, in the dig." Gretchen said, circling the immobile Russovsky and climbing onto the examining table. "The ground is alive, you know, filled with tiny life… Sinclair has video of them reproducing, expanding, building their geometric hives. Am I infected?"
"What?" Magdalena stared through the heavy isolation glass. "What are you talking about?"
Bandao stepped to her side, quick brown eyes sweeping across the medical display. "I can't tell," he muttered. "It's been too long since I used one of these… Wait, Magdalena, load up her medical record from Company files. Then we can compare." The gunner looked up, mouth tight. "What about the scientists from base camp?"
"Oh, crap!" Gretchen stiffened, then tapped her comm. "Parker, where are you? The bridge? No, I'm not mad at you anymore – listen to me! Seal the ship, we need pressure lock between each ring right now! Then get on the surveillance cam and find all the scientists we just brought up from the surface. Yes, all of them, even in the showers." Gretchen keyed another channel open with shaking fingers. "Fitzsimmons, Deckard – we've got a problem."
In his dim cocoon of glowing displays and quietly chuckling comps, Hummingbird reacted immediately to the events in the Medical bay. His fingers slashed across the main input panel. There was a questioning chirp. "Four Jaguar," he said in a relaxed, unaffected voice. "Four Jaguar."
Palenque main comp immediately locked out every panel and sub-comp on the entire ship. In some areas, like Engineering, a low hooting alarm went off, signaling a communications failure. At the same time, a direct channel to the Cornuelle unfolded on Hummingbird's main panel. Captain Hadeishi stared out in surprise, his private cabin silhouetted behind him, a cup of steaming tea held in one hand, a paperbound book in the other. His mouth moved, surprised, but Hummingbird heard nothing – the channel was only one-way at the moment.
A tiny image of an outraged Parker jumped in one corner of the secondary panel. Hummingbird ignored him as well, lips tight, his eyes fixed on the v-feed from Medical. A preset routine spun through the civilian ship – even as the two Marines herded a gaggle of frightened, outraged scientists into the hab ring – closing hatches and ventilation ducts, sealing airlocks, isolating each section of the ship with brisk, invisible efficiency. Another preset shifted nearly sixty percent of Palenque main comp to flinging the data flowing from the examining table in Medical into a broad-spectrum search against the databanks in both Hummingbird's Smoke-class comp and the navy system aboard the Cornuelle. If those sources failed – the blue pyramid, which was shining softly in a golden nest of whisker-thin wires, stood ready as well.
The tlamatinime's thumb was poised over a sturdy red glyph – this was Four Wind – the sign of the Second Sun which had been destroyed so long ago, when all living men were swept away by terrible winds and gales, leaving only monkeys as their descendants.
"We're matching…" Bandao muttered, face screwed up in concentration, his fingers gingerly moving the controls on the medical display. Maggie had a paw tight on his shoulder, the white arc of her claws digging into the padded armor hiding under his jacket. "What does this mean?"
Gretchen crossed her legs and took a deep breath, head in her hands. Russovsky had not moved. Whatever lived inside her, whatever motivated her to action, to sudden motion, seemed puzzled by the closed door. The distant hooting of alarms, and the way – apparently unnoticed by either Bandao or Maggie – the main door to Medical had sealed itself, apparently without orders, was of more concern. She tapped her comm quietly, but there was no answer. No channel opened, no soft green light indicating the shipside comm band was awake and taking messages.
Now what? Gretchen waved at Magdalena, drawing the Hesht's attention. She tapped her comm and made a face. Maggie checked, finding her comm dead as well. The Hesht fiddled with her settings and was rewarded with a blinking light of some kind. Moving very quietly and staying away from the Russovsky-copy's line of sight, Gretchen slipped from the table and moved to the observation window. Magdalena held out her comm, letting Anderssen see which channel she'd changed to. Ah, a local suit-to-suit circuit.
"…hear me?" Maggie's soft voice echoed in Gretchen's earbug. Anderssen nodded, moving back to the far side of the examination table. "Dai says your readings are okay, but there's some kind of khu-shist energy pattern permeating the Russovsky and you have something like it in your boots."
Gretchen looked down. Aw, crap. The sides of her soles were discolored and shiny. Bet that doesn't come out with spit and a cloth, either.
"Okay," Gretchen subvoxed, "can you tell what's happened on the ship?"
"I don't know," Maggie hissed. "Something's locked us out of main comp."
Gretchen stared around in mounting panic. The chamber was sealed and now she realized the air vents had sealed up. An ozonelike odor tickled her nose and she backed away from the Russovsky-copy again. What a day to decide not to wear my z-suit. "Can you do anything in here with just that panel?"