Swaying back and forth, Trina dreamed she lay in the crane while it moved across their new land. She looked up and saw only an expanse of yellow. From what they’d talked about in the commons, yellow dirt rarely grew much. Grandfather must have failed after all.
Her gaze tripped over what looked like a pocket flap in the dirt.
A door swished open.
“Lenat, I’ve got a sick one,” a deep voice said, the words rumbling from the chest against her side in clipped, almost shafter tones.
“Put them over on those beds. I’m setting up basic quarantine.” This voice sounded softer, the cadence lyrical.
“I’m better now.” Trina sat up.
The political officer almost dropped her. A red-suited woman moved closer to help.
“You can’t be. Not with how hot you were,” the pilot said.
Trina shrugged, unwilling to explain how she was never sick. Whatever happened must have been from running too long in a panic.
“She’s a young one, isn’t she?” The blue-suited doctor came over to join them. “How’d you end up with her, Nishan?”
“It was like the legends on my planet. She dropped from the sky. A gift from the gods to teach me humility.” The spacer gave a deep laugh.
“If your gods gave you gifts like these, it’s no wonder you were desperate enough to leave when we came. The colonists are supposed to tend their own sick.”
“She came out of the duct system,” Nishan said. “Ran right into me. I don’t think this is something simple. Just look her over, will you?”
“I’m fine,” Trina repeated, annoyed at how they dismissed her statement.
A familiar chime sounded and another voice started talking so rapidly Trina found it hard to keep up.
“It’ll have to wait.” The doctor waved both spacers over, and Trina followed. She had nowhere else to go.
“The early news on this isn’t good. It’s racing through the section with the Tasrien group. As far as we can tell, anyone not in an enviro suit is infected. It’s 100% communicable, and we don’t even know the transmission vectors yet. Only quarantine stopped it.”
The woman in red frowned as she stared at a screen covered in symbols Trina couldn’t read. “What about the blood work? Did that tell you anything? Any hope of a cure before this becomes fatal?”
The wall chimed again, and a male voice said, “We’re on our way.”
The doctor shook her head. “I haven’t gotten them yet, Heather. Patty’s on his way with the samples and the first load of sick to observe. Sorry, Nishan, but you need to get your gift out of here. Whatever she has, it can’t be as dangerous as what’s coming out of Tasrien.”
Nishan closed a hand on Trina’s shoulder, but she shook off the hold. “Wait. I have the cure. I delivered it to Tasrien already. I’ve been in there and I’m not sick. Here.” She dug the vial out of her pocket, grateful now that some remained after all.
The doctor took the vial and stared at it, a mix of hope and terror on her face. Before Trina could ask why, the woman in the red suit collapsed.
“Heather! Lenat, help her.”
The doctor paled. “Was she sick before? Has she complained of anything?”
Nishan shook her head, the other woman’s shoulders braced across her knees. “She was fine. We were returning from a workout.”
Lenat glanced at the vial then put it in a pocket. “That’s what I was afraid of. You’re telling the truth, girl? About being in Tasrien?”
“Yes. I brought the cure.”
The doctor crossed to help Nishan lift Heather to a bench. “She’s contagious. I don’t know why she’s better, but we’ve all been exposed.”
“The cure?”
“Not until I know exactly what it is.”
Trina shifted from foot to foot, wanting to do something, to help, but she knew nothing about this beyond what she’d already told them.
Lenat strode back to where they’d been and pressed the call button. “Patty, I’m in medical with what I believe is another case. Yes, I know you haven’t sent any up yet. This one came from the ducts.”
She paused to hear the other voice. “No, I don’t know how she got in there. It doesn’t matter. What’s important is that you lock it down. The girl infected Heather in the time it took them to bring her here. Look, just do your best. We have to find everyone she came in contact with.”
“Katie.” Trina ran for the door as she realized if she’d made Heather sick then Katie was too.
Nishan caught her again, appearing out of nowhere with a shafter’s quiet skill. “Hold it, kid. You’re not leaving. Quarantine.”
This time when Trina struggled, she couldn’t get free. “My sister. She’s trapped in the ducts. She won’t be able to hide from the robots, and she might be sick like her.” Trina pointed at Heather.
“We shut the robots down when you spilled out. You told us about Katie then, but Security would’ve told us if they’d found her inside. Where would she go?”
Trina stared at Nishan. “She has to be in there. She doesn’t know how to get out. She doesn’t have this.” The panel tool came to her hand with an ease Trina had hoped lost in her time as a colonist.
Nishan grabbed the tool. “Where did you get this?”
“What is it?” Lenat leaned over, but Nishan pulled it away.
“A maintenance tool and access to places no colonist—heck, few crewmembers—are allowed.”
Trina forced herself to stand still as the woman knelt to stare into her face.
“Where did you get this?”
Lenat pulled Nishan back. “That doesn’t matter now. Where is your sister? You say she doesn’t have a way out, but she’s not in the ducts. Think, girl, think hard. She has to be somewhere.”
Trina shook her head, sure there was no answer, but under the combined strength of their gazes, a faint memory teased her. “I jammed a panel. Back when I thought I was done. When I thought he would take the tool back, I jammed a panel to the ship’s wall.”
“Ship’s Wall? What’s that? Some colonist myth?”
The lack of comprehension on Nishan’s face frustrated Trina. “The outer edge. The place where the ship meets the sky. Where you can feel the universe through the walls.” How could she not understand? “She’ll be hiding with the blocks, the boxes. The stuff for building our colony.”
“The cargo bays. Stay right here.” Nishan crossed to the communication panel and soon she barked out instructions to the security members on the other side.
Trina itched to snatch up the panel tool Nishan had left on a nearby table and run, but how could she? If the doctor was right, she’d made Heather sick. She’d made Katie sick. Trina would have no part in hurting anyone else.
Lenat stepped between Trina and the door. “Here. We’ll all need to suit up. Nishan and I are already exposed, but I can’t have us infecting more of my staff. I need every one of them if we’re to get this under control.”
Trina waited until Nishan signaled that security was off to save her sister before climbing into the bulky suit. She couldn’t run, not with so much at stake.