Fatima’s arrival interrupted Vartan’s concentration; he’d been going over the inventory of supplies, equipment, and stored items. Jon Burht, the first of the First Chosen, had heard the girl screaming down by the garden.
Burht brought little Fatima in just before dusk. She was bawling, said that something had hurt her foot. And there, inching up her pencil-thin calf, was a lump as big around and as long as Vartan’s thumb. Moving. The thing was crawling along under the skin.
“Call Shyanne!” Vartan cried as he tried to soothe the child. “Hey, it’s all right. Your mother’s coming.”
“It hurts!” Fatima declared as tears streaked her cheeks. “I’m scared. I want my mother!”
“Coming. She’s coming.”
The Messiah, disrupted from his reading, walked over, stared down. “What is it?”
“I don’t know,” Vartan told him. Lifting the girl’s foot, he could see the wound, a bloody puncture where the child’s foot was caked with mud. “What was it that they said? Something about slugs?”
“And shoes,” Burht reminded. “That we needed to wear shoes.”
The Messiah tipped his head back, eyes closed. The blue eye in his forehead continued to stare aimlessly at the light panel overhead. “Perhaps we should.”
“It’s moving faster,” Burht noted.
The Messiah reached down, pressed on the lump moving slowly up Fatima’s lower shin.
The girl screamed, and the lump slipped down behind her tibia and fibula, as if hiding. As it did, Fatima shrieked and kicked, as if trying to dislodge the pain.
“Fatima!” Shyanne cried, her expression panicked as she raced into the room. “What’s happened?”
“Something bit her,” the Messiah replied thoughtfully, a curious stirring behind his dark eyes.
“Bit her?” Shyanne bent down, taking her daughter’s hand. “Baby? What happened? What bit you?”
“It hurt my foot! It’s in my leg! Make it stop, Mother! Please. Just make it stop!”
Vartan ground his teeth. He’d always had a soft spot for Fatima. But for the universe, she might have been his child. Even after the Harrowing and Cleansing, he still had feelings for Shyanne. Couldn’t help but remember how it had been before.
His soul ached at the expression on Shyanne’s face as her quick hands began to press on the girl’s swollen lower leg. As she did, Fatima screamed her pain.
“Sorry, baby. So, sorry.” Shyanne glanced at the Messiah. “What do I do?”
“You’re the vet tech,” the Messiah told her. “The closest thing we have to a doctor.”
“I’d better call Port Authority,” she said through a nervous exhale. “They’ll know what to do.”
“No.” The Messiah’s tone left no room for doubt. “That is forbidden. We want nothing from those people. All they intend for us is harm.”
Shyanne’s brown eyes had taken on that gleam Vartan knew so well. He laid a hand on her shoulder. Felt her flinch as he told her: “Deal with it. You can figure it out on your own. It’s just like an infection, right?”
Shyanne blinked, winced as Fatima screamed again.
“Please. Let me call.”
“No. I will not tell you again,” the Messiah told her. “You are our medical expert. You’ve seen the materials they left us. What do you think this is?”
“Probably something they call a slug.” Shyanne was wavering on her feet, her hand clutching Fatima’s. Tears were rimming her eyes.
“A slug,” the Messiah said softly. “I thought they poisoned them all.”
“Lies!” Burht snapped. “Corporate deceit.”
Fatima began to whimper.
Vartan looked down in time to see the lump shift behind the little girl’s skinny knee. “It’s in the lower thigh now.”
Shyanne clamped her eyes closed, both hands holding her daughter’s. “They said it could be cut out.”
“This is the universe’s will,” the Messiah said with finality. “This is a lesson to us.”
“Get me a knife.” Shyanne’s voice had that high waver on the verge of hysteria. “I’ll need something to sew with. I’ve got to get that thing out of my daughter.”
“And risk yourself?” the Messiah asked. “Shyanne, think. Yes, she’s your daughter. But you are our only medical person. What if, in trying to save your daughter, it infects you? We can’t let that happen. You are too important to us.”
Vartan watched the interplay of anger, fear, and worry behind his ex-wife’s expression.
Before she could do herself irreparable harm, Vartan spun her around to face him. “I need you to run back to your room. Read everything you can find on these slugs. That Perez woman left the notes. Once you do, we’ll know how to proceed. So go now. There’s not a moment to lose. Find the answer for sure.”
Shyanne shot him a look of disbelief.
“Yes,” the Messiah agreed. “Go read the notes. See if there’s anything mentioned besides surgery. Hurry!”
Vartan, praying, watched Shyanne hesitate, saw the skepticism, but the woman nodded. Bent down. “Baby, I’ll be right back with the cure.”
Shyanne left at a run. Almost bowled First Will Petre off his feet as he met her at the door.
Vartan wiped sweat from his forehead. “Maybe it won’t be as bad—”
“Take her to one of the back rooms,” the Messiah ordered. “I read the section on slugs. They are probably dividing inside the girl’s leg as we speak. I want Fatima quarantined.”
To Petre, he said, “Your job, First Will, is to keep Shyanne away from her daughter. Whatever it takes. But remember, as our only medical person, she’s not to be too badly harmed.”
Vartan fought down his urge to protest. Glanced at the agony reflected in the little girl’s face. This was going to break Shyanne’s heart. It was already breaking his. “Yes, Messiah.”
As he reached down and gathered up the writhing little girl, he heard the Messiah say, “And no one goes outside barefoot from here on.”
As Vartan carried the whimpering little girl down one of the dim hallways, he couldn’t help but wonder.
If they lost the children, they lost everything.