Wanderer - Deception

Chapter 2-1

2

Kaira blinked her way back to wakefulness, stretched, then winced at the pain she was expecting. But there wasn’t any. She felt far better than she remembered being the last time she’d woken up. She was still in the medical bay, but it felt as if less machinery was strapped to her this time.

“Welcome back from the land of dreams,” came Tarkus’s voice from just out of her sight. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I’ve been asleep for a week!”

“Well, not quite. It was only five and a half days.”

“Five and a half days! I didn’t think it was even possible to sleep for that long!”

“Well, that’s down to the drugs, mostly. Don’t worry, nothing nasty – just a sedative. The medical units keep those devices within you at bay much more easily when you’re sleeping.”

“Even so, five and a half days! Did I miss anything exciting?”

“Oh, not really. A few pirate attacks. Having lunch with a space dragon. Almost being lunch for a space dragon. Running from an exploding supernova. Just our run-of-the-mill stuff.”

“Ha! If you do meet a space dragon I expect you to wake me up immediately!”

“Deal! You haven’t missed anything other than a lot of jump space travel and a few transitions.”

Tarkus moved into view, unplugging the remaining medical devices from her. Kaira smiled as a thought struck her.

“You got to enjoy all that time without having someone looking over your shoulder!” she said. “You must have been in heaven!”

“It actually felt a little strange. I guess I’ve gotten quite used to you being on the bridge and distracting me.”

Kaira found herself speechless. It seemed that Tarkus was being honest, and if so it was a truly massive admission. He wasn’t saying he wanted her on the flight deck, or that her not being there hadn’t been better for him, but the fact he’d missed her at all was shocking.

“There we go,” said Tarkus, removing the last of the medical devices. “All ready to go. We’ve got about thirty minutes till we reach the station, time enough to get you something to eat and a bit more settled. Now, let’s see if you can sit up.”

“What do you mean if I can sit up?”

“Give it a try.”

Kaira did. She’d barely lifted herself off the bed at all when the room started spinning around her. She sagged back onto the bed.

“All right,” she said. “Now I see what you mean.”

“You haven’t been upright in well over a week. Let’s try that again, but slower.”

Tarkus stepped closer and placed a hand under her shoulder. This time she moved slowly, leaning heavily on his hand. Slowly, very slowly, she made it to an upright position.

“I think I might give it a minute or two more before I try dancing,” she said.

“I’d rather you did. I don’t want to be picking you off the floor again!”

“At least you can! I couldn’t begin to shift you when you were knocked out at Rachnard’s Hole.”

“Yeah, but you managed pretty well. Without your help I’d have been in real trouble that day.”

Kaira’s stomach clenched, and as she opened her mouth to tell him how she felt the words once more choked in her throat. But this time she forced her way through it.

“You were only there because of me,” she said. “You were only in danger because you were helping me. Worse than that, you were only in danger because of the lies I’d told you. I lied to you and I betrayed you. I led you straight into a trap on Crasant. I don’t deserve your help.”

Tarkus took a step back, leaving Kaira to support herself. She managed, but it wasn’t easy. He moved further round so he could stand in front of her and look into her eyes.

“What exactly were your alternatives?” he asked.

“I could have warned you!”

“And then died when those devices ripped through your body?”

“No. Yes. Maybe. I don’t know. It still doesn’t make it right! And for all you know, I might do it again!”

“No. You won’t. I can tell.”

“How can you tell?”

“We don’t have time to go into this now. We need to get you up and moving, ready for when we reach Antilia Terminal. Come on. Swing your legs off and I’ll help you up.”

Kaira managed to get onto her feet but felt strange as she swayed there, Tarkus’s hand steadying her arm. Not ill as such, but as if her balance and timing were slightly off.

“This is ridiculous,” she said. “I wasn’t out for that long!”

“It’s down to what those devices did,” said Tarkus gravely. “They weren’t just in you to cause pain. They were trying to disassemble your body from the inside. It’s a truly evil creation. Even worse than slave collars, and those are awful enough.”

“Why would anyone even come up with something like these devices? Or slave collars, for that matter?”

“There’s always someone who’ll invent things like that. Some of them get a kick out of doing it. Some are truly so laser focused they never consider what the implementations and effects of what they’re working on are.

“There was one… oh, must be nearly ten years ago now. A doctor. An absolute genius with viruses and infections, but he got bored of testing them on lab animals and under tightly controlled circumstances. He decided he wanted to study the effects out in the wild.

“He let a disease loose in the middle of a packed station. And not just any disease, one he’d worked hard to make far more deadly than it had started as. The devastation was horrific. Everyone started calling him Doctor Plague.”

“I’ve heard that name. I never knew if he was real or just a bogeyman to scare kids with.”

“He was real. The plague raged for three months before anyone figured out it wasn’t natural, and even then it took months more to bring it fully under control. It was the poorest who suffered most, as they always do. Even once treatments were available they were expensive to begin with, partly down to the complexity of making them but mostly down to the fact they were in limited supply. Those with the most money ensured their families got the cures before anyone else.”

“That doesn’t seem right!”

“It wasn’t. But if someone in your family was dying and you had the money to make sure they got the treatment ahead of anyone else, are you certain you wouldn’t spend anything it took to bump your family to the top of the queue?”

Kaira shivered and shook her head.

“I’d like to think I wouldn’t, but I don’t know. It sounds like an impossible choice. When it was a choice between me surviving and saving you… that was different. But if it was someone else’s life on the line? I don’t know.”

“That’s a more honest answer than most people would give. A lot would insist they would do what’s right. Of course what’s right could feel very different if you were in those circumstances. Anyway, come on. Let’s see if we can get you moving. One step at a time, and stop anytime you need to.”

The first step was much harder than Kaira had expected. She felt as if she was toppling forwards, but with Tarkus supporting her by her arm she managed to continue through into the second step. She tried the third, and slowly but surely she walked out of the medical room and into the corridor. Then she stopped and groaned.

“The stairs! I’d totally forgotten about them. Do we have to go up them?”

“You don’t have to, but if you don’t you’re going to end up stuck in your room. If you can do it let’s get you upstairs, then you can rest on the sofa in the living area or come sit on the flight deck.”

“Let’s give it a try. Worse comes to worse, you can give me a piggyback.”

Tarkus snorted at that.

“I’ve done enough carrying you around for the moment. You can manage the stairs. I’m sure you can.”

She was feeling stronger and more balanced by the time they reached the staircase. They took it slowly, oh so slowly, climbing one step then pausing. By the top she was struggling to lift her feet high enough to reach the next step, but she made it. Doing so had taken all of her attention and all of her breath. Only once they were at the top, moving towards the living area, did a thought strike her.

“What happened to him? Doctor Plague, I mean. Was he punished?

“I don’t really know. Some say he was, but I’ve never seen anything official. Which makes me think he was probably never tried.”

“So he got away with what he did?”

“Maybe. Or maybe someone killed him before he could be tried.”

“I hope so. The thought of someone doing something so horrific and getting away with it, maybe even out there planning to do it again, that’s terrible. He sounds like the most evil man born.”

“Oh, there’s plenty of contenders for that title. Evil though he was, I’d put him well below whoever came up with the idea of creating the Limited. If Jess, Ali, and the Wanderer hadn’t sacrificed themselves to put a stop to that threat the whole of humanity might be enslaved to a few despotic rulers by now, their minds wiped and with no chance of ever being able to rebel or find freedom.”

“It was really that bad? I’ve heard all the stories, of course, and seen some video. But it was such a long time ago it’s hard to know if it was all true.”

“It was, and it was as horrific as it sounds. I’ve done a lot of digging into what happened around the time leading to the end of the Empire, so I know that the standard defence is a pile of shit.”

“What standard defence?”

“That whoever developed the technology to create the Limited was creating it to tackle the Taint. Absolute bullshit. They started their research at least five years before there was any report of the Taint anywhere within the Empire and ten years before it was taken seriously. The Taint was just a convenient excuse. Whoever created the Limited knew exactly what they were doing, and we’re all incredibly lucky they were finally stopped.”

They reached the living area, walked in, and Kaira sank thankfully down on the sofa.

“Would you like a drink?” asked Tarkus.

“I could murder for a coffee. Thank you.”

“I’ll get it for you. I don’t think I’d trust you to bring me a coffee safely just yet.”

“Maybe I should start with getting you a glass of cold water. If I trip and splash it over you it will just be funny rather than excruciatingly painful!”

“That’s probably a better idea. But I think I’ll also stand up so it’s easier to dodge when… sorry, if, you spill the water.”

“Hah!”