Part 10 (1/2)

But that couldn't be right. The doctor hadn't poisoned him; she'd injected him with a cure. Then why did it hurt so much, and why did he still hear the young ones screaming?

His skull felt like it was filling with fluid, blocking out his sense of smell. But his hearing was keener than ever. Voices were shrieking at him, no longer pleading but accusing him of unspeakable atrocities, and when he looked down at his hands he saw that they were dripping with blood while the rank, salty flavor of their blood was in his mouth.

And then the sickness was in him.

And the sickness wanted to eat.

He snarled louder, lashed out, wanting to make it go away, but it was too deep already, burrowing through his memory, bringing back details he hadn't remembered in nearly two hundred years. He heard old lifeday songs from Kashyyyk, saw faces-old Attichitcuk, Kallabow, his beloved Malla-except their faces were changing now, melting and stretching, mouths hooking into strange, contemptuous grins. His father's eyes lit upon him, saw all the shame he tried to hide. They knew what he was now that the sickness was inside of him and what the sick-ness would make him do to the little ones. They knew how he would slaughter them in their cells and feast upon their steaming entrails, shoving them into his mouth without bothering to chew, enslaved by the sickness and its appet.i.te. They saw how the sickness could not be sated, how it wanted to keep on killing and eating until there was nothing left but blood that might be lapped up from the cold durasteel floors. They said, These are the true songs of lifeday, these songs are eat and kill, eat and kill.

No, it's not true. It's not.

Screaming louder, a deafening roar, at least in his own mind, he felt the oblivion of the sickness coming and was grateful for it, an opportunity to hide, to get away from the things he was experiencing. He did not try to escape; he ran toward it eagerly.

Zahara jumped back, instinctively ducking and flinging both hands up to protect herself. Chewbacca's arm swung out blindly, the syringe still protruding from it, and the needle sailed across the cell like a poorly thrown dart, hitting the wall and disappearing somewhere in the half-fight. If she hadn't dropped down when she did, the Wookiee's arm would have crushed her throat.

”Hey, pal, take it easy,” Han said, reaching over to him. ”Chewie, it's just...”

Chewbacca rounded on him with a full-throated howl, and Han jerked backward, frowned, and stared at Zahara.

”What did you do to him?”

”Nothing. He got the same thing you got.”

”Maybe it works differently for his species, did you ever think about that?” He looked back at Chewbacca but the Wookiee's expression was completely alien now, unfriendly, no trace of recognition in his eyes. He seemed confused, frightened, and ready to attack whatever threat he perceived was nearby. The ripe, feral stink that Zahara had caught a whiff of earlier was back, stronger now, almost overwhelming, as if some aggression gland inside his metabolism had started spurting violent hormones through his brain. He was growling steadily now.

Then Zahara noticed the swelling. It was already affecting his throat, causing it to balloon up, and what she'd thought were growls had actually become a series of suffocated breaths.

”What is that?” Han asked. ”What's happening to his neck?”

Zahara didn't answer. She couldn't make coherent sense of her own thoughts, except that somehow she'd managed to find some of the last survivors aboard the barge, only to help the disease do its job even more efficiently.

She pulled herself together, flas.h.i.+ng through options: Somehow the anti-virus had either weakened the Wookiee's immunity to the pathogen, or the sickness itself had become more aggressive in the past few hours, shortening its incubation time from hours to minutes. Either way- Chewbacca fell to his knees with a crash, clasping his arms over his head, and rocked back and forth with a diminis.h.i.+ng series of horrible, gargling groans. When he lifted his head again, it was with monumental effort, and Zahara saw that the rage was draining away from his face. But this was only a side effect of oxygen debt, his gaze fogging over even as his enormous shoulders sagged forward, giving way to gravity until the entirety of his body slumped facedown to the floor.

Zahara squatted down. ”Help me roll him over.”

”What? Why?”

”Just do it.”

Han grabbed Chewbacca's shoulder and Zahara lifted his hips, tilting the ma.s.sive bulk of the Wookiee's body and tumbling him onto his back. She put her hand behind his furry head, down beneath his neck, and lifted upward.

”Find the syringe.”

”Uh-uh, no way.” Han shook his head. ”You're not giving him another drop of that stuff.”

”You want your friend to live? Find the karking syringe.”

Han took a second to digest this and then went back into the far corner of the cell, muttering under his breath. Zahara understood that, right now, a huge part of saving the Wookiee's life was just a matter of making Han believe her. If he didn't, if he tried to interfere, there was nothing she could do except to make Chewbacca comfortable until he died.

Han came back a moment later with the syringe in his hand. ”I hope you...”

Zahara grabbed it from him, squirted out the last of the anti-virus, and tilted Chewbacca's head back, palpating the clogged airway. Carefully avoiding the arterial pa.s.sageways, she slid the empty needle in, felt the pop as it found the pocket of fluid, and pulled the plunger back. Droids still can't do this, she thought. There's not a droid in the world that would try this.

And probably for good reason.

Pinkish gray liquid began to fill the barrel of the syringe. Han didn't say anything, but she could hear the dry click as he swallowed hard. She emptied the syringe, put it back in, and tapped the fluid again.

After three full syringes, the swelling began to go down.

The screaming in Chewie's head got louder.

What are the true songs of lifeday?

I am inside you, the sickness whispered, and you will sing the songs as I teach them and those songs are to kill and to eat. And you will sing them while I am still inside you. While I am still hungry and I am always hungry and you will sing my songs.

Yes, Chewbacca told it, his thoughts moving in the oddly formal way they sometimes did when he was thinking of things very seriously, yes, you are inside of me. I breathed you in when the prison door was opened just like Han breathed you in and you made him cough and start choking. But then the doctor gave us the medicine.

The sickness screamed at him and raged. But he didn't hear it anymore.

He felt the pressure loosening from his chest. He was breathing again, the stricture in his throat abating, allowing for the first tentative pa.s.sage of air. Vision was clearing, too, becoming stable, allowing him to see Han and the doctor standing over him, their faces worried.

-those are the true songs of lifeday - The strength coming back through him now was the strength of his family and homeworld. He sat up but did not try his voice. He didn't trust it yet. He looked down at his hands. They were clean. Relief sagged through him and it was like coming home to faces that recognized him and welcomed him in. There was no more screaming now. Inside the house where he had been born, someone was playing music.

”Easy.” Zahara broke open a packet of bandages and adhesive and tried as best she could to dress the tiny pinhole incision she'd left on his throat. She couldn't see through all the fur, but her fingers knew instinctively where it was. ”We'll have to clean that up as soon as we can. How do you feel?”

He gave a hoa.r.s.e cry, then a louder one.

”You okay, pal?” Han asked, and when Chewie gave a quick bark of acknowledgment, he turned to Zahara. ”Lady, you just got really lucky.”

”Hopefully we all did,” she said. ”If that anti-virus works, you should both be protected.”

They helped Chewbacca to his feet, a process that fully required both of their strengths. Han watched him closely, preparing for a relapse, but the Wookiee seemed steady enough once he was standing up.

”Think you can travel, buddy?” Han asked.

Chewie barked out another growl.

”Okay, all right,” Han said. ”Forget I asked.”

”The turbolift's back this way,” Zahara said, pointing around the corner. ”We can go back through, just be careful you don't trip over the . . .”

They all stopped.