Part 4 (2/2)

”d.a.m.n it, Awandi,” Chouss said, climbing to her feet. It was her crewboss voice. ”Back off.”

”He would have saved your people and mine,” Awandi said, the words somehow apart from her, cold and calm, separate from the hot black star of grief in her gut. ”He would have. Your people and mine. And you won't lift a d.a.m.n finger to help him?”

”Awandi,” Chouss said, putting a hand on her shoulder.

”I am so sorry,” Izu said, white as the paint on the walls, lips blue as a bruise. No pretense she didn't understand. ”I am so sorry, Awandi. But I cannot. I cannot.”

Awandi's fist, like her voice, seemed disconnected from the rest of her. It lifted and swung out with the power of scores of watches in the pit and smashed Izu's Jaw.

d.a.m.n it, girl, that's enough!” Chouss said, hauling her back against the door. Wen was on his feet, between Awandi and the Glory woman. There was hardly enough room for all of them to stand. Soje's breath wheezed and bubbled into the silence.

Awandi met Izu's eyes over Wen's shoulder. ”Show them,” she said quietly. ”Let them see.”

Izu slowly took her hands away from her face.

”Sweet Mother,” Wen said, stepping back onto Awandi's foot. On the side of Izu's jaw, where Awandi's fist had connected, a black stain spread and grew, lifting the skin from underneath. A black swarm rising to repair the damage, biochem mechanicals, alive and not alive, colony of strangeness under the human skin. Even though she'd been expecting it, Awandi rubbed her sore knuckles on her s.h.i.+rt, skin crawling.

Chouss gripped her shoulder hard enough to leave a bruise. ”Denanos. By the hard b.i.t.c.h Of vacuum, Wandi, you were night.”

”Well,” said Izu. The black swelling s.h.i.+fted as she spoke. ”Now you know. But I still can't help Soje.”

”Why not?” Awandi demanded. ”You said denanos could survive injury-”

”He isn't denanos.”

”But you could make him one, couldn't you? Can't you? Isn't that why they quarantined you in the first place, because it's so d.a.m.n contagious?”

”Is that what they tell you?” Izu shook her head. Already the black stain was beginning to shrink. She appeared to feel no pain.

Awandi shoved Wen's back to get him off her foot, then squeezed around him to sit back down on the bed. Soje's hand seemed even colder than before.

”What do you mean?” Chouss said. ”Why else did they quarantine you?”

”Why?” Izu smiled, her subtle fierceness returning to her eyes. ”Why would the Commonwealth be afraid of a race of people-who are hard to kill and take a long time to die, who can live and work in environments that would kill a c.o.c.kroach, who can invent drugs and poisons in their guts-why? You tell me. Are you less afraid of me now than when you only thought I'd drink your blood and give you a nasty disease?”

Awandi rubbed her brother's hand, trying to instill a little warmth. ”Should we be more afraid? Do you want to take over the universe?”

Izu folded her arms. ”All I want, all any of us want, is to live the way we choose, where we choose, in peace.”

”Same as us.” Awandi looked up with a thin smile. ”Right Chouss? No different than us.”

But Chouss was frowning at the denanos. ”It's not contagious?”

Izu sighed. ”Yes, of course it is. But not that contagious.”

”So you could give it to him. You could save him.”

”Awandi.” Izu threw out her small hands in a helpless gesture. ”There is no guarantee that my nans would survive his immune system, or that his genetic profile is close enough to mine for them to reproduce in his cells, and even if by some miracle they did, there isn't time. It takes sixty hours at least for the nans to establish themselves to the point of being able to heal, and he doesn't have that long.”

”He's a stubborn b.a.s.t.a.r.d, in case you hadn't noticeed,” Wen sad. ”He'd hang on.”

He might not have spoken. ”And even if all that weren't true, which it is, I still couldn't infect him.”

”Why not?” Awandi said like a threat.

Izu hugged herself and said, ”Because if any denanos infects any human without that human's direct, explicit and informed consent, the whole race will be in contravention of the quarantine act which allows us to live on Glory. We'd be criminals for real, without the faintest hope of colonial status, or even another, less deadly home. More to the point, we'd be without protection from all those out there-who'd kill us, or use us as drug factories, or both. I sure as Glory didn't come out here to do that to my people.”

”You sure as h.e.l.l aren't going any further than the Gate if we don't-want you to go,” Chouss pointed out.

Izu studied Chouss' face, then Wen's, then Awandi's. ”Someone else will come,” she said, but she sounded a long way from certain.

”This is the Gate,” Wen said, sounding like Soje. ”Who do you think holds the key?”

”No denanos is going anywhere the crews don't want them to go,” Chouss added, just to make it absolutely clear.

Izu looked at them all again, for the first time with real desperation. ”But you have to. My G.o.d, don't you see? This isn't just my people, it's yours, too. Awandi, tell them,” she pleaded, before a look crossed her face as if she remembered that maybe Awandi wasn't the best advocate she could choose.

But Awandi said, ”I don't have to tell them. They already know. Isn't a worker on this station doesn't already know by now, thanks to Soje.”

Silence. Soje breathed, a faint liquid wheeze.

Then Wen said, ”Listen, Izu. Only thing that's holding you back is this legal problem, yeah? You'd help him if he was awake to say he wanted help?”

She pa.s.sed a hand over her eyes. The black stain on her jaw had faded to a dull blue-gray. ”I guess. If I knew he wanted me to.”

”Soje? h.e.l.l, he's done just about everything else, I guess turning into a denanos wouldn't stop him.”

”Wen!” Chouss said, shocked.

He looked up at her. ”You don't think? If it were the only way he could get out of here, take his message to the Commonwealth?”

”Someone else can go,” Chouss said. ”I'd go, if it came to that.”

”But Soje would still be dead,” Awandi said with her brother's twisted smile. ”Right Chouss? Even if he survived this beating, there'd be another, and another. Unless it was an airlock failure, or a chem tank leak, or...” She shrugged, still trying to warm Soje's hand with hers.

”She's right. Anyway,” Wen added with a taut grin, ”the way things stand now, I reckon we must make up a union quorum between the three of us, and if two of us vote him union rep to the Commonwealth he pretty much has to go.”

Chouss opened her mouth to respond, but Izu broke in sharply before she could. ”I don't remember saying I'd infect him. I won't. I can't.”

”Well, h.e.l.l, woman, who's going to say he didn't ask you?” Chouss all but shouted.

”Couldn't even if we wanted to,” Wen added. ”Seeing as how he just said he wanted you to make him a denanos.” Looking from one woman's stare to the next, he grinned and added, ”Didn't he, Chouss?”

She snorted, rubbed her nose with a work worn hand. ”Well sure he did. Didn't he, Awandi?”

His hand was so cold. ”Yes.”

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