Piece Simul ✔

Chapter 32-Russ-One is Better Than None

Me too, is what Russ wanted to say, but didn't.

She was scared because Genly usually had the answer for everything. She was scared because Control (or what was left of it) was combative, demanding hourly status reports. They wanted to speak with Guin, but Forster excused away the possibilities.

"Runnin' outta excuses," he had muttered, running a large hand over his sweaty face.

Out of excuses, out of answers, and then there was the mark.

Curious thing, for sure. A quarter-sized mark bloomed on her palm, green in color. The day before, it had been smaller, she was sure of it. Her hand tingled, as though perpetually falling asleep.

Russ flexed the hand, but the tingle only increased. The possible contamination made little sense. She had only handled the cylinder, not the contents.

"Genly," she opened her palm to her mechanical friend. "Is this a bruise?"

Particle beams ran across her palms while it assessed her.

"No indication of bleeding underneath the skin. All other clues suggest contamination from Dr. Guin's foreign substance," it said.

Dammit. And she'd handed the green goop to Samuel.

"Go to the lab, and quarantine Samuel and the cylinder. Then alert Captain Forster," she instructed the bot, who nodded.

"What'd you say?" Russ called out.

"Nothing, sir," the bot answered before leaving.

Cut off.

"What?"

She was alone.

Cut off the infection, a voice echoed.

In her rush to the dura-sleep chambers, she excused the errant whispers. Stress induced crazy thoughts sometimes, or that green shit was already in her brain.

Then she remembered the ansible. Of course! Russ brought it out of her coveralls, pressing it to her ear. The device sprayed bursts of static.

The particle curtain for the chamber materialized, and she had another thought. Her hand still tingled, which meant her body rejected the invasion, and she could too. What the voice suggested wasn't half bad, even if she'd be a cripple afterward.

She summoned another bot, one with laser precision tech equipped. When it arrived, she relayed directives, and entered the chamber. As it filled, fluid flooded her vision, and she gazed one final time at her hand, the hand she deliberately hung outside of particle curtain.

Would she feel it? How would the crew treat her, a newly made cripple? She was a tech engineer, a pilot. Even with a lucite composite in lieu of an infected limb, her status would be downgraded.

Russ was asleep by the time the bot commenced amputation.