In Conquest Born by C. S. Friedman

Author:C. S. Friedman
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2011-11-25T09:49:22+00:00

4

"What I can't figure out is why they want this treaty, anyway. It's clear why it would be to our advantage, but what's in it for them?"

Her second-in-command asked, "Are you going to negotiate it, then?"

"I have little choice, Zeine. The Emperor wants peace. But once I've got enough authority at the Border I tell you it won't be this easy for them. It's a delaying tactic, that's all, and I'm tired of retiring from my offensives to—" Tau entered. "Hello." He was loudly in need of her attention. "What is it?"

"I need you to come to the medical level." His voice was tight. "Now."

She read his fear, touched his intensity, and nodded. "Take over for me," she said, sliding out of her seat. She followed the physician into the nearest tube. "What is it?"

He looked at her. He was trying so hard not to let his feelings overwhelm her that he was almost making it worse. "Not yet," he muttered. "In the lab. I'll tell you there."

She followed him down through the corridors of the medical section and to the door of his private laboratory, which opened as they approached—

—and the screams of something dying could be heard, but they were nothing compared to the waves of agony that beat against her, driving her back from the room. He had to take her arm and drag her forward, and in doing so he shared the pain himself.

"I thought you were being overcautious." There was sweat on his forehead as he tried to ignore the alien sensations he was picking up through her. "I really did. I'm sorry."

There was a clear tank in the corner of the laboratory in which a small animal was—or had been. Now there was only a mound of seething blackness with the last terrible whimpers of something that had once been alive, and the emanations of an agony more intense than a creature could know and survive.

The Black Death. Anzha felt faint. "How long?" she forced out.

"In you? At least two Standard Days, maybe three." He was leading her to a table and she let him guide her, helpless to shut out the animal's pain because it came so close to having been her own. "I thought you were crazy," he told her, apologizing, "but I ran the samples through it anyway, any time you'd been off the ship. Its metabolism was faster than yours and its biochemistry such that the poison would act in it before it did in you."

She lay down on the surface he indicated and shut her eyes. "What are the odds?"

"If it's still in your blood, good." He hesitated. "If it's lodged in muscle, which it well might be by now…I don't know. It's never been done before. There's never been enough advance warning."

"Let's make it a first," she whispered tightly.

His assistants were bringing him instruments. He had designed them under her direction and the ship had made them, but he had never used them and had hoped he never would have to.

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