Shadows of Mars (Broken Stars Book 1) I.O. Adler (read people like a book TXT) 📖

And somehow her mom had stolen the harvester from under its nose.

One of the flying drones caught up with her. It zoomed before her and paused in midair.

“What’s going on?”

It remained motionless for a heartbeat before swerving around her and racing back in the direction of the medical bay. She had lost track of how far she had walked but guessed it would be faster to follow than to keep going around the ring. She knew a summons when she saw one.

She Who Waits had lit up again, her brown sands bright.

Jenna’s cylinder stood open and her sister was gone. She was now inside the bed contraption. Her clothes lay in shreds on the floor as if they had been cut from her body. Even smaller bots the size of cockroaches swarmed over her.

Carmen had to fight a wave of revulsion as she saw them crawling across her sister’s skin.

Jenna’s knee had a wrapping around it that looked like wound white thread or spiderweb. No blood seeped through. Mercifully, Jenna was asleep or unconscious. A clear barrier prevented Carmen from touching her sister.

Barrett stood at the foot of the bed. “It’s amazing. If this works, can you imagine what understanding something like this one machine could do for us?”

“Did Jenna wake up at all?”

“No. She’s been asleep, even when they moved her.”

Was she in pain? Did these robotic insects know what they were doing? What was to prevent any one of them from malfunctioning? She held her breath as she hugged herself.

“Any word from the Cordice?” she managed to ask.

“This might be a good time for you to stay with your sister. Let me talk to them.”

Carmen followed him down to the other end of the bay where She Who Waits stood. The red light remained in place. But when a voice spoke from the light, it was the last thing Carmen could have expected.

It was Jenna.

“Carmen, can you hear me?”

“Jen, I don’t understand. How are you talking to me?”

“It’s like being plugged into the ship.”

“So where are you?”

“It’s hard to explain. I saw what you mentioned. The destruction of the Cordice world and their whole civilization. There’s so many of them here. Some are angry about what happened with their harvester. But She Who Waits explained what we did. They’re not mad at us, at least not all of them. But there’s more. It’s Mom. Car, Mom is here and I’m looking right at her.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

Carmen tried to gauge the tone of her sister’s voice. “Are you all right? Are you in pain?”

“I’m fine. If I try to think about my body, it’s just a tingly numbness. Don’t worry. But Car, Mom is right here. It’s really her.”

“Let me talk to her. Can you do that?”

Carmen waited for a reply. The medical bay had something going on beyond Jenna’s bed. Two bots were assembling a pair of new frames fed with wires. Before her eyes, the deft mechanical fingers shaped the frames into beds that were already beginning to look identical to the one where Jenna lay and the cockroaches continued to crawl.

After some delay Jenna’s voice spoke again through the red light. “The Cordice don’t want her to talk. She’s not allowed to have access to any external nodes or the communication channels.”

“How do you know it’s really Mom?”

“It looks like her and talks like her. We spoke, we hugged. It’s her, Car.”

“Where’s her body?”

Another pause. “She doesn’t know. But Lieutenant Townes is here too. They’re alive.”

Barrett leaned in as if the red light was a microphone. “Is Lieutenant Townes able to speak?”

“No. I think the Cordice have them both on restrictions. I don’t see him right now.”

“Then I want to meet whoever’s in charge. They have a leader or spokesperson? Is it their biologist?”

Throughout the exchange, She Who Waits remained perfectly still. The patterns had vanished and the sands of her suit once again concealed the tentacles.

“I don’t think it’s the biologist,” Jenna said. “They have a council. I haven’t figured out whether there’s a single Cordice who speaks for them. At the moment they’re back to discussing us and two of them do most of the talking. But returning the harvester was the right thing to do. In fact, I’m going to try bringing it to the home ship.”

Barrett’s voice got low. “You’re still in control of the harvester?”

“Yes. Once I was placed into the recovery bed I could connect to both the harvester and their simulation. If I concentrate I can be in both places.”

Carmen had her own questions. Foremost among them was, why hadn’t the Cordice taken back the harvester either remotely or with one of the bots?

She placed a hand on Barrett’s shoulder. “Remember, this is a party line. Jen, can you return to your body?”

Jenna took a minute to reply. “I’m sorry, I’m busy. This isn’t as easy as I thought. I…”

Carmen leaned closer to the red light. “You still there?”

“Your sister has broken off from our discussion,” She Who Waits said.

Barrett appeared ready to jump out of his skin. “Are the Cordice listening? Have they heard everything we’ve said since coming aboard?”

“Unknown. It’s possible while designate Jenna Vincent was speaking that others were able to overhear. But none are connected with my interface within the simulation at the moment, as they continue to deliberate.”

The bots had the frames of the two new beds finished and got busy on the interiors.

“So you’re allowed inside their simulation?” Carmen asked the translator.

“Yes, when requested. I interface when needed when my task cannot be accomplished remotely, like when designates Sylvia Vincent and Hamish Townes first arrived. They’ve adapted their software since, allowing some exchange despite language and physical barriers. I’m regularly requested for anything in depth.”

“You work