The Altian Plague by DM Arnold (best book club books for discussion .TXT) 📖

exposed her thigh. The attendant poked the needle into her skin. As he heard the injector discharge, Dyppa swung her knee and caught the attendant's hand. The injector flew across the room and her leg began to ooze blood.

“Blast!” the attendant said and fetched the injector. “The needle must've broken off. I think she's dosed, though.”

Nyk continued to hold her as the sedative seized her. She fought the drug but lost her battle and fell limp in Nyk's arms. The attendant grasped her ankles and lifted her back onto the pallet. “I'll get a forceps,” the attendant said, “so I can remove the needle.” She probed the gash on Dyppa's leg and plucked the object from her flesh. “Got it,” she said and smeared healing salve onto the wound. The bleeding stopped and the cut began to close. “Let her sleep it off.”

“How many react that way?” Nyk asked.

“I don't know,” the attendant replied. “Maybe one in hundred are dreamers. Few have dreams that bad. Some have pleasant ones and don't want to come out of it. I've never seen her sort of hysteria before.”

“I wonder if it's because she's a psychological addictive.”

“A psycho-addict? I wonder if the interrogators knew that. It might explain it. Addicts sometimes have peculiar reactions coming out of the drug.” She fingered Dyppa's hair. “Does she have it under control?”

He nodded. “Yes -- she's clean.”

“Good thing... Poor little girl... I have a daughter about her age. I hate seeing them in trouble.”

Nyk sat beside Dyppa and stroked her medium blond hair. She rolled her head from side to side and opened her eyes. “Nykkyo.”

“How are you feeling?”

“Okay I guess. A little groggy.”

“Do you remember any bad dreams?” She shook her head. “No tentacles?”

She giggled. “Nope. No tentacles. The last I remember was feeling the drug starting to flow into my vein.”

The attendant approached them. “We can start taking these,” she said and began plucking electrodes from her. “You're fine, dear. I have your discharge forms. Your street clothes are over there.”

Dyppa turned her back and began to slip the treatment gown from her shoulders. Nyk looked at the floor and studied his sandals as she slipped her sleeveless tunic over her head. She grasped her orange lifxarpa, found its center and held it behind her neck; then she crossed the sash across her breasts, around her waist and tied the ends Altian-style on her right hip, instead of Floran-style in front.

“Nyk,” she said as she slipped into her sandals.

“Yes?”

She lifted her hem and pointed to the cut on her thigh. “How did I get this? I didn't have it coming in here.” She probed it with her finger.

“You don't remember?” She shook her head. “You had an accident coming out of the drug. Does it hurt?”

“No -- not much.” She stood and smoothed the wrinkles from her tunic and sash. “You must've had an accident, too,” she said, pointing to a bruise forming on his forearm.

“You could say that.” He turned to the attendant. “Thanks for taking care of her.”

“The captain wants to see her in his office.” She pointed toward an open door.

Nyk followed her into the office. “Please, have a seat. Both of you.” He sat. “Dyppa -- thank you for your time. We appreciate you performing your civic responsibility.”

She half-smiled. “It's not like I had much of a choice.”

“I'm going to give you a chance to make that choice. We believe the man we detained two days ago might be associated with The Seven. Since we can't interrogate him, and since we can't detain him any longer -- we must release him.” The captain looked directly at Nyk. “Altia IS a land bound by the rule of law -- despite some of the rumors circulating.” His gaze returned to Dyppa. “During your interrogation, you identified him as someone you once knew -- once loved.”

She nodded and swallowed hard.

“You still have feelings for him -- don't deny them, they're documented here.” He held up a portable vidisplay.

“How do you know this man is the same one?” Nyk asked. “She didn't know his true name.”

“Oh, he's the same one, all right.” Sirk poked the vidisplay. “He has an ... an amputation that matches one she described during her interrogation.” He held the display in Nyk's direction. “Care to have a look? This is some of the most riveting testimony I've ever heard.”

Dyppa blushed a deep red. Nyk pushed the display aside. “No, thank you.”

Sirk turned to Dyppa. “We'd like it if you were to ... interview him.”

“ME?”

“Yes -- we'd like to see if you can coax any useful information from him, based on your mutual familiarity.”

“Do I HAVE to?”

“No -- we can't coerce you. Given the threat of The Seven to the entire hegemony -- we'd hope you'd agree.”

Dyppa looked at the floor. “I wouldn't know what to say.”

“Don't say anything. Let him do the talking. We want to see how he responds to you.” The captain held up a dime- sized disk. “You'll wear this.”

“A microphone?” The captain nodded.

Dyppa took the object, peeled off a backing, reached under her tunic and secured it between her breasts. “I'll do it.”

“This way.” The captain pointed toward an interview room. “In there. I'll be listening in my office.”

Nyk watched Dyppa head down the hall. The captain returned to his desk and activated a listening device.

He heard a man's voice. “Lyla! What are YOU doing here?”

“I'm here to talk with you,” came Dyppa's reply.

“You? No ... you must've gone over to their side.”

“Whose side are you on?”

“You know whose side.”

“Lom -- can't you see their way is wrong?”

“Whose way? Your way?”

“Violence isn't the answer.”

“It's not even in question,” Lom said.

“He's a cagey one,” the captain remarked. “He hasn't said one useful thing during his entire detention. He's either well trained -- or, he's been through this before.”

“Come here -- let me touch you,” came Lom's voice. Nyk rose out of his chair.

“Relax,” said the captain. “That little girl knows how to fend for herself.”

Nyk nodded. “Yes -- I think you're right.”

“No -- I'm not that way any more.”

“Not even for me?”

“Not for anyone I don't love.”

“I thought we were lovers, Lyla. You still have feelings for me.”

“Don't touch me. Keep your distance.” There was a long pause. “Now,” Dyppa continued. “Who are you with?”

“Who are YOU with? I think I know. I'll bet you're wearing something -- a little spyer perhaps? ... Yes, that. I knew it. I never thought I'd see the day my Lyla would tie in with Altian SecuForce.”

“I'm not with them,” Dyppa protested. “They just wanted to see... Lom -- are you with The Seven?... Tell me.”

“No.”

“You're not?”

“No. I won't tell you -- until you ... get rid ... of this.”

There was a loud, crackling crunch and silence. “One of them must've stepped on it,” the captain said. “I'd better go break this up.”

Nyk shook his head. “Maybe he'll talk now he knows no one is listening.”

“What good will it do?”

“Do you want incriminating evidence, or do you want information?”

“On a good day, I'll take both.”

“Maybe today you get only one.”

Sirk and Nyk stared at each other. “All right -- we'll wait and see what happens.”

Nyk paced as Sirk eyed him. He consulted his vidisplay for the time. “Maybe we should go see...”

Dyppa stepped through the door. She extended her hand and dropped the remains of the microphone into the captain's palm. “I'm sorry -- it fell off and I accidentally stepped on it.”

“Did he tell you anything?”

“Only that he still loves me.”

“Nothing else?”

“Nothing,” Dyppa replied.

“Would you be willing to test that assertion with another dose of truth drug?”

She looked him in the eye. “I would be.”

The captain's eyes flicked up at Nyk. “Go on -- both of you get out of here. You're wasting my time.”

“Captain...” Dyppa said.

“Yes?”

“I believe he HAS gone over to The Seven. You'd be wise to watch him.”

“We had come to the same conclusion.” He made a gesture toward the door.

Nyk held Dyppa's hand as they sprinted toward the tubecar platform. “If Lom IS part of The Seven -- I'm a marked woman,” she said. “And -- if I set foot here again -- I'm a dead one. I won't want to leave the surface of Earth.”

“Yes -- I hope Captain Sirk holds him long enough for us to get offworld.” They reached the lift to the platform. Nyk stopped short. “Look at the crowd on the platform!” he exclaimed. “We'll never get a car. Maybe we should go back to Security and ask for a skimmer.”

“Good luck getting one.” Dyppa surveyed the buildings and followed the tubecar line with her eye as it bent to the left and out of sight. “There's another platform in the next sector. It won't be as crowded.”

“Why not?”

“It's in a poorer part of the city. Nyk -- unpin your xarpa and tie it so the knot is on your right side. No -- don't pin it ... here...” She held out her hand, Nyk dropped his xarpa pin into it and she tucked it into her sash. “There... Pinned in front is sure sign of an offworlder. Come with me.”

Nyk took her hand as she led him down an alley. The street noise quieted as they walked away from the tubecar. “Remember,” she said, “don't make eye contact with anyone. Look straight ahead and walk as if you mean business. It'll reduce the chances we'll get snagged.”

“Snagged?”

“Street toughs will accost vulnerable-looking strangers. They'll take their victims to a public vidisplay and expect them to transfer some work credits -- in exchange for their skins.”

“All I have are Floran credits. They wouldn't transfer here.”

“All the more reason to not look like a victim,” she replied. “Florans are not regarded favorably.”

“Even a Floran who's sympathetic?”

“Try explaining your sympathies to the business end of a shiv.”

They walked past a doorway. Music and rowdy conversation came from an establishment inside. “I recognize that smell,” he said, “alcohol. I thought it was prohibited.”

“It is, but that doesn't stop them. It's cheap and you can make it yourself. All you need is some sugar and yeast.”

“Where do you get yeast? It's a controlled item.”

“Tell that to the little organisms. They don't seem to care about our rules and regulations... Up ahead -- we should cross the street here.”

“Here? What's up ahead?”

“One of the ore-workers' locals. Do you see that bunch loitering near the building? Those are unemployed ore-workers waiting for an assignment. It wouldn't surprise me if The Seven are inside, recruiting.”

Dyppa climbed over a barricade and stood on the curb. A stream of groundcars whizzed by. “Come on, Nyk -- judge their speed and make a dash for it.”

“Where's the crosswalk?”

“At the end of the block. Come on!” Dyppa dashed between two groundcars and leapt over the barricade on the opposite side. Nyk watched a car pass by, then another. He jumped off and ran across the street, the breeze from a groundcar blowing under his tunic. One of the car's occupants shouted an oath at him.

He grabbed Dyppa's hand and they sprinted down the walk and past the union hall. “If Sirk is looking for Seven operatives,” Nyk panted, “why doesn't he look in there?”

“For a good reason,” Dyppa replied. “The union chiefs are tied in with the bureaucracy. If he upsets the wrong one, he'll find himself busted down to beat patrolman.”

“So, the union chiefs are tied in with The Seven.”

“I didn't say that. What I said was, if I were The Seven, and I wanted some unattached, unemployed, physically fit young men with nothing to lose and something to gain -- that's one place where I'd look.”

“Interrogation-proof, too.”

She pointed. “Up there -- do you see the sign?”

“Tubecar!”

“And, it's not crowded, either.”

Nyk approached the platform lift. He passed his hand over a proximity pad to summon the car; then he bent over, rested his forearms on his thighs and attempted to regain his breath. “I guess I'm out of shape,” he gasped.

A chime sounded and the car doors opened. He stepped inside and smelled more alcohol. Lying on the car floor was an older man in a soiled tunic. “Ignore him,” Dyppa whispered.

“Hey, sweetheart,” the man slurred. “Come here...”

Dyppa faced the door but looked down and back out of the corner of her eye. Nyk saw the man put his hand on her calf.

“I said come here ... ax'amorfa...”

She turned and kicked the derelict in the ribs. “Leave me alone, you filthy, stinking, drunken old bastard!” she yelled. “Next time you'll get it in the balls ... if you have any.”

The liftcar stopped at the platform and the doors creaked open. Nyk hustled Dyppa onto the platform. She pressed her wrist to the scanpad. “I'll order the car,” she said. “This kiosk might not be hooked up to the HL credit exchange.”

“In the lift -- I