Kidnapped (11 page)

She didn't want to get sick, mostly because she didn't want to be any more of a burden to him than she already was, and how strange it was that she could fall this ill in such a short time.

*****

Travis was good at hurrying, and it didn't take long to return to the ship. When he did, he found her still curled up in his chair on the bridge, barely conscious and burning with fever, and he hunched down in front of her. "Patricia? Sweetie?"

She mumbled, "I'm fine," and her stubbornness made the corners of his mouth twitch in spite of his worry. "Ah, yes, I can see that."

He scooped her up in his arms and carried her to bed, and her inarticulate, "I'm so cold," made it feel like his heart was breaking. He was sweating from the long sprint through the steaming forest, and she still felt like an oven in his arms.

When she lay in the narrow bed they'd been sharing, as snugly tucked in as he could manage, he brushed the hair from her forehead and kissed her tenderly, and she mumbled a protest, "Don't do that, I don't want you to catch it."

Answering, "That's very sweet of you, Baby Doll, but you don't have to worry about that," made him realize what he had forgotten. He never got sick because he and everyone else in the corps were vaccinated against virtually all known diseases on all the inhabited worlds. She wasn't; she had no resistance to anything they might encounter. She had been in much too close a contact with the native population and he wanted to kick himself for letting her go out there, and for not thinking about it earlier.

He sat on the edge of the bed for a few moments, running his hand over her arm, wondering if there was anything in the infirmary he'd dare give her, but came to the sordid conclusion there wasn't. Most of the Alliance medicines would probably kill her. When she seemed to be sleeping, he got up and looked down at her with a frown, wondering what to do.

In order to keep Central off their backs, he should be leaving the planet, he should at least pretend to go somewhere with some purpose, but the changes in gravity would wake her up and make her feel worse. They could probably risk remaining a little longer, and when he finally left the room, he headed down to the computer.

The machine greeted him pleasantly as always, "Hello, Commander, I am pleased to announce you're still you, and you are alive. I trust you're enjoying our stay on this fine planet? 32.57 percent of the ship is currently overgrown with vines. It is not yet enough to cause any problems at take-off."

Travis wanted to roll his eyes when he plopped down in one of the chairs surrounding the mainframe. "Are there any known diseases on the planet?"

If he had wanted to roll his eyes, the computer sounded as if it did when it gave him the number, "13,257,864, but most of them are not seriously harmful to humans," and he rubbed his forehead when he tried to find a way to be more specific.

"Okay, okay, I get it, there are many. How about one that spreads from the indigenous humanoid population, develops within hours and gives high fever?"

As quick as the computer might be, going through all those results took a couple of seconds, and when it answered, it somehow sounded less cheeky. "There are three known to be harmful to humans, but only one with that incubation time. The virus is 95.72 percent lethal to humans."

Sighing, he fought down a sudden urge to punch the computer for giving him bad news. "Alright, say someone was infected, how long could a vaccine be introduced, and where is the closest supply?"

He wondered if it was his own imagination, or if the computer actually sounded apologetic when it answered, "The nearest supply of serum is at station 24978, four days away at maximum speed. Estimated lifespan after infection, 100 hours, and to be effective, the serum must be introduced within 73 hours."

That wasn't what he wanted to hear, and he slumped in the chair. He didn't know what to do. There was no way to get there in time. The word despondent wasn't in his vocabulary, but he had just gotten to know the emotion. Maybe it would be better to just wait it out, better to stop dragging the poor girl through space, and if those four percent in favour of survival weren't on their side, there would be more than enough drugs on board to make her enter the eternal sleep painlessly. After that, he could always self-destruct the ship and get rid of both himself and a chunk of the cursed planet at the same time.

Chapter Twelve

"The computer wasn't programmed to make small talk other than when someone entered the room, but at first Travis was too miserable to think about that when it asked, "Commander, deeming from your questions, our current position, and the fact that the lady is still on board, is it correct to assume she has caught the disease?"

Travis wanted to ignore the computer, and muttered, "Yeah, you could say that."

The machine declared, unperturbed, "The ability to experience emotions is not a part of my programming, but I would say the lady is pleasant."

Travis was rubbing his temples, trying to think, and he didn't even bother to answer. Sure, Patricia had spent quite some time down there, and he wasn't at all surprised even a machine would consider her pleasant. She was.

His brain finally started working, telling him computers didn't chat just for the fun of it. "Are you trying to tell me something?"

The short silence was as close to a meaningful pause as a ship's computer could come, and then it answered simply, "Yes."

He wanted to yell at it to tell him already, and he wanted to throw or hit something to release the frustration damming up in him, but he forced himself to be patient. "And what is that?"

The computer answered innocently, probably without meaning to sound as cheeky as it did, "What is what?"

Travis took a deep breath and told himself he was
not
going to crush the ship's brain between his fingers, and that he must endure this conversation, and tried again. "What are you trying to tell me?"

The computer tested his tolerance level when it answered, "Tell you about what?"

Getting up from the chair, he kicked the machine. He knew doing so was futile and childish, but it made him feel slightly better, and it gave him enough patience to rephrase the question. "The lady has contracted a disease and she is very ill. What should I do?"

He was surprised when the machine gave him an answer that both made sense and was helpful. "You have antibodies in your blood, and the ship carries the equipment necessary to make a cure."

The procedure seemed daunting. This was something he had no training for, and the thought that he was about to manufacture something he'd be injecting into her blood was unnerving. Still, he had to try. If he did nothing she would die, and that could not be allowed to happen.

He was so preoccupied  it took him a while to realize this was a medical matter, and he could probably make the computer help him through the terminal in the infirmary. Usually steady as a rock, he was not pleased to find his hand wanted to shake when he withdrew his blood.

*****

Patricia was lost in feverish dreams, haunted by monsters in her mind that would surpass Hollywood's wildest creations, and it would have been a relief to wake up if she hadn't felt so bad. She was burning up, her head was pounding, her limbs were aching, and breathing was difficult.

Something was cold on her arm, and when she broke through the fogs in her head enough to be able to focus her eyes, she saw Travis dabbing something on it in a rather random manner. He didn't look like he knew what he was doing, but she was too sick to care much about it. It felt as if someone had piled coins on her eyelids, they were so heavy, and running a marathon must be easy compared to the effort it took to watch him.

Thinking back was almost as difficult. She remembered being on the bridge, sitting in his chair, but everything after that was blurry. Darkness was calling to her and it was so tempting to give in. Closing her eyes and not having to care about anything would be easy, maybe even pleasant, but a tiny little voice in the back of her head screamed that she needed to stay awake.

She wet her dry lips with the tip of a tongue that seemed just as dry, and asked, thinking her voice sounded much too weak, "What are you doing?"

*****

Patricia's voice, faint as it was, broke Travis's concentration, and he looked up from her arm, forcing himself to smile. It was difficult to ignore that she already looked more dead than alive. "I've made something for you, and if it doesn't work, I'll just try again."

When he added, "Don't worry, it'll be alright," it was with a certainty he didn't feel. He was trying to figure out how many of those seventy-three hours he might have left, how long this might have taken, and how many attempts he could make. If this didn't kill her, that was. He had very little faith in his own medical abilities.

Looking at her arm confused him. The computer had told him he couldn't use a hyposyringe, so he had to do it the old-fashioned way, and had to make sure to sterilize the skin before injecting her. He didn't know where to enter the needle, and he felt a trickle of nervous sweat find its way down his neck. Patricia said softly, "Yes, it will be alright because you will make it alright. It's what you do for me."

Her unwavering confidence in him gave him the belief in himself he needed to try. That shade of blue just under her skin was a good spot. He swallowed, told himself to stop procrastinating, and gave her the injection. With that taken care of, and nothing to do but wait, he walked around the room once, wondering if it had always been this claustrophobic.

He got a glass of water and made her drink a little, and once again, he wondered if they should leave the planet or not. Then he muttered, "Screw it," pulled his boots off, tossed his uniform jacket on the floor, and laid down beside her. Patricia curled up close to him and dozed off, and he lay there for a long time, listening to her strained breathing, willing her to keep doing it one more time.

*****

The next morning, Travis woke up with Patricia's head resting on his shoulder and her hair flowing out over his arm. He wanted to touch her, but she was sleeping on his good arm, and he didn't want that mechanical monstrosity of a hand anywhere near her face, so he ended up just moving enough to be able to kiss her forehead instead.

It was cool, she was breathing evenly, and he couldn't believe his eyes. He hadn't thought he could do it.

He set the course for the meeting with the Redeemer, but he didn't tell Patricia anything about it until they were almost there. Every passing day made his heart feel heavier, but he did his best to hide it. Still, on the morning of the last day, Patricia only needed to look at him to know something was wrong. When she asked, he shook his head a little and reached out for her. "Come here, Sweetie."

She sat in his lap, obediently, and he said quietly, trying to soften the blow, "We'll have to part for a while. I have to go somewhere you can't come."

He had brutally ripped her away from her old life, given her a new sense of security on the ship, and now he wanted to dump her with his worst enemy. He had really messed this up. She started to shake her head, and he hurried to add, "Believe me, I wish there was another way, but I have to go. I can't stall it anymore; they'll come looking for me, and if they find you, you'll be..."

The words interrogated, tortured, raped, and killed wouldn't come over his lips, so he settled for saying, "Terrible things will happen to you, and not even I will be able to find you afterwards."

Tears were welling up in her eyes, making him feel painfully inadequate. "I don't want you to leave, and I don't want to go, but I can't get out of it, and I can't take you with me. They would kill you. I'm not worried about me, but I can't let that happen to you."

Patricia's voice broke when she asked, "When will I see you again?"

"I'll come get you, as soon as I can." He knew he was lying.

He wasn't sure he'd even survive the day, and even if he did, she'd be better off without him. They had been lucky for a long time, but in the long run, he wouldn't be able to keep this up. He might be reassigned, he would be called back to Central again and again, and with any bad luck at all, the Supreme Commander might decide to move back in on the ship to see what was going on with the hunt on her favourite culprits. As much as he had tried, he hadn't been able to think of a way out of it.

Sighing, he continued as honestly as he could, "I'll do my best, Sweetheart. I'll try to think of something, but if it takes a long time you must never forget I love you, okay? I'll always love you."

He was wondering about the warm and moist feeling in his own eyes, and he blinked a couple of times to get rid of it. Patricia wasn't saying anything, and it would have been easier if she'd been furious with him. He wished she would hit him. Leaning his head against hers, he whispered, "Stay alive and safe, you hear me?"

It took several minutes before Patricia spoke, "Why can't we just run away? Space is so big, why can't you just... come with me?"