Abel doesn’t point out that she’s being irrational. Instead he goes to the small wall screen. The grayness flickers back into light and motion, showing what surrounds them.
If Stronghold looked terrifying from space, its surface is even worse.
The sky seems to hang low and cloudless, the same color as the stony ground. Passengers alight from other vessels, but there are no shouted greetings, no music, like with the Vagabonds. They aren’t being welcomed; they’re being herded along the tarmac toward the large granite building from the planetary welcome greeting, or one very like it. Most people are dressed in somber colors like Noemi and Abel, and their expressions are fixed and brittle. She sees some children, at least. But none are very small, and none are being carried or comforted by their parents. They’ve clearly been coached to be on their best behavior, and to stand up straight. One little boy in a putty-colored smock even puffs out his chest, so he’ll look as big and strong as he can. It would be funny at home. Here, the fear behind that gesture pierces Noemi’s heart like an arrow. Once again, she thinks she might cry.
“Noemi?” Abel brushes her hair back from her forehead. “The medical team’s here. I need to let them in.”
“The ship’s plaque,” she whispers. “Don’t let them see it. They can’t know who we really are.”
“It’s all right. I’ll hide it. Shhh. Rest.”
She tries to, closing her eyes. But she’s vividly aware of when Abel leaves sick bay. Everything feels so empty, so scary, so cold.
But within only a minute or two, she hears footsteps thumping in the corridor.
The strangers walk in—a doctor, she thinks, and a George mech, Abel right behind them.
A man in his mid-twenties, wearing a medical coat, comes up to her. He has dark brown skin and eyes, and his voice is gentle as he says, “I’m going to touch your neck to feel your pulse, all right?” She manages to nod, and she feels his fingers press down on the jugular vein. His expression goes from worried to deeply troubled. He turns to the George and says, “This one has to go to Medstation Central. Get us an emergency hovercraft, right away.”
The George pauses. “Single cases can often be treated aboard their own vessels.”
“This one can’t. You tell them Dr. Ephraim Dunaway ordered a hover, now.” As the George scurries off, Dunaway turns back and speaks to Abel, not to her. “Don’t worry. I’m going to take good care of your wife.”
Wife? I’m a wife? Oh, right. Noemi recognizes the disorder in her mind, but wonders how much longer she’ll be able to. If her fever spikes higher, she’ll probably start seeing things. Hallucinating. Losing all control.
Abel’s voice seems to come from very far away. “You seem to be deviating from standard medical procedure.”
Ephraim Dunaway is even more distant. “Yeah, because we’re dealing with an emergency situation here. Are you worried about the money? Don’t be—it’s not like Earth here, you get the treatment you need.”
“It merely strikes me as unusual that you would take a step more likely to expose others to Cobweb.”
“We know what we’re doing here, all right?” Dunaway’s a shadow by her side, no more. He turns his attention back to her as he murmurs, “Relax. We’re going to check you both out, top to bottom.”
Noemi tugs at Abel’s shirt, as close as she can come to protesting without saying a word. This won’t be a cursory once-over like they had on Wayland Station; the kinds of tests they’re about to run will surely reveal Abel to be a mech. And then they’ll be captured—
The emergency vehicle he called for might not take them to a hospital—but to prison.
Or is that paranoia, born of her fever? She can’t tell.
When Abel scoops her up in his arms, Noemi doesn’t struggle. Nor does she resist it when Dunaway slides a paper mask over her nose and mouth. The winding trip down the corridor feels like one long, slow spin until they walk out onto Stronghold’s surface for the first time. She’s caught off guard by the thinness in the air, which leaves her gasping as if she had climbed a mountain. Or is that Cobweb stealing her breath? Abel pulls her a little closer, and she lets her heavy, aching head droop onto his shoulder.
Don’t think about it, she tells herself, as if not dwelling on the potentially fatal illness will make the symptoms go away. Think about something else. Anything.
But there’s no escaping the terrible knowledge of her body’s weakness. “I feel like I can’t move,” she whispers.
“That may only be Stronghold’s gravity. It’s slightly stronger than on Earth or Genesis.”
“I don’t think so.”
Abel doesn’t waste time trying to reassure her. Instead he effortlessly settles her onto the waiting gurney.
If he were human, Noemi would feel guilty about the weight. But she can let go now. She doesn’t have to feel bad about causing problems, for needing too much. Abel could hold her forever.
The fever closes around her again, like the spine-toothed petals of a Venus flytrap. But it’s stronger now, as though angry the drugs cheated it of one wretched hour.
She feels as if she might lose consciousness any moment—and if she falls asleep now, she might never wake again.
28
DURING THE SWIFT RIDE ACROSS STRONGHOLD’S BAR-ren gray terrain, distant cities of metal and stone no more than shadows on the horizon, Abel had calculated that the probability Dr. Ephraim Dunaway was acting purely out of medical necessity was no higher than 32.4 percent.
Now they’re at the medical center, an isolated dome of concrete. Noemi is being wheeled into an examination room, with Abel at her side. A Tare model waits for them both, medscanner in hand.
Abel has readjusted his estimate. He now believes there is only a 27.1 percent chance that Dr. Dunaway is acting out of pure necessity.
He’s attentive, yes—but too attentive, as though he had to get every reading or measurement he could while they were still inside the medtram hovering just above the rocky surface. Also, Abel notices, Dunaway inputs every piece of data twice: once in what looks like the standard equipment, once into a personal handheld device. There is no rational explanation for this that does not ascribe another, unknown agenda to Dunaway’s behavior.
For the time being, however, Noemi is being adequately seen to, and that must be enough.
Once she’s lying in her clinical bed, she’s wrapped in silvery blankets and temperature monitors are stuck to the insides of her wrists. The Tare model goes to her, then frowns. “I would have run the first in-depth scan, Dr. Dunaway. Your readings on the medtram could have been compromised.”