Noemi puts one hand on Abel’s arm, as if to placate him. “No, Abel, you don’t understand. Ephraim realized from my blood work that I’m from Genesis, and the people of Genesis helped his mother—”
“Your blood work would have been processed last night.” Abel keeps his gaze on the controls. “But Dr. Dunaway had taken special notice of you well before that—as soon as he undertook your care, in fact. He made a point of performing tests that should’ve been the Tare’s responsibility. We need to know why.”
Noemi stares at Ephraim, more shocked than she should be. “Wait. That whole story about your mother was a lie?”
“Absolutely not.” Ephraim bows his head. “What your world did for her, the debt I owe—it’s all absolutely true. Why do you think I’m risking my job and maybe my life for this joyride? Because it’s so much fun?” Given the danger levels of their escape, the relatively rough ride in the medtram, and the barren landscape before them, Abel attributes this question to sarcasm. “But yeah, I wanted to get in on your case even before I knew where you were from.”
“Then why?” Abel demands.
“What the hell does it matter? I’m helping you two, aren’t I?”
“Perhaps. Perhaps not.” But now they’re coming up on the coal train routes, and Abel can no longer afford to divide his attention. “Neither of you have yet put on your safety belts. I suggest you do so immediately.”
“Abel, what are you—” Noemi’s breath catches in her throat as the medtram swoops toward the train tracks—and the train chugging along atop them. “Are you sure this is safe?”
“No.” With that, Abel heads straight for the train.
Yesterday Abel had been surprised that the train tracks here on Stronghold aren’t remotely modern but instead resemble those found throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The trains seem old-fashioned, too; their exterior design has a lean, stripped-down effect, but they belch the same smoke Earth residents would’ve seen in the 1800s. Then he realized such old-fashioned trains are ideal transportation on a world with more metals and coal than all of humanity could use in ten lifetimes: easy to build, easy to fuel, easy to fix, and reliable for decades on end. The more complex machinery can be saved for mining and processing if transport is kept low-tech.
He also noticed yesterday that while most of the train cars were big bulky ore transports, a few were lower and flatter—perhaps for hauling necessary equipment. With any luck, this train will have a few such cars. If it doesn’t, their capture is imminent.
“Abel?” Noemi puts her hands on the dash, bracing herself against what must look like an inevitable collision. They’re getting closer to the train, on track to intersect within thirty seconds. “What are you do—Abel! ”
Her shriek doesn’t distract Abel from the task of suddenly shifting the medtram sideways, so that it slides over the train—with approximately half a meter of room, perfectly adequate as a margin of safety, if alarming to humans. Abel then pulls back on the speed so that the train seems to snake out from under them, until he glimpses a low, empty platform car. Accelerating again, he catches up with the platform car, matches the train’s speed, and carefully lands the medtram right there.
Now they are just one more piece of cargo on this train, effectively making the medtram invisible to radar or other motion detectors. For the time being, they’re not only hidden but also headed back toward the area where the Daedalus waits.
“How did you—” Ephraim stares out the windshield, then looks through a small side window. “You hit that exactly. I never knew somebody could fly like that.”
“As I said before, I’m good with vehicles.” Abel cares little for Ephraim’s praise; what matters is how Noemi’s doing. Her skin remains too pale, and her breathing is rapid and shallow. With one hand he brushes her black hair back—a curious instinct. It can’t help in any medical sense. But maybe he felt the urge to do that because it might comfort her. Many mammals are soothed by grooming rituals. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. You just—whoa.” Noemi shuts her dark eyes for a second, and when she opens them, she’s focused again. And her glare is for Ephraim Dunaway. “So how about we go back to the part where you have another agenda?”
Ephraim’s eyes study them, as if he’s taking their measure all over again. Finally he says, “Cobweb isn’t what people think it is. A virus, yes, but the things it does—why it exists—that’s been hidden for a long time. Too long.”
Abel nods. “The Cobweb virus is man-made.”
Both Ephraim and Noemi stare at him this time, but within an instant she gasps. “The radiation.”
“Exactly. No organic viral agent has ever affected radiation levels. Rendering one capable of doing so would require the most sophisticated genetic engineering imaginable.” Abel wonders if Mansfield had something to do with this. Or Mansfield’s daughter—she was studying genetic science, hoping to develop bionic implants for humans—
Ephraim gestures at Abel. “I don’t know how this guy put it together that fast, but yeah. It’s man-made.”
Noemi sits up straight, once again the angry warrior of Genesis that Abel first met, the one who’s prepared to kill. “Are you telling me it’s a biological weapon? Is Earth going to poison everyone on Genesis and then take the planet?”
“I don’t know. Nobody knows. That’s what we have to find out.” Ephraim sighs. “Whatever Earth scientists were trying to do, they screwed up. If it’s a weapon, it escaped into their own population before they were able to use it against yours. But it might not be a weapon—it’s not always fatal, and you’d think any bioweapon would be.”
“If sufficiently engineered,” Abel says. Human engineering efforts are often flawed—and in this case, he’s grateful for the flaws.
Noemi says, “It sounds fatal enough. It felt fatal enough.”
“Many people survive,” Ephraim confirms, “but three out of five don’t.”
Abel hadn’t heard the specific odds before. He turns back toward Noemi, as if she might collapse again at any minute. Despite her pallor, however, her thoughts are only on the others affected by the disease. “Children. The elderly. People who are already sick—”
“—and people who already built up antiviral drug resistance,” Ephraim finishes. “Cobweb kills them off more often than not. You were young and strong, so we knew you had a good chance, but when you threw it off like that? Proved you hadn’t been exposed to an antiviral once in your life? That stood out.”