“To you,” Abel says, “and soon, to others as well?”
Ephraim nods. “I don’t doubt it. Earth’s desperate to cover up this mess. For a while they thought they had Cobweb under control—we hardly even saw it at all for the past four years—but just in the past few months, a new outbreak got started. People are scared. If word got out that this disease was created by Earth, we’d have mass rioting on every world of the Loop, unrest beyond what’s already going on. Once the authorities figured out you were from Genesis—that an enemy had the proof of what they’d done, right there in her veins—” He shakes his head. “You’d never have made it off this planet alive.”
Noemi shudders in what Abel first thinks is relief. Instead her eyes narrow as she stares at Ephraim and says, “So that’s where Remedy comes from. It began with the doctors who knew the truth about Cobweb. You’re one of them, aren’t you?”
Of course. Abel hadn’t analyzed in this much depth yet; he’d been too busy running risk assessments specific to Noemi. But he sees the truth immediately. Ephraim not only wanted to study Cobweb—he wanted proof of Earth’s wrongdoing, for the entire resistance to spread around the galaxy. Noemi—a young, strong survivor of the disease—could’ve helped serve as that proof, no matter what planet she was from.
Ephraim pauses a few long seconds, obviously loath to answer. Finally, however, he nods. “Sometimes I wonder whether I still want to call myself a member of Remedy any longer. But yeah, we began as a group of doctors who wanted to call out the Earth scientists who set Cobweb loose on the galaxy. But the group got a lot bigger. A lot more dangerous. Now you have psychos bombing music festivals, claiming that’s proving some huge point, when all it does is make people think that anyone who objects to Earth’s rule has to be psycho, too—”
“They’re not psychos,” Noemi says, surprising Abel. “They’re wrong to resort to terrorism. There’s no justification for that—there can’t be—but we met one of the Kismet bombers. She wasn’t insane. Just angry and desperate and wrong. She didn’t see another way.”
“You met one of the Kismet bombers?” Ephraim gapes at them.
“We don’t know her current location.” Abel hopes that will put an end to any inquiries about Riko Watanabe.
Noemi looks over at Abel. For the first time since their reunion, her attention is all for him. “Thanks for taking such good care of me when I was sick, by the way.”
He should brush this off by telling her it’s only his job, his duty as a mech. Instead he inclines his head. “You’re welcome.”
At that moment the train dips down into a tunnel. Darkness closes around them all, lit only by a dim bulb attached to the back of the train.
Question already forgotten, Ephraim gestures for them to stand. “Get ready. We have to get out of this medtram and hop off about a hundred meters before the end. From there, it’s easy to get to a service elevator, head up to the landing area.”
“How do you know all this?” Noemi asks.
Ephraim’s bashful smile is unexpected on such a large man. “Even on Stronghold, kids figure out how to have fun.”
When Abel opens the door of the medtram, the wind rushes past quickly enough to steal sound, enough for him to put one arm around Noemi’s waist, bracing her. This much is logical, but he finds himself reluctant to pull away even when the train has slowed. Can this be justified by concern for her health, when she is so clearly improved?
Irrelevant. Within moments they’re at the jump-off point, and the train has slowed so much that Noemi requires no help getting down. The elevator Ephraim summons is less promising—all mesh and rust. Noemi glances at its exposed metal rigging, obviously unsure whether to trust it. Abel feels much the same way she does, only with mathematical formulae to support his doubts. But it does no worse than groan as it takes them up toward the landing area level.
“Will we be able to evade Stronghold security to leave?” Abel asks.
Ephraim nods. “They’re way more worried about people landing without permission than they are with them taking off.”
Noemi says, “Okay. But Ephraim, are you sure they’ll believe you about the drugging? I’m sorry, but if it were me, I wouldn’t buy that.”
How did she ever come to believe she wasn’t a compassionate person? Abel can’t work this out. Perhaps the Gatsons? They seem to have been more distant than actually malign, but maybe distance would be enough. He’ll need to ask Mansfield about the influence of parental attitudes on children’s sense of self.
“My cover story requires some work. A little showmanship.” Ephraim turns to Abel. “Think you can manage to give me a black eye and a few bruises? Make it look like I got roughed up good?”
Abel, who can measure his blows to the smallest fraction of speed, aim, and force, is an ideal candidate for this task. But striking a helpful human will require him to set some programming aside. “Give me a moment,” he says. “I can work up to it.”
“We can never thank you enough for this.” Noemi smiles up into Ephraim’s eyes in a way Abel doesn’t enjoy. Which makes no sense whatsoever. He likes Noemi’s smile. He’s glad that she’s well, and grateful for Ephraim’s assistance and care. So why should he be displeased?
The elevator settles onto ground level with a clank and a thud. Noemi gestures toward the Daedalus, which is within fifty yards; Ephraim had guided them well. This time her conspiratorial smile is only for Abel. He likes that better.
Ephraim lowers his voice. “Okay. We make sure the coast is clear, Abel does what he’s going to do to my face, and then we part ways. I’ll take the meds while you guys make a run for it.”
Then Noemi grabs his arm, her eyes wide. “Abel.” She points toward the Daedalus, where he sees two gray-clad shapes walking from behind a nearby ship—the Queen and Charlie. Abel zooms in quickly to look at the Charlie’s hand, which remains stripped down to the metal endoskeleton.
They’ve been caught.
“You had to make planetfall sometime,” the Queen says as she strolls forward. The glint of new, unfamiliar intelligence is still in her eyes. “Couldn’t hide out behind the Blind Gate forever.”
That takes him aback. “You knew where we were?”
“And I knew it was too dangerous to follow you. Why bother, when all we had to do was wait for you to show up? My instincts told me you’d move forward to Stronghold, and they were right.” For one split second, the Queen’s smile looks less smug, more joyous. “I like possessing intuition. It’s… fun.”