Contaminated Read online

  Face shielding still retracted, she looks oddly vulnerable lying on the floor. She’s sloughed her back skin again and this time, she’s used it to prop her head.

  What a multifarious extremity.

  I’m still marveling at it when she completely unnerves me by folding up her silver, crinkly cocoon, and unzips her back’s pouch.

  I plant one hand on the floor to steady myself and lean down to peer inside it with her.

  Skytobrachion laughs. “Eets a bahckpahck.”

  I stare in shock as I see many stored items—not membranes of fats or some other inner-body process plant. Inside of her back she has inner-shelving and manufactured-looking supplies.

  She pulls out a variety of bizarre objects that do not look organic in composition any more than my tapscreen, my writing instruments, or my electronic desk organizer back in the lab. I’m further floored when she reveals what appear to be plant leaves trapped between glass slides. Among them are two large glass sheets and they hold…

  The Morsuflos bloom.

  “Galaxies beyond!” I breathe, unable to stop staring. She’s turned it into a field sample. This thing she’s carried with her, on her—she hasn’t been carrying around a simple sloughable limb! This is a skin-like encased storage compartment, and Skytobrachion clearly has scientific inclinations.

  Skytobrachion stands, and my attention is finally pulled away from her back pouch.

  Having spent my lifetime observing defects in musculature, I recognize that her movements have none of the quick fluidness from yesterday. Instead, her movements are decidedly stiff and painful-looking.

  Hesitantly, I form my fingers into a circle about mid-way along her arm, and give the area a testing squeeze. Just like each time I’ve touched her, I marvel that her body almost has an empty-cushy layer, like nothing I’ve ever felt. Evidently, it’s not enough padding to cushion her frame during rest periods though, nor was my chair’s foam. There’s little doubt that a solid floor surface beneath it all was not favorable for this soft-skinned creature.

  My resting pad is made of the same material as the chair pad she bedded down on, so offering to trade resting spots the next sleep cycle won’t solve the problem. I extend my antenna, tugging on them while I think. Perhaps we can furtively bring bags of lodent shavings into my dorm and pile them for her to bed down on. Risky, but it’s not as if I can request a second resting pad for my single-status dorm. Even if I claimed that I required a replacement, it could take half a parsec for the paperwork to be approved, and the Dwelling Care and Management board sends a team to remove old appliances and fixtures when they bring in the new. The team would see that mine is perfectly serviceable and there’s no way I would be permitted to keep both without an explanation.

  Doubt sinks its fearsome fangs into my psyche. Sneaking an alien into my dorm without permission—without her first undergoing quarantine—is the second most foolish thing I’ve ever done, the first being my failure to report her presence as soon as she appeared.

  But when I look at her, I get caught up in emotions; yesterday, I didn’t want to share her with whatever team would be assembled to sequester this new and mysteriously attractive, comely creature. Last darkcycle, I felt guilt at the idea of leaving her all alone in an empty, sterile cage. I told myself, What’s one small alien going to be carrying that could make our situation worse?

  But of course I’ve studied disease and the transmission of it. Some of the greatest infectious diseases travel by way of the tiniest organisms.

  A cough can become a plague.

  If she’s harboring anything harmful to us, I’ve walked her through a dorm stairwell that will see a frightful amount of traffic once the day gets underway. I can’t believe I was so selfish. Satisfying my curiosity and my feelings isn’t worth the danger I could be bringing to others, is it?

  That’s rhetorical: I know the answer. It’s just… when I look at Skytobrachion, and she looks up at me, and smiles—curse me, it’s wrong, I know it’s wrong—but I also know I’d do it all again.

  What a fabulous way to start the day; I’m harboring an alien, I’ve potentially brought harm to my planet, and I’ve learned I’m morally turpitudinous enough to deliberately repeat my actions.

  I wonder if Simmi will remedy this… oversight... today. If he doesn’t, I should.

  The thought acts like a beta-blocker on my heart-lifted mood, and I lose the easy smile I felt upon waking. Having someone to care for—if you disregard the potential danger she poses—made me feel less alone. Even before I’d opened my eyes, I’d felt infused with a foreign contentedness. Before today, I wasn’t aware that I felt existentially lonely, but it’s as if I’ve been touched by her presence all night—it was soothing, and pleasant.

  I run a hand up over my skull, not even registering the scuffing sound the contact makes until Skytobrachion searches for the source of the noise. I drop my hand with a sigh. “You are enjoyably distracting, but I should really get you back to the lab, before the others in this dorm hive are shuttling off to work—and before officials descend on us in the event Simmi filed an official report of yesterday’s incident—ah, your arrival.”

  A pair of facial pits appears on either side of her mouth, under the generous roundness covering her cheekbone structure. I can’t help myself: I step closer to her, and press a fingertip into one of the indents.

  Skytobrachion’s eyebrows shoot up and her flesh brushes my fingertip as her smile falls, making the indentations disappear.

  “Huh…” I say in consternation.

  Slowly, a pit reforms under my finger, making my fingertip sink a little, and then sink more as her smile grows even wider.

  “You are very, very odd…” I tell her, pulling my finger away to run it along the skin that stretches over the sides of her jaws, seeing if there are more of these dents. Some animals have heat-seeking pits that they use to locate prey—or, that’s our theory, at least. I have no theories as to what Skytobrachion’s might do.

  As my careful examination continues, her shoulders begin to bob up and down, and I draw back to see that she’s laughing. When her eyes connect with mine, she squeezes hers shut, and she slaps her knees, laughing harder.

  Charmed, I give her a few moments, and when she collects herself, I pat my leg. “Come, Skyto.”

  She cocks her head, and a snorking noise escapes her nostrils.

  I’m fully aware that she’s unlikely to be some sort of companion animal. All signs point to her being a sentient race of alien. But without a way to relay even the simplest words of conversation, the methods and commands of pet keepers seemed to me like they’d be a sound option for communication. When patting my leg doesn’t produce the desired result, I try to manipulate my lips to make an ingressive click and create a pressure drop with my tongue. A coaxing sucking sound results, and it works—I have her attention for sure. Her eyes even widen.

  I take this as a good sign, and I call to her again. “Skyto? Come here.” For good measure, I repeat the pat on my leg, and wiggle three of my longest fingers to coax her forward—I haven’t seen pet owners do this, I simply get the inspiration to try it.

  And perhaps I have a bit of a gift for pet training, because Skytobrachion—smiling in a way that presses her lips together firmly, as if she’s holding in sound—takes a measured step towards me.

  “Good Skytobrachion!” I almost shout in my excitement—then I modulate my volume lest we alert dorm neighbors that I have an unauthorized lifeform presently in hiding. “Geh, that’s a mouthful. Do you mind if I shorten your call name to ‘Skyto?’”

  She expels air through her nose. “Shurr. Whyy noht?”

  She’s smiling, and her shoulders rise up a fraction in a non-aggressive fashion, so I take this to be agreement.

  “Very good.” I check my wrist device; it’s the most wonderful invention I’ve ever splurged my extravagance stipend deposits to afford. It takes dictation, translates it to notes, informs me of the current and expected weath
er patterns, and it also relays the time. Unfortunately, the time displayed is not favorable. “Slow death to a field of stars! Skyto, I have disappointing news. I didn’t wake early enough to manage a trip through the mizzling stall before we leave, or to even make breakfast if we’re going to scurry towards the lab before other dorm inhabitants begin exiting for their daycycle shifts.” I consider her. “You didn’t seem interested in the protein blocks, but you liked my hagnot well enough?” Her head seems to bob with intention, so I turn, lost in thought as I take a mental inventory of what leftovers I can quickly combine to take with us. There isn’t enough left of the hagnot to make a meal out of it, so I settle on an unleavened, hollow bread soaked in ğurk—a semi-solid bacterial fermentation of nourishfluid. It’s a secretion rich in protein and vitamins, and is obtained from a native land grazer at great risk to the handler. It’s an extravagance—and its price reflects this. Simmi got me addicted to it (not literally—but nearly) moons ago and it’s a dismal moon’s passing when my deposit account can’t stretch for its purchase.

  Hasty meal packed, we make way to the door. My palm print unlocks it, and we step into the narrow corridor. Skyto has reattached her back hump, meaning she has everything she came here with plus the bloom she took. If she has no reason to loiter here, on this planet that likely wouldn’t welcome her arrival, I’d understand her desire to make an escape. Why she doesn’t immediately dash from me and run for her freedom, I can’t say—but I can admit to myself that I’m relieved beyond analyzable reason when she remains at my side. In fact, I pass her small squares of ğurk bread as we move forward, and Skyto willingly follows me so obediently and so quietly to the lab, I’m almost giddy. Especially because we make all haste in doing it—therefore, we succeed in arriving well before the cantilever bridgeport has traffic.

  But my excitement fizzles out upon opening the lab door.

  Because facing us, expectant, is Simmi.

  Simmi sits stiffly in his chair, close enough to the doorway that he blocks comfortable entry. “Ah, so glad you arrived—and you captured our fugitive.” His eyes skewer (figuratively) right through my exoskeleton.

  Like a youth caught with his hand in the sun-dried sugardisk tin, I feel my zygomatic plates heating. “She’s not a fugitive, Simmi—or a prisoner.”

  Simmi doesn’t deign to address this. He crosses his arms over his sternum. “I couldn’t sleep. Some time in the darkcycle, I opened up the lab to check on the subject only to find an empty enclosure.” The muscles that run along his cheekbones tighten. “The only thing stopping me from raising alarm was the certifiable hope that you had removed her from the lab and took her with you to your dorm—and that an alien lifeform whose existence and arrival we didn’t report wasn’t running around our planet, creating mayhem, escaped!”

  Skyto sends a wary, wincing glance up to me, clearly able to ascertain that I’m being scolded by my subordinate.

  “Well?” Simmi says finally, spreading his hands, eyes lasering into mine. “You don’t care to share the reasoning behind your asinine actions?”

  “Simmi—” I start, but my attention is stolen when I catch a glimpse of the Morsuflos plant who technically is at the root of all these events. (...Ha! A witty little paronomasia to mention to Simmi when he’s in a more humor-receptive mood.) “Stars born above!” I gasp aloud. The Morsuflos plant Skyto beheaded has grown three stalkheads over a single darkcycle. “SIMMI!” I shout, pointing like a lunatic.

  Skyto jolts beside me, and Simmi tenses—as much at her sudden movement as my unusual behavior. But then he turns to look out the viewer window, and he shouts an exclamation himself. “Spalpeen’s spurs!”

  And beside ourselves with wonder, we both swivel our attention to the alien in our midst.

  CHAPTER 7

  “Erreck, get a gaze at this,” Simmi says excitedly, his microscope’s eyepieces jammed to his eye sockets. “These are samples from the Morsuflos taken three days ago—and here,” he switches out slides, “Is the sample taken just now!”

  Relieved at his turn in mood, and incredulous at this incredible news, I’m grinning. “Get your antennae out of the way so I can actually see them.”

  Simmi moves so that I can get a look. When I’m done marveling at the slides, I pull back and look at the catalyst for this change. “Skyto, how did you do this?” Simmi and I have collected the Morsuflos’s blooms many times before; it’s never reacted this way. The only alteration in routine was the introduction of alien blood when Skyto fed the Morsuflos’s thorn her inside-skin’s thumb.

  Simmi’s voice is disbelieving. “What did you call it?”

  My shoulders hunch. “Skyto,” I mumble. “Skytobrachion.”

  Simmi scoffs. “You are not calling it Skytobrachion.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s a terrible name—”

  With painful dignity, I pull myself to my feet. “I didn’t think so—”

  Off to the side of us, Skyto brings her palm up as her eyes roll in their sockets, and she slaps her hand over her face.

  Simmi’s waving his hands. “And I found it as much as you. Therefore the equitable thing would be if I have half a say in naming it.”

  “Oh,” I say thoughtfully. The sting to my pride dissipates somewhat, because it isn’t so much that Simmi doesn’t like my name choice; he’s only rancorously sour that he wasn’t included, and his opinions were unsought. “I suppose that’s fair.” I look to Skyto to see she appears quite bemused. I turn back to Simmi. “What if you give her a second name?”

  Simmi’s shoulder plates tighten. “And then what? We call it by two names?”

  We look to Skyto.

  Skyto smirks, crossing her arms and leaning her shoulder into the wall, watching us watch her. “Myy nahyme ees Doktor Nan-cy Bjarnardóttir, ahstrobott-an-ist aff teh Kahmahnwehlth.”

  We both stare at her.

  Her quirked lip quirks even higher, and those facial pits display themselves again—still only the single pair though, one positioned on either side, so they may not be for anything to do with heat-seeking. She brings her thumb-like digit to her roundly protruding sternum. “Nan-cy. Eyym Nancy.”

  Simmi eyes me sideways. “Do you think it’s trying to sway us on what we should name it?”

  “Or,” I suggest dryly, “she already has a name and is trying to tell us what it is.”

  Simmi makes an unimpressed hmmph sound, put out that he can’t name her now.

  I look back at her. “Nancy?” I try.

  She brightens and points to me like I have something she wants. “Yas! Yass, thaht’s mee—Nancy!” She brings her fist to her torso.

  I point to my sternum plate. “I am ErreckMXL7, and this,” I clasp the air near Simmi’s shoulder, “is Simmi.”

  Nancy tests the names quietly under her breath before attempting them for our correction. “Erikk ahnnd Seemee?”

  Simmi folds his arms. “Sihmee.”

  But I’m already nodding, pleased. “Very good!”

  Simmi looks at me as if I received the lowest score on the elocution tests—which is not the case. I may not have had the honor of earning the highest academic achievements of my class, but I wasn’t deficient either. “It didn’t say my name right,” Simmi grumbles with narrowed eyes. “How is that ‘very’ good? At best, it could be considered ‘passable.’”

  I wave his words away with my tail. “Don’t be exacting. Can’t you see her lip articulation differs from ours? She’s bound to struggle with pronunciation. We should be grateful she can manage as closely as she has.”

  “You would say that,” he points out. “It can pronounce your name almost perfectly.” His eyes cut to her. “Sihmee. Repeat it, creature.”

  Nancy’s lips purse. Then her lashes lower, and she gazes up at him from under her frilly, prettily fluttering lids. “Sammee?”

  If she looked at me like this, I’d let her call me anything.

  But Simmi throws up his hands, piqued. “Its pronunciation is dete
riorating!”

  I take Nancy’s incredibly silky inner-skin fingers and draw her away from Simmi as if distance will cause his words to hurt less. “She’s surely doing the best she can. Show patience, Simmi.”

  He huffs and stalks to his desk.

  I pat the back of Nancy’s hand soothingly, and I’m pleased when she flicks a glance up at me and doesn’t look upset at Simmi’s reaction at all. In fact, I’d classify her expression as almost mischievous.

  Before I can analyze it, Simmi distracts me by calling, “Are you going to tabulate our findings, or will your tasks fall upon me?” Passive aggressively baiting, he adds, “Again.”

  “I must go to work, Nancy,” I say apologetically, and Nancy’s teeth flash in a smile.

  “Carry ohn,” she says.

  CHAPTER 8

  I get right to work. Taking up my notescreen, I cross the lab and move to greet the group Simmi and I have affectionately dubbed our team of little Lʊʊnjaɠ fighters. When I enter the chamber, behind me, Skyto, who’s following as tight to my heels as my tailspan allows, gasps in horror.

  I spare her a glance before I turn back to our fighters, trying to see them as she must. Spread before us, row after row, are Genneӝt young with Infantile-onset Lʊʊnjaɠ. I quickly explain to Skyto that she’s not standing in some monstrous laboratory. These young were born cursed with the most detrimental levels of the disease, and yes, sadly—their conditions are shocking—but we’re here to help, not hurt.

  Our work is of utmost importance to these infants. Each one of the young is in a life support pod, and each infant trembles uncontrollably. Sometimes, their seizing is so dire, they’re shaking too hard to cry normally—although we never hear their tiny cries anyway.

  Technically, the babies aren’t here.

  There are no babies in this room.

  What we’re seeing are merely their very well-rendered holograms.

  From this room, we can read each infant’s stats on the displays above their beds; we can visually monitor either their disease progression or their treatment progress, and with real-time evaluation, we work closely with caregivers to create and provide the latest test treatments we can offer. Genneӝt parents enroll their Affected progeny into the program in hopes that our work will benefit their offspring in some way.