Cibola Burn

The Belter, the Ilusite, whatever he was, muttered “puta” again and spat to one side. Holden walked through the miserable warm rain past the trenches full of water and dead slugs and the plastic glued over the walls and the cracks stuffed with muddy rags. He hopped over the last trench to get inside the tower, then scraped the mud off his boots and followed the passageways to the structure’s large central chamber. Lucia was there working with the chemical analysis team on the water purifying project. She shot him a tight smile as he entered, and he started walking toward her simply because she seemed like the only one happy to see him.

“Holden. I mean, um, Jim,” Elvi said, stepping in front of him. “We have a problem?”

“Several,” Holden said.

“No, I mean a new one. In about four days everyone in the colony is going to be blind.”

Chapter Thirty-Five: Elvi

Holden blinked, shook his head, and then he laughed. Elvi was torn between worry that he thought she was joking and a kind of glowing admiration. She’d been afraid that he’d be angry. She’d heard about people laughing in the face of danger, and that was exactly what this was. She smoothed her hands against her jumpsuit, uncomfortably aware of how dirty she was, how dirty they all were.

This day just keeps on giving,” he said. Then, “Blind why?”

“It’s the clouds,” Elvi said. “Or really, what’s in them. They’re green. I mean, when they’re not —” She nodded toward the window at the low gray overcast sky. “Normally, they’re green. There’s a photosynthetic organism that spends part of its life cycle in the clouds, and apparently it’s a pretty successful organism all around the planet, because all of this that’s come down has some in it. It was a very dry climate before this, so there probably wasn’t much opportunity for exposure. But with the rain and the flood, pretty much everyone’s come in contact. And it’s salt tolerant.”

The chemical deck chimed, and Elvi moved toward it automatically, her eyes still on Holden. But Fayez, Lucia, and one of the other squatters were already lifting out the sack of clean water and fitting a new bag in place.

“Is that a problem?” Holden said. “How does salt figure into it?”

“We’re salty,” Elvi said, and was immediately uncomfortable with her phrasing. Her hands seemed too large and awkward in a way they usually weren’t. “What I mean is, we’ve seen infections with this organism before. It does well in tears and tear ducts. And then eyes.”

“Eyes,” Holden said.

“Lucia saw one case before the… the storm? Once the organism got into the vitreous humor, it’s in a novel environment that seems to suit it really well, and exponential growth’s pretty normal in those conditions. So that winds up blocking the light from hitting the retina, and —”

Holden held up his hands, palm out. She found herself moving in toward him, ready to put her palms against his. She stopped herself.

“I thought the things that lived here had a whole different biology. How can they infect us?”

“It’s not an infection like a virus,” she said. “It’s not hijacking our cells or anything. We’re just a new, nutrient-rich environment and this little guy found a way to exploit it. It’s not trying to make us blind. It’s just that the extracellular matrix is a really easy path into the eyeball for it, and it’s really happy when it gets there. Explosive growth is something you see in any kind of invasive species coming into a new environment. No competition.”

Holden ran a hand through his hair. When he spoke, his voice was soft, like he was speaking mostly to himself.

“Apocalyptic explosions, dead reactors, terrorists, mass murder, death-slugs, and now a blindness plague. This is a terrible planet. We should not have come here.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, putting her hand on his arm. He had a very solid arm. Muscular. He put his own hand over hers and her heart picked up a little. She hated feeling like a schoolgirl with her first crush, but she also thrilled to it. Just stay focused, she thought, a little dignity.

“Okay, Doctor Okoye.”

“Elvi.”

“Elvi, I need you and Doctor Merton to do whatever you have to do to take care of this. I think I’ve found a way to get supplies down from orbit, but I don’t see any way to get anyone up the well, or where to put them if we did. So if I’m right, I can get you whatever supplies we have up there. But I need you to fix this.”

“I will,” Elvi said, nodding. She didn’t have any idea how she could keep that promise, but her heart was full to bursting with the determination that she would.

“Anything you need,” Holden said, “you just tell me.”

Elvi had a sudden, intrusive, and surprisingly graphic thought. She felt a blush crawling up her neck. “All right, Captain,” she said. “I want… um… if I could get a spare sampling bag from the Israel? I think it would really help.”