Cibola Burn

“How’s her vision doing? How many more of these runs does she have in her, do you think?”

“She’s on her way,” Murtry said with a humorless smile. “So at least one more, I’d say.”

“Great,” Holden said. “Tell her I said thanks.”

“Will do,” Murtry replied, ignoring the irony. “But I need something from you.”

“You need, or RCE needs?”

“Consider those the same thing at this point,” Murtry said. “Should be some construction materials in this load. I need to assemble a work crew to set up my structure before everyone is too blind to do the job.”

“What’s it for? There’s a ton of other work we need to do while we can. And in a turn of luck,” Holden said, pointing at the alien tower behind him, “shelter is not one of our pressing problems.”

“These people,” Murtry said, “are eating my food, drinking my water, and taking my medicine. My team is gathering the supplies and doing the dangerous salvage work that makes any of this possible. You know what? As long as that remains true, they can throw up a few walls for me when I ask.”

“Then what do you need from me?”

“They have the mistaken impression you’re in charge. Correcting them seemed impolite.”

Holden had a sudden mental image of dragging the soon-to-be-blind Murtry out into the middle of the rain-soaked desert and abandoning him at the center of a swarm of the lethal slugs.

“Did I say something funny?” Murtry asked.

“Inside joke,” Holden replied with a smile. “You had to be there. I’ll let Carol know you’re looking for volunteers.”

Before Murtry could object, Holden turned and walked away.

Inside, the tower was a buzzing hive of activity as the colonists hurried to finish their last preparations for the coming long night. Lucia had a group working to fill everything that could hold water with supplies from the chemistry deck. Carol Chiwewe was leading a team through the interior of the tower hunting out any remaining death-slugs and plugging any holes they could find.

Holden climbed a ramp and then a set of steps made out of empty packing crates to reach the third floor of the tower. Inside the chamber they’d optimistically named the lab, he found Elvi, Fayez, and a third member of the RCE science team whom Holden thought was named Sudyam.

“Who is that?” Elvi asked. She poked Fayez in the bicep. “Is that Jim?”

Fayez squinted at him for a second then said, “Finally.”

“Sorry I was late, but Murtry wanted —”

“I need you to come read this,” Elvi said over the top of him. She was pointing at the chemistry deck’s small screen. Holden walked over and looked at the display, but had no idea what any of the confusion of symbols and acronyms meant.

“What am I looking for?”

“First we want to check the CBC,” Elvi said, coming over to point at the screen. Nothing on it said CBC.

“Okay,” Holden said. “Will it say CBC? I don’t see CBC here.”

Elvi sighed, then began speaking slowly. “Does the screen say ‘results’ at the top?”

“No. It says ‘tools’ at the very top. Is that what you mean?”

“Wrong menu. Hit the back button,” Elvi said, pointing at a button on the screen. Holden pushed it.

“Oh, I see a results option now.”

“Hit that. Then we’re going to be looking for numbers on the CBC, RBC, WBC, hemoglobin, hematocrit, and platelet count readouts.”

“Hey,” Holden said happily, “I see all that stuff.”

“Tell us what they are.”

Holden did so, while Elvi made notes on her terminal. She had the display blown up to the point where Holden could read it from across the room.

“Back up now and let’s look at blood gases,” she said when they were done. It took over an hour, but in the end Holden had given them all the results they were looking for. They decided to take some more of his blood and let him go.

When they were done, he stood next to Elvi pressing a scrap of bandage against the puncture wound. “Are we any closer?”

“It’s not an easy process,” she replied. “Even with access to all these minds and the Israel’s computer. We’re looking for a needle in a complex organism.”

“How much time do we have left?”

Elvi tilted her head up so the light shone into her pupils. Holden could see the faint green tinge there. “Almost none,” she said. “But you should go get some sleep. You’re exhausted.”

“My blood told you that?”

“You haven’t slept in two days,” she said with a laugh. “Math tells me that.”

“I promise, I’ll hit the rack as soon as I can,” he lied to her.

He climbed down the makeshift steps and the weirdly alien curve of the ramp to the tangle of people at the ground floor. Lucia had turned over water duty to her assistants, and was shining a penlight into the eyes of a small child. She gave Holden a tired smile as he walked by. Someone gave an alarmed shout, then rushed through the room carrying a slug on a stick and threw it outside. Holden followed it outside and stomped on it.

The sky was darkening to the color of damp ash, and the rain was becoming heavier. Distant thunder rumbled to the east, the lightning visible only as dim flashes in the heavy clouds. The air smelled of ozone and mud.