Title: Ring Around the Rosie
Author: ladybalin
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Not mine. Not even close.
Setting: Four cycles after the Peacekeeper Wars
Betas: Thanks to miniglik, without whom this fic would not have been written, and my husband for insisting that I cut lines that make no sense no matter how much I love them.
Author's Note: This is a multi-part fic that's still a work in progress. I hope to keep the pace up in getting chapters written, but you know how life goes. Feedback is like candy.
Ring Around the Rosie
Chapter 1
John flicked his wrist and watched as the ball bounced off the floor into Moya's bulkhead and then back to his waiting hand. Wedging his back more firmly against the wall in one of her endless corridors and tucking his knees up, he threw the ball again. Bounce. Bounce. Catch. Again.
"We found a cure, John," Scorpius informed him.
"Well, whoop-dee-frelling-do, break out the parade," John deadpanned, sure there was a catch.
Bounce. Two more arns until he, Aeryn, and their son left for the Command Carrier. Two more until everyone he cared about was at the mercy of the Peacekeepers, and he just had to hope they were playing fair this time around.
"We need more humans. We need Earth."
Of all the planets, in all the solar systems, Scorpy had to need his. "Ennh. Wrong. That route's closed. Find. Another. Way." He'd locked the door himself and thrown away the key.
Bounce. And there it was – because of some alien abductions several thousand years ago, humans were now the closest genetic cousins to the people who had alternately captured, tortured, and frelled him in every sense of the word. Part of him, the dark part that John didn't like to think about, wanted to enjoy the fall of the Peacekeeper regime, but the price was too high.
"You did not think that the wormhole you destroyed was the only one, did you John?" Scorpius asked calmly.
"No." John could feel his voice shaking. "I won't help you. Your pilots can turn to goo on their own time."
"Ah. No, John. We don't need you for navigation. Our prowlers and Command Carriers cannot travel through wormholes, it is true. But, as you yourself have found, nothing prevents Leviathans from doing so." The riddle didn't need to be answered when you could just walk around the Sphinx.
Catch. John wondered sometimes if there were any real choices in life or just a series of coin tosses that always ended badly. Earth – the circle had closed for the last time. His life before and his life after were slowly colliding and the only choice left was to try and mediate the destruction. He always was a fan of lost causes.Somewhere, John was sure that God - or the Fates, or whoever was actually running this show - was laughing at him.
"So what then?" John asked resignedly. "You're just going to take over Earth?"
"We could … but it would be difficult without our Command Carriers. A prolonged military campaign is disadvantageous for everyone. Diplomacy offers the swifter path."
The Peacekeepers were going to Earth and John had the unenviable task of making them all play nice. He'd been a scientist, an astronaut, a tech, a criminal, a pawn, and a bargaining chip - and now he was supposed to be a diplomat. At least he'd pass the language requirement. John laughed to himself and buried his head in his folded arms.
He supposed that he should just be thankful that the Peacekeepers were going through the motions of asking politely. He threw the ball again. Hard.
Pictures weren't the same as reality. In pictures, you couldn't see the contortions of a child's face while he struggled to breathe. You couldn't smell the salty tang of sweat and tears of a little girl tossing in her bed or taste the stale air that surrounded the rows of med bay beds. And you couldn't tell the difference between a child that was sleeping and one that had succumbed to the Living Death.
John shuddered. Scorpius had shown him images of the children weekens earlier, but it didn't compare to standing in the med bay of the Command Carrier, helpless to save the hundreds of children dying in front of him. He sought Aeryn's hand. She gripped his back tightly enough to make his bones creak. He didn't let go. "Is she …?" He didn't want to know the answer. He didn't want to see this.
The med tech bent over the girl's body and briskly examined her. "Yes," the tech confirmed. "The body will be terminated and disposed of."
She looked only four-cycles-old, the same age as D'Argo. And now she was just a body - living, breathing flesh without a soul.
"And this happens to all of them?" John knew the answers; Scorpius had told him. But the reality was different.
"Most. A small fraction recover. Perhaps 10. But their motor and brain functions are permanently impaired and they appear to be sterile." The tech shrugged dispassionately. "Cooling rooms alleviate the symptoms of the heat delirium, but the virus is quite robust."
"You're sure … you're absolutely sure that Sebacean hybrids aren't affected?" Aeryn's voice broke.
"None that we've found so far," the med tech said with the exact same tone Earth doctors used when hedging their bets. "Of course, there aren't many Sebacean hybrids out there; the Purity Laws ensure that. But over a quarter of the Sebacean children have fallen ill and not a single one of the hybrids. The virus is very specific; no adults over 16 cycles have gotten sick either. There's a 99 confidence interval on the data." The tech delicately pricked the girl's wrist with a needle from his pocket. "There," he murmured.
Listening to the med tech, John decided, was just like being back in college with his stat mech professor droning on about enthalpy. He swallowed uncomfortably. "So you might be wrong? There's a chance you're wrong?"
The tech looked at him with some irritation. "It's statistically unlikely."
"And that would be very comforting if we had one hundred shots at this, but we only get to spin the wheel once," John snapped back.
The tech blinked at him, unimpressed by the outburst. Behind him, the girl's breathing slowed and then stopped with one last gurgling sigh.
John closed his eyes, but he was unable to wipe the image of the small, still body from his mind. "Fine. Tell me about the cure."
"Sample 118 successfully eradicated the virus in one child. It alleviated the symptoms temporarily in another three. Other hybrid combinations had no effect. With a wider variety of samples, we should be able to track down the necessary compatibility factors."
One child saved – John had had second, third, and fourth thoughts about providing Scorpius with the initial sample of D'Argo's blood, but at least it wasn't entirely in vain. "So we know two things: hybrid children are not affected by this virus?" The tech hesitated, but eventually nodded. "And only human-Sebacean blood can cure it?" Again the tech nodded. John met Aeryn's eyes. They never did have a choice.
"I have work to do." The tech pushed a button on the girl's bed which opened a cavity up in the wall. The bed tilted upwards, and the body slid headfirst into the recess. The trap closed with a clang.