Chapter 14
"There is always some madness in love.
But there is also always some reason in madness."
-Friedrick Nietzche
In the end, designing and building the apparatus Trance had asked for had been a relatively simple procedure. The container itself was a plain fiberglass storageware jar Harper found buried somewhere in his workshop that had just needed a bit of dusting and the removal of some old candy wrappers. He had jury-rigged the medical suction device, which consisted of a foot of tubing and the powerful motor that initiated its simple vacuum effect, to the fiberglass container with the ease of a kid who liked to fiddle with toy ship models.
In the core of the container was a tiny force field generator that would produce a sphere of impenetrable energy about the size of an overweight softball. The clear tubing dissected the field, but once something was sucked into the orb, the hole automatically sealed itself.
The gadget, jumbled together with a little bit of powerful melding glue and creativity, looked like the most botched medicinal device he had ever set his eyes on. However, now looking at his finished product, Harper allowed himself a small smirk as he internally christened it the Vacuum of Doom.
"Harper," Andromeda's voice filled the speakers in his workshop. "Captain Hunt would like to know your progress."
"Just finishing up 'Droms. Tell him and Trance that'll I'll be right down to deliver the Vac-- uh, device, really soon."
"I'll let them know," the ship replied.
Harper tucked the new creation under his right arm for transport to the lab and used his good hand to key open the door. The left hand and wrist were nearly useless now and lay pathetically curled against his chest. He had pushed past the pain when it was necessary in order to finish the construction of The Vacuum, but now his adrenaline was waning and the pain receptors in his head were furious at him. As soon as this was over and his friends were okay, he'd have Trance take a look at it. She'd be pissed of course, but he wasn't really concerned about that right now.
A few minutes later he met the rest of the crew in the sealed laboratory. Aka, Beka and Rommie's temporary penal complex.
The avatar had already sedated her cellmate and moved Beka to the medbed that had been slipped past the field surrounding the room. Trance would have liked to have a more sterile environment to perform the procedure, but time was of the essence and the lab room would have to suffice. She would be the only one to enter the area but the bed was close enough to the force field barrier that both Harper and Dylan could watch the entire process.
Trance would move quickly to avoid being infected herself, but she was confident that she couldn't be contaminated. Something to do with her core temperature being too hot to sustain the creatures' systems. It was a good theory Harper thought, but like that one dude's law said, anything that can possibly go wrong on, especially on the Andromeda, will go wrong.
"Got your suction-thingy," Harper announced after he had entered and mentally took everything in. He placed his Vacuum on an empty equipment tray next to the field. "Some of my best work, if I may say so myself. Next to that thermonuclear powered hotplate of course."
Trance eyed it a bit, sure of his skills, but wary of its physical appearance. "You sure it will work?" she asked.
"Positive as a Than pregnancy test. Just press this stitch like this and the field appears."
"Good work," Trance offered with a smile.
She hadn't noticed his arm, he realized warily. Thank the Devine for small favors.
"How's Tyr doing?" Harper asked, changing the subject.
The Nietzschean, still back on Med Deck, was hooked up to more machines than the engineer could count on all his fingers combined. When he had visited earlier Harper found that Tyr's room, like Rommie and Beka's, had also been covered by a protective field that only Trance was allowed to penetrate. No matter if he was one foot or five from Tyr though, Seamus saw enough to last him a lifetime. He'd never seen the Kodiak so defenseless. Defenseless Tyr Anasazi. That had to be an oxymoron of some kind.
Trance, playing the doctor card, had insisted that they not test the pseudo-cell on him first, primarily because of his weakened condition. If this failed there was no telling how it would affect his already failing organs. So Beka Valentine had become the official guinea pig. Harper was sure she would have baulked at being referred to as an annoying rodent.
Speaking of Beka... Harper glanced over toward her prone figure. Her usually pale face and exposed arms were now flushed and beads of sweat ran along the side of her face and into her hair. Just like Tyr, she looked so weak, so utterly vulnerable. He would have given his soul in that instant just to be able to simply hold her hand. To simply tell her how much he loved her.
"We ready to go?" Dylan asked, entering the laboratory with a small case in his hands. He placed it on the tray next to Harper's gadget.
Trance nodded confidently. "Yes, we should begin."
"It's now or… now," Harper added.
"Andromeda," Dylan called, "open the field for Trance and seal it after her."
There was no confirmation from the ship, but as soon as the ship's physician neared the field a Trance-sized hole appeared and she stepped through carefully, pushing the equipment tray ahead of her. The barrier wasted no time in closing itself behind her.
Trance's first move was to disinfect her hands and then slip on a pair of protective, thin layered gloves. Rommie followed suite, becoming an impromptu medical assistant for the day. Once sterilized, the golden alien slid a medical cuff onto the top of Beka's arm. The cuff, which began to mechanically tighten, would act as a temporary tourniquet and slow down the blood flow to the appendage.
Next, Trance gently spread Beka's arm across one of the padded wings attached to the bed. She began to apply a sterilizing liquid across the area she would make her incision.
"Rommie, you'll need this to help remove the remaining blood," Trance said a few moments later, handing the avatar a section of tubing attached to a tall machine that stood near the bed.
The device was a larger version of the suction device he had modified, Harper realized, only this one was only responsible for capturing plasma and platelets, not glowy creatures manufactured by a loony scientist.
He watched with a mix of curiosity and disgust as Trance began the procedure, slowly cutting into the layers of skin of his friend's forearm. Thankfully there wasn't much blood, not that he couldn't take it, but it really wasn't something he wanted to see up close and personal if he didn't have to. Trance worked cautiously, peeling back the skin she had already dissected. It didn't take her long to find a superficial vein that was big enough for their purpose.
"Rommie, can you open the case and hand me the hypo?" Trance asked, eyes still on her work.
The android put down the suction tube and moved over to the equipment tray. She found the container Dylan had brought into the room and carefully clicked it open. Inside lay two hyposprays, both containing a single, Lynx DNA-laced pseudo-white blood cell.
"I'm going to inject it now," Trance announced, glancing briefly up at Harper and Dylan. Both nodded in encouragement. Looking back down at her incision, Trance placed the hypo inside the wound. It was too hard to see the tiny vein from where he was, but Harper took her word for it.
Trance pressed the thumb release on the small, pen-like device, and all of them heard its normal hiss of release.
"It should automatically attach itself the epithelial layer a few cementers from the injection point," Trance said, reaching over to equipment tray and picking up Harper's device. She flicked the activation switch and inside the jar, a spear of energy appeared and the faint whine of the vacuum could be heard.
Trance waited, her hand with the tubing poised over the wound in Valentine's arm. Everyone was hushed and Harper caught himself holding his breath. Five seconds passed and nothing appeared. He continued to silently count. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten.
"Where the hell are they?" Harper finally asked, half to the others, half to himself. "This should work… it has to work…"
Dylan said nothing, but glanced down at the engineer, his eyes concerned.
More seconds passed and Harper felt his chest tighten painfully. "Oh God… nonono, this can't happen…"
"Harper," Dylan began. "Maybe we can--"
"Look!" Rommie whispered loudly, cutting her captain off and pointing directly below Beka's exposed left shoulder. Under the skin something was slowly moving toward the incision.
Once more Harper held his breath as he watched the creature… no, now there were two creatures… moving down his friend's arm. The first one appeared in the open wound, heading directly for the vein, ready to dig its way into the top of it to get to the pseudo-cell. As soon as it was in the open Trance moved the suction wand over it. Like Harper had envisioned, the small creature was pulled inside and subsequently trapped in the force field.
The second creature was making its way into the open air just as the first was being drawn in by the vacuum. Trance made quick work of it as well.
"So far, so good," she said, holding the jar up to eyelevel. Inside the two creatures squirmed, their tails furiously whipping behind them.
The resident engineer, eying the jar with well-deserved vehemence, had the quick thought of using the little buggers for sabershark fishing on Minor IV.
More seconds passed, however, and the other two interlopers did not appear. Harper felt the tug of anxiousness take hold of him once more, but Trance didn't seem too worried. Instead she handed the jar over to Rommie and took the other hypospray from the case. "Let's try the second one," she offered.
She repeated the earlier process and Harper listened intently for this hiss-release of the hypo. This had to work. They had gone through so much already. He had been so angry at Beka for leaving him on Sinti, yet now the thought of losing her to insanity was nearly unbearable. With death there was a conclusion, finality, to it all. You grieved, you ranted and raved about the injustices the galaxy, but in the end you knew that they were probably in a better place. They had to be. But to lose her to madness, alive but not, his friend but... not. That was a living death.
Thankfully his reflections didn't have time to get any darker as the last two creatures appeared. One was quickly traveling down Beka's arm while the other moved slowly around her neck and disappeared under the black shirt-covered skin of her chest.
As the third bug appeared in the incision, Rommie wasted not time in snatching it up and sending it to its shielded prison.
Harper bounced slightly on the balls of his feet, up and down, up and down, his body humming in anticipation. "Comeoncomeoncomeon," he muttered rapidly, nearly demanding the last one to show its wormy itself.
The mental and oral pleading seemed to do the trick. Suddenly the elusive creature appeared, intent on having a Lynx DNA buffet and instead finding an all access trip into the Vacuum.
Harper smiled so widely in that moment that his mouth would be sore for day to come. Nevertheless... he kept smiling like a fool. Bye-bye buggies. Adios. Au revoir. Slán leat. Arrivederci. See ya, wouldn't want to be ya.
The hours passed by like eons and minutes infinite decades. Beka still had yet to wake from her sedation and until she did, they couldn't't gauge what kind of damage had been done. Once she awoke and was back to normal, Trance would be able to work on Tyr.
Harper sighed absently. Just when you thought someone was out of woods, the woods just kept on freakin' getting bigger and bigger.
So he was left to wait. Just waiting.
Another vast minute passed.
Still waiting.
Sitting here, bored. Waiting.
"Andromeda, what time is it?"
"Time for you to get a personal chronometer, Harper."
The human leaned backing in his (rather uncomfortable) chair, looking over at the tiny hologram stationed next to him on a supply drawer. "I didn't know the High Guard programmed snark into their warships 'Droms."
Andromeda raised a trademark eyebrow. "No, I'm afraid the High Guard did no such thing ." She paused, then added, "It must have come from my engineer's latest round of upgrades."
Harper chuckled. "Touché, my dear, touché. You ever think about doing comedy? I bet you'd be a riot. Much better than say… a Than telling knock-knock jokes. Now that's painful."
He grimaced. "And don't even let them get into a 'why the kilak crossed the space lane' gag. They go on for days. Their other jokes are pretty dry too. Same unfunny material time after time."
"Reminds m-me of someone I k-know."
Harper froze. That wasn't Andromeda.
He turned toward the bed on his left, his breath catching. "Beka?"
Beka Valentine was blinkingly painfully up at the lights over her resting place and trying to sit up, gravity be damned. She smiled slightly as Harper, now in Mother Hen mode, jumped up to help raise the bed into an upright position.
"That's m-my name," she replied, her voice cracking. "What's going on?"
"Beka!" Harper cried emotionally, throwing his good arm around her and burying his head in her neck. "Thank the Devine!"
Beka let the diminutive human cling to her about ten seconds before trying to pry him lose. "Seamus! Down!" she commanded firmly.
Harper sheepishly let her go and gave the groggy pilot a little space.
"Thanks," Beka nodded, waving him off a bit. She noticed the bandage on the underside of her arm and frowned. "Um…" She raised it to his face. "Explain?"
"Hold on, Bek. Andromeda! Tell Trance that Beka's fine! Have her start on Tyr right away!"
"Wait a second… what's going on? What's up with Tyr? Why are you hugging me like you haven't seen me in years?"
Harper shook his head. "You were infested by the little creatures that got me. They kinda made you go a little loopy for a while. But we worked out a way to capture them and Trance had to cut into your arm."
Beka narrowed her eyes slightly, a wrinkle forming between her eyebrows. "Machello..."
"He created the creatures," Harper finished.
Beka shook her head, her eyes distant for a moment. "No, I heard Machello. Something about delivering him to the vile Nietzscheans."
"Yeah, I remember that too," the engineer recalled sympathetically. "It happened right as the things were leaving my body. It must be a preprogrammed response."
Beka wrapped her arms around her chest, trying her best to recall the last few days. "I remember… Tyr getting sick. Then helping Rommie with the datapads. After that it's kind of a blur."
She looked over at him suddenly, an eyebrow raised in puzzlement. "How does fish and a bearded woman fit into this?"
Harper grinned. Things, at least for the moment, seemed to finally begoing right.
