CHAPTER 27

CONTACT

The Doctor inclined his head before continuing. "Within a day of receiving this assignment, Prince Jason arrived on Eldeberon and made contact with the Glyateven. This recording—taken from the Matrix archive—is of that meeting."

oOo

Mission Day One

Jason was talking with the men who would later become Leaders ONE and TWO. "Look, I know what I'm talking about. If your people aren't inoculated immediately, they'll all be dead within a month."

"I know something of medicine, too, alien," a disheveled man behind him growled.

"Fine. Then you know that, statistically, only three percent of your people will have a natural immunity to this virus." Turning to the man designated as Leader ONE, Jason said forcefully, "That's three out of every hundred. And that's only this one virus. Who's to say the handful that're left will be immune to the next virus? Or the next?"

Leader ONE nodded to Leader TWO and they stepped away, holding a brief conversation.

"I didn't have to come here, you know," Jason called after them. "I could've ignored your distress call and kept on going. But I didn't, fool that I am. Now I'm stuck here along with the lot of you."

"A valid point, alien," ONE stated bluntly.

"My name is Jason, dammit!" the Alterran snapped. "Now do you want my help or not?"

ONE and TWO exchanged a knowing look. "We give permission for you to immunize our men," ONE said at last.

"Finally."

o

The extract blinked, switching to the scene of Jason injecting person after person with the retrieval tags. When the last man was done, he sighed and stretched, rubbing his shoulders. It had been a very long day. He asked the nearest person to take him to the bodies of those who did not survive the impact, explaining that the nano-technology would be able to keep the corpses from infecting the indigenous population.

"You've finished?" ONE asked just as Jason was putting away his equipment.

The Alterran looked up. "Yes, all finished. You won't have to worry about the diseases on this planet ravaging your people."

"We won't have to worry about you, either," TWO snarled threateningly.

Jason looked up just as the man fired a laser pistol. The laser bolt struck him squarely and his body shimmered. A few seconds later, he solidified, completely unharmed, much to the amazement of the Glyateven. They had no way of knowing that his physiology actually thrived on this type of energy, absorbing it completely. "You're welcome," he said sardonically. He touched a small object that looked like a decoration on his shirtsleeve. "This is a personal forcefield generator. It protects me from pot shots like that one." He was not about to reveal the truth about his anatomy to these bloodthirsty lunatics.

ONE and TWO exchanged bewildered look, uncertain what to do next.

"I really don't like being shot at," Jason said truthfully.

oOo

"You highness," the prosecutor asked, "was this story of immunization your way of implanting the retrieval tags previously mentioned?"

"It was," the Prince replied.

"And exactly how were they administered?"

"With a hypo-spray injector."

"The Glyateven weren't suspicious in any way?" Fitzhugh asked mildly.

Jason scowled. "Suspicious?"

"That you were injecting small metal objects into them for no apparent reason."

Realization dawned and Jason's face cleared. He also had to fight the urge to laugh. "Some of the men had been ill prior to the crash, but their symptoms didn't appear until afterward. I convinced them that they had picked up a virus from the indigenous population. I told them the nodules contained the newest in nano-technology and that the nano-bots would combat any alien viruses they might come in contact with. They believed it was from part of the cargo I was supposed to be delivering when I answered their distress call."

"A most ingenious plan. My compliments," Fitzhugh purred.

"Thank you, but I didn't come up with it," Jason stated bluntly. "It was part of the cover story I was given."

The Doctor smiled and the prosecutor cleared his throat. "How long did it take to inject all the Glyateven?" Fitzhugh asked.

The Alterran stood thoughtfully a moment. "Approximately seven hours."

There were surprised murmurs at this reply. The prosecutor threw a quick glance over to the gallery before saying, "This begs the question, why didn't you leave once this was completed?

Before Jason could reply, the Doctor quickly intervened. "That will be made clear in the next recording, my lord prosecutor."

Fitzhugh nodded. "Then I withdraw the question until that time. No further questions."

oOo