Chapter 57
It is possible to provide security against other ills, but as far as death is concerned, we men live in a city without walls.
-Epicurus
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Dylan studied the downed ship carefully as he approached it. In a former life it had probably been a freighter, much like the Maru, although slightly smaller. Now it was well on its way to being reclaimed by the planet it sat on. Moss and grass grew in patches on its hull, and a small tree was even sprouting from one of the aft thrusters. But, it was still ship enough it could prove very helpful to them, or provide adequate cover for any number of threats as Harper had truthfully pointed out. As the captain neared the dark, open doorway, he really wished he had a force lance or ten handy instead of a pitiful, pilfered knife.
His back against the ship's side right outside the doorway, Dylan took a deep breath before swinging around and entering, knife held ready before him. In the seconds that followed, nothing pounced, growled, moved or attacked, which he took to generally be a good sign, and the little hairs on the back of his neck weren't standing on end any more than they had been for the last twelve months. By the time his eyes had adjusted to the gloom of the ship's interior, he'd decided it was safe.
Well, safe might be the wrong word to use he amended as he took in the sagging roof, the hanging wires and pieces of fallen and jutting metal that crisscrossed the cabin, but at least there were no Nietzscheans lurking around. Ten minutes later he had searched the whole ship, sent two birds and one badger-like-thingie packing, and was on his way back for Twig and Harper.
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"Welcome to Hotel Rellim's Penthouse suite," Dylan said with a smile as he led the two boys carefully into the ship. "I made us reservations for the night."
"Can we get room service in?" Harper asked with a snort, wrinkling his nose. "Smells a little musty…"
"Think it was the previous guests. I evicted them without notice and they left without paying." Dylan smiled again, enjoying the banter before turning serious again. "But, it's dry, it has the potential to be warm-ish, I found cans of something with an expiration date I chose not to look at in the cupboard, and the crème de la crème is the real, actual bunk in the corner. Still want to leave?"
"Does the bunk have a mattress?" Harper asked, longing oozing from his voice.
"Genuine imitation only partly decayed foam, almost big enough for three."
"Take me there, oh mighty leader," the engineer announced, holding out his hand. "And tell the hotel clerk not to send up a wake-up call."
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"Harper!" Dylan cried in alarm as he walked in the door with Twig. He'd only been gone for two minutes, three tops, taking the tiny slave to visit the improvised little boy's room. He figured surely Harper could manage on his own for that long, but obviously he'd been wrong.
"Harper, what the heck are you doing?" he asked again in alarm as he deposited Twig safely on the moldy bunk.
Harper ignored him as he carefully worked his way along the wall, his fingers searching every nook and cranny. Then his bloody feet tripped over an obstacle the young man couldn't see and he had to catch himself on the wall with his broken hands. The captain winced as the engineer hissed in pain but still didn't answer his question.
"Harper!" Dylan tried again, moving quickly to intercept him. He was worried the boy was delusional from his illness again. "Stop! What are you doing walking around?" He grabbed Harper firmly by the upper arms, halting him. The young man sighed, a sigh that turned into a hacking cough.
"Boss," he finally managed to say, "I'm good. Not nuts, not leaving, just looking around, okay?"
"Why? Harper you need to sit down and rest. You're tired, sick, and frankly a mess. The last thing you need is to go exploring."
Stubbornly, Harper tied to shake Dylan's hands off his arms. "Dylan," he said, "this is a ship, or at least it was. A ship means parts and wires and engines and tools – the things I'm good at. This is the first chance I've had since Felix got his slimy hands on me to mess around with this stuff. You and I both know that even if we make it back to the city, we're never gonna get off this freakin' planet without a little help. Maybe there's something here I can patch together to get a signal out to Rommie." He paused for a moment, swallowing thickly. "Boss, I've been nothing but baggage this whole time, relying on you for everything. Please, let me do this. Let me try and help get you guys out of here before – "
He broke off abruptly, but Dylan's brain had no difficulty finishing the sentence. "-before I die." The captain dropped his hands and looked away, his eyes suddenly moist. It was no secret that Harper had been going quickly downhill, but what they both feared and knew was coming sat heavy and unspoken between them.
"I thought technology wouldn't work on this planet," he finally said, dodging the topic once again.
"I have an idea that might get us around that."
"Fine," Dylan sighed, "but let me help you. Tell me what you need, and I'll try and find it for you. You sit."
"Bossy," Harper muttered as he let Dylan lead him back to the bunk.
"Well, you're the one that started calling me Boss. Your fault."
Twig scooted over to make room for his friend, curiosity and excitement at the prospect of watching and learning something new shining on his gaunt face. "Can we build something really big, with lots of different parts? Or make the ship fly again?"
Dylan and Harper both laughed. "How 'bout we start a little smaller, kiddo. We'll work up to the ships flying part," Harper said with affection, reaching out to gently hug the little boy.
Slight disappointment flashed across the small slave's face, but then he shrugged. "K."
"All right, then," Dylan said, "what do you need?"
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They worked for the rest of the afternoon and into the night. Twig eventually lost the fight with sleep and crashed on the bunk behind them. Harper's cough got worse and worse and his eyes took on a slightly glassy look that sent fear straight to the pit of Dylan's stomach, but he wouldn't stop. Dylan pleaded, begged, ordered and threatened, but all in vain. Harper's brain was going full throttle, but more importantly, he knew he could do this and it was their one and only shot. He couldn't give up.
Not that it wasn't hard and frustrating. Most of the work he was trying to do was too small and delicate for the clumsy, broken hands of a blind man. Dylan found he had to do much of the actual engineering, and he tried not to take it personally when Harper's extreme frustration with him sometimes showed as he walked him through step by step. There was a reason he became a captain and not an engineer…
When it got dark, Dylan rummaged around until he found a stock of emergency candles. Light or dark might make no difference to Harper anymore, but he darn well needed to see the teeny-tiny wires he was trying to splice together. The candles bathed their area of the ruined ship in a warm light, but also stirred up weird, unsettling shadows around the edges. He blinked as one of the shadows settled into the strangely familiar form he could almost make out, the one he'd been pretending didn't exist for several nights now. He turned away, shivering, back to his work and his friends.
Harper was lying down now. He wasn't sleeping – he still refused to give in that much – but he simply didn't have the strength to sit any more. He was a living skeleton, more dead than alive, his fingers gently stroking the dirty fur of his beloved rabbit's foot and a far away look in his eyes. Dylan was losing him. He knew it, Harper knew it, even Twig knew it and there was absolutely nothing in the whole universe that he could do to stop it. It broke his heart.
"Harper," he whispered thickly, fighting with his emotions, "I think I'm done."
The boy blinked for a moment, then shook his head, coming back from whatever distant place he'd been at. "You sure you wired it right? Won't work if you crossed the wires."
"I'm sure, Mr. Harper. I followed your instructions exactly."
"Let me see it," he demanded anyway, holding out his crippled hand. Carefully, Dylan placed the tiny contraption on his palm. Harper examined it for several minutes with his the fingers of his right hand before he gave a satisfied nod.
"Should I turn it on then?" the captain asked.
"No, wait," Harper said, struggling to sit back up. "You need a jar."
"A jar?" Dylan questioned, confused.
"Yeah, a glass one. And water and some salt. This place has to have some salt, right?"
"Water? Salt? Harper, what are you talking about? How is that going to help us?"
Harper sighed, his face clearly showing that he wished he could just do things without having to explain them to dumb captains. "I don't know for sure yet, I haven't worked it all out, but I'm pretty sure that sodium somehow negates the effects of this blasted mineral that is keeping this planet firmly in the dark ages. That's why the nanobots are able to work once they're inside someone; the salt in the body insulates them against it. And the city…it's right next to an ocean full of salt water." He stopped to cough weakly, but finally Dylan could see where he was going with this and picked up where he left off.
"So, if we put the signal inside a jar of salt water, we can turn it on without having the planet kill it. That's why you had me build it with a miniature shield. To keep the water from leaking inside it," Dylan finished as he moved around, looking for what they needed. Harper just nodded in reply, sinking back down to lie on the bunk.
"How do we know the wrong people won't pick up this signal as well?" Dylan hated to ask it, but it was a rather pressing concern.
"They probably will," Harper responded softly, "but they won't think it's anything but static. However if Andromeda passes anywhere close enough to pick it up, it'll trigger a program in Rommie to come get me."
Dylan paused to look at his engineer, unable to stop the slight frown of disapproval that crossed his face. "You built her with your own personal homing device included?"
"You're gonna complain now?" the young man shot back.
"No," Dylan responded, "but I think we might have a long conversation about ethics and moral responsibility at a later date."
"Peachy. I'll put it on my calendar."
Dylan just shook his head and went back to his search. He found an old jar that had miraculously survived the crash, although the lid had popped off and the contents were long gone. Still one wiff and he knew what it had held – pickles. Who knew how many years hadn't been able to erase that odor. He filled it half full with water he'd fetched earlier in Twig's bucket. Salt proved a little trickier to find. He finally found a corroded bag at the back of a twisted cupboard. There was barely any left, maybe two teaspoons. He dumped it all in and prayed it would be enough.
"All right, Mr. Harper. I think we're ready."
"Okay, well here goes nothing."
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Rommie stopped walking with a gasp, throwing her hands out to steady herself on the corridor walls.
"What is it?" Beka asked in alarm, coming up beside her friend. They'd finally received their blasted clearance and managed to land the ship on the planet. Now Rommie was going with Beka to see her and Tyr off. Patch had to stay with his ship, it would arouse suspicion if he did anything else, and as much as she loathed staying behind on a rescue mission where she would surely be needed, Rommie herself would turn into nothing but a worthless bunch of non-functioning metal and wires if she ventured more than two feet outside the city walls. So the search and rescue effort was up to Tyr and Beka.
"Rommie!" Beka asked again when the android failed to answer her the first time.
"It's him, Beka," Rommie whispered, her hands forming into fists. "It's Harper!"
"What?" the blonde woman cried. "What are you talking about?"
"A signal. I just got a signal and it triggered a program only Harper could have installed. It's him, I know it is, Beka, and they're only two clicks away! On horseback you could be at their location in roughly three days!"
Beka sucked in her breath, unable to speak, a look of wild hope and longing dancing through her eyes. Strangely, she saw the same look reflected back at her from her usually more clinical and rational friend.
"Go," Rommie said simply. "Go bring them home."