Chapter 23: Shaking Ground — Part 4

“I’m surprised you didn’t notice it. It had your brain on its meal ticket.” Shadow coughed, her eyes landing on Susan. “I’m trusting you, for now. But my sword comes with me, and if even one of my crew is hurt, ten of your Tribe will pay the price.”

Susan chuckled. “I’m Susan MacAnderly, and you’ll be staying at my house, at least until we give your ship an overhaul and send you on your way.”

Shadow nodded an agreement. She opened the hatch. “Come on out guys, I think they’re all right, but keep your wits and your weapons ready.”

Xeti, Didi, and Ferret stepped out of the ship. He handed Roxy’s crystal back to Shadow.

“You have a RES facility here?” She asked.

Susan studied the crystal closely. She wasn’t familiar with the technology or the terminology.

“We’ll check with the natives.” Susan handed the crystal back before Shadow could get a chance to be nervous.

Xeti looked straight at her. “I’m not going to be gray much longer, am I?”

“I don’t know. The symbiont isn’t predictable on what it takes, only on what it gives.” Susan said.

Didi collapsed from fever, and Seva caught her in deceptively strong arms, wounds healed enough that they were hardly a bother. Shadow followed, using Ferret for support, her mind a rush of protectiveness, her body strong with the scent of fever, stale anger, and fear.

“Your fighting style is amazing.” Charles said. “I’m glad you didn’t cross paths with Susan.”

“She’s more my equal than any of you.” Shadow said. “Besides, I’d never strike a pregnant woman.”

Susan chuckled nervously, because she wasn’t visibly pregnant yet — having just conceived the night before. “You’re an amazing lady, Captain.”

“Call me Shadow. Your security guard needs to learn some diplomacy. He backed the word surrender with a threat. If he approached with some hint of courtesy, there would have been no blood to attract the predator that nearly killed your fiend.”

Shadow, who had been carrying the sword passively, point down, slid it into its scabbard. She lost a sense of time, finding herself and her crew in a small house built in the treetops. Didi and Xeti were unconscious with fever, and Ferret sat in a corner with his eyes closed, his body in a coma, but his mind still active. His cybernetic interfacing was desperately trying to adapt to the changes the symbiont was demanding he experience. Shadow explained his biology to Susan, who started to worry. She had never considered the boy might be a cyborg.

“You mean he has the memories of an entire city in his head?” Susan said, “How could they fit in such a small place.” She wondered, resisting the urge to open him up and investigate.

“He hasn’t even touched his memory potential.” Shadow said. She held up Roxy’s crystal. “More so than that, he has the consciousness of the boy he is, merged with that city, and stored in a crystal much larger and infinitely more technical, but very much like this crystal. In order for the boy and the city to exist, they need that body. If the body dies, they both die.”

Susan studied Roxy’s crystal. She sent an image of it to one of the Antansi scientists. She frowned, having gotten a strange response.

“A native scientist specializing in data technology would like to see that crystal up close. May I borrow it?”

“Where it goes, I go, and I don’t go anywhere without my crew.”

Ferret’s eyes snapped open. He put a hand on Shadow’s arm. “Though my body is going through drastic modification, I have managed to activate my auxiliary core controls. I will be able to guard the crew while you tend to Roxy’s needs. City Wide Defenses are online, and nothing will harm my citizens.”

To Shadow, Ferret was a dismal blur, but she could tell by the tone in his voice that he was not bluffing; she put her sweat-drenched forehead to his. “Are you even awake right now?”

“Ferret is not conscious, the city is busy maintaining its connections. I am a security subprogram, designed to protect a city and its inhabitants from military assault. Subroutines have been installed locally and randomly into reflexive surveillance software, and spread into all planetary networks. I will take care of my identified allies while you tend to Roxy.” Ferret said, his voice nearly autonomous.

Shadow looked back at Susan. “Don’t let anybody come up here and disturb him. If he misinterprets a threat, he will kill, and he can work that body he’s in until it’s long past being a corpse. If he goes on the offensive, and fully overpowers your global computer networks, there’s no telling what will happen.”

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