Nova (23 page)

Shar glances around fearfully, her eyes searching for an enemy that can’t be seen. “How do you know?”

“It’s what they do,” I say, the answer trickling from its long-time bondage in my mind. “They exist in a dormant state until a compatible host comes along—hundreds of years, we think, if necessary. Once they find a host, they bond with it, feeding off it like a parasite until they’re ready to divide.”

“Then what?”

“The new Spectre goes off to find its own host, while the old one stays bonded in the current one and starts the process all over again. They’ll keep multiplying until the host is completely used up, spreading their progeny across every populated zone they can reach. Once the host dies, they’re released from their bond to find a new host and start again. If no host is available, they’ll go dormant until one comes along.”

“What do they want?”

I look at Shar. “To spread. To eat, to multiply, and to spread.”

We reach the lift and step onto a platform going down. Beside me, Shar looks like she’s two steps away from completely overloading. I suppose I should feel the same way, but all I feel is a grim determination. Maybe I only consciously remembered all this an hour ago, but inside I knew it all along. Just like I knew when I saw the spaceport blow at Tiersten that the resistance was dead.

A hard fist squeezes my heart as I remember those images of Tiersten. Doc, Cavendish, Jao. They’re all dead now, or worse. Regret pours through me as I remember my last meeting with Jao right before I left.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his eyes full of resignation. “You know that, right?”

I remember laughing, the sound bitter and hard. “What for? Sending me off to blow up five hundred innocents or infecting my dad?”

“Both. Everything.”

My smile could have cut glass. “Save your apologies for your maker. You’ll need them.”

How I hated him then! Now, shame fills me as I finally see the man in the memory for what he was.
Jao, you deserved better from me. Why is it only now that you’re gone that I can finally forgive you?

Again those images of Tiersten, blackened and burned, dance in my head. Jao promised to take out the spaceport before any more infected refugees could be shipped off planet. He kept his word. Now I have to find a way to keep mine.

We can hear the clamor from the cargo bay as Shar and I step off the lift onto Eight. Exchanging a confused glance, we enter to find the entire bay in an uproar. It doesn’t take long to find out why.

The announcement has been made; the convoy will be here in three days to take everyone home.

I creep around the edges of the bay, Shar at my side, watching the celebrations of the ex-prisoners with growing horror. Even leaving out the Aurorans, there must be at least four hundred former prisoners from over twenty assorted worlds here. I imagine the convoy, ship after ship crammed to the brim, not only with infected prisoners, but hundreds upon thousands of unbonded Spectres just waiting for hosts.

My skin goes cold. If the prisoners are allowed to get on that convoy and leave, there’s no place in the expanse the Spectres can’t go.

“
Johansen
,
” I hear Shar whisper, and I know she sees it too. I can hear it in her voice. “What are you going to do?”

I shake my head. “I don’t know.”

Only I do know, at least in general, if not specifically. Because there’s no way I can let any of these people get off this station. Now I just have three days to figure out how to stop them.

28
I HOVER NEAR THE WALL
just inside docking ring 7D. I’m wearing my new clothes—a pair of brown trousers, tank top, and a loose olive green shirt, open with the sleeves rolled up. The clothes feel strange, but nice. They’re the first clothes I’ve picked out for myself in years. Not the Tiersten garb, or the fleet-issued jumpsuits, or even Teal’s idea of high fashion. Just me.

Around me, people rush by carrying crates and bins as they lade the final pieces of cargo for the upcoming run. I hum quietly to myself as I watch them.
Hmm, Hm hm, hm Hm, Hm hm.
It takes me a second to recognize the melody.

Cross my heart and hope to die.

I shake my head. Where did
that
come from? It’s been weeks since I had that creepy dream of the school playground.

Glancing at the timescreen, I note the hour: 0745. Captain Standish should be here any minute now.

As if my very thoughts conjured him, the captain strides into the docking ring just seconds later. He breezes past without even noticing me, and I have to run a few steps to catch up with him.

“Captain Standish!”

He turns, spots me, and stops. “So you made it after all,” he says, faintly surprised. His sharp eyes take me in from head to toe. “Or maybe not?” he adds, eyes zeroing in on my empty hands.

“I want to thank you very much for the opportunity, but I can’t come with you.”

“No, you can’t, can you?”

I hesitate, thrown by the comment, then nod. “It turns out I still have a few things to do here.”

“Fair enough. Good luck to you. Give Kerr my best the next time you see her.”

“I will.”

He strides off without a backward glance, his life continuing on, his world completely unshaken. I briefly wonder if he’s been infected. For all I know, Spectres have been hitching rides off the station for weeks now, either by possessing the crews or just slipping onto their ships unseen. Possible, but I don’t think so. The smell wouldn’t be nearly so piercing if the Spectres had been leaving as quickly as they’d been multiplying. Besides, most of the haulers stopping here are small potatoes. Independents with limited space and uncertain destinations, just as likely to be heading into Tellurian space as they are deeper into the Celestial Expanse. It’s the convoy that’s the real score. With such a diverse group of refugees to repatriate, the convoy would be the perfect delivery system for an alien race looking to spread itself throughout the expanse.

Which brings me back to my problem: Keeping those refugees from boarding that convoy.

Pledging to keep everyone on the station and figuring out a plan to do it are two entirely different matters, I’ve realized. I’m not an officer, or a station resident, or even a legal adult. How a single teenager is supposed to stop an entire alien race from taking over the galaxy is beyond me. Well, no, that’s not entirely true. I know how I was
supposed
to stop them.

I was supposed to go Nova. To blow up the station and kill them all in one fell swoop. The problem is that even if I could bring myself to do it, I don’t know how. My clock is still stuck at thirty-nine seconds, and with the convoy coming in just two days, time is running out. What am I supposed to do? Make out with Michael in the hopes my clock will start again? Against my will, an ironic smile twitches my lips. It would be a nice way to go, at least. Not that Michael would ever kiss me again after what happened between us.

I shake my head. Every plan I’ve come up with so far seems doomed to failure. Shar’s suggestion to simply tell the authorities won’t work. Even if I could find someone who’s not infected, what would they do? The Spectres are non-corporeal; they can’t be killed. At least, not by any means we found. We could send the convoy away—quarantine the station—except the minute we do it the Spectres will know we’re on to them. They’d infect every person in this station, and the quarantine would be lifted as if it never happened. Having the station quarantined by an outside party might work, though everyone on the station would still be lost. However, that would suppose I could get a message to the right people in time,
and
that they’d believe me. Not likely; not when an in-person psychic connection is needed to prove my story. I’m starting to remember why Jao and the others thought my going Nova was the only solution. There’s a reason my purpose is to destroy, even if that ability is yet untested.

My purpose.

For a split second, I get the strangest sense, like I’m missing something important, some key piece of the puzzle. Then the feeling evaporates.

I stifle a curse. For all that I understand now, so many things still elude me, locked away in my head even as other things tumble free without thought. It will all come back eventually, I know. The question is: will it be in time?

Shaking my head, I make for the lift station. It’s almost eight now; time to stop standing around. I’ll get some breakfast and then head to the Blue Lounge to think. Maybe something will come to me. I still have two days after all. Surely that’ll be enough time to come up with
something
—

Whumpf!
A small, redheaded bundle suddenly emerges from the crowd and throws herself at me. I stagger back under Kaeti’s weight.

“Did you hear, Lia? We’re going home!”

It takes me two tries to speak. “Yeah, I heard. Did they, uh, did they say where you’re going?”

“No, but Lela says we’ll be going somewhere nice. Somewhere I’ll have a real bed and everything.”

So they didn’t tell the Aurorans about Dayav and Mechanra. Probably figured the prisoners would riot if they knew the truth. I would almost feel sorry for them, if I didn’t know their lives were already as good as over. According to Jao’s sources, every single member of the original survey team to step onto New Earth is dead—consumed alive by the Spectres within. What’s more, Jao’s intelligence indicated hundreds more were dropping by the day. Three years seemed to be about as long as the average human host could last. I shudder as I think how quickly the human race could fall if the Spectres get a foothold into the expanse.

“What about you, Lia? Aren’t you excited?”

I try to smile. It’s hard, though, when I imagine the dark thing that surely must be residing within this little girl. They say infected children last a third of the time infected adults do. A lump forms in my throat, and I have to clear my throat twice before I can answer. “Sure I am.”

“Will you come celebrate with us later tonight? Lela’s letting us all have cake.”

“I’ll try, Kaeti.”

“Promise?”

I take a breath and finally nod. “Promise.”

“Cross your heart?”

Something flares in my brain, and my mouth drops open. “What did you say?”

“Cross your heart?”

And hope to die. Stick a needle in your eye.

Memory comes back in a blinding flash, and suddenly I know the answer to one of the biggest questions plaguing me since that night I malfunctioned in the hygiene unit.

I know how to reset my clock.

Gray eyes stare back at me from the mirror in the hygiene unit. Squaring my shoulders, I raise the needle up before my face. It’s not really a needle, but a piece of wire I found in a supply shop on Level Nine. Extra long, hair thin, and extremely sharp.

And I’m about to stick it in my eye.

Cross your heart and hope to die, stick a needle in your eye.
After all this time, I finally understand that strange dream. My subconscious was trying to tell me something I couldn’t remember, my past leaking back to me in the only way it could. I just didn’t understand because, like my other dreams, it was a mix of reality and fantasy that my conscious mind couldn’t piece together. Not until now.

My thoughts flip back to this lecture Doc once gave me, previously lost but now clear as a pane of hammered glass. I asked him what would happen if there was a problem with my clock. He said he would simply pop out my eyeball and restart it, but in a pinch, he could use a long flexi-needle to reset it without removing my eye. I begged him to explain, and the details were gross enough to keep me hanging on his every word. Now I’m glad of my fascination. It may be the deciding factor between successfully resetting my clock and poking my eye out.

The sharp end of the wire nears my eye, and my hand begins to shake.
Stop that!
I command myself. It’s just a simple medical procedure. Worst thing that happens, I lose the sight in my right eye. I’ll still have my left. People can get by with only one eye, right? I try to think of an example, but the only person that comes to mind is Blackbeard.

Somehow the thought isn’t very comforting.

I squeeze my eyes shut.
Focus, Lia.
I open them. This time when I bring the wire near, I don’t pull away.

With the index finger of my left hand, I gently pull at the lower lid under the corner of my eye. I feel at the gap with my middle finger, poking at the corner lightly with the tip. Nothing. I push at the upper lid, feeling above. Still nothing. Sweating a bit, I touch the wire to the corner of my eye, prodding around the tiny bud with the needle-thin end. There! Just above, I feel it. A tiny hole the size of a pinprick. A channel leading straight back to the chip, assuming Doc wasn’t pulling my leg. Taking a deep breath, I slide the end of the wire in.

It slips in more easily than I expected, the fleshy tube stretching a bit to accommodate the wire. I slide it in a tad farther—
careful, careful—
and then begin pushing it down the channel with slow, but steady pressure.

If Shar poking around in my mind is the strangest mental sensation I’ve ever experienced, this is, without a doubt, the most bizarre physical one I’ve ever encountered. I can actually feel the metal flexing and bending around the curve of my eyeball the farther I push it in. The wire, which didn’t seem particularly cool before I started, feels positively frigid within the heat of my eye socket. I let out a heavy exhale as the metal curls around the back of my eyeball. This isn’t so bad, I tell myself. I can do this.

Then I make the mistake of glancing in the mirror.

I immediately gag at the sight of the long piece of wire hanging from my eye. Only by force of will do I keep myself from immediately throwing up the contents of my stomach. My hand starts trembling again, and I can feel the wire inside of my eye jiggle, writhing softly against the side of my eyeball. Tiny whimpers dribble out from between my clamped lips.

As much as I want to stop, somehow I manage to grit my teeth and pull myself together. I’m halfway there. I can make it the rest of the way.

The wire slides the barest fraction of a millimeter more at my urging and then stops. This is the tricky part now, when the channel makes a sharp turn to align itself with the optic nerves. From there, it should be a straight shot back to the chip. The trick is getting the wire to bend around the curve without breaking through the channel and piercing the optic nerve. I shudder as I think what could happen if I fail.

Pierce the optic nerve, and say goodbye to the vision in my right eye.

Nudging the wire forward, I immediately encounter resistance. The wire isn’t turning; instead it pushes at the elastic skin of the tube. I stop before I can perforate the delicate membrane. I pull the wire back slightly and then push forward once more. Again, it won’t turn. I start to pull the wire back again.

It won’t go.

Uh-oh.
I tug again, but still the wire won’t come back. My heart almost stops. It’s stuck! The end must be embedded in the wall of the channel. I suddenly imagine myself, trapped forever with this piece of wire stuck in my eye, and almost start hyperventilating here and now. Frantically, I yank at the wire again. It comes free with a slight pop. With a shudder of relief I start to pull out the wire. Enough! Nothing is worth this. Nothing! Except my parents. Michael, Shar, Jao, Cavendish, Teal, Taylor, Kaeti.

With a curse, I drive the wire forward. It reaches the end of the channel, glances off something hard, and then suddenly the metal is turning, curving through the tunnel and down along the optic nerve. I continue to impel the wire forward before I can lose my nerve, back and back, deeper and deeper into my brain.

The end of the wire hits something hard. Light flashes in my vision.

*—:—:—*

And just like that, I have my life back. My clock is deactivated; I’ll never go Nova.

The trembling starts again, and this time it isn’t from fear, but relief. I can do anything I want now! I can live a full life, without fear of going off at any minute or hurting someone I love. After all this time of being held hostage by my own brain, I can finally make my own choices.

Choices.

I let out a soft snort. The truth is I made my choice long before ever coming on this station, and no matter how much I may want to, I can’t unmake it. My lips briefly tighten.

Forgive me, Michael.

Then with a silent prayer, I poke the chip a second time.

*00:15:00*

My whole body freezes as I wait for what feels like an eternity, but in reality is only a second. Then . . .