By the skin of our teeth.

  CHAPTER 27

  I was getting kind of tired of blacking out and waking up in sickbay with Nurse Alter hovering at my bedside. Of course, there wasn’t much I could do about it as I awoke some time later in that same familiar position, This time, however, there was a difference I didn’t expect. One I would rather have done without.

  Every other time, I felt better when my eyes fluttered open and Alter’s warm smile reminded me I was among friends. Not this time. This time, my head still throbbed slightly and the strain in my lungs, the shortness of breath refused to subside. This time, when I glanced over at Alter, she wore a look of greater concern. This time, Keep and Matt had remained with me for long enough that both were slumped on the floor of my room in sickbay asleep, still in the clothes they'd worn on Atlas.

  “Shit,” I croaked. I didn’t need anyone to tell me my health was failing fast, dragging me down in its horrible spiral of cancer cells cancer cells. They were growing in number more rapidly than my body was able to fight them. Had using sigiltech accelerated the process? I didn’t know. Maybe. But what else could I have done? “How bad is it?”

  “It’s in your lymph nodes,” Alter replied. “Even with Keep’s efforts. In another week or two, it will probably be in your bones. That’s when it’ll really start to hurt.”

  “And there’s nothing we can do?”

  “Continue slowing it down as best we can, but ultimately no.”

  “So I have what? A month?”

  “Give or take.”

  “Shit,” I said again. I didn’t feel afraid. I’d already come to terms with my final outcome. But it was happening too fast. It was trying to take me too soon. I glanced over at Matt. He looked exhausted. “Then we don’t have any time to waste.”

  I shifted on the bed, eager to get back on my feet. As soon as they hit the floor the entire room began spinning. Alter caught me before I could fall, but the movement sent me into a fresh coughing fit that left me practically doubled-over. At least no blood sprayed out this time.

  “Ben, you aren’t ready to move,” Alter said, putting a hand on my shoulder to push me back onto the bed.

  “If I don’t move now, I’ll never be ready,” I replied. The volume of my complaint woke Matt.

  “Ben, how are you feeling?”

  “Like I don’t want to die before we settle things with Sedaya,” I replied. “It’s not how I wanted to spend my last days, but at least you’re here.”

  He smiled sadly. “I’ll do anything I can for you, bro.”

  “I know. Right now, you can get everyone together in the lounge. We need to figure out what to do next.”

  “You need to rest,” he said.

  “No,” I replied. “Not this time. I thought calming would keep my cancer in check for a while. It’s not working anymore. My head, my lungs, my lymph nodes. I already know the lymph nodes go everywhere. It’s only a matter of time.”

  “There’s still Keep’s sigil,” Matt said.

  “Which is etched on the inside of his skull,” I reminded him. “We already decided cutting his head open and removing his brain to get a look at it is a non-starter.”

  “We could revisit that.”

  “I heard that,” Keep said, glancing over at us and drawing a laugh from everyone in the room.

  “What about David?” Matt suggested. “That’s why we brought him along, isn’t it?”

  “And because Suckass and his mother wanted him to make more powerful sigils for them,” I replied. “We’re lucky he decided to come with us.”

  “What would you have done if he had made a different decision?” Keep asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You didn’t want me to do the dirty work for you. So what if he forced the issue back there? What if he forces it later?”

  “I won’t be here to see it,” I replied. “But we can all worry about that if it happens instead of presuming that it will happen.”

  Keep stared at me, looking thoughtful.

  “What is it?”

  “Nothing, kid. Just a wayward thought. Alter, how long do you give him?”

  “A month,” I replied since I had already asked the question while he slept. “If we’re lucky.”

  He shook his head. “Damn shame. What about the blood? How’s that looking?”

  “What do you mean?” Alter asked.

  “My blood,” I replied. “It’s been mutating outside of the cancer.”

  “I can bring up a comparison.” She tapped on the autodoc’s screen and turned it toward me. The cells looked more round than the last time, as if they were returning to their original state. Except now there was something else embedded in them, a thicker material with a dark blue color.

  “Are you sure that isn’t cancer?” Matt asked. “Blood cancer is a thing, isn’t it?”

  “Leukemia,” I replied. “Yeah, it’s a thing.”

  “If it were cancerous, the autodoc would have flagged it,” Alter explained. “The autodoc searches a universal public health datastore for matches on the genetic structure. Whatever this is, it’s unique in the Spiral.”

  “It’s also killing me.”

  “I know. I’m sorry, Ben.”

  “Matt, can you get everyone together in the lounge?” I asked a second time. “Sitting here worrying about something we can’t control isn’t going to help.”

  He nodded. “I wish we could go back to VR Awesome!. Rewind time so this wouldn’t have to feel so real now.” I could tell he was doing his best not to get emotional. It nearly made me lose control too. “Give me ten minutes.”

  He clapped his hand on my shoulder, offered a supportive squeeze, and left sickbay. He probably cried once he was out of my sight. I would have if the roles were reversed. Cancer had sucked from the moment I knew I had it. It had never sucked more than it did right now.

  I turned to Alter. “Thanks for taking care of me.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Keep stood and sidled up next to me. “I’m sorry I don’t have the sigils you need, kid. I really am.”

  “I believe that,” I replied. “Just tell me the Royals didn’t find the Grimoire.”

  He smiled. “The Royals didn’t find the Grimoire.”

  “Are you lying?”

  “Nope.”

  “Did you show it to David?”

  He hesitated. “I’m not sure—”

  “You just said you were sorry that you didn’t have the sigils I need. David knows how to build sigils. Or at least, he’s closer than anyone’s been in hundreds of years. If you really want me to live, he needs the Grimoire.”

  “I get it, Bennie. I do. But there’s more at stake here than just your life. Him recreating sigils isn’t a good thing like you’re convinced it is.”

  “I know we don’t agree on that one. But I’m the Captain of this ship. I can order you to give him the Grimoire.”

  “You could.” His body language suggested he might not comply with that order.

  “I guess you need to make a decision then,” I said. “You spent a long time searching for the right person to sell Head Case to. You believed I could help you deal with Sedaya and protect both the Spiral and Earth. How much am I really worth to you?”

  He stared at me for a moment before replicating Matt’s move by putting his hand on my shoulder and squeezing. “Keep fighting, kid. I’ll see you downstairs.”

  He left sickbay, his non-answer an answer of its own. I turned my attention to Alter. “Why don’t you head down to the lounge? I need a few minutes alone.”

  “Okay,” she replied, offering a compassionate smile before slipping out of the room.

  I leaned my head back and stared at the bare ceiling where pipes and wires snaked through the room. Part of me thought I should cry. Part of me wanted to. But the other side refused to waste the energy. If this was my endgame, then somehow I would find a way to put us in a position to win it.

  CHAPTER 28

  Everyone had assembled in the lounge by the time I made my way from sickbay. Somebody had already cleaned me up and changed me into a warm-up suit that made me feel like a member of the Tracksuit Mafia. At least it wasn’t a unicorn onesie. It was actually surprisingly comfortable.

  They were all excited to see me up and moving again, offering warm greetings and words of encouragement as I circled the sofa and took a standing position in front of the big television. Shaq joined me there, perching on my shoulder and nuzzling my neck. I reached up and scratched behind his ear, drawing a soft purr.

  Looking out the viewport, I could see we had come out of hyperspace at some point. “Alter, where are we?” I asked.

  “Nowhere,” she replied with a smile.

  “How far from Atlas?”

  “A few hundred light years. We’re safe.”

  “And I have access to my systems from here,” Gia said. “At least for now. I’ve spent the last few hours running my algorithm. Looking for another juicy target we can hit. The Empress said she needed more proof. We’ll get it.”

  “She also said that if we wanted to help then we should get her son back,” Quasar said. “Have you spent any time looking into that?”

  “Of course.”

  “And?”

  “I think we can all agree Hiro’s kidnapping has Sedaya’s name written all over it. But tracing anything related to the blueburn back to him will be damn near impossible. As will finding the blueburn itself. Either he used his own military to carry out the mission or he hired a black ops team through a DEX. In terms of actionable intelligence, that’s pretty much a dead-end. Our next best bet is to do what we did before and hope to stumble across more evidence.”

  “I don’t think that’s the way to go,” Matt said. “It’s time consuming, for one thing. And risky. We don’t know what we’re walking into.”

  “Locating Prince Hiro isn’t a total dead-end,” Keep said. “You’re not thinking it all the way through.”

  “How so?” Gia replied.

  “We saw the blueburn. Our sensors got a full read on her.”

  “The ship was unmarked. No identifiers.”

  “No doubt. And it’ll probably be destroyed as soon as it drops its cargo, to make extra-sure it can’t be traced.”

  “You said it’s not a dead-end, but you’re pretty much reinforcing what I just said.”

  “Only if you’re looking forward. But history can be important too. We have the sensor readings of the ship. We can use those to work out certain details. The type of thrusters. The composition of the hull. The style of jamming chaff they used. Multiple components purchased somewhere and brought to a single place for assembly. Badabing badaboom.”

  “Don’t badabing too quickly,” Druck cautioned. “The ship was small enough it could have been brought to each planet for component assembly. Which would also make it harder to track.”

  “Fair point,” Keep agreed. “But again, we have the composition and shape of the vessel. If we can trace it back to a manufacturer, that could give us the lead we need to get things rolling.”

  “Odds are they reconfigured the fuselage so it wouldn’t match anything else produced,” Quasar said. “So the search criteria can’t be too limited.”

  “So you’re talking about an algorithm that can scan the hypernet for visual and sensor data that matches what we collected?” Gia asked.

  “Bingo,” Keep replied.

  “But not too strictly,” Quasar added. “With some wiggle room.”

  “An algorithm like that will take time to figure out, even starting with existing AI packages.” She glanced at Matt. “If we’re concerned about time.”

  “We are,” he replied.

  “It’s all about the math,” David said. “The matching algorithm. You don’t need artificial intelligence for this. What format is the sensor data in?”

  “The sensors use a number of readings,” Alter said. “Infrared, LIDAR, electromagnetic, energy-wave, to name a few. Of course, the cameras record visual data.”

  “But I assume those readings are translated to binary for processing by the primary computer.”

  “Of course.”

  “So we write an algorithm that matches those signatures within a specified level of variance and set it loose on the dataset. We can do the same thing with the raw image data if we have a few decent captures.”

  “It’s a very large dataset,” Gia said. “That’s the bigger problem.”

  “So we narrow it down. Start with the simplest criteria to narrow down the set, then run each additional parameter sequentially. Instead of searching everything at once.”

  Gia nodded. “That could work.”

  “I can help you with it.”

  She smiled at him. “Okay. I would appreciate that.”

  David’s face flushed and he dropped his eyes to the deck. “Okay.”

  “Awww,” Druck teased. “Sure beats the hell out of Sailor Moon, doesn’t it, Dave?”

  “Huh?” Gia said as David looked even more embarrassed.

  “I hate to spoil the team-up,” Keep said. “But you’re on your own with this one, G.” He looked over at me. “David has more important work to do.”

  “What do you mean?” David asked. “What kind of work?”

  Keep reached under his coat and produced the slab holding the Grimoire. “We intercepted this a couple months ago.”

  “What is it? iPad 1000?”

  “Sort of,” I said, staring back at Keep. He had made his decision, putting the potential to save my life over the risk that David might do evil with whatever else he learned about sigiltech. “The device isn’t important. What it contains is. A compendium of sigils, with photographs. Keep can tell you what a good portion of the sigils can do. If you work together, you might be able to decipher more of the equations behind the individual lines and symbols and come up with something that could save my life.”

  David’s eyes bugged out in response to the description of the Grimoire. “Seriously? I can totally do that.”

  “Can you do it in a month?” I asked.

  He looked at me, face paling. “I don’t know. Why?”

  “Ben?” Gia said, obviously concerned.

  “You all know I’m sick. It’s getting worse, and I’m running out of time. No pressure, David. But this is my last shot.”

  He nodded. “I’ll work as hard as I can on it. But I need power for my laptop.”

  “I can give you more than that,” Alter said. “We can network your laptop to the ship’s computer so you can use it’s processor to run your simulations.”

  “The ship’s computer understands Java?”

  “All of this tech originated from Earth a long time ago. Java hasn’t changed that much since then, though it has gotten a lot faster.”

  “Sweet. Orders of magnitude, I’m sure.” David looked at me. “I’m going to do it.” There was no lack of confidence in his reply.

  “Even if he comes up with a sigil,” Matt said, “you still need a catalyst. And you can’t use a catalyst. Even if you could, even if you had the raw materials, we don’t have anywhere to etch the sigil.”

  “I know,” I replied. “But writing the program is the hardest part right now. While David’s working on the sigil, we can start solving those other problems.”

  Druck put up his hand and coughed. “Can I ask a question?”

  “Go ahead, Emil,” I said.

  “No offense, Captain. But I thought stopping Sedaya and the shadowy super suckass was our primary directive? Now we’re going to drop everything on a longshot to save your bacon?”

  “What the hell, Druck?” Quasar snapped. “You don’t even like the Empress. I would think you’d be first on board with ditching her to help Ben?”

  “I’m not saying I’m not on board. I’m just asking the question.”

  “Maybe you should keep your mouth shut, instead.”

  “He does have a point,” Gia said. “If we spend a month on the possibility of helping Ben, that’s a month Sedaya has to further cement his position. I don’t know how I feel about that. I mean, if we could guarantee it would save his life, then I’m all for it. But on a longshot?” She looked at me. “You’re a great person. And I have crazy respect for you for so many reasons. I’m sorry to put it that way.”

  “It’s a fair point,” I replied. “And maybe we shouldn’t—”

  “—yes we should,” Matt interrupted. “Without a doubt. Without hesitation.”

  “You may be a little biased,” Druck said.

  “This may be my ship,” Matt replied. “And Ben’s ship. So if we say we’re going to do everything we can to save his life first and deal with Sedaya second, then—”

  “—then I vote against saving my life,” I said.

  Matt’s head whipped toward me so fast I thought it might fly off. “What?”

  “Druck's right,” I said.

  “When pig’s fly,” Quasar quipped.

  “No, he is. This isn’t about me. This is about the Spiral. And Earth. And finding Prince Hiro. That should be our priority because if we find the boy, we can not only convince the Empress that Sedaya is bad news, we can also be pardoned. Or at least, all of you can be pardoned.”

  “Wait a second,” Keep said. “Thirty minutes ago you gave me shit about wanting to put the Spiral ahead of you. And now you want to put the Spiral first?”

  “I’d just found out I had a month to live,” I answered. “Cut me some slack. Even now, my selfish nature wants to solve my problems. But like Gia said. If the odds of everything falling into place in time are that low, then it’s not fair to the rest of you, or the universe as a whole.”

  “Bullshit,” Matt snapped. “You don’t owe the Spiral anything.”

  “I know you always have my back. I need your support in this now more than ever.”