“What’s so funny?”
“You’re so serious, Doctor. The members of Shirosaki’s team have been surprisingly kind. Shirosaki too. If he hadn’t been around to intervene, Harding would have beaten me to death.”
“How can you say that after you’ve been so badly beaten you can’t move?”
“I can’t move because they shocked me.”
“What? I didn’t notice any electrical burns.”
“They put the electrodes where you can’t see them. I have to admit, it packed quite a wallop.”
Tei froze momentarily, ashamed of her failure to properly diagnose Karina.
As the doctor leaned over to treat Karina with a topical solution, ey kicked something with the tip of eir shoe. Ey picked up a pendant off the floor. It was a medallion of a man holding a crucifix and what appeared to be a skull on the table next to him.
“Is this yours?” Tei asked, dangling the pendant in front of Karina.
Karina nodded slightly.
“The chain is broken.”
“Bastards ripped it off my neck. Must have thought there was something hidden inside, like a suicide pill or microchip. It’s nothing. Just a lucky charm.”
“What a peculiar design.”
“A St. Gerard medal, given to me when I was on Earth.”
“By whom?”
“Let’s just say by fellow child soldiers. They’re all dead now,” Karina said.
Tei wiped the blood off the medal with the hem of eir white coat and tried to slip it in Karina’s pocket.
Karina shook her head. “No.”
“Why?”
“It’s pointless for a dead woman to hold on to it, don’t you think?”
“But it belongs to you.”
“You take it, Doctor. St. Gerard is the patron saint of childbirth. Keep it as a lucky charm. Toss it after I’m gone if you don’t want it.”
After a moment’s hesitation, Tei slipped the medal in eir coat pocket. Karina’s eyes narrowed into a look of satisfaction.
“Interrogation will resume after I’ve treated you. Why don’t you tell me about the agent you dispersed.”
“What time is it?”
“Fourteen hundred. It’s been almost a full day since you attacked the special district.”
“Then you should be beginning to see the full effect of the agent.”
“What do you mean?” Tei said.
“Exactly what I said. Go back to your patients, Doctor. You’re no good to them here.”
“Why do you hate the Rounds so much?” Tei asked, the tone of eir voice growing tense. “All we’re doing is living here quietly on Jupiter without imposing any trouble on the people of Mars or Earth. Is that so wrong?”
“You don’t understand. Your very existence is a threat to the people on the planets. How much do you think it costs to keep the special district and this station running in the first place?” Karina asked. “The operating budget comes out of the pockets of the Monaurals. Kline seems to think the bigender subspecies was born out of cultural progress. But there are still people on Earth that die simply because they don’t have enough to eat—never mind cultural progress. How do you suppose those people regard the Rounds?”
“And that’s reason enough to annihilate us? You choose to kill us rather than to negotiate?”
“I’ve come here with a job to do, Doctor. Whether the Rounds die or live is none of my concern. Once I carry out my mission, I’m gone.”
Tei’s wearable bleeped. Tei moved away from Karina to the corner of the room and took the call. It was Wagi on the line. “There’s been a change in some of the serious infant cases.”
“Are they critical?”
“Five dead. Only a matter of the time with the other children.”
“Cause of death?”
“Blood poisoning, meningitis, uremic shock—there’s nothing we can do to save them. Has Karina revealed anything?”
“No.”
“Get us the information we need!” Wagi shouted, uncharacteristically. “I don’t want to see any more children die over here.”
Tei ended the transmission and returned to Karina’s side. “We’ve had five fatalities—all of them babies.”
For an instant, Karina’s eyes grew wide with shock. What Tei thought was a glimmer of compassion quickly dissipated and gave way to a stony look. “Oh. I guess they didn’t last as long because of their underdeveloped immune systems.”
“Tell me about the agent you dispersed. If you do, I might be able to talk the security unit into saving your life.”
“That won’t do me any good. If you and I reach some sort of agreement, they might spare my life. But that doesn’t mean they’ll let me go. They’ll take me back to Earth to be tried, and while I may be spared the death penalty, I’ll get life in prison for sure. If I’m going to get locked up for the rest of my life anyway, I’d rather take my secret to the grave.”
“Something else then. Isn’t there something you’d like in exchange?”
“You can let me go without alerting security. I can manage on my own once you help me off the station.”
“You know I can’t do that.”
“Then I guess I’m not talking.”
Karina watched Tei bite eir lip with an amused look. “Well? If you get me to an escape shuttle, I’ll hand over the data to you.”
“When will I get that data—before or after you’re on the shuttle?”
“Half before. I’ll transmit the other half from the shuttle once I’m safely away from the station.”
Tei shook eir head. “The decision isn’t up to me.”
“But you can save the Rounds.”
“What guarantee do I have that you’ll tell me the truth? If I help you escape and the data turns out to be fake, I’m left with nothing,” Tei said.
“You don’t trust me.”
“How can I? I hardly know anything about you.”
“You’re welcome to your feelings. But even as you and I are having this conversation, the Rounds are dying one after the next, starting with the children.”
For the first time, Tei felt something resembling hatred toward Karina. Fighting back the impulse to strike her, ey said, “You have nowhere to go. Kline will never forgive you if the Rounds perish. That goes for the police too. Do you really want to kill us at the expense of your own life? Is our existence such a hindrance to you? As vast as the universe is, why are the Monaurals incapable of accepting new life-forms?”
“Because Monaurals are petty people.”
“But those same Monaurals were the ones to create us. It’s their intellect I want to believe in.”
“Including the Vessel of Life? They’re a dirtier bunch than I am,” Karina said. “I would have preferred to kill the whole lot of them before doing the Rounds.”
“Then why didn’t you refuse them?”
“I have my reasons.”
“Why don’t you tell me about them? I might be able to help in exchange for the data on the agent.”
A hint of a smile came cross Karina’s blood-caked lips. “Surely you must have a secret or two you don’t want to talk about, Doctor. Regardless of how reprehensible my employers are, I’ve given them my word, and you’re not going to get anything out of me.”
“I’ve no secrets to hide.”
“Oh really? Kline and I were for friends for ten years. Oftentimes, she came to me for advice. I acted as her psychological counselor. She used to talk about the special district. About you too.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I know why you became an intermediary,” Karina said.
“You’re lying. Kline would never tell anyone about my private life.”
“Well, she told me plenty. Down to every last detail. Your sexual organs are configured differently from those of normal Rounds. You felt a deep sense of alienation about that. Kline came to me for advice about how best to console you.”
“That’s all in the past now,” muttered Tei.
“Your name in the special district was Lanterna. Don’t tell me it was another Round with the same name. Your penis and vagina are configured on the wrong side—the penis on the left and the vagina on the right. You’re not able to engage in the act facing your partner because your configuration doesn’t allow you to insert your penis and have your partner’s penis be inserted into you at the same time. You have never felt the sensation of simultaneous ejaculation and insemination. You, Doctor, are a special case who can only do one or the other. At present, there are no other Rounds in the special district with your abnormality. You’re a misfit of Round society.” Then Karina said, in a contemptuously gentle tone, “You’re deformed, isn’t that right?”
“You’re wrong,” Tei answered with as much conviction as ey could muster. “It happens every once in a while. It’s a simple genetic aberration—not an abnormality.”
“Then why didn’t you choose surgery? It’s a simple reconstructive procedure, yet you chose not to go under the knife. I don’t understand it.”
“Because people like me are necessary,” Tei said. “If there is no one with such differences, nothing to regard as a mark of one’s individuality, Round society will become homogenized and eventually stagnate.”
“So what you’re telling me is that Round society will eventually develop a binary system like the gender distinctions separating Monaurals,” Karina said. “If a Round majority and minority were born of physiological differences, you’re going to have the same disagreements that exist among Monaurals, regardless of your elimination of gender distinctions. In time, these differences will be the standard by which you discriminate against others.”
“If we don’t dwell on the numbers, that these differences exist at all will be rendered meaningless.”
“I wonder,” Karina mused. “Do you really believe you can achieve in three generations what we could not in thousands of years, and overcome such a deeply entrenched way of thinking?”
Saying nothing, Tei gathered eir medical supplies onto the tray and stood up.
“Leaving so soon?” Karina asked in a mocking tone.
“Have you any compassion—any concern for others?”
“Do you have any knowledge of my activities on Earth?”
“Yes, I do. But surely you feel something. You’re human after all.”
“If I haven’t forsaken my humanity, that is,” Karina said.
“I won’t pretend to know the hell you suffered in the past, but that doesn’t acquit you of your actions now. Many of the things people believe they cannot do are merely things they don’t out of inconvenience.”
“You’re a blunt one for a counselor.”
“I don’t recall taking you on as a client,” Tei said.
Karina let out a laugh that sounded like a purr. “Since you patched me up, I’ll tell you one thing. The so-called ‘package’ I dispersed isn’t a virus or chemical weapon. It’s a parasitic machine.”
“A what?”
Karina said it slowly. “Par. Ah. Sit. Ic. Mash. Een.” Then she raised an arm and traced a pair of characters in the air with a finger. “There’s some
kanji
for you too. Understand now, maybe?”
“Parasitic?” Tei’s face froze. “A parasite?”
Karina slowly lowered her finger. “That’s all I can tell you. The rest is up to what you have to offer. Go talk to Kline if you aren’t able to negotiate with me on your own. She loves you like you were her own children; she won’t turn her back on the special district. You talk to her without involving special security, and I’m sure she’ll think of something.”
Tei watched Karina’s eyes slowly close and a satisfied smile come across her face.
When Tei stepped out into the corridor, with the tension leaving eir body, ey was assaulted by a feeling of vertigo.
These Monaurals were underhanded to be sure.
Tei felt powerless against the likes of Karina.
The doctor called Shirosaki on eir wearable and arranged to meet him in eir room to avoid any surveillance.
When Shirosaki arrived, Tei reported every detail of eir conversation with Karina. “I played right into her hands.”
“You did well to learn as much as you did. Karina didn’t talk at all to Harding or me.”
“Not at all?”
“Not one word. She may feel some sort of affinity with you.”
“What affinity could she possibly feel with me?”
“I can’t answer that,” Shirosaki said. “But you mentioned that you’d met her before. Five years ago, was it?”
“Strictly as a doctor. I don’t recall talking about anything of note or counseling her in any way.”
“What was she like back then?”
“She was a typical scientist. A kind, cheerful, charming woman without a single hint of a violent nature. She was a true friend to Kline, someone with whom Kline seemed to open up. So when I first heard that Von Chaillot was Karina Majella, I didn’t make the connection. I still can’t believe that Karina is her true identity. Even now I feel as though she remains Von Chaillot and not the woman before us. She seems to harbor some kind of enmity toward the Vessel of Life, which may indicate some extenuating circumstances we don’t know about.”
“Exactly what I was thinking.”
“You too?”
“It’s been twenty years since she quit the terrorism business. I suspect she had a special reason for taking on this job,” Shirosaki said.
“When I told Karina about the children that had died, she seemed to waver for a moment. So I thought I could appeal to her compassion—but no.” Tei took out the medal from eir coat pocket. “She gave me this. I don’t know why.”
“I would say it’s a sign that she trusts you.”
“Even if that were true, just what am I supposed to trust about her?” asked Tei, staring at the medal in her hand. “Somewhere deep inside Karina, something has stopped working—completely broken down.”
“You don’t have to trust her, Doctor. As long as she puts her trust in you, we’re at an advantage. As a counselor, I’m sure you’re prone to empathizing with whomever you’re talking to. But you can’t let her get to you. Whatever her reasons, Karina has killed hundreds of people in the past.”
“I had hoped to at least get her to tell me how the agent works.”
The phrase
parasitic machine
didn’t turn up in any of the databases. Based on the name, which Karina had likely come up with on her own, Shirosaki and Tei surmised they were dealing with a molec machine that functioned like a parasite. Whether it was a completely man-made creation or a parasite that had been modified on a nanomolecular level, however, they couldn’t say.
“Karina will likely reveal what she knows piecemeal until she can find a way off this station. She doesn’t want to be tried on Earth and even said she’d rather die here than face life imprisonment,” Tei pointed out. “What is she thinking, Commander? How can she be so careless with her life?”