Orson Card - Ruins

“1-zero-5. Attention.” Rigg hadn’t known whether that was just a repetition of the name or part of the word, but he said it all just as Father had taught him to recite it.

The facemask flipped up out of the box and slapped wetly onto Loaf’s face. Loaf’s whole body stiffened, shuddered.

“Ready,” said a gentle voice that seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere at once.

“4-A-A-3, I am in command,” said Rigg.

“You are in command,” said the nowhere voice.

Vadesh pushed Loaf backward off the chair and lunged toward Rigg.

“Protect me from the expendable!” cried Rigg.

Vadesh stopped instantly, still posed in mid-lunge.

Loaf lay on the floor against the back wall. His face was completely covered by the facemask.

“2-F-F-2. Information. What is this room?”

“Revival and medical chamber,” said the voice.

“What is its purpose?”

“To bring humans out of stasis and revive them. To treat any maladies that have arisen.”

“Can it treat my friend Loaf?”

“I do not know.”

Rigg had no idea who he was talking to. “Who does know?”

“I do not know.”

A machine. The voice had to come from a machine. Probably the ship’s computers. One of the nineteen. Or all of them. Whatever it was, it had power over the expendable, who was still posed where he had stopped, one hand on the seat, the other on the box that had contained the facemask.

“How can you find out whether you can help Loaf?”

“Identify Loaf and let me examine him.”

“He’s the only other human in the room,” said Rigg. “You have my permission to examine him.”

“He is too far from the table,” said the voice.

“I can’t lift him onto that,” said Rigg.

There was Vadesh. Vadesh could lift him up easily. But Vadesh was only held in place by the ship’s computer, if that’s what the voice was. “Who are you?” asked Rigg.

There was no answer.

“2-F-F-2. Whose voice am I hearing?”

“This is the voice of the composite decision-making module of the human interface unit.”

“This expendable is between Loaf and the table, and there’s this box on the table that’s in the way. What can you do about that without waking up the expendable?”

“Nothing,” said the voice.

Rigg thought again. Maybe there was something wrong with the way he had phrased the command.

No, he needed a new command. “7-B-B-5-zero, Analyze. How can I get Loaf to where you can safely examine him, without letting this expendable harm him or me in any way?”

In reply, Vadesh abruptly stood up and wordlessly touched the box. It closed, then slid back onto the cart, which zipped along the track and out the door. Then Vadesh strode to Loaf, lifted him easily, and laid him on the table.

“You’re making a mistake,” said Vadesh mildly.

“Keep the expendable silent,” said Rigg.

Vadesh said nothing more.

“Make him stand back against the wall and turn his back to me,” said Rigg. He didn’t want Vadesh out of his sight, but he also didn’t want him watching.

Vadesh did exactly what Rigg had demanded.

I can’t command Vadesh directly, Rigg now understood, but the ship’s computers can. By controlling them, I control the expendable.

“Please examine my friend,” said Rigg.

All the floating lights plunged downward toward the table where Loaf lay. The arms reached down and around so rapidly that Rigg could not follow their movements, though he could see that some of them pulled Loaf’s clothing from his body while others poked him or slid along the surface of his skin.

Almost at once, two of the lights homed in on the facemask, while the other continued the scan of the rest of Loaf’s now-naked body. Probes reached down to sample the facemask, which seemed to recoil from some of the arms, but then flexed upward toward some of the others, as if trying to catch and absorb them. Those probes retracted, the arms taking them away to renew their approach from other angles.

Some of the arms tried to pry up the edges of the facemask. That was the first time Loaf made any kind of reaction. His body twitched as if he were startled, and a sharp high cry came from under the facemask.

“Can he breathe?” Rigg asked.

“There is no open passage for his lungs to take in air, but his blood is fully oxygenated,” said the voice. “This is the parasite called ‘facemask’ and it is irrevocably attached to your friend Loaf. It has already penetrated his brain so deeply that it cannot be extracted without causing seizures and death. But it has taken over oxygenation. Your friend will not die.”

Rigg was tempted to say, “Kill them both,” because he believed that was what Loaf would want.

But Loaf’s life did not belong to Rigg; nor did it belong entirely to Loaf. It belonged in part to Leaky, and if she were in the room, Rigg doubted that she would decide so quickly that Loaf’s life should end here and now.

“If Loaf were to die,” Rigg asked, “what would the facemask do?”

“Transfer to another host, if one could be found quickly enough, or it would die.”

“You’re familiar with this parasite?” asked Rigg.

“The expendable has been breeding them for a hundred thousand generations. This is type Jonah 7 sample 490.”

“What was the expendable breeding for?”

“I don’t know.”

Wrong question. “What are the traits of this facemask type that makes it different from other facemask types?”

“The Jonah strain has been the expendable’s sole focus for eight thousand years. Type Jonah 7 emerged more than three thousand years ago. This type differed from the rejected types by being able to reach adulthood without a host, by being exceptionally quick to attach to the host, by being prepared to recognize and bond closely with a human brain, by being ready to co-metabolize with human blood of any type, and by bonding with higher-function parts of the brain, as well as the brain root and spinal column.”

Rigg tried to think these things through. Vadesh believed that symbiosis between facemasks and humans was good, but he had also talked about the facemasks working for instead of against civilized behavior.

“7-B-B-5-5,” said Rigg. “Prediction. What will happen to Loaf if this facemask remains attached to him?”

“He will survive.”

“Beyond that?”

“Jonah-type facemasks have never been tested on humans. There is no data.”

“And you don’t know how Vadesh expected this to turn out?”

“Vadesh is dead,” said the voice.

Rigg looked at the expendable. “He can’t die. Can he?”

“You call the expendable Vadesh. He cannot die.”

“So whom did you mean when you said Vadesh is dead?”

“The founder of this colony. The expendables call each other by the name of the wallfold. This is Vadeshfold. Now I understand you. No, I do not know Vadesh’s expectations. He used us for storing data but not for analysis beyond a primitive level. He did not discuss or share his thinking with us.”

“Will Loaf be safe if I leave him here?”

“He will need nutrition within a few hours. Would you like me to supply nutrition?”

“Yes,” said Rigg.

“Waste elimination as well?”

When Rigg said yes, arms began to attach devices to Loaf’s body.

“Can you keep this expendable here, immobile?”

“Yes.”

“How long?”

“Forever.”

“Then keep him here, immobile, until I tell you to do otherwise.”

“Yes.”

“Now tell me, am I controlling you because I knew the codes, or because I have these jewels?”

“What jewels?” asked the voice.

Rigg opened his hand. A light moved toward his hand and an arm scanned the jewels.