CHAPTER TWENTY
It wasn’t easy, carrying Jaime through the ship’s corridors with only one working arm. Kaz trotted along beside him, holding the light with one hand and trying to steady Jaime’s flopping head with the other.
They reached the cargo hold and saw Jonathan and Garcia standing near the open entrance. “Where’s the doctor?” Rylan yelled. He made for the daylight behind them, going down the ramp as fast as he dared.
He lay Jaime down on the soft grass while Dr. Stevenson bent over him. “What happened?”
Rylan wanted to tear everything apart. He settled for glaring furiously at Jaime’s unconscious face. “The bomb nearly killed him.”
Dr. Stevenson pulled back the lids of Jaime’s eyes. “Nothing like that,” she said. “But being so close to an EMP going off can cause pain and seizure for someone like Jaime.”
“He never fucking mentioned that. Where’s the damn shuttle?” He looked over at Jonathan. There was only the empty meadow with the Prince’s crew and Jonathan and his two agents left. “We need to get him to a working medical facility.”
“The shuttle took the injured up to the Le Guin,” Jonathan said his voice frustratingly even. “Senator Aglukark is critically injured, and while I’m sure no one is too bothered, you did almost crush Cavendish’s trachea. Besides, we needed to get the shuttle out of the range of the EMP. It will be back soon, Rylan.”
“He’ll be fine,” the doctor said. “Just let Jaime rest for the moment.”
“Damn it,” Rylan said. He made himself stand up, before he could give into the urge to start shaking Jaime, desperate to see him awake and safe now.
Jonathan followed him as he walked a few paces away to stand and glare into the forest. Agent Abrams was talking to Mags and Bo, while the others were clustered together staring worriedly back and forth between Jaime and the dark and empty ship.
Digby approached them with a handheld comm. “I turned it off and threw it as far into the woods as I could before the EMP went off,” he said. “It’s still working.”
Jonathan nodded crisply. “Tell command the situation is contained for now and to hold off on further action until they hear from me.”
“Got it, boss.” He turned away to speak into the comm.
“So the crew’s on your side now?” Rylan asked, jerking his head towards Mags, who was still holding her rifle. “Or was she working for you, too? Was everyone in on it?”
“What? Don’t be ridiculous,” Jonathan said. “It was clear when Cavendish brought in his own guards that something was up. It seemed wise to recruit additional allies.”
Rylan frowned. “So that whole bit about treating the crew with every courtesy, that was what? Like a code?”
Digby grinned over at Rylan. “Yeah, you’re definitely not the bright one in the family.”
Rylan bristled, but Jonathan steered him away. “Magda Kandinsky and Bo Chen used to freelance for us. It was before my time, but they had a reputation for being the top people for off-the-books ops. Placing you on the ship where they’d chosen to spend their semi-retirement was a way of hedging my bets for this mission succeeding.” He looked at Rylan. “But I never doubted you would see it through. I am sorry, Rylan, that I couldn’t be completely honest with you. I hope you see that trusting you with a mission so vital to the future of the Commonwealth — to humanity — shows that I had faith in you. I always have.”
Rylan felt the sting of tears behind his eyes and he cleared his throat gruffly. “Yeah, well, you don’t generally show it.”
Jonathan snorted and squeezed the shoulder he could feel. “You’re my little brother. I can’t have you getting a swelled head.”
Rylan smiled slightly and looked back towards Jaime and the crew. He couldn’t imagine leaving either, but he didn’t know if he was wanted. “I don’t think I’m cut out for undercover work.”
Jonathan raised an eyebrow. “I don’t think you are either, but if there’s one thing about you I do know, it’s that you always go your own way.”
* * *
Jaime opened his eyes to the color blue. But not the distant sky overhead — instead, the much closer presence of Rylan’s eyes fixed upon his.
“Hey,” Jaime whispered.
The eyes, which had been wide with worry, abruptly narrowed. “You should’ve said something about that bomb nearly scrambling your brains.”
“I did,” Jaime protested. “Sort of.”
He struggled to sit up, wincing at the pain in his head. Rylan propped him up, but clumsily. Jaime saw he had fashioned a sling out of a belt for his arm.
“Did it work?” Jaime asked.
“Ship’s still dead. No one wanted to try to start it up again until you were awake.”
“Well, I’m up now.” Jaime managed to get his legs under him, though once he was standing, the landscape seemed to tilt and wobble.
“It can wait,” Rylan said. “Sit back down.”
“I’m okay.”
Garcia, seeing them, came over. “Jaime, it’s good to see you on your feet.”
“Barely,” Rylan said.
“That being as it may, time may be a factor.” He looked over to where Jonathan Gray and the two other Commonwealth agents were standing, Jonathan seeming to be arguing into a comm. “I’m concerned that the government types in orbit are getting itchy trigger fingers. We need to know how Dub is doing.”
“Okay,” Jaime said, cutting off the protest Rylan had started to form. “Let’s reboot.”
Rylan led Jaime to the bridge. Jaime smiled thinking of the first time he’d come onboard, though now they were leaning against each other instead of Rylan dragging him along.
Kaz was sitting in her pilot’s chair, legs curled beneath her as she kept a vigil over the darkened bridge. Jaime sat himself down heavily in another chair, grateful for Rylan standing behind him.
“We doing this?” Kaz asked. She sounded scared.
“There could be personality changes,” Jaime cautioned. “Dub may not be exactly what she once was.”
“As long as there’s something of Dub in there,” Kaz said. She closed her eyes for a moment, then flipped the switches that restarted the ship’s systems.
Jaime reached out for Kaz; after a second of hesitation she took his hand and gripped it hard. Rylan was touching his shoulder. With these two human presences holding him, Jaime closed his eyes and reached out for the mind of the machine.
Hello, Dub.
It was a mess. Things were slowly coming back online, errors flashing in all directions, but Jaime focused and tried to sort through, helping where he could. The fierce, overwhelming presence of Descartes was gone, but traces remained, mingling in with Dub’s code in a way that could not be separated. Jaime waded in, trying to build walls around conflicting or dangerous directives. There was common ground to be found, a way for the remaining pieces of Descartes to be integrated into the whole of Dub. After all, Descartes had wanted to explore. Here was a ship. It was just a matter of finding Dub’s loyalty to her crew and letting that reign.
Jaime searched and then hit upon something. Love was an impossible thing for the computers to understand, but at its core was it not a focus and concern for another’s well-being above all else? He found the tiny subroutine that monitored the crew’s heart rates and breathing and turned it back on.
Dub finally spoke in his mind. Confused and weak, but above all worried.
Kaz? Why is Kaz so distressed?
Jaime opened his eyes, Kaz’s anxious face was searching his. “It’s okay,” he said both out loud and in his head. “I think it’s all going to be okay.”