Killbox

Mostly, I work with Argus in the simulator. I train him longer hours than the Academy endorsed, and we do a lot more practical application than theoretical study. Maybe I’m the minority, but I learn things a lot faster by doing them than by reading about how. Argus seems all right with my methods.



By the end of the first week, he has a better grasp of the process than I could’ve ever expected. But it’s taking a toll on both of us. He looks tired, even in the mornings now. Maybe I should give the kid a few days off.



Today when we break, he looks almost done in, as if he hasn’t been sleeping well. And instead of excusing himself, he hangs around the cockpit. Well, I can take a hint.



“Something you need?”



“I was wondering . . . do you ever dream about it?”



“Sometimes,” I admit. He doesn’t need to tell me he means grimspace. Only one thing can affect a navigator this way—and it’s not a love affair. “Not as much as I used to.”



March has something to do with that, frankly. He takes up space in my head, leaving less room for other things. In this case it’s good; I can’t fixate on my addiction the way I used to. He doesn’t let me. But most jumpers lack that buffer.



“I have these dreams,” Argus says. “First I can’t sleep for seeing the colors, then once I drop off, they’re all I see, and I’m convinced there’s something past the light. Something I need to see, so I can understand everything.”



I must confess I’m worried. If Argus is already feeling the jones—and he hasn’t even seen the real deal yet—what does that say about his longevity? Nothing good. He may be a strong candidate for early burnout—or maybe I’m just pushing him too hard.



Regardless, it can’t hurt to have Doc take a look. Maybe now that he’s isolated what makes me different from other navigators, he can give Argus a tweak to make him more like me. It would be highly experimental, but there are no other test subjects suitable for something like this. It would be up to the kid.



“Let’s run by med bay before we head back to the station,” I say then.



Argus just nods, which tells me he’s seeing a problem, too. We find Doc working on Mary knows what, but he pauses readily for us. “What seems to be the trouble, Jax?”



Funny how he assumes I have the problem. I explain succinctly, and Argus adds a few things that he didn’t see fit to mention earlier, like how he woke from the last dream near the simulator, with no memory of how he got there. That’s really not good.



After a few tests, Doc mutters, “Abnormal activity in the amygdala . . . damage to the cortex. I’m afraid your initial diagnosis was correct. He’s already begun the process.”



A kinder way to say burnout.



“How is that possible? We haven’t even done a real jump. Too much time in the simulator?” Oh, Mary, I ruined him. I was too rough, too impatient. Maybe Farwan had a reason for easing us into it as they did.



Argus looks sick now, his youthful eagerness replaced with fear and horror.



“Some subjects who possess the J-gene have less natural resistance to extreme environments,” Doc says. It’s a hypothesis, gleaned from years of study. He rambles on about brain structures and innate resistance, but I’m not really hearing him.



“Can you try gene therapy?” I ask. “I know you’ve isolated what makes me different. But can you give it to him?”



He gets a mad-scientist gleam in his eye. “Only with his permission. And you’d need to keep him out of the simulator until the process was complete.”



“What are we talking about here?” Argus asks.



And I realize he doesn’t know all that much about me. “My mother was a kinky freak, and I was conceived during a jump, leading to a mutation that lets me heal grimspace damage to my brain.”



Doc interrupts then, explaining the benefits and risks of the ability. In short, this genetic mutation lets my body pillage other systems to renew my brain. It keeps me from burnout, but if it ransacks my heart or lungs, it could kill me. Thus far, I’ve been lucky and it defaulted to my skeletal system, resulting in a loss of bone mass. For a while, I was annoyingly fragile, but with treatment, that’s been repaired, too.



“When I had time, I’ve been working on a regulator that will control the way her mutation functions,” Doc adds. “Thus far it’s not ready, but if you’re willing to let me try gene therapy on you, I’ll finish my work as soon as possible.”



Ouch. He’s still really pissed at me. Thanks, Doc, I get the subtext: I’m not worth the trouble, but if Argus joins my elite cadre of one, then he’ll need a fail-safe.



“How risky is it?” the kid asks. “Worse than this?”



Unfortunately, I can’t answer that. We both look at Doc.



Who shrugs. “I cannot answer that. Gene therapy can offer brilliant or unreliable results. However, I have no reason to believe it will worsen your circumstances.”



Because—now that he’s had a taste of grimspace—he’s going to go crazy and die anyway, if we don’t do something. Other than verifying the J-gene, I didn’t run any genetic tests on Argus before popping him in the simulator. I didn’t have Doc look at his brain scans to see if he was a good candidate. He had the ability, and that was enough for me. I let my distrust of Farwan tarnish my perception of all their methods. And that was a stupid, unforgivable mistake.



“Then let’s do it,” Argus says.



I offer my arm to Doc and he takes a sample. “It will take some time for me to work up a suitable vehicle for delivery.” He offers a lot more technical information, but I don’t care how it’s done. I just hope it helps. “And keep him out of the simulator,” he adds in unnecessary chastisement, as Argus leaves.



That does it. We need to have this out.



“I’m sorry,” I say humbly. “I didn’t go about this the right way. I should have had you run a profile on him before I began his training.”



And once, I would have, but things haven’t been right between us since Ithiss-Tor.



“That was stupid,” he agrees. “You saw his nature and considered nothing else.”



As it’s true, I have no defense against that. “Will you help him?”



Doc sets down his tools with exaggerated care on the counter before him. “Do you think I’d let personal feelings impact my professional performance?”



Point taken. Such a petty revenge is certainly beneath him. He wouldn’t let an innocent suffer, no matter how he feels about me. That would go against everything he believes in. His credo is “do no harm.”



That’s where we struck each other wrong, in fact.



“I’m sorry for what happened between us.” That’s not a proper apology, and by his expression, he knows it.



“You don’t understand,” he says quietly. It’s then that I realize it isn’t anger in his eyes. It’s pain.



“Tell me.”



“I always thought there was no wedge that could break me. I thought my conviction absolute. I always thought I would die rather than cause harm. And yet, Jax . . .” He sighs tiredly. “You found the weakness whereupon everything else crumbles. Under the right circumstances, I am willing to bear arms. A hypo in the right hands becomes a weapon, and I was ready to do it. Not pleased, but resigned.”



“I thought it was our best chance to take Jael without him hurting anyone else.”



He inclines his silver head, older in this moment than I’ve ever known him to be. “I know. But if I show willing at any point, if I falter in my convictions, then my prior refusal becomes nothing more than hypocrisy and cowardice.”



Oh. I see the wound now.



“I’m so sorry.”



“What am I now?” he asks, relentless.



“Have you talked to Rose about it?” Maybe she can comfort him.



He makes a sharp, angry gesture in the air, his hand like the blade of a knife. “She has never understood, though she champions me. She loves me, but there’s nothing she can say. Fighting is a way of life on Lachion.”



“I think it says something good about you,” I say then.



“That you do think it’s wrong, but you’re willing to scar your soul anyway for those you love. It says you put people ahead of principles.”



Though it’s never been the way between us, I hug him then. His arms come around me, and he feels sturdy as an old tree against me. We stand that way for perhaps three beats before he shoves me back.



“That helped.”



“Are we okay?”



He nods. “Just don’t cut me out of the loop again. The last time, March wound up in an Ithtorian prison—and now you’ve gone off half-cocked with this poor young Dahlgren.” Doc gives me a half smile. “He’s lucky I’m here to clean up after you.”



“You said it,” I agree with feeling.



CHAPTER 12



The smugglers arrive two days later.



To nobody’s surprise, Hon gets here first. We await him and his crew outside the docking bay. This occasion feels like an odd juxtaposition of the last time we met, but I hope we don’t have the same fallout here on Emry. Though it’s no real reassurance, I can’t think of any one faction that would have the ordnance to blow up an emergency station, now that Farwan has split into various splinter cells.



The Syndicate, March tells me silently.



Thanks. I needed that.



He flashes me a roguish grin as he steps forward to greet Hon with a handclasp. With his hair shorn, the pirate seems more warlike. Since that’s what we’re planning, I figure it’s fitting.



“You bastard,” Hon says to March. “You must have nine lives.”



“You, too. You remember Jax, Dina, and Doc?” At Hon’s nod, March introduces the others: Rose, Hit, and Argus.



“You’re not still traveling with Fugitive scientists?” Doc asks warily.



Hon shakes his head. “Learned my lesson. Farr was too crazy, even for me.”



I want to ask if he knows anything about those breeding experiments, but I suspect he’d just lie, and we’re trying to work for a common cause now. Whether I like it or not, I have to follow March’s lead.



The smuggler starts naming his crew, and I log a number of new faces. His jumper, Jory, is a tall, fair-skinned woman with dark hair and twinkling gray eyes. Ship’s mechanic, Dobson, is a taciturn man, whose face has been weathered by the sun; he wears his iron gray hair in a braid down his back, and his dark eyes look like currants. But it’s the fourth member of their group who holds my attention. He stands quiet at the back, still and watchful, but I think I know him. I do know him.



His hair is shorter now, shorn like Hon’s, and his face shows hard living. Whatever he’s been through, he’s lost that untouched expression as well as his unearthly prettiness. But the deep blue eyes are the same.



“Loras,” I breathe.



I remember how it hurt, letting him sacrifice himself for March and me. All this time, I never dared hope he might’ve made it. Between the raiders and Farwan blowing the space station, I didn’t think he had a chance. Mary, I’ve never been so happy to be wrong.