Stepping Stones (18 page)

Also aware that others were
watching
, Jake
lowered his voice.  “Everyone on this planet is
pulling together to survive—everyone but you.  So far you’ve done
nothing
to help. 
Some
people think you don’t deserve to be here.”

“Is that a threat?”

“Call it what you will.  I d
on’t care what happens to you.  T
hat wasn’t part of our agreement.  But the child was.”

Pulling free
of Jake’s grasp
, Lara again turned to go.

“Jesus, how can you be
so
selfish?” Jake demanded
.  “Even for a cyborg, you’re—”

“Cyborg?” sputtered a
burly, red-faced man sitting
nearby.  “So it’s true!”

“This is between her and me, pal,” Jake warned.  “Stay out of it.”

The man stood, levering his rawboned frame from the bench.  “I reckon if she’s a cyborg, it concerns
everybody
.”

“See?  I told you,” another man chimed in.  “She’s the one they were
looking for
, the one that escaped from
the
pleasure
house.”

The red
-faced man moved to block Lara’s way
, his eyes narrowing as he peered
at
her face.

“Stay out of this,” Jake repeated, stepping between the man and Lara.

The man poked a thick finger into Jake’s chest.  “It’s her, all right.  And you’re the one who brought her, ain’t you?”
he added, grabbing a handful of Jake’s shirt.

Twisting
the
larger
man’s wrist, Jake
forced
him to his knees.  The other colonist
who had
spoken rushed in from behind, circling Jake’s neck with his forearm.  Snapping forward at the waist, Jake sent the second man
tumbling
over his back, dumping him onto his red-faced
friend
and sending
both men crashing to the floor
.

With a
snarl
, the red-faced man
came up swinging, plowing
into Jake.  The other man
scrambled to his feet and
circled left, once more trying to get behind.  Jake retreated and threw a jab.  The first man ducked and kept coming, walking into a punishing right that again sent him to the floor.  He lay groaning, blood spurting from his nose.  Seeing his
friend
down
once again
, the second man backed away.  As quickly as it had begun, the fight was over.

Caught
off guard by the sudden violence, Lara glanced around the room, noticing
that
many hard eyes
were
now upon her.  Realizing
she had once more drawn attention to herself
, she
headed for
the door, determined to minimize the damage.

“Grab the cyborg!” someone hollered.

“Do, and you’ll regret it,” Jake
warned
.

Silence.

“Ah, let he
r go,” the red-faced man muttered
, rising to his feet.  He wiped his bloodied nose with the back of his hand.  “We’ll decide what to do with her when everyone’s present,” he added, glowering at Jake.  “Till then, where’s she gonna go?”

O
utside, Lara pulled her coat around her
as she
struck off into the darkness.  Passing through the settlement’s outer perimeter, she lowered her head against the wind and
trudged
across the frozen snowfield.  For over an hour she walked steadily, working her way ever higher into the surrounding mountains.  At last she stopped to rest on a granite outcrop overlooking the valley.  Far below she could see the lights of the settlement.  Above, a thousand stars glittered in the night
sky
.

Sitting in the lee of the rock, Lara drew her legs tightly to her chest.  By then the temperature had fallen below zero, and her body was shivering uncontrollably.  Ignoring her trembling, she tried to think.

Why hasn’t Command sent help?

She had
already been among the h
umans far longer than expected.  And
the longer she stayed, the more trouble they became.  She could eliminate them, but could the shell in which
she had
cloaked herself survive without them?  And
if
her present form
were to
perish and her true essence be exposed—even for the instant it took to enter a new host—she risked revealing herself to the Dark Ones.

What now?

Coming up with no answers, Lara finally decided to return to the colony and deal with the humans as the need arose.  Shaking worse than ever from the cold, she be
gan descending the rocky slope.  B
efore
she had
gone a dozen steps
,
she slipped on a patch of ice.  Her feet flew out from under her.  Arms flailing, she slid several meters on her back.  Then suddenly she was falling!  Accelerating through the darkne
ss, she dropped, faster, faster . . .

S
econds later she crashed to the rocks bel
ow.  She heard a sickening thud and
felt a white
-hot stab of agony.  Then,
nothing.

She tried to move.  She couldn’t.  Nor could she see.  Blind to the world around her, Lara lay trapped in her body. 
Is it dead?
she wondered.  No, that couldn’t be
it.  S
he was still cloaked, still encased within it.

What, then?

Sending her senses inward, Lara examined her injuries.  The damage
to her body
was extensive:  bleeding into the abdomen,
broken
ribs, a shattered leg.  Worse, blood was pooling in her cranial cavity, exerting pressure on the
neural tissue contained within,
and the photonic circuits
there
as well.  All these injuries she could repair, save one.  Without help, she couldn’t reposition the jagged
portions
of
bone that were
protruding
through her thigh.  And even if she could, she would
still be unable to walk.

Lara lay
encased
in the cyborg’s twisted flesh, wondering how long it would survive.  With a plunge of despair, she realized
her new body wouldn’t last the night.

Nor would she.

*       *       *

Hours passed.  Stars wheeled in the sky above as Lara made what repairs she could.  Although she soon stopped her body’s bleeding,
she had
barely
returned the cyborg to consciousness when she sensed the presence of another human.

She reached out with her mind.  It
was Jake.  Then he was beside her, his hands tending to her injured thigh.  “What are you doing?” she asked, able at last to open her eyes.

“Splinting your leg,” Jake answered curtly.

“How did you find me?”

“I followed your tracks in the snow.  Why are you out here?”

“I needed to think.”

“Well, you picked one hell of a place to do it,” Jake
observed quietly
.

U
sing his belt and several
lengths of plastic from his backpack
, Jake
stabilized the bones of Lara’s leg.  That done, he
lifted
her
and started down the slope.  They made good time for the first few minutes.  Once
they had
cleared the protection of the granite face, however, the f
ull force of the wind hit them, and a
s Jake fought through the drifts
,
Lara
suddenly
realized the risk the human
called Jake
ha
d taken to save her.  Puzzled, she asked,
“Why
did you come for me?”

Jake remained silent for a long moment.  Finally he answered. 
“Let’s just say it
’s something you wouldn’t understand
,”
he
replied
, refusing to say more.

Just before dawn Jake staggered into the settlement
, Lara in his arms.  Exhausted
, he
carried her
to the infirmary, finding it deserted.  Baffled by the absence of medical staff, he placed
Lara
on a gurney an
d went in search of assistance.  E
ventually
he spotted
Dr. Madison, one of the colony’s younger physicians,
exiting
the quarantine dome.  The medic’s eyes
were bleary, his face drawn.  Evidently noting something urgent in
Jake’s
manner
, Dr. Madison straightened.  “What now?” he sighed
when Jake arrived
.

“There’s been an accident.  My . . . wife is
hurt,” Jake a
nswered.  “She needs help
.”

Reluctantly, Dr. Madison followed Jack back to the infirmary.  Upon arrival, the physician withdrew a penlight and shined it into each of Lara’s eyes.  Then, as Jake watched, he checked
the injuries to Lara’s chest
and leg, started an IV, covered her with a blanket, and wheeled over a portable N-scope.  He fell silent as he examined her internal organs,
seeming to become
progressively mystified as he worked.  Finally he flipped off the machine.

“I don’t understand,” he said, eyeing Lara curiously.  “Except for the broken leg, all her
injuries
seem
to have been healing for at least a week.  Was there an earlier injury?”

When neither Lara nor Jake responded, Dr. Madison continued.  “I also found a power pack where her spleen is supposed to be,
and
photonic circuitry
grafted in
her cranium.”  He turned to Jake.  “This
creature
is a cyborg, but for the life of me I don’t
understand
how she’s functioning without a control collar.  And I know it’s impossible,
but
she’s
four
months pregnant.  What’s going on?”

Lara threw off her blanket and sat up.  “My injuries
were
the result of a fall.  None of the rest concern
s you.  R
eposition the bones of my leg.  I will do the rest.”  Glancing at Jake, she added, “Please.”

Dr. Madison stared.  “You’ll do the rest?”

“That is c
orrect.”

When Lara didn’t explain further, the doctor shrugged.  “
Fine
,” he
grumbled
.  “I’ll set your leg.  As it is, that’s all I
can
do right now.  I have to get back to the quarantine dome.”

“Are there any new developments with the fever cases?” asked Jake,
welcoming a
change
of
subject.

“You don’t know?”
replied
the physician.  “I thought everyone had heard.  Where were you last night?”

“I was busy,” Jake answered
.  “Tell me.”

The physician looked away.  “Three patients died just after midnight.  We’ve lost four
additional colonists
since then.”

“And?” Jake prodded, sensing there was more.

“This morning, twenty new fever cases
turned up.”

By the end of the week
the
number
of sick
had swelled to
over
a hundred, with more streaming in daily.  Eight days later the casualties reached
sixty
.

During her recuperation
from her fall,
Lara thought long and hard about the crisis threatening the settlement.  Deciding
that
her survival was linked, at least for the moment, with that of the humans, she came to a decision.  When she could walk
,
she sought out Dr. Moses, the colony’s medical director.  At that point, to accommodate the growing patient load and isolate the sick from other colonists, all fever victims
were being
quarantined in one of the largest
domes.  Lara found Dr. Moses in a cubicle near the entrance
, working in a small space
that had been set up as a lab.  He was hunche
d over a workbench, methodically examining a tray of
microscopic slides.