Stepping Stones (19 page)

Dr. Moses
looked up as
Lara
entered.  The medic
al director appeared haggard
, as did the rest of the staff.  Round-the
-clock work had taken its toll.  Worse,
despite every precaution, nearly a third of the med
ical
team had also contracted the fever.  “What do you want?”
the doctor
asked brusquely.

“I want to help,” said Lara.

“You’re the cyborg Dr. Madison treated, aren’t you?”

Lara nodded.

Dr. Moses eyed her castless leg.  “I thought you had a broken femur.”

“The bone is healed.”

“I can see that.”  Baffled, the physician stared at Lara.  Then, shaking his head, “I suppose it doesn’t matter now.  You want to help?  Fine.  Most people won’
t come near the isolation dome, and w
e need all the nursing
help
we can get.  But cyborg or not, you realize that if you go in there,
you could become infected, too.
”

“I could become infected anyway.  Is that not correct?”

Dr. Moses nodded
glumly
.  “
I suppose so. 
When can you start?”

“Now.  But I can do more than nurse
the sick
.  I know what’s causing the disease.”

Dr. Moses regarded Lara
doubtfully
.  “Is that right?”

“The pathogen is a rod-shaped particle that’s transmitted within another single-celled organism, one
that
you consider harmless.”

“How do you know
this
?”

“I can see it.”

“You can
see
it?”

“Yes.  Once inside a host, the particle binds with critical proteins and disrupts their function.  Search for the pathogen
within
the mitochondria of infected cells.”

Although skeptical
, Dr. Moses was also at his wit
s
’
end.  Deciding
that
grasping at straws was better than doing nothing at all, he directed his lab team to investigate Lara’s assertion.  To h
is amazement she proved correct, and w
ithin twenty-four hours
they had
isolated the offending organism.  Racing against time, they began working on a treatment.

The epidemic lasted seven weeks.  A vaccine was eventually developed, but not until the disease had nearly run its course.  At winter’s end, of the four hundred and ninety-one colonists
who had
landed on Regula, only
seventy
-six remained.

*       *       *

The survivors elected to burn their dead.

Lara stood in the darkness, apart from the humans.  Across the frozen snowfield she could see Jake and Megan and
the
others gathered around
a
funeral
pyre
they had built
.  Constructed of wood cut from the surrounding forest, it had taken three days to
assemble
.  Giant logs had been set as corner posts, with interlocking timber
placed
in between.  Measuring seven meters square and eighteen meters high, it stood nearly as tall
as the main dome of the colony.  S
teps of
horizontal logs created
internal platforms throughout the structure.  It was upon these
platforms
that the colonists laid their dead.

In its latter stages the fever had invariably grown incapacitating, with patient
s requiring constant attention, and d
uring the epidemic’s final weeks Lara had spent
countless
hour
s
on the ward.  Originally her concern had been for her own safety,
realizing that she needed the other colonists to survive herself.  But
as
she
watched the humans die, something
had
changed.  Although
she hadn’t understood it, she had
felt it more strongly every day. 
She
wanted them to live.

She had
been there the day they’d brought in Cameron, and the following day when Megan had carried in
their son as well.  Later, s
tanding beside Cameron’s bed,
she had heard him speaking to Jake in a rare moment of consciousness.  He asked
for Jake’s promise to watch over Megan and Adam after he was gone.

“You’re not going anywhere,” Jake had told him fiercely.  “You’re going to be fine.”

“Jake . . .”

“Cam, stop talking like this.  You’re gonna be fine.”

“Please, Jake.  Promise.”

A
nd a
t last Jake placed his hand on Cameron’s arm
and agreed
.

Then
Cameron
had
tried to sit, almost knocking over an IV stand beside his bed.  “Is Megan here?”
he’d asked.

“She’s with Adam,” Lara
had
answered
, moving closer
.  “Shall I get her?”

Cameron nodded weakly, then sank back down.

Lara
had
found Megan on the far side of the ward
,
in an area reserved for children.  She was kneeling beside a cot
,
holding the hand of her feverish son.  “Cameron is conscious,” Lara told her.  “Go
be with him
.  I’ll stay with Adam.”

Megan hesitated, then gave Adam’s hand a squeeze and hurried off.  Once
she had
left, Lara gazed down at the
child
on the cot.  He was sleeping fitfully, his clothes soaked with sweat.  Placing her hand on his burning forehead, she brushed aside his matted hair.  Then, on impulse, she slipped into the child’s mind, wanting to comfort him, to so
othe his fear.

He was beyond reach.  She fo
und only pain and confusion
.  Suddenly a series of convulsions wracked his body, each more violent than the last.  Lara tried to maintain her link with him, but could not.  Helplessly, she watc
hed as he arched and shuddered and finally
lay still.

Now he rested beside his father in the pyre.  Cameron, and Adam, and
hundreds
more like them.

Lara remained in t
he darkness as the fire was set.  She watched as
flames licked up the mountain of timber, illuminating the faces of the encircling humans.  They stood
together holding hands
, somber and dry-eyed,
slowly
drawing
back as the flames raged higher
. 
How fragile these beings are
, she thought once again.  But as she regarded them in the flickering light, she
also
realized that there was more to them than
she had
first suspected.

Slowly, she walked forward and joined the circle.  Taking Jake’s hand, she stood with the humans, watching as the fire blazed into the night.  And deep within
her
, she felt the
precious
spark of life
she had
started begin to move.

Spring came at last. 
The
snows
slowly
withdrew up the mountain slopes, and the valley bloomed with life.  Under a crystalline blue sky, Jake and Lara sat on the granite crag where Lara had nearly lost her life the previo
us winter.  Together
they gazed out over the land.  The valley below was now thick with waist-high grasses that rolled and
swept
in the wind, moving like an
ocean of green
in the morning sun.  Flowers do
tted the hillsides to the south;
to the east
a
river shimmered through a wall of
trees
guarding its flanks.

Fed by rushing cascades, the river had swollen during spring thaw, flooding the lowlands near the colony before finally receding.  From their rocky perch, Lara and Jake watched it flow, tracing
the
course
of the valley
as it collected in lazy pools here and there, rushing in the narrows and fan
ning out in wider sections on its meander
to the sea.  On
its
western bank several fields were
now
under cultivation, and young animals—pigs, sheep, cows, and horses from the colony’s library of frozen livestock embryos—frisked in bordering grasslands and pens.

Most of the other colonists were absent, having departed to begin a ground survey of the planet.  Mechanized farming required the efforts o
f only a few, and Jake and Lara
and a handful of others
had elected to stay.  Turning from the
view
below, Lara glanced at the human beside her.  Resisting a desire to touch him, she placed a hand on her swollen abdomen, thinking back to the night after the funeral.  Not wanting to be alone,
she had
followed Jake
back
to his quarters.  He’d seemed uneasy, and
she had
asked if he objected to her presence.

“I’m not sure how I feel
right now
,” he’d responded.  “We haven’t been alone together since . . .”

“Since back on Earth?  Since the night I took this body?”

Jake nodded.

“I
regret
what happened
then. 
I mistakenly though
t you were attacking me.  Later
I realized you were simply indulging in the mating process.  Speaking of w
hich, there is
something
about that
I still don’t understand.  When I
first took
this body, it had been altered and was incapable of reproduction.  The data in my memory banks explained
what
you were doing, but not
why
.”

“Reproduction isn’t the only purpose of the mating process, as you put it.”

“Oh?  What else is there?”

“Well, for one thing, sex can be used to show love and affection.”

“Why would you want to show love and affection for someone you’ve never met
, especially a cyborg
?  And why was the transfer of money necessary?”

“Let’s just say it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“Please, Jake.  I’m trying to understand.”

“Okay,” Jake sighed.  He thought a moment.  “Remember
eating
breakfast
this morning
?”

“Mmmm,
yes.  Scrambled protein, r
ehydrated potatoes, pancakes, and coffee.  It was delicious.”

“Right.  Your body needs food,
so
it’s happy when it gets fed.  Sex is similar.  You can be hungry for that, too.  If you reexamine your memory, you’ll find that sex doesn’t necessarily have to be unpleasant.”

“It can be pleasurable, too?  Like food?” 
Curious,
Lara referred to the cyborg’s basic operating program.  To her amazement, she discovered there
was
something
she had
overlooked.

“Jake, will you do something for me?” she asked.

“What?”

“May we try it one more time?  Please?”

Hours later Lara stretched lazily, rolling away from Jake’s comforting warmth.  Sitting up in bed,
she
watched him as he slept, then
shook
him gently.  “Jake?”

“Huh?”

“Are you conscious?”

“I am now.”

“Good.  I’m hungry. 
May
we eat?”

“I think
I
can handle that,” Jake had answered with a grin.

“And Jake?  Afterward . . . let’s do it again.”

Now, as Jake and Lara sat on the outcrop
above
the settlement, white puffs of clouds
began
forming over the land, casting a moving patchwork of light and shadow across the hills below. 
Warmed by the sun
, Lara gazed
over
the valley, noticing a foxlike animal moving stealthily through the fields.  She studied it for several minutes, then nudged Jake.  “There’s something down there,” she said, pointing.