Page 17 of I Married Amreth

As we approached the lab, I recognized it as being the official property of the Interstellar Doctors Organization. Did they steal it?

“How did you get your hands on this lab?” I found myself blurting out.

“We got creative,” Aku replied in a noncommittal fashion.

“How creative?” I insisted.

A single glance from him sufficed to make it clear I was to drop the topic. Although it didn’t really matter under the circumstances, I hated working in the dark and having so many unanswered questions. It also worried me to the extent that having top notch and reliable equipment was essential in my line of work. Faulty gear meant results that couldn’t be trusted. Which in turn translated as cures that could in fact be even more harmful than the disease we were trying to combat to begin with.

But all such wandering thoughts flew right out of my head when the door parted to reveal the presence of two familiar faces.

“Mehreen! Ernst!” I exclaimed, my face lighting up as both scientists rose from the workstations they had each been sitting at.

“There she is!” Mehreen said.

While we were on friendly terms, I wouldn’t call either of them close friends. And yet I immediately rushed to her andgave her a big hug, which she happily returned. At forty-eight, the petite woman of Lebanese descent barely looked a day over thirty. She had perfect, luminous skin, long, dark-brown hair, pale-brown eyes, and obscenely long natural lashes that had me drooling with envy. She had earned the respect of the scientific community with her impressive work in immunology.

After releasing Mehreen, I turned to Ernst Wagner. Tall and lanky, he towered over me by a good head. The warmth of his embrace slightly took me aback. I knew him even less than Mehreen. From my limited interactions with him, while I wouldn’t call him cold and distant, he’d never seemed the demonstrative type. As if realizing it, he dropped his arm, and straightened before running his fingers through his short, light-brown hair. The glimmer of embarrassment in his blue eyes would be adorable if not so odd from the usually very stoic fifty-four-year-old man.

As a cell and molecular biologist, he specialized in researching the physiological health ramifications of plant chemical interactions on living tissues in animal species with a specialization in xenobiology.

“I’m pleased to see that you already know each other,” Aku said, reclaiming our attention. “It will make things easier for everyone. Please,” he added, gesturing at the meeting table in the center of the front room.

The space had four workstations on the left and right side. A large door at the back gave access to the actual lab split into three sections. One was only accessible after going through a decontamination space. Another section had two isolation suites for patients, and the last offered a variety of cages and cells where we could keep animals.

We took our seats around the table, Mehreen and I on the left, Ernst across from us, and Aku settling at the head.

“The three of you were chosen because you have the skills and right moral compass to fix the tragedy that Elias caused,” he said in a calm voice before turning to me. “As Mehreen and Ernst will be able to tell you, these devices contain all the information that you require.”

He was pointing at the computers on each workstation. Without connectivity, we would still be limited in some of the tasks we could perform and information we could access. However, these labs had been specifically designed to operate in remote areas, often for primitive species that also didn’t own this type of technology. Therefore, the local drives possessed an extensive database with almost anything we could need for cross-reference and analysis.

“If you have any questions, my people and I will be happy to answer them. You can examine Yekka, the latest member of our tribe to present symptoms,” he continued. “We have settled her in the first house right next to the lab.”

“We found a file about her in the system,” Ernst said with a slight frown. “Did you enter that data there?”

Aku shook his head. “Our friends did.”

“Are your friends the ones who taught you Universal as well?” I asked.

He gave me a strange look before nodding. “Yes, they did. But enough about them,” he added when I opened my mouth to further pry about them. “They are not the reason for your presence here.”

“You said you would answer our questions,” Ernst challenged.

“I said I would answer questions regarding the illness plaguing us, nothing else,” he retorted, his tone hardening.

Mehreen gave Ernst a look that implied that he should drop it. I also wanted to press the issue, but I realized that they had been in this lab for a while now. God only knew what hadtranspired in the meantime. Making waves until I had a better understanding of what was going on didn’t seem wise.

She turned to Aku. “Based on the issues your people are facing, if we had more help—”

“No one else comes,” he interrupted sharply. “The three of you is already too much, not to mention her mate. Off-worlders are a scourge to this world. We only brought you here because we had no other choice. Rest assured that we want you gone as much as you want to leave.”

“Her mate?” Ernst repeated, confused.

Aku waved a dismissive hand, clearly uninterested in deepening the matter. A part of me wished he would have answered while another really didn’t want to discuss the improbable state of my personal life with the others.

“You are free to move around this courtyard,” he continued. “We initially built it to keep the sick isolated from the rest of the tribe. Do not try to escape. We do not wish you harm, but we expect you to do everything in your power to fix what your people wrought. If you need to exit the courtyard, ask one of the guards. Note that the forest beyond is not safe. Should you venture there unaccompanied, you will not survive. Understand that this is not a game or empty threats. Any questions?”

I had a million of them. Judging by my companions’ expressions, they also had plenty they wanted to drill him about. However, a silent communication passed between us as we exchanged glances. We needed to discuss a few things among ourselves before giving him a full inquisition.

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