Page 71 of Invasive Species
“Um, so, I have to bring it up… have you had sex?”
“Carnal relations,” Ilia translates.
“We have completed intercourse, yes.”
“Then could she be… pregnant?”
“The particular anatomy we used does not contain material for reproduction. It's not possible.”
“Ah, okay,” El-len says, tugging at her rope of hair and staring at her slack friend.
First, I have to continue eliminating the most likely. I turn to the AI, my voice hard. “Download all available medical data from this planet.”
There’s a heartbeat of silence before the AI chimes, “Download complete.”
“Do the symptoms match anything in the planet’s database?” Hopefully it's something from Earth. Something they're used to. Something commonplace and easy to treat. Please, All-Mother.
Time drags in the silence that follows. Please. I'll give anything.
“No.” The AI responds cheerfully.Cheerfully.
The dread that’s been crawling up my spine finally settles in. Not a disease from this planet. It has to be something from Oloria. My scales flash a violent green as my mind leaps to the next diagnosis potential. If it's not from here, then it’s something we brought with us.
There was a sickness, unexplained, in a female's compound. One lost to it before we could find a cure, and we were banished for the failure.
But what if we never escaped it? What if it followed us across the stars?
What if we brought death to this world?
“Isolate the pathogen,” I order the ship.
The AI medic chirps at me. “Unable to isolate pathogen.”
“What?” I snarl at it. “Try again.”
I pace as it scans her, this time with infrared, which glows darkly in my vision in time with my pounding heartbeats.
“Unable to isolate pathogen,” the robotic voice says happily once more.
“Why not?” I growl.
“Pathogen has already bound to key receptors.”
“Then take a sample!”
“Pathogen has already?—”
I slam my fist into the wall, the expensive burnished metal not even ringing out in a gong. This ship is too well built to clatter like the inter-planet probe we crash landed in.
A fit of rage won’t help Arra-bellah. Only cold logic.
“I need to get a sample,” I say, my voice low. I’m a Selthiastock, we perform best under pressure, but Arra-bellah is also becoming my mate and panic for her clouds my inherent instinct to keep calm.
Fortunately, it’s not clouding my ability to reason. “I need the tools back on Oloria, the full diagnostic sampling capability we have there.”
“Wait, what?” El-len sits up from the couch, hands to her mouth. “We might have what you need here, on Earth.”
“Can you get to an NMRE machine?”
