A Girl's Guide to Guns and Monsters - Martin Harry Greenberg [110]
“To build what?” I asked.
“That is not your concern,” said the nurse in a cold voice.
“How could you even bite it? Do you have diamond teeth?” I asked.
“We were given the means,” said the nurse.
“Care to explain?” I asked.
“No,” said the nurse, but the waiter said, “We produced it from our own selves.”
“Quiet!” the nurse said.
“We have the potential to be so much greater,” said the waiter. “You can be, also.”
“Oh yeah? How?”
“Accept—” the waiter began, and the nurse put her hand over his mouth again. He struggled a little, then straightened and got quiet.
I lifted my finger from the transmit button and said to the doctor, “Do you know anything about her personal life?” I got that the nurse had changed. I wondered how far, and whether I could come up with some question that would tell us.
He cocked his head and looked at the ceiling. “She has a sister on Mars. Any time anything funny or strange happens on board, Amara always echoes her.”
“What’s her sister’s name?”
“Chika, I think.”
I pressed the button again. “Hey, Amara. Did you tell Chika about what happened to you?”
“There is no need,” she said. “She will know soon enough.”
Well, that was pretty darned vague. I stopped transmitting again. “Doctor, how many tests can you run from here?”
“I have full scan capability, and I already have their blood undergoing analysis.”
“I get the feeling taking care of this infestation is more your job than mine,” I said.
He smiled. “I like that. Usually, the most exciting thing I do on the ship is prepare hangover cures and treat aphrodisiac misfires.”
Smik’s comm beeped. “Tell the exterminator we’ve found another damage site,” said the chief engineer’s voice. That was when I noticed Smik had his hand on the guard’s shoulder, and the guard was just standing there, eyes blank and staring straight ahead.
Smik let go of the guard and tapped his comm. “Received. Where is the site?”
“In the day care center,” said the engineer. “How’s the extermination going?”
“It is strange,” said Smik, and signed off. He stared at me with his fake eyes, and I stared back at his neck where I thought his real eyes were.
The doctor was burbling, weird non-word sounds that might be confusion or joy, staring at a readout on one of his machines. “Alien cells!” he cried. “Unregistered alien cells in their blood! Maybe I can name them after myself!”
“I’ll go check the new site, see who else is infected,” I said. “Smik?”
Smik’s fake head stared at the ground, and then he gave a whole body shrug and led the way out of sickbay.
“I gotta stop at the cabin and check on my kid,” I said as Smik headed toward the crew lifts.
“All right,” he said. We detoured back to my place.
I opened the door and saw Fern sleeping peacefully on the floor of the care cage. As soon as we came in, though, she sat up, saw Smik, and screamed, even though he was still disguised.
“Mr. Smik, if you would be so kind,” I said, and waved at the door. He didn’t take the hint this time.
“Purrrrfect,” he bubbled in a low voice, darted forward, and reached through the bars of the cage. Fern shrank back from his seeking hand, but one of the fingers shot out and wrapped around her wrist, then dragged her closer. She screamed and sobbed and tried to shove away, with her heels dug into the cage’s floor.
I tapped my index finger rocket and shot a rubber bullet at his finger-tentacle. The bullet bounced off and winged me in the chest plate of my suit, leaving a dent. What was this guy made of? I activated a wrist blade and slashed at his hand. Even though I keep these blades supersharp and they’re made of titanium alloy, it couldn’t hack through him; didn’t even scratch the skin.
“What are you?” I yelled, kicked the suit’s augmentation hydraulics into play, and launched myself at him. I succeeded in knocking off his fake head and bouncing off his body to whack into the cabin wall, which didn’t hurt me, but put a dent in the ship. Meanwhile, he slapped something on the back of Fern’s neck, and she screamed even louder.
“Stop