Nexus by Robert Boyczuk (best large ebook reader txt) 📕

“He’s convinced Nexus is responsible.”

It wasn’t until they were back on the Ea that Sav could bring himself to broach the subject with the Facilitator. Hebuiza continued working, a loop of cables snaking from the socket in his temple to the equipment he’d assembled on the table in the galley of the Ea, his long fingers moving quickly and efficiently to connect the oddly-shaped devices. Most had been strapped or velcroed to the table; others may have had magnetic bases, for they seemed fixed to their positions without any visible restraints. Red and green indicators flashed alternately on a small octagon, while the other objects-three fist-sized cylinders and a small box with a lenticular surface-remained dark.

Sav held onto a grab bar inside the door. “He has some crazy idea about taking revenge on Nexus.” The Facilitator’s fingers paused, but when he said nothing, Sav added, “He’s insane. Or at the very least unstable.”

“I see,” Hebuiza said and returned to his work. He seemed no more interested than when Sav had told him about the returning longhaulers.

“That’s it? You’re not worried?”

“I have my own concerns.”

“Liis agrees with him.”

“So?” The topmost face of the cylinder closest to Hebuiza now glowed amber; small characters scrolled across its top. Above the octagon, the air roiled as if a miniature storm were brewing.

“If we give him free rein, God knows what he’ll do.”

The Facilitator sighed loudly. When he spoke, he articulated each word carefully, like he was speaking to a child. “Josua is ill. It will be weeks before he’s ready to assume command. There is no need to panic.”

“Damn it! You don’t understand, do you? What happens when the other ship returns and we finally have enough fuel? By then Josua will have recovered. We can’t let him jeopardize our chances of getting out of here. We need to decide on a course of action right now. To make preparations.” He paused. “The two of us.”

“You have altered the keys to the ship.”

It was a statement, not a question. But the Ea‘s security monitor had not informed Sav of any attempted breaches; had the Facilitator managed to discover this without tripping any of the alarms? Or was it just a guess? Uncertain if he was giving anything away, Sav nodded reluctantly.

“Then we have nothing to worry about, do we? Only you can issue control commands.”

“What about Josua and Liis? How are we going to handle them when Josua becomes insistent I turn over command? He might not know the Ea that well, but Liis does. Better than me, I’d wager. She could manually override almost everything in a few days.”

“No,” Hebuiza said. “Not unless I allow it.”

Sav pulled himself further into the room, grabbed onto the back of a chair; the Facilitator followed his movements through narrowed, distrustful eyes, looking as if he were ready to launch himself at Sav should he attempt to touch anything on the table.

“If you’ve been fucking around with-”

The Facilitator cut him off. “What I have done is inconsequential. I agreed that you were in command-and you still are. Is that not enough?”

Anger constricted Sav’s throat. “Don’t let him ruin the only chance we have.”

“He will not,” Hebuiza said confidently. All three cylinders were alight now; indicators glowed steadily. On two of them a cryptic alphabet scrolled across all the visible faces. Above the hexagon a three-dimensional, cutaway figure of an incomprehensible machine sprang to life, then faded. A cityscape snapped into existence and was superseded by a series of three-dimensional diagrams of star-fields. A lecture in a harsh, guttural language filled the room.

“He’s mad, Hebuiza,” Sav raised his voice over the alien speech. “He’ll kill us all!”

“Or save us.” The display now contained a spiral galaxy; it froze in mid rotation, the voice fell silent. “A madman,” Hebuiza said thoughtfully, his deep voice loud in the silence, “may be just what we need.”

Sav bit his lower lip, staring at his gaunt, implacable face. Then he said, “You think you’ll be able to control him. To make him do what you want him to.”

“We need him,” the Facilitator replied flatly. “We need Liis.” The spiral galaxy above the hexagon winked out, was replaced by the double helix of a strand of DNA. The guttural voice resumed its lecture, droning on as section after section was added to the strand until it stretched to the ceiling. “When he has fully recovered he will listen to reason. If things are explained properly.”

“You haven’t seen him yet. You don’t know the state he’s in….”

Hebuiza glared at Sav, clearly irritated by his proximity to the equipment; his head began to move back and forth. The flaccid antennae and cables on his scalp wove back and forth like seaweed. “What I am doing here is far more important than any of your imagined fears.” Sav noticed his hands trembled slightly; a prominent vein throbbed in the Facilitator’s forehead. “We need to find the vectors for the disease. We need to find its reservoirs. That is the only thing that matters right now.”

The disease still has him terrified, Sav thought. He doesn’t want to go near Josua or Liis.

“Now if you don’t mind,” Hebuiza said, returning his attention to the octagon, “I have work to do.”

Day 8 to 17

Josua’s recovery accelerated. He still appeared thin and pallid, but his features filled out, taking the edge off the angles that had previously made his face appear so sharp. Earlier, Josua had insisted Liis stop shaving him and now his jaw was covered with the dark outline of an incipient beard. Though he looked haggard, and his thin arms shook with the least effort, he was clearly on the mend.

For the next few days, Sav made a point of looking in on Josua after arriving at the stasis facility. Liis would accompany him into the sick room, and stand near the door while the two men stumbled through an awkward conversation. During these brief visits, Josua would say little, mostly listening to whatever Sav had to say, responding with a minimum of words. When Josua did speak, Sav watched him closely, gauging his reactions, but Josua showed no signs of the irrationality he displayed before. He seemed perfectly normal-or as normal as could be expected for someone recovering from a serious bout of influenza. Josua never mentioned his plan for vengeance on Nexus again. Instead, he dwelt on the smaller details of their situation, the logistics of survival. When he finished a sentence, he would often glance at Liis, who would nod encouragingly to underscore whatever he’d been saying. To Sav, it seemed like the three of them were trapped in a badly acted play, in which Josua’s role was that of a madman bent on masking his insanity. After the first week, Sav began to find excuses to avoid these uncomfortable visits.

The Facilitator’s lab continued to grow; crates of equipment piled up in a second room. Occasionally, Hebuiza would ask Sav to keep his eyes open for a particular piece of equipment. Several of the Facilitator’s requests baffled Sav: airtight ducting; bleach; a portable kiln; caulking compound; co-ax cable; rolls of plastic sheeting; half a dozen video monitors and cameras. Nevertheless, whenever he came across these items on his scavenging trips through the city, Sav dutifully hauled them back in the dropship, wrestling them into the Facility and dumping them in the hallway by the door to Hebuiza’s lab. At first he had placed everything inside the rooms, but one day Sav returned to find the doors to these rooms no longer swung open when he touched them, but stayed shut until the Facilitator entered a security code on the keypad next to the lock. As much as this annoyed Sav, he chose to ignore it: he didn’t want to waste his energy on another pointless confrontation. Instead, he concerned himself with continuing to stockpile supplies he knew would be of use, storing these also on the upper floor of the facility, leaving it to Liis to haul whatever she needed down the dropshaft to the fourteenth sublevel where Josua lay.

Day 18

On the indicator above the elevator doors, a larger red fourteen glowed. Surprised, Sav stood in the corridor, a small carton he’d removed from the dropship cradled in his arms, staring at the number. Liis had somehow managed to get the elevator working. To the right of the door were two buttons in the shape of a large arrows, up and down. Lowering his box to the floor, Sav reached out, intending to push the down button, but at that moment the display above the door changed from fourteen to thirteen. Sav stepped back. Thirteen became twelve then eleven. The numbers tracked the ascent of the car.

When the display read zero, the doors slid open and Liis stepped out. In her right hand she held a small computer tablet. She smiled broadly. Behind her, supporting his weight on a cane, Josua hobbled out of the elevator. The thick stubble Sav had last seen on his face had been transformed into a short, dense beard that crept high on his cheekbones. His complexion was still peaked and he swayed slightly as he moved. But when Liis extended her arm to offer support, he waved her away.

“I’ll be fine,” he said, the rasp in his voice gone, his eyes clear. He took two more shuffling steps towards Sav, his clothes hanging loosely upon his frame. “How’ve you been keeping?” he asked. He smiled. Other than the physical ravages left by his illness, Josua seemed perfectly normal.

He tapped the leg of Sav’s suit with the end of his cane. “Still hiding inside this?”

“Yeah,” Sav replied, Josua’s question suddenly heightening his discomfort. The weight of the helmet sat mostly on his collarbone, leaving raw, red half moons impressions on his shoulders. He had tried placing towels and bandages to ease the weight, but nothing seemed to help. In a gesture that had become habitual, he shrugged his shoulders until the weight settled into a marginally less irritating position.

“You’d be much more comfortable out of that suit.”

Sav said nothing.

“The incubation period was only a few days. Wouldn’t Liis and I have been infected by now if there was any sort of risk?”

“Maybe,” Sav answered slowly. “But then again, maybe not. For all we know there could still be reservoirs harboring the disease we might not have encountered yet. And we still don’t know anything about the vectors of the plague, or why it appeared to manifest itself spontaneously. It could happen again.”

“It’s possible.” Josua admitted, unconcerned. “Did you know Hebuiza came down to see me yesterday?”

“Hebuiza?” Sav said stupidly.

Josua nodded. “It must have been hard for him. He’s still terrified of the plague. It’s all he thinks about. The whole time he looked like he could barely keep himself from bolting.” Until now Josua had been hunched slightly; he straightened up with a grunt, until he looked directly into Sav’s visor. “He came down to make a proposal.” Behind Josua, Sav noticed Liis shift her weight from one foot to the other. Crossing her arms over her chest, she regarded Sav warily over the top of Josua’s head.

“What kind of proposal?”

“He wants to revive a few of the interees from stasis.” Behind him, Liis pressed her lips together tightly. “He says he needs assistance with his research into the plague. Qualified personnel. And I agree. But not for the sake of his research. We’ll need all the help we can get, whether we decide to stay here or try for