Hammer and Crucible by Cameron Cooper (easy books to read txt) 📗

peer at my face. He was serene, still, although the humor had gone. “There you are.”

“Wanna sit.”

He considered. “If you can get yourself into a sitting position, go ahead.”

I scowled. He and I both knew that wasn’t possible right now. I tried, anyway. Best I could do was turn onto my back.

Andrain relented and lifted the head of the bed, so we were more or less at eye level with each other. Then he did something he’d never done before. He lowered the bar and sat on the edge of the bed.

Shit…

I braced myself.

He nodded. I’d given myself away. “Yes, it’s bad.” He paused. “Yet it’s what you’ve been expecting all along, in a way.”

“Facts, doc,” I croaked.

“You’re dying, Danny.”

I rolled my eyes. “New facts.”

He shook his head. “With proper management of your aging, you might have lived for another thirty or fifty years. But…not now.”

That was news. I stared at him. “How long?”

“The scan I did this morning bothered me, so I spent some time digging into the data. I’ve got forty years of research data, after all.” His smile was barely there. “These seizures, Danny…they’re killing you.”

Something is coming…

I shivered violently. “That explains the bad dreams,” I whispered.

He nodded. “Actually, you’re more right than you know. It’s not unusual for terminal patients to recognize when death is close by. Bad dreams, dark thoughts…it’s a preparation of a kind. There’s a great deal of documentation on it.”

I repeated, with false patience, “How long?”

He hesitated. “Possibly weeks. It’s determined by the seizures themselves. If you don’t have another seizure, no further disintegration will take place.”

“But the next one could kill me.”

He shook his head. “It’s very likely the next one will kill you.”

I let that sink in. “And you still have no idea what is causing them?”

“My best guess is your implants are malfunctioning,” he said. “As you refuse to let me examine them, or have them upgraded—”

“The only way for a civilian like me to upgrade is to go through rejuvenation,” I said sharply. And the implants would not be military grade, either.

“Yes.” His tone was flat.

We both knew my opinion about that option.

“As it isn’t your brain generating the seizures, but an outside agency, the standard epilepsy inoculation won’t work.” Andrain got to his feet. “The seizures are several weeks apart, yet the rate is increasing. Slowly, though. So…”

“I have from several to a few weeks,” I finished. “Thanks, doc.”

He smoothed out a wrinkle on the blanket by my foot. Nodded. Turned and left.

I sat for a long while, letting thoughts chase each other around, not straining for coherence or logic. I was drained and I knew Andrain wouldn’t let me out of here for at least a day. It would take that long for me to get my shit together, anyway.

After a while I slept.

And after that, I did think.

Finally.

Talk about the last minute.

By the time I got to the loading ramp, the passengers were boarding. I scanned down the ragged line, breathing way too hard for a short walk from the elevator bank. The frigate’s payload manager scanned wrists for serial numbers, checking against his cargo manifest.

A secondary scan by his assistant confirmed crush status, before the passengers were allowed onboard. It spelled quick death to a freight hauler’s business if their customers were squashed to red jelly when they jumped through the gates.

The double-check saved me. Juliyana was just stepping up with her wrist held out.

I beckoned.

She narrowed her eyes. She pulled her wrist away from the manager’s handheld and said something to him.

He scowled and growled something back. Cargo freighters aren’t commercial cruisers. They make their money from freight haulage, so keeping the customer happy isn’t a factor for them.

Juliyana came over to me. “He won’t hold the ship up, so make it fast.”

“I’m dying.”

“I know.”

“I mean, sooner, not later. There’s a thing…and it doesn’t matter.” I started again. “Thing is, I thought I had years. Decades. Now I don’t.”

Her eyes were still narrowed, although the impatience faded. “And that makes a difference.”

“All the difference in the world.” I shifted on my feet. “I don’t want to step out with things not finished.”

Juliyana waited. I used to do that to sub-officers. Stare ‘em into an untimely confession. It works too fucking well, alas.

“After Drakas…before the Blackout…” I paused, for the date of the empire’s Blackout was neatly in the middle of my personal black hole. I only knew of the chaos and disasters the Blackout caused from reading other people’s accounts. “Back then, I should have gone out the proper way, you know? A meal, sex, then a bullet or a blade or a pill. Maybe a note. Only I didn’t.”

“Too stubborn?” Her tone was dry.

“I think I was holding out still. Waiting. Thing is, if I’d done it then, the world and I would have been square. Now, though…there’s this thing of yours.”

The cargo manager put his fingers to his mouth and whistled. Hard. There were no more passengers lined up.

Juliyana glanced at him and gave a gesture which might have meant “I’m coming” or “fuck you.”

Either way, the manager didn’t like it. He waved, a flick of his fingers. Move it.

Juliyana turned back to me. “You’re going to dig.”

“I don’t know how far I’ll get,” I warned her. “My resources aren’t what they used to be. Shit, I’m not what I used to be.” And Andrain would have a lot to say about me taking off right now, too. Only, that was a different bridge.

Behind us, the warning alarm sounded as the frigate lifted from the deck and floated toward the external lock. The gusts from the hover engines blew our hair back and ruffled our clothing.

“Seems I’m coming with you,” Juliyana said. “You knew that. It’s why you’re here.”

“You might thank me, at least.”

“You just wasted my ticket on that hulk.” She jerked her thumb over her shoulder, at the frigate as it eased out of the lock. “It’s non-returnable.”

I smiled. “Oh, you’re going to burn a lot more