Whatever Earth scientists were trying to do, they screwed up. If it’s a weapon, it escaped into their own population before they were able to use it against yours, said Ephraim Dunaway months ago on Stronghold, when he explained what little Remedy knew about the Cobweb virus at that time. If word got out that this disease was created by Earth, we’d have mass rioting on every world of the Loop.
“Cobweb wasn’t designed to hurt people,” she says. “It must’ve been designed to save them.”
Abel nods. “Haven must have been found several decades ago. Earth’s government would’ve realized it would be the perfect replacement for Genesis, if only for the few environmental factors that kept it from being safe for human beings. So they attempted to bioengineer a virus that would rewrite human DNA, only enough for them to endure the conditions here. In that regard, Cobweb does exactly what its creators hoped. But the virus is more dangerous to human life than they knew.”
“A lot of people who catch Cobweb get so sick they die.” Noemi shakes her head in wonder. “But the ones who survive… they inherit an entire world.”
“I put the probability of this hypothesis being correct at approximately 92.6 percent.” Abel hops down from the platform to her side, so lightly and easily that she’s reminded again—he’s not quite human. “There are medicines for Cobweb in storage on the ship, including weaker forms of the virus that might operate as inoculations—”
“Thank God,” Noemi says. She has serious problems with Remedy’s radical wing, but she can’t bear to watch people needlessly suffer and die. “We can help them.”
But Abel shakes his head. “The materials aren’t stored in the sick bay. They were considered ‘high risk’ and are kept in the same area as the tanks for growing mechs. That’s territory currently held by the passengers.”
That was the first place they’d run to, when Noemi told them they needed to control “valuable resources” on the ship. I believed Gillian was being so selfish, leading us there, Noemi thinks. But she knew exactly what she was doing. She was the ruthless soldier at war. I was the one in over my head.
“If Earth made Cobweb a virus,” she says slowly, “one that spread organically, with a high level of contagion, so absolutely everyone would catch it—they didn’t originally intend to hide Haven. They meant to share it with the galaxy.”
Abel considers this, then nods. “That also seems likely. Earth’s government still chose to conceal Haven in the end, but it seems likely they did so primarily to cover up the truth about Cobweb.”
“That’s not a good enough reason. Not to deny this to humanity—to resume the Liberty War—” Noemi gasps. “That’s why they did it, isn’t it? Why they came back decades after we thought they’d let us go? They ended the war when Haven was found. They started it again when they realized they could never reveal the truth about this planet.”
“I can only put that at a 71.8 percent probability,” Abel says gravely.
“You mean—probably. Not certainly, but probably.”
He nods.
Noemi feels nauseated, not from illness but from the knowledge that her world could’ve been saved so easily—but someone, somewhere, decided they had too much to hide.
She expects returning to the makeshift sick bay to be more difficult, now that she knows these people could so easily have been treated. They’ll have to break this news to Fouda, who will of course want to attack the passengers immediately—a conflict Noemi doesn’t want any part of any longer. Even less does she want to be surrounded by suffering people she can’t save; after Genesis and now this, she feels like some mythological bringer of death.
But the worst part of her return is when she sees how much worse Riko is.
“Riko?” She hurries to Riko’s bedside, Abel beside her. Riko looks so ragged, so miserable, that Noemi can hardly connect her to the energetic, sarong-clad woman they met on Kismet’s moon. Even when Riko was in prison on Earth, her strength shone through. Now she looks like her own ghost. “Hang on, okay? We might be able to help you.”
“Doubt it,” Riko rasps.
“Shhh. Save your strength.” Noemi looks around for something, anything that might help, and Abel hands her a cool, damp washrag someone must have prepared. It’s not much, but it’s better than nothing, so she lays it across Riko’s forehead. Riko’s skin is so hot it nearly burns.
“Tell me one thing,” Riko whispers. Every word costs her. Every movement. Yet she manages to clasp Noemi’s wrist. “You people—on Genesis—you believe in gods, don’t you?”
“We believe—” Noemi catches herself before launching into a detailed explanation of the many various faiths on Genesis. “Well, we believe.”
“Before—I thought I’d see people living free—thought I’d know then it was all worth it.” The doubts Riko never hinted at before now haunt her eyes. “But I’m not going to see that. I’ll never really know.”
Noemi opens her mouth to protest that Riko will be okay, but Abel gives her a look that silences her words. Whatever treatment is out there, they’re not going to retrieve it in time.
Riko continues, “What if I was wrong the whole while? What if there’s no place for us to go? Was it all for nothing?”
Abel says, “You acted on your beliefs, intending to help others. That has worth.” He and Noemi share a glance. She knows he doesn’t agree with Remedy’s terrorist actions any more than she does. But there’s no point in punishing this woman on her deathbed.
Noemi remembers Captain Baz’s words to her, more meaningful than ever before. “I think it matters what we fight for. What we choose to die for.”
Riko hears in those words whatever she needed to hear. She very nearly smiles. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Noemi brushes a few strands of sweaty hair off Riko’s forehead, then takes her hand.
Riko’s grip tightens around hers at first, but slowly, gradually goes slack. Her breathing slows down. Suddenly the image of Esther’s final moments fills
