Dalton moved around in a large semi-circle and approached the hatch from the side, his shriver up. He glanced at me. I nodded. From the corner of my eye I saw Fiori bring her small shriver to bear upon the hatch, too.
Dalton reached and tapped the pad to open the door. Nothing. There was no system sub-routine to obey the command.
“Lyssa,” I whispered. “There’s a hatch in engineering, in a casing over some high pressure equipment with radiation and high voltage warnings. Can you find it? Open it? There’s something alive in there.”
“Inside a radiation shield? That’s probably why the scan didn’t pick them up. Opening.”
The door popped and wavered open a few centimeters. Dalton hooked a finger over the top of the door and pulled it fully open.
The two wolves inched closer, their snarling picking up in volume. Drool dripped from Darb’s chops.
The small child inside the casing screamed and threw their arms over their head, shuddering. The screams continued, louder than the parawolves’ snarls.
“Vara! Darb! Lie down!” I shouted, as Vara gave the preparatory little wiggle of her butt that said she was about to leap.
Vara didn’t look around, but she didn’t launch herself at the casing, either.
“Fiori!” I snapped.
Fiori put the shriver back on her belt and moved toward the wolves. She hesitated, because she would have to step in front of them. She looked at Dalton doubtfully.
Dalton straightened. “Darby, here.” He pointed with his finger.
Darb looked as though he was trying to decide if he would ignore Dalton or not.
“Darb!” Dalton shouted.
The child inside the casing was still screaming, each scream punctuated by a harsh drawing of breath. It was a dreadful sound that made my gut roil. “Vara!” I called.
Vara rose to her feet as Darb did and walked stiffly over to me. Her ruff was lifted, making a collar of stiff fur around her neck.
It was little wonder the child was terrified. Not everyone got to see a parawolf in their lifetime, not live and up close like this, not ready to pounce and tear them apart.
Darb sat beside Dalton, watching the casing with an unwavering wariness.
Fiori plucked the child out of the casing, still curled up into a frightened ball, their arms over their head. She wrinkled her nose and held the child out in front of her. “Stars and dust…the poor thing!” She brought the child over to where I stood.
“I’m not taking him,” I said instantly, for now I could smell what Fiori had objected to. Stale urine and feces. “How can we stop him screaming?” For the screams were continuing. Softer now, but hysteria drove them.
“A sedative,” Fiori said firmly.
“No, we need to talk to him,” I said, just as firmly.
“Then you’ll have to calm him down first,” Fiori shot back. Her jaw rippled. The medic disapproved.
She rested the child on the waist-high bank of whatever-they-were I stood next to and gave him a little shake. “Hey! Hey!”
Dalton came over. “Do you think he’s been in there all along?” he breathed to me, staring at the child. “Maybe he hid away when the ship was boarded, then was trapped in there when the systems were wiped.”
I stared at the child, horrified. “What in the stars were they thinking, bringing a child into this?”
“The wildcatters live and die on their ships,” Fiori said, as she stroked the child’s filthy arm, which was still wrapped protectively around its head. It was impossible to tell the gender of the child. I had settled on ‘he’, until further information changed my mind.
Days trapped inside a casing, hearing nothing, after hearing whatever sounds he’d heard? Then one parent or both would have failed to return….
“Food…” I breathed, feeling stupid.
“Water, first,” Fiori said, unclipping the flat canteen on her belt. She broke the seal on it and tapped the boy’s arm. “Do you want some water, little one?” Her voice was soft. Gentle.
The endless screaming didn’t even pause.
“And food,” I said, using the same crooning tone Fiori had used. I pulled out the energy bar from the pocket on the outside of my suit and tore the wrapper, which made a loud crinkly sound.
The screaming checked.
“Here,” Fiori said, and dripped a few drops of water on the back of the boy’s hand.
His arms shifted. One red-rimmed enormous blue eye glanced at us.
I held up the bar and gave him my best non-threatening smile.
He looked at Fiori. She smiled, too and he lowered his arms.
Fiori held out the canteen. “You must wet your mouth and lips and throat, first,” she told him. “Sips, as many as you want, but just sips. Do you understand?”
He reached for the canteen eagerly, showing no sign of comprehension.
Fiori let him get his hands on the canteen, but kept a grip on it and tried to lower it slowly toward him. “No, no, slowly!” she protested. “Damn, he’s strong!”
“Uqup,” Dalton said loudly, and rolled his eyes. “He doesn’t know Common,” he added to me. “He didn’t respond to anything you said. Just the sound of your voices and the bar being opened. Lyssa, can you interpret for us? Tell him he must sip, or he’ll be sick.”
He pushed his forearm with the control panel closer to the boy and slid his finger along it to raise the volume.
Lyssa said something full of throat-straining glottal stops and rasping sounds.
The boy lifted his head up. He looked to be perhaps six years old. He looked at us one by one, then at Dalton’s sleeve.
Fiori relaxed and let him draw the canteen to his lips and eased it up to let a trickle emerge. He licked his lips and swallowed, then opened his mouth for more.
After three mouthfuls, I said, “Lyssa, ask him if he would like to eat something.”
I held out the bar toward the boy as Lyssa gave another vocal chord-straining speech.
The boy grabbed at the bar and took an enormous bite. He chewed, the large mouthful distorting his hollow cheek. His face was as filthy as the rest of him except where
