Seht frowned. “I believe I can help.” His gaze darted about. “But let us leave this exposed area first.” He turned and started walking into the rocky scrub.
Aubrey stared after him, bemused. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Dad had it right on the money.
Seht turned back. “Coming?”
Aubrey nodded and strode after him.
28
Morgan Hawke
Chapter Five
Seht led Aubrey uphill into the mountainous terrain. He looked back at Aubrey and pushed under some branches revealing the opening into a narrow path leading downward. “Your collar will lead them in this direction, but getting into this ravine is not all that easily accomplished.”
Aubrey followed him through the brush and into the ravine’s maze of narrow pathways. Feeling decidedly light-headed, he focused on Seht’s gleaming white braid and the small pack on his back, his brain noting the rocky outcroppings and the twisted, needle-leafed scrub enough to keep him upright, but not by much.
A rock rolled under his heel.
Aubrey dropped hard on his side and simply couldn’t find the energy to get back up. He rolled onto his back and labored for breath.
Seht turned and frowned. “Aubrey?” He came and knelt at his side, setting the rifle down. “Are you wounded? I didn’t think to check!” His fingers skimmed down Aubrey’s legs and arms, then across his chest. “No obvious broken bones. What’s wrong?”
Aubrey smiled. “I’m dying.”
Seht scowled, caught his arm, and pulled Aubrey upright into a sitting position.
“Of what?”
Aubrey crossed his legs, exhaled, and coughed. And coughed; and kept coughing, until blood spattered the ground beside him. “My lungs are bad.”
Seht sat back on his heels. “So? Why did they not clone another set and graft them in? Or give you nanite injections to repair them?”
Aubrey frowned at the puddle of blood next to him. He looked up at Seht and frowned. “I don’t know. I’ve been in a liquid tank.”
Seht’s brows shot up. “For how long?”
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Aubrey looked away and scowled. “Over nine cycles, as far as I can tell.”
“What?” Seht jerked back and fell on his butt. “But that is stupid!” He pushed back onto his knees. “A body cannot exist in a tank for more than three cycles before the body begins to adapt to the new environment.”
Aubrey looked up at him. “What?”
Seht scowled. “Your lungs are not bad. They’re incapable of breathing air that isn’t liquefied! What did they put you in a tank for?”
Aubrey clenched his teeth. “They destroyed my lungs in an airlock.”
“An airlock?” Seht’s brows dipped. “I can see lung damage from such, but still, a liquid tank?”
Aubrey held Seht’s blue gaze. “Try three trips in a row.”
Seht blinked. “Three? In an airlock? Mother Night.” A smile curved his mouth.
“They must not like you very much.”
Aubrey rolled his eyes. “What they didn’t like was the word no.”
Seht’s silver brows lifted. “No?”
Aubrey stared up at the roiling gray clouds. “No, I won’t kill people, to be specific.” He swallowed. “Not that it did any good. They hacked into me.” He closed his eyes. “They used the contents of my head like a…” He took in a small breath, and it hurt. “I was slave-drived to their ship’s sentience. I was a fucking subroutine the nav-pilot turned on when they wanted to take control of a ship, and then shut off when they were done.” He leaned forward and hunched over his knees. “They used me to take out a ship’s life support, to kill the crews so the ship’s sentience didn’t suicide out of guilt.”
Seht frowned. “You are the Moribund’s ship plague?”
Aubrey chuckled softly and set his cheek on his upraised knees. “I guess you could call me that.”
Seht raised a silver brow, and a slight smile appeared. “You fought them, I assume?”
“Constantly. Not that it did any good.” He scowled and smacked the ground with the flat of his hand. “Once they got into my head, I couldn’t get them back out.”
Seht looked away, rubbing his jaw with his hand. “Aubrey, it seems to me that they deliberately made you a water-breathing creature because a tank is the only way to maintain a hardwired body fairly indefinitely. You were being preserved, like a…”
“Like a what? Food?”
“I was going to say a secret. Think. Existing in a tank, you cannot speak to anyone but those that have direct access. Who is to know why you are there? Lock your tank in a dark room, and no one even knows you exist.”
Aubrey’s eyes opened wide. “Only the ship and the nav-pilot had access to my head. The ship’s sentience was my only contact. The nav-pilot was too freaking insane for any kind of direct mental communication. I spent a lot of time sleeping.” When he 30
Morgan Hawke
wasn’t being raped by the ship’s sentience. “I don’t even know how long I’ve been…doing this, for them.”
“Aubrey, what is the last date you remember?”
Aubrey told him.
Seht frowned in thought; then his eyes opened wide. He scowled.
Aubrey frowned. “What?”
The pale youth looked away. “Grafting you a new set of lungs is not going to save you.” He hunched his shoulders. “You are going to need genetic engineering.”
“What?” Aubrey sat up. “Why?”
Seht looked up at the sky and sighed. “After a set amount of time, a human body in a water-breathing environment adapts to the point that it cannot return to breathing air, because every organ in the entire body adapts. You have been in the tank long enough to fully adapt.” He winced. “And then some.”
Aubrey focused on Seht’s face. “How long?”
Seht turned away.
Aubrey grabbed for his hand. “Seht, how long was I in the tank?”
Seht looked down. “It takes one cycle to adapt to breathing water. It takes six for the entire body to adapt with it. It becomes irreversible after nine cycles.”
“Seht, just spit it out.” Aubrey tugged on the youth’s hand.
“Sixteen.”
Aubrey fell back onto his hands. “Sixteen? I reached majority ten cycles ago?”
Seht frowned. “Imperial legal majority? But you don’t look anywhere close to that age!”
Aubrey snorted.
