behind her.
The mechalus raised her eyebrows at Gabriel. 'Go ahead,' he said.
'Resuming,' Delde Sola said and made the first Y-shaped cut that laid the main body cavity and abdomen open.
Gabriel watched her, trying hard not to take what he saw too personally. 'That's the problem with doing a lot of attack work,' his weapons instructor had said once. 'You start taking all the physical consequences personally, and pretty soon you're no good at the job any more. While you have to do this work, just remember: you do not have to accept delivery on the emotions and reactions that occur to you. Let them roll over you. Let them pass by. Later when you're retired, if you want to, I guarantee you that you'll be able to take them out and look at them in detail, but for the meantime they'll just impair your function.'
So Gabriel watched Delde Sola take out the shrunken organs, a liver that was hardly there, a pair of lungs that were shriveled to nothing, removing them from a body cavity full of more of the pus-like slime, and Gabriel did not take it personally. He watched her dissect one of the tendonlike structures away from one of the arms, watched the tendon seem to try to hang on tighter as it was removed, then watched it 'give up' and melt away into more green slime. Gabriel worked very hard not to take that personally.
'Biotech matter,' said Delde Sola, detaching another sample and this time managing to get it into a sample capsule before it disintegrated. 'Apparently self-augmenting, purpose apparently overtly tendonal, duplicating the tendons' function outside the body since those inside the body have been resorbed or have lost elasticity and no longer function. Biotech matter is either contaminated by or purposely perfused with the bacterial cultures mentioned earlier. Possibly a symbiotic relationship. Culture should be done with an eye to understanding the association of the two materials and determining whether one somehow affects the growth or structure of the other.' She glanced over at one of her other instruments, raised her eyebrows. She was getting that angry look again. 'First diagnostics on mucus indicate presence of high level of proteins and enzymes that in some conditions would function as psychoactives, and other proteins constructed in mimicry of corticosteroids, neurotransmitters, and messenger hormones primarily involved with rage and pain reactions. Endorphin levels zero.' She put aside the tissue samples that she had been retrieving from the lungs and liver and reached down for the heart, lifting it and slicing it free. A great gout of the green pus ran out of the aorta, and Gabriel found it almost impossible not to take that personally. He had to turn away and concentrate on his breathing for a moment.
'Entire cardiovascular system has apparently been either invasively compromised or devolved to secondary status,' said Delde Sota, slicing the heart open the long way and peeling it carefully apart. 'No possible perfusion from this system. Possibility that perfusion is being managed by the mucus held around and within the body. Oxygen level however is almost nil, suggesting some other form of transport, possibly ATP-beta or -gamma, of the anaerobic type.' She frowned. 'Investigation will be required of the aqueous humor.'
Gabriel briefly misunderstood her and wondered what might possibly be funny about this situation. Then he got a look at the long needle Delde Sola had produced, and he suddenly realized where she was planning to stick it. He turned away hastily. To him eyes were intensely personal. He winced, unable to stop himself.
After a moment, 'Humor is contaminated with aforementioned bacterial melange culture,' said Delde Sota dispassionately. 'Analysis follows.'
She paused, and after a few seconds Gabriel dared to look back again. Delde Sota was simply looking down at the body, her big dark eyes plainly sorrowful; but the frown was also still there, an expression suggesting she was looking for something that she had not yet seen.
Gazing down at the skin of the neck, she reached down to do another moment's worth of dissection, peeling the skin away there and examining the tendons. They were wasted like all the other true tendons in this body, but there was something strange about the tendon strand on the body's left-hand side. Delde Sota leaned close, narrowing her eyes a little, and Gabriel got a feeling that somewhere in there her optical magnification was being greatly increased.
'Traces of an old incision,' she said, 'cutting nearly straight across and through the tendon, incising the cricoid cartilage as well, the wound stopping three centimeters before the opposite tendon. Much older than-'
Then she stopped, peered closer.
'Unusual finding;' she said. 'Old sub-sheath cyst. Nodular, but the shape is atypical.'
Gabriel had to look at that-and agreed. He was no medical expert, but it did not seem to him that cysts would normally be square.
Delde Sota reached down and started to excise the cyst, then changed her mind, and left it in place. Instead she reached out for another tool, a much more delicate and fine-bladed knife. She wiped the puslike slime away from around the tendon and began to dissect away the top of the cyst. Very delicately she did it, as if peeling away one layer of thin, wet tissue paper after another.
Gabriel, who briefly found himself regretting having to make do with unmagnified vision, now leaned closer despite the smell, because he saw something.
A chip. A tiny chip about a centimeter square, buried inside layer after layer of tendonal material that had overgrown and encysted it. Delde Sola glanced up at Gabriel, eyes meeting his in a look of alarm, but peculiarly, also of triumph.
'Electronic material,' she said, 'almost certainly of known-space provenance, dating to ten years before this date, plus-minus one year. Typical of ID chip sometimes used to store medical information for emergency use.'
Very delicately Delde Sota exposed it. Then one strand of her neurobraid undid itself and wavered down toward the surface of the chip, brushed it, then sank into it.
She started and her eyes went wide. She stared at Gabriel. Before he could say anything, she put her fingers to her lips in a gesture that most humanoids understood, then pointed to the wall screen. Gabriel looked at it. It had been scrolling a text revision of her dictation until now. Now, however, the screen showed various binary characters, but centered among them were the words: DARSALL, OLEG Born 08 12 2459 Posted Borealis colony, Silver Bell, 01 18 2486 Gabriel's breath went right out of him.
Silver Bell!
The Second Galactic War, besides endless other damage, had caused the destruction of the drivespace communications relays that had connected the Verge with the rest of human space. Time and money and opportunity to repair them had been lacking for a long time. Not until fourteen years after the signing of the Treaty of Concord was the relay at Kendai restored. With its restoration had come the first message from the Verge for more than a hundred years-a message that had been trapped in drive-space for years, awaiting the repair that would allow it to be heard. 'Borealis colony Silver Bell in Hammer's Star, calling any FreeSpace Alliance vessel . . . We are under attack by ... Repeat, the colony is under heavy attack by unknown forces. Send help. Repeat, send help. It's May 3rd, 2489. We need help, damn it! Please-'
It had repeated again and again. The Concord had immediately sent the fortress ship Monitor to investigate, but when it reached Hammer's Star, there was no one left on the planet Spes where Silver Bell had been. The colony had been completely destroyed. Though Monitor contacted other Verge colonies, none of them knew what had happened to Silver Bell. The colony's destruction remained one of the great mysteries and tragedies of the end of the Long Silence, but here was one Oleg Darsall, breaking this particular aspect of the Silence at last. 'Does it check?' Gabriel asked Delde Sota.
She looked thoughtful for a moment, then nodded. 'Grid access confirms someone of that name on the colonists' active list,' she said. She looked down with an expression of terrible pain and confusion. 'Is this what happened to all of them?'
Gabriel didn't want to think about it-or rather, he did, but not right here, not with the awful truth of it lying half-dissected on the floor in front of him.
'Autopsy must be continued in much greater detail in secure environment,' said Delde Sota. 'Recording pauses this time and date while transport and security are arranged.' She sat back on her heels and looked down at the creature that had once been Oleg Darsall. 'Conjecture:' she said to Gabriel, 'this is information that will be profoundly destabilizing in some areas, and it must be disseminated to the Concord immediately. However, all channels here are routinely monitored.' Even here inside Sunshine, she mouthed 'by VoidCorp' at him in such an obvious way that, just for that moment, Gabriel had to work hard not to burst out laughing. But at the same time, something else was on his mind.
Off to one side of the cargo bay was a simple thing for use when you were suited up and your
