records if not in people. His goal was to mine their data and solve the riddle of Delta Fever.
Daniel’s excitement flared up again. He dragged some vines over the jetskip and shouldered his duffel, relocating its dangerous payload to an inner pocket of his coat for safekeeping. It was risky, traveling with the vials of his fatal virus, even secured as they were in their casing. But it would have been riskier to leave the vials behind where a supervisor or routine inspection might stumble across them, with the virus still in its weaponizable state. With luck, the Institute would have the equipment he needed to continue working. If not, at least the vials would be safe.
Patting the pockets of the weatherproof oilcloth coat he wore over his suit, he found another length of dirty linen gauze and wrapped it around his neck like a scarf. Feeling more like a dime-store mummy than a local with a skin disease, Daniel headed out into the gray afternoon.
8
THIS CHURCH AIN’T SEEN GOD IN A LONG TIME. It be dark as pitch in here and don’t smell too clean, neither, but there be a fire in a grate to the side of the altar, and it nice and warm inside. Especially to me, without a proper shirt. I pull myself up and look around. The branches below done a good job of hiding this place. The floor be gritty with dirt, and the walls be dark from wood smoke. There be six rows of benches, a pulpit with space in front of it. There be a door in the far wall, so there be at least one other room. No priest, no priestesses. Might not even be a church anymore with no one here tending it.
Then my eyes adjust and I see there be a few people sitting on the benches. The front row even got real pews, probably taken from some drowned church. They been painted up and stuck in a place of honor right against the altar. There be no service right now, so I take a minute to check out who be here with me. We safe enough, it being a church, but you still got to keep your eyes open when you decide to leave.
In the second row on the right there be a big guy, muscle and fat from what I’m seeing. And he got tattoos, which mean he either AB or a blood hunter. I don’t like the thought of being in here with him, but if he here, it most likely because he reformed. Blood hunters don’t go to church. Too much temptation inside, and even they respect that one law. Nobody ever been taken from a church. Not to say they don’t get jumped at the door, though.
Behind him a few rows be a nervous little man muttering to himself. He got a bald spot on top his head and patchy hair growing ’round the sides. He tugging at it like he don’t even realize what he doing. Freesteader, I guess. Nobody with nerves like that be in a tribe worth its salt. He be in his church best, dress shirt rubbed thin with wear, and what used to be a decent pair of pants. I wonder where he camping down these days. Maybe that why he so nervous—’cause, like me, this be it.
What worry me most be the person on the other side, in the second to last row of the pews. Man or woman, I can’t tell, but they be shaking and sweating worse than the freesteader. Whoever it be, in the light I can see two things: First, he used to be a smuggler—still got parts of the encounter suit he wore rolled down around his neck like a scarf, afraid to take it off, but knowing he might as well; and second, he got the blood Fever. This smuggler be white, whiter than you see in Orleans anymore, with yellow-blond hair stuck to his forehead with sweat. It remind me of Lydia kneeling at that boy’s bedside the other day.
Yesterday.
It take the wind out of me, thinking how much be changed in so little time. How much lost. And I been worrying she’d catch her death in the hospital tent. Show what I know. Childbirth been killing women long before the world ever heard of Delta Fever or blood hunting or Orleans. Lydia didn’t have the baby the right way, in a bed with a healer or somebody watching who knew what to do.
Daniel’s excitement flared up again. He dragged some vines over the jetskip and shouldered his duffel, relocating its dangerous payload to an inner pocket of his coat for safekeeping. It was risky, traveling with the vials of his fatal virus, even secured as they were in their casing. But it would have been riskier to leave the vials behind where a supervisor or routine inspection might stumble across them, with the virus still in its weaponizable state. With luck, the Institute would have the equipment he needed to continue working. If not, at least the vials would be safe.
Patting the pockets of the weatherproof oilcloth coat he wore over his suit, he found another length of dirty linen gauze and wrapped it around his neck like a scarf. Feeling more like a dime-store mummy than a local with a skin disease, Daniel headed out into the gray afternoon.
8
THIS CHURCH AIN’T SEEN GOD IN A LONG TIME. It be dark as pitch in here and don’t smell too clean, neither, but there be a fire in a grate to the side of the altar, and it nice and warm inside. Especially to me, without a proper shirt. I pull myself up and look around. The branches below done a good job of hiding this place. The floor be gritty with dirt, and the walls be dark from wood smoke. There be six rows of benches, a pulpit with space in front of it. There be a door in the far wall, so there be at least one other room. No priest, no priestesses. Might not even be a church anymore with no one here tending it.
Then my eyes adjust and I see there be a few people sitting on the benches. The front row even got real pews, probably taken from some drowned church. They been painted up and stuck in a place of honor right against the altar. There be no service right now, so I take a minute to check out who be here with me. We safe enough, it being a church, but you still got to keep your eyes open when you decide to leave.
In the second row on the right there be a big guy, muscle and fat from what I’m seeing. And he got tattoos, which mean he either AB or a blood hunter. I don’t like the thought of being in here with him, but if he here, it most likely because he reformed. Blood hunters don’t go to church. Too much temptation inside, and even they respect that one law. Nobody ever been taken from a church. Not to say they don’t get jumped at the door, though.
Behind him a few rows be a nervous little man muttering to himself. He got a bald spot on top his head and patchy hair growing ’round the sides. He tugging at it like he don’t even realize what he doing. Freesteader, I guess. Nobody with nerves like that be in a tribe worth its salt. He be in his church best, dress shirt rubbed thin with wear, and what used to be a decent pair of pants. I wonder where he camping down these days. Maybe that why he so nervous—’cause, like me, this be it.
What worry me most be the person on the other side, in the second to last row of the pews. Man or woman, I can’t tell, but they be shaking and sweating worse than the freesteader. Whoever it be, in the light I can see two things: First, he used to be a smuggler—still got parts of the encounter suit he wore rolled down around his neck like a scarf, afraid to take it off, but knowing he might as well; and second, he got the blood Fever. This smuggler be white, whiter than you see in Orleans anymore, with yellow-blond hair stuck to his forehead with sweat. It remind me of Lydia kneeling at that boy’s bedside the other day.
Yesterday.
It take the wind out of me, thinking how much be changed in so little time. How much lost. And I been worrying she’d catch her death in the hospital tent. Show what I know. Childbirth been killing women long before the world ever heard of Delta Fever or blood hunting or Orleans. Lydia didn’t have the baby the right way, in a bed with a healer or somebody watching who knew what to do.
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