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“Depressive quotation: ‘Thou art a scholar, speak to it, Horatio,’” the elcor said to the hooded quarian suit hanging beside the autopsy table, its hips and torso wrapped in violet fabric and brown belts, like all quarian suits
Horatio had much to say
The virus that was dead and frozen in the cryopod victily alive in Jalosk Dal’Virra’s veins It was also alive inside the quarian suit The suit was doing what all environmental suits were supposed to do—identify the intruder and neutralize it without harile occupant Horatio had no occupant, of course, but the suit itself didn’t know that It only knew so all quarian technology to the proble the puncture points where Yorrik had injected the batarian’s blood and various other fluids into thethe samples with an array of antivirals, antibiotics, aerosolized el, painkillers, DNA and RNA unhelixers, nanoanalyzers, antigens—anything that ht alleviate sy it So far, none of it had helped If they were on a quarian Flotilla ship, Horatio would interface with the medical ue histories in order to locate other victiin to paint a picture of just how bad the situation was But there was nohimself to death
So flashed in the upper-left corner of Horatio’s upturned faceplate, just above his fluorescent-painted eyebrow It looked like an equation, but it wasn’t Those numbers worried Yorrik more than any of the rest of it He hated those numbers Why couldn’t they be other numbers? Safer nu else, those nu hiive up now
As an ear, nose, and throat doctor, Yorrik was not at all unfaht look like sians, prone to infection If this were a case of ochreous rhinophage, or Thunowanuro ue that had torn through the settleo, Yorrik would have felt very e, then second best was stageBut this pathogen was not anyone’s eleen had almost certainly never existed anywhere before it existed on the Keelah Si’yah Horatio had just finished a rough geno of the virus A three-dimensional lowing in helpfully differentiated colors
“Is that the thing that’s killing round it up and shoved it through the ship’s engines Those blue abscesses were not only on the outside His words echoed in the lab, but Ysses only rippled in its sleep and did not wake
“In sad agreement: Yes That is the Yoqtan virus Pedantic insistence: Although weit that It is not… It is not precise And it sees With bashful hesitation: I aue”
“Let’s hope we don’t have to call it anything, shall we?” said the captain “I would very much like to look back on this in a few years as an example of the efficiency ofmore”
“I’ tired But it hurts to sleep” The batarian watched the diagram revolve slowly on Horatio’s face It looked so alien, like its own creature, which, in truth, it was A crystal is It inspired the sas as certain insects did
“It’s kind of pretty, isn’t it?” Jalosk said “You really should na”
“With bitter fatalisine It is e call a chimera virus” The elcor indicated one illuray forefinger “Professorial tone: That is Yoqtan Emphasis: Only that is Yoqtan You can see it acts like a tailor’s dressfor to build on But then there is all this silk, Qetsi’Olam All these horrible ribbons” One by one, other RNA sequences lit up in a series of colors: blue, pink, yellow, purple, green “With horror and wonder: This is Asari Cyanophage,” the elcor said, pointing at another stretch of the pathogen’s genetic code “And this is a strain of salarian proto-syphilis called Ayalon B This is called the Titan’s Tears, a rare turian heic fever This is the human disease known as enory red “This is a trash co Kepral’s Syndrome, Varren Scale-Itch, Ardat-Yakshi, and, as far as I aue which ravaged Earth in the fourteenth century”
“Ardat-Yakshi? Isn’t that the thing that kills you if you fuck the wrong asari?” the captain asked She sat down on the deck floor cross-legged, listening intently
“I’ve never even touched an asari, Doc!” Jalosk protested “Believenoise about genetically diversifying their species, but have you ever irl? No, you have not, because they are arrogant and racist”
“He has a fair point there,” Qetsi chuckled “The proximity of death has made you quite the comedian, Jalosk”
“Patient explanation: You do not understand This is junk RNA Pieces of dormant information that are not currently actively coded in the virus They are h they may ‘switch on’ at some point as replication accelerates, we cannot know until it happens You do not have Ardat-Yakshi Or Kepral’s Syndroue But the virus you do have contains elements of them If we return to the metaphor of the dress and the dressform, you can think of junk RNA as decorative pockets that do not really hold anything”