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“Who’s Fortinbras?” Borbala chinored her
Yorrik sighed and settled sos “Exhausted explanation: We cannot know exactly how long the virus lived inside the people in cryostasis, but it was a long time Years Decades Centuries perhaps No virus in the history of the universe has had so long to replicate, even if it was slowed by the cold, without outside interference, or treat childhood in their bloodstrea Find the perfect solution to a virus’s only proble I cannot help it Deep depression: If I had eezo, that would at least be a start”
“Eezo?” asked the batarian sharply
“Gluh of it, which we do not, and we could find a person as imht be possible to use the ineer a retrovirus from the blood of the immune patient Anyone who had come in contact with Fortinbras but survived would have viral ht off the virus With a full gene-viral lab, which we also do not have, I could use eezo to ‘teach’ a copy of the original virus to infect the cells of others as normal, but then obliterate the virus within the same way the iinal virus and leave it dored at best But this is a recipe for which our larders are quite eh eezo, and ould need to test everyone on board who has been exposed And ould need the Nexus, because the equip a retrovirus as a rock inan omelette And you’re about to take ives sensible instructions on how to do anything”
Borbala Ferank was chewing mercilessly on the inside of her mouth She kicked the floor with the toe of her boot
Irit Non spoke up “There’s eezo in the engines,” she mused “A lot of it”
Qetsi’Ola, pressing her hand against the h her hand could save her, could rewind time and make her whole She shook her head “We’d be dead in the water Gutting the engines of eezo would leave us a drifting hulk out here We have no way of contacting the Nexus—”
“Senna is ress,” Anax interrupted “This is our third lot of supplies for him”
“That’s as ain, and we can raise the Nexus, by the tiet to us we’d all have starved to death out here I’ve already set a distress e on all frequencies There’s been no response yet And you’d be asking them to bet years on a rescue They’d rather just cut us loose What difference would it make, really, if a bunch of quarians, drell, elcor, hanar, volus and bloody batarians never show up? Hell, they’d probably prefer it Less messy”
“Protestation: It doesn’t le immune specimen on board It may be no one A virus that can jump species like rope et blood froh Horatio for testing until we found soe population, there should be a few people with natural ie population? It’s not a needle in a haystack, it’s a needle in a galaxy”
“What else are we supposed to do?” barked Irit Non “Lie down and die? It’s the engines or death A distress call is better than choking to death on your own fluids Unless anyone has any red sand?” The horrendously addictive drug was packed with eezo, which hatenough “I thought not We were all starting with a clean slate, after all Well done, us”
The captain popped her fist against a wall panel and opened a mainframe access port Yorrik was surprised she knew the ship so well—but then, he had barely glanced at it He had been rewriting Lady Macbeth’s last ue in his head as he boarded, full of drea for him A fool he had been A ether, and then a fewbroadcast they had all quickly learned to ignore and unhear and addressed the ship on the mercifully still-functional public address system
Attention, Keelah Si’yah Hello, everyone This is your captain… again Please reroup and proceed to medbay for treatroup, and proceed to medbay for treatment Be patient, my friends, and ill see our neorlds yet
Yorrik groaned He wished she hadn’t done that It would not be orderly Why did she have to use the word treato, leave hi in his stoo They had to go
Borbala Ferank looked up to the ceiling of the medbay and shook her head Her three eyes blinked in succession, then all shut, as though she hated herself for what she was about to do