“Listen to Janx,” Hildra cautioned. “For Ani’s sake.”
Avery nodded, feeling his heart pound. Just what are we dealing with here?
“Do you think … ?” he started. “Could this have anything to do with the priests of the Restoration? Those maggots …”
“I don’t know,” Layanna said. “I’ve never seen anything like it, except in Ezzez. It’s not Atomic Sea-like in nature. Surely they must be related to the priests.”
The lieutenant arrived, winded and ill. Perhaps he’d thrown up, too, as something glistened on his chin. Several of his men surrounded him, jumping at every noise from the jungle.
“Can you help him, Doctor?” Mailos said.
“I don’t know,” Avery said. Looking back over the burnt convoy vehicles, he said, “I wonder if the other bodies ... if they’re all like this.”
“Can’t be. That doesn’t make sense.”
“No?”
“It was some thing from the jungle. Some mutated creepy-crawly. Some bug that became infected. That’s all.”
“I hope you’re right, Lieutenant, but my friend, who’s an expert on such things, doesn’t think so.”
“What else could it be?”
“That is a very good question.” And the priests of the Restoration might have the answer.
“Well?” Mailos said. “Can you do anything for him or not?”
Avery returned his attention to Xarris, who was now frothing at the mouth, his eyes jerking crazily in his skull. He trembled only a little now, subsiding every moment. Soon he would be completely still, except for his eyes.
“There’s nothing in my training that enables me to deal with this,” Avery said honestly, “although we do at least have gloves and protective suits we can use to touch him with, and plastic to wrap him in. If this is some local ailment, perhaps the villagers of Sevu can be of assistance. If nothing else, they’ll have poultices, herbs, fresh water, a place for him to rest. At best they might even be able to treat the illness, if we can call it that.”
“Well, they do owe us,” the lieutenant mused. “But I sent a runner ahead to appraise the approach to Sevu. Bad news: the villagers haven’t maintained the road from the main road to the village. We’d have to go by foot.”
Avery motioned to the wrecked vehicles. “We can’t go forward by automobile until these are moved, anyway.”
“Fine. You and your people come with me. I’ll detach a group of soldiers to go with us to the village while the rest stay here and clear the path.”
He strode off, giving orders, and Avery turned to the others to see them looking nonplussed.
“I don’t like this, bones,” Hildra said.
“Do you have a better plan?”
She bit her lip.
“Do you think ...?” Janx started, then gathered himself. Some terrible notion seemed to have occurred to him
“Yes?” said Layanna.
“Shit, you think this is why those Nisaar attacked the caravan? To, you know, burn out the disease?”
Avery looked at him, startled, but could not answer.
* * *
Lt. Mailos gave Avery some time to wrap the maggot-riddled soldier, Private Tulos Xarris, in a protective cocoon of plastic and rubber, and had several men cart him around the stopped vehicles and down the road; others carried the armor the group would need. Walking with the soldiers, Avery fished for any necessary medical information, such as congenital and contracted diseases, and discovered from them that Xarris had grown up on a pig farm. His father had died early of a heart attack and his mother turned to drink, beating her three sons regularly and forcing them to work at grueling labor from sun up to sun down till eventually Xarris had enough and ran away from home for the bright lights of the big city. Although the soldiers wouldn’t come right out and say it, Avery received the distinct impression that Xarris had had to earn money in the oldest way possible once he got there, servicing men in back alleys and rest rooms until one day he came of age and was able to join the military. Now, less than a year later, just when his life was really beginning, this. Avery could only hope the people of Sevu had more answers than he did.
Mailos stopped, gesturing at the jungle. “Hard to see, but this is the trail. Or what’s left of it.”
“Fuck this, man,” a soldier said, but when Mailos narrowed his eyes at her, she looked ashamed.
“If that was you,” Mailos said, flicking his gaze to Xarris, who still twitched every now and then, “you’d want us to make every effort to save your sorry ass, wouldn’t you? Well, this is our best shot, and we’re taking it. Any objections?”
“Single file through the jungle,” grunted another soldier. “And with those Nisaar pissed at us. A good place for an ambush, Lieutenant.”
“Thank you, Sergeant. Place a scout ahead of us and a trailer behind. No one will take us unawares.”
Some still grumbling, they began donning the strange armor used for trekking through the jungle.
“Godsdamned uncomfortable,” Janx said, struggling into his. He had to stuff himself inside like an overlarge, naked lobster trying to inhabit the shell of a smaller specimen.
“It’ll save your ass in the Drip,” a nearby soldier told him.
Janx mumbled something under his breath and snapped a piece into place.
