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“I might not have been wielding a weapon.” Roshini holstered her gun.
The Cancris had no use for weapons. They were peace-loving beings.
That stance had changed with the enemy’s arrival.
Weapons and killing and violence were required now for survival.
“You’re always wielding a weapon.” Cyra studied her. “I like that hair.” She touched her own fabric-wrapped scalp. “If I had time to obtain a set for myself, I’d ask you where you sourced it.” She sighed. “But you must have viewed the long line of beings waiting to see me. I have no excess time for anything.”
“You can have this set.” Roshini touched the edge of the simulated hair near her right ear, and the set loosened. “Sanitize it first.” She removed it and placed it on a nearby horizontal support. “I rarely use the same hair twice when I visit this settlement.”
“You’re careful.” The medic glanced up at Roshini’s now-bare scalp. “In all areas. You applied the pigment even under the hair set.” She shook her head. “I should give you a lecture about how frequent usage of long-lasting pigment increases the chances of serious health issues, but that’s not a consideration now, is it? For either of us.”
Both of them would soon be dead. They’d be two of the countless victims of the Invaders’ lifespan-destroying activities.
The largest of Roshini’s tumors was growing in her stomach. She touched that part of her yet again, reassuring herself it wasn’t visible.
Cyra’s largest tumor was located in the back of her neck. It would be smaller than Roshini’s.
Because the medic hadn’t spent the time Roshini had spent close to the weapon the Invaders were building and the mining tunnels they were forcing the locals to work in.
“We’re humans.” Roshini had been the sole survivor of a ship crash. She’d been raised, from the age of four solar cycles to maturity, by an entire settlement.
The residents had welcomed her as they had welcomed the Invaders. It was the Cancri way.
And she hadn’t betrayed that trust.
Cyra’s story was different. She heard the planet badly needed medics and had relocated to Cancri B eight solar cycles ago, three solar cycles before the enemy arrived.
“Humans don’t live forever.” Roshini shrugged. She’d made her peace with dying when she chose to fight the Invaders.
“I’m seeking to ensure you live longer than your twenty-four solar cycles.” Cyra’s tone was dry. “What are your symptoms?”
“Nothing other than the hair and fingernail and toenail loss you told me to expect with the pills.” That had been tough emotionally to deal with. She had always worn hair sets. They were part of her many disguises. But she hadn’t realized how attached she’d been to her own hair and to her eyelashes. There was less of her now under the fake facades. “Oh, and I can’t keep down any nourishment in solid form.”
That had been another side effect.
“Taking it in liquid form helps with that.” Cyra pressed the handheld to Roshini’s stomach. “And I do mean liquified nourishment, not merely fermented beverage.”
“I only drink fermented beverage when I’m not flying.” And, as Roshini loved to fly, that wasn’t often.
“Hmmm…” Cyra frowned at the handheld’s small screen. “That can’t be right.” She pushed the device against Roshini’s stomach again.
“It isn’t good news.” Roshini said what the medic didn’t utter.
“It isn’t good news.” Cyra met her gaze. “The tumor has grown, and it shouldn’t have done that, not this early. The pills aren’t working as effectively as they should.” She tilted her head. “But how can that be? They were produced in the same batch as mine, and my tumor hasn’t grown.”
“It isn’t the pills.” Roshini flattened her palms once more over her stomach.
“What?” The medic’s forehead furrowed.
“It isn’t the pills.” Roshini suspected Cyra had heard her, yet she repeated her statement anyway.
Silence stretched.
“You stopped the testing of the machine, didn’t you?” Cyra asked quietly.
Roshini had sabotaged the trial run of the Invaders’ weapon. That had required extracting an essential part from it. And enduring the barrage of toxic emittances that giant machine radiated.
