Page 17 of Music of the Ocean

“I don’t remember that.”

“Not surprised. You were pretty insistent you didn’t want to eat, so I gave up.”

“Huh. I really don’t remember that. Sorry. Still not hungry.”

“You were pretty out if it. Anyway, during that time, your O2 saturation dropped twice, then rebounded out of nowhere. Like your body was learning to use less oxygen. Oddly enough, the medband didn’t record any of the data. The bed did.”

Saxby made a noise, not quite a laugh. “Maybe I’m evolving. New and improved. Also, could the band be broken?”

Vance’s lips thinned. “I guess? It says it’s working, but there’s no data. This isn’t a joking matter, Sax. You want to talk about the bloodwork?”

“Well, shit, not especially, not after you said that.”

“You don’t have a choice.” Vance’s knuckles whitened on the edge of the tablet. “Your DNA is splicing itself. We have no idea what is causing this, though.”

“Are you kidding me? With the medical advancements we have, I’m a medical mystery? For real?”

“I know, okay? I know. It’s like something is rewriting you. In real time. Your cells are expressing proteins I’ve never seen, like you’re being infected on a genetic level by something from that planet.”

“But I thought there wasn’t an infection.”

“I said it was like you’re being infected, but there’s no sign of infection that we can find. Or a virus. Or bacterium. For some unknown reason and in some unknown way, you’re changing, but we can’t figure how or why. What’s happening should be impossible, yet it’s happening to you right in front of me,” Vance said.

“Gods.”

“The AI thinks it might be a symbiotic thing, not a pathogen, but is unsure. The data is all over the place and contradicts itself. Nothing about this makes any damned sense!” Vance yelled.

“So, what? What does any of that mean?”

“We have no idea, but I ran the numbers, and if the rate keeps up—” Vance stopped, then swallowed. “You’ll be incompatible with the ship’s atmosphere within three days. Maybe two.”

“Fuck,” Saxby said quietly. “Fuck, am I dying?” He was, wasn’t he? Wasn’t that basically what Vance had said?

Vance’s expression tightened. “I don’t know. I really don’t. The AI doc is pinging xenobiology, since we have nothing onboard that can make sense of this. Your cells are mutating. If I wasn’t looking at the data, I’d call it fantasy.” He flipped the tablet so Saxby could see the flat lines, then sudden spikes, then the graphic went back to baseline.

“Saxby, did you touch anything else planetside? Did you, I don’t know, put anything in your mouth? Did something bite you?”

Saxby tried to think, but the mission was just a blur of temperature and noise. “I didn’t put something in my mouth. I know better. I don’t think something bit me, but I’m not so sure on that. If it was something tiny, would I even feel it?”

Vance rubbed his forehead. “Okay, you have a point.”

“Look, all I can say for sure is that I stuck that probe in the ocean.”

Vance stared for a second, then nodded. “You’re not contagious. At least, your shed is normal, and nothing’s propagating in the air, but I’m reporting this to the captain, of course. And he’s authorizing whatever the AI doc wants. In the meantime, you’re here. No exceptions. We’re doing all we can, but you might need to be transferred.”

Saxby nodded, throat dry. Being off-loaded to another starship scared the hell out of him, and he had no idea why. Shouldn’t he want to go to a better and bigger ship if it meant saving his life? But everything within him rebelled at the very thought.

“I’ll let you know if you’re being transferred, though, okay? If that happens, it’ll be within the next few hours, I’d imagine.”

“Okay. Can you—” The ache in Saxby’s head made it hard to focus. “Can you make the lights even lower?”

Vance flicked the switch, and the chamber dimmed almost black. “I’ll be back after the next lab round. And if your breathing gets worse, hit the emergency button. I mean it. Alarms will sound, but still.”

Saxby nodded because, even though he hated it, he didn’t have the strength to argue.

Vance turned away and stalked out, muttering under his breath about oxygen, cells being weird, and stupid planets that they were sent to for data collection.

Saxby lay on the cot, staring at the ceiling, counting the seconds between blinks. The ache in his throat had worsened. His limbs felt heavier. When he flexed his hands, the skin seemed stretched thin and drier.