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down over the visor, to the neck opening. The head inside had close-cropped
dark brown hair in a widow's peak, and hard brown eyes.
"You're a norm," Ryan said.
As the one-eyed man turned, the other helmets went from black to clear. He saw
that one of his captors was female. She had pale blond hair cut short, pale
blue eyes and a thin, aquiline nose. The man standing next to her had a shaved
head and wore a sandy-colored walrus mustache that drooped past the corners of
his mouth. The third male was taller than the woman, but only just. He had
shoulder-
length, curly brown hair, some of it graying.
The last man was the one with the foam tank. He was as big as the guy with the
walrus mustache, and sharp-featured. Under his helmet he wore a seamed, red
skullcap with an embroidered logo across the crown that read Buy or Die! 759th
AirCav. There was a different insignia on his armor's breastplate: the word
FIVE
in small silver letters. For the first time, Ryan noticed the same design on
the breastplates of all the others.
"Hold the foam ready, Ockerman," the pilot said. "If this one's got Ice Nine,
too, we're going to need it."
"No worries," Ockerman replied. He looked thoroughly amused.
"I don't have the oozies," Ryan told the pilot.
"That's what you call the disease?"
"Right. I don't have the oozies because I don't eat human flesh. Never have,
never will."
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D2
"You might think that would make a difference," the pilot said, "but you'd be
wrong. Turns out you can get infected from eating an animal that fed on
another infected animal. Or by eating a plant that was fertilized with
composted flesh from an infected animal. The provirus that causes the
infection is almost indestructible because it isn't really alive. It's a kind
of chemical. We need a tissue sample in order to test you for it."
"You're not taking off my hand," Ryan said, retreating a giant step backward,
ready to fight.
"No, no, that's not necessary. We used your friend's because it was, well,
already available. A tiny snip of your skin will do nicely for our purposes.
Or if you'd prefer, we could just forget about the test and carniphage you as
a precaution."
Ryan looked at the yellow curds floating on top of the thin puddle of brown,
which was all that was left of the cannie. If the test came back wrong, he was
going to be slime in a hurry, too. Ryan thought about making a grab for one of
their weapons, but he knew that would draw fire from the others. And even if
he got his hands on one of the strange blasters, he didn't know how to operate
it.
Somehow, he didn't think they'd be willing to give him the time to get up to
speed.
There was the Steyr, of course, and perhaps it was still loaded, but he'd
already seen how ineffective it was. Given his predicament, he decided the
best course was to go along with their program, hope his body was disease
free, and, if it wasn't, to fight to the death.
The woman gently took his hand, turned it palm up and expertly nicked him with
a gleaming silver tool. "Big, brave boy," she said, when he didn't flinch.
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A trickle of blood ran down his wrist.
She carried the sample to the cube, deposited it into a clear vial, then
inserted the vial into a slot in the side of the machine.
Meanwhile, the others gave ground as Ockerman squared off in front of him,
hose in hand. The no-nonsense look in his eyes told Ryan there wasn't going to
be time for a discussion if the news came back bad.
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D2
"Mind telling me what a carniphage is?" Ryan asked him.
"Flesh-eating, single-celled life-form," Ockerman said. "The carniphage eats,
reproduces geometrically, eats some more, then, after a preset number of
generations, the whole colony burns out and dies. About the same time as the
food supply is gone. Been genetically tailored to have a short life span.
We're talking a matter of seconds. Otherwise, it wouldn't be safe to release
it into the environment. We use it as a field sterilizer."
"Not on this one, though," the woman said, turning from the cube's LED
readout.
"He's prion-free. His DNA looks in good shape, too. No sign of
radiation-induced mutation in his chromosomes."
"Okay," the pilot said, "the fun's over, Ockerman. Put it away."
"Right, Colonel," the man in the skullcap said. He reclipped the nozzle to his
hip.
"You dodged the proverbial bullet, my friend," the pilot-colonel said to Ryan.
"If you'd been infected with Ice Nine, or had inheritable damage to your
chromosomes, we'd have been forced to destroy you."
"The way you destroyed every person in this ville?"
"That was regrettable, but we had no choice in the matter. Sterilization is
part of our mission protocol, to prevent any possible genetic or infectious
agent contamination. Everyone living in this settlement was in some way
radiation damaged. Either riddled with cancerous tumors or neural-system
impaired."
So, Ryan thought, Moonboy ville hadn't been so fireblasted pure after all.
Not until now.
When it was pure dead.
"If I'm not infected or rad-damaged, then I'm free to go?" he said.
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D2
Again came the steel laughter, but this time he could see their faces. They
were really enjoying themselves.
The one with the longish hair said, "You're good to go, all right, but you're
not free."
Ryan glared at him.
"What Captain Connors means," the colonel said, "is that we're taking you back
to
Earth."
"This Earth, droolie."
is
"From your point of view, I suppose it is."
"What other point of view is there?"
"You'll find out, in exactly eight minutes. Until then, I suggest you sit
quietly on the curb while we finish our preparations."
The impenetrable black tints returned to their helmets, as if they were
fishbowls filling from the bottoms with ink.
As he waited for the time to pass and the mystery to be revealed, Ryan scanned
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the ridge top. His companions were out there, somewhere. Question was, would
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