Page 2 of Stellar Drift (Central Galactic Concordance)

People sometimes forgot that the Ranger Service was actually a partnership between the planetary government and the Citizen Protection Service, the galactic government’s military division that had many missions, all related to minders.

But Sairy couldn’t forget. Despite Houyen Albasrey’s many virtues, he was first and foremost a CPS employee.

If the CPS ever found her or Elkano, their atoms would become one with the universe as soon as the CPS could make it happen.

Whatever had gone horribly wrong with their last mission, the CPS disliked admitting mistakes.

They’d do whatever was necessary to keep the public from learning anything about the ultra-secret black-box project she and Elkano had been a part of.

More doubts reminded her that if Houyen really was in trouble, the rainforest had a dozen ways to make it worse. Toxic plants, biting insects, hungry snakes, deceptive terrain… and that was just in the immediate half-kilometer radius.

She sighed and tapped her earwire again. “Elkano, please send a camera to check out the aircar and the pilot. Tell me if there’s anything unusual.” At least one of the cameras would have registered the rough landing. But Elkano relied on her to judge the significance.

“Will do.”

Meanwhile, both her stomach and Kyala’s wanted food, and stopping to rehydrate and eat lunch would take care of that.

Plus, it would give the Houyen problem time to resolve itself without her having to do anything.

She ignored the twinge of guilt that she wasn’t being more neighborly, and the recognition that if she’d been in trouble, he wouldn’t have hesitated to help.

Then again, he likely didn’t have secrets that could get him killed.

Considering how muddy everything was at the moment, she was glad she’d parked the airsled on the relatively flat rock and protected it with a tarp. The wet season had come early and stayed late this year.

After removing her gloves, she opened the box and fished out the container of gargoyle food, chuckling at Kyala’s intensely focused interest in each movement of her hands as she removed the lid and set the large, flat bowl on the ground.

Kyala’s wide mouth helped her practically inhale the custom blend of proteins and supplements that Sairy and Elkano had developed through trial and error.

Kyala could and would eat anything if she was hungry, but prepackaged human mealpacks or processed dog food gave her eye-wateringly stinky flatulence.

The custom-blend food was self-preservation on Sairy’s part.

She filled a second bowl with water from the large tank on her airsled. “Glad you approve,” Sairy teased as she watched Kyala’s flat tongue chase the last morsels.

Outside of scars on her neck and left haunch, the gargoyle looked sleek, healthy, and in peak condition.

A marked improvement from when they first met.

Sairy liked most people once she got to know them, but she’d make an instant and violent exception for the abusive asshole who still lingered in Kyala’s memory.

After pulling out her own water pouch and lunch container, she made sure to close and seal the cold box. Ubiquitous rainforest insects never passed up the chance for a free meal.

She was just about to take a bite of mixed vegetable salad when Elkano’s voice sounded in her earwire.

“The CPS flitter is powered and appears undamaged. The right side door is open. The pilot looks like Ranger Houyen Albasrey. He is not awake. He has no visible injuries.”

Sairy ate two forkfuls of salad as she considered plausible scenarios.

It was possible he’d been flying the aircar while gliding high, but she doubted it.

The locals in Irakat Collective who made homemade chems and alterants teased Houyen for refusing anything more stimulating than real coffee.

He said it interfered with his minder talent.

Exhaustion or illness was much more likely.

She ate a couple more bites, but worry soured her stomach.

Her medical training would probably be enough to determine if he needed emergency care.

And if he just needed to sleep, she and Kyala could leave quickly and come back some other day with better equipment for prying out the piece of ship debris.

She swallowed several swigs of water, then stowed the pouch and food containers back in the cold box. Then she pulled on her gloves and unhooked her toolkit and first-aid bags to sling crossbody over her shoulder.

“Come on, Kyala, let’s go see about the ranger.”

“I’ll keep the second camera on you.” Elkano’s tone had a thread of concern.

“Thank you.” Gratitude warmed her. Between Kyala and Elkano, she was never truly alone.

After picking their path through the muddy track left by the skidding aircar, she found the door open just as Elkano had described.

“Hello?”

No response.

She pulled a knife out of its thigh sheath and used its hilt to tap on the exterior side panel. “Ranger?”

Unexpectedly, Kyala jumped up and into the aircar, leaving muddy paw prints.

“Kyala, no.” She leaned to poke her head through the open door. “Sorry about…”

Houyen’s pilot chair was swiveled to face the opening, but he was still webbed in. His head lolled back and to the side, and his limbs sprawled bonelessly. His light brown face was ashen, but the sweat-damp skin of his neck under his tunic was mottled with a cherry-red rash.

She spat a vile curse.

Houyen was very sick, and she’d seen it before. Within the last ten-day, in fact.

Infinity fever.

It came on hard and fast with some people, sometimes within fifteen minutes or less, which explained Houyen’s erratic landing. If she opened his tunic, she’d probably see the characteristic red half-circles all over his torso. She even had the means in her first-aid kit to confirm her diagnosis.

The survival part of her brain told her to leave him alone, but she ignored it. Walking away wasn’t an option. Without treatment, he could die. Hell, even with conventional treatment for his symptoms, he could die.

Muttering more curses, she climbed into the aircar and dropped the bags to the deck.

Kyala whined and looked anxiously at the unconscious man. Sairy didn’t need to connect mentally with the gargoyle to know she didn’t like the smell. The acetone scent was strong enough for even Sairy’s human nose to detect.

He was even sicker than she thought. She’d test him just to be sure, but another signature symptom of infinity fever was ketones in the bloodstream.

As was his wheezy breathing. The disease was resurging in the towns again, as if it had drifted in with the wet-season mists.

It was his bad luck that he’d caught it.

From her first aid kit, she pulled out the mixed pack of hypojets and injets. She also pulled out gloves and a face shield. As far as she knew, she was immune, but why push her luck?

She selected the black injet and knelt to touch it to the back of Houyen’s hand. He didn’t even twitch when the multiple microneedles pierced his skin to draw tissue and blood samples. The readout blinked yellow once, then turned a steady red.

She stowed the injet in the decontamination pocket of her bag. Houyen needed treatment, and soon.

Calling for emergency medical assistance via the planetary net for help would put her personal pingref in CPS records and bring strangers entirely too close to her proverbial front door. And that assumed EMA would respond quickly, which wasn’t a safe bet deep in the middle of the nature reserve.

Even if his aircar would let her fly it, she couldn’t in good conscience take him to Irakat Collective, the closest town. They only had two autodocs and maybe five people who knew more than just how to press the power button.

The best option for her own safety would be to bring the treatment to him and let him sleep it off in his aircar.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t awake to get his consent to administer an experimental drug.

Guilt needled her with the reminder that she hadn’t let consent stop her from secretly treating townspeople, either.

So far, she and the others had suffered no aftereffects from the treatment she and Elkano had developed.

Each dose was a gamble, but the alternative was watching more people die.

The best chance for curing him would be to take him to her home and treat him there so she could deal with any adverse reactions. No one else had been allergic, but he could be the first.

If he’d been one of the locals, she’d ping the Irakat administrator to come get him. If he had been any of the other rangers, or the pain-in-the-ass enforcers from Falco Joro’s so-called construction project, she’d have administered the hypojet and left them to fend for themselves.

But this was Houyen. Dedicated, kind, and sexy Houyen, who fluxed her engines on a bone-deep level despite her pretending otherwise. He didn’t deserve to die.

She tapped her earwire. “Elkano. The ranger has infinity fever. If I bring him to our home for treatment, what are the chances we’ll regret it?”

After a long moment, he responded. “Sorry, but there are too many unknowns.” He sounded more relieved than apologetic. Making nuanced, no-right-answers choices wasn’t his strong suit. ” That’s a pilot decision.”

She was the only pilot, or at least the only conscious pilot, so that meant her. “Alright, then, he’s coming with us. I’m not going to waste time trying to breach the aircar’s security so I can fly it. I’ll strap him to the airsled’s cart.”

“Okay. Want me to get the autodoc ready?”

“Yes. And he’s going to need electrolyte fluid replacements.”

“I’ll check our stock and synthesize more if needed.”

“Thanks.” She scooped up her bags. “Come on, Kyala. Let’s get the sled as close as we can. The ranger is too heavy to carry very far.”