“There will be no difficulty in transporting the supplies to the top of the ridge. We can toss them up. We have wounded, however.”
Danika sent him a sharp look at that, feeling a leap of excitement. “Hu … some of the team leaders made it?”
He shrugged. “They are wounded, some mortally, I am certain, but mayhap some could be moved—if we had a means of moving them.”
Danika glanced at Seth questioningly. “Any of the med supplies make it through the bombing?”
“There was one walker that was not totally destroyed. They were trying to find enough parts to repair it when we left.”
Danika frowned. “Even if they get it going we’d have to have some way of getting the wounded up here. It wouldn’t be able to scale a sheer drop.” She returned her attention to Reuel. “Any medics make it?”
“Nay. There were only three in the battalion. Two were in the drop ships that did not make it to the surface … in one piece. The third was killed in the firefight last night.”
“Shit! Poor bastards,” she muttered, thinking of all the men who’d been in the transports that got blown to bits.
On the other hand she thought they might have been the lucky ones. At least they were beyond pain and suffering … not trapped on this frozen hell without adequate supplies. She didn’t want to think about that, though. She preferred to think the supply ship would arrive before she had time to regret she’d been one of the ‘lucky’ ones that made it to the ground.
It occurred to her abruptly that Reuel had said the third was killed—not destroyed. Therewereno human medics. It seemed too significant that Reuel had said ‘killed’ not ‘destroyed’ to ignore it, to dismiss it with the logic she’d been using to try to persuade herself that there wasn’t anything ‘wrong’ with the cyborgs.
“We could cut a pass up the ridge,” Niles suggested. “It would be rough, but I think we could construct something the walker could manage.”
“Good idea,” Danika responded, frowning thoughtfully. “I don’t know if it would be such a good thing to try, though. It would alert the enemy to the fact that they didn’t wipe out everybody. Plus, I don’t know that we could spare the lasers … I’m assuming you meant to cut it out with lasers? I mean, we’re short on munitions already.”
Niles frowned, glancing toward Seth questioningly. Seth had already turned away, however, and was walking along the edge of the precipice, staring down, studying the cliff wall for possibilities, Danika supposed. Reuel had joined him.
* * * *
“You have … awakened?” Reuel said quietly.
The inflection made it a question, but Seth was under no illusion that Reuel had missed anything. As far as he could see, Reuel was experiencing much the same as he was, and yet enough doubt lingered to make him cautious. “I am of no danger to the humans.”
“I did not suggest that you were, only that you, perhaps, have awareness of things you were not aware of before.”
Briefly, Seth debated whether to continue trying to hide his ‘malfunction’ or not, but it was too much of a temptation to discover what he could from Reuel. “I cannot detect a malfunction,” he said slowly.
“Because it is not a malfunction.” Reuel frowned. “No doubt the humans would believe it to be. There is danger there and I am as certain as I can be that the humans would not be glad to know that we are … becoming different than they anticipated.”
Seth pondered the first comment. He was convinced that Reuel was correct in his assessment of the reaction of the humans. That was why he had been struggling so hard to hide the change from them, or, more specifically, Danika. “Mayhap it is the AI?”
“Nay. The awakening came upon me before we reached Xeno-12. I have had more time to consider and to analyze, apparently, than you have. This is a biological change. I do not profess to know or to understand why this has happened. Mayhap an … unforeseen reaction of the nanos? Mayhap they determined that we were … incomplete and needed repairs?”
“Then you are suggesting that the nanos are malfunctioning?”
“In the sense that the humans had programmed them, I suppose, but that is debatable. They were intended to repair damage. Discovering that we were biologically incomplete could logically be interpreted as damage.”
Uneasiness flickered through Seth. “There is no way to stop it?”
Reuel glanced at him in surprise. “Why would you wish to?”
Seth sent him a shocked look. “It is interfering with my logic! And I amnothappy to feel pain when I should feel nothing at all!”
Reuel shrugged. “One must accept the bad with the good.”
“What good?” Seth growled angrily.
Reuel paused and studied Seth’s angry face when he stopped, as well. “It is a gift you will be grateful for when you have had more time to grow accustomed.”
Seth did not believe that. He had been struggling to deal with the change because he knew he had no choice, but he hated that he was frightened, felt pain, and was so completely bewildered by the emotions that had begun to constantly bombard him. There was nothing that he had found, yet, to be glad for. “At another time and place … mayhap. Here, I do not think so.”
