Symbiotic ship

Current Operation: quarantine

“How are you feeling?”

Emma sat up dazed. She immediately locked eyes with Tyrone. “Ow.” She rubbed her head, and immediately her look turned to a glare. “What did you do?” She felt her head again. On one hand she was now missing a large chunk of hair. On the other hand, where she should have had glass cuts, or at least a bump, only smooth flesh existed.

“Miracles of modern medicine.” Tyrone said. Emma’s glare remained.

“That’s my fault.” Sarah said. Emma turned to her, seeing she was carrying a roll of gauze. “I was removing glass from your head, I was wearing gloves, and my finger slipped. Whatever I have, well,”

Emma stood and pressed a button on her computer. “It’s been 5 minutes.” She touched the back of her head. “This thing has no incubation period, does it?” She turned to face them. “You know, Carlos ordered me to report any infection. In the light of things, I think I’ll have to ignore that order.” She immediately moved to a workstation and put her own hand onto one of the scanners.

“She’s taking it well.” Tyrone said, watching Emma work. “So, how many does that make, three?”

“Four, I think a security guard named Cleo is too.”

“A guard? Carlos will not be happy about that.” He looked up. “So, since the button was pressed accidentally, can you lift the quarantine?”

Emma glanced up. “No.” She went back to her work without further explanation. A few minutes later she looked up again. “It would take a few hours to work through all the processes, and I’d need authorization from either James or Carlos. They’ll probably call in a few hours to get authorization from me and this will be over then.” She made a gesture with her left hand and the image on the screen shifted. Sarah walked over to see a magnified image of a blood vessel. The color was distorted since it was using a different wavelength of energy, but among the red blood cells and white blood cells were small thin thread-like objects. “Fascinating.”

“What are those?”

“No clue.”

“Those are Mara cells.”

For a moment no one moved. Slowly, as if dreading what she would see, Emma’s head turned to Sarah. “What did you say?”

Sarah looked more surprised than startled. “That wasn’t me, I’m not sure who that was. It shows up, says something, and doesn’t answer any questions. Ever. Isn’t that right?” No response. “See.”

“Fascinating.” Emma walked to another computer and pressed a few buttons. On one of the screens  showed the infirmary. It showed her and Sarah talking. “What are those?” “No clue, what did you say?” Emma paused. “So whatever form of communication we just heard, it was not vocal. Could it be some sort of telepathy? Maybe some sort of scent that communicates a language.” Emma paused. “No, that can’t be it.

“Resonance.”

“A good a name for it as any.” Emma mused.

“Um, is someone there?”

Emma looked at Sarah, then looked around. “Hello? Who is that?”

“Hi Cleo, that’s us. Myself, and the voice in my head. Dr. Arvo and Tyrone are here too.”

“Great, nice timing with the quarantine. Mind lifting it in turbo-lift M 20-14? We’re in a bit of a mess.”

Sarah turned to Emma, who shook her head. “We need two acting heads; head of medicine, head of security, or head of engineers. You’d need Carlos or James to agree before I can do anything.”Sarah relayed the information.