On the far side of the screen, the vent narrowed, and Tash had to squeeze her way through the tight space. The throbbing noise grew louder.
Reaching the end of the shaft, Tash wriggled toward a durasteel grate. It popped off easily, and Tash dropped down into a new chamber.
She was in the pump room. Like the other chamber, this one was round. Most of the space was occupied by an enormous mechanism made of gleaming durasteel. A pipe, twice as wide as Tash was tall, rose up from the machine, straight up through the thick stones of the ziggurat. This must be what the Shi’ido planned to use to pump the virus into the Gobindi atmosphere.
Still wearing the visor, Tash looked at her arms. The virus had stopped wriggling and had begun to drop off her skin. Both Dr. Kavafi and the evil Shi’ido had said the virus could only live a short time unless it found a host, and these seemed to have died.
Taking off the visor, Tash walked around the pump, looking for an exit. She spotted a plexiform cell similar to those she’d seen before, set into the wall of the chamber.
She recognized the figure inside.
“Uncle Hoole!”
The Shi’ido pounded on the thick plexiform and yelled, but Tash could not hear him. Hoole’s skin started to wrinkle, and Tash assumed he would change into something large, like a Wookiee or a gundark, and break down the transparent barrier. Instead, Hoole suddenly became a ratlike Ranat. Then a tiny crystal snake. Then he transformed into a large Gank, and then again into Hoole. Pausing only to take a deep breath, Hoole began another series of changes-so rapid that Tash could hardly tell what he looked like as the transformations became a blur. What was he doing?
Then Tash saw the vent in his cell wall. She put on her visor.
A virus stream poured into Hoole’s cell. The walls and floor were covered. Even Hoole’s skin was covered-Tash could see millions of the little wriggling organisms working their way along his skin, trying to work their way into his flesh.
But the minute Hoole changed shape, the virus lost its hold.
As long as Hoole kept changing shape, he was safe from the virus.
“Surprising, isn’t it?” said a malicious voice.
Tash knew it was the evil Shi’ido before she turned around. He was standing behind her wearing an oxygen mask. He pointed at Hoole. “Perpetual metamorphosis. He changes shape too quickly for the virus to establish itself Ingenious, I have to admit. But I expect that from Hoole.” His voice was muffled by the oxygen mask. “You know, he proved difficult to infect from the start. I tried using an injection, and it didn’t work at all.”
He looked at Tash. “I should have known you would be resourceful enough to escape the hot chamber,” he said.
Tash backed away from him. “That’s not all. I also seem to be immune to your virus! It’s not infecting me.”
She expected the Shi’ido to look stunned. Instead he only sniffed. “Nonsense. The reason the virus particles are not infecting you now is that you have been infected since the day you arrived. I did it to you myself.”
At that moment, Tash felt the lump on her arm expand. Greenish-brown ooze leaked through her sleeve and began to spread along her arm. Tash pulled back her sleeve and saw that the bump was the size of her palm.
She was infected. And the virus was growing.
CHAPTER 18
The Shi’ido smiled. “You see, you are not immune.”
Tash felt her left arm grow heavy. She staggered and fell to her knees.
The false Dr. Kavafi had infected her with a shot in the arm that first day in the Infirmary. “You… said it was an antivirus to protect me,” she said weakly.
“I lied.” The Shi’ido stood over her. “I must say, you intrigue me,” he admitted. “It has taken longer for the virus to begin replicating itself in you than in any other subject I experimented on.”
He studied Tash as if she were a slab of meat. “I wonder why? You might be worth studying, but I suppose we will never know now.”
When Tash looked at the quivering ooze on her arm, she gagged. To keep from staring at it, she focused on the Shi’ido. “You’re killing people.”
“I have my reasons,” the Shi’ido replied. “But then you already have an inkling, don’t you? At least, you know its name.”
Project Starscream. The code words that had gotten her into the ziggurat. The code words they had discovered on board the ship.
Project Starscream. Tash had no doubt that she was looking at its mastermind.
Tash felt her anger, long held inside, spew out. “You vicious-” she started to yell.
The virus was quickly growing, up her arm to her shoulder. She could feel slime slowly sliding down her back. The ooze wasn’t on her skin-it was growing out of her skin. She fell to her knees and struggled to keep from fainting.