Chapter Twenty-Seven
Two weeks later
At Michaela’s prompting, he’d further explained the serum developed by Dr. Stratos had deactivated the nanocyte only half the time in lab tests.
“So, you don’t know if it will work or not,” Ruyn said.
“I am optimistic,” Dr. Kurur had said.
She squeezed his shoulder, and they entered the medical facility. A check-in kiosk instructed them to wait in the comfort station. “We’ll know one way or another very soon,” she said as they took their seats.
“I expected better than 50 percent,” he said.
“It might be better than that. Dr. Kurur said the serum might prove more effective than 50/50 with a live host rather than a blood sample.”
“It might be worse, too,” he said glumly.
He’d had too much time to envision worst-case scenarios.
After his brother’s arrest, Korsan Enterprises had been raided, computers and documents seized, and the office shuttered by order of the magistrate.
The subsidiaries were still operating—as far as he knew—but Korsan Enterprises had folded, rendering its employees jobless.
“If the worst happens, researchers will keep trying,” she said. “They’ll use the information they gain from you and tweak the serum. One way or another, they’ll find an answer, and you’ll be cured.”
She’d been the voice of optimism. He appreciated the support and positive attitude, but attitude didn’t equate to fact. His fate rested in the hands of chance.
If the treatment failed, for Michaela’s own good, he would need to break it off.
It would tear him apart, but he loved her too much to ruin her life and limit her to a less-than-complete relationship.
Loyal to a fault, she would never walk away, so he would have to do it. Somehow, he would find the willpower.
And that was the crux of his despair. Not his health, not the future, but leaving her.
If there’d been any doubt sexual intercourse with him had caused her anaphylactic shock, it had been dispelled by two weeks of abstinence. She hadn’t had a single allergic reaction.
“Ruyn?” A nurse-tech appeared. “We’re ready for you now.”
Michaela stood. “I’d like to go with him.”
“I’m sorry, but you’ll need to remain here.”
“It’s all right.” He got to his feet. “I can handle this on my own.”
“It is going to be okay. I can feel it.” She palmed his cheeks and planted a hard closed-mouth kiss on his lips. He’d forbidden more intimate kissing, fearing he’d pass on the antigen. She had protested, but he refused to take even a small risk.
He followed the nurse to a room with the huge analyzer machine where Dr. Kurur waited for him. “Good morning. I imagine you’re anxious to get started.”
“Anxious doesn’t begin to cover it.” Please let this work!
“We’ll draw blood first and run a scan as a baseline to make sure nothing has changed, and then you’ll receive the first injection. You’ll receive four injections over the course of an hour. Then we’ll do another blood draw and scan.”
His gut tightened. “So, I’ll know in an hour if it’s going to work?”
Dr. Kurur shook his head. “No. You’ll need to return for retesting in a week. We’ll have an idea if it’s going to work then. The four injections might be enough, or you might need additional ones. If we see no decrease in the number of active nanocytes, then we’ll know the serum doesn’t work.”
The doctor left. With the nurse-tech supervising, a phlebotobot drew his blood, and then Ruyn climbed into the analyzer. After the fifteen-minute scan, he received the first injection while still in the medical machine.
Thoughts of doom on a loop, he waited for the next injection.
* * * *
Please, let this work.
Michaela wished she’d asked how long the treatment would take.
For now, all she could do was pace and cross her fingers everything would work out.
Ruyn had become so disheartened. She’d redoubled her efforts to sound positive for his sake, but inside, she wasn’t quite so optimistic.
Honestly, she’d expected better than 50/50, too.
It was a toss-up whether they would come out of this okay. She feared that if they couldn’t cure him, he would go all noble and altruistic and do something stupid like break off their relationship.
Worried he’d infect her, he refused to kiss her!
He’d allowed hugs, but no intimate kisses, and wouldn’t even discuss using a condom.
At night, they’d held each other, clung to each other, close in proximity, but each riding the wave of fear alone.
Her greatest worry wasn’t that Ruyn couldn’t be cured—although that scared her to death—but that this would drive them apart.
They were losing the ability to talk to one another, and silence could have the same effect as ill-chosen words.
She refused to give up without a fight! Just because the treatment might not work this time, didn’t mean it wouldn’t work the next time.
She emphasized this wasn’t a one and done.
Spurred by the medical challenge and Galpol’s interest in warding off a galactic threat, medical researchers weren’t going to give up.
Michaela had been in contact with Tervik. As expected, he’d been unwilling to share details of the investigation, but he had admitted that Murta, her husband, and Chaumi had been taken into custody and interrogated—with little result. The Prellims had yet to confess to anything they could use.
That came as no surprise. An accomplished spy, Murta was good at keeping secrets, having hidden her identity so well, she’d been able to infiltrate the government and serve as minister of defense. She wasn’t likely to start talking now.
Without any details from Murta, Korsan’s testimony would be critical to a conviction.
Witnessing Ruyn’s spiral into despair had fueled her animus toward his brother. Murta had instigated the contact, but Korsan had allowed her into their lives by his willingness to break the law. He had been criminally, recklessly stupid and shortsighted.
Unlike Murta, he wasn’t an evil or bad person, and he loved Ruyn, but how could he not have foreseen things would not end well?
Self-fulfilling prophecy strikes again. To avoid losing his business, he’d taken action resulting in him losing his business, nearly getting Ruyn killed, getting him infected with an alien microbe that nearly killed her, getting himself arrested, and costing his employees their jobs.
When Korsan Enterprises had imploded following his arrest, her GAL Friday gig ended, too. The agency had offered to reassign her, but she turned it down. She couldn’t abandon Ruyn and leave him to face this.
She didn’t hold grudges, and one day, she would forgive Korsan, but not yet.
“All done.”
She looked up to see Ruyn. “How did it go?” she asked anxiously.
“I won’t know anything for a week. I have to come back to be retested and possibly retreated.”
“I guess it was too much to hope for immediate answers.” She hugged him, and his arms came around her. “What all did they do?”
“Took blood, scanned me, then injected me four times.” He sighed.
Please, please let this work. The waiting on top of everything else would suck. “Let’s go home.”