Dominion Read Free Page A

said Rizzo.
    And they were. From the underside of the pursuit ship appeared two balls of light: torpedoes. The Nomad ’s computer instantly calculated their trajectory, and offered a series of avoidance measures for the pilots to take, none of them applicable for a ship that had no engines upon which to call.
    The torpedoes exploded, but long before they had gotten anywhere near the Nomad . Paul and the others watched the blasts ripple in a convex shape and disperse, as though the missiles had been fired from inside a great bubble, and their power had failed to breach it. Immediately after the explosions, the pursuit ship gave a lurch and lost all momentum. It too had been crippled by an outside agency, apparently completely immobilized, and nobody had to look very far to figure out just what that agency might be.
    A series of thuds came from the body of the Nomad .
    â€œWhat is that?” asked Paul.
    â€œThe thing circling us has fired a number of devices,” said Steven. “They’ve attached themselves to our hull.”
    Meia turned to look at Paul.
    â€œWe’re being scanned,” she said. “My CPU has detected it.”
    â€œShe’s right,” said Alis. “They’re moving through all non-organic systems.”
    â€œBut this ship is immune to scans,” said Paul.
    â€œNot any longer,” said Meia.
    â€œIt’s not only non-organics,” cut in Syl. “I can sense them examining me too.”
    It was an odd feeling, and she could only compare it to a kind of caress. It was intrusive, but not entirely unpleasant. She closed her mind to the probing, just in case, but she believed the scan to be physical, and not in any way attuned to psychic activity.
    â€œI don’t feel anything,” said Thula.
    Suddenly there appeared before him an image of his own body, skinless but identifiable by the shape of his nose, which had been broken so often when he was a boy as to be highly distinctive. Thula could see his lungs pumping, his heart beating, even the twitch of individual muscles. Then the image was magnified rapidly, until within seconds Thula was staring into the deepest workings of his brain, watching as synapses flared.
    He risked a quick glance away, and saw that all of the others were also staring at maps of their bodies in varying stages of magnification. Only three were different from the rest. The brief glimpse that Thula got of Meia’s insides was much like Alis’s, and showed pale tubes and hints of circuitry, alongside unidentifiable organs that were part mechanical and part laboratory-grown flesh. When the scan reached Meia’s brain, the patterns revealed were more regimented than his, and the paths taken by the electrical pulses more ordered. He wasn’t entirely surprised. He’d never considered himself particularly logical.
    Then there was Syl. Her brain scan showed nothing—nothing at all. It was like looking at a ball of dough. A scan of a dead person’s brain would probably have revealed something similar.
    The projections vanished and the Nomad ’s lights began to flicker on and off. The food processors and heaters powered up, then just as quickly ceased to function. The chemical toilet flushed. Doors opened and closed of their own volition.
    â€œThey’re deep in our circuitry,” said Meia.
    â€œWhy?” asked Paul.
    He saw Meia discreetly plug herself into the Nomad ’s systems.
    â€œCareful, Meia,” he said.
    Meia jolted as she connected with the ship’s computer, but she quickly recovered herself. Her eyes danced in their sockets, flicking back and forth, up and down, following code unseen by the rest of them.
    â€œThey’re searching,” said Meia.
    â€œFor what?”
    â€œContamination. It’s extraordinary. This is scanning on a subatomic level. We have nothing like it. It’s—”
    Meia spasmed, and her head began to shake uncontrollably. Her hands