Bane Read Online Free PDF Page A

go there. I have a place within the city that will be more private.”
    She looked down at his hand. “I know it is a lot to ask, but is there a place where I can get something else to wear? If I have to do this, I want it to feel rather more like a date and less like a medical procedure.”
    “That can be arranged. Do you have a preference for colour?” He put an arm around her, and together, they walked down to the main floor.
    Persons in the first waves of infection were milling around, some weeping, others giving comfort. Everyone was very calm and that frightened Ava more than anything she had seen.
    She waited until they were outside the building and on the skimmer. “How can they all just accept their impending demise?”
    “We live for a very long time. When we are dying, we know it.” He flew the skimmer through the streets, along a wide pathway bordering a body of water.
    “Where are we going?”
    “My home. It is within the city limits but on the edge of the ocean. It will afford us privacy while keeping us within the quarantine zone.”
    “I am still having a hard time with the fact that your population calmly accepted this situation.”
    “There was a wave of dissent, but our councillors and the prefects calmed the population by telling them that my little ship was on the way to pick up a healer. They then frantically called me, and we redirected to the station where I found you. It was most peculiar, as if they were waiting for my request for a high-grav healer.”
    She snorted. “I was kidnapped from my last assignment and stuffed into my transport pod after I was gassed. At this point, I was supposed to be on the Rhetek base waiting for my next dispatch to a planet with someone who needs my attention, someone who has been waiting for a healer for a while.”
    Kondr looked at her as he drove. “Should I feel guilty? I think not. There is far more than coincidence at work here. That meteor was a biological weapon. They wanted us infected and you here.”
    That brought something to mind. “What is so special about the Admorik?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Someone has handed you a contact healer that can create not only a cure for your race but also the most violent toxin known to your people. Don’t you feel that that is dangerous?”
    The skimmer swerved as he jerked his head toward her. “What do you mean?”
    Ava admitted to surprise. “You honestly don’t know? They call me living bane . Once I heal a race, I can generate a toxin to destroy them at will. I thought that the fellow who handed me over would have mentioned it.”
    Kondr’s hands clenched on the controls. “He did not.”
    She sighed, “Don’t worry. It is not in my plans for any future I can imagine, but whoever stole me did it for that reason. It is the only thing that makes me different from other contact healers. I can save the patterns of any species I have ever touched, and I can craft a substance to either heal them or kill them.”
    “This would have been important to know before you touched your first patient.”
    “I wasn’t really given an option. The pathogen struck me the moment the pod opened.”
    Kondr smashed his fist against the control panel. “No wonder he told me not to open the pod before we landed.”
    The skimmer wobbled dangerously. “I understand your outrage, but can we finish this conversation when we get to our location? It seems to be getting you riled up.”
    He nodded tightly and set the skimmer down. “We are here.”
    She looked around at the gleaming white building perched on the edge of the rocky shore. “Well, then. I think it is time you began asking the questions you should have asked before you tried to save your people.”

Chapter Six
    “Is this the prefect’s home?” She looked around and listened to her voice echo.
    “No, it is the Lytan family home. My grandmother lives here, and my sister and her husband visit often. It is my sister’s clothing that I am offering to