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threat.”
    Had his wife known this? He glanced at her.
    Nell shrugged and flashed her palms. “You want me to remain on board as a reserve Petri dish in case the Syn-En bring the Plague aboard along with the refugees?”
    Apollie’s nostrils flared. “Like all women, you are a fearsome warrior, Nell Stafford. I would not prevent you from joining any fight and would gladly face any opponent at your side.”
    Bei stiffened. The Syn-En did not discriminate based on gender, but he damn well reserved the right to protect his wife. He’d pluck a feather from Apollie’s head, use it as a quill, and write it on her forehead.
    Nell blushed. “I’m not exactly a warrior.”
    Waving her pale hand, Apollie dismissed Nell’s doubts. “As we are not fighting an opponent we can see, that is neither here nor there. The fact is, Nell Stafford’s blood is different than most other Humans.”
    Nell tugged on her sleeves to cover the streaks of silver. “That’s kind of obvious.”
    Doc frowned at Apollie. “NDA doesn’t involve the immune system. And she is just like other Humans besides that.”
    Except his wife wasn’t. Bei didn’t mention her cerebral interface, nor her effect on him.
    “I am not discussing the silver sheen.” Apollie squeezed her red eyes closed for a second before squaring her shoulders. “I was there the day Earth was infected with the Surlat strain.”
    The Syn-En around the table sat up straighter. The background noise in the WA faded to nil.
    Bei decided against closing the communal link. Secrecy was poison.
    Nell scrubbed a hand down her face. “I knew you’d slept for over a hundred years but...”
    “I selected Nell for our...” Apollie studied her fingers. “For our repopulation experiment.”
    Elvis sprang from his seat. “Skaperians and their experiments,” he snarled then wheeled a chair around the table. The Amarook tapped it against the back of Nell’s knees. “I wouldn’t eat you if I were starving, Paladin.”
    With a weak smile, Nell sank onto the seat. “You wanted to use me to create a new slave race. A cross between Human and Skaperian.”
    The woman hissed, but Karl kept her in her seat.
    Apollie fidgeted on her chair. Color rouged her cheeks. “We needed antibodies for a vaccine. Humans are close enough to us that we knew we could get it from you. But then... Then the scientists discovered something different in one percent of the survivors. Something unique. Never before seen.”
    Nell sagged in her chair. “Why not just give us tiaras and sashes and award us King and Queen of the Freaks? Why mess with our egg baskets and kidnap us?”
    Bei set his hand on his wife’s shoulder. “You’re not a freak.”
    Sitting on his haunches, Elvis stroked her hair. “You’re the best Human. Nearly perfect, except you lack a third set of limbs.”
    Swallowing hard, Apollie sent a file to the view screen. The Skaperian equivalent of classified was scrawled under the name. Then came assurances of death if an unauthorized person opened it. “Survivors fell into three categories.” She typed in her password. “Possible candidate, unsuitable candidate, and candidate.”
    Nell’s picture appeared under a banner titled Arizona Driver’s License. Given her birth date, she would be one hundred-sixty-four in three months. She looked younger now than in her picture—a gift from the Skaperians that would keep her ageless for another hundred years. She squeezed his hand. “What swung the vote to candidate?”
    “Upon infection, these particles appeared.” Apollie tucked her braids behind her ear. “You recovered faster, you healed faster, you learned faster. You had been given the ability to adapt within a generation, not from one generation to the next.”
    “That’s not possible.” Bei tightened his hold on Nell’s hand. “No species evolves that quickly.”
    “I would have found these particles.” Doc shook his head. “I know Nell Stafford’s blood work better than