“She’s dying.”  Jordan Reid stood outside the high-security brig, PADD in hand.

Captain Helena Dread accepted it and began to read, her face dropping as the report unfolded, “Within a month?”

Reid added, “Or less.  She was still searching to make the perfect specimen – the records from the compound corroborated it, but there was something else.  In the last six months, her body started to decay.  She’s lived a thousand years and more – El Aurians live long lives, but she’s been cheating her way to an attempt at immortality. It started before this – it’s on page five.”

Helena gasped, “She was using blood, tissue, and…everything else to extend her life…artificially.”  The CO read further and stopped at the final lines, “You think that was part of why her old staff took the children at such a young age…because they discovered what she was really up to?”

Jordan took the PADD back, “I think she thought she could do it.  That she had done so much with everything else…that this would be enough on her march to scientific discovery and perfection.  I don’t think she was ever whole, captain.  I’ve done my share of studies of the worst villains in the history of medicine and science.  Most of them were missing a piece of themselves that would have kept them from straying into the darkness.  If we had access to her records from her time with her people…I think we’d find they felt the same.  She doesn’t think she did anything wrong.  I don’t imagine she’ll be changing her mind anytime soon.”

Dread stared at the door and the two deadpan security officers guarding it. “Are the kids okay?”

Reid turned to her other report on the PADD: ” There were over a hundred of them in various conditions. Thirty are going to have to stay on the Hopkins. They will get them stable—it’ll take a few days. The rest are on their way home.  Captain Molla has been ordered to remain here for at least a week to ensure the entire colony receives medical care to the level they need.  She’s quite pleased.”

Helena smiled.  Qamraaa was a medical doctor like her, and her reputation of direct mission involvement preceded her.  Helena was thankful for the Hopkins.  The people of the colony were in desperate need of support.  She asked, “Anything to report from the compound?”

Jordan did not smile in return, “There is something.  Wyatt and the security team thoroughly inspected the facility, which was much like the one we found.  The difference was that he suspects she had a partner or partners—a recent addition, maybe.  He counted the living accommodations – twenty-three rooms—one for our doctor, twenty for her new team, and two more unexplained beds without owners.  The support staff is across the board, claiming they were just extra bedrooms.”

Helena’s smile faded: “But you think they’re lying.”

“Whoever it is, or they are – they’re enough of a threat to keep anyone from talking about it.  An unknown person recently revised the records on the central computer in the compound.  I think she realized her body was going to start failing her…and she sought help.  Whoever would help her with this – won’t be winning any awards for acts of good service.  We can only keep our eyes and ears out, captain.”

Dread dismissed her and returned to stare at the door to the brig.

“I won’t tell you a goddamn thing.”  Doctor Galdrid Ahon was secured to a biobed with the various implements of palliative care sitting around her.  “I’d rather get to dying.”

Helena sat at the thickened glass, watching the old woman.  “You’ve lived such a long life…and even you couldn’t cheat death.”

Ahon turned her head to face the voice; her eyes had begun to be clouded by a slow blindness.  “I could still cheat the bastard.  I still had time.”  She coughed and winced, “If you hadn’t taken my supply away…I could have had a chance at doing it.  Succeeding where others had failed.”

The CO of the Douglas blinked away the shock, “Those ‘supplies’ you speak of – those are children.”

“You live as long as I do; everything in this universe becomes a tradable and usable commodity.”  She turned her fading eyes to the ceiling above, “I was meant for greater things.  For longer.”

Dread let the air between them still, her mind searching for the right question to pry the answers she sought.  She still had a chief science officer who needed to be sorted.  “You could still save someone.”

Ahon spat back, “She is useless to me…and you.  With that abomination in her head…she’ll never be free of it.  I am not its creator – whoever put those abominations on those planets long ago has gone to dust.  I wish I were as good as they were…to create such things…what I would have given to found them at last.”

Dread stood, “She is useful to us.”  She walked to the glass, “You give up too quickly, Doctor Ahon.  If you’ll excuse me, I will find a way to help my officer.”  She walked towards the door, stopping as it opened, “You will die.  And soon.  Whatever awaits you on the other side…I hope it is as ugly as you.”

The door slid shut, leaving Ahon alone again.  She stared at the ceiling, seething. 

She had been so close.