Chapter Text
He’s listening to Eiffel’s heartbeat and his breathing, when Eiffel interrupts with, “Hey, Doc?”
As if Doctor is too many syllables to even consider saying. Why must they shorten things so? He sighs.
“I told you to cough. Not to ask question.”
Eiffel obediently coughs, and then says, “You said things were different this time, yeah?”
“Yes.”
He’s never gotten the hang of yeah, he knows it sounds different when he says it—there’s sort of a drawl in Eiffel’s, more vowels than he cares to try to add on his own. It’s strange, how little immersion seems to have helped with acquisition of the English language. Then again, perhaps, he doesn’t care. He’d rather be speaking the language that he thinks in, but that is not possible now, since no one speaks mess of Russian and English and what Eiffel has dubbed “space biology mumbo-jumbo.” No one here, no one on Earth.
He walks around the examination table, listening to the other side of Eiffel’s chest.
Eiffel keeps up with exercise, and, now that the autopilot has gotten herself together and provides hot water, his showers are more frequent. They do not have soap, or at least, not soap that Eiffel trusts, but regular showers mean he smells like normal person, and, no matter what Minkowski writes in logs, not… a revolting smell.
His hair is still slightly damp around the ends and near the nape of his neck. Hilbert himself has given Eiffel haircuts, on occasion, during their time here. He is familiar with the back of Eiffel’s neck. They have long since run out of shampoo, but Eiffel, no matter what Minkowski says, does not—
But he is going down a foolish path of thought.
“Cough again.”
Eiffel obliges. He is so obedient during these sessions now. If it had not been for nearly dying, of course—but that does not bear thinking about. So what if his life is tied to Eiffel’s, and if Eiffel dies…? He listens to Eiffel’s breath in, and out. There is a raspiness to it, and it certainly does not come easy, but Hilbert did stab his lung several weeks ago.
If he had not done that.
If he is lucky Minkowski would kill him. If he is not so lucky, Hera will. If the both of them are dead, Hilbert still loses everything, and Lovelace—how do verbs work in English? He should know by now—will have killed him when no one was left alive to stop her, so that is also not worth thinking about.
Eiffel shivers, and Hilbert realizes he has probably been holding the stethoscope to the man’s back for far too long. There is a mole, just underneath his shoulder blade. Eiffel’s heart is beating fast, and he realizes he is making the man nervous.
“Apologies. No abnormalities.”
“So you know the one,” says Eiffel, “about the doctor, who’s operating on a patient, and the patient says, Doc, will I be able to play the violin after the operation?”
“He never could before,” says Hilbert flatly, digging around in his bag. He finally finds the reflex hammer.
“So you know it.”
“I know it. And I know better.”
“Yeah, I bet you’ve heard some real good ones about retroviruses.”
“There are no good jokes about medicine,” says Hilbert. He taps Eiffel’s left knee. Within nominal range, as Eiffel and the captain always say. In his English studies he finds that is not typical phrasing, and he wonders if to anyone on Earth it would be space mumbo-jumbo.
“I dunno, I feel like there’s probably something you could do with Minkowski’s apple and, you know, keeping the doctor away—“
The right knee shoots up instantly, hard, and Hilbert raises an eyebrow.
“Are you faking?”
“Why would I, Thor? What the hell was that? Did you just find out you were worthy?”
“I don’t know. Opportunity to kick me in face, or balls, and pretend my fault.”
“Whoa, paranoid much? Yeah, I definitely wanna kick the guy with the hammer in his hand in the face. You definitely hit harder! You turned it up to 11! It did not need more cowbell!”
He did not change pressure. Medicine is hobby, but that means nothing to Hilbert. Chess is hobby, and he has not lost game in decades. Computational logic is hobby, and he rebuilt Hera.
Hilbert does not have the patience for this. He considers. Exaggerated reflexes here could mean upper motor neuron lesions in the brain or spinal cord (which in turn could be a result of stroke, multiple sclerosis, traumatic brain injury, or cerebral palsy—that is the whole list, not all of it possible given Eiffel’s medical history), could mean hyperthyroidism, could mean anxiety, could mean nervousness.
“Am I dying? Of terrible knee disease? Or, or, oh god, don’t tell me Doc—it’s… the beginning of zombification? 28 days later… in space?”
They are fools, both of them. Hilbert sighs.
“You have not hit your head recently, though your prevalence of symptoms would fool any doctor not familiar with typical Officer Eiffel-personality flairs, and we will do blood test anyway, not just for this. You are probably fine.”
He does not admit that Eiffel was right, since there are some things that one cannot bear to hear out loud, much less spoken from one’s own mouth, or however they say that in English. An expression crosses Eiffel’s face, a kind of cringing, asymmetrical smile that starts out with the man’s shoulders hunching over, just a tiny bit, as though he is going to raise his hand in class to ask a question for which the answer, he believes, will be obvious. It is an expression that, in adults, he has only ever seen quite so exaggerated on Eiffel.
“So what did you mean by different this time?”
What did he mean by different this time?
They know, for instance, the others do. They are not watching their crew member die with no idea what is going on. They know it is Hilbert who is keeping him alive, and they know that if Eiffel dies whose fault it is. They know the tests are run on the subordinates, they know he has two uninfected people on board not counting himself or Hera, it would not be surprise.
They know who he is. Not name, they still call him Hilbert, but they know his true purpose.
He liked being Alexander Hilbert, actually.
He missed being Selberg, at first, but being Hilbert is not so bad, at least while they trusted him. Now it is more difficult, even if it is relief to not have to hide, but he still likes being Hilbert. He is not so sure he wants to be Dmitri again, not with guns pointed at his head and their narrow, angry glares creeping up his neck if he dares to speak. He is fine with leaving that name on Earth.
Minkowski is not so smart as Hui, or… professional like Lambert, though she is nearly so much of a stickler. Eiffel is stupid as hell and prone to arguing, and in that he also shares some similarities with Lambert. Lovelace is determined and sharp enough not to trust him but will never guess his true motive or believe if she is told, which is danger and blessing all at once. If there was more money to pour into this trip, if he was not so lucky, if there had been more hired—but he is left alone to do what he wants. He creates the plant monster, though he does not dub it the Blessed Eternal, he is pleased that it thinks. Sentience is so easy these days, but it was impossible mystery up until fifty years ago. Not even Dmitri was alive then, but he knows history. Even now, he pursues true goal, which is to understand Decima virus.
Anyway, they call him Hilbert. Even Lovelace has started doing it. Fine name, Hilbert. Battle-bright, too pretty for him, but it sounded like Selberg and it raises suspicion if your name is not familiar enough to you for you to respond when you hear it. He learned that the first time.
So what is different?
There is not much that is different—a few genes on the virus here or there, keep it more alive, keep it more inert. They are perfecting, not experimenting, at this point. Difference is that he knows how the story goes.
“Are you molecular biologist?” he says, and raises his eyebrows at the other.
He gets a look from Eiffel that is… peevish.
Eiffel is different, too. Eiffel is warm, and funny, and God knows what is full story behind his personnel files but how easy, Hilbert thinks, would it be—how direct, Eiffel is, how he rolls over like a pup for a firm voice and a gentle hand. (And Minkowski, whatever they say, is gentle with him.) It is too easy to imagine Eiffel getting wrapped up in something bigger than himself, too easy to imagine a desperate bid that falls so flat.
No one like Eiffel was on last trip. No one so bumbling, so soft, so effortlessly straightforward. No one who speaks mess of English and pop culture like the entirety of Western media can be substituted as shorthand for all of human emotion. Dozens of scientists could look into the sky for decades, but Eiffel did not stumble across alien life by accident, no matter what Minkowski or anyone thinks. Takes genius, to know that one does not know what one is looking at.
“—The symptoms will be the same,” he says, “but I have learned what does not work.”
“Aaaaand there’s still differences on the, uh, molecular level? Like this is a different thing that they gave me? It’s… behaving differently? I know it’s not your first time at the rodeo…”
Hilbert snorts.
“Sure you want answer to be yes?”