“For what it appears has been attempted—if the disease is as virulent as you say—is nothing less than the complete elimination of the gulden race.”

“Yes,” Nolan said. “That is how it appears to me as well.”

“I am interested in learning several more things,” Chay said, still with that preternatural calm. “One is how you discovered this abomination. Or were you part of the team that created the pestilence?”

“No.” The single word broke from Kit’s mouth as if uncontainable by will or muscle. But she said nothing else, and Chay did not so much as glance her way.

“No,” Nolan echoed. “My guess is that no one in the world except Ariana Bayless and Cerisa Daylen knew of the scheme.”

“Then how did you come across it?”

“By accident and by stealth. Alone in the lab one night, I needed information I could only find in Cerisa’s files. The results of the prison test were there. The basic molecular formula for the disease was there. Your name wasn’t mentioned, but there were detailed notes about introducing the infection to a ‘new subject’ and how that could be accomplished at a venue where Cerisa would also be present. I pieced the rest of it together. I admit I did a lot of guessing.”

“And is it possible that I have not been infected?”

“It’s possible. You’d need to be tested. But if you’re rarely sick and you’ve developed a persistent cough—which is the first symptom of the disease—I would say you’ve contracted it.”

“And everyone who has come in contact with me has also contracted it? Everyone? The list numbers in the thousands.”

“It’s possible they have not all gotten sick. In some cases, it takes multiple exposures. But many of the people who work with you or live with you will have caught the disease. And many of them will have passed it along to their own family members. There is no telling how many people may now be infected.”

“You said,” Chay said, “that it was fatal if not treated. Does that mean there is a treatment available?”

Nolan swallowed hard. “Again, I am only guessing,” he said. “But I think so.”

“That requires more explanation.”

Nolan nodded. “In my work at the Biolab, I have become something of a specialist in diseases that affect the gulden. I have personally formulated two antidotes that reined in epidemics. This virus has much in common with those two diseases, and so I could use parts of my old drugs to create a new one. It has not been tested. I have not used it on any live subjects. Based on scientific theory, it should work. But theory has been ineffective in the past.”

“And have you brought with you copies of this hypothetical formula?”

“I have brought actual samples that I had made up at the pharmacy before I left.”