“Good,” I said. I rubbed my eyes. “I’m going to get some food while supplies still hold out. Do you want anything?”
I am well-nourished. Tralgar tapped its breathing slits with a meaty appendage-tip. Don’t forget to take that mask off before you try to put anything in your food hole.
* * *
By the time I got to the cafeteria I was ready to slide into a booth, drink a beer, and never talk to another living being. But when I checked the statuses I saw that Rhym and Hhayazh had claimed a table against the windows, and amended my mood to “never talk to another human being.”
I sent a request to join them, but perhaps they were too busy eating to notice the ping, because no reply came. So, when I arrived at the caf, I stood where they could see me and waved, and pointed to their table. They waved back and pointed to the table as well.
We’d worked together long enough that I didn’t worry about a miscommunication. I just went and got my food.
Running into my colleagues in the cafeteria so often seemed a little odd, given prior experience and the size of the hospital, but with the lifts down until Linden came back online, nobody was moving around the bubble much. And, I reminded myself, even if the lifts had been running, people at Core General tended to stick to the areas closest to where they worked and lived—as with neighborhoods in a big city.
I wasn’t used to spending so much time grounded, so I’d never really had occasion to notice, before.
Sally’s slip, when she wasn’t unloading at the Emergency Department, was near the oxygen casualty section. Her crew all had our quarters nearby. The Ox Cryo unit was a few dozen meters along the same ring. The cafeteria was a few levels hubward.
When I came back, I was carrying a tray of salad, cloned steak tips, and butterscotch pudding. I also had a dark beer, a mug of tea, and a powerful fixation on the coffee I wasn’t going to be drinking any time in the near future, unless I climbed into a softsuit and made a trek around the outside of the hospital to get to the one humans-only caf that served java. To make matters worse, I’d been informed when I requested the alcohol ration that there wasn’t going to be much more available unless and until we got a supply run.
Maybe I could start a batch of hooch with some medical yeast and lactated ringers. I was sure it would be fine.
Rhym had long since demolished their dinner in the single-minded manner of their kind, so they must be here to keep Hhayazh company. Or possibly to soak in the ambiance: Who could tell? Hhayazh had some greenish slime with lumps in it that I identified from the smell as fermented legumes. Or, if not true legumes, whatever its planet used for lentils.
I raised the snifter of beer to my colleagues as I sat, and said, “Here’s to the inevitable beer riots.”
Hhayazh pointed its bristles at me and buzzed, Does your species immediately resort to social upheaval when threatened with a lack of intoxicants? I would think you would have rightminded that tendency out by now.
“It usually takes at least a couple of hours,” I admitted. The salad had little green flat crunchy seeds in it: an unexpected treat. And probably full of useful fatty acids.
My banter with Hhayazh aside, I was worried about food. Ox sector, at least, grew a lot of its produce on-site, supporting the ox/carbon dioxide biosphere and providing restorative environments for recreation, exercise, and hanging around with plants that didn’t want to argue about politics or sports teams.
It occurred to me that Ceeharens were the most common sentient vegetable on Core General, and that I didn’t know if they even had a preferred sport as a species.
A brief consult with senso informed me that they had several, each a little more incomprehensible than the last. Well, it was my own fault for wondering.
I brought my attention back to the table, where Rhym was fiddling a drinking straw with their tendrils and saying, Something weird is happening.
I swallowed salad. “What weird isn’t happening? We’ve got people from the deep past, a sexy robot with damaged memory cores, a ship full of Darboof with compromised foxes and brain damage, and a toxic meme infecting our AI staff like the technological equivalent of caterpillar fungus. None of this is normal.”
Caterpillar…? Rhym asked, in the tone of somebody who had tried to look it up but didn’t have the right search terms.
So I told them about the fungal parasites on Terra that hijacked the brains of insects and made them perform all sorts of self-destructive behaviors in order to spread the fungal spores.
They were incredulous and horrified. There’s something professionally gratifying about being able to gross out a tentacular tree stump who also happens to be one of the galaxy’s most experienced trauma surgeons.
Hhayazh won the digression—and horrified us both further—by telling us about a similar fungus on Rashaq that infected several species, including Rashaqin nymphs. Not the adults, at least, but the mental image of Rilriltok with a giant sporing body bursting from its back was bad enough that I resorted to tuning to erase it. I wasn’t going to be able to enjoy my pudding otherwise, and if we were facing food shortages, I certainly wasn’t going to waste it.
“But you were going to tell me something else,” I prompted. “Before I distracted you with mind-controlling fungus.”
Rhym leaned back, tendrils twitching. Their eyes narrowed. They had lens-type eyes with lids like humans, operating on very similar principles. Their lids closed from side to side, though, and they were lucky enough to have a nictitating membrane. I’d contemplated more than once getting one added, but I didn’t want to be out of work for the surgery and long enough for the eye to heal. Twice: once for each eye, because they didn’t do them both at the same time.
They said, Sally, will you establish a direct senso link, and handle the translation?
I’m here, Sally said, a little less fuzzily than was lately usual. She wasn’t reaching us through the hospital infrastructure then, but by direct transmission. You’re all encrypted.
Hhayazh leaned in to the table, clacking excitedly. Do you remember that private ambulance that cut us off when we were bringing Helen and her crew in?
“Sure.” My beer was finished. I switched to the tea.
It left.
“But we’re under quarantine.” I expected Hhayazh or Rhym to tell me that the ambulance had left before the quarantine started. I was already mentally preparing myself to ask something like, So what’s so weird about that?
But Rhym said, We know. And there’s something even weirder.
I waited. I sipped my tea. I looked from one colleague to the other.
Rhym writhed excitedly. About twelve standard hours later, another one showed up. Docked in the same berth. And Tsosie saw them bringing in a cryo unit.
Just like the other one, Hhayazh said.
“Weelll.” My tea was somehow empty. I swallowed the last drop and set down the cup. “It is a hospital. People do show up in cryo tanks and tubes, in ambulances.”
When we’re under interdict? Hhayazh said. And then leave again?
“We don’t usually spend this long in dock. Maybe it’s normal activity and we miss it most of the time.” I licked butterscotch pudding off my spoon. Maybe I’d overdone it on the antianxiety tuning. I should probably feel a little more worried by the information my colleagues were giving me than I did. I should let more emotion get through, but…
But I didn’t really want to feel any more anxious. I was tired of feeling anxious.
Maybe, Sally agreed inside my head. But then why can’t I find any record of the patients the private ships brought in? Or even any record of their flight plan or other cargo?
“Oh,” I said.
Oh, Rhym agreed.
CHAPTER 17
AFTER LUNCH, I CHECKED IN on Helen. She was still camped out in the Cryo unit observation lounge as if she had grown into the furniture. She asked if she could see her surviving crew yet. I told her soon, though maybe not Carlos unless he started feeling more inclined toward v
isitors. I promised to ask them if I could further update her on their care, however. I told her that Oni was not yet ready to be awakened, and that I would keep Helen apprised of her progress, as well.
She asked after Dr. Zhiruo and whether she—Helen—would be receiving additional treatment. I told her that she would, as soon as Dr. Zhiruo’s infection was under control and the quarantine was lifted. I told her that the next group—I managed not to say shipment—of her crew would be arriving at that point, and that some were already in ships in holding patterns near Core General, waiting for us to be open for business again.
She asked when the quarantine was going to be lifted.
That was a harder one, and I thought about it anxiously for a moment or two before coming up with an answer that seemed honest to me, but filtered of all my own ability to catastrophize. I was perfectly capable of keeping myself up all night, staring into space and coming up with Ways Things Could Be Worse. Like the one where the Synarche never could contain the meme, and eventually everybody organic on Core General had to take turns deactivating and purging each other’s foxes to make sure there was no data transfer, and then we evacuated as many of the hospital’s staff and patients as possible before leaving the rest to starve, run out of power and oxygen, and eventually spiral into the Well on a decaying orbit to be pulled apart like Rilriltok swiping my spaghetti.
Or the one where the meme was already loose in the galaxy, winging its way around on data packets and wiping out a thousand ans of interspecies civilization in one fell blow.
Thinking like that made me a good disaster planner and emergency response coordinator, and often got Sally wandering into my brain after lights-out to pull the plug and make sure I actually slept a little.
What I said was, “Eventually. I don’t know when, but I can assure you that it is a tremendous annoyance to everybody, and a very grave hardship to many. The hospital is treating it as an emergency situation, and working to resolve it as fast as we can.”
All in all, it was one of the saner conversations I’d ever had with an upset Helen. Dr. Zhiruo might be out of commission, but the healing she had initiated seemed to be proceeding apace. Maybe all Helen had needed was some space in which to sort herself out.
Literally, I mean. Adequate data caching.
That reminded me that I had been so busy since we got back that I hadn’t checked on the machine. Hadn’t Zhiruo been treating that, too?
It definitely wasn’t my job. And I should be doing some more data sorting on the sabotage question while I had a free minute. After I checked on my patients here, I would go and do that, I decided.
Helen went back to her post by the window when I excused myself. I half expected to see footprints worn in the floor in her habitual spot.
Cheeirilaq intercepted me as I was heading toward the room housing Master Chief Carlos. Friend Dr. Jens.
“Goodlaw Cheeirilaq.” I had a feeling I knew what came next, and honestly it was convenient. Todia’s goal had been to introduce the Big Rock Candy Mountain survivors—the conscious ones, anyway—to the reality of systers and the Synarche. “Let me guess. You would like to question the master chief?”
Cheeirilaq froze so completely that when, a few moments later, it let out a held breath, I found myself sighing in sympathy. How did you know that?
“I was Judiciary myself, remember? It’s a logical next step in your investigation.”
I don’t recall having shared details of my investigation with you.
“Of course not. But you did tell me that it involved Afar and associated questions. And most doctors aren’t dumb.” I looked over at where Tralgar and another doctor I didn’t know were consulting on something. I’d been thinking of drafting one of the unit docs or nurses to be my sample syster, but they all had jobs to do. And here was Cheeirilaq, who wanted an opportunity to talk to Carlos and Jones.
Expedient. I could put off the research for another hour.
Linden was still not responding to queries, and the lifts were still down. I spared a moment to be grateful that the hospital’s senso and translation were operated on different protocols. I assumed that there was an AI—possibly Mercy—responsible for them, but the functions seemed to be largely autonomous.
Can you imagine any job more boring for a galactic supercomputer than translating endless complaints about the scrambled eggs?
* * *
I went into the master chief’s room first, leaving the door open and Cheeirilaq lurking behind its frame. Carlos looked up from a console he’d been fiddling with—the kind of thing you give kids whose brains aren’t myelinated enough for a fox yet. “Hi, Doc,” he said. “I found an interesting game. I think it’s civics for kids or something.”
“Good,” I said. “I’m glad you’re using the brain cells.”
“I don’t suppose you have a timeline showing when more of my crew might be arriving?” His voice had a hesitant hopefulness that reached into my chest and squeezed. I noticed that he did not, specifically, ask about his wife.
“A week, maybe? Ten diar? Not long now. Would it help if I arranged for you to have access to any telemetry we get from the rescue ships?”
His smile almost split his cheeks. “Yes, please.”
I perched myself on the edge of the visitor’s chair, intentionally moving from a professional to a personal context. “How are you adjusting?”
His shoulders flinched toward his ears. “Rough,” he said. “Trying not to lose my shi—er, I mean. I’m trying to hold it together.”
I am not trained in rightminding. Never send a trauma doc to do a psychiatrist’s job, I’m just saying. I managed not to panic, though, and groped around in the relevant stock phrases cluttering up my brain until I came up with, “It’s pretty normal to experience a huge sense of dislocation, you know.”
Apparently, something about my demeanor was funny, because he pushed his head back against the pillow and laughed until he started coughing. I helped him sit up, gave him water. Patted his back until he managed to swallow some.
World’s Most Awkward Nursemaid, that’s what it reads on my favorite mug.
When he was settled again, I put his cup down on the nightstand and asked, “What was so funny?”
“You.” The corners of his eyes twinkled with helpless tears. “You’re so serious. ‘It’s pretty normal to experience a huge sense of dislocation, you know’!” he parroted. “As if there’s literally anything normal about waking up centuries in the future and not even knowing which of my friends or family are alive, or might make it out of the meat lockers. You just—”
His face stilled. He settled back.
“You just have to laugh,” he finished, seriously.
“Yeah,” I said. “I can’t even imagine your experience.”
“Heck, Doc,” he said. “I can’t imagine it, and I’m living it. So let’s talk about something else. What do you have for me today, more historians?”
“Actually…” I looked toward the door. “Todia I brought somebody along that you might be interested in meeting.”
“Is this show-and-tell?” He moved the console from the bed to the nightstand and hitched himself up, smoothing his pajama lapels. “I have to say, these things are a damn sight more dignified than a hospital johnny.”
I didn’t know what a hospital johnny was, so I made a note to investigate later. “You know the Synarche is comprised of a lot of different species.”
“Systers,” he said, with a squint of concentration. “Are you slow-walking that you’re about to introduce me to my first a—I mean, my first nonhuman sentience?”
I decided not to argue with him about Helen. Or Central.
“Come on, Doc,” he said, jocularity over an edge of irritation. “You can give it to me straight. I’m not as damn fragile as you all seem to think I am. I might not have a little box in my head controlling my thoughts and emotions, but I am a grown man. I can keep a lid on myself!”
I leaned back against the bulkhea
d—mostly because my feet hurt—and crossed my arms. “Keeping a lid on yourself doesn’t actually help you deal with those feelings and move through them, though. Are you familiar with the concept of repression?”
I’d done a little historical reading and consulted the archinformist, so even without Mercy there riding my senso to back me up, I knew the right terms to use. Always make friends with a super-genius AI historian when you get the chance.
“I’m not gay,” Carlos said, after a long silence.
“I am,” I answered.
He blinked and frowned, but didn’t say anything. A whole ship full of atavistic bigots, yay. Well, it was only to be expected.
“But that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about choosing not to experience and process your feelings. I believe the archaic term would be not owning one’s own shit.”
“Okay,” he said. “What does any of that have to do with… with nonhuman intelligences?”
“It has to do with your crewmates,” I said. “And your ship. And nonhuman intelligences. These are all things you need to process, not put aside.”
He sighed and closed his eyes. “You sound like my wife.” Then he winced, as if remembering that his wife had a three in ten chance of surviving her next adventure, and opened them again. “All right. I promise to try to be more in touch with my feelings. Can you show me what’s hiding behind the door now?”
“Who,” I said, and cued Cheeirilaq to come in.
* * *
The Goodlaw moved slowly, one meticulous leg at a time. Which, I think, only succeeded in making it look more menacing, as it seemed to stalk into the room. It stopped halfway, thorax held parallel to the deck so it wouldn’t loom—which had the effect of making it look three meters long instead of two—raptorial arms and manipulators folded away along its carapace so it didn’t bristle. It was trying to take up as little room as a bug as long as a bunk bed can, and I admit, I found its lowered antennae and compressed abdomen kind of adorable.
Machine Page 26
