Warrior Heart

by Laura Kaighn

Vesarius eyed the horticulturalist with interest. “Tundra says it makes him feel like a young pup again. How does it affect humans?”

  “It doesn’t. And it only affects certain Kin Companions, each a little differently. Canine Kin get frisky. Otter Kin become industrious.” Yuri paused, his voice rising in timbre when he continued, “And feline Kin develop nasty headaches. I discovered that last one when Neesha got a hold of some Kinnip by accident.” Yuri chuckled, rubbing one almond eye with the back of his fertilizer-stained hand. “Moxie later complained to Yolonda that the tiger had been ‘rather irritable’ that night. Tore up her favorite piece of furniture.”

  Vesarius’ eyes swelled when he realized which item. “The nineteenth century tapestry chair? The one with the clawed feet?”

  Yuri nodded. “Now Neesha must ask specific permission from either Kite or myself before collecting herbs for tea.”

  The men exchanged chuckles. Then Tundra caught Vesarius’ attention with an image and a tilt of his head. “Yuri. Tundra asked me to try some. Since I am the only Vesar onboard, he feels you would be interested in seeing my reaction to the herb.”

  Yuri backed away spreading his arms over his delicate plants. “Wouldn’t it be wiser to try Kinnip in a sturdier environment? One without breakables?”

  Vesarius easily grinned imagining the results. “I could take some back with me to the medical center. That would confound the doc.”

  Yuri raised splayed hands. “I won’t be held responsible. I’ll say it was stolen.” Matsumoto moved to the rear of the white-walled lab disappearing into a back room. Kite returned with the Asian horticulturist, trouncing forward with a small plastic bag of greens in her teeth. The otter stood back on her hind feet raising her head up to offer the sample to the taller Vesar.

  “Thank you, Kite. I ... well, Tundra will let you know the outcome.”

  “Try just sniffing it first,” Yuri advised with a poke to the bag dangling from the Vesar’s big fingers. “If there’s no reaction within five minutes, then take a small leaf and place it under your tongue. Kite’s already removed all the spines from the petioles, so you don’t have to worry about the poison.”

  Vesarius recoiled from his inspection. “Poison? You never said anything about-”

  “Not to worry, Sarius,” Yuri soothed, his palms open in appeasement. “The plant’s been thoroughly tested. Only the thorns and the roots are poisonous. They’re a defense mechanism against browsers and burrowers. A well-adapted life form.”

  “Where did you find this plant anyway?” Vesarius more closely examined the succulent, pear-shaped leaves, each about the size of his thumbnail.

  “On Mytok,” Yuri answered. “It was growing naturally in the windy canyons outside the city. We’re growing the plants in sandy soil under the heat of a full-spectrum thermal lamp in the back office. But we’re having trouble keeping adequate air circulation.” Yuri shook his head sadly. “Kite and I didn’t get a chance to explore any further before the Orthops returned. Botanists need a full year of intense study before we can claim a species’ discovery. It takes more than a lifetime to appreciate an entire planet’s diversity.” Yuri Matsumoto shrugged. “Anyway, you don’t need to hear the ravings of an old man. You better get back to the medical center before that pretty blonde nurse tells on you.”

  “Everyone wants to be my parole officer,” Vesarius retorted dryly. He and Tundra exchanged farewells with Matsumoto and his Kin. They tramped out into the corridor once more. “I wonder if that pretty blonde nurse would let us visit Dorinda.” The pair took the magnelift and fell toward level four. “She must feel more isolated than I did two days ago. I have shipmates here, close friends like you and Coty.” As Vesarius addressed his Kin, he included mental images that matched his words. It was the truest way to communicate with the intelligent and genetically enhanced animal. “Dorinda has no one. Her courage cannot hold out forever.”

  When the pair entered the medical center, however, activity flurried around them. Sheradon’s locum tenens, Arabbi Tjon, was directing several nurses and equipment toward the double doors leading to the intensive care unit. “What is going on?” Vesarius asked watching the chaos.

  The dark-skinned woman ignored him, instead giving her orangutan Kinpanion silent instructions and gesturing toward the intruders. Vesarius backed away when the flame-furred primate ambled over and pointed at the exit with a long, fuzzy forefinger.

  “Do not bother to throw me out, Sumatra. I am leaving. Tundra?” The two retreated to his bed in the recovery unit. At least there they could be near if Dorinda needed anything. When he had settled on his back, crossed his legs and folded his good arm up under his head, Tundra imaged the Orang’s message to him. Vesarius frowned. “You mean I am doing just what Dr. Tjon ordered?” Grunting in disgust, Vesarius sat back up. He released an indecisive sigh. “Did you get a hint from old Sumatra just who all this rushing about is for?” Tundra negated by hanging his head. “Well, perhaps it is best we do stay here. Sheradon will not sleep now. And I do not desire to be on her tranq list.”

  As the two waited, Dr. Yolonda Sheradon strode in through the main doors still drawn and twice as irritable. “Vesarius, come with me. I’ve got a job for you.”

  “What?”

  “Let’s go, Iron Man. You’re taking a decon-bath and putting on scrubs.”

  His mouth gaping, Vesarius followed the doctor as if an invisible towline were drawing him to her. “It is Dorinda. Is it not?”

  “You’re her moral support, Commander. You’re going to talk her through surgery. She needs it now if she’s going to walk again.”

  “What has happened?” Vesarius demanded as Yolonda shoved him into a sonic shower stall and closed the door.

  “Stand still and I’ll tell you.” Sheradon set the decontamination shower for maximum and palmed the start button. The sonic device hummed quietly. A tingling sensation coursed over the Vesar’s entire frame, even beneath his leather clothing. From outside the stall, Vesarius heard Sheradon continue. “You know Dorinda needs clone replacements for several shattered vertebrae. In itself, the operation’s not difficult, though hard on the patient’s heart and lungs. However, less than an hour ago, Dorinda overheard a conversation between another patient and Nurse Igoni.” Sheradon paused to shut off the shower and hand Vesarius some scrubs through the shower door. “She knows about the Arch, Sarius. In her present mental state, I dare not risk full anesthesia. It would put too much of a strain on her nervous system.”

  Vesarius stepped out of the decontamination unit dressed in silver cotton coveralls and booties over his Vesar leatherwear. “You want her conscious so that you can more easily monitor her vital signs. And you want me to-”

  “Just talk to her, Vesarius,” Sheradon stressed. “Tell her funny stories. I don’t care. Just keep her relaxed, but alert.” As if an afterthought, she added a second later, “And stay out of my way while I’m working. Go. I’ll be there in a minute.”

  Vesarius strode toward the ICU and a purposeful team of medical personnel. Tundra whined once but stayed back when the Vesar signaled him with an open palm. Vesarius swallowed. So, while he had been conversing with Jonas and Yuri, Dorinda had been discovering a cruel reality. She was now trapped in a universe of space travel, alien alliances, and deadly Orthops. It had been an Orthop that had almost killed her. It was because of the Orthops that she was trapped here – the woman who had compassion enough to save a life no matter how exotic or frightening. Vesarius could not let her experience the anguish he had felt when he thought his world closed to him.

  When he entered the ICU, an imposing male nurse moved to block his path. “What are you doing in here, Commander?”

  “Dr. Sheradon sent me,” Vesarius growled, his eyes searching the facility for Dr. Tjon.

  “Let him pass, Timothy,” Tjon ordered from Dorinda’s booth. Vesarius pushed past the man and stopped, staring.

  Dorinda lay on her stomach, her left arm at her side, her right cradling her head.
Eyes closed, the woman was pale, a contrast to the flaming twist of hair draped loosely atop her pillow. What horrified the warrior, however, was the blackened maw marring the smoothness of Dorinda’s exposed back. Just above the curve of her waist, the wound’s inner edges were weepy and fresh while its outer perimeter was showing signs of healing, a tribute to Sheradon’s synthetic skin no doubt.

  In the century since Dorinda’s time, medicine had advanced considerably, but so had the suffering. Vesarius’ thoughts connected those two facts in twisted irony. Were medical advances a result of or the precedence for the bloody wars humans and Vesar had yet to dismiss from their psyche? He heard himself rumble, “This was not supposed to happen.”

  “Over here, Commander,” Dr. Tjon instructed motioning him to the padded chair by Dorinda’s head. “You know what to do?”

  Nodding, Vesarius settled into his seat. He inhaled several sobering breaths before speaking. “Dorinda?”

  The woman opened her vivid, golden-green eyes and expressed in that moment such despair that Vesarius leaned away blinking. This was not going to work. How was he to cheer a woman whose life and world had suddenly been snatched away? Were in fact faded moments in her people’s history? Dorinda’s family in North Carolina, her precious photos of her husband, even the gregarious Casey was dead and long since turned to dust. Dori’s whole existence had been stolen in an instant of Orthop plasma fire and the Pompeii’s proton armament.

  But Vesarius was indebted to this woman. He owed her his life, twice over now. Despite his strangeness, Dorinda had accepted him, trusted him. That demanded more than just talk. While Dr. Sheradon may have saved her life, Vesarius would rescue her spirit. Instill some warrior Fury, Sheradon had said. Vesarius would do that and more.

  Swallowing hard, the Vesar leaned forward again and locked eyes with the woman on the bed. “Listen to me,” he started with a quiet intensity that caught the attention of everyone around as well. “It is my lifeblood I give to you, Dorinda. My warrior heart, that you may understand the marvels of this future that only you will see with newborn eyes.” He paused to make sure Dorinda was listening, conscious of the curious stares from the medical staff and of the arrival of Yolonda Sheradon.

  The chief medical doctor gave her team some instructions, then got busy readying the wound for vertebra replacement. She also nodded for the Vesar to continue.

  Vesarius connected eyes again with his charge and explained in his most impassioned voice. “This future, the future of your people, is wondrous and exciting, and dangerous. I will tell you of my space brother, Michael Bear Coty. Half Lakota but full adventurer.

  “When he was five years old, Michael’s full-blood mother took him on his first shuttle ride to Moon Station Six. His eyes were wide with curiosity, his face pressed against the portal window. Michael asked his mother who had made such a wondrous sky with twinkling eyes and feathery clouds of dust.

  “Marcaisa Coty told him the story of how Muskrat, Beaver, and Flying Squirrel had made the earth and sun from sacred hoops. By combining their energies, they commanded the other powers of the universe to help make a world for all to live on. Each in turn breathed life into the sixteen skeletal hoops, creating the waters and the atmosphere and the land.

  “Then the Great Spirit called forth the elements to create all manner of animals and plants so that they may share the language and richness of the earth. Next, Beaver took the vein of a red cedar tree to create the caretaker of the land, We-Ota Wichasha. He arose and developed into seven nations of men. But only four remain on the Earth. The other three took the Thunderbird and flew out to visit the universe, to thank the great powers for helping to create the Earth and Man. It was a long journey. There were many to thank.

  “Many of the three nations took rest on other planets, and in gratitude stayed to help create new worlds. Marcaisa Coty pointed to the twinkling stars saying that as the days pass and nights fall, the other nations light fires so that the four Earth nations of man may see where they have gone, whom they have thanked. The fires are invitations for Earthmen to visit their lost brothers.

  “Michael Bear Coty remembered that story and has since wanted to visit the other three nations of We-Ota Wichasha. He knew he would find brothers. He had none on Earth.” Vesarius paused for Dorinda’s eyes were far away. A tear puddled in the corner of one, then tumbled along her fine nose to dash against her drawn lips.

  Dorinda blinked then looked up at him and focused on his dark mahogany face. “One of the nations was Vesar?” she asked quietly.

  Cheered that she had been listening and was now asking for more, Vesarius exchanged a nod of approval with Dr. Sheradon as she completed the replacement of the first shattered vertebra. Gazing into Dorinda’s large inquiring eyes, Vesarius recognized the desperation there. Not just to know more about this future, but to also feel somehow a part of its grand scheme. To belong. Vesarius started a new story.

  “The Vesar have a legend that tells of Brahmanii Sule, the Great Starter of things. She was a spirit, not male, not female. And out of loneliness She pulled together particles of dust and planet debris to make a world to live on. This home Brahmanii Sule called Obji or Center, for it was the foundation for Her next gift. Still lonely, She wanted other spirits to share Obji with Her. This barren sphere was in need of life.

  “In her desolation, Brahmanii Sule breathed Her spirit onto Obji. She made the elements, the sky and continents. Now She was tired, but Her work was not complete, for there was still no life, no people. So with more of Her spirit, Brahmanii Sule breathed out clay men and women. Then She breathed life into them. And when they began to move about the land, Brahmanii Sule was very happy.

  “But as She started to talk to them they complained. ‘How are we to live? What are we to eat?’ Brahmanii was going to give the Obji people the power to create, as She did, but that giving would have drained Her too much. It would have killed Her, and Brahmanii would then never share Obji with the people. So Brahmanii breathed some more onto Obji. She created animals and plants for the people to eat and care for.

  “Now Brahmanii Sule was very tired, and She wanted to rest. But the people were fighting over the food and the land. The people could not share. Brahmanii realized then that She had made a grave mistake in creating the Obji people. They had life but not spirit. Brahmanii knew that for the people to live peacefully, She must give them each a part of Her spirit. And when She did so, Brahmanii Sule left none for Herself and perished.

  “But the people of Obji now had spirits and the ability to create life, to make children. Brahmanii’s gift could be shared and cherished by all. We Vesar have since honored Brahmanii Sule by sharing Her spirit and by following Her desires for peace.” Pausing, Vesarius blinked and smiled crookedly at his singular audience. “We try to anyway. Our history since has been a trial against the ideal.” He shrugged. “A legend’s power fades with time.”

  Vesarius took a moment to check Sheradon’s progress. Yolonda was blinking back fatigue as she laid the last cloned vertebra in place and began sealing up the nerve endings. Dr. Tjon patted her on the shoulder. “I’ll finish up, Yolonda. Your bed is calling. You can’t do any more good here. The hardest part’s done.”

  Vesarius gave the chief medical officer a satisfied nod. “It is a noble healer who can admit her own limitations.” Gratefully he covered his shoulder-encased heart with an open palm. “I am indebted to you, Dr. Sheradon.”

  Wearily Yolonda brushed sweaty bangs from her brow. “Just don’t go cutting your braid for me until after the incision’s been closed. You’ll gum up the works.” Sighing Sheradon backed away from the operating table. Then, nodding at her competent staff, the physician retreated from the booth. Arabbi Tjon took up the laser sealer.

  Vesarius went back to work as well. He considered the tired face of the Earth woman before him and smiled encouragingly. “Soon I will take you to the arboretum. We will have what you humans call a packnick on the grass.”

  Dorinda
smiled sleepily and corrected his error. “Picnic.” Then with a weary exhale the woman requested one final tale. “Sarius, tell me about you and Coty. How you met.”

  “All right.” Vesarius continued his story weaving, filling Dorinda’s spirit as Brahmanii Sule had done for the children of Obji.

  * * *

  Two hours later, Michael Bear Coty dropped by to visit his Vesar friend. Dr. Tjon met her captain outside Sheradon’s office. “No visitors, Coty. Sorry. Dr. Sheradon’s on rest leave until this evening.”

  Coty sagged slightly his voice betraying his impatience. “I just wanted to know how everyone’s doing. We’re less than a day out from Fronznee Two, and I’ll need Vesarius cleared for light duty at the least.”

  Tjon was shaking her head. “The commander is resting also. He assisted in a surgery I completed for Yolonda just hours ago.” Coty’s confused glower brought a knowing smile to the Indian woman’s round face. “Vesarius had the distinct role of anesthesiologist. The Earth woman, Tanner, was in need of moral support. She found out about the Arch prematurely.”

  Curiosity inverted Coty’s features into an anticipatory grin. “Can I see?”

  “See, Captain?” Now Tjon looked confused.

  “Don’t play coy with me, Arabbi. I know you monitor all procedures in the medical center. You have libraries full of bandage brigades and emergency drills.”

  “Those storage crystals are for educational and professional use. I would need Dr. Sheradon’s permission.” Then reconsidering, Arabbi’s voice softened and she tilted her head congenially. “He told us the story about your first trip to Moon Station Six, about We-Ota Wichasha.”

  Coty blinked, his chin jerking backward. “What’s this? My first officer’s softening into a storyteller? You sure I can’t scan those crystals? What else did Sarius say?”

  Arabbi’s pouty lips tilted upward. “He told Ms. Tanner the story of Brahmanii Sule. He also told us of your first meeting, yours and his, aboard the Pvokx.”