Resilience

by Fletcher DeLancey

  Dr. Wells let out a choked sound. “Me, that’s what. I didn’t realize—” She cut herself off, then spoke more calmly, still in High Alsean. “Tell me what happened. Are you in pain?”

  Though she wanted to deny it, there didn’t seem much point when even shaking her head would probably make her pass out. She brought a hand toward her forehead, but her wrist was caught before she made contact.

  “Don’t. Your hands aren’t clean. It’s your head? You have a headache?”

  A headache? That was the understatement of the day. Her head didn’t ache. It stabbed with agony, as if her skull was two sizes too small to contain her brain.

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  Dr. Wells gently pressed a finger behind her ear. “Here? Near your lingual implant?”

  “No.”

  “Good,” she muttered under her breath. “At least I can rule that out. Rahel, I need you to stand up and come with me. Can you do that?”

  “No, the mess—”

  “I’ll call someone to take care of it. That’s not your job now. You’re done.”

  “I’m not done, I have one more day—”

  “You are done. First Guard Sayana, I’m ordering you to come with me.”

  An order made sense. It was something she could follow, a beacon in the grayness of her surroundings. Without a word, Rahel stood up. When Dr. Wells moved, she walked right behind.

  She stood passively while her hands were cleaned in a decontamination booth, then allowed herself to be settled on the omniphasic diagnostic bed. Multiple scanners slid along their tracks above, below, and to either side of her, the noise level making her cringe. It seemed that all of her senses were raw, not just the empathic ones. Her previous scans in this bed had impressed her with their near-silence.

  The scanners reached her feet and came back up for their second pass. She closed her eyes and clenched her jaw, waiting for them to finish. At last, the noise stopped and the bed tray slid out, depositing her into the mercifully dim diagnostic room.

  Dr. Wells stood nearby, scowling at a display. “I don’t know how you were standing upright. Your head must feel like a slow-motion implosion. Right behind the eyes? And the left side of your forehead?”

  Wanting off the bed, Rahel made the mistake of trying to sit up and speak at the same time. Her “yes” turned into an embarrassing groan. There was a flurry of movement and an arm around her shoulders, bringing with it a surge of emotion that she desperately wished she could block.

  The next thing she knew, she was in a treatment room with no memory of how she had gotten there. The door closed, shutting out the noise of the medbay.

  If only shutting out the emotions were that simple. Rahel closed her eyes and dug the heels of her hands into her forehead, a trick she had learned would alleviate some of the pain.

  “I know this didn’t just happen. Why in all the purple planets did you not tell me it was this bad? I checked in with you every day!” Dr. Wells bustled around the room, opening cupboards and drawers.

  “Never show weakness,” Rahel mumbled. To an enemy, was the rest of the phrase, but she would not say that aloud.

  The cool tip of an injector touched her throat, followed by a tiny sting as it hissed.

  “I wish I could use something stronger, but this is safe with your Alsean chemistry. You should start feeling better in about ten minutes.”

  A clatter indicated the injector being tossed onto a tray. She resisted the touch that tried to pull one of her hands away.

  “I need to put on a diagnostic band,” Dr. Wells said. “It will only take a second.”

  Rahel let go long enough for the wide bracelet to be snapped around her wrist.

  “Thank you.” After a moment of silence, Dr. Wells sighed. “Rahel, I’m sorry. I should have seen this. Shippers, you’re good at hiding your symptoms, but still—I should have seen it. Dammit,” she finished in a whisper.

  Rahel turned onto her side, away from the emotions that were being broadcast so loudly.

  “Would you like me to take out your braid? It might help reduce the tension.”

  Anything that could help was worth a try. Rahel gave a minute nod.

  Dr. Wells was so careful that Rahel didn’t feel her pull the band off the end of her braid. But she certainly felt the gentle motion of fingers unwinding the twists and combing through her hair.

  In an eruption of memory, she was lying with her head on Sharro’s lap, looking out onto the sparkling blue waters of Wildwind Bay as Sharro caressed her hair and face and talked about whatever came to mind.

  The pain abruptly diminished. Her diagnostic band beeped.

  “What—?” Dr. Wells stopped her motions and picked up Rahel’s wrist.

  The memory shattered and the pain roared back, worse now for that brief moment of respite. Rahel pulled her wrist away and curled into a tighter ball. “What you were doing,” she croaked. “It helped.”

  “This?” The touch returned.

  Within seconds, Rahel’s body relaxed enough for her to uncurl. She wanted to say Yes, that, but the reduction in pain was too overwhelming.

  “Fascinating,” Dr. Wells murmured, her spiky emotions softening into curiosity. “Can you let me see your diagnostic band?”

  Rahel slid her arm upward, onto the pillow.

  “Look at that. This isn’t from the analgesic; it hasn’t had time to take effect. It’s a direct result of this stimulation.”

  “It’s home.” Rahel cleared the rasp out of her throat and found she could speak in a normal tone. “Sharro’s done this for me since I was sixteen.”

  “Sharro. Your mother’s bondmate?”

  “And my friend. Mentor. Mother, in a way, but not really. It’s hard to explain.”

  After a pause, Dr. Wells said, “I would like it very much if you felt able to explain it to me.” She brushed Rahel’s hair away from the side of her face, fingers ghosting over her temple. “Is this all right?”

  “Mm. Anywhere on my head, neck, face . . .” Rahel rolled onto her back, now able to manage the pain.

  Dr. Wells was sitting on an elevated stool next to the bed, looking down at her with an expression Rahel had not seen before. The emotions she was broadcasting—those weren’t for her. Or at least, not all of them.

  “You had someone,” Rahel said without thinking. “A daughter?”

  Dr. Wells froze, a wave of shock billowing off her skin, and Rahel held her breath. She had done it again, stepping where she shouldn’t, but she didn’t want to say anything else for fear of making it worse.

  “A son,” Dr. Wells said at last. She tucked a wisp of hair behind Rahel’s ear and let the touch trail down her jaw. “A beautiful son who was going to change the world, but he never had the chance. He died of dannerite fever when he was two.”

  “I’m very sorry.” Rahel had never heard of the disease, but she understood the grief.

  “So am I. He’s why I’m here.” Dr. Wells lightly scratched Rahel’s scalp as her emotions sharpened into a decision. “I had another life before joining Fleet. I was twenty-one, happily married, raising my son, and working in crop genetics. Our planet had only been terraformed a generation earlier. We were still in the phase of developing crops that could withstand the environment, the diseases, the fungal infestations . . .” She trailed off. “I loved my work. I loved my life.”

  Rahel was barely cognizant of the pain, too fascinated by this glimpse into the formidable doctor.

  “Then the fever hit. Almost forty percent of our planetary population went down with it. The fatality rate was . . . inconceivable. I didn’t think any disease could be that virulent. My grandmother taught me herbalism—that was the start of my interest in medicine—but she was one of the first to get sick. I tried everything she ever taught me.” Her gaze was distant, focused on events long past. “The best I could do was make it less painful for her. Then Grandpa got sick. Then my husband’s parents, most of our cousins and aunts and uncles and friends—half th
e town was sick, and the other half nearly killed themselves trying to take care of them.”

  She ran a fingertip up each of Rahel’s forehead ridges in turn, then brushed back her hair. “When Josue showed symptoms, I prayed to the Seeders. All night long, I tried to keep him cool while promising that if they would only save him, they could take me instead.”

  Dr. Wells never swore to the Gaians’ Seeder gods, Rahel realized. She swore in the name of the Shippers instead—advanced aliens thought to have shipped early Gaians all over the galaxy.

  This was the story of when she had lost her faith.

  “At some point, I fell asleep. When I woke up the next morning . . .” She shook her head, clamping down on the grief with a proficiency that could only come from long practice. “My memories of the next few days aren’t clear. But I remember my husband running in, saying that a Fleet Medical ship was in orbit. There were shuttles landing everywhere. There was one right in the middle of our town. A very kind doctor came into our house, examined me, and gave me an injection. He said I was lucky; the disease hadn’t gotten far.”

  “You had it, too?”

  She nodded. “And I realized that if the Seeders did exist, they were cruel beyond understanding. They were going to take us both. Fleet Medical got in their way.”

  She traced Rahel’s cheekbone ridge. “The fatality rate for the infected was ninety-one percent until Fleet Medical arrived. Grandpa survived, and a handful of my cousins and friends. My husband lost his parents, I lost Gramma . . . everyone was devastated. But none of that compared to losing my son.” Her fingers drifted upward, into the hair at Rahel’s temple. “There’s a famous poem on my planet, about how love isn’t love if it fails. That poet was a fool. Love fails for all kinds of reasons. It fails when both of you lose too much, and you don’t have enough left to help each other. He grieved by drawing into himself and forgetting he still had a wife. I grieved by getting angry.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me,” Rahel said.

  Dr. Wells let out a short laugh. “It wouldn’t surprise anyone, would it? I was angry at the Seeders, the fever, my planet, everyone whose children survived—and I had to do something. I could never be that helpless again. So I left. I dissolved the marriage contract, caught a shuttle to the core worlds, and tested into a medical program. Gramma’s lessons gave me a head start. My specialty is still genetics, but these days I focus on Gaians. And one Alsean,” she added with a tiny smile. “I joined Fleet the day I graduated.”

  She rubbed Rahel’s scalp with one hand and checked her diagnostic band with the other. “You should be feeling better.”

  “I am. Thank you.” Rahel thought she should tell Dr. Wells she could stop now, but it felt much too good and she did not want to give it up.

  “No one here knows I had a son. Josue was my life before Fleet. He’s . . .” Dr. Wells lifted her free hand, then dropped it on her thigh. “Separate. I’ll ask you to keep my confidence.”

  “I swear on my honor. But why did you tell me?”

  “You already knew.”

  “Not the—”

  “And I need you to trust me. So I’m trusting you first.”

  Rahel frowned. “I don’t understand.”

  “Never show weakness?” Dr. Wells reminded her. “Your health is my responsibility. I failed because you didn’t trust me enough to tell the truth when I asked how you were feeling. And I didn’t want to risk what little trust you had by forcing you into tests you said weren’t necessary.”

  Rahel lowered her gaze. She had never considered how her deception might affect Dr. Wells.

  “I’m sorry I yelled at you the day you were bullied. You’ve probably heard about my temper.”

  “I didn’t have to hear,” Rahel mumbled. “I experienced it.”

  Dr. Wells sighed. “The reason I came to find you was because I had a late lunch with Lhyn. She gave me quite a lesson on warrior honor and respect. Not to mention the prestige your rank holds on Alsea, and how it must have felt for you to be lectured in front of everyone in the lobby.”

  She nudged Rahel’s head up until their eyes met. “Would it make you feel better to know that when I learned what really happened, I made just as much noise in Captain Serrado’s office as I did here?”

  That Dr. Wells had been angry for her had not entered her wildest imaginings. “She must have enjoyed that.”

  “She’s used to it by now.” Dr. Wells gave her a tentative smile. “It might also help to know that she sent those bullies to serve their sentence in the waste reclamation department.”

  “Is that any worse than what I’ve been doing?”

  “Oh, much worse. Staff are rotated through that duty. No one is assigned there longer than a week at a time, or we’d have troopers jumping ship every time we docked at a space station. She put them on the night shift, too. That’s when the flush-throughs and maintenance happen. The really dirty jobs.”

  Rahel pictured those unpleasant blindworms dealing with concentrated amounts of effluent and found that it did indeed make her feel better. “I didn’t realize she was that angry with them.”

  “We both were. Now, I’m going to ask you a question, and I want you to tell me the truth. Are you feeling emotional pressure right now?”

  She could lie no longer. Not with the story of a child’s death still lodged in her heart; not when Dr. Wells was blaming herself for missing what Rahel had taken every precaution to hide.

  “It’s harder here than anywhere else on the ship. But it’s not as bad now. It helps when you . . .” She trailed off, touching the doctor’s sleeve.

  Dr. Wells took the hint. As she brushed Rahel’s hair away from her forehead, she said, “How long have you felt the pressure? When did it start bothering you?”

  Rahel closed her eyes. “Dr. Wells, I’m sorry.”

  “How long, Rahel?”

  This was it. She would be sent back to Alsea a failure. The alternative restitution for her crime was two cycles of labor in Salomen’s fields, a lenient punishment she would welcome if it didn’t mean losing both her own dreams and what Salomen had worked so hard to give her.

  “Since the first day,” she confessed. “It wasn’t bad until I had to work here. I thought I could manage it, but it kept getting worse and worse.”

  It was a great credit to the doctor that her touch never faltered, despite the surge of anger that filled the room. “The first day. Then almost every test I’ve run on you, every baseline I’ve established, is garbage data. I know nothing about the effect of emotional exposure on you except what I’m seeing right now.”

  “I’m sorry,” Rahel repeated. She forced herself to open her eyes, to face the doom approaching at the speed of light.

  Dr. Wells was watching her with narrowed eyes and a tight mouth, frustration written in every line of her face.

  “We need to work on limiting your exposure,” she said at last. “And getting you regular doses of the physical contact you need to reduce the nerve signaling.”

  Startled by the incomprehensible response, Rahel stuttered, “I—I don’t know what that means.”

  “You were caught in a signaling loop. Your nerves were sending pain signals to your brain, which responded by sending out alarm signals, which caused your nerves to send more pain signals.” Dr. Wells tapped her fingers on Rahel’s scalp. “This interrupts the loop. So now I know what causes it, and I know how to stop it. All I need to learn is how to prevent it.”

  Rahel stared up at her, stunned speechless.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I, um, didn’t expect that.”

  “You didn’t expect medical care?” Dr. Wells scowled. “That had better be a joke.”

  “No, I mean—that’s not—I didn’t—” Her breath was suddenly insufficient, and she had to tilt her head back to draw in a shuddering gulp of air.

  “No you don’t. Rahel, look at me. Breathe with me. Deep, slow breath in, come on.”

  She shook her head, then stopped
as the stabbing pain reminded her that was not a good idea. “I’m not hyperventilating.”

  “Please tell me what’s happening, then. Because everything I thought I knew about you is wrong.”

  Everything Rahel thought she knew was wrong, too. “Are you going to throw me off the ship?”

  “What? Why would you think that?”

  Dr. Wells’s shock was all the answer she needed. “I thought if you and Captain Serrado found out I was too weak, you’d find a high empath with better blocks. Or a low empath who doesn’t need them.”

  A thundercloud formed on Dr. Wells’s face, the commensurate anger rising in her emotions. Rahel waited nervously for the explosion.

  “You—” Dr. Wells began, then fell silent, fuming. When she spoke again, her words were clipped. “You are not a tool we’re sending back if it doesn’t work as expected. You’re the first of your kind, a medical and sociological treasure. Did you really think I didn’t anticipate issues? I knew you’d be under emotional pressure. That’s why I tested you, asked you every day—” She stopped again, her jaw clenched so tightly that Rahel feared for her teeth. Then she rubbed her own forehead, let out a long exhale, and spoke in a calmer tone.

  “We’re having a cultural misunderstanding. You’re used to working alone and depending on yourself. That’s not how it works here. You’re part of a team now. You have people whose jobs are to look after your professional growth and your physical well-being. We’re here to support you, not to test you and throw you out if you don’t pass!”

  Her anger still curled up like steam off hot shannel, but it was not aimed at Rahel. This was protective, and Rahel had a sudden vision of the kind of mother Dr. Wells would have been. When that was taken from her, she had channeled her ferocious instinct into healing others.

  The lecture that had blistered Rahel’s skin looked different in this light. It hadn’t been meant to humiliate. It was the reaction of a healer faced with seven patients she had viewed as needlessly injured.

  “What a disaster,” Dr. Wells muttered. “I never imagined—but I should have.”

  “No.” Rahel struggled up onto her elbows. “No, you shouldn’t have. This is not your fault—”