by C. V. Walter
"Several of the videos dealt with the alien anatomy and how to recognize signs of illness, injury and impending trauma. The methods of dealing with most of the problems are unsophisticated but I was able to parse some of the information with the reports from the bio-nanos I gave her and-"
"Who authorized giving her the bio-nanos?" the captain asked, his voice deceptively calm.
"Err," Mintonar cleared his throat. "It's standard procedure to give patients with severe trauma new nanos, Captain. Initial scans indicated she had nothing like the bio-nanos to begin with so I gave her blank ones. Programmed to learn and adapt to the hosts body and transmit the information to the medical bay computer so we can fine tune anything they need to keep the host alive and well."
"So, you authorized the bio-nanos," the captain clarified.
"As the Doctor in Charge, yes, sir," Mintonar said. "In an emergency situation, it's my decision to make. They're not the only thing that kept her alive but they are the reason she's able to have a coherent discussion and digest enough food to function."
"Thank you, Doctor. You may continue," the captain said.
"Thank you, Captain. According to the videos, there are specific parts of the blood necessary for continuous function that can be monitored. When they reach a certain point, not quite critical but approaching dangerous, humans can exhibit marked changes in behavior. I was able to witness this myself and will have a report to write up about it soon."
"And that's the complication?" the Captain asked. Alvola scoffed.
"Hardly seems worth the delay," he said.
"That's not the only thing," Mintonar said. "The biggest complication is something that I still need to research all the implications of. Most of what I remember is outdated, at best, and-"
"What is it, Doctor?" the Captain interrupted. "Is it going to cause a problem for my ship or my crew? Will it delay our mission?"
"I don't know, Captain. That's part of the problem." Mintonar took a breath and composed himself. "There was recognition."
Alvola scowled at him and the Captain looked thoughtful.
"What do you mean recognition?" Alvola demanded. "They're a different species."
"With enough similar internally that the bio-nanos and the med table worked better and more efficiently than I've ever seen them. The readings I've taken and the reports I've been able to look through show enough overlap in our two species that most of our protocols will work with them, maybe even better than they work for us. We're genetically compatible."
"You mean these humans and the Orvax?"
"I mean me and the alien," Mintonar said. "Me and Maw-lee."
The Captain took a deep breath and Alvola cursed. "I see what you mean by complications. Is it a distant chance or-"
"I've never felt anything like it."
"Then how do you know it was recognition?" Alvola demanded.
"Because it's the kind of thing they write legends about," Mintonar snapped. "Because it's what recognition was meant to be. There's no other way to describe it."
"When did you first notice?" the captain asked.
"A few cycles ago," Mintonar admitted. "It wasn't really an appropriate time to do anything about it and it seemed to hurt her more than anything. As she was still barely conscious and scared, I did my best to avoid triggering it. It was a deeply uncomfortable feeling but restraining myself was miserable."
"I've never known you to be uncomfortable with any of your duties before, Doctor."
"You try being overwhelmingly attracted to a half-dead alien," Mintonar retorted. "One you're duty bound to save and might try and kill you when they wake up. And who it would be wildly inappropriate to touch in the ways all your instincts are telling you to."
"And yet?"
"She's feeling better," Mintonar stated, unable to meet the captain's eyes. "And is fully coherent and I'm able to speak with her and be understood. She's well enough to be moved out of the medical bay and I have not yet had the chance to speak with the Captain regarding requisitioning her living quarters or a comm unit."
"Which would explain why she is currently in your suite," the Captain said.
"How did-"
"You weren't in your office," the Captain told him. "And there is a cleaning crew that needs to have their bio-nano's updated so they can clean the medical bay. Since I doubt you would bring an alien to a secured area, there really isn't anywhere else she would be."
"Right," Mintonar said.
"And, for the moment, request denied for giving her separate living quarters. I dislike the idea of having an alien wandering around the ship unsupervised."
"Yes, sir," Mintonar replied.
"Alvola, the alien is going to need a basic comm. Communication and tracking only, I think, unless you want to put some basic entertainment on it."
Alvola scowled and nodded.
"Doctor, you owe me several reports on this alien. And you have a long list of patients waiting to have their nanos updated. I expect at least one of those reports by the end of the cycle."
"Yes, sir," Mintonar nodded. "Understood, sir."
"Very well, see that it gets done. Alvola, send me what you have that's more than a pile of parts."
"I-"
"Write it down," the Captain said, the amusement clear in his voice. "Tell me what you know and we'll add to it once you've managed to get more information from the helmet."
"Yes, sir," Alvola said.
The Captain left the two friends staring at each other, slightly shocked.
"Recognition?" Alvola asked. "Really?"
Mintonar grinned. "Really."
"And was she, I mean are you-"
"We're anatomically compatible, though I understand there are some differences between us and human men."
Realization spread over Alvola's face. "What? You've already?"
"The stuff of legends," Mintonar told him. "A force of nature neither of us could fight."
"Might have tried a bit harder," Alvola said, his mouth turned down in a frown.
"If we stay, I'll find you a human of your own and then you can see just why no, I couldn't have. I gave it everything I had to remain polite and professional and it worked until she started responding. Once she did, there was nothing that could have kept me away from her."
Alvola frowned harder and Mintonar smiled.
"Can't have been that good. You're here, aren't you?"
"Only because she needs to sleep and I need to work. We worked enough of it out to allow for that, at least."
"Don't you need sleep?" Alvola asked.
"That, my friend, is what my office is for. I don't expect to be doing much of it in my bed for a while."
The disgust on Alvola's face made Mintonar laugh.
"Get her to deal with the helmet when she wakes up, at least, before you get back to not sleeping in your bed."
"I will," Mintonar said. "I promise."
Chapter 19
Molly had managed to figure out the bed, where the food was kept, and how to turn the lights off before she found herself fighting to stay awake. Granted, most of that was with a little tutelage from Mintonar but since she didn't ask, she didn't consider it cheating.
His rooms had fascinated her. Everything had the feeling of being familiar, just slightly off. Bigger, for one thing, which made sense. She was above average to tall for a human woman and most things were uncomfortably short for her on the space station and on Earth. Mintonar was way bigger than she was; taller, broader, and would have been big for a human male. Since he said he was within normal parameters for his people, she had to assume they were all going to be bigger than the average human. Which made everything big enough to be comfortable for her.
The whole space was about the size of a nice one-bedroom apartment. The bedroom had an attached bathroom which, while nothing like the one near the medical bay, was quite comfortable and had everything she needed. At least, she thought it did. She still needed to talk to him about conditioner. The wardrob
e in the bedroom was full of his clothes and he had several pieces that looked suspiciously like evening wear. Poking around where she wasn't invited, but hadn't been expressly forbidden, she found what she hoped were his pajamas and helped herself to a set that almost matched the color of his eyes.
Not thinking too hard about her choice of clothing, she curled up in the thing that looked so much like an overstuffed easy chair, she wouldn't have been surprised to see it in her dad's study at home. He'd been tall, too, and built big for a man. Her mother had insisted on fashionably normal furniture for the rest of the house, things that never really fit Molly properly, so she'd always ended up sitting in her dad's office just to be able to sit comfortably.
Before he'd left, Mintonar had handed her a mobile screen that was about the size of a multi-media tablet at home. When she asked what it was, he'd grinned and told her to have fun. Looking it over, she realized what he'd found funny. There were no moving parts. Not even any seems she could see to pull the thing apart.
She made a face at him, certain he'd at least feel her irritation at him, and began trying to turn it on. Running her hand over it did nothing, neither did shaking it or pressing imagined buttons on the sides.
"Please turn on," she asked it, feeling silly. The blank screen continued to stare at her.
Thinking back, she remembered the phrase he taught her to turn on the lights and shrugged and tried it. She thought the screen brightened slightly but could find no other changes. Deciding she'd imagined the change in brightness, she scowled.
"Mintonar, goddammit," she said. The side of his face appeared on the screen. He was obviously focusing on something but turned to look at her.
"Ah, Maw-lee, you figured out the padd. I had thought you'd do so earlier," he said, then appeared to be thinking. "Unless you figured it out a while ago and have just now gotten so bored as to try and find me. Have I left you alone too long?"
She bit her lower lip and smiled at him. "What if I said 'yes', would you come home right away and amuse me?"
"Oh, I suppose I could manage to do that. Are you likely to say that, do you think?"
"Are you busy?" she asked, getting comfortable. The butterflies in her belly and the trembling in her shoulders were welcome sensations, signs she hadn't imagined what she'd felt with him the night before.
"Alas, I'm afraid I will always be busy. It comes with my position. I will happily make time to spend with you, however, and consider it very well spent."
Molly blushed and she didn't know why. She wasn't exactly new to the whole flirting thing. Fuck, they'd had sex for hours, in the medical bay even, and she hadn't felt this giddy. "So, you're pretty important around here, then? Not just a pretty face they keep employed to amuse the patients?"
"The pretty face is merely a perk of being a patient in my medical bay," he told her with a smile. "It comes with a pretty good doctor, pre-packaged food and good jokes."
"Oh, who tells the jokes? Do I get to hear them or are they only good in your language?"
"Just for that, you'll have to suffer through the bad jokes first," he said.
"Haven't I suffered enough?" she asked, pouting and batting her eyelashes. “I mean, I've spent all my time awake the last few days staring at you."
"Since you seemed to have enjoyed it enough to continue doing so, and even insisted on me removing my clothes for the perusal, I think you've been well compensated for my jokes."
"Mmm," she purred. "Can I insist on you removing your clothes again? Maybe slowly, with a little music playing that you can dance to?"
Heat shot through her body at the idea of watching him disrobe and she knew it was showing on her cheeks.
"You can insist on anything you'd like," he told her. "As long as you keep looking at me like that."
She blushed and lowered her eyes, embarrassed that she was acting like a teenager with her first crush. When she looked up at him, her hair had fallen over her shoulder and some of it was resting on the screen. She shoved it back, getting it out of her face and off the padd, and watched his eyes follow her hands. The look on his face was hungry and she thrilled to think his appetite wasn't for food.
Well, not entirely for food. She didn't think, anyway.
"Have you eaten recently?" Molly asked. "I think I've figured out how those dinner things work. I can have one ready when you get here?"
"I have not," he said. "And I thought I might pick something up from the mess on my way back to the suite. Would you mind?"
"Of course not. I guess as take out goes, the mess counts as a restaurant around here, right? Or as close as you'd get on a space ship."
"You would be correct," he told her. "And I asked them to pack something for me to bring home to you when I was ready to be finished for the day."
"How long ago was that supposed to be?" she asked, guessing his work habits were as awful as hers when she'd been working at her family's law firm. Get there early, work through lunch, stay late and get something quick for dinner if she remembered to eat at all. By the time she quit, dinner had been three fingers of whiskey, neat around midnight.
The look on his face told her she was right. "Too long ago," he said. "I shall be home directly."
His face disappeared and her screen went dark again.
Home. He'd called this room his home. She'd thought that would be reserved for his home planet, for some place there with his family and all his things. Maybe the word didn't mean the same thing for him that it did for her. There was likely something missing in the translation.
Putting the padd down, she stood up and stretched. It felt good to be able to move around the way she was. Her muscles were still slightly sore, with the ache of being moved after a long sickness, and just stretching made her realize how tired she still was.
She wasn't sick, she knew she wasn't, but it still felt like she was recovering from a bad flu. Food should help with that, she thought to herself, and getting up and moving. All she wanted right then, though, was a warm blanket, Chinese takeout and a book. The blanket she could manage, she decided, and Mintonar was handling the takeout.
Grabbing the blanket from the bed, she dragged it out the chair in the other room and curled up in it with the padd in her lap. Tapping her finger on the screen, she wondered how much of the memory they'd pulled from her helmet was raw data. They might not be able to read it but it might just be floating in the ships memory to be pulled from anywhere.
She chewed on her bottom lip, trying to devise a way to get to the data and make it usable on alien technology, and wished Aiden was there. As much fun as the night before had been, and she wasn't about to kid herself about just how much she wanted to do it again, her heart ached to hear from her son. He called her every few days and sent her funny pictures or thoughts about what he was doing when he couldn't call.
He's a good kid, she thought to herself, not for the first time. And not a kid anymore, either, and he hasn't been for a while. He'd probably like it here. He probably would have been able to get the padd working way faster than she did and keep it working beyond a call to Mintonar.
Molly smiled, a little sadly, and let a tear fall from her eye. She always cried when she thought about her son, though she'd learned to stop beating herself up with regrets. Second guessing every decision she made for the last eighteen years was a recipe for a horrible evening. If she'd stayed at the law firm, she probably still would have gotten divorced, though much later and it would have been much more bitter.
As it was, Aiden had been her rock, constantly reminding her she was doing the right thing. He'd done it via video call, most of the time, because the rest of the family had decided to keep him from her. And they could, at least physically, but Aiden was a stubborn pain in the ass and wasn't about to be separated from her if he could help it.
When the custody agreement was reached and she ended up with him every third weekend and twice a year for holidays, he'd decided he wasn't going to follow it. She wasn't supposed to encourage him and
she didn't...much. By the time he had his own transportation, everybody had given up on trying to force him to do anything beyond exactly what he wanted to do. Even the threat of withholding his trust fund stopped working because he not only found a job in the field he was studying; he was making more money at it part time than his dad was.
And he'd still been in high school.
Her ex-husband's family might have gotten better lawyers and had the money to ruin her with legal fees for decades but they couldn't control her son. As much as they tried, they couldn't make him less like her and more pliable. She'd been his biggest support to keep him from getting overrun by their plans for him.
She needed to get home. Or at least somewhere she could connect with Aiden and let him know there was still someone out there pulling for him, even if only in spirit. He was young, strong and brilliant and as long as he stuck to his guns, he'd be fine. Even if they were trying to marry him off. Or make sure he had a son of his own before he turned nineteen.
There'd been talk of harvesting her eggs when she'd declined to have another child. They could hire a surrogate, she'd been assured, and she wouldn't even have to be involved. It would be nice to have another child around the house.
Her ex's disgust with the idea mirrored her own, especially when they tried to convince him to trick her into the procedure or doing it while she was unconscious for something else. When she'd filed for divorce, he hadn't fought her on it, though he'd warned her for years before that his family would do everything they could to see her destroyed if she left.
She'd expected a fight. She just hadn't expected her mother to join the fray against her. It had been a very, very hard time. And Aiden had made a point of supporting her through the whole thing, even when he was expected to have the typical teenager meltdown at the change in circumstances. She'd asked him why, once, and he'd told her "These people are fucking crazy and you're a girl and a threat. I'm a boy and the only kid in my generation. They think they can manipulate me but since it stopped working on you, they have to destroy you. Once the heir-apparent disappears with a different name into Montana or Alaska, they're gonna lose their shit and it's better if you're not here for that."
