by S. L. Viehl
“You solid, patcher? Decent?”
The beautiful voice asking me that came from Hok, and for a moment, all I could do was stare. Finally I realized how rude I was being, and nodded. “Yeah, I’m a pretty decent patcher.”
“Crave a new mug, Hok?” Milass said. His squeal of laughter was as mean as his eyes. “No patcher decent enough do that.” He laughed, and Kegide grinned.
“You’d be amazed what I can do,” I told Milass, angry that they’d ridiculed him. An image of FurreVa’s beautifully reconstructed face, and me pulling a berth linen over it, made me bite my tongue.
But the little twerp wasn’t done.
“Bet this hairball do the job,” he said, and held Jenner up by the scruff of the neck. “What you spout, Hok? Crave a good scratchin’, better up your mug some?”
I got to my feet. “Put him down.”
“Snap your lip, patcher.” The little man shook my poor cat. “I ain’t marring him.”
I wasn’t going to wait and see if he meant at all or yet. I grabbed Jenner from Milass, pressed him against my chest, and ran. For about ten feet, until someone literally picked me up off mine.
Kegide grinned down at me as he carried me suspended between his huge hands back to the fire.
“Milass making fun,” Hok said to me as Kegide gently put me back down between him and Reever. “No grief, patcher.”
I looked at my husband, who was staring at the hunchback, evidently fascinated by his melodic voice. So I elbowed him.
“Thanks for helping me rescue Jenner,” I said, heavy on the sarcasm.
“You get wrathful easy, little patcher,” Milass said. “Your animal ain’t marred.”
“We’d like to make arrangements to leave Terra,” Reever said. “Do you have any contacts with interplanetary transportation?”
“We’ll spout on that tomorrow. Come.” Milass rose to his feet. So did the other men. “I’ll guide you to your night hogan.”
We were both so tired we fell asleep as soon as we were shown our “night hogan,” one of the little mud-and-stick huts at the back of the cavern. It felt good to curl up with Reever and Jenner. All we had to do was get back to the Sunlace, and I’d be a happy girl.
One of the Night Horse women came in to wake us the next morning, and brought some water to wash with and two servers of their eye-opening tea. I assumed it was morning, anyway. The cavern remained lit only by dozens of optic emitters.
We must be a good mile underground.
Reever waited until the silent woman departed before he spoke to me. “I am getting the impression the chief does not wish us to leave.”
“From what?”
“If they meant only to help us escape your creator, why are they keeping us here?”
“Indian hospitality, I guess. Don’t be a pessimist.” I splashed my face and dried it off with the edge of my tunic. Almost as an afterthought, I replaced the Lok-Teel in its accustomed spot under the tunic. “They’ll probably make us honorary Horses or whatever, then take us to the surface.”
Jenner refused to budge from the blankets we’d slept on, so Reever and I went out by ourselves to the center cooking fire. This morning it looked like the entire tribe was gathered around it, sitting cross-legged, heads bowed. Hok stood off to one side, chanting something that sounded religious.
I stopped. I didn’t know much about Indians, but I knew they took their rituals and religious practices very, very seriously. “Maybe we should wait until they’re done.”
“Cherijo, Duncan.” Hok gestured for us to join them, then continued his low, haunting chant.
We sat down on the outer fringes of the group. Someone passed us a cup made out of hard clay, and made hand motions for us to drink from it. I pretended to take a sip, and wrinkled my nose. Ugh. Whatever it was, it smelled like wet, burnt wood.
Reever made a similar pantomime before passing it along. “Ashes,” he murmured against my ear. “Mixed with water.”
“Maybe they ran out of tea,” I whispered back.
Hok finished his chant, and I nearly jumped out of my skin when the entire tribe yelled “Ayi!”, then got to their feet and walked away from the fire. Reever and I got up, too, but Hok waved us to come closer and sit with him. Milass and Kegide took positions behind us.
I could feel Milass staring at the back of my head as I spoke to Hok. “Thank you very much for letting us stay overnight, and your generous hospitality. But we really need to get out of here before someone comes looking for us.”
“No heat, patcher. Gunboys never find Leyaneyaniteh.” He handed me something, and I saw it was two wristcoms. Milass and Kegide wore them, too. “Clap it on. Make it simple for us to spout.”
Reever only shook his head when I handed one to him. “I don’t need it.”
Of course he didn’t. The man only spoke about a million languages. I put mine on and adjusted it. “So, what do we need to talk about?”
Hok’s voice came through the wristcom very clearly, unfortunately. “Our chief wishes you to stay here.”
If Reever said, “I told you so,” I was going to smack him. “Why? You don’t even know who we are. We could be mass murderers.”
“I know what you are,” he said. “Not all of my tribe hides underground. We have many hogans up in the canyons. We have vid equipment.”
So Hok knew we were fugitives. “Are you going to turn us in?”
“No. Some of our tribe play for the New Angeles Gliders. We need you to help them.”
“The Gliders?” I was totally confused for a minute, until I placed the name. “You mean they play shock-ball?” He nodded. “You want to help them, make them quit.”
“That would be unacceptable to our chief.”
“Okay. What’s the problem with your players?”
“Their appearance.” Hok traced a circle in the air around his own face. “As long as a player can run and kick, the junta doesn’t ask a lot of questions. The problem is with the random commission inspections. They require physical alterations to better pass as full Terrans.”
Physical alterations as in surgery, I assumed. “Why me?”
“Our team physician says you’re the best cutter he knows. You’re blood, too. You owe it to your people to help them.”
“You are not my wife’s people,” Reever said, very calm and cold. “The fact that Cherijo has Navajo ancestry doesn’t obligate her to provide her services to your tribe.”
“You’re not blood, whiteskin,” Milass said, dismissing him with a flick of his hand.
They meant to keep us here. But that couldn’t happen. We had to get back on the surface and get off Terra as quickly as possible, before Joseph found us again. I didn’t need the additional headache of escaping our rescuers. But there were only two of us, and a whole tribe of them.
Panic made me surge to my feet. “I’m flattered by your invitation, but I have to refuse. You’ll find someone else to help you out. We really need to leave now.”
“You’ll do what you’re told,” Milass said. “All the blood follow the chief’s orders.” He clamped a hand on my wrist.
“Let her go,” Reever said.
Milass pushed me aside, and pulled out a knife. “You don’t challenge me. I’m secondario here. My words come from the chief’s mouth.”
“Then you should both shut up.” My husband produced a blade similar to Milass’s. He must have stolen it—Reever always liked to be armed, for some reason.
“Wait.” I stepped between them. “We can talk about this, work something out.”
“Cherijo, get out of the way,” my husband said.
Milass shifted the knife back and forth between his hands. “Hide behind your woman while you can, whiteskin.”
I looked at Hok. “Don’t let him do this.”
Hok only motioned to Kegide, who strode over, picked me up like a doll, and hauled me to the sidelines.
Milass jumped forward and slashed at Reever, who circled back and around the fire. The Nigh
t Horse silently gathered to watch. Kegide held on to me, and didn’t make a sound, not even when I kicked him repeatedly in the shins.
I shrieked when Milass’s blade caught Reever’s shoulder, and left a gash that saturated the front of his tunic with blood.
“Reever!” I twisted around and yelled at Hok. “Stop this!”
My husband instantly went on the attack, using his blade with precise, calculated sweeps. He cut Milass on the forearm, chest, and forehead before the Indian could even react.
“Yield,” Reever said, but Milass only wiped the blood out of his eye and slashed back.
It took a few more of those soundless, rolling moves Reever knew how to make, but in the end Milass ended up flat on his back on the cave floor, bleeding from a dozen shallow wounds.
“I prevail.” Reever wrenched the Indian’s knife from his limp hand. Hok came over and dragged Milass to his feet. A tribesman I hadn’t seen before joined them, steadying Milass and speaking to him in a low voice.
Kegide put me down as Reever started to walk toward me. Milass came up behind him, and thumped my husband on the back. “Good fight. Too bad you lost.”
Reever went still. Kegide finally turned me loose, and I ran over to him. His face had gone pale and glassy with sweat.
“What’s wrong? Did he …” My voice trailed off as I glanced down. There was a knife sticking out of Reever’s side. Milass was still holding the hilt and turning it, slowly.
I didn’t think, I punched. Milass staggered backward and crumpled. Then I had to grab Reever as he dropped to his knees. He pressed his knife into my numb hand.
“Use … this …”
“Oh God.” I was sobbing, clutching at him. “Hold on.” Gently I lowered him to the ground. The tall one came to stand over us, and I brandished Reever’s blade. “Back off.”
“I am Rico, chief of the Night Horse.”
A cold, invisible finger ran down my spine. I shot up and held the knife to his throat. “You’re going to transport my husband to a hospital. Now.”
“You may make use of our medical alcove.” Apparently unconcerned that I was ready to slit his throat, Rico snapped his fingers. Two men appeared, carrying a litter. Before I could blink, he added, “When you agree to join us.”
So the fight had been a setup. I pressed the edge of the knife in, until a trickle of red ran along the blade. “You should be more concerned with your jugular.”
“You have much to worry about, too.”
I felt twin sharp pricks on either side of me. Kegide loomed on my right, Hok on my left. Another tribesman crouched next to Reever, and held a blade to his throat.
Rico simply looked amused. “The whiteskin will assuredly bleed to death before I do. Decide.”
“Okay.” I let go of the knife and let it fall to the cave floor. “I’ll do whatever you want.”
I’d never operated on someone I loved before. The closest I’d come was taking care of Kao, before he’d died, and the surgery I’d performed on Dhreen, when his ship had crashed on K-2. Now, running beside the makeshift gurney Kegide and Hok were carrying Reever on, I faced a surgeon’s worst nightmare.
What if I botch the job?
What if I can’t stop the bleeding?
What if he dies on my table?
I wasn’t perfect. Every doctor made mistakes. Now Reever’s life was in my hands, and one error on my part could snuff it out. Just like that.
I could hardly think about it. Him, dying. Life without Reever was … unimaginable.
Squilyp’s voice rang out in my had. You’ve simply never been in a position to worry about your own competency.
Well, I was now. I wondered what the Omorr would say about that. What Vlaav Irde would say, if he knew how frightened I was?
You are always so confident of success.
I recalled my reply to what he’d said, and cringed at my own arrogance. We’re surgeons. Success is the only acceptable alternative.
I had to shut down the voices, and the doubts, or I’d freeze up. I knew that; I’d seen it happen to other surgeons. Reever wasn’t going to die. I didn’t fumble instruments, I didn’t make mistakes. I was the best. I’d find the damage and fix everything, and the man I loved would live.
And if he didn’t, then I’d deal with that, too.
Reever regained consciousness for a moment and squeezed my hand. I know … you will … my beloved….
Reading my thoughts again. “Stop that.” I couldn’t let him know how frightened I was. “I bet you’re just congratulating yourself for marrying a surgeon.”
Hok gave me an odd look, and I realized I’d spoken aloud.
I laced my fingers through Reever’s. It’ll be okay. I’ve done plenty of kidney work in the past. Relax and let me take care of you, okay?
It is … difficult….
I knew Reever didn’t even like watching surgery—it made him physically ill. Trust me, please.
He slid back into unconsciousness, just as we crossed over the threshold of a man-made alcove in the rock wall and into a makeshift treatment room. There were no air replacement units; it was cluttered with junk, and everything was filthy.
As soon as I met their “cutter,” I was going to kill him.
I directed the men to carefully set Reever down on the floor, and grabbed the first scanner I saw.
“You.” I pointed to Kegide. “You’re officially my assistant for the next hour. Clean that refuse off the exam table.”
Kegide looked at me, then at Hok, puzzled.
“He doesn’t understand,” Hok said, and tapped the side of his head. “He’s not right here.”
“Great. Then you’re elected.”
Hok shrugged and began to move the dusty boxes from the ancient exam table. I leaned over Reever and scanned the wound site. The blade had penetrated his kidney, which lay skewered on the end like a choice tidbit.
“Looks like you’ll be running on one from now on.” Automatically I scanned the opposite side of his abdomen, saw the readings, and swore. Reever didn’t have a second kidney to spare. I felt like slapping him. “Damn it, what did you do with the other one?”
There were no scars to indicate he’d had prior surgery—I knew that, just from living with him. His vitals were weakening, though he hadn’t lost much blood. If I’d pulled the knife out back in the cave, he might have bled out before I could have gotten him prepped. I looked over at Hok, who had stripped off the stained linens and was wiping down the table with a strong-smelling liquid antiseptic.
“I need to operate on him. Get me whoever can handle assisting me, an air replacement unit, sterile field generators, full-spread thoracic setup, a lascalpel rig, and a whole blood synthesizer.” Hok merely stared at me. “Do you have a brain problem, too?”
“Our cutter can assist you. We don’t have many instruments and no laser array. Our synthesizer isn’t very reliable, but you’re welcome to use it. What is a sterile field?”
I could have screamed. “You people actually expected me to work on your athletes? Under these conditions?”
Hok shrugged. “Our cutter never complains.”
“Your cutter never graduated medtech. He should be locked up.”
A tall, thin Caucasian male walked in. His physician’s tunic was covered with stains and had a shabby, frayed look to it. His close-set eyes widened when he saw me.
I imagined mine were doing the same thing. He had the same long, oily hair and cheesy smile that he’d sported when we were in school.
“Heard Milass cut him a whiteskin.” He grinned. “Cherijo Grey Veil. So the psycho little dwarf pulled it off after all.”
“Wendell.” I could have wept, but I was too angry. “You’re their cutter.”
Wendell Florine was quite possibly the most inept medical student I’d ever had the misfortune to brush shoulders with at medtech. He was a drunk and a gambler, and had cruised through classes relying on his dubious personal charms and his father’s money to obtain passing grades
. He’d nearly killed a patient in our last year of internship.
I turned to Hok. “You assist me.”
“Don’t be a bitch, Cherijo.” Still grinning, Wendell shuffled over to the exam table. “Quasimodo here doesn’t know a clamp from a rib spreader. “I’ll give you a hand. It’s what the chief wants me to do, anyway.” He cocked his head to one side as he looked at Reever’s wound. “What did he hit? The liver?”
I turned to Hok again. “You’re assisting me.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Choices
Wendell objected again, long enough to give Hok a chance to escape, so I ended up stuck with him. It took a few minutes to stabilize Reever enough to put him under. Instead of intravenous sedatives, I had to resort to inhalant chemicals to knock him out.
“Liquid antiseptic. Liquid anesthetics. What kind of a slaughterhouse do you run here?” I slammed down the container of inhalant. “This stuff is completely unreliable.”
“It’s all we could get.” Wendell looked around. “What did you do with all my books?”
“For God’s sake, he could wake up in the middle of the procedure—what are you talking about, books?”
“They were in boxes on the table.” Wendell yawned. “Stop complaining about the inhalant, will you? If he regains consciousness, I’ll just pour more over his mask.”
“Go scrub,” I told him. “Before I douse you with some myself.”
I catheterized Reever, infused him with an auto-transfuser, which would pump the blood he was losing back into his body, then laid out the instruments to soak in a pan of antiseptic. I eyed the stacked boxes lining the walls of the alcove.
“You’ve really got books in here?”
“Couldn’t get my hands on a medsysbank. A couple of the Indians found some kind of old storage vault when they built this place. I got all the medical volumes out of there.”
“You’ve been treating patients using books.” It was unheard of. “Real books, made of paper?”
“Yeah. Down here, you work with what you can get.”
“Uh-huh. And these books are how old?”
“Couple of centuries. They survived in pretty good condition, actually. And some of the procedures and illustrations in them are just hilarious.”
