by S. L. Viehl
During my first week on K-2, I spent my off-duty hours learning my way around the colony, and introducing myself to some of the other occupants of my housing unit. Took the tour, saw the sights, met the neighbors.
I also went through the requisite orientation data. It was lackluster reading—not that it mattered. I had yet to find a hematology abstract, for example, that didn’t make me yawn. There was no such thing as the fascinating world of circulatory fluids.
As for work, I never experienced a repeat of that horrendous first shift. There were times, admittedly, that ran a close second. In the weeks that followed, I devoted my spare time to reeducating myself as a physician. Between cases I often haunted Assessment with a scanner. After my shift ended, I downloaded the readings I’d taken into the terminal in my quarters. My nights were spent studying case profiles and medical abstracts from the FreeClinic database. It was time-consuming, but it would be stupid to rely exclusively on the medsysbanks. Especially with the way Rogan kept kicking them.
I had help, too. Unlike their counterparts on Terra, the nursing staff (all non-humans) turned out to be a friendly group, and kept me out of trouble. Like the time I discovered some colonists couldn’t wear TIs.
During a stroll through Assessment, I almost stepped on what looked like a Terran snail. I picked it up and went to drop it in the nearest waste receptacle. One of the nurses who was walking by at that moment grabbed my arm just in time.
“You don’t want to do that, Doctor,” she said, and gently removed the tiny thing from the palm of my hand.
“Why not? It’s just a snail, right?”
“This ‘snail’ is reporting for follow-up treatment of antennae fungus,” she said, then gave me a rueful grin. “And happens to be a senior supervisor in the Saprophytic Administration Group.”
It could have been worse, I told myself after I’d apologized through a specially adapted wristcom to the justifiably indignant creature—-he/she/it could have been a medical administration supervisor.
Rogan, having appointed himself as my arch-enemy, was as inconvenient as an incurable rash. A fragrant one at that. I spent a lot of time avoiding him. As for Dr. Mayer, I hadn’t spoken with him since my first day on planet. Whenever he worked my shift, he avoided me.
“The chief practically built this FreeClinic with his own hands,” K-Cipok, one of the charge nurses, said during a break. She was a placid, thick-framed being who would have been comfortable in a cow pasture back on Terra. “We wouldn’t have half of what we use without his influence over PQSGO.”
The staff saw Dr. Mayer as a sort of founding father/ superhero. Able to build FreeClinics out of salvage scrap with his bare hands. Intimidating bureaucrats with one single steely-eyed glare. Curing patients without breaking a sweat, even in surgery.
Oh, brother.
Despite Mayer’s celebrated efforts, adequate treatment was continually thwarted by malfunctioning equipment, low supplies, or lack of data. I learned to like the constant challenge to my resourcefulness. It was a good thing, too. Several weeks after I began working at the FreeClinic, I had my first experience providing treatment at gunpoint.
When it happened, I was the only physician on duty. Dr. mu Cheft was busy with a complicated rehydration procedure on the other side of the FreeClinic. He had been working all day on one of the less-evolved aborigines, an aquatic who had inadvertently beached herself. Dr. Dloh had already gone off duty, and Dr. Mayer had yet to arrive.
I was left covering all incoming emergencies. I had finished with my last case and was waiting for the next when the display began to chatter, audio only.
Charge nurse T’Nliqinara made a garbled report that rattled through my tympanic insert in staccato fragments: “Dr. Grey Veil . . . crisis . . . possible internal trauma . . . visible signs of seizure . . .” There was a guttural burst of sound, then my nurse made a gurgling noise. Subsequent hysterical screams in the background blocked out most of what she said before I caught the last words. “—hostages . . . terrorist . . . weapon.”
Someone was out there, using weapons?
There was no way for me to apprise the Militia of the situation without routing my signal through T’Nliqinara’s main Assessment console. That could provoke whoever might be holding the charge nurse and the patients hostage to resort to more violence.
The last thing I wanted to do was go out there. It was also the only thing I could do. Very slowly, making sure to keep my hands visible, I walked down the short corridor and into view. See the nice, peaceful, unarmed doctor.
Most of those awaiting treatment, along with the duty nurses and orderlies, were clustered in a panicked mass against one wall. A remote energy emitter projected a tight control field around them.
My charge nurse’s four eyes rolled wildly toward me, and I saw why she had choked out her report—the business end of a pulse rifle was pressed tightly against her larynx. Terror had mottled her smooth vermilion hide with dark splotches.
On the other end of the weapon was a monster. A big, ugly green monster.
It was a sextupedal, reptilian being with a number of minor contusions on its head and upper limbs. Close to ten feet tall and weighing over four hundred kilos, it towered over T’Nliqinara. An unfamiliar metallic uniform covered a brutal frame thick with broad ropes of muscle.
Whatever it was, it meant business. One limb gripped the pulse rifle pressed to my nurse’s reed-thin throat. Another held a second, smaller weapon trained on the terrified staff and patients. A third limb supported the writhing form of a smaller compatriot, who seemed to be in a state of frenzied convulsions.
I could manage this situation, I thought. Just not by fainting.
Viewport-sized, glaring yellow eyes revolved to focus on me. A toothy jaw dropped, and a serpentine black tongue lashed out. It said something that definitely wasn’t, “Hi, how are you?” The language it spoke was nothing but a series of clicks, hisses, and grunts. My TI was not translating.
Somehow I had to get them away from the other patients. I suspected my looking all Terran, haughty, and intimidating wasn’t going to work. Large caliber weapons and a squad of Militia probably wouldn’t work.
I carefully approached the pair. Sweat began to trickle down between my shoulder blades, and my knees felt fairly rickety. Passing out was not an option, I reminded myself, and concentrated on visual assessment of their injuries. The smaller one was in trouble.
“Come with me,” I said to the larger one, then used my arm to support the other side of its companion’s twisting torso. I pointed back toward the Examination and Treatment area with my free hand. “This way.”
Big, green, and hostile evidently understood but didn’t like my suggestion. Fetid breath blasted in my face during its consequent tirade. It had a lot to say, too. I had to resort to mouth-breathing to keep my nausea under control (experience dealing with Rogan proved beneficial in this instance). Meanwhile, the smaller one kept knocking its wildly undulating limbs into me at random moments.
“Come with me,” I said, holding on with one hand, emphasizing each word with the other. I suspected it had some kind of translation device, or it wouldn’t have risked landing on an alien world to get help. “I can help you and your friend.” I began tugging the injured one forward, and at last the other moved in tandem.
The intruder still held the weapon trained on my nurse, who was forced to scuttle backward before us. Despite its mammoth proportions, the less-injured terrorist moved with both precision and agility. Good thing, since we had to struggle together to drag the thrashing, hissing form between us back to the Severe Trauma room.
Once within the treatment room, the smaller one broke free, and started smashing our equipment with a powerful prehensile tail appendage.
Visible signs of seizure, indeed. I had to get this one strapped down before it further injured itself or started on me and the nurse. Its gun-wielding companion stepped between us and blocked my path. It made an ugly sound and jabbed the rifle into m
y chest. Pain blossomed instantly. I ignored it and drew myself up to every inch of my nearly five feet.
It might have a weapon, but this was my exam room.
“Get out of my way,” I said, and controlled an urge to yelp when the rifle prodded me again. “Suns, move!” I pushed the rifle aside. I barely got hold of the now-sagging patient just before it collapsed. I swiveled my head to glare at the charge nurse, who was just standing there, gaping. “Get over here and help me!”
It took every muscle T’Nliqinara and I had to maneuver the patient onto the exam pad, and into restraint clasps. I turned and found the barrel of the lethal weapon inches from my nose, while the intruder spat another incomprehensible string of orders. Aware of the danger but tired of the gibberish, I held up my hand.
“If you want me to help, get this thing out of my face.” Just in case I was wrong about it understanding me, I used simple hand gestures to punctuate my statement. The rifle held steady, but so did I. With great reluctance, it backed against one wall out of the way. The weapon never lowered.
“They’re going to kill us,” T’Nliqinara muttered next to my ear. “They’re Hsktskt.”
It was amazing how fast things could go from bad to awful.
I’d never seen a photoscan or composite image of a Hsktskt. However, I’d heard the stories about them. Everyone had.
The Allied League considered the Hsktskt Faction as nothing more than a bunch of sadistic, merciless killers. Their sporadic raids on distant League outposts had destroyed whole populations. Survivors were usually captured and sold as slaves. If they lived long enough to make it to the Faction’s slave depots. Hsktskts, some whispered, got hungry during the long jaunts back to their home system. Very hungry.
My eyes narrowed as I reinspected the two intruders. If they were here to attack and invade K-2, they’d picked an odd way to go about it. Come to think of it, where were the rest of them?
“Hsktskt raiders,” I said as I carefully worked the metallic uniform off the patient’s torso. From the arrangement and type of external genitalia, this one, I saw, was a female. “I thought no assault force could penetrate the colony defense grid. Someone in Security is about to have a very bad day.”
“If they’re part of an assault team—” T’Nliqinara’s voice broke on the words, and I gazed up at her. Her eyes were wet. “My hatchlings,” she said.
We both knew what a successful invasion would entail. Children had little value on the market. Most of the adult inhabitants would probably be killed, as well. I had the cold comfort of recalling that medical personnel were almost never slain during these raids. We’re very valuable.
“Don’t think about it,” I said. “Let’s begin our scan, and try to get her stabilized.”
I punched in diagnostics, and saw with disbelief that the Hsktskt species was not recognized by the medsysbank.
No accessible data.
That meant I had no medical history of the species, no data to use for diagnosis, and no idea of a course of successful treatment. No wonder verbal communication with the patient was impossible—no language base for the TIs to work from.
“This can’t be happening to me.”
T’Nliq looked over my shoulder. “Hsktskt data hasn’t been made available to us,” the nurse murmured bitterly. “PQSGO delayed the upload on the medical database until next cycle.”
“Why did they do that?” I asked through clenched teeth.
“Nonessential data. They won’t send the uploads because they don’t want to send what’s needed to upgrade our database and hardware. They use the same excuse every cycle.”
I wondered what excuse they’d come up with to explain how a large chunk of our colonists got slaughtered because they were too cheap to send us a few computer components. “Remind me to complain to someone important when this is over.”
“It wouldn’t have helped anyway. No one knows much about them, except that the Hsktskts butcher anything that moves,” T’Nliqinara said.
“It might have its own sort of TI,” I murmured. The nurse hissed in a fearful breath. “Steady, T’Nliq. Read me its stats.”
The patient’s vital signs were fluctuating wildly, but body temperature was barely 18 degrees Celsius. Far too cold for a life-form dependent on outside stimulus for temperature regulation.
“Apply thermal packs,” I said, then turned to the intruder, locking gazes once more. “I need to signal my associate.”
The Hsktskt waved the weapon in my face, and hissed furiously.
“Look,” I said, all smiling congeniality. “If you want to shoot me, be my guest. If you want me to help your friend, however, I need to communicate with my colleague.”
It did have a translator device—as I said the words, I noticed its gaze went to the patient, then over to the central display panel. I almost knew what it was thinking—would I risk our lives just to set off some kind of trap, rather than help them?
It made a curt gesture with the weapon.
Quickly I sent a brief signal to Dr. mu Cheft. He wasn’t pleased by the interruption: the rehydration process was always tricky. I quickly related the details of the patient’s symptoms.
“No idea, Dr. Grey Veil,” mu Cheft said. “Do whatever the suns you can.”
I was on my own, as usual. Or maybe not. By now someone should have released the staff from that control field, I thought, and rerouted my signal to Assessment. I was in luck, a nurse answered. Quietly I requested a linguist who spoke Hsktskt be sent back.
“You want a what?” the nurse said incredulously. “Doctor, we’ve got a whole platoon of Militia out here!”
“Space the damn Militia,” I told her in a whisper. “Get me a translator now, please, nurse, before this extremely upset Hsktskt decides to get a second opinion.”
I had to keep busy until I could effectively communicate with the patient. I played doctor. Checked the useless display once more. Frowned slightly. Made a chart notation about nothing. Nodded wisely. Calibrated an empty syrinpress. Looked thoughtful. I went through the motions, hoping the armed Hsktskt wouldn’t realize I was stalling. I rather liked my chest without a big hole in it.
When I ran out of faked tasks, I attempted to treat the larger Hsktskt’s lacerations, but it shoved me back and wouldn’t let me touch it. Fine, I thought. Be that way.
I drew and analyzed a sample of circulatory fluid from the smaller alien. The scanner readings meant nothing to me. With a great deal of impatient key tapping, I was able to force the medsysbank’s program to extrapolate a broad-based diagnosis from available readings.
Toxic response to hypothermia, the readout belatedly offered.
“This piece of junk”—I nodded toward the console—“says the patient is too cold, T’Nliq.”
My nurse gave a snort through her three nostrils that distinctly expressed her opinion.
Somehow I had to get the patient stabilized. I mentally ran through cases I’d studied. There was that case of a cold-blooded being who had been treated for hypothermia after a shuttle accident, I recalled. The physiologies were similar. The one with the rifle was starting to make those curt motions again. I was out of time.
I filled a syrinpress with the adrenadaptive that had been used to treat the other patient. Hopefully, I thought as I administered the drug, it wouldn’t kill the patient at once.
My theory worked. Within a few minutes the patient’s vital signs began to level out, and the thermal packs brought her temperature up quickly. It was then I noticed an odd, undulating distention in her lower abdominal cavity. Something I’d read about the evolutionary aspects of highly evolved reptilian life-forms from an old medical journal came back to me. A comparative study revealed some were capable of mammalian proliferation—
“Sterile field, stat!”
At once the containment generators isolated me with the patient in an impenetrable bubble. Unfortunately, this locked out T’Nliqinara and the other Hsktskt in the process. The intruder charged at the glowing wal
l around us, and bounced off as a painful bioelectric charge repelled him.
I ignored him. I barely felt the vacuum from the air replacement unit as I sprayed a skin seal over the Hsktskt’s lower limbs. After I masked and gloved, I searched for the aperture I had to find.
Gingerly, I inserted the tips of two fingers into a natural breach in the octagonal green scales just above the patient’s lower appendages, and promptly received a nice, sharp bite. I snatched back my fingers, and swore lightly. I had, nonetheless, reached a unshakable diagnosis.
My patient was about to deliver whatever bit me.
The translator from MedAdmin chose that moment to show up. The small, harried-looking humanoid was in such a rush that he didn’t notice the warrior leveling the pulse rifle at his skull.
“Language used by patient is Hsktskt,” I was told.
“We know. What’s she saying?” I asked with thin patience.
As he began interpreting the hisses, he finally noticed the other Hsktskt and the weapon he held. Terrans weren’t the only beings who turn pale with fear, I saw. The quaking translator’s stutter filtered through the low static of the containment barrier. “T-This f-f-female must b-bear her y-young at this t-t-time.”
I nodded, and tried to reign in my ever-growing irritation. “I gathered that much. Why was she so cold?”
The small humanoid relayed this, and my expectant mother groaned something miserably.
“The female promises that this male, referencing to him with explicit profanity, will meet his demise at her hands in a particularly cruel and protracted manner.” The translator risked a nervous glance at the expectant father.
“I won’t stop her,” I said. “But that doesn’t answer my question.”
The larger Hsktskt shifted his weapon from one claw-clutch to another, then hissed at the terrified interpreter.
“This male indicates he tried to force this ungrateful female into cryogenic suspension to prevent premature emergence of the young.”
“That would explain his contusions,” I said. “He tried to put her in the freezer, and she thought it was a really bad idea.”
